WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1037 - Alex Ross Perry

Episode Date: July 18, 2019

Not only did director and writer Alex Ross Perry work in a video store while he was learning to become a filmmaker, his first film crew was made up of his friends and co-workers at the video store and they remain his crew today. Alex explains to Marc that watching films by directors like David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick made him want to have an immediately identifiable style. He found his style while embracing a true independent film aesthetic, which means virtually no money and very few shooting days. It all culminated with Alex’s most recent film, Her Smell, which he made with his frequent collaborator Elisabeth Moss. This episode is sponsored by Anchor (anchor.fm/start), Squarespace (squarespace.com/wtf), and Zinus (zinus.com/WTF). Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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and ACAS Creative. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What the fucksters? What's happening?

It's me, Mark Maron. This is this is my podcast wtf how's it going everything okay out there how's the weather it's just it just started it just like had this massive cloud burst where i am just uh where the where the the sky just opens up with lightning and thunder and dumps massive amounts i'm in new york i'm inside thank you for your concern i don't know where you're at but that's where i am everything all right i'm a little frenetic i'm a little crazy but i did the tonight show last night i'm recording this after i did it so i'm a little loopy a little jumpy i think it went pretty well i it's weird you know i i always there's something about fallon that i always like seeing him. He's a good listener.

He's a good audience. He's always funny in the moment. And it was it was fun. Had a good time on The Tonight Show last night. That's is that OK? I hope so. Today on this show, Alex Ross Perry is here. The the film director, his most recent film her smell with elizabeth moss is available

on apple amazon and other on-demand digital platforms he's made many other films he's a real film nerd we had a top-notch film conversation he's a he's a he's a very bright guy intense guy got he's got a frequency to him that you know you feel it right away it's good it's focused it's intense it's uh smart and uh yeah i was in chicago a lot of things have happened i'm i'm heading home today after a lot of press uh for the movie sort of trust which i want to tell you uh this friday and saturday night i'll be at the New Art Theater in Los Angeles with Lynn Shelton doing a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screenings of Sword of Trust we're now up to 65 theaters folks 65 theaters are going to be showing the movie this summer it opens this weekend at

Opera Plaza Cinemas in San Francisco Shattuck cinemas in berkeley east street cinema in washington dc tiff bell light box in toronto kendall square cinema in cambridge massachusetts and the jacob burns film center in pleasantville new york and it just added the cinema art center in huntington new york and the nighthawk prospect park in brooklyn go to sword of trust.com to find out when the movie is coming out near you it's worth it this movie's been getting crazy press i don't mean to go on about it but i got to be honest with you folks i didn't i had no idea i had no idea when you make a little movie like this like i i wasn't even sure it was going to get done but you know lynn is like the real deal so of course it got done but you put a little movie out this into the world and I don't you have no you don't know what's going to happen with it it's getting so many reviews so much

press it's crazy I'm very excited about it but it's not that I have low expectations I had no expectations so it's all pretty exciting and the screening at the music box in chicago the first show was sold out it was like 700 people and just to dip into that theater to watch a movie where it's a comedy obviously but 700 people laughing at the same time to the point where they're missing lines is such a it's it's so exciting and so rewarding i gotta got to be honest with you. You know, I'm just thrilled with it. And I also want to tell you, please, if you can, go see it at a theater. Now, I don't know where some of these theaters are, and I don't know how populated the theaters are. But I think you'll probably have a better experience, even if you're in a movie theater with five people.

But I guess if you're really thinking about about that way, when it comes out streaming, you could probably invite five people over, maybe your family and a couple other people, but the experience of watching a movie, how they're supposed to be watched communally with a bunch of strangers sharing in that event, in that moment, in that laughter is really the way to do it.

All right. And can I just say that to you? uh what else did i do in chicago i ate pizza i did a bunch of press hung out with my buddy joe swanberg yeah you can watch me on you know in the last season of easy which he directed uh and i believe glow is is coming on soon right august 9th i think the third season of glow drops so that's happening you get to see a a more svelte sam sylvia i'm not going to tell you too much about it but uh i'm excited that that's going up to yeah you wait a long time for these things man right the other thing i did which i meant to talk to you about the other day, was that when I was here last week in the city,

my friend Lynn Shelton, who I've been doing all these dates with, her friend Heidi Schreck is the creator of the show, What the Constitution Means to Me. It's on Broadway. And I got to be honest with you people, and I think some of you sense this, but I've had some sort of slow but steady mind shift around things. There is a lot of education that is going into my brain that I didn't have framed properly, or I didn't know,

or I didn't think about, or I wasn't sort of really sensitive to or aware about. And it's happening. Things are going into my mind where things that I once thought were normal, think about or I wasn't sort of really sensitive to or aware about and it's it's happening you know things are going into my mind where where things that I once thought were normal were undeniably fucking you know incorrect and uh and it's exciting it's an exciting process and seeing this play this I don't know if you know about it it's it's basically it's sort of a one-woman show but it's her her her character which is her heidi uh she was a a debater a high school debater and she used to tour with uh doing debates you know she would make uh she would save money from winning debate uh contest to go to college and she she would debate the Constitution, things about the

Constitution. So this whole angle of the show was her going back to some of her arguments and some of the subject matter of her high school debates and reframing them into current culture around equality, equal pay, equal rights, and just the reality of how the Constitution came to life, what the Constitution means, who does it represent, when was it written, all these stuff sort of woven into the narrative of a woman talking about the evolution of the Constitution, seeking theoretically to protect all people, but falling a little short when it comes to women and people of color and marginalized people. And I know it was a weird kind of reaction that I had when I was told about the show,

because it sounds like, you know, what the Constitution means to me. It's like, oh, man, it sounds like a class. Yeah, I don't want to, I don't want to go learn. Yeah. And I was really resistant to it, but eventually I buckled, you know, and I was like, all right, you know, I mean, Lynn knows what she's talking about. She knows this woman. She'd seen the show. She said it was surprising. I'm going to be moved. It's going to be interesting. You know, you think, you know, you think, you know, things things i and i've been talking about this a bit on stage i you know i don't know what i really know or how i know it you know i make assumptions you know i understand you know what the constitution is and why it's important and some of the fundamentals of it and you know why it's necessary but what do i really know about it i don't know

about history i just kind of plug along you, having a fundamental understanding that it's an important document. But just like everything, I just glean things. I do not. I did not get a good education, not because it wasn't offered to me. But quite honestly, I don't think I was paying attention. And I really sort of envy the people that kind of dug into high school, you know, got got hold of civics, got hold of how government works, got hold of American history, you know, put it into context, did their studying, did their homework and at least had a foundation for some of that basic understanding. spaced out because I just couldn't focus because I was feeling so awkward and uncomfortable. All I really cared about was feeling not awkward and uncomfortable hanging out with my friends. Like when I think back on high school, I know I had a locker. I knew it was packed with books,

but I don't remember ever going to it. I don't remember ever using it. I don't remember doing homework. I don't remember, you know, learning much of anything. And of anything. And it's a liability. I feel guilty and shitty that I don't know these basic things. So when I saw a show like What the Constitution Means to Me, it was a powerful kind of personal story that framed it from a woman's point of view and talked about other situations she had been in, situations other women had been in where they should have been protected and ultimately weren't. But it was also really an education in what the Constitution means. And look, I know it's an important thing and I know it's what holds us together and what the country is based on.

I don't know the nuances. And they actually actually they hand out a little pocket constitution while you're there and it really because of the emotional resonance of of her story and what she has i don't know how she does this show every night because she's got to go kind of deep in herself every night to access these emotions which is really another thing i learned is that you know i can go up and do my stand-up and i can kind of dig in but you know how how deep does that really go? How much do I have to offer myself? And when you really start to think about, or when I start to think about acting

and really showing up to perform with a full range of emotions, the job is getting in that, getting down there, digging deep for it, and being able to have control over getting there every night. So go see it if you can. It should be required. I know a little more about the constitution and I've got a pocket constitution

with me and maybe I'll dig in. Maybe I'll dig in and maybe we'll start having specific discussions about the constitution. No, we won't. We're not going to do that. But I have the, it's available to me now. All right? That's all I'm saying. All right? Did I tell you I saw my dad? I did.

He came back. He came back in, him and his sister and my dad's wife came back in to watch the entire movie. I think I told you that they came in late

because they had problems with trains, but they came back in and I promised I would take them out. And it's another weird thing about whatever is happening to my heart lately is that, you know, look, I don't have any real outstanding beefs with my old man. And, you know, and I accept him for who he is, but I don't really see him that much. And somehow or another, that distance doesn't bother me maybe as much as it should i i don't feel like i i need to but you know he came to the show and you know he's 80 man he's 80 and he you know he enjoyed the movie and then i decided i'd take him all out to uh

russ and daughters cafe for some straight up jew food and i knew he would enjoy it and you know he's having a little trouble walking and you know he's not as sharp as he used to be. And it's just, it's really a kind of moving and sad thing to realize, like, if you don't see your parents enough, especially if they're alive and you're old, I'm a middle-aged man and my father's now an older man, old man, and you don't see them enough, some part of your brain

really holds them in a place where they really aren't anymore they you know they they kind of stay your your your what you knew them as your dad you know when you're younger and you know the vitality of who they were and and you know the the part they played in your life whether it was bad or good little of both with me you know no matter what distance I feel like I have from the guy, you know, when I took him out to eat, you know, I sat next to him. I put my arm around him, and, you know, and I made sure he got what he wanted. He understood what was going on. I wanted him to have a nice food.

I asked him how it was. You know, I know what he likes, so I made sure that he tasted everything. And, you know, and I helped him get up out of the booth and help them walk outside. But it's just like, man, it really hit me, man. You know, it just really hit me. You know, not so much that my dad's old, but that, you know, I love him. And that he, you know, he made me, you know, for better, for worse. And, you know, I really got to see him more,

and I really got to talk to him more. I don't know how much time he's got left. I don't know how much time I got left, and I don't know that it's always going to be a great time, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's only going to happen once, and he's my only dad, and I was happy I saw him.

I don't know why I wanted to tell you guys that but uh but really just you know make sure you you reach out to your folks if they're still around because uh because they're your folks no matter what you think and you know and i and i'm amazed that i'm saying this because i've gone through periods in my life where that that wasn't necessarily how i felt you know i, you know, fuck it once or twice a year is enough. I can only handle about an hour. That may be true. I may only be able to handle about an hour or two, but you know, I should make them happen as frequently as I can. That's all I'm saying. And maybe you should think about that too. All right. All right.

Show up for your folks. That's, that's the new mark talking there wow wow i can't believe it i don't know what's happening to me man i think i'm getting old so my guest here now is a i was i was excited to talk to him i was a little nervous because he's intense and he's very focused and he's very smart and he's a great director um alex ross perry has a movie out his most recent movie has several movies out uh is a film called her smell which i actually uh was asked to audition for it's uh with elizabeth moss uh it's a rock and roll movie it's available on apple amazon and other on-demand digital platforms if you've seen the movie i was supposed to read for the eric Stoltz part,

though I think he did a very good job. So this is me and Alex Ross Perry talking back in the garage. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats, but meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that.

Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. So now, how is that a song? Do you tell? I mean, I know this tea very well. You do? Yeah. This particular one? Harney and Sons, yeah.

Harney and Sons, yeah. Yeah, they're a good one. They're like a... As we both sip. Yeah, but they're... Well, I don't meet many tea guys, and I'm relatively new to it. Like, within the last year or two, I quit drinking coffee, but now, because of my compulsive disposition, like, I'm way into the tea thing.

Like, I travel with bags of loose tea yeah i i i probably have traveled with it if i'm away for long enough it also makes good iced tea oh yeah i mean but i like i travel with several different kinds in bags i travel with my strainer and now i've got a travel kettle i'd like that there's a there's a kettle you can get i'll show it i'd like to there. I don't have anything like that, but I'll bring it sometimes. Yeah, they gave us a lot of good tea on the movie. They sponsored which movie? On Her Smell. Harney's was a... Yeah, I think they're thanked in the credits as something like product placement. Product placement on independent film is kind of the secret weapon that people can utilize for their own gain. is kind of this secret weapon that people can utilize for their own gain.

You can just write to them, to any company, send them a packet with stills of the actors, a little description of the movie. You can get thousands of dollars worth of things that either is for the crew to eat or sometimes you put them in a scene. Even Apple does this. There's this whole production design network

in New York of people that you can get. But what about money? Do they give you money? No, never. Oh, but you get cool shit. Sure.

I mean, I didn't notice the Harney's in the movie. I don't think, I don't think it made it in. I think that was specifically said that that was just for me, but you know, you put it, there is a scene in the movie where she makes a cup of tea.

Who's to say that it's not Harney and Sons? Well, Harney's would be because they sent you some and they're watching it and they're like that. I don't see any. It's true. And yet it's the only product we Sons. Well, Harney's would be because they sent you some and they're watching it and they're like, I don't see any. It's true. And yet it's the only product we were sent that I'm talking at length about on the record.

Well, no, I know. And we're doing it. I'm dragging it out of you. No, I still have a few of them, a few of the tins that they sent me. It's more just I like tea as a ritual. Sure. Like I like it because it's delicious

and it helps me stay focused. But I really like the ritual of brewing it and kind of timing it. Yeah, I dig that. I mean, I'm the same with coffee. Like when I drank coffee, I got a way of doing it. I grind it fresh, you know, and I've got a few different delivery systems.

Yeah. French press, cone, whatever. All stuff I don't relate to as a non-coffee drinker, but. When did you make that decision? When did you draw the line? I've never drank coffee. I mean, I've tasted it, but. You seem like a guy that is, I'm projecting,

but you might have decided that you're gonna stay away from a lot of things. I have stayed away from a lot of things, yes. To me, coffee just is like, that's the smell of waking up to go to school. My dad has a cup of, there's coffee in the house. It's 6.30, I have to get up and go to school. Like aavlovian

miserable smell for me where'd you grow up uh in brynmar outside of philadelphia oh so that's near phil that's near philly yeah 30 minutes away i like philly yeah it's really nice i came to appreciate it a lot as soon as i moved away yeah i think it's one of those uh cities where they you know they did some work and it turned around somehow weirdly so yeah but like there's i always i go uh i go to De Nicks for the- You like the pork with the broccoli on it? Yeah, pork with Rob at De Nicks at the, what is it? Reading Station?

Reading Market. Like I'll go out to John's too, but that's the original, but I don't like, I preferred De Nicks. Yeah, I never ate that before I became vegan when I was 18. I never had the De Nicks pork, but I tried all the cheesesteaks around town. Oh, before you became vegan? Yeah.

Was that what compelled you? No, no. It was just health, family, cholesterol scares that kind of- I have that too. My dad- Well, you have genetic cholesterol? Kind of. My dad's dad died suddenly and weirdly young.

He was 68, 69 from some heart cholesterol thing and then at that time my dad got a cholesterol test and was told at the age of you know late 40s 50 something you really need to change the way you eat and live you don't eat terribly you know he's not like a big fat guy who eats bacon eggs right morning you know goes for a bike ride every day yeah but he was told you just have really terrible cholesterol. And at the age of 50, he had to change his diet. And I just thought, I really- Is he vegan? No, but he, you know-

Takes the pills? I don't know. I don't know if he takes any. Do you? No. But he just, I just kind of thought, I don't want to be 50 and be told, even though you think you're healthy, you're not.

Well, you know, it's going to happen at some point, Alex. I hope not. Something's going to happen. Something will, yeah. I hope not. Something's going to happen. Something will, yeah. I don't want to burst your bubble. I know, but I've done everything I can by not having anything with cholesterol. Have you had it tested? My cholesterol?

Yeah. Yeah, I got a blood test on a couple years ago. All right. Yeah, they said it was as low as a four-year-old's cholesterol. Oh. Because cholesterol is only an animal product, so I haven't eaten any of it in 16 years. Huh. Yeah, I mean, I tried to do it with just diet.

Mine's not high, but it's borderline. But eventually I was just sort of like, fuck it, I'll take a pill every once in a while. I exercise and I'll take the statin. I'll take the statin. Yeah, I got there. I haven't felt any. Well, you don't have to.

I'll get to the pills at some point. You don't have to. You don't take any vitamins? No. Just a tea. Yeah, you don't have to. I'll get to the pills at some point. You don't have to. But I- You don't take any vitamins? No. Just a tea? Yeah, as much tea as possible. So growing up there, like, what'd your old man do? He worked in radio, which is a big- So you grew up in show business?

Well, if you can call it that. Was he on the production side? Before I was born, he was a DJ. Really? In Philadelphia radio. Like, just a, like music DJ? Yeah. Which meant when we grew up, the thousands and thousands of records in the house,

which was always nice. You did have them? Yeah, he just two months ago sold them all. Like as an estate almost? I mean he's just finally moving and needed to get rid of them. But we had in our basement just one wall that was floor to ceiling records.

That's so good. But yeah, he worked. And by the time I was aware of his job, he worked in the advertising side of it for this Philadelphia conglomerate that owns four or five stations. Not Clear Channel before Clear Channel. Yeah, just called Greater Media Philadelphia. And they're probably Clear Channel now. Something like that.

They got bought out a couple years ago, which is why he doesn't work there or at all anymore. And what about your mom? She was at home. Yeah? Yeah. Are they still married? They're not. But they're both around? Yeah, they're both in the Philadelphia area.

And you got siblings? Yeah, I have a much younger sister. From your dad? Well, from both of them. Oh, really? Yeah, they only split up like five years ago. Oh, really? Yeah, like long after I'd stopped.

You didn't have to choose who to live with her? No, I mean, I hadn't really seen them together, been home in years when they told me this was happening. Yeah, that happened to me too. Like in my, I guess I was in my 30s maybe. Yeah, I was probably like 29 or 30 when I got a call right after Thanksgiving that they had. It's funny, at that age you're like, oh, okay.

Yeah, I wasn't really speaking to my mom or sister much at that point. Really? I just wasn't going home. Oh, you mean not because of the problem? No, I mean there's problems, everyone has problems. It's kind of weird for families to assume that they'll be a family who never has some weird problem.

But yeah, I was just kind of like, okay, well tell me what I can do, and now I'm the executor of both of their wills. Yeah, of course. How old's your sister? Like I would say maybe 26 or 27 27 but you're the one in charge yeah yeah well i'm the one who you know yeah has a job and you're you know and you're and you're talking to your mom again yeah a little bit that's that started happening again kind of after they split up that's weird i don't hear i i don't often hear the uh

the dude's issue with moms on that level. Like it's for me, it's always dad. So like there's part of me. It's sort of like, wow, you got that mad at your mom. That must have been pretty intense. Oh, yeah. Very intense. I mean, it's, you know, overbearing Jewish mother is hard for someone like me that doesn't like overbearing people at all. It was just a lot. Well, you seem like a fairly sort of earnest and open man. And I'd imagine if the overbearingness could be kind of obliterating. Yeah, it's too much. You got pushed back. Like I can't like a call every week. Like, how's it going? I need to call you and complain about

something. I just was eventually like, I can't, I can't pick up the phone and listen to a 25 minute rant once a week about like someone At the store that pissed you off today. Like I just don't need this in my life. It's exhausting. Yeah, it's exhausting It's not in terms of transgressions. It's minor. It's very minor. That's why everything's fine now. Yeah, but yeah I really loved going to the radio station with my dad. Yeah, the kind of fun part of it was You know, he had this weirdly just unrestricted access to philadelphia area concerts so you went to everything i mean for free for you know from when you were a little kid uh yeah like teenage music always your thing

uh kind of when i was a teenager it certainly was very important especially because i could go to two or three concerts every week and you're in in, you're in your late thirties. I'm 34. So that was like, who are the people? Like the first concert I ever went to was stone temple pilots. That's all right. And then the next one was Bush and Veruca salt.

No Veruca salt are very important for this new movie. Yeah. Um, like a lot of, at that time, just modern alternative rock. Yeah. Uh,

and then through that, like, you know, within the next five years got very into eighties and nin uh and then through that like you know within the next five years got very into 80s and 90s and then 70s punk just by working backwards from the influences of bands i was listening to well you know you use that pop cover that's sort of like a a kind of essential pop cover the uh only one song yeah yeah another girl another planet like it's very specific and to me like i know that from the replacements right the replacements covered it yeah and i you know then i learned that they cover i learned about the only

ones and yeah i like them and the replacements are one of my all-time favorites sure through them you can it's just kind of like started with what was on the radio yeah which i listened to a lot but it's still kind of an esoteric cover it like you know some people think it's a blink one a2 song oh did they cover it as well yeah which i didn't know yeah i i know this is a very famous replacements sloppy cover and i guess in like 2004 or 5 yeah long after i would have been paying attention to anything like that blink-182 did a similarly well-known cover well i came to i like i came to power pop later there's a whole world of of that ilk of music that you know know, when I was in the early 90s, it wasn't popular at all really.

There was never a popular part of it. There was not like the band that put it on the map. Right. It was always something that someone- And it was their best song, I think, really. I mean, I've listened, the only ones that only have a couple albums, I believe. Yeah, not many.

I really love a song of theirs called People of Today. Oh yeah, that's a good song. That's a really good song. Yeah, so like. I really love a song of theirs called People of Today. Oh, yeah, that's a good song. That's a really good song. Yeah. So, like, let's go back, though. So, you're a music kid, and you're Jewish. And how Jewish? A hundred percent.

No, I mean, but did you do... I had a bar mitzvah. Oh, so you're middle class Jew. Middle class, like, reform. Right. Oh, reform. Not conservative? No, no, not at all.

Guitar player in the synagogue? No. Okay, good. Piano, maybe? Oh, really? I don't remember. Stained glass? No, no, not at all. Guitar player in the synagogue? No. Okay, good. Piano, maybe? Oh, really? I don't remember. Stained glass? Oh, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, you know, like Jewish enough that we would celebrate high holidays, not much else. I had a bar mitzvah, which kind of became an infamous event. Infamous to who? To my family and to my synagogue. And, you know, like my wife is from Oregon. She never met a Jew until she moved to the East Coast. Was she surprised?

I think so. I mean, I wasn't there for it, but I think she was pretty shocked. But like, you know, in contrast to that, I spent two years. You're not like they explain Jews to be. No. Yeah. She didn't have any clue. I wasn't the first one she met.

Yeah. But, you know, I spent two years at a bar, bought mitzvah every single weekend. Sure, of course. But mine, you know how like. Were they competitive? Sometimes. I mean, you had to clear the dates. It really is.

No, but I mean like, you know, who had the better party. Oh, in terms of spending the most money? Yeah. Yeah, probably. I mean, you know, my town wasn't. I mean, I come from the main line. Sure. So there are very rich people.

Yeah. And then there's kind of one tier down. Yeah. Which is more like my part of people. Yeah. And then there's kind of one tier down, which is more like my part of town. Yeah. But you know how at a bar mitzvah after the sort of ceremonial Torah reading, the child can give a speech. The Haftorah and then the speech. Like a little speech on the topic of your choosing.

Yeah. Until my bar mitzvah, this was allowed to be something that was unproved and unsupervised. Like you could just write it yourself and bring it in. to be something that was unproved and unsupervised. Like you could just write it yourself and bring it in. And I was so into like at that time, just like, you know, just watching comedy on TV and like just being a bratty asshole. And I like wrote this speech about how disappointing it is

in life to be served with something like a bar mitzvah that is robbed of its ceremonial meeting and just becomes like six months of extra homework. And I drew this long comparison to like getting like chocolate sprinkles and having a rainbow one in the sprinkles and how the rainbow one is the bar mitzvah. And like my parents just described

looking out at my family and just like jaws on the floor. And then the rabbi- Lenny Bruce is on the pulpit. I was so proud of myself. I'd also broken my hand two days before. Yeah. So you had a cast?

Yeah. And the rabbi put his hand on my shoulder and essentially said, we failed to teach you the meaning of this. He did? Yeah. Out loud? Yeah. In front of everybody.

And yeah. And then after that, everyone at my synagogue had to have their speeches read in advance by the rabbi. The vetting process. Yeah. So that was kind of the end of my relationship with the temple. But also a nice metaphor. Like, you know,

you could see early on that you had a sort of visual thinking and, you know, poetic. You know, the sprinkles analogy. Yeah. I think that's what it's going to be known as. I think so. The famous sprinkles analogy.

So then like, you know, the sign-in board at the party. Yeah. Dozens of people just wrote like sprinkles on it. But yeah, that was kind of the end of me and my relationship with the temple.

Yeah. But it was the beginning of your provocateur career. Realizing I could entertain people by being obnoxious. That's an important lesson to learn. But you didn't go into comedy, I did. Yeah, no, it kind of wasn't, like public speaking wasn't that fun. Yeah, no, it's notoriously not fun.

Yeah. But did you ever do standup? No. No. Like I was, the other day actually, Oh, it's notoriously not fun. Yeah. But did you ever do stand-up? No. Oh. Like, I was, the other day, actually, one of the actresses from Her Smell, Ashley Benson, was on The Tonight Show with Malin.

And I went, because I just love talk shows, so I would just watch. Which one's she? She's Roxy in The Acre Girls. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's the blonde one. She was in Spring Breakers. Yeah, yeah.

And I went, because I've always loved TV show tapings, and when I was a kid, I would just watch Letterman the acre girls okay yeah she's the blonde one okay yeah spring breakers yeah yeah um and i went because i've always loved tv show tapings and i was a kid i would just watch you know letterman yeah of course yeah craig kilbourne every night yeah and i went and i was like all i ever wanted when i was growing up was to work with someone who would be on the show promoting something i never wanted to be on a show i never wanted to sit on tv and have makeup on. Not even in the 70s? I wasn't around then. No, I know, but it seems like there was a time where people of your ilk,

because you're a thoughtful Semitic artist who obviously can talk, but you're the kind of a good Cavett guest. Yeah, you mean like Cassavetes and Ben Kazzara and sure yeah that would have been back when when that type of person was actually on talk shows a lot i guess maybe yeah well i didn't know this at the time i guess when i saw that stuff later i thought that looks fun yeah but all i ever wanted was to just like go to a taping where someone's promoting something i worked on were they is that were they promoting the movie yeah yeah she was there to show a clip of her smell. You know I was up for a part in that.

You mentioned this. And you didn't know it. I mean, you know, you get these massive lists. Sure, I know casting. And then it's like, are you interested in people on this list? And I say yes. And then it goes, okay, well actually three of these people are unavailable. And I think that's where. That's where it happened. That's where we terminated. Because like when I get it, this is sort of the drop off between, you know the director of the movie, and the writer, and what I got. Basically, what I got was like, this movie's yours to have. That's what they said to you? Yeah.

It really needed me to have meetings with actors and explain stuff to them. Yeah. Well, let's go back before we get to this movie. So you don't do comedy. And when did the interest in film, because I think you're a very unique filmmaker with a real control of the craft in, in, in the sense that, you know, I've watched three of your films and they all, you know, they're all unique, but you, you know how to control the look you're looking for yeah um so my high school had a tv station in the basement yeah that was the cable access for our township oh yeah and when i was in middle school all i wanted to do was get there like there were these guys that had a show called telegrande yeah and they were on when i was like in eighth and ninth grade and all i want uh no they were juniors and seniors so yes, grownups to me at the time.

And all I wanted to do was get to that TV studio in the basement and just hang out with these guys who wore jackets with punk patches on them and just learn from them. And then as soon as I got to high school, I was in the TV studio every day after school until I graduated. And my friends and I eventually had our own show

all of our junior and senior year. Like we got the first. So you were learning how to cut and produce yeah like shooting on VHS uh-huh Monday Tuesday Wednesday editing until six or seven at night and then the show goes out every Thursday yeah and we were in it and we would make little videos and little kind of pieces and yeah all day you know and that was all I really cared about there was no grown-up oversight there was one woman named Nikki Comstock who who ran the studio and because she she wasn't a teacher so she didn't work like eight to three right she worked nine to five or ten to six so we could stay really late with her right and she was really instrumental she just let us do our thing and that was hugely important and then I watched these other people graduate and go to film school

yeah and I thought oh yeah I didn't know you could do that. Right. You can keep doing this. You can just go to another place with a room in the basement and shoot stuff with your friends. And yeah, I mean, I did it for years. I just was down there shooting every day

and making these silly little... Were you going out in the world and doing it? Yeah. And bringing it back in? Yeah, we would go around and like, you know, go to our houses, go to the mall, go around town. Did you do any of the stop action stuff? People driving around on their butt?

No, driving around on their butt? Well, you know, where you kind of like, you know, people act like they're in a car and you do the frame by frame thing. Oh, well, I got into, I did like little stop motiony things at home with the video camera my dad bought me, which actually is the camera we shot

the video flashbacks on in Her Sm which actually is the camera we shot the video flashbacks on in her smell really i would move sculpey figures around so you had that thing and you know sony hi-8 handycam yeah and you like you kept hold of that in case you would need it i mean this is the way my dad's house is that's why he's getting rid of all of his records from the 80s now so he's a pack rat kind of yeah cool stuff which i've inherited and then i yeah this time last year before the shoot i just texted him i said is that camera still around and he said yeah and i said can you overnight it to us i think i need it for the movie and then yeah there's images in there from the camera that i got for hanukkah in like 1997 those are the ones where you shot them in the past with the gold

record and yeah yeah so when you go so you went to nyu yeah so i went from yeah so i was in bernmar and then n NYU was next. And that was sort of, when did you, because it seems like, you know, you have pretty specific heroes around, you know, film and literature and how you want to present stuff. I'm always sort of, it's always interesting to me to see how independent filmmakers that surface, you know, the choices they make, you know, you know, what they're based on, you know, because like, you know, you said, you're staying over at Jeff and Aubrey's house, Jeff Bain, who I know, he's another guy that makes sort of very, there, you know, there's a vision in place that, you know, like I watched, like I watched Queen of the Earth and I, you know, I'm not I'm not a stick in the mud. I'm not a prude, but I don't know what happened at the end. And, you know, that's your decision.

Fair. But I understand the poetry of it and what you choose to put on and what you know, what you choose to show, what you choose not to show in terms of constructing a story. In terms of constructing a story. So I guess my question is, when you were at NYU, what was really kind of putting your personal visual framework together, an intellectual framework? Yeah, I mean, even before that, do you remember in 1998 when the AFI Top 100 list first came out? Yeah, kind of. That was very important because through that, it was because of that that I watched Clockwork Orange and Blue Velvet. I just watched that on a screen again in England. Clockwork Orange?

Yeah, new print. I just saw it in New York on a print a couple weeks ago for the 50th time. It's one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. So Clockwork Orange and what was the other one? Blue Velvet, which were both on the AFI Top 100. Really, those two? Well, those are just the ones that I remember seeing

that blew my mind the most as a 13-year-old. Oh, okay. So then I just got into, you know. That list gave you the sort of primer to being a film head. Yeah. And then I tried to work my way through it, but I look at those movies and I think, I need to see everything else by this filmmaker. And my dad had been a huge Twin Peaks fan. And when I got into Blue Velvet, he said, a guy I work with at the station has all the videotapes he taped off of TV of Twin Peaks, which you can't see anywhere else right now.

Right. It's like ninety seven. Right. And, you know, just so I was kind of getting into that very, you know, one on one stuff. But in looking at like the way you work, I mean, I wouldn't have seen I wouldn't have sourced anything that I've seen of yours to those two influences. What was it about those two directors that that you, in retrospect, find compelling? Well, they just gave me the idea, you know, very common that there's some filmmakers that you can look at a movie and within two seconds know who made it. Okay.

That was very important. So then by the time I was at NYU, you know, like a lot of people who are 20, I just became obsessed with French New Wave. Yeah, I can see that. It was New Wave. And if it was on- Yeah, I can see that. It was on Criterion. I had to have it.

Yeah. If it was playing at Film Forum, I had to go see it. Sure. If it was at Anthology Film Archives or MoMA, I had to go see it. And then- So you really, you were going, you were running around. Suddenly I became just omnivorous.

And I was, I worked at Kim's Video at the time. On 8th? Yeah, on St. Mark's. Yeah. St. Mark's and 22nd. I remember that place. Yeah, three floors. Yeah, there's three floors, and you're like, what's being sold on this floor?

Where do I rent? Why is it so confusing here? Rent on the top floor. I worked on the middle floor with DVD sales and vinyl until vinyl moved downstairs to the music. But just omnivorous. I mean, I would go see a double feature of B Westerns at Film Forum, go to work for eight hours at Kim's, take a sexploitation movie home or a 70s horror movie home and watch that and then get up the next day, go to class. So what do you think you took from,

you know, if you're focusing on the new wave, like in of uh how it affected your particular vision you know what was it about those films and those guys i mean you know when you see those those images when you're watching when you're discovering beyond like the top five movies yeah like you see 400 blows right you're like this is a masterpiece i get breathless yeah and then like two or three years in gym yeah and i'm moved yeah emotionally by these and they're they're literate yeah and they're smart and they're funny and they're they're human yeah and then but then you know a couple years later after 400 blows you see these other antoine dwanell movies and all i ever wanted was to like make a movie like bed and board or stolen kisses

this this adult boy stumbling through his romantic life and he can't get it together. And just, I mean, I must've watched those two movies a dozen times each when I finally got to them and just seeing Leo just be this kind of, you know, life physical actor, who's also smart and he's reading philosophy in bed. I was just like, this is, this is fantastic. Right. So that's that that's what informed you is that, you know, that there is this sort of French intellectual way of life. Yeah. And that that you don't like that. I think that a certain type of American kid aspires to. But it's a very specific thing. And it's, you know, the men and the women are both gorgeous. Everyone in the movies is beautiful. The photography is just simple and elegant and it seems smart,

but they're also, you know, so rooted in the history of other movies, which makes sense if you're me and you're watching three things a day. And yeah, and then like you go deeper and you go beyond those guys and you end up watching all the Romero movies and all the Revett movies.

And now I'm just at retrospectives all the time and like hanging out with people from Kim's and we're just seeing movies together and talking about it. And just talking and then going out and drinking a lot before I stopped doing that as well and just I don't know if you know Anthology Film Archive. Sure. I mean that's what. I think it's still going.

Oh absolutely. Like on second or third? Yeah second and second. Yeah second and second. No they just kind of raised a bunch of money for an expansion. But lived one block away from there in my nyu dorm yeah and they have the essential cinema series where yeah if you haven't seen brackage projected or you haven't seen michael snow wavelength projected wavelength right you walk right in and if you have a membership the essential screenings are free and i could see prints of all these movies one block from my dorm and then you know go to film forum and watch east of eden and that to me makes sense as a perfect day right so I was just you

know everything that was screening I needed to go see and you were I mean you're down you're filling up the hard drive I was you know I mean like I'm barely talking about NYU because my time there was just like yeah I go to class get out and then I'm at then I can go to the movies what did you learn there um you know not a lot but any practical skills shooting you got to shoot right yeah but i immediately it's one of those things like it's like learning math right in middle school i just am like oh i won't use this right like i don't want to be a cinematographer right even though i'm learning how to load a camera yeah i this doesn't speak to me i want to work with someone who loves this

and it'll be obsolete soon. Yeah. I like the writing teachers a lot. There was this great professor there who's still there, I think, named Karl Bardosch, who's like a Hungarian intellectual. And he turned me on to some very strange Eastern European cinema that at the time I'd never heard of,

like Sergei Parajanov. And at the time, Kieslowski, which was unknown to me. And as a writing professor, what did you glean that you took with you? Not a whole lot. I mean, you know, like it's a wasteful system. Like what I always say in terms of the progression out of school into my first movie, which cost $15,000 and we shot it in one week. Like my senior thesis film was a 20 minute, $20,000 film. And I was the cheapest one in my class.

Yeah. And everyone kind of spent, now some people are spending $50,000. What was that called? The first movie is called Implex. Implex. So that wasn't made in school though. So, but you know what you're learning.

What was the thesis movie? It was like a very Leo, like, you know, Leo new wave inspired movie about like a young guy in New York who loves older women. And what they teach you is basically like spend $50,000 on a short, have a feature based on the short. And then if the short's good, you can go to Hollywood and you'll make the

feature for $5 million. And I bought into that. And then within a couple of years, like one year of graduating, you know, like your our mutual friend joe swamberg is making five thousand dollar movies he's also making five thousand movies yeah well at the time only three or four yeah yeah but i'm at kim's and i'm seeing dvds from people my age and sean williams my dp who worked at kim's as well shot this movie called frown land yeah which was like i mean that movie is like sex pistols at manchester for a of filmmakers in New York. Oh yeah. Like seeing that movie, uh, if you've never seen it, I think you would probably really like it. Yeah. It's just like so aggressive and so raw. And, uh, seeing that all of us, we were like, we can do this. Like everyone who saw that movie, one just like became a

filmmaker immediately. And I was like, I have no excuse. I can't make a $5 million movie based on my thesis. I can make a $10,000 movie in six days. That's what everyone's doing now. And then I just set off to do that. And then we did it like a year later because all the people like Joe and Lynn, again, like all these mutual friends now we're coming up at the same time and spending more than five or 10 grand on a movie and spending more than eight days shooting. It was unthinkable. Why would, why would you do that? There's no reason you can do it. you can do it so why not well i mean i guess in the long run that that uh prudence and practicality helps you beyond beyond anything yeah but i mean it is nice to have more money and more time isn't it it's nice now yeah but you know it's like if you grew

up poor your family could split a can of soup for two days yeah and it's not preferable no it's like if you grew up poor your family could split a can of soup for two days yeah and i it's not preferable no it's not preferable survival you know that you won't die yeah and if you make a feature for ten thousand dollars fifteen and then you make another one for 25 and then you make one for a million yeah you feel like you have everything in the world right and you know i still know people that think you can't do this for that budget and it's like i did this for twenty thousand dollars yeah but do you look back at those films and see are there things that you know in the earlier movies where you're like that was really a better movie than my million dollar movie uh no yeah i mean there's that kind of purity in there which is to say you're making them for no reason like you're

not making them because you want to get into the industry you're making them because you must you want to get your friends together and just shoot something. But have you, like, when did that change for you? I mean, like, when did you, I mean, because your industry is specific. I mean, you are in a world of independent film. You're not, you know, gunning to make, you know, big budget movies necessarily.

No, not at the moment. I'm gunning to write them. Yeah. You know, I mean, it just, because there's nothing else I could offer. It's not like I'm doing this as a hobby. Well, what was the first feature about? What were the decisions around it? Of Implex? Yeah. It was inspired by Gravity's Rainbow. Did you finish Gravity's Rainbow? Oh, yeah. And the second I put it down, I thought, I don't think I'll grapple with this book or finished thinking about it until I spend a year making my own response to this really yeah I mean like I couldn't get through

it yeah I feel bad about it uh I it changed everything for me okay I can get through you know uh crying of what 49 yeah I love the uh I got through Vineland I got through yeah I mean like I like him there's a mode of his that you prefer you like the more contemporary it was so daunting and it was such a challenge and like you know I gotta stay focused for that long yeah I mean it took me a whole summer to read but then it changed everything and I immediately knew that I

should leave my job at Kim's and get my friends together and make this movie about rockets because you know just like as a sort of artistic response the opening line is about the missiles right yeah screaming comes across the sky yeah last lines great now everybody that's what you missed when you didn't get to the end perfect last line well I like the summary yeah and there's a bunch of stuff in the middle of those two lines too but yeah I just was like as a sort

of you know I mean it's basically an experimental film yeah and it only really played at festivals with the word underground in the title yeah but i just had to do feature length yeah it's well it's 73 minutes yeah i just had to do it i had to make my response to this piece of work that had influenced me so much and it was fun and then i got to go to festivals and i met tons of people that i had never known i knew jew uh jew joe point already. Sorry, I'm getting a real slip there. No one less Jewish than Joe Swanberg. That's true. But he's a great guy.

Oh yeah. I like working with him. Totally supportive, but I knew him already and then just going to festivals and meeting tons of other filmmakers, I immediately wanted to make another movie so that I could be back at festivals meeting more filmmakers.

And what was the second movie? It's called The Color Wheel. Yeah. It's the only one of my movies that I'm in. That's the one about the family it's a brother sister road trip movie oh it is who's in that uh it's me yeah and then this actress uh named carlin altman i saw you in joshie right i'm in jeff bainer's movie joshie yeah i like that movie yeah it was a lot of fun to make yeah so the color wheel so that like what what compelled you uh again like it was from novels i was reading a lot of philip roth. And, um,

see, it's like, this is like, for me, like, you know, when you talk about French intellectuals, people,

you know, actors reading philosophy and, you know, and Philip Roth, it's like, it's a real kind of like, you know, a seventies Jewish intellectual trip.

I know that's, that's, that's my, you know, a tweed jacket, corduroy pants. I love Rothman. I read the shit out of him.

It was so important. I want to start rereading some of his books. you read all of them uh well i have read them all but one because which one i've not read exit ghost oh really yeah with with with uh filmmakers and novelists who have a big body of work that i love i kind of like to have one thing that you hold out on yeah just like for when i'm 50 i can have one new ph is- You hold out on? Yeah, just like for when I'm 50, I can have one new Philip Roth book to read. Yeah, I think I read that one. I think I read all the later ones. Sabbath Theater?

That's my favorite. Right? Yeah, that book is phenomenal. Freddie Sabbath, right? Mickey Sabbath. Is that Mickey Sabbath? Yeah. Yeah.

Jacking off on the grave of his deceased lover. I mean, it's perverse. And I'm reading these on the- It's an outlier too. Yeah, it's a one-off. Yeah. I'm reading these on the subway and's an outlier too. Yeah, it's a one-off. Yeah. I'm reading these on the subway and I'm just thinking like the sickness in these,

these are bestsellers in their time. Yeah. And I'm reading these on the train and I feel like people are gonna look at me. Like you're dirty. And I wanna write a movie that's kind of like that. So it's this weird kind of sexual repressed id, Jewish bickering sibling movie that ends with incest great yeah

exactly sort of like spanking the monkey very much so yeah uh or house of yes as well it's like again like this is 2010 that we're making it but it's trying for me i'm trying to make one of those like classic 90s like it's black and white 16 millimeter one of those indie movies that when i was 13 14 i would read about at sundance and be like oh like an indie movie about incest that sounds cool and right like uh like those movies like like stranger than paradise yeah which was very important to me i mean again like when i was in nyu like discovering charmish yeah like it was just not not what i wanted to do like i didn't want to be doing like his style wasn't speaking to me but he mixes it up yeah but i was never like what i want to do is like very dry

deadpan movies where the camera never moves i just loved the identification of his work as a pure artist it's so funny the one thing i remember a quote of him when i must have read it in a film magazine back in the day like remember his movie mystery train yeah that when the japanese tourists are uh unpacking their luggage in their hotel room room and he shoots it you know how they've packed and in an interview he said you know I wanted the the packing of the luggage the way the stuff was in the bag to look like a like one of those little transistor radios when you pull it back up interesting yeah like I just thought like oh man that's like you know really attentive you know yeah no I mean but again like just seeing that detail in his work like just knowing that there are artists behind these bodies of work was very exciting to me well yeah

that you can make you know you have complete control of the frame to a degree so you can make these decisions and like you know the i guess the spectrum of that goes from like you know somebody who's you know totally loose like swamberg to like you know wes anderson that is like everything's like a goddamn you know uh a little you know what do you call those to like you know wes anderson that is like everything's like a goddamn you know uh a little you know what do you call those boxes where you know like a picture box yeah yeah yeah i mean at this time you know i was so these two movies you know the visual style at this point is just developing because i've shot both of them on 16 millimeter um so you got to be a little economical huh well very much so but also now suddenly there's this aesthetic that I didn't even really think about where the movies feel very timeless, very 70s or 80s or 90s.

Well, you know, I thought that the Queen of Earth felt kind of organic. Yeah. So for Listen Up, Philip, onward, up into Her Smell, the movies were all shot on Super 16. But like what struck me about it, and I watched the Philip movie, and that's more of the kind of romanticizing the novelist of the 70s. Very much so, yeah. Yeah, but I liked it.

I like him and I like the old cranky guy. Jonathan Pryce. Yeah, yeah. An amazing guy, great actor. Really a great actor. Really fun to make that movie. I mean, that was amazing because, you know, again,

Color Wheel was $25,000. Right. And now I have just under a great actor. Really fun to make that movie. I mean, that was amazing because, you know, again, Color Wheel was $25,000. Right. And now I have just under a million bucks. Having, you know, $900,000 after $25,000, I mean, I felt like the richest man in the world. I felt like what I could do on this movie, it expanded by, you know, by a whole, you know, just a big bang of resources. But you still strike me as somebody who's going to use that money. Well, that in the sense that like, what does this enable me to do relative to what I want to see? Yeah. And it's, and also most importantly, it's, I'm bringing all the same people from

the smaller movies, same DP, I shot all six of my movies from Impel X. And like I said, yeah, like I said, we worked at kim's together so we go back but that's interesting because you know the the quality you know you do you know you clearly have control over you know what you want us to see and and um but it's not stylistically the same movie to movie yeah yeah i mean it's just for me like i love even though i'm talking about like, Oh, I love you. You can tell a Kubrick movie right away.

but you know, what's the connection visually between 2001 and the shining, like everything, but also nothing just to make a different movie. Every time there's something, there's something about the way he moves a camera. Always, always the same,

but the milieu of the movie and the style changes based on what the material is. Sure. And I find that, you know, that, or like even more recently, like, you know, a guy like Soderbergh, you just want to do something different. You don't want to say like. Once you get the skill set, why not mix it up? Yeah. So I want to do like a big sprawling literary kind of sad comedy like fill up and then do a claustrophobic 70s style thriller like Queen of Earth and then make a kind of Romer-esque movie

like Golden Eggs that's like, and then make a huge neon glittery rock. It's just like, it's just so much fun for me to challenge this wonderful crew that has made all these movies with me to say, we must do something different at all times. And like, well, the Queen of Earth in terms of like, but it's a thriller in the artistic the the artistic sense uh of what thrillers

used to be the loosest sense of the word right but it's a psychological thrill yeah so it's not like you know you're not going to find out who the killer is at the end yeah i always said that if the movie ended with someone being stabbed it would have made a million dollars right but no it's not about that it's about a psychological breakdown of one woman who just, just in close up. Right. And, but, you know, it becomes clear two thirds of the way through the movie that maybe some of what you've been seeing might be from her point of view and not, you know, honestly happening.

A hundred percent. And it's fun because like, you know, I don't know if you've ever done something like this where you kind of feel like it's time to go back to basics, but we made Impalex, like I said, in one house in one week for $15,000. And then we made Queen of Earth in one house in two weeks. And Joe produced this movie, and this was when Joe was starting his production fund. Yeah. You know, for a quarter of what Listen Up Philip cost. Yeah.

But it was fun to take these famous actors and go make a movie basically exactly how we made my first movie. And then just say, you know, we're all going to go up to this house. Where was it? It was in Poughkeepsie, kind of near Poughkeepsie. Yeah.

Carmel, New York. Yeah. And just, you know, we have the house, we have the house next door and we shoot and it's two weeks. Scripted?

Yeah. That was like a 70 page script because after listening to philip i knew that lizzie moss i knew that she brought a lot of ideas that kind of sparked a tangent is how'd you how'd you meet her because you seem a little obsessed with her well we've done three movies i mean just really through casting on philip uh-huh like jason was in yeah and then i got a list of you know these are some actresses that would be available at this time. And I saw her and I thought, wow, she'd be amazing in this. All I can think of is her in Mad Men and Top of the Lake.

Yeah. If she wants to come make this Brooklyn literary sad comedy, that would be really exciting. Her and Jason, that'd be a fun couple. But at some point you realize that she is, you know, she has multitudes within her. On that set. I mean, right away on day three or four, I just was like. Of Philip. Yeah.

She's firing on all cylinders and then six months later sent her a 70 page script for queen of earth but queen of earth is like that's that's a a taxing exercise for an actress and you you were completely sort of i imagine like thrilled and curious to see how far she could take it very much so and just very trusting and doing whatever we could to give her that shoot the movie in order let her you know oh you would, yeah, we shot it in order from start to finish. And, you know, she was, that was her first producing credit that she wanted to transition into learning that side of things. I really liked the movie. And it's very proud of it.

Of Queen of Earth. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, you know, it made me realize some things in terms of writing. Cause I, you know, I'm writing with Lynn and like there in terms of writing because I'm writing with Lynn. And in terms of how are you going to serve this story and what is this story and how do you over-serve it? The bare essentials. Right. What can you do in a house where all you have is two great actresses, a camera, and a naturally nice location?

You can do something with that. And Joe, I don't know if you saw Joe's movie, Happy Christmas. Yeah, I did. Yeah. This was trying to apply that model. They have basically the exact same budget. Joe was like, we're in this weird position where after Drinking Buddies and after Listen Up, Philip, we could get the same kind of actors that want to come make a million dollar indie to make a a hundred thousand dollar indie with us now because actors know that we're fun to work with so if he's like i got anna kentrick after drinking buddies to come make a hundred thousand dollar movie you can do the same with lizzie moss well the funny thing is is that like you know i talked to steven dorf yesterday

wow really yeah he was so good on the new true detective good somewhere is one of my favorite movies it's great but you know like a great great movie. But in True Detective, I'm watching him like, it's like he's reborn or something. As I felt in Somewhere. He's always impressive whenever he comes into one of these huge roles. And the point being is that at some point we're talking, and he's like, I'll come in and read. I love to act.

Yeah. So if you give these talented people something you know, something that they can really, you know, get, you know, cut loose in, they've got to be thrilled. And, you know, as we've learned, like, and as you've known from working with Lynn or Joe, like sometimes this is a week of time, two weeks. What's into that noise? What is that? Is that Glendale construction? That's my fucking yard guy. Do you schedule him to come when you have someone on?

Well, I mean, I don't, I'm not that organized. Hold on a minute. Maybe if I shut the blinds. I couldn't hear it until you said anything. No, I know, I know. We have stuff like this in Queen of Earth where there's like the yard guy outside. Yeah, he's got the same piece of equipment

that that guy out there has. You hear those machines and they just drive you nuts. Oh my God, it sounds like that's in the fucking room. It's pretty loud now. Let's give him a minute. You couldn't go outside and ask him to move to the other side of the house? Well, I mean, it's like, you know, it's a finite zone there. You know what I mean? He

doesn't, you know, eventually. Is he mowing or just like? No, it's blowing. What is the point of that? To get the leaves and dust off of shit. But where do they go? They just go into the sidewalk or the street? No, they put them in a bag. Oh, okay, so they get sucked up. Well, no, they don't suck them up. They usually blow them into an organized pile,

and then they put them in a bin. That's so crazy. What a waste of energy. Why don't you just get a rake? This is crazy to me that this is like a... There's a guy on my street... I mean, it's sort of an advance, though. I mean, you know, at some point, you know,

someone said, like, this raking's taking a long time, and this is a more efficient way to do it. Yeah, it only takes a $1,000 device with lots of energy and battery power. I think these guys usually use the gas ones. But yeah, I understand your argument. There's a guy on my street that just walks around. You're saying return to the rake? There's a guy on the street that walks around with a blower just blowing trash and leaves and dust off of the sidewalk.

And it's just like what is how does this better than a broom i i get it but like it how is it better it's a little more fun it's what it's not for me not for us inside it's more fun for the guy yeah of course but it's a labor intensive these guys got to move on you know they can't you know be spending all day with the rake and there's not that much to rake it's really just you know it's maintenance dude but i understand your argument you know this is like you know that the right old things i like the rake and there's not that much to rake it's really just you know it's maintenance dude but i understand your argument you know this is like you know that i like old things i like shooting on film yeah the rake is 16 millimeter yeah exactly i like things that are simple i like to read a book i don't have a kindle yeah analog yeah me too i like to read a book i like brooms

i don't like i don't like gas powered i'm with you too like i you know i do the broom thing and then i have a broom guy yeah i got a broom guy? Yeah, I've got a broom downstairs. But I also have vacuums. But sometimes I don't even think there's another option than the broom. And somehow the woman that cleans my house every so often, she's doing something else that seems much more efficient. Yeah. But do you live in a house that has...

Do you live in a house? We have half of a brownstone. That's nice. But as we were discussing, much like you, I half of a brownstone. That's nice. But as we were discussing, much like you, I have three cats. Yeah. House gets dirty. Yeah, it gets fucking, everything's covered with hair. And ours are all long-haired.

Look at what you're sitting on. If you sit up. Cats love this kind of seat. It's covered with hair. Yeah, no, we have a kitchen table with cushions like this, and the black and white cat sit on opposite sides of it. What you have to accept with a cat is just crazy. mean i my my bedspread is covered with litter dust yeah and i i couldn't care less i'm happy to have that i'd rather have that than than not the cats but you know the house

gets dirty and then there's the throwing up yeah it's weird our the three cats we have now are not barfers mine aren't usually but one of them will do it occasionally one of our cats that we don't have anymore would throw up like two or three times a week yeah kind of like seemingly as a prank like to get us up out of bed but we don't have a lot of barf at the moment so you're doing a lot of thinking and making these movies yeah more than i think you would think because they feel loose like they're not like they're like but like but does anyone outside of you i'm sorry to interrupt it no i but like, but does anyone outside of you, I'm sorry to interrupt it. No, I'm to apologize.

But does anyone outside of you pick most of this shit up? Not really. Because there's, there's no critics like that anymore, dude. Yeah. It's weird. It's weird.

You would think like, it's not that I'm dismayed because if someone likes the movie, great, but the movies are loose by design, handheld camera work, dialogue that is scripted to feel unscripted yeah and uh people look at it and they think it's all made up they don't understand the intricacy of some of the things that we really work on and you're loading them up they just feel loose to people which is

great they are loose but they're loose meticulously especially the new one you know it's not like what wes would do with the frame yeah but it's not dissimilar i mean we're putting thought into all these no i know and there was a time where you know these clues and these hints and these you know the people that used to write about film when you were like the people that saw all the movies that you saw and were writing about those films in the day you know all that young blood saris you know like the people that would really take it apart you know know, like the semiotics guys, like they would find these things. It used to be like a goal, I think it was to sort of wonder whether or not you knew that these things were there.

Yeah. And to be the first one to kind of catch on and say, you know, I don't know. I don't read much writing like that about film. I imagine it's out there. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, of course people are working in that model, but the problem is like, at least with,

you know, there's like, there's like criticism and then there's like critical writing. Right. Like a review of a movie at a film festival, the movie premieres at 8 PM and the review is out by midnight. Yeah. I mean, that's garbage. Like there's no quality to that. And, you know, I read these reviews, you know, Her Smell has these five long scenes.

Five is an easy number to count to. you can do it on one hand yeah and then i read these reviews the morning after in toronto the movie has four scenes the movie has six scenes yeah and it's like five i would assume critics could count to five like this is this is galling to me that you would not only miss that but that you would then put it in writing and not even like say to your editor can you check with the film's publicist if this movie has four or six scenes there and also they don't do their homework they're sloppy they don't give a fuck you know like they misspell things they like it's just a nightmare like even just like with people interviewing me or writing about something how many times i have to call back and say like i definitely did not say this and like

they take your words out of context or no, no. They just misquote. Yeah. Like, it's like, I know what I said, you know, and it wasn't that person or that was not the reference I made. And this doesn't make any sense. Can you just change it? Because I don't mind that you're putting the whole conversation as I talk to you, but it's like, get this point right. Do you read those things about yourself?

Not usually. Sometimes they come down the pike and i'll read them like interviews because sometimes like i'm surprised at uh you know that i can that i'm making sense because i talk so fucking much sometimes and you want to see how people kind of well i want to see how it looks on the page because i didn't put it there yeah yeah no i mean i love stuff like that too i'm more likely to read an interview that i did than read a review of the movie at this point yeah because like you want to see how your brain's working i mean mean, I know talking to you that you're receiving what I'm saying and we're having a conversation, but if someone's asking me questions and I'm caffeinated

and it's the morning and I'm on the phone and I'm just going, sometimes I like to look at what that looks like. And also, it's impossible to overstate this. Again, we're here, despite the noise outside, this is as nice as it gets for a conversation. When I do an interview and I'm at a cafe around the corner from my house and there's people around and I feel like I can't, I can't really speak honestly. Cause then I sound like an asshole to the person sitting next to me. Yeah. But also you're dealing with set questions too. Like there's limited engagement. There's a

guy that's nervous or he's done it a million times and he's got two questions that he's really think are going to nail the thing. Yeah. And then I kind of, you know, you have to be quiet. Maybe you happen to get to the cafe during the one hour that no one else is talking and everyone is drinking coffee and reading. And then eventually you develop a pattern around these things. You do enough of these interviews and you know, you find like you're giving roughly this, hold on, it's a third noise. Yeah. There's like, now it's like a mower. This is great. This is great material.

I apologize. You know, with the headphones on, you can barely, it can't be picking up on the microphones, right? Maybe a little. I mean, this is like a little bit much. Paul Rudd and I did an improvisation around the noises. I'm sorry, I can't rise to that occasion. We did sort of a throat singer of Tuva homage.

Yeah, like Yaima in the movie, which does throat singing. Yeah, yeah, right, yes. But yeah, forget about the same. I mean, this is so pleasant because I'm a fan and we're having this conversation, but I did two hours of phone interviews yesterday, and probably 75% of each one were the same answers, the same words, the same questions.

Yeah, and you got to do it. But okay, so here's my experience with the new film, which I liked. Was that like, because I read, you know, the parts of the script at least that, you know, I was going to possibly audition for. Or according to your representation, that was yours already. Yeah. Stoltz played it and he did good. He did it very differently than I would have done it. Stoltz played it and he did good

he did it very differently than I would have done it well which is which is interesting because at the time of your name coming up I hadn't seen Glow yet

oh yeah because I watch everything six months after everyone else does yeah and then when I watched it right after we wrapped

because I watched all of Gail's scenes right when we were interested in her I mean the show is phenomenal oh good

I loved it so much. Thanks. And you're so good on it. It's just a remarkable show. Thank you. There's a pattern to the character of a guy like that. Yeah. You can do it a hundred different ways.

Yeah. You can be the guy who's sweating bullets. You can be the guy who's got an ulcer tearing in his belly. Yeah. You can be the guy who's Mr. Cool. Yeah. It's just so fun to think about something like that, which on the page, I don't know that

until an actor comes in and tells me their take on it. Well, I mean, I think my instincts would have like, you know, the interesting thing about those characters, and I think that Stoltz in the movie played it a little Hollywood, which was that there was sort of a fundamental kind of detachment and a, you know, a sort of an active engagement in, you know, being

sort of a seemingly a friend or a mentor. But, you know, underlying it all was that, you know, he's a business guy. Very much so. And also, as people pointed out, once we were doing it, kind of an enabler. Yeah, of course. Which is something that I. They all are. Oh, very much so.

Yeah. Which is very important to understanding the sort of patterns of dealing with an addict, which the movie's very much about. But the extent to which he enables that character wasn't really apparent until we were doing the scenes because by playing it, cool as a cucumber Hollywood guy,

I've got this figured out, then he's the one who just kind of lets her get away with it. Lets her get away with it and rolls the dice on on you know their on the talent's well-being because the talent they their their job is to manipulate the talent into continuing to you know be a money funnel really and and to try to you know maintain some sort of uh you you know you don't want to kill the person but but you do turn a blind eye to certain things if they're still earning. Of course. And I have this with people in my creative orbit.

We all have this. Someone that's like, I can't really cut this person out because I need them or I really value them. And they're maybe the best at what they do and they're very important to me. But part of that means you just kind of get what you get. And then the job is learning to work around those eccentricities. Why this story, though? You know, like this story has been you know, it's been attempted. It's been done. You know, it's tricky to create a fake rock band that is supposedly a huge rock band. Yeah. You know, I the movie that that keeps hitting my brain with it was that movie.

I think it was called Gloria with Jennifer Jason Leigh and Holly. Yeah, interesting. That's a pull. Who directed that? Was it Ghost Bart, I think, maybe? And it was about sisters. Right, right. One was a folk singer

and Jennifer Jason Leigh was the sister who was the punk rock drug addict. Yeah. No one's brought that up. Oh, okay. Yeah, we generally talk a lot about- Did you see that movie? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, I do know what you're talking oh yeah we generally talk a lot about um did you see that movie you know what i'm talking yeah yeah i do know what you're talking about we generally talk about

ladies and gentlemen the fabulous stains uh-huh you know that movie oh really oh it's a great movie yeah it's like a 16 year old diane lane and laura dern okay for these teenage girls that start a punk band yeah and um uh paul cook and steve jones from the sex pistols and paul simenon from the clash yeah are this and Paul Simon on from the Clash. Yeah. Are this other like British punk band. Yeah. And Jones and Cook wrote the music for the movie.

It's a great fake punk band movie. Oh, interesting. But yeah, I mean, I, you know, I'd wanted to make a music movie and I tried to make one a few years ago that didn't happen. Set in the 60s. Uh-huh. And, you know, this was my time and I kind of came up with this character for Lizzie. And there has not been the 90s alternative movie, the 90s grunge movie, the 90s punk movie.

And I'm as far away from it, both in time and also as close to it in my own life as Todd Haynes in Velvet Goldmine. That's 97. That's looking back at about 74, 75. Guys, you're really doing the math. I got really into numbers, as Jason pointed out at the Q&A last night.

But you know, like, you make it about your thing. You know, if I did a 60s movie, it's like, yeah, I mean, I wasn't there. I just love this music. But, you know, but I do have to accept on some level

that, you know, this is a meditation on that. Very much so. It's not, you know, i do have to accept on some level that you know this is a meditation on that very much so it's not you know i have no interest in doing the true story of something yeah because as a writer then you're boxed in yeah you can only do so much if you're no i get looking at reality that closely so just kind of taking a 25 year step back from the era i loved the women and rock that i loved, the CDs that I loved. You know, I talked about being inspired by Gravity's Rainbow or Professor of Desire to be inspired by a CD.

Yeah, and you liked my talk with Tanya. Tanya Donnelly, that was a great talk. You had Kim and Kelly Deal on. Sure. That was great as well. Just, I think I just had Kim on. Really? Oh, really?

I thought it was both. No. I wonder why I thought that. I don't know. She talked about Kelly Deal. She probably talked about it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, I were uh you were there for a lot of this this was uh i remember seeing the throwing muses when i was in college present tense music

yeah no i thought i and you definitely hit a lot of the chords like you know uh story-wise and you know and musically uh about what it would be like and and they're like the scenes that really like i but i i it's interesting to me that you see this as fundamentally you know it's your music movie but your focus was uh it's about drug addiction it is but it's not a drug movie you know it's not well no you you went out of your way you don't really see her do drugs by design i know i felt that because then you're again you're boxed into like oh well if she just did that then she should be acting this way well no and also like there it also leaves open for the fact, is she having a manic break?

I mean, how much is she even doing? And like, and is this, you know, relative to her fame and her ego? Is it, you know, relative to a bipolar disposition? Because you were pretty careful outside of her taking a couple slugs of booze, you know, not to really sort of, you know, get into the nuts and bolts. She ducks into the bathroom or dope. Yeah. She goes into the back room and Lizzie and Agnes Dean,

who plays Mari, her kind of, you know, her bass player and drug partner in the movie. You see her do drugs. Yeah. They created a lot of like, talk to people.

They looked at research and, you know, if you take a hit of whatever we're deciding the scene is what are you where are you at one minute later where are you at 20 minutes later because this movie you do have to address if you know marley takes a bump of something we're still with her 20 minutes later when she's kind of fidgety yeah and um she was doing coke yeah yeah and i guess like as she came up with but you know like it's not yeah i didn't want to do like the drug movie or just like the no yeah we can't rise and fall movie it's more like

as you said bipolar this is a movie about seven women who all have these dual personalities that's what i'm fascinated by in this kind of you know the punk persona you know calling yourself sid vicious when your name is john beverly yeah i like that part pretty good it's just the idea that they all have these alter egos and the whole movie is this push and pull where is she becky or rebecca and then at the end when you kind of get the payoff of all seven women's real names in the seance it's like oh this is really like uh there's a struggle here you know even dirtbag danny he you know that's a fake name yeah they call him alvin yeah people just create these personas to deal with fame success their professional public life and i think that's really interesting right so like but i did the scene some of the scene moments

that really like i thought were great was when she was by herself and nodding out or whatever the fuck she decided she was on where she was just sort of like almost catatonic and repetitive yeah but then she pulls out of that and out of nowhere you pull a manson song out of your ass that's right yeah i'm glad i'm glad you you caught that that's the thing like you have to you know when you do a movie that's just these long scenes you have to establish through other means what the deal is with the characters yeah you don't ever see becky's record collection right you imagine it's big but you hear her pull out manson you hear her pull out through other means what the deal is with the characters. You don't ever see Becky's record collection. You imagine it's big, but you hear her pull out Manson.

You hear her pull out Coxbar. You hear her reference Iron Maiden. You know that she just has this brain for things. And what was the decisions around shooting it? Like, you know, these different sections, all five. I imagine given the math nature of your creative vision that you had a specific way of shooting each section. Well, yes, you surmised correctly. So each one, so five acts, each one had a rehearsal day where day one of the movie, we spent eight hours rehearsing act one.

Yeah. No filming. Right. All scripted. all scripted all scripted there's not a word in the final edit that's not on the page uh-huh uh all the references all the train well that was the other thing that i noticed that you it was sort of an amazing uh thing and i think an evolution for you was that you know some of this stuff was you know in the flow of the language was almost shakespearean not in the words being used but you know in the flow of the language was almost Shakespearean, not in the words being used,

but in the way the lyricism of the words flowed. I mean, that was the hope. You read Shakespeare. It's hard to pull off. It's very hard to pull off. I never doubted that she could do it. You read Shakespeare on the page, it maybe reads like gibberish.

Yeah. Then you go see a beautiful production and the flow of it makes it logical. So you were conscious of that. Yeah, I mean, I was just so inspired obviously by classic five act tragedy structure. Yeah. Um, merchant of Venice and Hamlet were on my mind along with the, uh, at the time of starting to crack the script, the guns and roses reunion tour. That was another good episode. Yeah. Slash. Yeah. As soon as I saw that, I was like, I need to go for a walk today so I can listen to this. He was great. But like that, that tour, I was like, I need to go for a walk today so I can listen to this.

He was great, right? But like that tour was- There's another guy that it surprises you that what's beneath the nickname. Yeah, Saul. Like Saul and William, two guys,

like that sounds like your accountants, not the singer and the guitar player of the greatest band of my lifetime. Go have your taxes done by Saul and William.

But it's just like the structure of it was so exciting to me when I kind of cracked that. I'm go have your taxes done by Saul and William. But, uh, it's just like the, the structure of it was so exciting to me when I kind of cracked that. But then the question was, how do we shoot it? Yeah. And we came up with this idea of a rehearsal day where everyone gets to just feel it out, find the choreography.

And then each act was three days of shooting where we would basically shoot 10 pages a day. Yeah. That's a lot. It is a lot, but it's one thing. Yeah. It's just one long scene. a lot, but it's one thing. It's just one long scene.

So you do it eight or nine times, the first three are just on Lizzie's face, the next three are behind her, the next three are getting everyone else in the room. You've done 10 takes 10 times, and you have the whole thing, and then tomorrow you just pick up right where you left off. But what about the camera work

in each separate five of the five? It's written into the script. You know, I knew. Because the first one is claustrophobic. And all Steadicam by design. Yeah. I wanted to be right there. I never worked with Steadicam.

I was really excited. Let's celebrate. It does sound really quiet all of a sudden. But don't jinx it. Okay. Knock on wood. I just wanted to learn how to work with Steadicam. The kind of Paul Verhoeven influence of the movie demanded it.

And then the second act in the recording studio, you know Sympathy for the Devil, the Godard Rolling Stones movie? It's just these long dollies rolling around, zooming in and out. And we said, if we're in a recording studio, I said to Sean, Act 2 is a recording studio. And he goes, dollies and zooms like sympathy for the devil and i was like that's what it says on the page i already wrote those words and then act three you know handheld as crazy as possible because each time the camera

is changing what it's doing it's just again it's just that's what becky's head is doing at that moment it's either crazy and flying all over or it's kind of paranoid and slow or it's just shaky and insane. And then act four, it's just nothing moving as static as can be. But it was just a way of writing, writing the shots and saying like the style of this movie changes every 25 minutes. And the last act goes back to the way the first one was. Yeah. Same location, same camera patterns. same location, same camera patterns but now there's this kind of eerie

disembodied quality where she's been sober now for just a hair under two years and it has this kind of weird dreamlike and also there was a couple years after whatever happened that implies the sort of hitting of the wall

in the film that clearly it went on for a while after that that's very important. I'm glad you noticed that. Yeah. It says when she's there, you know, I have a year next week, but it's not been a year since the last scene. Right.

It's obviously anybody who has ever- Yeah, and apparently she made a record with that other band during that time. Yeah. And that is kind of addressed later, you know, like, and then, but yeah, that's very important that when she says I have a year, anyone who's ever known anybody knows she didn't get sober the morning after the last scene. There was stops and starts. And also I like the sycophancy of even people who are intimately like of her mother and her ex-husband that they see what's going on, but she's been paying for their lives. Very much so.

And simply like we all know this. You just can't get out of some of these relationships. They're your family. They're your creative partners. you know paying for their lives very much so and simply like you know we all know this you you just can't get out of some of these relationships they're your family they're your creative they're also your cash cow and everyone says that about her so the golden goose who's gail says this golden goose who sprays golden piss in our faces yeah like you want to not have that but you can't and you just know and everyone in the movie their agony is our lives are tied to her and we can't help her because she doesn't want to help and she won't help herself. And I like the sort of thoughtful, the sort of tenuousness and fragility of even a year sober is very dicey. And to be that and having to go out on stage for the first time in years. I have a friend who's sober and after the movie she said,

I've never seen something that so accurately makes it feel like what it is when you have to step out, get in front of people, spotlight in your face. But Lizzie looked a lot at the Amy Winehouse documentary, which was people were just, every time she was on stage, people were like, is she even going to make it? It's weird. She was really into that time she was on stage, people were like, is she even going to make it? It's weird. She was really into that.

And she was really into, did you see Jim and Andy? The Jim Carrey, Andy Kaufman documentary? Yeah. She was really into that. Yeah. For some reason, that kind of like bottled mania. Yeah. Really appealed to her. Yeah.

For whatever reason. No, I could see that. She definitely enjoyed from that. Well, great job, buddy. Thank you so much for watching. I'm so flattered. Oh yeah. Why wouldn't I? Of course. great job, buddy. Thank you so much for watching. I'm so flattered. Oh, yeah. Why wouldn't I?

Of course. And thanks for talking. Thank you. And good luck with whatever happens with this movie and the next movie. Thank you. Okay, folks. That was me and Alex Ross Perry. It was exciting, wasn't it?

A lot talked about. I kind of locked into his intensity a bit there. His most recent film, Her Smell with Elizabeth Moss, is available on Apple, Amazon, and other on-demand digital platforms. Okay. Alright, I'll be home later today. Okay?

I'll be home later today. And I'll talk to you from there. Alright. No music. No guitar with me. Okay? Boomer lives! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family.

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