The Big Picture - What Inspires Gus Van Sant? | The Big Picture (Ep. 76)

Episode Date: July 13, 2018

Ringer editor-in-chief Sean Fennessey chats with acclaimed filmmaker Gus Van Sant about his lasting legacy in film, reteaming with Joaquin Phoenix on 'Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot,' the role his late friend Robin Williams played in the film, and where to go when you’ve accomplished so much. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If it's getting badly reviewed and no one's going to see it, it's something you have to accept as a reaction to what you've made, and it can't always be good. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most interesting filmmakers in the world. 17 movies, 33 years, two Oscar nominations, box office hits, and a spot in the Art House Hall of Fame. There isn't much that Gus Van Zandt

hasn't accomplished in his filmmaking career. From his early independent triumphs like Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho to mainstream successes like Good Will Hunting and Milk, Van Zandt has made modest but powerful movies about outsiders living on the fringes of society that have become etched into the culture. His latest, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, tells the story of the cartoonist John Callahan. Joaquin Phoenix, who got his big break from Van Zandt in 1995 and to die for, reunites with him to play Callahan, an alcoholic who was rendered quadriplegic after a car accident at 21 years old. Van Zandt's movie traces Callahan's simple but amazing story. I talked to the writer-director about re-teaming with Phoenix,

the role his late friend Robin Williams played in the film, and where to go after you've accomplished so much. Here's Gus Van Zandt. Sincere honor to be joined by Gus Van Sant. Gus, thanks for coming in. Thanks. Gus, this is your 17th film, and I'm wondering what it takes for you to decide to choose a project at this stage of your career.

So why this movie? Why now? I think probably all of them are chosen because they're things I don't know about. They're worlds that exist as worlds that I haven't ever been in them. So in this case, the world of John Callahan, his quadriplegia, his alcoholism, his cartooning, the 12 steps, were all sort of things that were mysterious and interesting at the same time. Do you think of them as an opportunity to just dive in deep and then do a lot of research into those worlds? Is that why you choose them?

Yeah. And so what goes into that? What do you do? Where do you start? Or that you're building the world from scratch because you don't really know about it. So you're following leads. And, you know, like sometimes the person next to you knows all about it. So you're listening to people talk about it and creating.

Do you feel the need to be really faithful to that? No, I'm not. To the book, you mean? Yeah, to any, that's kind of source material. Like in general, like that's sort of something that gets me involved in, you know, projects in general. But in this case, I mean, it was an invitation by a friend or by Robin Williams, who was an actor, and a friend that I'd worked with in Good Will Hunting who had optioned the book, and he wanted to play John. So he invited me to help create a screenplay for it in the 90s.

Yeah, this was many years ago. And was his passing, did that spur this back in your mind, the idea for this film? Because he died, yeah, because Robin died, Sony Pictures had called and said, we have this book, are you interested in it? You used to be involved in it, so are you still interested? And I started writing a new adaptation to see if I was interested.

And before I really fully answered them, I created a screenplay on spec. And I went in with Joaquin and sort of pitched it, something they already owned. And they decided not to do it. Fascinating. So even though they had it and I was interested and I created a new screenplay, which was really more for me do it. Fascinating. So even though they had it, and I was interested, and I created a new screenplay, which was really more for me than it was for them. And brought a star in.

Brought a star in who was interested as well. They weren't interested, so they did allow us to take it elsewhere. Interesting. Is that something you've done before? That seems pretty risky, to devote that kind of time to something. Yeah, I don't remember what period, like when I went in and pitched it. I might have not only done sort of a rough draft, then gone in, pitched it, and then worked on it some more. But with Joaquin, I had an early draft.

That's so interesting. How important is it for you to be a writer on some of your projects now? Because you wrote a lot of your early films, and then you've worked on a lot of adaptations of other screenplays. Is it something you want to do more of as time goes by? Do you like doing it when it's yours? Recently, yeah, I've been wanting to do projects that are mine. Why?

In a lot of cases, you're reading some material that you're relating to and you're kind of bringing to life, but you haven't really constructed it. Somebody else constructed it. You've gotten into the construction. You're sort of interested in the construction. But if you have more to do with the construction, there's just more skin in the game, I think.

It's often observed that the characters that you gravitate towards are outsider figures or on the fringes in some respects. Is that a conscious thing for you, the people that you gravitate towards are outsider figures or on the fringes in some respects. Is that a conscious thing for you, the people that you're attracted to, or is that just something that someone says to you and it becomes known as a thematic quality of your work? Well, it started with Malinoche. I have been sort of interested in, like, when I do one thing, I tend to do more than one.

I like Drugstore Cowboy was another one that was similar. And then My Own Private Idaho was the third one. And then after that, I did Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which was quite different. Not really the fringes. It was like an unknown world, but it wasn't really the same type of fringe element that the other ones had. Did you purposefully do that to say, I'm not just the person who does these kinds of stories? No, I wasn't really trying to make a statement. I was just reacting to things as they came.

Something new was welcome because I maybe had done three different projects that had similarities. The newness of Cowgirls was very welcome. What's it like? Cowgirls seemed like it was a complicated movie. It was not as acclaimed as your previous three films. And I was thinking about this with The Sea of Trees as well.

It was not as acclaimed. What is it like for you to receive that kind of criticism? How does your career go forward after stuff like that? Because for the most part, I would say 95% of your films are wildly acclaimed. You roll with the punches, I guess. Because, you know, if it's not, if it's getting badly reviewed and no one's going to see it, it's something you have to accept, you know, as a reaction to what you've made. And it can't always be good.

How important is it for you, for a lot of people to go see your films at this stage? You kind of always want people to see what you're making. So, I mean, it's important. Are you doing like a mental calculus for if it makes this much money, it's good? No, no, no. I mean, most of my movies haven't made that much. But you have had a few bursts of massive success too.

I wonder if that shifts the scales in any way. I mean, not really in my world. You know, in the types of films that I've tried to make, they're usually somewhat new or risky. So I haven't really been playing that kind of game. I think if I was playing that kind of game, I would probably be playing it with a lot more money. Has that been something you've ever wanted to try,

a big, massive production? I'd love to try it. Yeah. But it hasn't happened. Okay. I'm not sure why. This is interesting that you're reunited with Joaquin. I feel like the first time a lot of people saw Joaquin was in To Die For, and you hadn't worked together since then. Is that right? No, we haven't. We've been in touch with each other, but we haven't worked on anything. So this was one of the attempts that we have had in the past to work together that worked out. I mean, there was good chances that it wasn't going to work out, but yeah, it made it. How much time passed from that pitch session at Sony to getting this movie off the ground? About three years. Three years. And he was willing to do it and on the line the whole time or does

his schedule have to free up? No, he had other things that he was doing. At first it was just sort of like a hypothetical and then eventually it became like a scheduling thing. What is the conversation that you have with an actor like that about getting interested in a project? Is it that you guys have

a commonality of interest in Callahan's life and say, yes, I'd like to work on this and do this? Or does he have something new that he wants to add to it? I think I sent Joaquin the book that John had written about his life. And I think that's the thing that he said he was very interested in. And then from there, I was creating a script as I was making different drafts. Okay. And then from there, I was creating a script as I was making different drafts. Okay.

Has his style or approach to acting changed at all since you guys first worked together? No. I mean, at 20, when he did To Die For, he was very committed to a character, almost like obsessed with the character. When he did it, I can remember all the little steps and how sort of excited he was about like everything he could sort of put into this character and same with John

he became like very you know like a student of partly John and then partly his creation of John. Does he spend all of his time on set in a wheelchair? I mean, is it truly immersive in that way? No, no, he's not immersive in that kind of a way,

but he is totally studying it all the time. How much access do you have to the— is there a John Callahan estate? Do you have to get people to agree to communicate about those things? I mean, we were hoping to get a collaboration with the estate and we met the brothers. He has, like, numbers of brothers who ran the estate. And they were super happy.

They knew about the project for years and years since we'd been working on it since the 90s. They were happy that it was finally coming together. So that we accomplished. They had a lot of access to, like, the cartoons that we were going to be using. It was important emotionally to have their favor and then also cartoon-wise. Walk me through the building of the character that Jonah Hill plays, who I think is going to surprise some people.

It's a really great performance, very different from anything he's done before. How did you land on him and how did you guys end up getting to where you did with this character? The basics of Donnie were in the book. When John first went to AA, he was very nervous, and he was afraid to speak. And he was afraid of everyone there, and he didn't know if it was a cult or what to think until Donnie walked up to the mic and cracked a joke. And John in his book says he was rocking that Tom Petty look or a Tom Petty look. Yeah. It kind of put him in perspective and the idea that he'd crack this joke about, you know, he had two pairs of pants, one with shit in them and one without. And he didn't care which one he was wearing, which was the joke.

But from there, asking Jonah to play the role, we had filled Donnie out quite a bit, quite a bit. Cause in the book, he's, he's in chapter five. A lot of it's about Donnie chapter five, but it doesn't really go in so far into the details as we do in the movie that mostly came from building it, you know, just sort of like scene by scene. And also, um, John's recollections of Donnie, which were more things that happened in interviews rather than the book. He very much sort of gave Donnie credit for saving his life. So it was kind of those two things together were what kind of were inspiring us

to make Donnie like a mentor to John. And when Jonah came on, we tried to see if rocking the Tom Petty look was possible by using a blonde wig. And it looked pretty possible. So we pursued that. Jonah added a lot with his just interpretation of what we had written. He has a very interesting style. His sartorial approach is very memorable. Yeah.

One of the things that's interesting about this movie is the structure of it and the way that you tell the experience that John has, how he eventually becomes injured and finds himself in a wheelchair. And it's a bit shattered at times. And I was wondering when you're writing a story like this, even though you're basing it on a book, are you putting it in that distinct order or are you building it linearly and then smashing it up when you start editing the film? Well, because I'd already made two different drafts with writers. There had been a lot of work already. I knew the book very well. And I think what I was doing when I was writing the new draft was just going to my favorite parts and writing those out without any particular order and then connecting them with appearances that he made on stage and also working with his own group, telling his story.

I was sort of connecting the kind of greatest hits, scenes that I'd remembered with those scenes just to see if that would work. So it was already smashed up pretty much. Are those scenes where he's speaking in front of people, are those also in his book or where did those come from? No, they're not in, I don't think that they're in the book.

They're, he refers to a night that he has where it's a night with John Callahan where he's very nervous. He doesn't really go into detail about their performance. There's a number of – I can't remember where we got that. I never saw the actual night with John Callahan. It exists on tape, I found out recently. Oh, wow. But I didn't get to see that I think we just made it up

we just you know I had done enough appearances on stage to like just kind of wing it John had a lot of

things in the book to talk about that we just sort of put on stage about his life about things that happened in his life. So we took things from the book and kind of had him say them on stage.

It's really fascinating. Hopefully you can help explain kind of the context of independent film right now. This movie is being distributed by Amazon, which is significantly different than maybe how movies were distributed four or five years ago. You've lived through, worked through a few cycles of this now. What do you make of it in the way that movies are funded? Is it easier or harder for you now as a filmmaker? Well, this particular Amazon release isn't really different from, you know, say the late

80s when I started out. It's even the same people. I mean, the same theaters, the same people that had produced before Ted Hope at Amazon. He's working at Amazon, but he was originally in the business of financing movies and calling together foreign sales to produce movies. Bob Burney is very experienced in theatrically releasing films.

So as of yet, it's not that much different than the past for me. And it will end up on Amazon's website. So in that context it is different. That part is different. As a filmmaker, how do you feel about films being watched in those services versus in the theater? I'm all for it.

Yeah. You just want more people to be able to see your films? It's always been, the theatrical exhibition has always been one of how can we make the most money? It's always been the theatrical exhibition has always been, you know, one of like, how can we make the most money? You know, like the reason they built the movie palaces was so they only had to show like one print to thousands of people rather than, you know, having thousands of Nickelodeons that each person, Nickelodeon was like an early version of an iPhone. It's about the same size. And you watched movies on it

like you'd watch YouTube. So it's just, it's a little different if people are watching it on iPhones or projecting it at home or watching it on a computer. But it's still a platform of sorts. So you're platform agnostic at this point? I think so.

Okay. I mean, there's a romance to seeing something on a really big screen in a big theater. But it's the most romantic when it's, say, like a thousand-seat theater and it's an old movie palace. I mean, that's always going to be amazing. I do like seeing it that way still.

How do you figure out where to go next at this point? Well, usually for me, I like to see what happens when the film comes out and see what people think and then move from there. Will you tweak something on your next film based on the reception of your previous film? No. No. You mean change the edit? No, no, no. Just say like, I was going to do this movie, but actually maybe I should do this.

Yeah, I would. Really? I think I would. Is there anything that you regret not doing that you walked away from at some point? Only movies that have done well. Like I walked away from... Who's the star? Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal.

Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain. Yes. I walked away from that. That did go on to be quite successful. And that was huge. Yeah, that was huge. And that was all my fault.

Yeah, that must be mildly frustrated. Yeah. But who knows if you were to do it, maybe it would have been a different thing. Yeah, that's true too. You never can tell. Call me by your name. That was one. Oh, interesting.

But I think that definitely would have been different. Yes. And probably not. My version probably wouldn't have been as good. I'm not so sure. That's maybe another episode of the show. What's your favorite thing about making films at this point? I mean, I like writing them.

I mean, it's sort of the difficulty and the excitement of writing something is the most exciting thing for me. Shooting them is the hardest part. Editing is kind of fun. But really just writing, I think, is the most fun. Is the writing any easier or more difficult as time goes by? It seems about the same. Yeah? What is your process? Are you sequestered somewhere alone, not to be disturbed?

Well, usually in the morning I'll write for three hours and then everything else is kind of done later. If something's done later, it would be more like editing or researching, something like that. And then the next morning I'll write again for three hours. Okay. What are you going to do next? Do you know?

I don't know. So I end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. So what is the last great thing that you have seen? So what is the last great thing that you have seen, Gus? It's really up to you how seriously you take the word great here in this question.

Well, I was watching the TV show Pose, which is FX, which I thought was really good. What did you like about it? I just liked that they were able to get into that world and make it seem realistic.

Okay. Gus, thanks so much for doing this. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to this week's episode of The Big Picture. For more on Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, please check out TheRinger.com, where Adam Naiman reviewed the film and wrote about Van Sant's career. And if you like movies, check out The Rewatchables. We're doing a special one about the 10 year anniversary of step brothers. And if you like reading about step brothers,

there is an amazing oral history on the site by Alan Siegel. So check that out too.