The Big Picture - The Movie Star Playbook: Adam Driver Edition. Plus: Did the Superhero Era Just Die?

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Sean and Amanda look at the disappointing box office for ‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’ and discuss the perilous future of superhero movies (1:00). Then, they dig deep into ‘65’ and the fascinating career arc of Adam Driver, discussing his role choices and where he’s going as a modern movie star. Finally, Sean talks with writer-director Jamie Dack about her new film, ‘Palm Trees and Power Lines’ (65:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Jamie Dack Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Ariel Helwani and I wanted to let you know that each and every week I'm part of a great program called the Ringer MMA Show. I host it alongside two absolutely brilliant minds. Their names, Chuck Mendenhall and Pete C. Carroll. And every Thursday, a new episode drops where we preview the weekend in mixed martial arts and react to all the biggest news. Plus, after every UFC pay-per-view, we give you a post-fight show. So, this is what you have to do. Just follow the Ring of MMA show on your Spotify app so you don't miss an episode. We'll talk to you then.

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about a guide for the stars. In this episode, we're going to take a look at a very strange decision made by one of our great movie stars, Adam Driver. We'll look at the past of his career and what's coming in the future. Later in this show, writer-director Jamie Dack

joins me for a conversation about her film, Palm Trees and Power Lines, harrowing character study that is now available on VOD. I hope you'll stick around for that conversation. But first, Amanda, tough times at the box office for the superheroes. Shazam! Fury of the Gods, your most anticipated movie of 2023, did not do well. Just $30 million in domestic box office.

Didn't do much better overseas. And all of a sudden, we've had three consecutive superhero movies that have struggled. Black Adam, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania, your second most anticipated movie of the year, and now Shazam 2. And the conversation is in full bloom. Is it over? Is our long national nightmare of superhero content over? Or is this just three consecutive mediocre movies in a row not doing well in the public being wise to that? What do you think?

Is it over? No, of course. Because we can't have nice things. It'll be fine. You have, like, the next bullet point in our outline is you writing a novel about Guardians of the Galaxy 3. You know? And then, like, James Gunn went on a long search for the right director for his Superman movie to really get to the truth of what animates Superman. And guess what, guys?

He found the director. It's himself. Congratulations. Big Dick Cheney hiring Dick Cheney energy there for vice president. Yeah. No, we're just in a different type of hell right now where people have gotten so much of what they want that they are bitching about it and then it'll course correct and they'll get some you know this is it's kind of it's dumpuary right and that applies to superhero movies too i think you're right i

think that this is just um this is a soft moment for the the genre the subgenre that has really been dominating movies for the last 10 years. They'll be back. They may be back as soon as Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Can I ask you one question about Shazam! Fury of the Gods? Sure. I have not seen the film. I was going to say, well, that's what I was going to ask. Do I, Amanda Dobbins, have to see it now? I don't know. I mean, I think it's worthy of discussion because anytime a movie doesn't do well, there's actually something quite fascinating about that. But I wasn't racing out to see it. And you know me, I try to see everything. So I think we'll see. We'll see. It's going to probably fall off even harder in the

second weekend. And then all of a sudden, it will be as if the film never even existed. And that really is the point. Part of the reason why I think people didn't go see this movie is because there is a new, there's new leadership at the DCEU with James Gunn and Peter Safran. And they've kind of communicated to the audience, like, don't worry about this movie because we're going to have a new continuity very soon. And we're going to make sure everything is united. And, you know, Joker over here and Justice League and Zack Snyder over here and Aquaman over here.

And maybe all these things don't totally fit together. He wants those things to fit together. So there's all this detritus. There's all these leftover properties that they're waiting to bring them together. And in theory, The Flash is the movie that will bring them all together. The forthcoming Ezra Miller-Michael Keaton project,

which has now firmly starting to become more of a Michael Keaton movie than an Ezra Miller movie because they don't want to promote Ezra Miller as the star of this movie, which is fascinating. Well, there was a year where it was like The Flash is never going to come out. And will they stop production on The Flash? And what are we going to do? And DC is mostly because of the Ezra Miller problem, which you can Google. And now everyone's like, this is going to save DC and

it's the best thing we've ever made. And Ben Affleck is giving interviews being like, I was great for five minutes in The Flash as Batman. I love him. There's an amazing, amazing Hollywood reporter interview that Rebecca Keegan did with Ben Affleck that I encourage everyone to check out because Affleck came in ready to play and he drops somewhere between seven to ten really fun pull quotes um he apparently is in The Flash as well reportedly I have not seen this confirmed but reportedly Tom Cruise saw The Flash and loved it asked to see The Flash and loved it and said this is what we need right now with the movies which I don't is it what we need at the movies I I'm not entirely sure. I'm ready to like The Flash. The last non-Tom Cruise movie

that Tom Cruise endorsed and said this is what we need at the movies is Tenet. That's right. Which big Sean Fantasy core, but did it. About that he was right.

Sure, but also box office savior of movies, TB Day. Yeah. Are you up on The Flash? Do you know his powers? Are you familiar with his story?

He entered the Speed Force one time. He's very fast. He's not always in the Speed Force? No. Don't ask me to explain the science of the Speed Force. That's your corner. Okay. That's not my corner. That could end up being the biggest movie of the year. There's a world in which that happens. And so this conversation could be completely moot. Obviously, superhero movies are not going anywhere anytime soon. But I can't recall the last time we saw this. It feels like more like 2004 energy where it's like, oh, three clunkers in a row, huh?

Interesting, because previously, this is what we relied upon. How does it feel to be on the other side of it? Pretty good. To kind of be laughing and being like, ha ha ha. I mean, I'm not trying to mock anybody. If a good one came along, I would be thrilled, honestly, because I like a good version of anything. But we've been overindulged. We've been over-served on this particular topic.

And the TV shows didn't help. And that obviously, I think, led to a lot of this frustration with the audience, too. The quality has seemingly dropped off to some extent. I wanted to ask you a kind of a bigger picture question about this though. Okay. I was going to say, does the box office, does the movie industry need superhero movies to survive? But I kind of want to widen the aperture on that question. A lot of the biggest franchises that we have that tend to power this business, the Fast and Furious films, Mission Impossible, the Jurassic Park movies.

Think of the biggest movies over the last 20 years, effectively. A lot of them are really long in the tooth. Yeah. You know, James Bond is in a reset moment. We don't know who the next Bond is going to be. They're trying to reboot Transformers, but there's no guarantee that that's going to work. Like, if you look at what have been the biggest movies

over the last 25 years, they're almost invariably all franchise movies. We did get Avatar 2 after a 14-year wait, but for the most part, I don't know. It feels like we are

in this big kind of reset. And if the superhero stuff really starts to fall off, I'm quite fascinated to know. I don't want to doomsay here. I don't want to make this a 2020 podcast. But I'm not sure what is going to fill in the gaps. And maybe it's just legacy stuff.

Creed 3 and Scream 6 are just legacy sequels, right? There's stuff from the 90s and from the 70s that have been reborn. But have you thought about the fact that maybe we're at the end of an era of some kind? Yeah, but then isn't it just like the video game franchise era? Aren't they starting to finally crack that? Which I don't say happily. Yeah, I mean, I think that's wise. Yes, they are. We haven't seen the Super Mario Brothers movie, but The Last of Us is an interesting example of a true conversion that worked. Yeah, but so to your point, yes, it put The Last of Us as an interesting example of a true conversion that worked. Yeah, but so to your point,

yes, it does feel like we are at an inflection point. And, you know, even Everything Everywhere winning Best Picture, I was like, I was trying to figure out, is that like,

is that like a Midnight Cowboy thing? Is that like a, like early 90s? Like, I mean, I guess the 90s had like pretty traditional winners, but like, I mean, I guess the nineties had like pretty traditional winners, but like, where are we in this like kind of bloated studio to like new, new era of Hollywood moment? Are we early seventies? Are we nineties? Are we like, did we just come out of the eighties?

You know, like where is it? And, and, and, and I don't know if there's like a one-to-one historical comparison for Oscars or anything but the the everything everywhere moment also feels like of okay everything that we were doing is not really resonating with anyone and things the business is starting to change and tastes are starting to change. So I, I think the superhero thing is not going to go away. Um, because it hasn't like historically, you know, there, I mean, Superman and Batman have been around forever and like no shots to Batman. You know, I, I sing that theme song to my kid all the time. So they have lasting power, but the way it's organized does seem different. And franchise wise, it does seem like

the video game thing is on the rise and i i honestly if it's possible to have less enthusiasm for a genre you know a genre of movies than i do for superheroes it's for video games so just real tough stuff for me i do think there's a world though in which some video game movies are more appealing to you than superhero movies because they're because they basically are kind of riffs on stories. And so there can be at least, you know, like Uncharted wasn't very good. But in theory, Uncharted was an attempt to have a newfangled Indiana Jones. There's, you know, a treasure hunter movie could be a good video game movie. We just haven't seen a lot of them. So there's a preconceived bias. You know, Last of Us seems to have been like a real breakthrough in terms of obviously that's TV, but like prestige, highbrow, very invested adaptation of a video game.

And I, you know, respectfully, like I don't care about like fungus zombies, zombies. You know? It still is, like, genre in that way. So, and it, you're right that it depends on the genre that the game is in. What do we have coming up? We've got fantasy genre, which you have seen Dungeons and Dragons. I have. I will be seeing it by myself. I thought it was fun. Yeah, cool.

The trailer, I love Chris Pine. I'm interested in his wine. The trailer looks like more CGI barf. Um, so, so, so that's a, and that's a real problem. I just like think visually and also in terms of. Can I give you my short riff on Dungeons and Dragons? Yeah. It's like if someone decided that Monty Python on the Holy Grail needed a hundred million dollars of CGI.

Right. Like it's super funny. Okay. And then there's a lot of CGI. Yeah. I, I liked the other thing where they just had the coconuts for the, you know? Yes. Which was, like, part of the humor.

And even there, that's, like, that's the difference between the two things. Then you got Super Mario. Mm-hmm. Which is just a... It's going to be a really big movie. Huge movie. And just an animated movie. And listen, I played Super Mario like everybody else.

So, no judgment. But that seems more kid-based. kid-geared or overgrown kid. So it seems like maybe they figured it out. Well, I want to just raise one other thing that's related to this. Because there was this interesting conversation on Twitter over the weekend. The film writer Matt Singer, who is actually one of my podcast inspirations. He used to host a show called Film Spotting SVU, a great show with Alison Wilmore back in the day. And he has young kids, and he pointed out that there's this very odd thing that is happening at the box office, which is that there are no movies for kids to see if you've seen Puss in Boots The Last Wish.

And that movie was released in December. So we've had four months, practically, of no kids films. Now, you could say, oh, Shazam! Fury of the Gods. That's a kids movie. But not really. It's a movie for teenagers. It's certainly not for a five-year-old. You and I are also about to enter the phase where we start thinking about what movies we'll be taking our kids to.

Can we get there sooner? Well, that's a whole other... I mean, you know, time is precious. And I love my child. Don't speed through toddlerdom. I know, but also I just need that guy to sit still. You know what I'm saying? I love him so much.

Just like sit down. I think it's interesting that Hollywood still hasn't figured out how to get back on track after three years of pandemic management. That just seems like a supply issue. Maybe a little bit of supply, a little bit of overthinking what is going to be dominating at the market. I think that the box office this past weekend was still down 30%, even though it's been up from where it was the last couple of years. And even though Creed 3 has already surpassed Creed 2 at the box office, which is fascinating. Scream 6 is going to surpass

Scream 5 in all likelihood at the box office. are doing well but there's just still not enough of them and i wonder i wonder how all of this stuff settles because you can't have superhero movies tanking because when a superhero movie is released there's not a lot of competition released alongside of it we've gotten to this release pattern where like everything clears out for a superhero movie and so so if one of them bombs, the whole, you know, the paper bag kind of pushes through and explodes. So I'm fascinated by this, obviously. I don't necessarily think

we've reached a massive turning point, but that bigger cultural turning point is very interesting to me. And that was one of the reasons why I kept kind of being like, wow, everything everywhere all at once. This is so game changing because I do think there's something to what you were saying.

I do think that we don't yet know what it fully looks like, but something is different now. I think it's like it's an indicator of a larger thing rather than the catalyst of like major change itself. But, you know, it's still cool. I haven't figured it out yet. The reason I wanted to talk about this at the top of the show is because it's related to our subject at hand,

which is in part Adam Driver, but also this new film that he made that came out a couple of weeks ago called 65, which is written and directed by Scott Beck and Brian Woods and is ostensibly an original story with a big movie star attached that

is in the marketplace now, competing with Scream 6 and Creed 3 and Puss in Boots and all the other movies that are out right now. And it didn't do very well. No. Can I just say right now, I'm excited to talk about this at great length. I do feel like Adam Driver is a little bit the victim of everything we're talking about in terms of box office being down and there not that much else competition. And so you and i have the time to really look under the hood of what is a something that just didn't work and like this just didn't work it has been on the shelf for a while apparently there are like 45 different versions it's hacked to bits they tried something you know that happens um and it is notable that someone of adam driver's

caliber made an action movie in a big budget attempt and it went as wrong as it did and and however many different ways but i i am also like this it feels like strides that effect a little bit sure we're doing to him i come here not to castigate Adam Driver nor the makers of this film because I agree with you. I applaud trying to make an original story like this. I love movies like this. I love... 70s science fiction is one of my favorite subcategories of movie.

And the sort of like big idea but modest execution movie, one of my favorite things. I mean, for anyone who hasn't heard of 65 yet, I guess it's understandable if you haven't because it has not done very well, but it's about a pilot who crashes on an unknown planet, which turns out to be Earth during the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago,

and fights to survive the dangerous prehistoric environment. There's also a young girl who survives on this ship that crash lands, and he and the young girl effectively need to go through a series of dinosaur-scaping adventures. And I didn't think it was bad. I just didn't think it hung together. And there is a difference. It wasn't an incompetently made movie, but it did not have a dynamic energy pushing you through the story.

In part because I just never felt like Adam Driver wasn't going to survive. And sometimes if your movie doesn't have a kind of sense of humor about that, a kind of John McClane sense of humor about that, then it can be a little bit of a slog to get through movies like this. Did it not work for you at all? No, not at all. In a way that, to your point, just felt really, it's like herky-jerky. It spent a lot of time developing parts of the movie that didn't really come together and then would just like cut to the

next like flashcard. I mean, you could almost like see the plots of the movie in that sort of storyboarding thing. And sometimes they're like, whatever, like people will get it. We don't need to develop this part. We can like develop that part. Yada, y part you know which which is the product of it just being like cut to shreds like or cut over and over and over again um and i want to ask you about some specifics because i don't know whether i wasn't paying attention at one point or whether i saw a different movie than um critics saw or screeners but you went to a you went to a normal screening i did go to a normal screen did not go to a critic screening um so no it doesn't work it's also tough that i think the premise is a lot more interesting than the execution which is a bummer because the execution

should just be adam driver fighting dinosaurs and he does fight some dinosaurs and he also fights some just like really gross shit on earth which i thought which i like didn't like very much well i didn't i didn't enjoy it because i get grossed out but i was like this is effective like you have made like some really gnarly bugs that i'm glad i don't interact with now on the present day version of Earth. But, you know, the most excited that I was in this whole movie, because I didn't, I did see a trailer, but I didn't know the premise until I went in. And so, you know, there's a, it opens with the crash sequence. And then you get the title card and it says 65.

And then the next bit of text goes million years ago. And then the next bit of text goes like a visitor came to earth. And I gasped. I was like, wow, he's not a, that's earth. He's not a human or is he? So that's what I also want to ask you about that. Well, I mean that I certainly like that as well. When I read about this movie, what feels like three or four years ago, I was really excited about it because it just sounded like Planet of the Apes or The Omega Man or, I don't know, Soylent Green. Like one of those, I mean, those are three Charlton Heston movies I just named,

but all of those kinds of movies, Logan's Run, these very legible science fiction concepts that are focused on one individual character who is experiencing something bizarre. Part of the issue with the movie, and this might be a product of our modern times where we need things explained to us, but very little is explained to us about this home planet, about who he is, about what race is he, Is he a human being? He can breathe on Earth. His technology works on Earth. It looks similar to our technology,

although mildly futuristic. Yeah. I mean, that's what's cool. So there's a great piece by Alison Wilmore, the critic at New York Magazine, about this movie that was the headline, Sue is Adam Driver an alien or what, in this movie. And she starts

the piece by noting that she got to the screening a few minutes late, and so she missed some crucial exposition. I, too, arrived at my screening a few minutes late. They didn't put as many trailers in front of 65 as they normally do. Interesting. Maybe that real estate wasn't as valuable. Exactly, which I thought was notable. So I think that I missed the same three minutes that Alison Wilmore did, which is apparently of Adam Driver on his home planet. Yes. He's with his young daughter and his wife. Right. We see they're on a beach together and we see that she is sick. She has a sickness of some kind. Okay. And so he has to take this job as a kind of ferryman to make enough money, I think, to help get her a cure for her illness.

But he has to be gone for a number of years in order to take this job. Right. Is it clear that that planet is not Earth? It's not. It's not clear. There are some rock formations in the background that indicate a slightly different kind of geological structure. But it otherwise looks like a beach. Okay.

And they seem like human beings. And they aren't like, I have to leave planet, you know, Ravi or whatever. It doesn't. Nothing indicates that. I mean, I think because of their attire and because of their technology, it indicates that this indicates that this is not earth that this is some some other planet okay whether or not he travels through time we don't know because like cryo sleep is of course a factor in the in the in this journey that they're taking oh interesting so you think that he's going back in time i don't know i what part of my issue with the movie is and we're sort of in spoiler territory I don't 65 is not really a movie about plot beats um but that's the thing is that the the plot questions

to me were more interesting so you took it as he traveled back through time I didn't but I also I didn't I what I what I the way I understood it was 65 million years ago this civilization on another planet existed yeah me too and they and traveled to Earth. But I think it's plausible that they went through a black hole or something and that that brought them to a different time on a planet that maybe they live on Earth 150 million years in the future. It's unclear.

Because they breathe oxygen. You know what I mean? They know what water is. They have languages. They have a humanoid form right so they have they have their written language is different um and they're you know and they're speaking english to us but who can really know well adam driver is speaking english to us the child is not um and then their technology is more advanced. You made another note in this document that said, so is the arrival of Adam Driver's character on Earth how evolution starts on Earth? Which is like, there's like a number of hot button topics there that we could go in go in and out of but let's go i mean what

else are we doing no no no so it didn't even occur to me that that could be the case in part because i believe in science but also because i didn't think he was human well i'm not trying to indicate necessarily that um the the theory of the movie ports over to real life which is that aliens you know incepted dna into our society and thus created the human form right but i thought that would have been a fascinating choice that they could have made okay they could have indicated that this lonely planet that is occupied only by dinosaurs and oversized creatures needed the introduction of a new chromosome, a new scientific organism that then would have led to evolution. Because of course we see the meteor strike, you know, during the 65 million year period.

Right. I mean, that's, that's the other thing. But they didn't do that. Like that's like, I found myself wondering like, what would have been a cooler way to tell this story? Which is, that's not necessarily like, Scott Beck and Brian Woods are actually really smart. I thought A Quiet Place was a really, really good movie with a really good script. But I felt like there was some unexplored territory here that I would have liked to

have seen more of, much as I liked Adam Driver fighting dinosaurs. Once you realize that he's landed, like, literally 24 hours before the big asteroid hits Earth and kills all the dinosaurs. I mean, number one, that just fucks with the stakes of your movie, right? Of just like, the dinosaurs are only a threat for the next 24 hours. So maybe you could just like go in orbit for a bit, which, you know, the problem is that they have to get to the ship. They're just trying to get off. And avoid the asteroid field as well.

Right, exactly. But it's like, okay. I love when you come on a science fiction journey with me. This is great stuff. Well, this is the problem is that I thought this part was interesting, but it's like okay what when you come on a science fiction journey with me what a coincidence well this is the problem is that i thought this part was interesting but i was like okay what a coincidence number one that you've arrived here um you know before like a once in a like a once in a galaxy not even universe like a once in a space time continuum event and then also you just like stole all the shots from Melancholia, which is fine.

I, too, love Melancholia, but whatever. So then it falls apart. But I definitely just thought they were... Well, this raises some questions about the definition of alien and human. We're going gonna get existential this is my philosophy corner well because i thought that they were pretty much just like us but living on a different planet like 65 million you know years ago which like as we understand

you know the the essence of life to be that's totally possible you know there probably are people just like us somewhere. Yeah. Not in like a multiverse. The universe is vast and time is infinite. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I didn't think that,

but does that mean that they're humans or that they're just like us, but different? And then the randomness, but then that they made it to Earth, I don't know. These are the important questions that no one else is asking

thank you we're verging on JMO territory here and we don't have Chris to lean on you asked me to go see this movie and I went to go see it I'm just trying to make

a fucking podcast I think it's a really interesting thing because like obviously any audience that is interested in science fiction will ask questions

like this one posed with something and it's really hard to make a waterproof concept for things like this because it's such a big idea and it's told so narrowly, I think by design

even though I do think that the movie, you're right, has been edited and re-edited a few times and the movie is very lean. It's 90 minutes. It really kind of gets in and gets out of its story per that kind of almost like 24-hour countdown clock

that you're describing. But you don't want to be left with too many lingering questions. And in fact, like for example, I couldn't figure out so, you know,

if they were to escape and get on an escape pod, how would they even chart a course back to their home planet? How far away is that? Is there a fuel issue? Like, I don't, nothing is really clear.

There was a run, like there was a tether point or something. Okay. I mean, they said that in one of the many like voice dialogue, you know, I'm making a mission log recordings that Adam Driver did to paper over exposition plus. Their technology's better. It's definitely better. Are they humans? I don't know. It's a good question to ask. I think the reason that we're here is because was this a good choice for Adam Driver is really the thing. He's given a couple of interviews about the movie, which I wouldn't say is like a world historical bomb, especially when you see that ultimately the budget is $45 million.

This movie's probably going to sort of like soft break even. It was made for $91 million, but there were lots of tax rebates. And it was a movie that was developed and executed during COVID. You know, it's a pandemic movie. He even said in an interview that he in part responded to the movie because it was about these two people from completely different backgrounds who were facing this common thing that they had no precedent for, which obviously was resonant because of COVID. So you understand, you see that this guy who's one of the really handful of people who's emerged in the last 10 years as a viable box office force, as a memorable

figure, as an Oscar nominated kind of consistent collaborator with great filmmakers, that there was something that he was drawn to here. This movie is also produced by Sam Raimi. The great Sam Raimi, one of my favorite directors. You can see that him kind of putting his stamp on it probably made it even more appealing. Who better at genre than Sam Raimi in the last 30 years in American movies?

And it didn't congeal. This happens with movies like this. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. This one did not work. I don't think that you, if you're a movie star now and you make a movie like this you go to like actor jail per se but i do feel like there is a little bit of a bloom off the rose when you appear in something like this and no one cares and that is that is what led to this conversation because on the one hand i think we'll spend most of our time here praising Adam Driver, not just his skills as an actor,

but the choices that he's made over the years. But also, he finds himself at this kind of interesting inflection point of how to navigate a career. So one, was it, I think this one was a mistake? I don't know about mistake. What else was he supposed to do in the pandemic? Also, interesting premise, give or take the really underbaked daughter plot. But you can't fault him for seeing something in that and wanting to try, you know?

And also fighting dinosaurs. Like, I don't know. If you were going to start a new franchise, it's like, what else are you going to... There's not a much better idea than Benny Fights Dinosaurs. Great elevator pitch. You know what I'm saying?

It is. It is. I understand that there's another dinosaur franchise out there. That's the problem is, you know, Jurassic Park

looms over this movie for obvious reasons in a big way. And sometimes, sometimes the execution on a movie is so splendid that it kind of blots out any other movie trying to do the same thing. Yeah, that's true.

The original Jurassic Park, and then obviously the subsequent success of all the sequels, makes this a tough category. I agree, most of them are not very good, but it makes it tough. Driver and Beck and Woods have praised Jurassic Park and talked about how they've been inspired by it. It's not like they're trying to pretend like it doesn't exist, but it's just hard to do a dinosaur movie. Yeah.

That's really it because, you know, big Uncle Steve just came through and crushed the building. So I don't know what else to do about that. Driver on the whole,

I assume the first time you saw him was in the television show Girls. Yes, which I rewatched some of in preparation for this. Rewatching the various Adam Diver projects that I

rewatched for this was like a real time capsule. A journey through your youth. And emotions. But I watched season one Girls, the episode when he and the Hannah character are finally together for a bit. And it's like kind of his spotlight episode.

Incredibly powerful. And were we ever so young? It is a fascinating time capsule, especially since we were both living in New York during the airing of that show. That show's reputation is, I feel like, still as hotly contested as it was when the show was on. I was a fan. I know you were a fan. I think its divisiveness is interesting because Lena Dunham has not maintained the level of visibility in our culture since then and has not done too many things. She's done a couple of notable things in that time. She's now kind of back making movies. Last year, she released two movies but driver even during the show there was a kind of awkwardness about the revelatory nature of his performance

because it was a show called girls about an ensemble of young women who were friends living in new york city and he really popped really popped in a kind of undeniable way he had a physical presence and an acting style that was mesmerizing. And his character was really, really well written. And so, invariably, he was the first person who was kind of airlifted out of that series and into, simultaneously, American franchise movie entertainment and also hardcore, like, 50-something American auteurs. Like, he put his finger on both scales at the same time. And I don't know if I've ever seen anyone do it quite as well as he did.

Now, your mileage may vary on how good or not good the movies are that he's made over the last 10 years. But he's made a lot of really cool decisions, and I really like watching him in movies. Part of your prompt for this podcast was like, who should Adam Driver work with going forward? And it's really just like a list of trying to figure out who he hasn't worked with because it's everyone.

It's amazing. It's an, it's incredible taste. And it also is, you know, speaks to like his appeal and his talents that every major director, like, you know,

Spielberg, baumbach scorsese coppola like michael mann spike lee spike lee yes like leos carex like jj abrams you know like all the way down the line right the cohen's like everybody wants to be in the adam driver business so i he has great taste or like a a ambition of understanding like, no, I want to like work with cool directors. It's like a very 70s vibe. Very much. I was like, this is Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, you know, Elliot Gould, James Caan. Like these people who are just like, I basically just hop from project to project based on how good the director is.

Right, right right right um so it's interesting to try to figure out like what else he should do because he's kind of done almost everything at this point like part of the reasoning of 65 is just like well that's something he hasn't done you know agree agree i think i might have been motivating it is like i'm not going to do another franchise movie right away because i was a part of Star Wars. Right. But I can't do another drama. I've done so many dramas.

How do I get myself into the genre business? You know, I'm sure he's like, I don't want to do a horror movie. I don't want to do a superhero movie. So here's one way to address this kind of modern problem of movies, which is that it's hard to have a mid-budget genre movie that is original IP now. And it felt like a grasp at that, and it also reveals the challenges of that. You know, that two people like us would get on a show

and just nitpick the movie to death because, in fact, it doesn't feel like it was coherently executed. But even going back before Girls, the first credit that Driver has is on what could arguably be the worst Clint Eastwood movie of all time, but is a Clint Eastwood movie, which is J. Edgar. He has a role in that film. And then he just goes through this wave. The same year that Girls debuted, he appeared in Francis Ha as Lev Shapiro. Very charming. Pops off the screen as a

sort of like initially a will-they-won't-they with Greta Gerwig's character who develops into a kind of friendship. And then in quick succession, the Coen brothers inside Llewyn Davis. He's in Lincoln with Steven Spielberg. We didn't even mention these words, Steven Spielberg already. While we're young, reunites with Baumbach.

I think he's collaborated with Baumbach five times now. And in 2015 lands Star Wars The Force Awakens. And I still think Kylo ren is the best thing to come out of those three movies by a wide margin even though i do think they kind of fucked it with the rise of skywalker and the the specialness of that character but transposing angry emo boy onto the star wars universe was just a brilliant stroke. It was just such a good idea. And that character is so powerful and so fun. He's just fun to watch in those movies.

And that's pretty much, well, he does have that face off with Harrison Ford in Force Awakens. Very emotional moment. Yeah. And then really develops it in Last Jedi. Yeah. Which is a Rian Johnson, speaking of directors who, you know, he has already worked with in one way is a... Rian Johnson, speaking of directors who, you know, he has already worked with

in one way or another. Rian Johnson, cross him off the list. Jim Jarmusch in 2016 with Patterson. Martin Scorsese in 2016 with Silence. A movie that I'm feeling like

I need to find a way to circle back to in my life. Oh, boy. Okay. You want to join me on the Silence journey? That is such a boy movie. Yeah, if God is a man, but what if God is a woman?

Okay, can we just keep going? He returns to Bound Back for the Meyerowitz Stories, a movie I love. Then Logan Lucky with your boy Steven Soderbergh. Did we mention Soderbergh? No, we didn't mention Soderbergh. I'm sorry, Steven. In 2018, he gets his first Oscar nomination for his role in Black Klansman. He was tremendous in Black Klansman as Detective Flip Zimmerman. He helps Terry Gilliam achieve his long-yearned-for

desire, his desire to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a movie that ultimately I think didn't work either, but he basically was the vessel for funding. And that's obviously something you can do when you reach this level of status, too, is you can get movies made. He made The Report in 2019 and The Dead Don't Die, reuniting with Jim Jarmusch, and Marriage Story, for which he was again Oscar nominated. Let me tell you something. Yes. Have you watched that one last night, too? Have you watched that one since you became a parent?

No. Eyes on the floor. Like I, it was, it's so good and so brutal. I remember that. I remember being also particularly brutal to the city of Los Angeles, which is the city that I reside in. Yeah, but that house is so good. I just spent a lot of time really coveting that house.

Do we know where it is? I assume it's like in the Palisades. It's so good. I just spent a lot of time really coveting that house. Do we know where it is? I assume it's like in the Palisades. Yeah. It's so beautiful. At this moment, after Marriage Story was released, I saw Marriage Story at the Telluride Film Festival that year. This was also the last great film year. It was an amazing time for movies.

My reaction to it, and we did a long podcast about Marriage Story, was like, this is it. We have the guy. we have the actor of our generation he's about our age he has incredible taste he's oscar nominated but also is appearing in incredible franchises this was right before the rise of skywalker came out and ever since then it's been a little tricky it's been a little dice little dicey. I don't know if the stock is down. I don't necessarily take issue

with any of the choices that he's made since then. But they're worth examining a little bit more closely. Okay? Okay. The first one is obviously the Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker.

I don't think he had a choice in this. I believe he signed up for a trilogy and a trilogy he made and that film doesn't work at all. No. And the resolution of his character is offensive. It stinks. And also the Daisy Ridley character.

Yes, it stinks. And it's a real letdown. Yeah, Rey. That's her name? Yeah. I don't think we're done with Rey is something I'll point out to you. I think we will see Rey again in some capacity.

Rey's family. Is she back on the Mandalorian or whatever? No, she's not. In fact, the Mandalorian is in between the original trilogy and the most recent trilogy. Okay. You follow? Yeah. Okay.

2021, he made Annette, which was a musical. Sure was. Written and directed by Elias Kariks, along with Sparks, that I really wanted to love. That also is about a little baby slash puppet. Right. Named Annette. And Marion Cotillard. And Marion Cotillard.

Bold stroke. I wouldn't take that one back if I were him. No. Cool. Great idea. Kariks makes one movie every seven years. I never saw this movie on a big screen because it was effectively released in the heart of COVID.

I think it did have a Cannes premiere. Is that how it was originally rolled out into the world? And then Amazon released it, which is just bizarre. Just truly bizarre. Remember when it felt like every tech company was taking on the weirdest possible projects just to get in the game? It feels like things are evolving from there, but there was a moment in time when it felt like every tech company was taking on the weirdest possible projects just to get in the game. It feels like things

are evolving from there, but there was a moment in time when it felt very strange. Anyway, I'd like to see Annette on a big screen to get to reshape my feelings. Anything that I watched

between 2020 and 2022, we kind of need to stick with a grain of salt. That's kind of what I have to say about all of this, but we'll continue. I would just also add I'm not really a Sparks person,

so that's... If you can't get on board with that then you can't fully get on board with this movie you have to enjoy the songs yeah and it's almost entirely sung through the film and then again in 2021 we have The Last Duel and House of Gucci a double shot of Ridley Scott. This is where I think we lose the audience because you and I enjoyed both of these movies quite a bit. And I don't think people did. I don't think very many people saw The Last of Us to this day. I don't think very many people knew that that was the reunion of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck,

which is coming right up very soon. I know. In fact, we are seeing the film air tonight. Just can't wait. And it premiered at South by Southwest. The world was delighted by this film. So it's a very exciting time for us. But, you know, The Last Duel, along with Nicole Holofcener, who was our co-screenwriter, they wrote the film.

Ridley Scott directed it. I thought it was very, very effective. Yeah, extremely compelling. But, I mean, it was 2021. Like, the world, the movie- going world was not back last duel was theaters first for a while and then i know a lot of people i it did have that moment when it was available on vod that people saw it and there was like a slight reclamation but not like early enough to get it back in the oscar race And then it went by the wayside.

Yeah, I don't know how you properly vault these movies that are pandemic era, but House of Gucci is not good, but is phenomenal. You know what I mean? I won't apologize. I loved it. It's a lot of fun. I don't know what people want. I don't either. That's what I want,

is I want adam driver lady gaga unrecognizable and extremely weird jared leto and al pacino yelling at each other in russian and or italian accents with immaculate clothing from the Gucci archive and homes around Northern Italy. I want to soar like a pigeon. Jared Leto is really, I'm not really a huge fan of his, but he was extraordinary in that film. I thought Driver was arguably at least the most sane aspect of that movie. And a lot of it hung on his shoulders. And I thought he carried it.

Most people didn't agree. Didn't do very well. That led to White Noise, which was perhaps my most anticipated movie of 2022. his shoulders and I thought he carried it most people didn't agree didn't do very well that led to white noise which was perhaps my most anticipated movie of 2022 a movie that I liked but did not love I think is considered not a success and that's that's too bad too and so now we couple that with 65 and we say okay Star Wars the Rise, The Rise of Skywalker, Annette, The Last Duel, House of Gucci, White Noise, 65. This is kind of four years of not great stuff.

The pandemic is in the middle of that, which is, I just think, unfair to hold against anyone because it not only changed how movies were made, but it changed how movies were released and how people received them. And I do think Last Duel and House of Gucci, like in a different climate, find more us's in the world. You know what I'm saying? Find more grownups who just like want to go to the movies

and or appreciate the absurdity or the efforts being made in that respect. So looking to the future. Yeah, what so looking to the future yeah what do you like what do you want that is that's my take on this podcast you put this whole thing together i mean this man made another noah baumbach movie adapted from your favorite novel he made two movies with ridley scott on ridley scott's timetable because ridley works fast he's trying to squeeze in as much as possible. I do hear two coming. Coming hot and fast.

He fought dinosaurs. He dealt with a baby puppet. And, you know, he did more Star Wars, which you're supposed to like. I come here not to castigate Adam Driver. That's not the purpose of this. What are the next two things he's doing? He is starring in michael mann's ferrari and then he is out here saving francis ford coppola's ass and cinema in general by not only starring in megalopolis but calling up the trades to let them know

what a fantastic experience it has been being on francis forpola's set. Okay? My guy is... What do you want? What more can Adam Driver do for you? Well, there's more. The rumor this weekend was that Michael Mann is getting close to setting his cast for Heat 2. And that the film which is both a prequel and a sequel to Heat may star Austin Butler in the Val Kilmer role and Adam Driver in the Robert De Niro role. Oh, at the De Niro. Is it in the, I think it's in the De Niro, right? I never read Heat 2, so, nor did I read this report. I can't imagine it's in

the Pacino. Is it in the Vincent Hanna role? He's a little tall for that, is he not? Well, that's the thing, because you, he is like, to Well, that's the thing. Because he is like, to me, he is the Pacino of our generation except for the height. Which does infuse Adam Driver's physicality, which is a major part

of his performance. But, I mean, he is Pacino. Well, why is he Pacino and not De Niro to you? Because there is something on... There's like a surprise element to his acting. You never really know what he's going to do and he can get a bit louder. And I know that De Niro gets louder,

but it's always like really grounded in this like deep menacing anger and driver can kind of just go off. I'd like his timing, menacing anger. And Driver can kind of just go off. Like, his timing, like, the actual timing of his words and the emphasis and the way he's just trying a lot of stuff all the time in a way that gets away from Pacino a little bit

as the years go on. But, and then, like, the brooding charisma. And they kind of look alike, aside from the height. How tall is Val Kilmer? He's six feet tall okay austin butler and adam driver a couple of tall glasses of water there yeah i think it's great i is he too a good idea what do you want like literally like literally what

do you want like we spent i'm just making a I know, but of course it's a good idea. Why not? How old is Michael Mann? You would know better than I. I think he's in his mid-70s. That's okay. I mean, certainly he can keep working. The man is 80 years old.

Okay. I mean, Francis Ford Coppola is what? 80-something? Ridley's 83? Driver was incredibly laudatory towards Coppola in every interview he's given since working on Megalopolis and said that he felt privileged to help him realize his dream when I saw Heat when I was a teenager I didn't think to myself right here we have a franchise I thought to myself it kind of seems like everyone is dead um nevertheless you read

Heat too though I I listened to it in audiobook form yeah but you don't consume any written fiction yeah I don't read fiction and you consumed this within like a month

of its release so that right there I liked it quite a bit so I look forward to the movie I'm trying to wrap my head around Pacino and Driver height wise

that's just a real issue I don't even think they should be scene partners let alone play each other well they were in House of Gucci and it was okay it's a great point that's true that's just a real issue i don't even think they should be scene partners let alone play each other well they were in house of gucci and it was okay it's a great point that's true that's true okay so you know in theory on paper ferrari megalopolis and heat 2 is as sick a lineup of forthcoming projects as you'll find if you listen to this podcast it's like a two masters you know at the end of their careers

kicking one last big swing i didn't know i didn't plant that i didn't know that that was a real this is another reason to listen so funny this is another reason to listen to uh austin butler on wtf because there's a moment like an hour into the pod where he's like you know what i just re-watched is uh heat you've seen heat it's like it's quality film oh funny also because it's just like all of all the michael man boys are out to lunch on austin butler and everybody else gets it but he knows that and so then he's just like now we'll be in here too yeah he he hooked us he fish hooked us he was like you thought i wasn't cool i am cool driver that Yeah, with Driver, that's really good. It's a very good move. It's a Driver-esque move, honestly.

You know, where Driver's like, you think I'm just a weird guy from Girls? Boom, I'm the villain in Star Wars. So, like, what do you do if you're Driver? Like, because, and it raises the bigger question of sort of like, is a kind of contemporary movie stardom that is not reliant on franchises even possible right now? Yeah.

He made his bones in television. Should he be in a miniseries of some kind? Should he try to stick to movies? I mean, he's really fought the good fight on movies more than anyone who was born, I think, in the 1980s. I mean, I can't think of anybody who was born in the 80s who has made more of an effort to work with great filmmakers on kind of big scale. Like, House of Gucci is a big scale project you know movies like that attempting to get people into theaters while also using star wars as a kind of buttress against potential failure so like what do you do what's your what's his what's his move i'm less stressed for him than you are i mean i do

understand that at some point to keep relevance, you have to have something big budget. And the 65 original didn't work. And Star Wars, as you mentioned, has run its course. And you can't do superheroes if you're him. You got to imagine James Gunn is like got him on the hotline though, right? What about like a Bond villain? Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Oh, I like where your head's at. Yeah, well, I know. And like I'm only thinking about things that appeal to me, obviously. But obviously like the Javier Bardem like Skyfall mold where it's splashy, it's big, but it's not like a huge commitment time-wise. Even if they Kristoff Waltz him and bring him back for like a second one with diminishing returns, like it's still, it's fine by me. Well, that raises an interesting question. Do you think that the next Bond films should be more grounded or less grounded? Because there was this great effort made with the Craig films to kind of bring them back down to earth in some ways where he, you know, is more likely to have bruises and break bones.

And there was more kind of hand-to-hand combat. It wasn't as cartoonish as 007 had gotten over the years. Do you think James Bond will be maybe more elevated, maybe more Mission Impossible next time around? What tonality do you think they'll take? Because that speaks to whether or not Driver would fit. Right. Well, the rumor is that it's going to be Aaron Taylor-Johnson.

That is the rumor. Which is okay. I'm not against it. I like him, the rumor is that it's going to be Aaron Taylor Johnson. That is the rumor. Which is like, okay. I'm not against it. I like him. I'm not against it. Did you ever finish Rogue Heroes? I did not.

Okay. So Rogue Heroes stars this, um, this actor who's also on Sex Education named Connor Swindells. He's also going to be in Barbie. And Chris Ryan clapped this immediately that Connor Swindells should just be James Bond. And that's really true. And it's a shame that they're not going to do it um and I I think in that case it

either of those actors is still sort of grounded I don't know that super cartoony works anymore right like I I tend to agree but it's hard to elevate off of the craig stuff yeah i think probably what you start doing is you start interrogating more the concept of bond which the craig movies do for sure but make it even more like geopolitical like that's what i would do i would like it to actually like be more grounded um and you can still fit some stunts in it but no i don't think that i think they have the market on jumping out of planes cornered i think if you are adam driver and you're asked to participate in something like that you want to take on a kind of villain that forgive that forgive me for this but like that has a little bit more of a thanos kind of thing where there's like a debate as to whether

or not actually his approach is the right approach okay to because the bond villain that's a cliche like that that's a that's a phrase we use in our modern lexicon about like ridiculous desire for power at all costs destroying you know using nuclear weapons to kill millions of people like i he could do something like that and also maybe not have to have the same commitment over a 10-year period that an Aaron Taylor Johnson will have to have. Is there even a 1% chance he could be James Bond? No. Just not British? Yeah, I mean, he's not British.

How much accent work has Adam Driver done? I believe he's using a bit of the King's English in The Last Duel, which is supposed to be French. But I think they're all kind of affecting like a haughtiness. Right, so he's doing like sort of that transatlantic thing. But that's different than actual British accent. I think one thing that we can do in this new, you know, modern global world is stop having people with very well-known accents try to play different accents like i watched a movie recently where kira knightley's trying to do a boston accent and it's just like she's she's british you know and unfortunately that was in a film called

boston strangler which is uh geographically fixed but um i like let's and also a period piece but like in general we got to be real like if someone's british or someone's american they can just be an american in the uk or they can just be british in france like it's that's that's how we live in in 2023 that's where i am okay so what else should driver do okay so he hasn't worked with Paul Thomas Anderson that's crossed my mind yeah who else he hasn't worked with

Wes Anderson he would fit snugly into a Wes Anderson movie yes he has worked with Greta Gerwig

in Francis Ha she was a screenwriter and then obviously in White Noise as an actor but put Adam Driver in a Greta Gerwig movie because and then obviously in White Noise as an actor, but put Adam Driver in a Greta Gerwig movie because I love the Baumbach thing.

I hope he keeps going with Baumbach. I do too. I think that there's, the performance in White Noise is amazing. Yeah. Even if the movie people felt was uneven. I, he hasn't done a pure comedy since a movie called What If?

Which is really not a bad movie and he plays like the sidekick to Daniel Radcliffe in that movie. And he and I believe it's Mackenzie Davis are the best friend couple. You know the movie is not a Nora Ephron Rob Reiner movie but it's got a little

bit of that energy. It's going for something close to that. And I think he should try to make a true blue comedy. He's funny in Logan Lucky. He's obviously funny in the Bomback movies when asked to be. Right. And he's hilarious in Girls, even though he's kind of terrifying at the same time.

Well, I mean, that's the thing. I don't know if he should do an out-and-out studio comedy. He should do something where he's asked to be funny, which I think, like any of the directors I just mentioned could also make use of that

and often do. I agree that I don't need, I don't need another like brooding Pacino or De Niro. I mean, I need plenty of them, but I would like to see something different from that mold, even though I do think that's the historical comp for him. Is there also a world in which he

is in a film directed by Celine Sciamma? Sure. Or Bong Joon-ho? Why not? I mean, like, he's already obviously made one bid for international tourism with Carex, but like, is there a play to kind of expand his fame in a different kind of art house way like because Bombeck is a very there's a very American sensibility sure I mean you know if Bong Joon-ho is making at least like a part English language film like you think of the Jake Gyllenhaal performance in Okja like his next movie I think Mickey 17 I think it's called is Robert Pattinson is the star that's right okay yeah so sure is pattinson has he surpassed adam driver because i think that they're they have been in an interesting duel over the last five to seven years working with the great filmmakers

trying to navigate big studio with not yet not yet because he's still like on his return he's done what two with the one with the safties two pattinson yeah uh he did good time yeah but he also you know has done tenet in the batman now no i i know that but i'm just like there was twilight then he was i don't want to say in the in the wilderness but being unrecognizable and now trying to be himself again. But that hasn't... He's pursuing movie stardom. Yeah, yeah. But that's like, what, three, four movies.

I know he's working on it. I think the Bong Joon-ho movie is going to be very big. Sure. Very big. It's a Warner Brothers movie. It's not like a super... Why are you talking to me like I'm underestimating a Bong Joon-ho, Robert Pattinson? No, I love him.

He's the best part of tenant he was so charming and i thought that he looked very good in the batman suit he did also tall he was a good batman i thought tall actors are back in i was gonna mention this to you and i was thinking about it's really it's really bad why did that happen so win for you w for you well it's not just it's it's for everyone like we never really talked about quote unquote hot editor at the Oscars. So the man who won for everything everywhere and it kind of became the sensation of the night. I heard your discussion with Juliette Lim and I thought you put a nice, you nailed it.

There's like something a little bit chaotic about dating a man like that on Tinder. Yeah. But also, as Juliette pointed out, that was like a real tall privilege moment where it was just suddenly this like tall, like very nice seeming man. Yeah. Best thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. Literally the best thing set aside, whatever, you know, family benchmarks you achieve getting to six feet tall. It's just kind of, I got to six feet tall and I was like, we did it, Joe. Like I will now be able to get away with a lot more than i ever was before yeah so i mean it's out there in the in the culture and i guess i i don't know everyone is taking their vitamins or whatever i don't i have no idea

your your science work lately has been really wanting, I need to say. You need to study up. I thought I did incredible physics, interstellar, and philosophical work at the top of this podcast. And then I defended some of our greatest living directors. Did we not? We didn't use Amanda's Science Corner nor the music. That's a real missed opportunity, Bob. You never know when Science Corner is going to happen. That's the beauty of it yeah yeah it's like um airborne toxic events or like asteroids striking the earth and destroying all the philosophy corner uh theme song b i'm working on that but

did you read the new yorker piece about the philosophy professor who uh got a agnes collard did you read this i did not um she got a divorce she's like a public philosopher um much like myself not like me a private philosopher yeah and she got a divorce and uh started a relationship with a student and that but like it was okay whatever she notified you know they followed the rules of the university or whatever, and then basically turned this divorce and new marriage into like a public philosophy experiment. And it's just not how I think about the world or relationships, which is her point, but it's pretty wild. All the world's a stage.

Yeah. You know, I'm sure Driver feels the same way. It's a lot of interrogation of stuff. So I'm not there yet, Philosophy Corner-wise. I don't think I'll ever be that. I think the theme song for Philosophy Corner should be the Buzzcocks' Orgasm Addict. That's my take. Do you want me to drop the music right now just so that Amanda can go back into the speed force?

Yeah, let's hear it. Welcome to Amanda Dobbins' Science Corner. Yes! It's so good. Do you think that Adam Driver's character... Do you think they make it back to the civilization and do any follow-up work on Earth? Do you think there's a sequel to the civilization and do like any follow-up work on Earth? Do you think there's like a sequel where then like the next team comes? I think they arrive to establish Science Corner.

I think that that's what they want. They're like, what we need here is a podcast from our escape pod. They left a little set of instructions on Earth that Amanda uncovered like a time capsule. That's right. They need to bury it so that you could excel at podcasting before we're done would you like to apologize to adam driver no i fucking love adam driver i think it's reasonable to look at a man's career at this stage and say sir what are you up to what's coming just trying to make great films with great filmmakers i think he needs a counterpart on screen that is as tall as he is.

Like, I need him opposite Elizabeth Debicki. Okay. Oh, they would be good together. Yeah. I want like a Mr. and Mrs. Smith type movie, but a period piece with them dashing super agents. Wonderful. I love that. Right?

Yeah. Why can't we do that? Great. Who should make it? Sam Mendes? No. You're out on Sam Mendes. Sam Mendes made Skyfall.

And then he made some other movies. Yeah, Skyfall is great, though. I like some Sam Mendes movies. 1917 was good. You did not think so at the time. No, that's not true. You had sort of a breakdown. No, that's not true.

That's not true. What I said was I didn't want it to win Best Picture because I felt that that would be a sop to the old guard yeah but I think 1917 is a good film do you think it's better than all quiet on the western front I do I do I do as well yeah um that's very English language uh centric view of ours but whatever um no not 1917 is shot by Roger Deakins I know that famously uh on this podcast it was shot by but I don't think you put it That famously on this podcast. That's right. It was shot by. But I don't think you put it in the Hall of Fame. I'm going to have to revisit that pod.

The pod that changed everything. I think. I want to find one more project for him before we wrap. I think that there's one thing that we're missing. Like, what could he do with Barry Jenkins? What could he do with, gosh, thefty brothers yeah safty brothers is a really good chaotic fit i can't wait for the next safty movie cannot wait i'm so excited i think it's 2024 okay he needs something really talky that's that's the other thing that the the more motor

math he has and i think that's another reason he's more Pacino than De Niro to me because God bless De Niro, but he doesn't really like to talk that much. You're right. That's a very good call.

Yeah. And I think maybe it's sort of like to get to my point about comedy and your point about talkiness, I think he needs

a midnight run kind of a movie. Oh, that would be fun. He needs a two-hander. Yeah. Gosh. Him and, I don't know who,

who should it be? Give me a counterpart. Brian Tyree Henry. Oh, perfect. Yeah. Love it. Same, same sense of humor. Snappy, they're both fast.

They're both a little weird. Great. What's it called? It's called Brothers. Okay, beautiful. They're, they're, they're, they're both adopted brothers. Okay. And they're on a mission together to do what?

I don't know. To retrieve a bird, a falcon? No, don't bring birds into this. No, no birds. Why do they have to be brothers? Why can't they be secret agents along with... Debicki? Debicki.

And they got to... But it's like a spoof of secret agents. So they have to get some sort of, I don't know, code back from something. Triple 07. Yeah. Great. Okay. We did it.

We saved Adam Driver's career. Check's in the mail. Thanks, Adam. Do you want to apologize to Adam Driver? No, I am his defender. I'm also his defender. I'm just going to call all the trades and be like, working on this podcast about Adam Driver was a fantastic experience. There has been no strife whatsoever, and I'm not concerned about his career. Do you think he'll win an Academy

Award in his career? Yes, but it'll probably be later and for something that's not marriage story which is so good okay amanda thanks for all your work on science corner philosophy corner exploring the depths of 65 and and and actor heights yeah and you also you killed superhero movies so congrats you're very welcome okay let's go to my conversation now with Jamie Deck. Very happy to have Jamie Deck here. Hi, Jamie. How are you? I'm good.

Thank you for having me. My pleasure. Let's start with this. You are a first-time feature filmmaker. Where did you come from? When did you get interested in making movies? I always loved movies, and especially when I was a teenager, I started to get really into different types of movies. But I was also always a photographer and a writer. I was even writing poetry as a child and taking pictures as a child. So it kind of felt like a perfect mix of all the things I really loved. Who were the people that you responded to artistically as a

young person? I mean, probably very known people because that's just what you're exposed to as a child. Like I remember being friends with Annie Leibovitz's niece and, you know, getting to meet her and see her photographs and be like, these are amazing portraits. You know, but then I also remember being a teenager and seeing like Napoleon Dynamite for the first time and being like, oh my God, you can make a film like this, you know? So it was all different things. I know Palm Trees and Power Lines started as a short.

How did you study film in school? How did you get to this place where you were sort of like vaulting towards getting a feature film made? So in undergrad, I studied all these things that I loved that I mentioned before. I was taking photography. I was taking writing. I was writing short stories at the time. And then I was taking film history.

So I was being exposed to all sorts of cinema. And that's where I really fell in love with it. And I decided, you know, I decided at that point I wanted to go to film school. So I went to NYU grad film like a few years after college. And yeah, that was where I started. Like I had never made a film before. I applied to the program. One of the reasons I was intrigued by this program, other than the fact that I knew filmmakers who had gone there, was that they allowed you to apply with photographs. Like all these other film schools, you have to make a short film.

So I just sent in photographs and that was how I was accepted to the program and made my first short film there. It's interesting because your film is very compositional. You know, it's very, it's framed and at times like there are a lot of, it feels almost like static images. Is that like, where does that style come from? Did you identify other filmmakers who were doing that, that you got interested in? For sure. And that's, that continues to be a dream of mine. something I want to do in my next film. I always talk about it like this. It's like the ability to press pause on any frame of the film, and it would be like a photograph that you want to print and hang on your wall.

And examples that come to mind are like Ida and Cold War. Those are just unbelievably, you know, the composition and the framing is just amazing. And so, you know, this was a low budget independent film. We did the best we could with that model in mind. And I feel like we really achieved it in certain moments and other moments. I am excited to keep pushing towards that goal. Let's talk about that more because I'm curious how you do it when you don't have a lot of money. I assume, I mean, are you storyboarding the film? How do you come to, and do you, like, have you location scouted at that point? All those things are factors when you're trying to make an image that you have in your mind. So how did you go about it here?

Yeah, so I would say that when you're trying to have, you know, very composed photographic frames and you don't have that many resources, it's not like you're building a set or anything like that. It really starts with the location scouting. So, you know, finding locations as they are that really have the colors and the textures and the everything that you want in them. And then, of course, a production designer and a costume designer and then the work with your cinematographer. For me, we didn't storyboard. I had taken Palm Trees and Power Lines, the short film, and the feature stem from a series of 35mm photographs that I was taking in Southern California. So my DP and I really looked to those. And in a sense, I realized I had been location scouting for years without

really realizing it. And, you know, we didn't shoot in all of the locations from my photos, but they definitely inspired what we were looking for. What was the impetus for that photo project? You know, I don't think I knew what I was doing when I started it, but as I kept going, I realized like, oh, I'm really capturing certain feelings of suburban malaise that I was feeling as a teenager. I didn't grow up in California. I grew up on the East Coast, but in suburbia. And, you know, so I wanted to set my story in a suburban environment, but I wanted it to look a certain way visually. And, um, so I set it in California, but, uh,

yeah, I think I was trying to capture the boredom that my protagonist felt. Yeah. What, um, when you made the short film, did you always intend for that to eventually become a feature? No, but I think I knew pretty quickly that I was just scratching the surface and wasn't done exploring some of these me that I wanted to keep going when the short was, um, on the festival circuit. And also it was a Vimeo staff pick, which was great because a lot of people saw it online and, um, women, not only women, men too, but specifically women would, would watch the short and share with me, um, you know, like strangers would message me on Instagram or come up to me after a screening and share with me ways in which they identified. And that was exciting to me and made me want to keep going. with really unflinching subject matter and this, you know, this world of grooming and an underage girl is really challenging. I think from like a commercial perspective, let alone like a personal

emotional perspective. What, what, what did you do? Yeah, it was super challenging. I, um, pitched the film so many times, like, I don't know the exact number, but, um, I did film independence program called fast track where you, I know I pitched it basically 60 times just in those three days. So 60 plus all the other meetings I took, I mean, definitely a hundred times at least. Nobody wanted to give me any money for it. It was, you know, and it wasn't that people weren't responding really positively to the script and had really nice things to say, but I think people were definitely afraid of it. What would they, like, what language would they use when they would say like,

thanks, but no thanks? God, well, I got so many thanks, but no thanks. So let me think about some of the specifics. But like, I remember one example was, and this was around the time coming off of all the success of Promising Young Woman. And I remember someone said to me, we'd be interested in, we love this script, we'd be interested in continuing the conversation if you wanted, I mean, I don't want to spoil the ending of my film, but if you wanted to have your protagonist and her best friend go track him down and seek revenge. And I was just like, that is not the movie I'm making, you know? So things like that or just positive feedback. And we'd love the way that you're doing how do you stick to because you want your film to be seen you want to get the chance to make it right so how do you not bend totally but I knew what I was trying to make and it was important to me that it felt real and

the way I had it and the way I have it in the finished film is is what feels real to me what feels true and authentic and yeah no, no, I would rather not make the film at all than change it. But to answer your previous question, yeah, so it was really hard to get anyone to finance the film. What it ended up taking was just like a lot of convincing uh people individuals and smaller people who have smaller production companies and private investors um to give us money so we just hodgepodge together a bunch of money and uh not a bunch a little bit of money and um and you know also like Panavision, we really owe them a big thank you because they gave us their new filmmaker grant, which meant they gave us the camera and lenses and camera package for free. And that was a huge, huge help. And so, yeah.

How long did it take you to get it all together before you could start production? Oh, my God. Years. Four years or something? Oh my God. Years. Four years or something. It's amazing. Yeah. Do you ever want to quit? No.

It worked. Your film got into Sundance. It was incredibly well received. You won a prize. Obviously, the subject matter is really intense. You've talked in the past a little bit about how you were reflecting on some of your own personal experiences. I'm wondering like if it's helpful to write through your own experiences or your own point of view on some of these things, like is it therapeutic? Is it more just that you want to tell a story? How do you think about that? I don't think I started becoming a writer to,

you know, going like this is going to be therapeutic for me, but now that I've been doing it for so long, it is 100% therapeutic for me. Um, it's cathartic and it's, um, I think everyone should be in therapy. I go to therapy. Um, and I, there's so many things I work out in therapy, but then I go right. And that is like this whole other thing that you can't do just by talking to someone. And so, yes, the answer is yes. Lily McInerney is a find. Am I getting her name correct? Yes, that's how you pronounce it. How did you find her? Yeah, Lily is incredible. And, you know, one of the things I'm most proud of with the film, I worked with an amazing casting director, Kate Antonini, who really specializes in this sort of casting. And I felt like she, from our first conversation, really understood

what I was looking for. And it was exciting to me, the idea of discovering someone new. And I wanted her to feel like a real teenage girl. I didn't want people watching and recognizing some actor playing a teenager and be taken out of it. I also didn't want her to look or feel too old for the role. before but obviously if you've seen her performance as a it's as if she's done it a million times um but yeah she was a discovery and it was super cool conversely we've seen jonathan tucker before incredibly challenging role i imagine it's hard to cast for that role and at the same time there's something i don't know i guess juicy about a role like like that, you know, that is like it is a rich and complicated character and actors love rich and complicated characters. Hard to find somebody to play that part? You know, it's funny. I always thought actors love rich and complicated characters, but I would say not all actors actually do. There's a number of actors who I think are afraid of that or don't think it's on brand for them. So it can

be challenging. But my same casting director suggested Jonathan to me. And I knew who he was, but I hadn't seen his work in a few years. So I went and started watching his work. And I don't know if you've seen the show Kingdom. Oh, sure. Yeah. The MMA series. Exactly. And Jonathan is just mind-blowingly good on that show. And there was one moment on that show where it's a scene between him and his mother and I was watching it and I basically, he just did this one little thing and I thought he can convince my female protagonist to do anything, which was critical for the film. And yeah, so I knew, you know, and Jonathan in real life is one of the most charming, charismatic, nicest guys ever. But then at the same time, he's not afraid

to go to these dark places in his roles. So I just thought that was the perfect combination. And then of course, the fact that he is a veteran actor who's been doing this since he was, I think, 12 years old, and he's one of the little boys in Sleepers. He's one of the teenage boys in Virgin Suicides. So to pair him with Lily felt like it lent itself to the power dynamics at play in the story. Yeah, and he probably had a sensitivity for the position that she's in with the character. 100%. And they bonded really quickly.

And he really took her under his wing and it was really special. We're in this complicated moment with film and television production where intimacy coordinators have been introduced and the complexity or necessity of the sex scene is like a debate that you see happening all the time now in this case in particular it could be potentially very fraught so how do you prepare a set for some of the sequences that are in your film? How do you prepare your actors for those things? Yeah. So we had an intimacy coordinator as I think you all people need to have nowadays. But I will say that it was kind of just my experience was that it was a comfort to know she was there. But like we didn't end up needing more from her

than just her presence and just having some basic conversations. What really allowed us to go to the places we needed to go to with these scenes was the trust between me Lily and Jonathan um and you know we had spent weeks uh leading up to the production you know trying to build a relationship and spend time together and go get meals together and we had a we we have a group text chain that I always say is still to this day going off at all hours of the night and you know just becoming friends really so that when the time came to shoot those scenes everyone was

comfortable everyone could speak up to each other if something wasn't comfortable and yeah um how do you figure out the the look of the film from a color perspective because it simultaneously has this very specific feeling of Southern California where it feels like it is bright all the time, save for the weird six weeks of rain that we've had here, but also like kind of washed out. Like everything has been dried out and is empty and there's like a pinkish, yellowish quality to everything that also feels like bleached.

How do you capture that on screen? Well, again, since this project really stemmed from photographs I was taking on film, it would have been so cool to shoot on film, but that would have been a luxury that we didn't have. And so, you know, the colors really come down to, as I said, you know, location scouting. And like I saw a million diner hamburger joints all over L.A. And I was like, I want that one with the turquoise booth. So like it really comes down to those sorts of decisions. And I want her in that shirt that's that color. colorist Katie Jordan who was just incredible and um you know we did a Kodak Kodachrome emulation to make it kind of look more filmic and added grain and not to try to pretend we shot on film but just to give it a sort of look yeah it's really really effective um so the film gets acclaim at Sundance and then there's a period where you're trying to sell the movie it's hard to sell a movie with challenging subject matter as as you know, because you helped get the financing together for the movie.

It's here. It's out. It finally got distribution. But what did you learn from the world of independent film from going through this process in this very specific way? Because you're simultaneously being celebrated, right? You're sitting here. I'm asking you all these sequence questions. But also, you feel like you have to hustle to succeed. Any like big takeaways from that experience?

Yeah. I mean, it was definitely, um, a challenge for me to like, not get upset and, and keep my eye on the prize and just keep going and be like, we're going to find the right home for the film. And we did. And, um, but you know, the takeaway is, uh,

and I often say this a lot when I'm asked a question like this, but it really is the, the thing that resonates with me most. Another filmmaker once said to me, like, you have to be, um, kind of naive to be a filmmaker. And I mean, naive in the best sense of the word, and you have to be kind of naive to be a filmmaker. And I mean naive in the best sense

of the word. And you have to be kind of delusional. And again, I mean delusional in the best sense of the word. Like I just believed wholeheartedly in some delusional way that I was like, I was going to make a feature and I was going to get it made. And it didn't matter how many people told me, no, like this is what I was doing. And so to answer your question of like, what did I learn about independent film? Like I learned you cannot give up. Like if you're going to do it, you have to have like this insane psychotic drive. I don't know. Is it possible that it subconsciously influences someone in your position? I ask this because this has been happening since the 90s, but it's particularly true in the last 10 or 15 years where someone makes an independent film.

They pour their life, their experiences, their time, their resources, everything into this movie. And then as soon as they can, they vault themselves into the studio system because it seems easier. It actually is maybe a less of a personal investment in some ways, and it becomes more like a job. And I have no idea what you intend to do or what you want to do, but I am curious about this kind of critical stage in a filmmaker's career. I'd love to talk to filmmakers after their first film to see like, okay, now what?

How are you thinking about this now? Well, here's the problem. You go and make a studio film next next and that is great in so many ways and you don't face so many of the challenges that you faced on your small independent first feature but then your face you then you face all these other challenges that um that i think about a lot uh you don't have necessary you not, you don't have final cut. You don't get to make all the decisions yourself. I mean, I really, everyone who supported this project believed in me. That's why they were supporting the project. And I got to make pretty much all final decisions.

So that would be a serious learning curve for me. And not to say I don't want to do that. And like, that's exciting to me in many ways, but it's just something very different. What do you think you're going to do? You know, I was going to ask that. Yeah. I don't know. I'm looking for, I'm writing two things right now. And I'm also developing, I'm writing two features right now. I'm also developing some TV shows and I'm also looking to direct TV and I'm looking for the right partners. So I'm not saying I wouldn't make a studio film. I just would want to do it with the right people.

What's your relationship to streaming versus theatrical? And you obviously came in through the Sundance Film Festival and the film was day and date. It was simultaneously open in theaters and open on VOD. Does that matter to you? I feel like we I'm a film lover. I believe you go to the cinema to see cinema. I, um, I definitely used to have a stronger opinion on it, but now you have to weigh the idea of like, but would you rather more people see it? Um, what's really most important to you? And so, yes, there's nothing like going into that dark theater and being fully thrown into an experience where you're not looking at your phone and you're not pausing it to go grab something to eat. All of that is so special, but I don't know. I'm open-minded.

If I could have a project up and it's streaming and so many people are seeing it, that's really cool too. It's a paradox because it's easier for me even on this show to say, go check out Jamie's movie. You can fire up Apple or Amazon or whatever and just watch it tonight as opposed to wait for it to maybe come to your art house cinema. Maybe, but you have no control over that. It's a tricky thing. Jamie, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen you seen anything good lately yes can be anything yes let me think someone recently answered the roman coliseum i'd prefer if it were a movie or a television show

you know i uh i loved the rehearsal yeah let's talk about that for a second. So did I. I loved the rehearsal and I brought that, I'm bringing that one up because a few things came to mind, but that one I'm bringing up because it's so original. Um, and, and that's super cool. Your fellow independent spirit nominee, Nathan Fielder. Yes. I saw his speech. Yep. His speech was probably my favorite thing that happened the whole, you the whole time I was there. And then also my next favorite thing was at the after party for the Spirit Awards after party. It was at the carousel in Santa Monica. And when Nathan rode the carousel holding his trophy, holding his award, just a complete straight face, no emotion on his face, just riding circle after circle on the carousel alone. That was the highlight of my night.

What did you like about the rehearsal? Oh my God. Well, firstly, the twist at the end is so smart and you don't know that it's coming and it's, you know, like so much more complicated than you could even imagine the show like is about. Um, yeah. It's an amazing recommendation. I love that series. Jamie, congrats on palm trees and power lines. Thanks for doing the show. Thank you. Thanks to Jamie and thanks of course to our producer Bobby Wagner. Later this week we'll be back to talk about one of the most exciting movies of the year, John Wick Chapter 4, and Amanda and I will build the Keanu Reeves Hall of Fame.

We'll see you then.