The Big Picture - The Safdie Brothers and ‘Good Time,’ an Instant New York Classic | The Big Picture (Ep. 21)

Episode Date: August 11, 2017

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and K. Austin Collins discuss the Safdie Brothers’ new crime film, ‘Good Time.’ (0:30) Then, Sean sits down with the Josh and Benny Safdie to discuss making a movie starring Robert Pattinson, capturing New York City on-screen, and the frenetic pace of ‘Good Time’ (11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, I'm so excited to announce the newly relaunched Ringer.com this week. This is something that we've been working on for a long time. Really so proud to be launching with Fox Media on our new platform. I just check out the latest articles and videos and podcasts on the site because finally we have a chance to show you those things in the way that we've really always intended. And I'm just thrilled with how everything turned out. And special thanks to Miller Lite, who've been with us since the beginning and have been just fantastic partners for us.

We're thrilled to have them as the relaunch sponsor for the site. Miller Lite is the official beer of The Ringer. Okay, and now here's the big picture. Let's write it in. You know, we got Rob Pattinson. We can get this. And we did that so many times, like bank robberies, car crashes. Even though we had a lot more money, we still were kind of acting like we had no money. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and here's the big picture.

Today, I'm very excited to be joined by the Safdie brothers, Joshua and Benny. They have a new movie called Good Time, probably one of the single best movies I've seen this year. They've also made a couple of other New York classics, Heaven Knows What and Lenny Cook, for you basketball fans out there. But before I talk to the Safdies about their new Robert Pattinson starring Good Time, I'm going to be chatting with K. Austin Collins, film writer for The Ringer and just generally a thoughtful man who also happened

to love Good Time. Cam, thank you so much for joining me today. Great to be here. Cam, you and I both love Good Time. Let's talk about why. In your piece, you called it a New York City instant classic. Why did it feel that way to you? It's funny you start there because that's the thing I've been trying to think more about. And I think for me, part of it is just that it's a movie that's clearly made by people who are familiar with the city and who have a sense of what the monuments of the city are, but they're not, they're not drawn so much to those places. They're drawn to what it feels like to be on the streets of the city. Like the thing that I love that they do is the way that they film a lot of conversations happening on the streets in the midst of life going on all around the people that

we're watching. There's just like a sense of locality and just the people that they make movies about just feel very New York to me. I mean, I don't know if other people from other places feel like, you know, like heaven knows what could have been Portland, I guess, or something. But for me, it's just like, that is a city in New York that I know that I don't see a lot of in a lot of movies right now.

It's like, it feels like Good Time feels to me like what Panic in Needle Park must have felt like for people in the seventies or even Dog Day Afternoon. You know, these feels like good time feels to me, like what panic and needle park must've felt like for people in the seventies, um, or even dog day afternoon, you know, these, these movies that feel like they're just, they're, they're such so rooted in the place, but maybe in, in ways that are hard to define. It's just like a feel. Yeah. You mentioned dog day afternoon, which I think is a pretty, pretty good parallel for good time, obviously to also a story about brothers who are bank robbers who find themselves and you know trapped in this uh awkward and difficult situation uh good time

though to me is way more sort of kaleidoscopic and and intense and you know the colors of the movie are overwhelming and robert pattinson's performance is is probably the closest to you know the pacinoino in terms of intensity. But tell me about like the way this movie looks and the way that it feels in that way. I'm glad you bring that up because it's something that I really harped on in my piece. It's just the way that the cinematographer that they work with, Sean Price Williams, they've worked with him before. And this is a guy who's kind of big in the New York indie scene in particular. And he's filmed a lot of those like smaller budget, but just very, when he's shooting just very beautifully colorful and well-designed movies. And I think what he gives their movie is just this weird, he just bounces colors off of Robert Pattinson's face

throughout the movie, particularly when things get really weird, but there's just this way in which you're looking at Robert Pattinson's face and you're just looking at colors and you're just looking at the things that are going on all around him. And you're sensing at Robert Pattinson's face and you're just looking at colors and you're just looking at the things that are going on all around him and you're sensing things about what he's feeling from the ways, you know, from the ways they use light. It's like not abandoning realism really, but it's still doing something that's weird

and psychedelic and fraught and just, you know, anxiety inducing for me. You just feel like there's a lot going on in there. Yeah, it's completely like a hands around your neck sort of movie too in the pace, right? It moves so quickly. And I think, I think there's something, it's a little bit difficult to explain to people how hard it is to make a movie that has pace like that. Yeah. I mean, I jump out to you. Yeah. I, you know, I was just warning a friend mentioned, you know, going to see it on edibles. And I was like, I just feel like the dangerous move. dangerous move yeah i just i don't know if this is that movie i just i feel like that

would send me into a panic even just like the performances of people like jennifer jason lee who sort of shows up to be frenetic to just make me anxious yes because the way she's yelling at her mom and because the situation she gets herself into with Robert Pattinson's character, which is just like not a good look at all for anybody. It's living nervous energy the whole movie. It's just living. And what she's what she's right. She's like so good at just what's terrifying about it. Yeah.

And it's also just like for me, this the sense that like the the the imbalance between the brothers, like the frustration that I felt the entire time dealing with the one brother who's development disabled and finds himself in this situation and paying for it, like by going to Rikers, it's just like way, like not what he, you know, not something that he chose to be a part of.

And then just figuring out how Connie or Robert Pattinson's character is going to try to like get them both out of it. It's just like, it's one of those movies where just like the character just keeps making increasingly frustrating decisions. But in this case, Robert Pattinson's playing someone who's also very calculating. So I like trust that he sort of knows what he's doing, even as he's doing things that are just like, I really wish you wouldn't. We start to lose faith in his ability to make good choices as the movie goes on, I think.

But let's let's talk a little bit more about the Safdies. You know, you mentioned Connie's brother, who's played by Benny Safdie, who's one of the directors of the movie and co-stars. Josh and Benny make very New York, very real, for lack of a better word, movies. They're sort of in a pursuit of a kind of authenticity, not just about the city, but about people. And you mentioned in Heaven Knows What what the people look like and how they feel. Tell me a little bit more about their other movies and, you know, what kind of how you would describe them as filmmakers. a certain generation of indie filmmaker that includes people like Joe Swanberg and Alex Ross Perry and other people who seem to all have come up at the same time and who are now doing like good time sized projects. They favor this like spontaneous,

nervous, very New Yorkie kind of movie where it's just like characters who I feel like I'm watching energies rather than watching characters necessarily even even even as I like think about a movie like heaven knows what it's like it's based on the Ariel Holmes memoir and she's the star of the movie and it's very autobiographical but what I mainly like when I think about that movie I just think about how nervous it makes me and how nervous she is and that's the kind of movie that i associate with them even though like i i've gone back and watched some of their short films from like maybe 10 years ago um and the thing that they have in common is that like they're still pretty new york streets new york people

kinds of movies but earlier it seemed that they were doing more comedy and and now they're sort of like they're kind of taking the tools of comedy i think and kind of bending them in this very dark dark direction yeah i think but i think comedy is essential to what they do actually i think a lot of their protagonists remind me of people that i would see bolting out of bodegas in new york and i sort of would be trying to avoid somehow you know i'd be like this person just doesn't really seem like they have their shit together at the moment and so i don't really want to get in the way of them having to ask me for something, even if it's just directions, which, but you know, they, they also, I think they have a ton of empathy for these characters, for these people. And they are, I think in some

ways identify when you hear the conversation that we had, you can see that they, they are not lacking in energy as well. Um, but how do you, how do you view the way that they view the people in their worlds? I love it. I feel like, mean, I think something they've really, really gotten right and in good time and heaven knows what in particular is just like it feels like I'm experiencing New York City through their characters. Like it feels like they adapt their view of the world around these people to suit the people that the movie is about. You know, I think about heaven knows what What and the way that Ariel Holmes' character makes out with her boyfriend on the street. And it's just like, suddenly the way they film it, it's so focused on these two people

that you understand how these people have an intimacy even as they live in public. You know, like it feels like they allow these people to have private lives, private desires, even as they're happening in the midst of everything else. I think's very like sympathetic and i also think that they you know i also think they favor characters who are hard to sympathize with often enough um good time like i and sympathetic is a uh complicated word for a movie like good time because i don't think they're going out of their way to like criticize the character of connie but i do think they're eager to understand

how it is that he adapts and how it is that he survives and how he thinks. I think they think a lot of just about like the nature of their characters. And I feel like that's something that comes off. Everything seems to be determined by just who is this person. There's also something very specific about the way they handle race in this movie that I want to talk to you about. And,

you know, if you look at a lot of the, there, there are a couple of black characters who have sort of vital roles and in the way that they're positioned. And, Yeah. And what did you make of that in the movie? You know, for me, it's about it's about because I take, for example, the masks like I think Connie chose those masks. Right. And I think that Connie knows what he's doing when he manipulates race. Like, I think he I think for me, the movie is really getting at this is someone who understands how these systems work. This is someone who understands what he needs to do to survive like if if his mission is to break into a hospital and steal his brother from the prison wing of a hospital then he's going to do what he

has to do and if that means like he's going to throw black people under the bus when it's available to him he's absolutely you know like he's going to do that because he knows that he can because he knows that he can get away with these things. Right, pawns in the game. Yeah, you know, and it's just, I think that's fascinating. Like, I don't need the movie to go out of its way to say, and by the way, it's bad that he does that. Because I think it shows such an understanding of the way these things work systemically by being about a character who manipulates these things in such a clear way. And it was also very clear to me that that was intentional, which I know there's already been a little bit of discussion about. I'm curious to see how this plays out. And I know that some people are not satisfied with their angle here, but I think it was smart. I agree. It seemed very purposeful to me and it seemed like they had a point, which is that there

is something scurrilous about this guy in the lead and that he is willing to take advantage of anybody and he knows the best people to take advantage of in many ways. Right. I mean, and he, and he, and, but also that he doesn't know, like, like, you know, that the masks, for example, like they're still idiots. Like they still, that's right. That's right. You know, which, which I thought was really, which I thought was really apt. And, you know, it's like, he, he doesn't know what the systems are. He knows how to play the game, but he's still like an idiot. Well, Cam, you're far from an idiot. Thank you so much for chatting with me about the safdies in good time and uh we'll hear from you soon yeah thank you i'm really excited to be joined by josh and benny safty they have a great

new movie called good time out. Guys, what's up? Hello. What's up, man? How are you? I'm very good, thank you. Cool to be here. It's very cool to have you here. We were just talking about your movie Good Time and what it's like to have been making movies for 10 years,

but now to be getting a lot of shine. But first, tell me about what it's like now to get all this attention, having been working so hard in New York on films for a while. Yeah, like when I say we've been making movies for 10 years, we've been making feature films for 10 years before I basically left college just before I could have finished. And I just started making, I just started shooting a feature. I basically like hustled a feature out of a company they paid for.

They didn't even know what it was. And, you know, we were like very stubborn about things for a long time. So, you know, we were like, you know, never, never responding to any agents reaching out to us. Like movie stars were like, we had like deet on us. We're like, no, leave us alone. Like, you know, we just want to, you know, incubate, incubate, incubate. So, but we've been making these movies and they would get attention, you know, bless the critics.

Like they were always being, you know, very supportive of us and they saw what we were trying to do. Of course there were like, I don't read the reviews after my first movie because it was some guy told me he wanted to see me get hit by a train. So like, yeah, there's, you know, people take shit personally. This was the pleasure of being around. Yeah, I mean, that was, look, in defense of that guy, like, that was an experiment of a movie. And I never even intended for anyone to see it.

Now you want to get hit by a train? Yeah, I mean, I consider our first movie Daddy Long Legs. But like, yeah, we've been working towards this thing and incubating. And then, you know, basically over the past three or four, basically after Daddy Long Legs, we were really aiming to make this Diamond District movie. And it's been like this drive to make this movie. And then we'd make a detour and make Lenny Cook the documentary. Or we'd make a detour and make, you know, this hybrid film called Heaven Knows What. And then Heaven Knows What actually attracted Rob Pattinson.

And he was just like, whatever you want to do, I'm game. So we're like, all right, let's do this. So tell me about that. You said Rob Pattinson came to you guys after Heaven Knows What, which is also a really interesting and sort of experimental movie. It's interesting that he responded to it. But why did you decide to then write Good Time? What was it about the story? He saw a still that was released for the movie. And the movie, we premiered it

at these big highfalutin festivals and it got the attention and I'm very proud of that movie and we made it like, we basically just made it with nothing. And we just kind of did it. Because it was a very risky movie. It's a movie about a girl

who I met trying to make the Diamond District movie and I paid her to make the Diamond District movie, and, you know, it's her, I paid her to write about her life, and then we adapted her writings, and then she plays herself reenacting things that happened in her recent past, so it was like a, you know, but he saw a still that was released on the internet, and, like, reached out to us and said, you know, very much, like, in good time, his character gives this kind of very, kind of metaphysical, you know, spiritual speech, spiritual speech about his purpose and everything. His character is obsessed with his purpose. And he wrote his first email to us, was like, hey, we don't know each other, but I got your email

through a friend, and I just want to let you know I saw this still, and I don't know what it is, but there's something, it evokes some type of purpose that I feel like I have on this planet, is to work with you guys. And this is off of a still. He didn't see the movie. He didn't see the trailer. He saw a still. And it's not even, you know, that wild of a still, but the nuance of it, he just felt it immediately. And then we met, and then he saw the movie, and then he saw our other movies. And he was like, listen, whatever you want to do on game, whatever you're doing next, I want to be part of, even if it's catering on your movie. And I was like, no. But we were so dead set on this Diamond District film, which we're finally doing in the top of the year next year. And he wasn't right for the lead role.

And I didn't want to put him in a supporting part. So we wrote it for Rob. Like, we wrote this project. I was, like, really into, you know, American criminal and the prison ethos in America and, like, you know, the writings of Norma Mailer and the TV show Cops. So I just was like, you know, the writings of Norma Mailer and the TV show Cops. So I just was like, you know what, I have this major interest. My friend Buddy, who was in Heaven as well, was got out of prison recently. And I had all these journals that he kept. And I basically was like, you know what, let me mine this stuff. And let's make a,

I want to make a genre movie. I want to take all these things that we've learned over the past 10 years about like, what is real, what is fake, and basically put it into a thriller because we know that we figure out a way to tell like an ordinary story in a thrilling way. Let's tell a thrilling movie in a genuinely thrilling way. And it's cool. We get to see people like literally sitting on the edge of their seats. Like last night we did a screening and people were like the seat wasn't deep enough. Like they said they looked around and there was like – it was kind of a crazy screening screening last night there was like a lot of crazy people that i've seen on television and stuff

before and they're you know people probably have like big egos and stuff but everyone was just like a little kid literally i asked people they said the entire audience just shifted forward and watched the entire movie leaning forward so that was really cool to hear but it's it's strange because it's like yeah somebody said to us like oh you make movies in a very old-fashioned way and it's like what do you mean by that and like well if you don't have the money to make a specific film you don't make it it's like yeah that's pretty normal that makes sense to us if we were trying to make this diamond district movie but if we can't make it the way that we want to make it we won't make it then so we made other films in between and we would just like josh saying we would learn from each

one you know we made the documentary lenny Cook and we learned about narrative. It's like you need to say certain things because this is a real life and you can't leave things out. So you kind of really understand what's important, what the true essence of a story is. And then you apply that to fiction. And then we blend fiction and reality. And then, again, we were going to make the Diamond District movie. But it got pushed a little extra. So we're like, huh, we were going to make the Diamond District movie, but it got pushed a little extra. So we're like, huh, we have five extra months.

We don't want to just sit around and wait because that's the last thing that we want to do. We always get kind of uncomfortable. But, I mean, in defense of our decision, I actually don't think we could. I'm not saying. I'm fully in support of our decision. I think if we went and made Uncut Gems, which is this wild, big, expansive world about bling culture on 47th street where it has nba superstars and rappers and like it's a thriller also you know i think that i think we wouldn't have done it well i think good time we learned so much and i you know we figured out we've been yeah we were it was it was a blessing that like we were forced by the world to kind of

make these other films to to learn what we didn't know you know but i but i found like like recently people were like i'm constantly telling people like oh this isn't one of make these other films to learn what we didn't know. But I found like recently people were like, I'm constantly telling people like, oh, this is one of the best first films I've ever seen. I was like, because it's not our first film. But so I wanted to ask you about that, right? Because the movie is, I think in some ways, a leveling up. You've got a movie star and it seems like you've got more money you're working with. It's a bigger marketing budget and all that.

But totally in keeping with the style and some of the themes of your other movies. It's about some hapless characters. It's in New York. It's about winners that don't win. Winners that don't win. That's a good way to put it. That's my way. You know, also, it's about brothers.

You guys are brothers. Benny, you're in the movie. I want to know a little bit about that, about kind of your working dynamic on these movies and your decision to cast yourself in it and how all that came about. I mean, working together, we really just kind of your working dynamic on these movies and your decision to cast yourself in it and how all that came about. I mean, working together, we really just kind of vibe it out. We don't really, we don't delineate specific things like,

oh, you deal with the acting and I'll deal with the camera. I mean, on a technical level, I am dealing with the camera and he's literally booming when he's not acting. He runs the boom because that's like an overlooked job. Like people, that's a very intimate job on a set. That's usually the person who's closest to the action, usually more closer than the camera. So that's interesting, I think, for the actors

to all of a sudden look up and see one of the co-directors like booming, doing like kind of a thankless job. Do they have more respect for you because of that? I think so. But it also allows you to see parts of the performance that you wouldn't necessarily see on the camera so i kind of can get a feel for that and i'll josh and i will talk it's like okay how did it look how did it feel and we kind of put the two together and then i guess he had the decision to cast myself it was just like it just was it was organic in the sense that we were trying

to look to cast somebody who was maybe have had some developmental disability. There's some really great people, but there was something it didn't feel right because the schedule we're going to work on the speed at which we needed to work. And we had interviewed all these people and we kind of got a sense of how we would have to get the performance out of them. And it didn't seem fair. You know, we have to push them in ways that they didn't want to be pushed and it just didn't seem like it was a moral thing. We don't want to make that kind of movie. We don't want to do that.

So you mentioned your character is developmentally disabled at Robert Pattinson's brother. What was it like? Were you nervous about taking that on? Were you concerned about taking criticism for something like that? I did not even enter. It was a character that my co-writer, Ronald Bronstein,

him, Benny, were developing that character seven years ago. And we wrote it with that character that they developed, this character named Jordan, in mind. And we basically had this kind of obnoxious, it's almost a pretension, like, no, we're going to be real. We're going to get a real disabled person so that they'll bring the truth and we have to cast a real disabled person

because what's going on in the world these days you want to know, oh that's a disabled performer but the more the deeper we got into the audition process like Benny's saying, the more we found that and we were looking at the schedule and these insane action sequences, set pieces,

that like it actually would have been impossible. And also just like- And Benny's like, I've had the pleasure of watching Benny act since we were kids. Like he's always been a great actor. He's always been wowing me. And, you know, I just, you know, we knew our financiers, there was a lot of like actors

who wanted to play that role too. And they were sending tapes in, but a lot of people, you know, no offense to them. It's difficult thing to do. We're playing the part and not being the part. And Benny has the ability.

I mean, I believe like this, this actor, we like revere and love, like basically said, he came up to me. He's like, so normally when you play,

like, how did you play that part? And I'm like, why are you telling me how to play that part? But he's like, it was insane. And he said, well, normally when you, when you do that, you're, you're looking at somebody. So who did you study? And I'm like, you're telling me how to play that part? But he's like, it was insane. And he said, well, normally when you do that, you're looking at somebody. So who did you study? And I was like, well, I studied myself. I looked into myself, and that's where

it came from. And I really do believe that the feelings and emotions that Nick feels are inside of me somewhere. And I think that with any actor, it's like you're pulling from what's inside. It sounds like an interesting writing process you mentioned that ron ronstein you got you guys worked on a character how do you fit all those pieces together when you're when you're doing something like this well i i think that from a writing standpoint like we basically because like we we knew we were gonna pair rob pattinson with like certain first timers and you know other actors as well but anyone who wasn't playing the version of themselves so we like did these obsessive character biographies

like obsessive like with with Rob with Connie the character Rob plays we literally it starts his back his biography starts when he's born and it ends with the minutes leading up to when he enters the movie in the opening scene. And, you know, I think that what that did for us as writers is we knew what Connie was like. We could pull from anything. So we would just basically, we had very few parameters of what was going to happen in the script. We knew that we wanted it to be, you know, a one-night type film, a thriller, a crime drama. But we didn't know the details of how it was going to, you know, the rabbit hole. So we would just, like, take it one scene at a time and almost write it stream of conscious. And we'd be like, oh, okay, now he gets here.

How would he get out of this scenario? Okay. And we just knew the guy and we knew the landscape of America and, you know, at the time. So we were like, oh, he could do this, he could do that. And we were surprised. We'd be like, yeah, that actually is very plausible. And sometimes we'd be like, well, that's fucked up that this is very plausible yeah the amusement park yeah so what's interesting also is so josh and ronnie will write and then ronnie and i would edit this and so it was kind of then there was kind of a

separation where now we're going through the same process with the editing and then josh would come in and they would bounce off ideas with me and then we would bounce off ideas with josh the editing was crazy because they were editing in different places so i'd go from working with ronnie and then i'd run over to work with benny and then i'd have to have this like string in my mind that's like okay this is what's happening with ronnie and then they're communicating with each other it was just like well it was all a matter of like they were like the like these three like with like the heads would always always come together but uh in the editing was also just very clear like you had okay there's now another character like these three, like the heads would always come together.

But in the editing, it was also just very clear. Like you had, okay, there's now another character that's involved, and that's Pace. Pace became very important, whereas it's like that was only evident like really while we were filming, you're not really thinking about it. Once you start actually seeing it constructed, you realize, okay, there's this fourth dimension almost to the movie that really needs to kind of push forward because you need to move forward. It's like literally it's like a shark.

The moment it stops swimming, it dies. You mentioned, Sean, your direct photography. The pace of the movie is incredible. The way that it looks is incredible. It's very loud. You have this awesome soundtrack by One of Tricks Point Never. He's the best, yeah. Does all that stuff get conceived ahead of time and you think that you're going to have this propulsive machine that is moving at all times?

What's wild is when we wrote the script and we were sharing with our financiers and stuff, the script was like about 118 pages with margin cheating. 130. Something like that, yeah. Optics are everything. Personally, just to be like we're getting in under two hours here? Basically.

But we knew it was a problem on our end. We're like, guys, we knew we wanted this to be a 90-minute movie conceptually. We wanted it to be a rocket. We wanted it to be a piece of pulp, something that seemed almost disposable. You know what I mean? Like that you can just consume like a comic book. Oh, yeah, I can go to a movie and I can go to get something to eat before also. You know, like we don't want to waste anyone's time.

And Connie is like all about time. He needs to maximize his time in the movie. So that was a conceptual kind of driving force throughout everything. Through like when- And Dan was attached before we even started. 10 Tricks Point Never was attached right after Rob was attached. He was like someone we wanted to work with. And we were like, let's attach him right away.

He was attached before even we had the money like lined up. So it was like, it was up so it was like it was interesting that it was like rob pattinson and one of tricks point never were like our two first and buddy duress were the first basically you know the the only things that were really attached to the movie and sean and 35 millimeter too but you know we it was this there was this driving kind of overarching concept like the concept of the movie is that it's vertical, it's top down, like literally everything is in sync with one another. The, you know, the, the, the music and the photography and the length of scenes, it's all kind of working in conjunction with it, with each other. Hey guys, we're going to take a quick break so I can tell you about a new movies podcast on the

Ringer Podcast Network. It's called The Rewatchables. You can imagine what this is about. It's about movies you can rewatch. So what happens on this podcast? Bill Simmons and a roundtable of people from the ringer universe talking about movies they can't seem to stop watching. If you're a sucker for cable movies that are on constant repeat, this is the show for you. This week, we're breaking down what else? One of my favorites, A Few Good Men. Chris Ryan, Amanda Dobbins, and Bill are chatting about that. So subscribe and listen to the rewatchables wherever you get your podcasts. All right, now back to my conversation with the Safdie brothers. Tell me about making a bigger movie in New York. Was it much harder to do this time?

Well, what's weird is we had more money. We had more permission. Considerable, a lot more money than we've ever had before. And more permission to even shoot. And we had more permission. And it's, but it's like, it's like you- But like we wrote in like Adventureland into the movie and like Ronald Bronstein fromstein from long island he was just like let's write it in you know we got rob pattinson we can get this and we did that so many times like bank robberies car crashes like we did it so many times that like we even though we had a lot more money we still were like kind of acting

like we had no money in a weird way because a yes we were trying to do a really aggressive schedule the movie should have been an extra 10 days to shoot. How many days did you guys do? We had 36 days. I think it was less than that. It was 30. Actually, it was like 37, actually. Oscar is breaking it down. It was 32, but it technically was 37.

Because if you count how many hours. No, it was actually 37 days. Was it? Okay. But it was spread out over like. But each day was like 16, 17 hours. It was a lot. Our assistant director was like, you're doing an action sequence. It will take you all day to do this quarter of a page.

It's hard. What are you talking about? You don't understand how we work. There's a certain energy that comes to just kind of shooting on the street without a permit. And you kind of have to really go fast. And that energy gets kind of built into the movie. Now we have full permission to use this mall, for example, where they run through in the chase.

It's like how do we capture that same feeling and that energy of theft and just the excitement? But we didn't ask ourselves these questions. No, that's the thing. We realize it now. It's like we get, we're like, really, we have the full mall. And it's like, okay, we got one take. We'll put one camera here, one camera here,

and then we'll call it out and we'll run in and we'll just tail slate and all this stuff but we don't have to steal the shot it was just an instinct you know like that's how we have how would we capture it if we got we wrote in new world mall which is a huge asian mall in flushing queens and and we got it our location manager is a g he worked for the cohen's like he's just amazing samson jacobson uh and and we we he's like i I got us a New World Mall. I'm not like, I was like, does that mean we could shoot anywhere he goes? I think so. And then we get there and we see the supermarket, which was open.

And we said, we don't want them to close down the mall. We'll shoot, you know, separate, surreptitiously on the side. But like, there was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people shopping. And we were like, no, we want to film in here. And they're like, okay, sure. We have Rob and Benny running through there at full speed. They said, just don't hit anybody. So we were like, we just approached

every location, like even when we had permission, like we were stealing it in a weird way. But like you have a cop saying just don't hit anybody. It's like, okay, great. And then that in turn helps the performance because it's like, you're running full speed and you can't hit any dodging people you have to literally dodge through this crowd because if you hit somebody there will be a consequence even though even though we had the permission there was this there was the cop there saying for the first take of

course i barrel into somebody and he was an extra he knew he was gonna get hit and all this stuff but the cop was like yeah what have I just done? Well, because our extras casting was so involved, too. Our extras casting, they didn't just pick people out of pictures. They would interview people. Everyone got interviewed. So it was so particular, and it just blended right in with the public in that scenario. So all of our extras, nobody knew if they were actually there to shop or if they were actually acting in the movie. And that was the whole movie, kind of, in a scenario. So all of our extras, like nobody knew if they were actually there to shop or if they were actually acting

in the movie. And it was, you know, that was like the whole movie kind of in a way. Yeah, the blend of non-professional with professionals

is really interesting too. And you even have people who have sort of significant roles. You know, the woman who, Robert Pattinson visits her home later in the movie,

you know, she's not, she's not amazing. But she wasn't a professional actor. No, no. First time actor. She has,

but she has the incredible, incredible ability to say anything and have it be real. Yeah. It's unreal to see that in somebody where you're just like, oh, my God. Tell me about what movies you guys – do you watch movies before you start making a movie? It's weird. Like we don't – of course we watch a lot of movies. We have always watched a lot of movies.

We started watching movies to try to find answers because our dad didn't want to sit down and have conversations with us about serious shit. So he'd be like, watch this movie instead. Kramer versus Kramer. Okay, you're going to go back to your mother now. Yeah, a child of divorce, I get it. He's like, I'm Dustin Hoffman and your mother is Meryl Streep. Yeah, and then we had to go hang out with our mom

for the first time in a long time. And we were just like, why are they being so mean? That's how you breed loyalty. Exactly. I mean, hey, it's propaganda. Movies are pure propaganda. That's kind of what it taught us. Weirdly, we watched one movie, actually watched it with Rob and everything.

But we watched it not for its cinematic qualities. We watched it almost because it's the Executioner song. It's a TV movie. Performative quality. Which the book was a huge inspiration on. The Mailer book. Yeah, the executioner song. It's a TV movie. Performative quality. Which the book was a huge inspiration on. The Mailer book. Yeah, the Mailer book. We were just like, we weren't going to sit around and read a thousand page book together.

We sat down and we watched a movie. And Tommy Lee Jones' performance is really interesting. Yeah, it's incredible. But we talked about the tradition of movies that we wanted to kind of make this in like you know we wanted to make a movie in the tradition of like you know 48 hours or or an after hours or anything hours anything hours you know but but you know the running man like we want there were these ideas of movies movies that we loved as kids but it wasn't like one thing like it's gonna be like this meets that i mean when someone saw the movie for the first time that's when the best we didn't i don't know how to do that thing but like when we when we

when we showed it to someone for the first time like it's like rain man meets dog day afternoon and i was like that's awesome yeah because it totally is what i and what i love about rain man is just again it's like you have the the tom cruise character his intentions are so messed up yeah taking his brother you know and it's the same thing and i was like wow you know that that's almost like he here just to a different extreme but um yeah there's you just also go to the ending of rain man he's like do you want to live with your brother he's like yes do you want to stay here yes and it's like there's that same kind of that's true you guys hadn't discussed that at all no no i talked with ronnie a little bit about rain man

when we were writing but and and actually i bit about Rain Man when we were writing. And actually, I did watch that movie when we were writing. And Ronnie was like, you know, he's amazing. And he was just like, I'm not going to watch Rain Man. Why are we going to watch Rain Man? And then he's like, I watched Rain Man last night. But, you know, just because it actually has aged really, really, really well. We look more to like a show like Cops.

We're looking for the nuance there. We try to figure out a way to bring something like that to a movie. Some great mirroring of the things you see in the movie and in the end of the movie. Totally. So let's just wrap up. Tell me a little bit about Uncut Gems. This is a big movie. Uncut Gems is the movie we've been trying to make since 2010.

It's almost scary that now we're actually going to do it. And it stars Jonah Hill as a maniacal gambler who's a – basically he's a jeweler in the Diamond District. Okay. I'm in. Like a Bukharian Jew who is like from the disciple of Jacob the jeweler. And he mingles with – he's an obsessive gambler and that doesn't stop with bookies and sports. He's obsessed with NBA basketball. And he doesn't stop – his gambling doesn't stop with bookies and he's obsessed with NBA basketball and he doesn't stop, his gambling doesn't stop at the bookies

it goes to his wife, his girlfriend you know, his entire business, everything he does is a gamble. But everything's falling apart but he's smuggled into the country. Well he owes a bunch of bookies like, you know a lot of money and it's starting to come home to roost. I gotta take care of this.

And he has this 600 carat black opal that he smuggled into the country it's gonna fix all of his problems all the problems the main problem is that he

a huge NBA superstar comes in and he lends it to him because the guy's like I need to borrow this for one night and that guy has an incredible game

and he thinks it's because of the opal so he won't give it back and it's like oh god there's a lot more that happens what's interesting is it has the thriller aspect but back. And it's like, oh, God. There's a lot more that happens. What's interesting is it has the thriller aspect, but it's very funny.

The element of comedy is much larger. The situations are so insane, what he gets into. This movie is the most ringer, our place movie of all time based on the description. Josh, Benny, thank you guys so much for having us today. Congrats on good time. Thank you.