WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 671 - Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson

Episode Date: January 11, 2016

Writer-director Charlie Kaufman takes Marc through his impressive filmography, including Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Synecdoche, NY. But they also go back to when Charlie was a panic-stricken writer on TV shows like Get a Life and The Dana Carvey Show. Then Charlie and Marc are joined by Duke Johnson, Charlie’s co-director on his new film Anomalisa. 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.

Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life.

When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney Plus. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. 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.

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. Lock the gates! store and ACAS Creative. fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics i am mark maron this is wtf welcome to the show oh my god good show today well you know it's sort of like a one of those

rare bird shows and i never thought i'd i'd talk to charlie kaufman i never thought i'd talk i never i just never thought it would happen but today char, Charlie Kaufman is going to be on this show. Charlie Kaufman is the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He directed Synecdoche, New York, and wrote it. Duke Johnson is going to be with him. He worked on the show Moral, Oral, and Community. he worked on the show moral oral and community. They work together, co-directing Charlie's script,

Anomalisa, which is now in theaters. And I tell you, there's, I just haven't, I don't, you know, the word genius gets used a lot.

It gets thrown around a lot. I don't know if I'm a good judge of, of what a genius is necessarily, or I certainly have misused the word myself, but genius in its purest form. I don't even know what that means, but I know I've been in the presence of maybe a couple, maybe a couple geniuses on this show. I will explore this in a moment. I do want to tell you that, again, I'm very excited that so many people are watching my series, Marin, on Netflix. I do have to finish a script.

I'm writing the finale of the fourth season of Marin. I got to get that in. Got a lot of stuff to do. I got interviews to do this week. We got concept meetings for the show. Got to get that script written so the other guys can sit down with it and me and and put it together make it right don't love it i don't love writing uh scripts it's writing in general is a a bit of a chore once i'm in it it's great but it becomes

a puzzle when i write i tend to eat a lot of brownies, Kit Kats I eat, cereal, whatever's in the fucking house. I will clean the house. I will do whatever it takes to avoid actually doing the writing. I'll write a bit, and then I've got to eat. I've got to work on some stuff. But that's my process. It's a long process. I don't have that kind of time this time.

Script's coming along fine. It's driving me crazy. Point being, have that kind of time this time. Script's coming along fine. It's driving me crazy. Point being, thank you again for watching Marin on Netflix or however you watch it. It's nice to know that you do work and people appreciate it. Now let's move on to what I was talking about, about genius. Charlie Kaufman is a genius. Not met many geniuses I've maybe had two geniuses in this room

oddly they know each other and oddly they're both involved in Anomalisa I think Dan Harmon is also a genius and it's not necessarily about output though both of those guys creatively are completely

original and amazing sort of like fluidity to their imagination. And imagination, I think, in the creative fields around genius is where you really, you feel it. You know, you watch something like Community and whether you like the show or not,

you're like, holy shit, where does this come from? And with someone like Charlie Kauf or not you're like holy shit where does this come from and with someone like charlie kaufman you watch all his movies the first time that you see being john malkovich or adaptation you you're sitting there in the movie theater and you're like where does this come from because it's not it's not like sketch you know sketch can be weird and just be open-ended and and just you know sort of like you know well that was fucking i don't well that was weird am i supposed to understand something no it's sketch you could just do weird shit without a button without a close without any point for complete absurdism. Sometimes absurdism is a tremendous

crutch. It's a crutch that people with a good imagination can sometimes get away with not having a fluidity of imagination that seeks meaning. Absurdism is an easy out sometimes. But if you watch something like Being John Malkovich, where there is like devices upon devices upon layers upon layers of visual and lyrically written content that moves through a complete vision, it's an astounding experience. And that's the same with adaptation. On some level uh eternal sunshine

the spotless mind the the the way that was executed i mean synecdoche new york which is kaufman's uh directorial uh debut and also his his script that was very personal it's just mind bending to the point where you walk out and you're like i'm fucking exhausted i think i missed something i gotta i gotta go do that again because you're in the hands of a fucking genius and this new movie anomalisa is genius for a lot of reasons with um duke johnson who oversaw and directed and brought the animated stop action stuff to life with Charlie. This was written as a radio play originally. But they do something with stop action animation that cannot be achieved with real actors. There is a humanity to the movie that is is is sort of brain bending in its depth and there are moments in it that are so human because you watch some kaufman movies and there's

obviously a tremendous amount of humanity in them but sometimes the flights of imagination take you to places where you know the landscape is is is completely surreal but But with this, with the stop action of Anomalisa, there's a depth of humanity and pathos and humility that I don't think it could have been achieved

with real people. They were more real than real people. It's just astounding. But genius, you know genius i got a story about a genius i got a story about a genius when i was a kid i heard about this genius you know you know einstein everybody else but there was a genius in my family my father's cousin brent was supposedly a genius my father would talk about this kid brent he's a genius he's in mensa he was a genius a lot of expectations on the genius like uh it was the genius in families there's always it's a horrible

uh position to be put in to test well and have those expectations we have a genius in the room well what does the genius do is he uh is he a dancing monkey well brent was this guy i heard about and when i was a kid it must have been about 1970 1971 so i was about eight or nine living in new mexico and brent the genius was traveling across country from jersey where my father uh grew up and he was going to stop over for the night with his girlfriend and i just kept hearing about like you know i just had this thing in my mind what does a genius do am i going to know that he's a genius is it is it going to be like seeing a a wizard or an alien of some kind the genius and i just remember that the backstory on brent was like he was a genius

but he kind of dropped out i mean this is our you know the 70s early 70s he was working as a grill cook or something and uh i guess he was not sharing his genius with the world but i was fascinated with this guy a genius that would not use his powers that refused to use his powers for good or bad the genius checked out he's working in a kitchen and i remember he came over and he was kind of like quiet then you know a little hippie-ish and his girlfriend was kind of hippie-ish and they stayed in you know my room down the basement we had to sweep upstairs i think they smoked some weed and i just like you know i didn't i didn't really get to spend that much time with the genius i just i think i just

kept looking at him and i was waiting for something you know but that was the first time i you know i met a genius when brent came over and i i didn't i you know i it was it was mystifying in a way and a little disappointing but i i do have to say that uh the the morning he left uh you know he cooked uh everyone breakfast and i and i you know i gotta tell you to this day probably the best eggs i ever had so i your genius manifests itself in different ways. And they weren't even that complicated. Just scrambled and it just, you know, genius eggs. That's all I'm saying. Genius.

But now I'm going to talk to Charlie Kaufman and I'm going to bring in Duke Johnson towards the end, spend a little time with both of them to talk about Anomalisa. And it was a real pleasure. So here are the three of us eventually. 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. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel.

To show your true heart is to risk your life. i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply joy Joy. You want to pull that mic into your face? Sure. Can I turn this down? Sure, the first knob, I think, is you.

How's that, better? Yeah? That's better, yeah. There was too much of me? It was a little loud. Yeah, I hear that complaint a lot i um i am uh excited to talk to you charlie kaufman thank you and uh in later duke johnson is going to chime in but i wanted to to to have a conversation about the uh the earlier charlie kaufman okay do you say kaufman or kaufman um i used Do you say Kaufman or Kaufman?

I used to say Kaufman. Yeah. But then people didn't understand what I was saying, so I changed it to what they thought it was. I'd spell it. They'd say, what, what, what? And then I'd spell it and they'd go, oh, Kaufman. Yeah.

So I just say Kaufman, yeah. You actually changed to accommodate, yeah. Well, there's the story of my early life. We got it. We're done. done all right duke you're in um no because the the reason that i was excited to talk to you among uh being a big fan of your work is that you were always this this almost mythological presence in comedy in comedy writing that you know you always heard about this guy charlie kaufman because i've been doing it for a while i have friends that you know you've worked with and then when i was out here i guess maybe in the 80s that i remember there was this talk of like this mysterious pilot script uh was it depressed roomies was that what it was called 90s i wasn't out here until 91 so it was 91 you know well it

was 93 94 maybe right so in the mid 90 okay, that I heard that there's this script. It's the greatest script ever written for a comedy. And it was called Depressed Roomies, right? That's correct, yeah. And was that, what happened with that? Nothing. That's the other story of my life, yeah. Really?

Yeah. And what was it about? Because I remember it was about Depressed Roomies. Uh-huh. Yeah. They live together it about? Because I remember there was- It's about depressed roomies. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. They live together in a small apartment in New York and they- Nothing.

Nothing. That's what it's about. Well, I mean, no, there's a story for the first episode. They- Was there some weird stage direction? Wasn't it supposed to all be done with an echo or something peculiar about it? No. I never got a copy of it.

There was somebody who moved upstairs who had a wooden leg and they were trying to figure out how to get him carpeting and one of them had a cousin who was in the carpet business and they thought if they could seduce this man yeah then they could um then they could get carpeting for free uh right he wasn't gay and neither of them are gay but um it worked it actually worked and he moved in next door and the guy had to go ahead and date him for a while um we did a stage uh performance of it to sort of like try to sell it and uh had a good cast jay johnston played the um right played the guy upstairs and uh sarah silverman played uh um a grocery clerk they were in love with. Oh, you know who else was in it?

Who? Jennifer Coolidge. Oh, she's from- She played the wife of the carpet guy. The carpet guy was played by a guy whose name I forgot now. And was that a reading for studio people? Yeah, I was trying to sort of interest people. But did you have a deal or you didn't have a deal

or it was just something you wrote? At that point, it was something I owned. I had written it as part of a development deal for Disney. I had a development deal there early on, which nothing I did. I wrote a bunch of shit for them and nothing got made. Did you? Well, how does it start? Where did it start? Where'd you grow up? I grew up in Massapequa, Long Island. Okay. And then we moved to Connecticut when I was about 12. So you're an East Coast guy. I'm an East Coast guy.

And where'd you go to college? I went to Boston University. Me too. I'm sorry. Just had to. It's okay. It's your show. I went to Boston University.

When'd you graduate? I didn't graduate. I transferred to NYU. I was an acting student at Boston University, and I transferred to the film school at NYU after my freshman year. You were an SFA at BU? Is that what it was called? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What were you in? I was a liberal arts guy. What years? I was there from, I transferred out of Curry. So I guess I was there 82 to 87 maybe. Okay. I was there 76. Okay. So you're a little older than me probably uh that would be well yeah you look unless you know unless you you know you just got left back a lot it was not bright

i was motivation problems i can't i just couldn't keep up so you wanted to be an actor initially yeah since since third grade a childhood fantasy well it wasn't a fantasy i just i just discovered it in third grade and um i was in love with my teacher who did these plays. And I got up there and I played a rooster in a play called The Churkin Deuce, which was I basically ran the hen house. And I was this blustery kind of asshole, which I got a lot of laughs. And I was a shy kid. And it was like, holy crap. This is it.

This is what I want to do and yeah that was just like my trajectory to boston university and then i just dropped it so you acted through high school and everything else acted through high school i did summer stock i did you did summer stock i did summer stock at green mountain guild in vermont what uh what big plays were i was in the children's theater company so we did children's plays i did um there's this guy named david marshall grant who was in my company's theater company, so we did children's plays. There's this guy named David Marshall Grant who was in my company who went on to become an actor and did a bunch of stuff on Broadway. But other than that, nobody really went on. But apparently Meryl Streep was in this company, not when I was there, but years before.

So you really put the work in. Yeah, I did a lot of community theater. you did you write any plays at that time yeah i wrote plays and i did short movies i did you know i directed these super 8 films and when is that film festival the charlie kaufman i don't think they exist anymore gone my parents had a lot of flooding in their house in connecticut and everything got ruined so do you have like are you the are you the only artist in the family? My father is a painter. He's an engineer by profession.

He retired, but he paints a lot. He has shows now. He's in his 80s. What's his style? I'm trying to think how you characterize it or if there's somebody you could liken it to. It's sort of political and it's sort of intense and angry and funny.

I would say he's very skilled, but his stuff is primitive. Uh-huh. He's interested in... Oh, okay. He likes Basquiat. Basquiat's his favorite. Or like Dubuffet, or like maybe... Yeah, yeah, Dubuffet, sure.

Sure. So you grew up in an arty household, in a way. Yeah, my father was kind of eccentric. And a little lefty? maybe yeah yeah do buffet sure sure so uh so you grew up in an arty household in a way yeah my yeah my father was kind of eccentric eccentric and a little lefty definitely yeah yeah there's a lot of like uh in jewish too for the most part yeah for the whole part well i mean i'm trying to you know i'm not i'm not trying i'm just trying to characterize because there was a type of um kind of a jewish lefty that doesn't quite exist anymore that i think existed with my island's socialist summer camp thing yeah yeah i did i didn't go to social but i thought your parents because i had a great aunt who was a

communist and there was a definitely this there was a very aggressive and very sort of uh uh ideologically pointed uh crew of uh jews at some time and i i don't know them my parents were liberal but they weren't that. They weren't all the way over. Yeah. My dad was an engineer. And it was kind of like they were definitely left wing. They're definitely Democrats.

But I would say more towards the center left. Sure. And what did your mom do? Is she an artist as well? My mom was a social worker. She gave that up to raise us. And then she went and worked in, we grew up she worked in some offices and good-hearted people they were good brothers and sisters i have a sister who's older uh-huh and

she's a she's an artist really she was a painter and she does all sorts of like creative stuff now i just like knowing that like a lot of people i talk to it's it's it's nice when you talk to people who are creative that grew up in supportive environments. Most people I have found that I talk to who have a job in creativity did have that. You know, there was very few people I've talked to that were like, you're not going to. They were always supportive. They were supportive and they kept their mouth shut. Apparently, my father has told me recently that he was terrified that I was going to go down the road of wanting to be an actor. And not because it was bad, but because he thought it was going to be disastrous.

How are you going to make a living? Yeah. And then, you know, and then with, you know, when I went to film school and I graduated and I didn't, I didn't get a job working in anything in entertainment until I was 32. So there were a lot of years, a lot of, you know, bad jobs, a lot of borrowing money, and they kept their mouth shut. And I think then they were really thrilled and surprised that something happened, which was just kind of luck. What was the first thing?

I worked on a show called Get a Life. I came out to L.A. trying to get work, and I didn't get any work. And then I was heading home. I was living in Minnesota at the time. And I got a call to meet with this guy named David Merkin. And I was packed. And he said, don't leave. I was going to go home to Minnesota. I had been offered a job working on a show that Fred Willard was doing there, which was some sort of like cable access candid camera show. And I thought, well, it's a writing job. I've been offered a job working on a show that Fred Willard was doing there, which was some sort of like cable access candid camera show. And I thought, well, it's a writing job. You know, I've never had a writing job.

But I mean, had I done that, had I left, that would have been it. I would have been in, you know, middle management in Minnesota now. How'd you end up in Minnesota? We moved. My girlfriend and I, who's now my wife, moved to Wisconsin. I'd given up trying. I was moving to study neurophysiology at UW, and that didn't happen. And then we couldn't get work there.

So after a year, we moved to Minneapolis, where I just had a bunch of shit jobs for four and a half years. And then I decided, well, I'll try to get in TV, which isn't really what I wanted to do. But I kind of saw there was a path. You write a spec script. You don't really have to have any experience. And I wrote a bunch of specs. I got sort of an agent to, I guess what they call, hip pocket me. I was hip pocketed most of my career.

Yeah. And then, you know, he said, you have to move out. So I moved out with like by 1945 Jetta, which was completely rusted out because it's from Minnesota. And like I was out here for like three months during hiring season. And then as I was leaving, I got this offer. So I worked on that show with Chris and with Adam Resnick. Who I've had in here, both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I heard that Adam did your show. I didn't know Chris did it. And who else was on that? Adam's intense, man. Yeah. And that was a great show i didn't know chris did it and who else was on that adam's intense man yeah and that was a great show people love that show i love that show it was like i couldn't believe my luck that that was the show i was going to get um and then it was all downhill after that i mean that show got canceled i was in a bunch of shit shows um you were staffed though for a few a few things yeah i worked in set for like seven years in tv well let me just ask you

real quick i because it's so you know after you went to nyu film school yeah graduated and then you kicked around new york for a few years yes and then you know at some point when you'd hit some sort of bottom you decided neurophysiology was the path yes i thought fuck this. I'm going to do something that's sort of like important and that's fascinating. And I kind of, they screwed me when I got there. I was supposed to be sort of like a non-matriculating student. And I couldn't, because of that, I was the last person to be able to register for courses. I had to do a whole bunch of undergraduate stuff before I could get into a graduate program because I have a BFA, which I don't have any credits.

But I was closed out of every course I needed to take because the matriculating students got there first. And then I just like, so then I just gave up. And then I worked in a Christian bakery. Christian bakery? The job I could get. Yeah, I worked in it. It was Live and Bread, it was called.

What makes it Christian? They played Christian music and it was called Live and Bread. it christian they played christian music and it was called live and bread and i i guess the idea i don't know there was but there was there were christians right the cupcakes weren't jesus cupcakes they were no no but they were like i don't know there was a sort of a sense it was like it wasn't like right-wing christian it was more like like hippie christian okay but they play christian music and and And the weird thing is my wife, who is not Jewish, got a job at a Chabad house doing child care. She had a teaching certificate, so she was working with little kids. And so we had those sort of weird jobs.

And then we left. So the get a life, I imagine that being your first job, there was a certain amount of creative freedom that you that after that closed down. I mean, I imagine entering writing for just shit. Television was kind of diminishing and horrible. I was still making more money on these jobs than I had ever made before. Right. Entry level going and get a life. I mean, I was making five dollars an hour working at an art museum in Minnesota right before I got this job.

After the Christian Bakery. Right. While in Minnesota. Yeah. I mean, I actually left that job to come out here. And, you know, I mean, it wasn't freedom on Get a Life because I was terrified. I was, I couldn't open my mouth for like the first six weeks there. I could not say anything in the room.

And I just thought I was going to get fired every day. But the tone of it, but, you know, the way Chris Elliott's sense of humor works and the I could not say anything in the room, and I just thought I was going to get fired every day. But the tone of it, but the way Chris Elliott's sense of humor works and the way Adam Resnick, too, that they do push a boundary and they do- Yeah. No, I love the ideas on the show. I loved writing the scripts, but I was terrified. Right. I was really shy. And how long did it take you to move through that?

Were you able to move through it during that job or did that happen i mean what happened was i got a script assignment and it came out okay and it was a relief and then i felt more confident and then like these other jobs like the edge and uh the trouble with larry that these were job jobs right on some well some of them were just horrible shows i mean the trouble with larry was a bronson pincho right. Right. And What's Her Face from Friends, Courtney Cox. And yeah, it was just like, it was a terrible show. And it didn't even, I don't, I think maybe it aired once. Right.

Yeah. And that was it. That was it. It was sort of one of those reliefs. You had, well, I'm not going to make money, but thank God that didn't go on for 10 years. No, it wasn't. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Yeah. I don't know what the 10 years. No, it wasn't. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so, yeah.

I don't know what the relief was. I just liked getting paid. And when the shows were canceled, I would write screenplays and hope that I could interest somebody in hiring me for assignment work. Right. That's what I did. Well, I'm just trying to track. There's some moment where I'm assuming. Yeah.

Because I knew I was friends with Louis when the Dana Carvey show happened. Those guys that came out of Conan, that group of writers, I guess it was Smigel and Dino and Louis and who else was on that Dana Carvey show? Robert Carlock, who works with Tina Fey, who did 30 Rock,

Kimmy Schmidt and John Glazer. Right, John. Yeah. Of course, Carell and Colbert were both on the show. It was a good group of people. I just remember talking to Louie, and I remember Louie having that opportunity. Was he the head writer or was Smigel?

He was the head writer, and Robert Smigel was the executive producer. I just remember there was a bit, and I don't know who was responsible for it, where Clinton came out with all the nipples. It was either Smigel or Louis or Dino. Right. Nobody else got anything on that show.

Oh, really? So, yeah. I mean, well, Colbert and Carell kind of did stuff that they'd done at Second City, bits that they did, like the great waiters who were nauseous, that kind of thing. But I mean, in terms of like writer-writers, it was- There was no group think on it either? You couldn't get anything on.

I mean, it was disastrous for me. I really, it was really a really frustrating experience because I moved to New York to do it. They kind of, you know, they met with me and they really wanted me and- Based on what? Based on my sketch packet from The Edge. I wasn't anybody at the time.

I mean, I wasn't, you know, I was really flattered that they wanted me. I wasn't in that group. Right. I couldn't get on The Simpsons. I couldn't get on Seinfeld. I couldn't get on any show that I thought might be fun.

And you tried. I tried, yeah. I tried to get on Larry Sanders. I couldn't get on that show, which Adam worked on. Why do you think that was? I assumed because I sucked. Really? I don't know. Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I just like, I was really frustrated. Maybe I wasn't, maybe I wasn't, well, for like Simpsons, I didn't even get a meeting.

So it wasn't like how I was in the room. I don't know. Because I thought like, mistakenly, obviously, it was obviously the first time you worked with Dino, who you still have a relationship with because because of the the new film that that that would have been the moment where because when i look at being john malkovich or adaptation or any of your movies the imagination engaged and and and the possibilities you create with with writing and and ultimately with uh with film is is i've never seen it before and i don't think anyone has and i think that you know the respect and credit you get for being one of the most imaginative writers out there is is i've never seen it before and i don't think anyone has and i think that you know the respect and credit you get for being one of the most imaginative writers out there is is you know obviously deserved so here i am in my mind i'm like well it must have been

some comedy event must have happened where your brain just broke open and gave you the freedom to do that kind of stuff no no i just was writing and i was trying to write something trying to write something that I thought was funny. Being John Malkovich was the first spec script I wrote. And I wasn't expecting anyone to make it, but I thought, I'll write this. And if it's funny, then maybe I'll get polish work or something. Really? Yeah.

And for a while, nobody... I mean, people liked it. It got kind of a reputation like Depressed Roomies, but everyone said it would never get made. people liked it. It got kind of a reputation like Depressed Roomies, but everyone said it would never get made. Also, Odenkirk and Cross worked on Carvey for a while too. So I also knew them and didn't get on Mr. Show. Oh, really? No. Now I like you more than I did before. Well, good. I've got a lot of sad sack stories. So what was the story of being John Malkovich? good i've got a lot of sad sack stories so what was the story of being john malkovich how did that get made um spike jones read it and spike at the time was you know famous and he he wanted to make it and he had a relationship with steve golan at propaganda and steve supported it and and i made

under sort of under the radar for like eight million maybe which is what our movie cost and it's just like in and when you like i i guess these are hard questions to answer because i don't know you know when you follow the rules of sitcom even when you're breaking them there's a format there there's a three-act structure usually there's you know there's a way to write that shit right yeah and it just seemed that with john malkovich obviously you know you know there's a there's an act structure on some level but when you are are you know creating this story of being inside john malkovich and having these different environments and these i mean the way you visualized it how do you write that were you just sort of like

fucking around in a way or did you see it as a full picture from the beginning i mean i figured it out as i went along right i didn't know where it was going and and the third act or for whatever whatever that is was very different in the original script um but spike didn't want to do that but do you work with a storyboard do you do no right i just write and and i find things as i go and more like a novelist i think yeah definitely right what i try to do with everything i i write and you know that's funny i like that that's funny and i don't care you know i'm going to do this isn't for anybody it's not an assignment i'm try to do with everything I write. And, you know, that's funny. I like that. That's funny. And I don't care. I'm going to do, this isn't for anybody.

It's not an assignment. I'm going to do what I think is funny and then, you know, see what happens. And Spike got it. Yeah, Spike got it. Yeah. And how close did you work with him during the filming? Very close.

Yeah, he was great and very collaborative and very respectful. And I was fortunate because it's not the experience that most writers have. Where did Human Nature come from? Human Nature was the second script I wrote. It was just another spec script I wrote. And it had like this sort of weird history of people being interested in it.

Steven Soderbergh was going to do it. And it was after he had left Hollywood and made Schizopolis. And he came upon it. And he wanted to make it. And I started meeting with him and then out of sight got offered to him or something. And he just, yeah,

the door. So, and then what happened was I went out and pitched this idea for eternal sunshine with Michelle Gondry. And I had to write something else first. I don't remember what. Was it Confessions? Maybe.

I can't remember, but I had to write something else, and Michelle didn't want to wait. He wanted to do a movie. He said, can I do Human Nature? And I said, well, okay. And so he did Human Nature. What was your experience working with him? Because I think he became a better director after that.

I think Michelle's really smart and really talented. And I was a producer on that movie. Spike was a producer on that as well. And Spike introduced me to Michelle saying, Michelle is my favorite director. And I can see that. I really like Michelle. I think he's great. I think that, I don't I, I really like Michelle. I think he's great. I think that, uh, I don't know. Um,

uh, he, we gave him freedom. The idea was we let, let Michelle make the movie he wants to make. And I, I think there are really good things in that movie. And,

um, you know, I did, it didn't do very well and it hurt everybody. Yeah. Michelle, it hurt, I guess it hurt.

Career wise or just personally, your heart? No, it didn't hurt my heart that much actually, but you know, you know, it was after Malkovich, so you're sort of kind of like expecting something. Next big thing. You know, so that happened. And then Adaptation happened, which is a fucking masterpiece.

Yeah, I was offered the job of writing an adaptation of The Orid thief and by jonathan demi and ed saxon and uh couldn't figure how to do it and i think that's what i was writing at the time because i remember spike was shooting malkovich and i was just wake up every morning with this intense depression like i cannot fucking face this again i can't face it again i can't face it again the adaptation adaptation because i didn't know how to do it. I had the idea. It's pretty close to what's in the movie. I had the idea. I'm just going to write this movie about orchids with no story, you know, and I, I didn't know what that meant. Uh, but I figured I'd figure it out and I didn't. And then I thought, oh, well, what if I, what am I thinking about now? Let me write about the thing that I'm most fascinated

with now. And the thing that I was most fascinated now was with being stuck with my own problems. So I thought, well, what if I write about me being stuck? And I remember telling Spike, I remember going to the set where they were shooting the, what do you call it? Swamp scene. I remember telling Spike about it and he said, yeah, you should definitely do that. And I think that kind of gave me the courage to go ahead and do it because I didn't tell them that I was doing it because I was terrified they'd say, no, you can't do that. And I had nothing else. So I wrote it and then I turned it in without telling them.

I turned it in with my name and the name of my brother on the script and they were really pissed off because they thought I had sort of farmed out the script to this other person and it wasn't what they signed up for. But then they liked it and then Jonathan decided not to direct it, and Spike asked if he could.

Thank God. Yeah. I mean, I like Jonathan Demme's movies a lot, but I can't imagine that movie not being directed by Spike. Yeah. And so was that as autobiographical as you've gotten in any form? I mean, everything is autobiographical to a greater or lesser extent. I mean, that one's sort of more literally autobiographical. And I really was stuck. I really did have a meeting with that executive that went almost like that scene with Tilda Swinton in the cage.

Oh, okay. Yeah. And what about the other executive? Wasn't there another agent in there who played by that good looking guy? Oh, what's his name? Oh yeah. That was my agent. That's Marty Bowen at UTA, yeah. And who played him again? Ron Livingston played him, yeah. Yeah, he was great. Yeah, Marty said

stuff like that to me. I love Marty. Marty is like the polar opposite of me as a human being but he really gets my stuff and he's been so supportive over the years

and he's like always the person who laughs the most at the first screenings. Right. I love him for that. That's great. Yeah.

So the device of a twin brother, though, was that sort of the other voice in your head? No, it was more like, okay, how interesting is it to have a writer sitting alone in a room typing? Right. Well, what if there's somebody else he could talk to? Yeah. Then it kind of developed into what it developed. I thought it was funny. I thought it was funny that the brother had back problems and was always lying on the

floor in the house. It was great. Nick Cage was great. He was great. And was Spike as collaborative on that one as the other one? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Spike's great to work with.

And Michelle is as well. Yeah. Yeah. I like them both. When you were sort of developing your sensibilities, I mean, who were you a fan of? Who were your guys when you were growing up in terms of comedy? Woody Allen. Yeah.

Monty Python. Yeah. National Lampoon. Right. The magazine or the radio show, all of it? The magazine and the radio show. Early SNL. I mean, just anything that felt sort of anarchic.

The Marx Brothers. Ernie Kovacs. I didn't really learn about Ernie Kovacs until I was older, but yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Things weren't available. Right, as easily. Yeah, yeah. So Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, were you hired to do that?

I was hired to adapt that. I thought it was kind of, I mean, I was asked to adapt it. And it was interesting to me because I thought, this guy lying but he's not he's acting like he's not lying and i thought that was interesting as a character study right i thought it was a good movie did you like it no no no i didn't like it that wasn't that was a movie in which i was not um consulted i mean george cleaney changed script. He didn't talk to me during production. We kind of didn't get off. Now, when that happens to you, do you, are you angry? I mean, do you, you know, do you defend your work? I try to. Yeah. I mean, he actually showed me,

I was, I was invited to see the movie after he was pretty much done. Yeah. And I, I wrote a bunch of notes. I took a bunch of notes and gave them to him. And I guess it was offensive to him. So he- Shut you out? Well, the movie was already done, but it's like, well, you're asking me my opinion and this is what I think. And so- Did you have words?

There were words. There were a lot of words that were in the form of emails, which I kind of wished I saved because some of them were kind of amazing. Yeah. Some of your best writing? No, some of his most interesting writing. How could you not save them? They've got to be out there.

I can't believe I didn't. I can't believe it because it was an astounding experience for me. They're not out there. Hire some guy. They've got to be able to find them. I don't even know. Yeah. There's guys.

They can track them. Whatever email account. They're out there. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a beautiful movie. Thank you. Are you happy with the way that came out? Yeah. Yeah, I'm happy with that.

And Michelle and I worked very closely on that. And that was a good experience. Whose idea was it to have the landscapes actually dissolving? The landscapes dissolving. Well, I mean, like when as his memory was going you know buildings were falling down you know you know uh you know you mean like in in in montauk yeah in montauk but yeah but as when he was like running and we had a lot of conversations about i mean that was in the script yeah you know to to a great extent how it was going to be done was sort of up for grabs what it was going to look like it was sort of more fanciful at first um i was trying to push for it to be more realistic uh-huh

um and then michelle who is brilliant at like practical types of things designed all of these sort of in-camera effects and um on-set effects that are just gorgeous. It did seem realistic, though. Yeah, we were trying for that. We were trying for it not to be like, you know, there are some movies that take place in the mind that sort of feel like you're, you know, it's sort of this magical sort of weirdness, and it doesn't really feel like anything to me.

So we were working against that. Right, because there's no rules to it, so it just looks stupid. And it isn't what it looks like in your brain. Right. You know? They don't have things floating around in your brain when you think of things, you know? It is.

So you had to really kind of put some thought into that, because what it looks like, what does it look like when you have a memory? That's all I thought about, yeah. It looks like a picture. What does it look like when you have a memory? What does it sound like when you think? I've spent years trying to figure that out, because it doesn't sound like anything. Right. But you hear it. Yeah. And I still haven't quite done it. With Synecdoche, I decided there would be no voiceover and everything that he thought would be projected onto the world

outside of him. So that's why it's got this sort of dreamlike quality to it because that's sort of what I was trying for. Like in a real dream where things happen and they're metaphorical and they make perfect sense in the dream, but they don't really make rational sense. Yeah. That movie was mind blowing. Like there was a, it was a little exhausting in a good way. Yeah. That's what I go for. Like when I went to see it, I was like, this is going to be, it was one of those movies. And I had this, um, I talked to, I talked to recently Todd Haynes too, where I had this, I talked to, who did I talk to recently? Todd Haynes, too. Where, you know, I experienced it.

I witnessed it. But, like, I walked out feeling like, you know, I'm going to have to go back to that one. Like, there was no way for me to wrap my brain around it. Well, that's what I wanted. That was my plan. That was my idea. With anything I write, my idea is that you have to watch it a second time to get all of it but i think with synecdoche when people didn't like the movie they weren't interested in watching it again you know some people loved the movie and they were interested

in watching it again but the people who didn't it's like well why am i going to go back and watch it again well my experience with those kind of movies especially in in that one in particular was like you know you're obviously in the hands of somebody who's got a creative vision that he put a lot of time into this is meticulous you know there was in in hearing you know, you're obviously in the hands of somebody who's got a creative vision that he put a lot of time into. This is meticulous. You know, there was in hearing you say what you said about trying to figure out how you express the sound of the mind or how the mind works that that I knew I had to reckon with the movie and I had to because you put a lot of work into it and you're not a slouch.

So I'm like, I'm going to go and I'm going to do it again and I'm you're not a slouch so i'm like i'm gonna go and i'm gonna do it again and i'm gonna get what i can get and no one's gonna be able to go like i you know what i understand exactly what you were trying to do because there was so much in it but uh but i felt satisfied with it as a piece of art is that okay no it's great and i appreciate it i think there are a lot of people who don't want to um do that or they're mad at me or they're mad at what do you think they're mad at oh man i don mad at... What do you think they're mad at? Oh, man, I don't know what people are mad at. I mean, I could sort of do a laundry list.

Yeah. I don't know. I think people are... I don't know what people are mad at. I think that people are... Like, when people were mad at that movie, they were mad that it was bullshit and it was pretentious and it's self-indulgent and... Oh, that word. Fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you and fuck you.

And, you know, they're not going to want to watch the movie again, you know? So they want to, I don't know what they're so mad about. So this was, that was your first directing, right? It was my first, other than stuff I did as a kid. Yeah. Or in film school. And is that something when you went to NYU film school that you wanted to do? Yeah, I was going to be a director. And how was the experience for you at nyu no well i

mean oh directing yeah um i love it i love it because it's like an antidote to writing you know and first also i love actors and acting so it's like a great thing for me but it's like not sitting alone in a room for three years right you know you're you've got all of this stuff going on and you got to solve things right away. And it's exciting, and it's this sort of social environment, which is not easy for me. But it's forced on me, and I have to do it. I have to get over things. I had to think a lot about how I interacted with people.

I realized I couldn't be the sullen writer. Yeah, because everyone's looking to you. You're the captain. There's no room for it. Yeah, you have to take care of people. You have to figure out what people need and take care of it. And that's a great discipline for me. And I loved it.

And you had a clear vision for the most part. I think I did. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did. You knew what you were looking for and you had these great actors. And I had a great production designer, great cinematographer, and great actors. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

It was like, you know, worked with a lot of really good people. Philip Seymour Hoffman. And Philip Seymour Hoffman, of course. Yeah. Yeah. And that was, how was that experience for you? He's amazing. You know, he's amazing.

And he was in virtually every shot of that movie. And it was just a marathon for him. And it was, you know, we were shooting up in the top of warehouses. It was a heat wave. It was 105 degrees. He was covered in prosthetics. You know, the prosthetics were bubbling. Oh, my God.

Because it was filling with sweat. Yeah. And he had to come in with pins and puncture holes so it could drip out. And, you know, but he was just very serious. He was always there. And then when you go into editing, editing like and you start piecing it together i saw things that i never saw like he understood who this character was in sequence that made it beautifully nuanced and and you know really yeah so in his mind he i don't know what he knew but i

saw he knew something it was like this works it's not like oh oh fuck there's like tonal shifts and and and this doesn't work next to this. It was all like beautiful. Emotional continuity. Yes. Throughout the movie. And he held the movie together, obviously, because he's the thing in that movie. He's the girl.

That's fascinating. Yeah. Because that's like, as a guy who's not really an actor, but has had to do it, you know, going, like having that in your head on top of the scene, like, wait, this happened after before. Yeah. Or this is right after I did that thing and bringing that to the next thing. So in, in a sense, emotionally, he probably, he, he, he anchored the movie in a way you didn't know was even possible. I think so. Yeah. I'd say that definitely he anchored the movie and, and I was, um, and I was surprised by it you know um by the by the

subtlety of it yeah it's sad he's gone yeah so now you guys let's let's bring duke in here because now we're we're we're coming towards uh let me make sure i got you on the mic how do you sound check check check there he is that was. I really enjoyed that whole back and forth. Now, this movie, Anomalisa, which I have some personal, my problems with it are because it was too close. As a guy who spends time on the road and reckons, I'm using that word a lot, deals with the type of horrible loneliness that you can't even really explain of of just a hotel room of the freedom of it and then not even knowing why

like when you're in a hotel in another city especially if it's not near anything there's this thing sort of like I'm dead I'm lost I don't know how who I am is really what it comes down to but before we get into the film itself, I didn't realize until I talked to you at the screening that you had worked on Moral Oral with Dino. Not really. I mean, it's not really true. What happened was I had an idea that I thought might be good for Moral Oral,

and I suggested it to Dino, and he liked it, and then he wrote it. Are you and Dino friends? Yeah, we're friends. Oh, good. And then he gave me credit. I didn't ask for credit, but I saw it on my IMDb that I have story credit there.

But is that how you met Duke? Because you do Moral Oral, right? That's your thing, that you did the animation on it. I did one episode of Moral Oral. Just one? Yeah, in the third season. That's what I started doing.

I'd been friends with Dino for a long time since back when he lived in New York. And he's still alive, and that's great. I know. You apparently don't try to been friends with dino for a long time since back when he lived in new york and you're still alive and that's great i know you apparently don't try to keep up with dino nobody can keep up with dino that's right but you started where do you because you're uh you do a very specific type of animation well yeah i i kind of just fell into it actually because that's what dino does um he's got it's something there's something nostalgic and retro about stop action animation right yeah and they're saying like

they're like i noticed like with moral oral it if you're of a certain age it triggers something very odd from your childhood well that's kind of a specific reference to davy and goliath right right yeah i don't know davy yeah yeah yeah and but uh where did you learn how to do that well uh i i i went to undergraduate film school in new york at nyu and then i became friends with dino in new york yeah he left for when 9-11 hit and then i moved to la to go to grad school at afi and i invited dino to my thesis film premiere my afi thesis film and he saw it and he was like hey do you want to direct an episode of my tv show moral oral yeah and i was like yeah i'm just out of film school i want to direct anything i can obviously and so he said okay

it's in the second season if it gets a third season you can direct an episode and so i went to the studio like every day in the afternoon and just hung out with Dino and kind of watched the process. So you're not a hands-on animator necessarily. Well, over the years, I sort of, I mean, I animated one shot in Anomalisa, for example. I'm not an animator. No. You're a director. I'm a director, yeah.

So who do you bring in to do, like, what do you call the specific type of animation that was used in Anomalisa? It's stop motion animation. And that's just what it's called. So those dolls. Well, there's all different, yeah. I mean, there's like, you know, people are very familiar with claymation. Sure. Which is, you know.

Claymation. Which is made out of clay. Yeah. And they sculpt clay. Yeah. which is made out of clay and they sculpt clay. And then stop motion is, you know,

any variation of an object that exists in real space. It can be flat. It can be paper cutouts. It can be wire things. Okay. And just, you know, moving them by hand one frame at a time is stop motion. So this is,

I mean, we use this, a type of animation called replacement animation where the faces are 3D printed and they're all swapped out. Oh, really? Yeah. So they're like little green screens on the faces? No, no, no. Okay, so we had the maquettes and they were sculpted and they were scanned into the computer.

Right. And then the facial expressions, it's split at the eyes and then there's brow pieces in a mouth section the mouths are sculpted for all the different possible phenomes and oh wow and mouth shapes yeah and then there's like 150 different ones and then the brows are sculpted as well for all the you know expressions worried and angry and surprised and there's about 150 of those and then those are printed on a 3d printer so they're actual physical objects and um they are literally replaced every frame by the animator you know live so as a director you were like we we got to get a guy that does this this this this type of animation and you and how did you find that guy well the animate i mean you you find sort of like

the fabricators that can do this sort of thing like you find z brush sculptors that can change the faces in the computer and you find somebody who knows how to use a 3d printer but the animators stop motion animators or stop motion animators they can do whatever ones you want they can make a ball roll across a table or they can sculpt something out of clay. I mean, certainly they have specialties and whatever, but I just use the same animators that we had used before. And then, you know, we couldn't get enough animators because they were doing other stuff. And then we had to scour the earth. You know, there's not many of these kind of animators in the world.

And you got a crew together, though. Yeah. Now, Charlie, how long did you have that script? What was that script doing before you met Duke? I had done it as a radio, a stage radio play in 2005. Was that the intention? Yes, it was written to be that. And with the same actors at Royce Hall.

Who were those actors again? David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Tom Noonan. And we had a Foley artist on stage, and we had Carter Burwell conducting his music with maybe seven or eight musicians. And that was the thing. The actors were reading, and the idea was that the imagery would be created in the minds of the audience. That was the conceit. That's what it was designed to do. We did two performances of it, 2005, and it was over. I wasn't going to do anything with it. It wasn't a movie.

It wasn't anything else. But Dino happened to be in the audience. Well, he didn't happen to be. He came to see it. Yeah. And Dan Harmon as well. And Dino really liked it. And I eventually gave him a copy of the script.

And then he had this animation studio called Starburns. And they approached me in 2011 to do it and so they said we want to do this as an animation which is what they do you know they do animations right I said well okay you can raise the money you know you know I wasn't expecting them to it's it's interesting as to me because like as a fan of your work and and Dino's and everybody's involved Dan's a genius and you did a great job as well, first time meeting you,

is that somehow or another, it's the most human work that any of you guys have done in a way. That the story, you know, when people ask me what it's about, I'm like, it's about a night out of town, a guy hooks up with a girl. That's what it's about a night out of town. A guy hooks up with a girl. That's what it's about.

But somehow or another, the emotions conveyed with the animation and with a script that you didn't intend to be shot is really the most compact, compactly human experience script that I've seen you do in a way. Is that possible? Because it was so stripped down that it was very simple, but the emotions were profound and were allowed to sort of settle in a way that I've never experienced in movies, really. Well, I mean, my initial challenge was to create this on stage with just voices.

So by necessity, it was stripped down because that's what I was doing. Right, of course. It was a radio play. And that's what we brought to this. So it's different than a screenplay that I would write, which would have a lot of scenes and a lot of characters. Right. And this was kind of a simplified thing.

But it had to work as the radio play, so I tried to make it work as that. And I think that carried over to the work we did on this visually. Well, what was the inspiration, Charlie? Where did this, where did, even as a radio play, so you decide you're going to write a radio play or you wrote the script first? I was doing radio plays. I wrote one, the Coens wrote one, Carter did the music. And we did them in New York and in England and London. And then I wanted to go to Los Angeles and the Coens couldn't. So I had to write a second play. So I wrote Anomalisa. I was trying to figure out a way

to use three actors. We had very little rehearsal time. And I thought I'd like to use one actor to play many characters because I could do that because it's a radio play. And I liked the idea that people would see it's one actor doing all these voices, which was Tom Noonan. So you were challenging yourself with the form. I'm trying to use the form. I'm always trying to use the form. Right. Always.

Right. So that's what I was trying to do here. And it was exciting for me. And I'd read about something called the Fregoli delusion, which is a belief that every other person in the world is the same person. It's a kind of an organic brain damage syndrome. And I thought that was fascinating as a sort of a metaphor for this character. And because it's voices, I thought, I'll do it with voices.

Everyone sounds the same. And it speaks to disconnection and inability to see people and loneliness. And narcissism. And perhaps narcissism, yeah. I try very much not to judge the characters I write, at least not from the outside, unless they judge themselves. Okay. You know, when I'm writing Michael,

I write as I think Michael would think of things. You know, when I'm writing other- In this case, it's Michael's perspective, the whole thing, except for the very end. So I'm writing as Michael. And if I'm sort of saying, you know, well, he's a narcissist and that's a bad thing to be, you know, unless he thinks that, it shouldn't be there. Why judge him? Because it's only going to diminish your ability.

It's like, it goes back to when I wanted to be an actor. Right. I mean, that's what actors have to do. They have to find the character. They have to think what the character thinks. They have to understand the world that way. Yeah. And everything I do is always subjective because I don't think there's any other way to see the world. So I try to write from the point of view of the characters that I'm writing from. So perhaps he's a narcissist. That's not for me to say, I guess is what I'm saying. He's caused a lot of damage in this world, and will continue to do so. In a very specific and intimate way. Yeah.

Yeah. He's not Hitler. I read someone the other day say that on Twitter that she'd been anomalized. And I thought, oh my God, that's like, you know, because everyone's been anomalized. Of course. And everyone's anomalized. Yeah, that's true. Sure. And, you know, but what a lot of us don't necessarily think

in the same light as knowing that this character is completely self-involved to the point where he can't tell the difference between himself and others, he just needs to get his needs met at that moment, whatever they may be, is that there is an assumption with that type of character that, you know, you've done, I don't know about the conscience of Michael,

but there is a sense that you've done something horribly wrong. But that sort of undermines other people's ability to move through experiences and contextualize them. Do you know what I mean? That a lot of times you may think like, oh, what did I do to that person? And that person could be like Anomalisa. Yes, exactly.

And that there is a sort of letting off the hook in that way as an audience. And also there's a certain narcissism in assuming you are this powerful man like Bella's experience, you know, did not, it was not all hinging on him. But it's true. And that is another thing that I think is important to consider is that people have different ways to approach other people's dismissal or other people's hatred or other

people's rejection. And objectification and just not even seeing. Whatever, you know, I find that I go through periods where, you know, I'll read stuff that or other people's rejection. And objectification and just not even seeing. Whatever. I find that I go through periods where I'll read stuff that people have written about me and I cannot take it. I'm so horrified and hurt. And then other times it's like, well, it's kind of funny. That's kind of funny. I don't care.

And I like myself better the latter way. If I can do that, that's healthy. Emotional growth. Yes. And it's not consistent. I mean, it's an emotional peak that goes back into the valley immediately. But I mean, those moments I go, well, that is what I'm allowing this person to do this to me. I don't have to. I don't have to, you know, I think the reason that happens from my observation is that there's a part of you that is very me. That's, you know, always going to be hard on myself that my wiring is to be self-judgmental and assume that I fucked up. So if anybody, depending on the day, honors that narrative, I'm like, fuck, you know, fuck that guy, you know, but on another day. Or they're right. They're right. Oh, my God. They're right.

Those are always that's always where it goes. That's why you're so angry. Yeah. Because if they hit that. They're right. Oh, my God, they're right. That's always where it goes. That's why you're so angry is if they hit that one button. Yeah. But somebody like Michael is, you know, it becomes, it's, again, I'm going to use the word relentless in whatever cycle he's in because he knows exactly what's happening. and both of you sort of chimed in on the decision because when you look at what you write, there's only one departure from a very grounded and in human experience narrative,

and that's that dream sequence. And we had discussed briefly the decision that, you told me that sometimes in using this animation, they cover the face lines where the pieces, where you can see where the piece that is the brow and the piece that is the mouth, you can see where they're inserted. That you told me that like a lot of times they take those lines out

and you guys choose to leave them in, which I thought had a lot more meaning. I don't know if when you made that decision that you realized that it did have some poetic meaning to it, that these parts could be taken off and then they're taken off during the dream sequence, but also like it has something to do with identity and who we are in my mind obviously i'm reading into it and it'd be if you agree with it that's fine but i don't know what your intention was well i mean i think you know the you can see the evidence of it in the fact that those seams and the style of replacement animation became integrated into the story and we added those moments where you know he becomes uh partially self-aware yeah or you know uh we show the audience right that we're aware that this is happening um and, that came about as we sort of were designing the puppets and we wanted as, as emotional possibility as to go as far in the emotional experience as we could with the range of expressions.

And it, we discovered the style of animation and then we liked the way that it looked and people do typically paint that stuff out with computers and, and we didn't, we didn't want to have that sort of, uh, ambiguous polished. What is this kind of thing? The organic nature of what we were doing and of stop motion in general, we liked the, the, the being able to feel the impact of the animators interacting with these things and, and seeing that they-created and having flaws and having cracks, literal fractured elements to them. And then, yeah, immediately that sort of paralleled some of the thematic kind of emotional things that were happening with the characters in the story. And we just built off that it was it was astounding to me that that by showing those those um those cracks and and those faults within the style of animation actually made the the film which was already pretty fucking human even more human like there's an element of of like i guess you know french new wave where where you know you you're made aware that you're watching a movie and that that's sort of almost a play on that because you're dealing with this animated movie that turns out to be more human than most regular movies or non-animated movies and you're showing

the flaws of the animation characters in their animation which adds to the humanity of the movie i'm now i'm just tripping out well Well, I mean. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, when I first read the script, the first thing that I connected to, aside from, you know, relating to Michael's emotional experience, was that, you know, thinking of it in animation and reading that speech, that final speech, which is, it didn't change. Like, he didn't rewrite it for animation. It was already existed like this. And him saying, what is it to be human? What is it to be alive?

Right. What is it to ache? To me, there was an immediate connection to the form. Yeah. And what blew me away, and we could talk about it before. There's a couple other things I want to talk about. But the sex scene, because this movie is about a one-night stand on some level on a basic pitch and the sex scene was profoundly disturbing not because they were puppets because

it was the most human sex scene i felt good i i've ever seen in a movie in some weird way. And I don't know what the hell, you know, you've lived through, Charlie. But in... No, no. Where we're going with this one. No, no. Just in the sense that for me, you know, being a guy that, you know, I've been single a long time. And I've been a guy who's been out on the road. And I'm a guy that has certain emotional needs.

And, you know, whatever. I'm a flawed character. But the weird thing to me, because you wrote this and and i and i you know from what i can gather from your life this is not the life you live but that just the guy's choice to go down on her first was was very decisive and very fucking weird to me. Not weird in a bad way, just sort of like, that guy, you know, understood this character.

Because, you know, to do that, that's not a passive. All this stuff was animated, so these are deliberate script points. That's right. Yeah, the puppets were improvised. Yeah. But what did you struggle with in the in the sex scene as a writer what were you what when you wrote that where like this guy's gonna go down on her first

on this woman wait that where did that honoring that impulse come from i'm not sure again i wrote this in 2005 and and it was non-visualized so i I wanted to, I think I wanted to have, it may be just a kind of not very interesting answer, but I think I wanted to have something that was clearly suggested that was happening in their conversation, but was alluded to, but that wasn't really ever specified. And that seemed like a thing.

That could blossom in someone's mind. Yes, that, you know, I'm a little shy about that, you know, that kind of thing. And that's all it was in the play. And then, you know, I think a little shy about that, you know, that kind of thing. And that's all it was in the play. And then, you know, I think we all knew that's what it was. So we animated that, you know, and that's how it started. Right. What was interesting to me is that for a guy that, you know, no matter what he wants to do for that other person, there's an almost, you know,

pathological disrespect for personal boundaries. So, you know, for, you know, and to do that in a charming way would be to have him take that action and then, you know, sort of stand behind it. No, no, no, no, we're going to do this, but not in an aggressive way because that's almost like it appears to be selfless, right?

Yes. All right. So that was me getting passionate about something that I'm not quite understanding why I'm passionate about it. But to begin that sex scene like that was something I'd never seen before. And then to sort of follow through with the sex scene and all its awkwardness with their bodies and her bodies, which she's ashamed of and her own personal flaws was, was, was, was beautiful, but painfully human. And, and I don't want to give away too much because I think people should see the film and because I've never seen a film like it in,

in terms of what you've done in, in your career, Charlie, what, where does this fit in? How do you feel about this thing in terms of accomplishment and creative vision? I mean, we had nobody watching over us making this thing. I loved the experience. It was really difficult. You know, we had no money. Many times we didn't think we were going to finish it.

But I think the fact that we finished it and we did it outside of any sort of studio system and now people are watching it is, I mean, I'm enormously proud of it. And yeah, I love the movie. I watch this movie every once in a while with audiences, and I still have reactions to it, which is not common for me when I've seen something a thousand times. I mean, there are things that I still sort of see that I love, moments that I love, like human moments that I love and I marvel at. And I think I marvel at them more maybe because I know that they're puppets and I know that they're inanimate. There's a freedom to that. Well, it's just, I mean, it's beautifully done.

Yeah. And I don't take credit for the animation. I mean, we were there to sort of direct it, but these animators, they're extraordinarily talented and sensitive. And, Duke, what are your feelings about it as it enters the world and people are seeing it? How do you feel about the experience of watching it with an audience and what you've done? Do you see flaws in what you've done? Or are you, like Charlie, sort of surprised by the more you learn from watching it? Yeah, I'm extraordinarily proud.

Yeah. I did see flaws, but I've always, everything that I've ever done or been a part of, I see the flaws. And then over time, that sort of goes away. I see the flaws. And then over time, that sort of goes away. And I think it started to go away earliest on this project than anything else that I've ever worked on because the experience of seeing it with audiences and you can feel that energy of watching something with the audience. You can feel when they're engaged.

I mean, I've been moved to see that other people are are are having the the emotional experience it stays kind of hope for it stays with you that was what i couldn't like that i couldn't get over because i think it profoundly disturbed my girlfriend to the point where she was like that was great but like you know i i don't feel good yeah you know and i of course like you know but i'm a guy like I watched, you know, Altman Shortcuts, and I think it's a celebration of the human spirit. You know, like I thought it was a very honest movie and I couldn't shake some of it. And I and when we're talking about it now, I still can't shake the depth of the type

of emotions, maybe because, you know, I relate to things that are uncomfortable. But but, you know, I've seen The Revenant and I've seen a lot of the things that are uncomfortable, but, um, but I, you know, I, you know, I've seen the revenant and I've seen a lot of the movies that are out for Oscars now and, uh, they, they don't stick with me. I mean, I can't get your fucking movie out of my head and I'm not saying that aggressively. I think it's amazing. How are other people responding to what's the general sense that you're getting? You know, the things that you've said, the, the realism of the sex scene and some of the authenticity of some of the interactions.

I think, you know, one thing that I, one major, people ask me a lot, like, what did I learn from this experience? Because it's my first feature film. You want me to ask you that like an interviewer? Hey, Duke, what did you learn from this experience as being your first experience directing a feature film? Well, I think the thing for me that works best about the movie is something I learned from Charlie is having kind of extraordinary bravery in some of these moments. I think we didn't pull away from, you know, we held on some of these really intimate moments particularly like the sex scene for example uh and we didn't hold on it for shock value or for a joke or something like that it's just because this is happening to these characters and it's happening right now and

it's in the moment and we're going to get in there and hold there. And you have to experience this. And you could because you didn't have to go, can we get a clear set? We've got nudity. Right. You could hold it as long as you want. Yeah. Because you didn't have to be codependent with actors who were sitting there naked.

Exactly. Right. Oh. But it also goes for the other it also goes for michael alone in the hotel room too oh yeah just the the mundanity of that experience and the loneliness of that moment and staying there yeah it's hard to make that clear because it's not everybody's wife but it's something very specific that somebody who travels for a living and that we've had a lot of people come up to us and say

they've been in that hotel room yeah um yeah it's it's a weird thing that i've never seen explored which is that the desolation of a hotel room in a major city it's it's a bizarre phenomenon yeah it is now i know you were uh tweeting today about piracy what what's going on yeah apparently this is a thing i guess it happens for every movie now i i i didn't know that uh because this is again my first movie but um yeah you know the movie got released somehow online you know through screeners or something we're not 100 sure i didn't get a screener why didn't i get a screener because somebody stole it and put it on oh okay so you didn't you didn't send out a word screener? Why didn't I get a screener? Because somebody stole it and put it online. Oh, okay. So you didn't send out award screeners. No, we didn't. Well, what guild are you

in? I'm in all of them. Well, you should have. They were sent out. I'm in DGA, SAG, and WGA. Well, we're neither DGA, WGA, or SAG. I mean, I guess maybe the SAG one. You should have gotten for the SAG. Yeah, yeah. Oh,

damn it. Yeah, we're not up for any awards in those because we did it outside of, you know, those. I don't know why I didn't get it. That upsets me. Okay. We'll get you one. You will? Yeah, of course. Okay, good.

Or you can just get it online. It's available online. But nobody should get it online because that's not a cool thing. Well, like what you're saying to me before in the house is that when you make a movie like this, that the budget was tight, almost non-existent, and you jumped through all the hoops and spent the money to make it, that a movie at this scale, if somebody is chipping away at the possibility for it to earn money, it damages the possibility of films at this level to be made, and also damages the possibility for you guys to get what you worked for, and it ain't right. Well, yeah, I mean, it's exactly that. I think it just reduces the likelihood that investors will put up money to make a movie like this in the future, or that a studio will pick it up and distribute it, because

if nobody makes money off distribute it because if nobody makes money off of it then nobody's going to do that and then we then we all just have to deal with what uh what uh william freeman calls spandex movies everything will be spandex movies and and uh how did you fund this movie well we started with kickstarter yeah um that's how we got the initial funding we like charlie said we met with him and asked if we could do this. And he said, if you can get the money, you can do it. So we went off and tried to find ways to get the money. And Kickstarter was kind of new.

And so we tried it out and we got 400 grand. And somebody else reached out to us, a man named Keith Calder, of Snoot Films. And he said, do you need some more money? And we were like, yeah. And then it kind of started like that and then we got, it came piecemeal over the years.

How long did it take? Three years from start to finish, two years of production every day. And how long did it take to shoot a minute of stop action? A week. A minute per week.

Yeah. And people are just stealing that time. Shame on them. Well, you guys made a great movie. It's a unique movie. There's nothing that has ever existed like it and it was great talking to you.

It was great talking to you too. Thank you. Go see Anomalisa. It is a profoundly moving movie if you let it and I think if you let it there is a little relief at the end go to WTFpod.com for all your

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