Wild Card with Rachel Martin - Celine Song is troubled by love

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Celine Song's films, "Past Lives" and "Materialists," invite the viewer to just slow down. To take in the silence, a gaze, the moments in between words. In her conversation with Rachel, Celine describes how she tries to slow down in her own life, how she's making peace with laziness and how she thinks of enjoying a good meal as something close to prayer. To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Are there any recurring symbols that show up in your life? Every time there is some huge shift in my life, every time there's a change, I have often seen a dead cockroach. I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. You should laugh. It's really funny. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation. Each week, my guest answers questions about their life, questions pulled from a deck of cards. They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one back on me.

My guest this week is film director Celine's song. I believe that love is something that always troubles me, you know, and I think that that's really the reason why I get so interested in it. There's something countercultural about Celine Song's movies. Like everything in our lives now moves so fast, right? We speed through our social media feeds, our phones are filled with 20-second video clips. Even the pace and dialogue in movies can feel like rapid fire. Celine's song makes movies that force everyone watching to just slow down.

And by doing so, we get to linger in the most profound moments, the power of a long silence, a gaze that says more than any dialogue could. She's a writer and director who understands that emotional intimacy is just as important as a good story. And that is clear in both her debut feature Past Lives and her new film, Materialists. Celine Song, welcome to Wildcom. card. Hi. Thank you for having me. So excited to be here and talk to you. Round one. Memories. First three cards. Here we go. One, two, or three? Let's do two. Two. What's a story your family always tells about you?

Huh. There's a home video of me where I'm at a family event and I'm very young. I think I'm like six, seven, something very young. Yeah. And I think that I'm I was like so aware of where the camera is. I think that I literally am trying to get the adults to pay attention to this camcorder. And I think I'm literally going like, everybody, look at the camcorder, everybody look at the camera, insistently. I think that would be really the right one. It's like, everybody, go look at the camera. Isn't that weird? It's so funny.

I mean, I think about it all the time. It's like you didn't, you were doing. directing even then. Yeah, I was kind of like, guys, cameras on set. Let's roll. Stop messing around. Stop messing around. And I'm so young in it. And I just feel like I'm already like trying to like boss these adults around, you know. Was that sort of your MO in your family? Were you bossy? I think I'm, I've been bossy all my life, you know. I'm the eldest daughter. I think that, you know, I'm very in charge. Like, you know, like I learned English. I was ESL and I learned English. And a part of that is that like I learned very fast because I wanted to survive and

boss people around, I think. Yeah. What, um, how old were you when your family immigrated to Canada? Oh, when I was like 12, 13. I wonder if being in observer mode was a safe place for you, too. Like landing in a new culture and directors and filmmakers are always observing things. And maybe you got that from that experience too. Like if you didn't feel a part of something, maybe it felt safer to just sit and look at it. Well, I wonder, because, I mean, I'm not necessarily sure if it was I got to observe because the part of being different than other people and then, like, not being great in English, is that you're actually center of attention in some ways, right?

Because it's like, everybody's looking at you. Maybe they're, like, laughing or they're trying to teach you some mean jokes, you know. Like, I feel like there would just be, like, words that I'm not supposed to know. that they would tell me. I mean, isn't that a sign that you're sort of in? Like, you're in a way. But then I would know what that is, but I would just repeat back and then I'm getting to trouble.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't think that I'm necessarily like, not the center of attention. But I do think that it helped me figure out, like, how to read a situation. Like, I feel like it forces you to be a very good listener because you're just trying to read the room and understand the power dynamic in the room. Yeah. And to spot people who. or feeling a certain way, right?

Which I think, of course, helps me so much in directing. Do you guys get that video out? Like, when you get together with your family, does everyone bring up the video of Celine directing when she was like four? No, I mean, I feel like I saw it once. It's very embarrassing. Your path was laid from an early age. Okay, next three cards.

Three new ones, one, two, or three. Three. What's an experience from childhood when you realized your parents were only human? Oh, I think a skip. Skip. Skip this one. There we go. Yeah, give me another one.

How do you consciously try to emulate your parents? Well, because both my parents are freelance artists all their lives. I feel like in that way, it's like everything I do, I think, that I have a lot of wisdom that I got from my parents, right? So it's like get to kind of learn like how to be a graceful and a professional freelance artist, which is like a very specific thing. It really is. But because being a freelance artist is such an uncertain, impossible to guess kind of a thing. Because every day you feel like you're not a, every moment that you're not writing, you feel like you're not a writer. And I feel that's even now, you know, like what is my identity, right?

And I'm always like, well, I'm a writer. I haven't written in a couple days. Right? Compared to like I'm sure if I had a job, 9 to 5, you know, I feel like I'm sure I would go and I would do the job. And maybe I'll feel a little bit more like I have a job. Yeah. But often I feel like I'm like, well, I feel like I'm mostly part of saying like you're self-employed is that you're kind of unemployed until like one day you get a big check. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's the thing too, like the way that the finance works or a freelance are. I feel like it requires so much like a faith because like I remember literally like the first year that I got an accountant. Before that, we, you know, me and my husband, we didn't need an accountant because we were just too broke to have an accountant. Right. There was no money to keep track of. No. So we were using corporate tax. And then I remember when we first got a like big check, you know, we got an accountant. And then the, I remember the accountant is asking like, It's like, well, what do you expect to make next year? And the answer is, of course, like, either $1 or a million.

We don't know. Somewhere in between, somewhere in there, somewhere between $1 and a million. So I think that to me is like, I can imagine that can be really hard if your parents are, what is it, who's not a freelance artist, like civilians. Yeah, civilians. Or like muggles, right? Yeah, if your parents are muggles or then you're in a situation where you're like kind of like, well, I guess it might be confusing for them if you try to explain like, well, this year, you know, I may make a million dollars or a dollar. But because both my parents are freelance artists, they understand that better than me. Yeah.

Also, they model how to be an artist in your soul. It doesn't matter if you feel like, oh, I haven't written anything in a week, so I feel like I'm not a writer. I imagine them telling you you get to decide if you're right. You are because you say you are. Of course. And I feel like it's also like there is a very important kind of power to laziness, right? Because I feel like there's something that is like, I think this is something that we all deal with, modern people. And this is connected to what I want to talk about in my movie too, of all of us becoming

productivity machines. So because of that, I think that there is a very important part of being a freelance artist that is being comfortable with laziness, right? Yeah. Being very comfortable with doing nothing. Yeah. So it is okay that I don't write for a week. Let's say I don't write for a week because I'm in a mood, you know, or like the world feels so dark, which we can all relate to right now, but it's like the world feels so dark, so we almost just want to take a break for a week. Like, whatever that may be, I think that I feel very part of the thing that I'm learning is, like, from my parents is that, like, I just get to be comfortable in it. Before we get to round two, I want to pull back and talk about your newest film materialist.

Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. Your debut film, Past Lives, was like this huge hit, this global hit. And I can imagine that there was some degree of pressure on you with the second one. And so congratulations on being the other side of the second one. I mean, I think that's quite true. But also, though, you know, I knew that this was going to be my second movie while I was releasing all the past lives because I finished working on past lives and there was about six month period between when I finished working on post-production for past lives and then when we ran to Sundance. So there was about a six months period there where I was going a little bit crazy because I knew that my movie, I had made a movie and I'm a filmmaker, but nobody else in the world knew. So I was feeling a little nuts. And I was like, I'm just going to write my next movie. So I was thinking back on what was a movie that I really always wanted to make. And I worked as a matchmaker in my 20s.

I know. I can't believe that. I need to know more details. But yes, continue. So in my 20s, I worked just as a day job because I was broke. And then I remember thinking as I was leaving that job, that I'm going to write something about it one day. And so I was like, okay, let me figure out how to crack this particular story. So how did you build from your experience as a matchmaker into this particular story, which is another sort of love triangle?

I mean, I'd like a defined love triangle in past lives. I mean, you do love, love, Celine. I mean, I love, I feel like I believe that love is something that always troubles me, you know? And I think that that's really the reason why I get so interested in it. because I feel like I always have to make something that makes me feel like I can learn something from it. Yeah. Right. So because of that, I feel like I keep getting interested in something that I'm always quite troubled by.

And the reason why I'm so troubled by is because it is so entirely mysterious, right? Like, every day I have, or whatever, like, you know, every day I'm a director. Like, you know, I have to answer questions all day. I have to be smart all day. Yeah. And then there's this one domain. in human life where the only answer is that you have to let yourself be a complete fool and not very smart at all and you just have to let go and give in trying not to control it and then just

say I don't know that's just how I feel right yeah which makes me uh feel like I'm I don't know love makes love love sometimes sounds like it's Santa Claus right yeah like I feel like And I think in that way, it's a source of endless fascination for me. And it's a universal theme. I think we're all very baffled by all of us. Does that mean you think it's worth it to throw your life savings at a high-end elite dating agency? Seriously. No, not at all.

Well, I talk about this with any kind of like a dating industry thing. Like the apps, the matchmakers, all of those things, right? The thing about those things is like, well, to think about love as a miracle in a way that you think about light, Right. Tender, matchmaking everything, those are just ways to go out into the field when there is a thunder coming and then like, you know, putting out, you know, your arm with like a metal rod or a fork, right? That's why you are on Tinder. That's why you're on a hinge or whatever. All of those things are so that you might be struck by lightning. Yeah. Which is a miracle, you know. And you're trying to like arm yourself with a little antenna. to be like, okay, I hope it hits me today. Did you personally help anyone find their lightning match when you were a matchmaker? Well, I mean, you know, I didn't do it for very long. I only did it for six months.

How come? Because you were just like, this is not for me? No, it's because I was having too much fun. What? I was having too much fun working as a matchmaker. So it was supposed to be a day job that's supposed to help me, like, pay for my life while I'm writing. but I wasn't writing because it was too enjoyable. Really?

Oh, yeah. It's really fun. Well, it's fun because you get to learn the very real and very intimate parts of a person and especially a person that as like broke artists, I wouldn't get to meet. How would I know the love, like, desires and who they want to date of a person who is like a private equity manager? Like I wouldn't meet that person, right? But I would get to meet them as my client, and then they would tell me what their hearts. And that person has longing, yeah.

Oh, yeah, and that person will describe somebody they want. And you just learn so much because it's so frank, right? Because with the matchmaker, they're very frank. I always say they're more honest with a matchmaker than they're to their therapists, right? Because a matchmaker is supposed to get you something. Right. This is your shot. So you've got to be honest.

So you've got to be real. So you've got to explain to me exactly what you're looking for. in a way that you might describe a car or a house, right? It's kind of like talking to a real estate agent and being, it's like, I needed to have three rooms, this budget. But then didn't that feel kind of skeezy? I mean, in the film, it's clear that a lot of that felt like not that awesome when someone's like, I can only date this race and they have to be this tall. Yeah. And there are all these attributes that aren't very soulful.

No, but I think it's like it's still a really fun game, right? And I do think that a part of it was eating at me, of course. But I think it was still like really fun to see that, to really hear what people thought love was. Yeah. And then I also was just married at the time. I had gotten married a few months before. So I knew that like what love and marriage felt like for me. And it was the thing that all my clients were looking for.

But none of those things would work when it comes to what me and my husband were as the objects in the marketplace that they were looking for, right? So as in what I mean is like, you know, they're talking about like height, weight, income, age, you know, they're talking to me about, you know, what they were looking for in numbers. But I also knew that if I asked my husband, like, why did you want to marry me? Why do you love me? I don't think he would say a single number and I wouldn't say a single number to him. Right. Because if we did, I'm sure that, you know,

it probably would have been a problem that, you know, I think combined, at some point, our combined household income was like $25,000 a year. So I don't know if we would have, I don't think we would have met any of the minimums of any of my clients. Yeah. But still, what we were doing together which is to be married,

and we're still married, is that, like, you know, all of these things actually have nothing to do with the statistics, right? The numbers or material things that they were looking for in their partner. Round two. Insights. Okay. Okay. Three new cards. One, two, or three?

Two. Two. What's something you've outgrown? Oh. Hmm. What did I? Can I have a second? I think about it? Yes. Just because I'm trying to think. Please. I'm going to ask you. I knew you were going to make that. I was sitting there being like, yes, taking it because I feel like you might flip it and I don't have an answer on that. I'm flipping it. Let me think about mine. I know now. Okay. Would you do? I do. I figured it out. Wait, should you go first? I think we should go first. No, you go first. Oh, man. Something I'm outgrown. outgrown my social life. Oh, wow. I love it. No, I love it. I was like, oh, my God, this answer is so good. I don't know. That's right. Oh, and I can just hear all my friends be like, Rachel.

I have grown into the ability to be alone in a way that I think I came up against for a lot of years. And so I've become in my grand old age more discerning about how I spend my time. And I've outgrown having some big social life. I don't need it. And it doesn't actually serve me very well. I need a lot of time to fill up my own cup kind of intellectually and emotionally. That's great. No, that's a great thing to outgrow. Thanks. Don't let anybody feel any other way. That's awesome. So what's your answer? Well, my answer is that is the belief that it's the belief that somebody knows something that I don't know.

That's so good. I mean, I think it's like I'm kind of realizing over time that so many people tell you things with so much authority. And it's like, you know, people will just tell you. I'll be like, okay, well, they're really, you know, they have an amazing job. They have a, they have a lot of experience. I don't have enough experience. They must know. And then I would just watch them be wrong.

And then I'll be like, oh, no, you were wrong. Why did I think that you were right? And in fact, I had this feeling where I thought you were wrong. And then I also had a feeling that this other things was going to happen, and it did. You know, so. Trust your gut. Trust your gut. One more in this round.

One, two or three. Three? What's an expression of love you're trying to get better at? Oh. Oh, I think like a very simple, stupid, kind words. You know, this is something that I was so funny. Like, I feel like once my first AD, who I'm very close to, he once said, yeah. Yeah, he's an assistant director.

He once said, I think I asked him, I was like, what am I? I'm not doing, you know, what am I not doing about a day? And he said, well, I think it's been a while since you told the actors that they've been doing a good job. And I was like, oh my God, you're right. And I do think they're doing a good job. And sometimes what happens is that, like, I'm so, even when I'm really excited, like, I feel like sometimes I'm like, oh, that was awesome. So you must already know that you're awesome, right? Because I see that you're awesome. So why would You need somebody to tell you, you're awesome. It's awesome. But the truth is we have to sometimes just very simply say, you're so beautiful, you're perfect, you're amazing. I'm so grateful you're here. I appreciate you. I think that I'm not strong words of affirmation. What I love about that answer is that it could be for privacy purposes, but your first instinct wasn't to go to friends or your husband, but it was to talk about how you demonstrate love in your job. with people you work with.

Yeah. Well, I think that's true about my friends and my husband as well. Really? Yeah, because I'm like, you must, you know, with my husband, I'm like, you must know. Like, we share a bathroom together. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, we sleep next to each other every night. Every night.

You must know I like you. Like, you must know I love you. And then, of course, once in a while I have to be like, yes, of course, but it is nice to hear. So I should just say. You know. Beliefs. Yeah, beliefs. Three new cards. Okay. One, two or three. Two. Are there any recurring symbols that show up in your life? Oh, um, yes. Was it something you can share? Yeah. It's an unexpected answer. It's a cockroach. Every time there is some huge shift in my life. Every time there's a change or there is a, demand for change. Maybe I'm not willing to change yet, but clearly there is change coming,

whether I think it or not, so I have to adjust. Every time there's a moment where I'm like growing up in a hard way, I have often seen a dead cockroach. I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. But you should laugh. It's really funny. It's just super surprising. It is super surprising. I think that, like, it's so funny because usually a dead one. So once in a while, it's a live one. Do you literally see you. No, no, no, I literally see you. I literally see one. And I'm always like, what is this? Right. I see it. And I'm like, oh my God, what's going on with my life? Am I okay? But that seems like a negative omen, a dead cockroach. Well, I actually think it's. How do you connect it?

It doesn't feel negative because it does mean that like something's going to, like I'm going to make a decision to change my life or something. Like it's kind of like a catalyst. Right? It's very like, it's a change. Yeah. Death is a change. Death is a change. I mean, like, it's kind of like, and you see it and it's always like right in my path. Like it's never like in a corner, like right outside my door. Like just like things like that, right? Is it, does it help you make a decision towards change? Does it help you accept change to see the dead cockroach? Yes. It gives me the, it usually gives them the courage because it's been such a recurring thing, right? Do you remember the first time? I mean, just as I was, I think, that moving to New York, you know. Uh-huh. Yeah. So I think that, like, I was like trying to adjust.

Most people who moved to New York City. That's what I mean. It's the first time. So maybe it does feel connected to New York City, of course. But I've lived here all my life. So it's like, you know. Yeah. So I remember literally like whenever I have a crisis of faith about am I doing the right thing.

Yeah. Sometimes that cockroach will appear and I'll be like, I think I do have to do that thing. Like it's the reason why I moved to L.A. for eight months, too. Like, I saw a cockroach. And I think I remember coming home to my husband and I was like, I saw that cockroach and I think we should spend some time in L.A. I went to L.A. in the first month I got my first, like, staff writing job ever, like first professional writing job ever there after a month. month, which I think was ultimately a really good thing and important change. But I remember, like, that's when I really clocked it as like, oh, that's a thing. That's incredible. I know.

It's funny. And it makes me think, on the one hand, that you should get a dead cockroach tattoo. But then I say that out loud, and I think that maybe you shouldn't do that. Maybe I shouldn't. That's not cute. It's not cute. You can't make that cute. You can't make a cue.

No, you can't make a cue. Maybe abstract, but yeah. Very Kafka, I realize. Yeah, right. If that's what it is. You know, it's very metamorphosis. It totally is. I love that.

And now I also, as your fan, want there to be some random homage to the cockroach popping up in your films. Yeah. I'm going to look. I'm going to look to see if I could see one scurry across. One day. One day. And you'll know, you'll be like, that's it. That's it.

She's really using her life over there. There's change. There's Celine's change. Walking across the scene. Good. Three new cards. One, two, or three. One.

Is there anything in your life that feels like praying? Oh. Oh, food. Yeah. Does it? Yeah. The cooking of it? The sharing of it?

Eating. The eating, the actual eating of the food. Yeah. Like a great restaurant. Like my favorite restaurants. Like go and you order what you always order and you get it. And then you just do nothing. And usually I don't usually eat alone.

If whoever I'm eating with my friend or my husband, whoever, you sit and you eat. And it's like it's very holy to me. Yeah. Food. Say more. Eating, I think, is something that I feel so lucky to get to do the way that I want. Because, of course, hunger is an epidemic. Well, hunger is a crime.

But, yeah, it's like, so I think that I feel so lucky. It's very, like, blessed as a meal vibes a little bit. Like, being like, it's like, oh, how amazing that I get to eat something. I eat something that I love so much. And it does feel like I'm saying like very much yes to life. You know? So in a very humanist way, I'm very like, you know, when I get to eat, it's like I'm like, how lucky that I can just eat, I get to eat, you know.

So that's one of the ways that it may feel very grounded in the way that I know. I'm an atheist, but, you know, in a way that people who have religion might feel. It's like, how lucky that. I'm sure their God guides me and provides for me. I'm like, that's kind of how I feel. I'm like, how amazing, how lucky I am that in my time on earth that I get to eat something delicious. What's the last most deliciously prayerful meal or dish that you've had? Well, I mean, I feel like my favorite restaurant in New York City is this.

place not far from where I live. It's a Korean restaurant, Muno. And I just like going there. And I like getting their, what's called to be. And you just get to eat. It's like a, yeah, it's like a mashed of beef. And it's so delicious. I eat that. And I'm always like, ha ha, ha. I'm like, this is a Holy experience. That's beautiful. Okay. Last one, Celine. One, two, or three. Three. Three. What truth guides your life more than any other? There is this incredible piece of wisdom that I got from my directing professor. I was sitting there as a playwright, but my directing professor in my theater school. at Columbia is En Bogart, who is one of the most important experimental theater artists of all time. And she has it in this book, the four rules in anything, anything that we have to do as people, which is show up, pay attention, speak from the heart, and have no exercise.

and have no expectations. And I think about this, whenever I'm in doubt, whenever I'm feeling like insecure or whenever I'm feeling I don't know what to do today, I don't know what to do about that. That's stressing me out, that experience, I'm scared of that. I always go back to this,

which is that you just have to show up, pay attention, speak from the heart, and then of course the hardest of all, have no expectations. Yeah. You know. Having no expectations, I think, because the other things that are a little bit easier to do.

Right. I agree. It's the expectation that's really hard. So I've kind of tried to make it work for myself, that final mantra, which is that, like, I may have expectations, but I'm going to know that it is not going to hold. That seems realistic. You can have expectations. You just cannot believe for even one second that those expectations are going to

get met. Yeah. And if they do, fabulous. If they don't, that's how it is, you know. There will always be a dead cockroach somewhere. There will always be a dead cockroach somewhere. Let me, you know, watch me walk out of this room and see one there. Wait, what happens when you see an alive one? Doesn't carry the same meaning. No. I don't think so. Yeah. It's a weird. Because they haven't changed. Yeah, they haven't changed. Yeah, they're not dead. Yeah. I think you're right, Because I think the cockroaches I know are hard to kill. They're notoriously hard to kill. They're notoriously hard to kill.

To see it dead, I think, is remarkable. See, you ended it on such a beautiful note, and then I had to debase your beautiful truth with another dead cockroach. So we end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. So in the memory time machine, you pick one moment from your past to revisit. It is not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment you would like to linger in a little longer. What moment do you choose?

So funny. I think that it was just a day where I think that we were all in the pre-production office, production office for materialists. And all my department heads were there. and we were there, and I think that I was just sitting in my room, feeling so lucky and happy to get to make a movie. It is not a particular day, but it's like a one day where everybody's there, and everybody's just working on making this movie, you know,

because what it is like to be a director is that you have a dream of this movie you want to make, and then you just start infecting other people, right, with that dream. And then everybody else starts burning up for it too. Everybody starts becoming devotional and passionate about this thing that was just a dream I had. And then eventually everybody's just hard at work working on this movie because they all now believe in the dream together. And I think I remember like being in my office alone and knowing that in every other room in this office, somebody is working on this movie, you know, I think, yeah, I feel like I could have. lived there forever. It was so sad when we had to leave, because we would have to eventually leave and start making the movie. But I remember just being like, it's like, oh my God, like, this is,

this is just heaven for me, you know. We just get to sit here and just dream together about making a movie. Selene Song, her newest film, Materialist, is out now. Celine, thank you so much. Thank you. If you like this conversation, go back and check out my episode with another filmmaker, Mark Duplas. Mark, open to you. up about feeling a little bit jealous of some of his peers, in particular, John Krasinski, who played Jim from the office, and we talked about the path that he didn't take as a musician. I think you're going to like it. Today's episode was produced by Lee Hale and edited by Dave Blanchard. It was mastered by Patrick Murray. Wildcard's executive producer is Yolanda Sangweni, and our theme music is by Romteen Arablewee.

You can reach out to us at Wildcard at npr.org. We'll shuffle the deck and be back with more next week. Talk to you then.