0:00

M M.

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You're listening to playback a Variety

0:17

I Heart Radio podcast. I'm

0:19

your host, Variety Awards editor Chris Tapley.

0:21

We have a return guest this week, Oscar winning

0:23

director Damien Chazelle. His

0:26

new film First Man with Ryan Gosling, launched

0:28

into the Oscar season last month at Festivals

0:30

in Venice, Tell You Right in Toronto, we

0:33

talked about his approach to bringing Astro not Neil

0:35

Armstrong's story to the screen, and take a look

0:37

back at that crazy La La Land Moonlight

0:39

Academy Awards moment two years ago, among

0:41

other things. So sit tight, this

0:44

is playback. UM,

1:01

London, then

1:03

Florida, Florida,

1:06

keep canaveral. That

1:08

makes sense that

1:10

an interesting I

1:13

gotta hit Florida,

1:16

lots of press down. Yeah, the

1:19

calls, you gotta hit that that.

1:21

UM, then New York then

1:24

d Or then d C or the New York

1:27

Inn d C, then like Atlanta,

1:29

Denver. I don't know. I don't come

1:31

back here for three weeks, are

1:34

you ready? I

1:37

only recently realized that the

1:39

three week part, Like when I I

1:41

had this ideam I had that I was coming back for

1:43

a day or so after Europe,

1:45

and then I only then I happened to Actually, it's

1:48

the problem is not looking at my calendar. Yeah.

1:51

Yeah. Then I looked at the calendar and

1:54

went, oh no, there's no l A in here, all

1:56

right for three weeks. So yeah,

2:00

I'm good, all right, all

2:04

right, man, I can see you again. Yeah

2:06

you too. I was the

2:09

rest to tell you what it was awesome? Yeah, it

2:11

always is it always? Are you able to

2:13

really enjoy it? Yeah? I tell you right, this

2:15

is like one of the few that I'm able to enjoy. Yeah,

2:17

you can actually see movies. Yeah,

2:22

it would be a little more Christmas do

2:25

your own. I did. I think everyone had funny of your party.

2:28

You know, one drink is

2:30

all you need when you're that high up, and you

2:35

were I was. I was talking to justin

2:38

a lot of actually yeah, okay, got it, And

2:40

we're already up and running. So let's

2:42

dive in here with Damian

2:45

Chazelle, the Oscar winning director

2:48

of First Man. Thanks for coming back

2:50

on the show. Thanks for one of our How

2:52

many repeat guests have we had? Now? I

2:54

think just you and Able d Verney might

2:57

be the only guest so far. We're

3:00

to try to, like, you know, have some some return

3:02

some returning champs if you will. You don't tend

3:04

to have people come back. It's just they

3:06

don't like me. That's it's the one and done kind

3:09

of. I don't want to do that one again. The

3:11

flag it we

3:14

tried, you know, for a while, we tried to just kind of, you know,

3:18

if they have something, let's not

3:20

do it the next year again, Let's do

3:22

it every other year if anything. But now it's like,

3:24

screw it, Let's just have some regulars, you know,

3:28

be a regular name. I'm happy, too happy to

3:30

be a regular. This movie is awesome.

3:32

We've talked about it a lot already. Actually,

3:34

and tell you're right, uh, you know the

3:36

story of Neil Armstrong, you

3:39

know, the Apollo eleven mission, it's

3:41

really all of Apollo. You handled more of Apollo

3:43

in this movie than I kind of thought you would, well

3:45

and and and geminate. And we tried

3:47

to basically start right when Neil entered Nasa,

3:50

so sixty one and uh

3:53

or well you know, officially sixty two,

3:55

and take it up till was

3:58

that like the immediate, like this

4:00

is this is where we should begin, Like what was the journey

4:02

of finding where you should start a story with

4:04

Neil Armstrong. I guess I

4:07

think it was, um, well,

4:09

it was always through the perspective of the moon

4:11

landing. For me, that was that was the

4:14

just that accomplishment. Um,

4:17

obviously it's the most famous thing about

4:19

him. But but but

4:21

but it also just seemed like for

4:24

such a famous event, an event that could

4:27

use some demystifying, you

4:29

know, um, maybe de romanticizing,

4:32

it felt like there was a lot left to sort of unpack

4:34

in that event, and certainly would lead up to it. So

4:36

it seemed like, you know, even

4:38

if this weren't a movie about Neil Armstrong, it felt

4:41

like a proper place to begin would be roughly

4:43

when Kennedy made his famous announcement,

4:46

you know, about landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade

4:48

that was sixty one, and you know, and

4:50

then we would sort of set that as

4:52

the as the gambit, the opening gambit, and then

4:54

uh and then end with with

4:57

that being turned into a reality. Um. But

5:00

you know, it's certain certainly coincides nicely

5:02

with Niel's Neil's

5:04

life, because those were the years that he I mean he

5:06

he he joined up NASA

5:08

right around the same time that that this

5:10

sort of moon shot became a national

5:13

goal right at the top of the decade. And

5:16

you know, so some of the Mercury missions had happened. Obviously

5:19

Americans had been in space already, but um,

5:22

but just to a small degree. And

5:24

uh so trying to kind

5:26

of see both through his eyes and through the

5:28

program's eyes as a whole. Um,

5:30

you know, how you go from

5:33

there to there? How you go from that sort

5:35

of uh, those first beginnings

5:38

of space exploration to traveling

5:41

not in Earth orbit, but thirty

5:43

times thirty two times the distance of Earth from

5:45

Earth, or the size of

5:47

Earth from Earth all the way to the Moon and back.

5:50

Um, how you do that in the span of basically

5:52

eight or nine years. Yeah, it's insane.

5:55

Yeah, when you look at it that way, it's certainly it struck

5:57

me as insane. And when I looked at the geograph

6:00

or thing, you know, you actually kind of look at the diagram

6:02

of of you know, to scale of Earth to the Moon,

6:04

and it strikes you on a

6:06

primal level. Even more so, it just seems

6:09

like, you know, for such

6:11

a again, such a famous

6:13

event, it's almost like we

6:15

we we take for granted how insane it was. Yeah,

6:18

when we had you on the show two years ago actually, which

6:20

is that's crazy too, by the way that that's been two

6:22

years. But you

6:24

had this quote that that I've been using

6:26

a lot, which was just you. You wanted to put

6:28

us in the mindset of this thing that hasn't happened

6:31

yet, and it's

6:33

gonna happen, and everyone's coming together to do

6:35

it, and it's the craziest thing anyone's tried to do. And

6:37

it's like, it's the truth of it. I mean, it's just you

6:39

watch it and you're in awe of

6:42

the accomplishment. I also felt like, and I'm gonna

6:45

get this out of the way at the top. You've probably

6:47

been asked about it plenty by now, but I can't

6:49

believe anyone could watch this film and not feel

6:51

a sense of American pride as

6:53

well. And you know there's been

6:55

this this this whatever Faul

6:58

controversy about the fact that you've it and

7:00

depict the planting of

7:02

the flag. What you and I have talked about you when

7:04

once you get to the moon in this movie, it's

7:07

very reflective of what you've done the whole film, which is your

7:09

staying subjective when the alarm strong and that event

7:11

was kneel and buzzed together, and you're

7:13

showing Neil at this creator and there's something

7:16

very personal was happening in his life at the time. So have

7:18

you been kind of just surprised that

7:20

this snowballed as a

7:22

quote controversy. Uh

7:25

well, uh, yeah,

7:28

to a certain extent. But you know, it's also um

7:34

this it's it's a very important moment,

7:36

just the moon landing as a whole, and so you kind

7:38

of expect people to have a very

7:41

sort of profound emotional associations

7:43

with it, um, whether they lived through

7:45

it or didn't, you know, um and

7:48

uh, certainly it's it's one of those defining

7:50

moments for America as a country.

7:52

You know. It's it's so much of American identity,

7:55

um is wrapped

7:57

up in a really beautiful way. I think, um,

8:00

um, certainly the past

8:02

fifty years of American identity wrapped up in that

8:04

event. So you I

8:06

think, uh, one should expect

8:09

that you know that that um

8:12

there's you know, people are gonna have powerful

8:14

associations with it, and uh and so you're

8:16

always aware, I mean, not with just this event, but with

8:19

any kind of any time you're doing. I mean, this was my first

8:21

time doing a movie based on historical, historical

8:24

events. But you know, if

8:26

you're doing a movie about an iconic event or an iconic series

8:29

of events or an iconic character, there

8:31

canna be things that that you uh,

8:34

that you want to show and things that you

8:36

don't have time to show and uh, and you

8:38

have to set a sort of a sort of guideline of rules

8:41

for yourself at the outset. So I think for us, for

8:43

me, for Josh Senger, for Ryan, as

8:45

we were making this movie, it was just about, let's

8:47

whenever we can, uh, let's

8:49

show the things that people didn't see. Uh.

8:52

Let's show the things that people didn't know about

8:54

Neil, about Geminy, about Apollo.

8:57

Um. Let's focus on that on told

9:00

story. And let that be basically what dictates

9:02

what we show and what we uh and what we

9:04

don't show. Yeah, And for Neil, it's there's a very

9:06

personal, tragic thing that happens to him

9:08

at the beginning of the film, and I'm

9:11

that that threat is played out all the way through the end of the film

9:13

and something that happens on the moon and I don't want to, like, I

9:15

guess I don't want to talk about it in terms of spoilers, but

9:17

I do want to ask the

9:21

moment that happens on the moon regarding

9:24

him and something very personal that happened to him

9:27

felt such like a narrative

9:31

sense of closure that it was. It

9:33

kind of felt like it was too perfect. So the question is

9:35

was it embellished? Was it made

9:38

up? Uh?

9:40

It was? It's

9:43

uh No, it wasn't made

9:45

up, but it was. But it's it's unlike

9:47

certain events in the movie, it's not something that we

9:49

can confirm with absolute

9:52

confidence actually happened. Yeah,

9:55

it's for me. It was such a moment when I saw it in the movie

9:57

and that the emotion really got me there.

10:00

It's it's it's uh, well, it's kind of how

10:02

I felt when I first uh, when Josh

10:04

and I first heard of it. Uh. It's

10:06

a conjecture basically too. It was a conjecture by

10:09

Niel's biographer, his a storian, Jim Hanson.

10:11

It was a conjecture that was then backed up um

10:14

uh, or at least sort of suggested as

10:16

well by Neil's sister June,

10:18

who Ryan and I got to spend some time with um

10:21

uh and uh

10:24

it was I found a very beautiful conjecture

10:27

hypothesis. Neil himself never

10:29

confirmed or denied. He basically never talked

10:31

about, refused to talk about or disclose,

10:34

um, you know what he might

10:36

have done on the you know what

10:39

we're talking about while

10:41

on the moon. But uh so,

10:44

again, we don't have an absolute confirmation

10:46

that had happened, but I'd like

10:48

to think it did, and certainly people who were

10:50

very close to Neil um I like

10:53

to think it did. So that's where we got

10:55

there. It wasn't an idea that we came up with, but it was. But it

10:57

was something that as soon as we heard it felt

11:00

felt like a beautiful place to try

11:02

to. It sort of helped dictate, Okay, if

11:04

that's sort of the the that's

11:06

the light at the end of the tunnel, if that's the station

11:09

that the train needs to pull into at the end, how

11:12

can we best sort of lay the lay the pipe

11:14

to get there. That's good enough for me, and frankly

11:16

I came to the conclusion if you if it had been made

11:18

up, that it would have been fined by me

11:20

because you're telling a story, you know, and that

11:23

that happens to close the story nicely

11:26

and all, Yeah, all of that's good enough. For me, I mean,

11:28

it's just again such a profound moment and really

11:31

interesting because the movie for me is

11:33

it's it's filmed in a kind of claustrophobic way

11:35

at times, It's filmed in a kind of languid, almost

11:38

removed way at times, which I came to

11:40

feel reflected him is a

11:42

very calculated, uh

11:44

you know, I don't want to call him emotionless, but everything

11:46

is buried and the guy, and I kind

11:49

of felt like the filmmaking reflected that there's not you're

11:51

not cutting outside of the spacecraft

11:53

whenever you're doing all the various missions and everything's

11:56

right there with them, and then when you get this moment

11:58

on the moon, that release happens. I kind of feel

12:00

like some people that work for and other people

12:02

maybe the vibe

12:05

of the film up until then just maybe maybe

12:07

they checked out or something. I don't know, because I've just heard interesting

12:09

varying takes on this. I just wanted to ask you about

12:12

that, like, how did you come

12:14

to approach this material with

12:16

with film language, because it's so different from Whiplash

12:19

and La La Lalla Land, which are you know, kind of

12:21

I guess frenetic by comparison, but

12:24

just talk about that a little bit. I guess uh

12:26

yeah, I mean I think, um,

12:30

from the outset, I think it was just about trying

12:32

to uh uh

12:36

trying to make everything feel as real as

12:38

possible. Um. And so

12:42

for me, I think that started with the archival footage that

12:44

you know, there's just which of which there's so much,

12:47

um you know of of

12:50

all the the the the

12:52

Apollo and Jimny missions, uh you

12:54

know, NASA on the ground. Um.

12:57

Also obviously the Life magazine photographs

12:59

of the ass or not in their families. Um.

13:01

So basically just the documentary visual

13:04

material that exists of those

13:06

people at that time. UM.

13:10

I just kind of fell in love with how all

13:12

of that felt and and um

13:15

uh that I think dictated, uh

13:18

to a large degree, the look of the film. Uh,

13:20

the sort of uh uh

13:23

super sixteen or or thirty five

13:25

two perf kind of grainy um

13:27

handheld look um. Um.

13:30

But it also I think, you know, sort of want of dictating

13:32

dictating the style in the sense that you

13:35

you know, if you're trying to make the movie

13:37

as though you're a documentary crew kind of on the ground,

13:39

um, following these astronauts around or sort of

13:41

slipping into the spacecraft with them or into their house

13:43

with them. Um, you can get

13:46

very physically close to them, but there's also always

13:48

going to be a certain distance that you have. There's a certain

13:50

distance in any verite cinema, verite

13:53

filmmaking that um um,

13:55

because you don't have the sort of

13:57

the you don't have the trappings that

14:00

fiction filmmaking give you to sort of plunge

14:02

into a character. So it became this kind of balance

14:04

and this challenge for for Ryan and

14:06

Claire and and all the actors, and and and

14:09

for us to figure out that balance

14:11

of how where we're where were we going to kind

14:13

of slip into their subjectivity in a way the

14:15

documentary filmmaking doesn't allow you to do uh.

14:18

Traditional verite filmmaking, you know,

14:20

wouldn't allow you to do uh. And when

14:22

we're we going to be really faithful to okay,

14:24

we're truly a fly on the wall here and not intervening,

14:27

observing being wires and

14:29

just kind of uh peeking over people's

14:31

shoulders to see what's going on, but not necessarily

14:33

interacting with it. And that was sort of just

14:35

the newsreel versus the uh,

14:38

the more kind of you know, subjectively

14:41

emotional approach, and we tried to try

14:43

to sort of, yeah,

14:46

slide in and out of of one kind

14:48

of mode, but try to keep it feeling the same.

14:50

Well as those the aim at least some of

14:52

that, like it grounds them in situating the domestic,

14:55

the domesticity of it. All. These guys are superheroes,

14:57

so like the contrast that is really

14:59

interest thing too. Yeah. Um,

15:02

last time you were on, I had asked

15:05

you how how did the kind of tour, if you

15:07

will, of La La Land compare

15:09

with Whiplash, meaning specifically the festival

15:11

reveals of these films you had Whiplash and some

15:14

Man you had La La Land in Venice.

15:16

Talk about first Man and how this

15:18

experience so far we're talking earlier in

15:21

the game than we did last time, but how this experience

15:23

so far is uh compared to last

15:25

time? I mean, were you were you reticent

15:28

to open Venice again? Uh?

15:30

Well, you know, I in in

15:32

in some I mean yeah, in some ways I

15:35

think, but it had more to do with just, uh,

15:38

you know, the schedule we were sort of

15:40

confronted with, Um, but that that in

15:42

a way actually was sort of regardless

15:45

of of of Venice. It was just you know, we knew

15:47

we had to finish the movie by a certain point

15:49

in time. It was less time than we had had

15:51

to addit La La land um, which

15:53

which in some ways,

15:56

uh well, in all ways was an easier film

15:58

to edit. Um uh, less

16:00

footage and more wonders and more just

16:02

kind of predesigned, whereas this was sort

16:04

of a lot of this was discovered on set and then discovered

16:06

in the cutting room like a documentary would be. So

16:09

so that plus the technical challenges

16:12

on this, we're sort of another you

16:14

know, kind of a just of

16:16

another level than than anything I dealt

16:18

with before. So it was just a scramble

16:21

too, or felt like a scramble to kind of

16:23

get all the pieces in line and uh

16:25

and feel like we you know, had

16:27

had had a handle on things in time,

16:30

and luckily it all came together. But

16:32

you know, it wasn't without a lot of a

16:35

lot of sort of sweating and hair pulling and hard work

16:37

from the from from the Tom Cross

16:39

and and and the sound team and the effects

16:41

team and everyone. You seem to be kind

16:43

of thankful for that when it came to Whiplash, kind

16:45

of getting it together. Ironically, the ironically

16:48

this felt closer to Whiplash

16:50

than than it did to La La Land in

16:52

terms of the in terms at least of the post

16:54

production of it having so much time to second

16:56

guess what you're doing and stuff like that, which is what

16:58

you did on La La Land. Yeah, yeah, whereas

17:01

here it was kind of yeah, there was a little less of that,

17:03

and uh, we had Yeah, we

17:05

had more time than we did on Whiplash, but more, but

17:07

we also had more footage and a bigger story and

17:09

bigger technical challenges. So so it

17:11

felt, you know, it

17:14

felt like a similar pace.

17:16

Um. And then I guess in some ways

17:18

that pace just sort of is unrelenting until

17:20

the moment you lock. Uh,

17:22

and then like the moment we finished, I hopped

17:25

on a plane to to you know, to Venice,

17:27

and we were premiering the next day, so it

17:29

was I didn't really have time

17:31

to sort of have that kind of which

17:34

in some ways it is probably good for me to have that sort of

17:36

post finishing, pre premiering sort

17:39

of stress. It just kind of one rolled right into

17:41

the other. Um.

17:45

I wanted to ask you, like, well, first let's talk about

17:47

the score. You know, I talked to Justin Herwitz and tell

17:49

you write a lot about this. The score is phenomenal.

17:52

Um. Sometimes

17:54

it has this kind of metronome ticking, kind

17:56

of propulsive quality. Sometimes it's very emotional

17:58

and sweeping, and it's way what

18:03

was I guess the the initially?

18:05

You know, I always asked this kind of question, but just the colonel,

18:07

what was the idea of, Okay, the musical identity

18:09

of this film should convey X? What what

18:12

was that? I think it was more

18:15

than anything trying to convey the

18:19

loss of a child, trying to convey a

18:22

parent, um, a parent's grief

18:25

over the loss of a child, and and and uh.

18:27

So I think it's started with not not so much

18:29

trying to convey you know, what's

18:31

what's the what's the you

18:34

know, how do you score the moon landing? Or how

18:36

do you score uh, you know, space missions.

18:39

It was more what what's what's

18:41

what's the central emotion of the movie? Um,

18:43

the emotion that sort of guides everything?

18:46

And and and uh and what

18:48

is a melody that can sort of communicate

18:51

that? Um? And so

18:54

so it started there. It started with Justin at the piano

18:56

trying to find that melody UM, and then trying

18:59

to find sort of subs beames around it once

19:01

we landed on a central melody we liked and

19:03

and uh and then only after that,

19:06

um, did it become a matter of okay,

19:08

now, what are the sounds that that

19:11

that best best

19:14

sort of tie Earth to the moon, so to

19:16

speak in the movie. You know that that can be

19:18

grounded when we need them to be intimate when we need them

19:21

to be, but also can suggest the infinite

19:23

expanse of space. Um. And

19:26

uh

19:28

yeah, and I think um

19:31

that that took a long time. I remember, I mean actually

19:34

even before almost

19:37

even before there, they were kind of

19:39

you know, back when we were when we were in early stages

19:42

of the script, Just and I were talking about what

19:44

what the sounds might be. We knew it wouldn't be

19:46

completely traditionally orchestral.

19:48

We also knew we didn't want it to be completely um

19:52

non orchestral or completely

19:54

electronic. Um, you guys did

19:56

some trippy stuff it

19:58

needed. Yeah, we just needed We knew it needed

20:00

to be in some kind of you know,

20:03

in between zone. Um. But it

20:05

took a while to you

20:07

know, fin fine tune that the movie has a definite

20:09

like sonic signature. Just you know, the the sound

20:12

design is amazing. What

20:14

was like the kind

20:17

of the biggest technical uh

20:20

hurdle or whatever with this film. I mean, I've heard

20:22

some interesting things about taking some

20:24

of the archival footage. I think that you you did something

20:26

with the visual effects to expand on or something

20:28

like that, and you know, just different things like that. What

20:31

was like just the biggest challenge technically

20:33

speaking to to get what you wanted to

20:36

to to convey the vision that you wanted to convey

20:38

here. I guess, uh, well,

20:40

you know the I

20:43

guess one of the big challenges was

20:45

was what

20:48

once you try to sort of set parameters

20:52

around around something like in this

20:54

case, Okay, everything needs to feel

20:57

like a you know, Super sixteen documentary

20:59

and we're sort of expanding from there. Then uh,

21:02

it sort of puts even more of a burden I think

21:05

on on visual

21:07

effects or sound design, uh you know

21:10

those crafts people who uh

21:12

in a different kind of movie, I think you can get

21:14

away with stuff being a little more obviously

21:17

synthetic, you know, if you have a movie that's

21:19

sort of fantastical from the get go. Um,

21:21

I think there's a lot more allowance for things

21:23

to either uh to either look

21:26

computer generated or to sound uh

21:30

heightened or whatever. You sort of you sort of go with

21:32

it. Um and uh,

21:34

but here we knew we weren't we weren't

21:36

going to have that sort of facility that um that

21:39

that stuff that was fake would really look

21:41

and sound fake. Um, it would be like a sore

21:44

thumb. Uh and so

21:46

uh so yeah, So so that

21:48

sort of dictated a lot of what the workflow

21:51

was going to be that we were gonna try to do as much of the visual

21:53

effects and camera, try

21:55

to do as much of the visual effects uh

21:58

before shooting, so to speak, and kind put them

22:00

on led screens in terms of what you were seeing outside

22:02

the spacecraft and so uh

22:04

and film those led screens

22:07

through the windows of the spacecrafts

22:09

and film all that on on film

22:11

Super sixteen or thirty five, and try

22:14

to bake everything into a look that would

22:17

that that hopefully would harmonize

22:19

everything so that at the end of the day, whether

22:21

it's a miniature or a piece of computer generated

22:24

imagery or or totally

22:26

sort of in camera practical, uh,

22:29

it hopefully would all um

22:31

speak the same language. Um, it would all be put

22:33

through the same filter, so to speak. Um.

22:36

And I guess sound was sort of a similar similar

22:38

deal um uh you know, we

22:40

we uh. Mary

22:43

Ellis was our recording

22:45

sound on set UM and

22:47

was just meticulous about every

22:49

you know sort of uh uh

22:53

every uh you know, like in Michigan,

22:55

trol Mike in every single desk, you know, twenty

22:57

four separate channels there in the in the space

23:00

crafts, making uh different

23:02

elements of those crafts separately, making sure we

23:04

were always getting even if we knew it would be rough, always

23:06

getting production sound, even if it

23:08

was just at the gimbal motion control sort

23:10

of systems on these crafts. UM

23:12

that then created a groundwork for A Langley

23:15

and uh uh and and Frank

23:17

Montano and and and Milly Yatramorgan

23:20

uh to to uh to sort of

23:23

create their templates and post sound wise,

23:25

and they wound up going to launches and

23:27

uh you know, recording the Falcon X and recording

23:29

launch tests and recording rocket tests in Texas

23:32

and Florida, getting space

23:34

suits and putting mikes inside with helmet you

23:36

know, putting mikes inside the helmets and inside the sort

23:38

of nozzles to get airflow and um

23:41

so basically just trying to get as much real stuff as

23:43

possible. Um. And then finally, you

23:46

know, you have this bedding of I

23:49

guess you call it reality. Uh, and then you

23:51

try to figure out where you need

23:53

to augment that, where you want to augment it, where you want

23:55

to have fun with it. And that's where that's where

23:57

you could get really creative. And so that's where I know, like

23:59

I I laying in in um

24:02

in post, you know, started uh playing

24:04

around with various animal sounds

24:07

and uh sounds

24:09

of warfare, tank sounds,

24:11

gunfire sounds. Uh. You

24:14

know, stuff that normally would not be

24:16

would not realistically be in this world

24:18

of you know, spacecrafts, but um,

24:21

but could sort of bleed into it and augmented

24:23

and heighten it and also give another worldly quality

24:26

to it when we needed it to um

24:28

um. And and then John

24:30

Taylor, uh another

24:33

one of our mixers, you know, he sort of his

24:36

job sort at the end was kind of to to colaid

24:39

everything and to sort of pull everything together and

24:41

and hum again make

24:43

it all sound of a piece. So you want it all to look a a piece

24:46

and sound of a piece. And it just it takes

24:48

some you know, some

24:50

back and forth to get that biggest technical challenge

24:53

of your career so far or yeah, yeah,

24:55

for sure, Yeah, justin

24:57

says, he keeps his oscars on his piano where you keeping

24:59

your worse he's

25:02

his oscars on his piano. No,

25:06

actually, I think that's right. The thing he doesn't tell you is

25:08

that he's nowhere else to put them because his apartment

25:10

has no furniture so or no drawers

25:13

or no anything. It's just the bare bones. You go in and

25:15

it's like an empty room with a piano. So the

25:18

only place to pook that would be on the um

25:21

I minor in a like

25:24

up in a drawer and a spare room,

25:26

in a drawer in a spare room, or or well

25:29

they're they're on a drawer, so they're not they're

25:31

not like hidden, but they're not in my face.

25:34

I wouldn't I wouldn't want to be staring at

25:36

them, as I think Justin probably

25:38

likes the challenge of it. I like them to just be out of sight,

25:41

out of mind. That's funny. Well,

25:43

I want to ask you because you know, uh,

25:45

we talked two years ago, a year and a half ago,

25:47

right after the oscars. I'm gonna ask Barry

25:49

this question in two weeks too, so you're not on the spot,

25:52

but just after, after the whirlwind

25:54

of that night we spoke the next morning, just

25:58

the afterglow of all of that, Like, what

26:00

what do you think when you look back at at that night

26:02

in that crazy moment would be you

26:04

know, the mishap with the envelope and just all of

26:06

that. Uh,

26:08

it all feels a little bit like, uh,

26:11

like like something out

26:13

of a movie, which I guess is appropriate.

26:16

You know, it feels very surreal. Um,

26:19

but you know, it's sort of I

26:21

don't know, it was there

26:25

was something kind of fun about it because it's uh,

26:27

you know, the Hollywood,

26:30

the Oscars, all that stuff is sort

26:33

of can be has the potential to be absurd

26:35

enough on its own. Uh. So

26:37

it felt like that whole uh, that whole

26:39

episode was maybe a way

26:41

of underlying underlying

26:43

that. Um, but it was certainly nice to be able to I

26:45

saw Barry in Toronto actually when uh

26:48

we were just there, um it was about

26:50

to premiere his film, I think, and and um,

26:53

um yeah, it's it's

26:55

a it's a surreal memory. As

26:58

I told you both at the time, nobody else is going

27:00

to have that memory. I mean, you know that's

27:03

presumably that won't ever happen again. So you

27:05

get that interesting spot in the record books.

27:07

I guess you will. Yeah, some people have you

27:09

know, walking on the moon. Other people

27:11

have mistaken

27:14

that's great. You never know

27:17

you might get to the moon. Um,

27:21

last year, I just kinda want to talk about last year

27:23

because you're working on your movie. But you

27:25

know, while Land was two years ago,

27:27

so last year you presumably were able to see some movies.

27:30

You wrote about dunk Kirk for us. I know you were a Dunkirk

27:32

fan, So just curious what you thought of last year's kind

27:34

of awards season slate of films. We have stuff

27:36

like Shape of Water and get Out and Three Billboards

27:38

and dun Kirk, which I was a huge fan of Dunkerk. It

27:41

was great. It felt like a great year. Um,

27:44

but uh but it also was you know, I

27:47

definitely always enjoy the years more when

27:50

when when I don't have you know,

27:52

when you don't have something, I don't have a movie out, and you know,

27:54

I could just sort of uh

27:57

take a step back and uh, um

28:00

watch stuff, you know, uh the way

28:02

I used to as a kid, you know, and you just sort of,

28:04

um, you

28:07

get to have a little more untainted view. But

28:09

actually felt like a great year. I loved Call

28:13

me about your Name and Phantom

28:15

Thread and Ladybird

28:18

and Get Out and dunk Kirk. I

28:20

mean it was it was. Yeah,

28:23

this year is pretty good too. Years

28:27

Oh yeah, yeah, Phantom

28:29

Thread too. Remember Phantom

28:31

Thread last year? Yeah, yeah, I just mentioned

28:33

that. Yeah, I have my list of movies

28:36

because literally I forget them like two

28:39

months later, I'm like, what was What were the movies we

28:41

were just watching for six months?

28:43

And that's really sad. But it's just like it's

28:45

because you're so crammed for like, you know, six

28:48

months than the one the ones that I guess, the ones

28:50

that matter sort of they kind

28:52

of float back your conscious.

28:54

It always plays it back, but immediately afterwards,

28:56

it's like you justized cramming

28:58

for a test and completely goes away

29:01

the day after, and then a few nuggets

29:03

will remain in the years later. Yeah,

29:05

it's true. It's a healthy thing

29:07

to remember when when you're kind of

29:09

in the in the both as a

29:11

filmmaker and I assume on your side, just when

29:13

you're in the crux of it all for

29:16

how fleeting it all can be. Absolutely,

29:18

we had Nolan on the show speaking of dunk Kirk, which

29:20

was like a huge bludder. I mean, I know, you guys.

29:23

I don't know if your pals or what, but like I know,

29:25

you guys respect each other's work, and yeah, spoken

29:28

of each other's work. So no, he's

29:30

I mean, yeah, and I got We talked

29:32

a lot about you know, obviously Imax and

29:34

um. Uh.

29:37

He sort of helped helped

29:41

help me know what to expect UMU

29:43

my first time shooting shooting on Imax

29:46

stock uh and um

29:48

the moon stuff by the way, everyone is the Imax

29:50

material. Um. But

29:53

but also I just I really love

29:55

and respect his approach to big

29:57

canvas uh cinema, this sort

29:59

of in and in camera old

30:01

school kind of approach. I I was lucky enough

30:03

to work with Nathan Crawley on this movie,

30:05

who's basically Nolan's go to production

30:08

designer. I mean obviously works with many

30:10

other directors as well, but um, but he had just finished

30:12

Dunkirk essentially when um,

30:15

when I first met with him, Uh, it hadn't come out

30:17

yet when I first met with him about this um

30:20

and uh, and

30:22

he was you know, completely not just on board,

30:24

but helped spearhead the whole kind of principle

30:27

of of you know, practical effects and in

30:29

camera work that that Lena's my DP

30:31

and I were we're trying to foster um

30:34

and and say with the Vffects team, and so you know, you

30:37

kind of have to have everyone on board with that that

30:40

okay, where everything's gonna be real. We're gonna ever, We're not

30:42

gonna you know, digitally put in the visors

30:44

later. We're gonna have real visors in there, which means they

30:46

have to be breathing, uh, you know, real

30:48

oxygen and having cooling tubes and all

30:50

that has to be functional inside their suits. And then the crafts,

30:52

those are actually gonna close up and be you

30:54

know, we're not gonna make them bigger for camera, We're gonna

30:57

make them what they actually were. Size wise. You've got

30:59

to figure out your angle holes and uh, when

31:01

it moves, it's gonna actually move. When there's fire outside

31:03

the window, it's gonna be fired. You know, all these things

31:05

just uh uh, it

31:07

takes planning. But I was really

31:09

lucky and especially thanks to some of these

31:11

you know, kind of people at the top spear heading it, like

31:14

Nathan, to just have a group of people

31:16

who were gung ho for

31:18

that sort of approach. Yeah,

31:21

from the big canvas to a smaller one. I

31:24

wanted to talk to you about working with the streaming companies,

31:26

Working with Apple on a project, working with Netflix.

31:30

I think you'd wrected two episodes of The Eddie for

31:32

Netflix, right, Well, I haven't yet. That's next year, You're

31:34

you're going to For some reason, I thought you had already done

31:36

those. And then Apple, You're you're that

31:38

prolific. Come

31:40

on, man, you're slacking off the

31:42

Apple. You're doing the whole thing. You're

31:45

writing and directing the whole deal. I believe there's

31:47

some mystery around what that is. Well,

31:49

working working with a writer on it, um uh

31:52

and I, uh yeah,

31:55

it's it's come. It's still very early days.

31:57

We don't there's there's nothing

32:00

I can tell you. There's nothing yet. There's no script, there's

32:02

no there's there's uh, there's ideas.

32:04

Um the the Eddie, the Netflix thing. That's

32:06

that's something that's been sort of brewing for longer.

32:09

That's something that Jack Thorne, a great,

32:12

great writer, um

32:14

uh wrote And uh so I'll be uh

32:17

yeah, I'll be directing the just the first two

32:19

episodes in Paris. Obviously, no ambivalence,

32:21

reticence or whatever for you regarding these companies

32:24

regarding this kind of media. Uh.

32:26

You know, Mr Nolan has some strong feelings about

32:28

Netflix, for instance, So you seem

32:30

to be fully on board and happy to do

32:32

this kind of stuff, right, yeah, I mean, uh,

32:35

yes, um, you know, but also it's it's

32:37

uh, you know these are these are TV

32:41

projects or you know, you know that that Eddie

32:43

is a television series and h the

32:45

Apple thing is another long form um,

32:48

long form uh piece of material.

32:50

So I I, um, I'm

32:52

not I'm not going into those uh expecting

32:56

a you know, sort of theatrical

32:58

presentation necessary early. Um. So

33:00

I think I think what Nolan is talking about

33:03

is a little more not to put words in his mouth, was a

33:05

little more specifically regarding how

33:07

about theatrical feature films, how

33:09

about like the the kind

33:12

of what's

33:15

the word, uh, I don't want to say dominance,

33:17

but you know, the company like Netflix is really taken

33:19

off and really uh

33:22

kind of rubbing against the grain for a lot of

33:24

people. So regarding theatrical

33:27

versus a movie like Roma, which

33:29

is going to Netflix, and some people are like, oh, this should

33:31

be on three thousand screens and you know, just

33:33

do you have strong feelings about all that kind of stuff?

33:36

Well, I think they are planning on doing it, really, I mean, I don't

33:38

know three thousand screens, but you know they're gonna do something.

33:41

Uh. And first of all, the movie like it would never

33:43

be on three thousand screens, you know, so uh

33:46

you know. So

33:48

it's also I think there's there's um

33:51

if they do a real you know, as much

33:53

a theatrical for Roma as as

33:55

would happen for um, you

33:58

know, for for say, you

34:00

know, for for that same movie ten years

34:02

ago or something, then that's uh, then I'm all,

34:04

I'm all for that. Um. Um,

34:07

I do think theatrical, Yeah, I mean I I remain

34:09

a fervent believer in theatrical for

34:11

sure. There's nothing quite

34:14

can replace that, even and honestly,

34:16

even if it's just the sort of first step, and you

34:18

know, everything winds up on home video these days, so it's

34:21

not you know, sometimes there's this kind of this

34:23

straw man argument formed that that that

34:25

it's like an either or kind of thing that people who

34:27

argue for theatrical are arguing against

34:30

home video or something, you know, and it's really

34:32

not. All they're arguing for is for theatrical

34:34

to remain the option, to be an option,

34:37

you know, the same thing with digital versus film, although

34:39

that that debate kind of yeah, no,

34:41

that that's that's that that that debate

34:44

at least felt you know earlier kind

34:46

of similar, you know, in the sense of that sort of

34:48

these things don't have to be exclusionary, so um,

34:51

but sometimes they're pitted out as though they have to be. So

34:53

I guess that's more where I where I come

34:55

down. Um, but I think, um

34:59

uh, but you know, I

35:02

don't know. At the end of the day, good good uh.

35:07

You know, good storytelling is good storytelling and

35:09

and uh, and it's also not necessarily a

35:11

bad thing. I think the same

35:13

applies to you know, more traditional TV. When

35:16

it's good, it's not necessarily a bad thing

35:18

to to have. Uh. You

35:20

know, real competition for for

35:23

for for smart discerning eyeballs.

35:25

Um that that that you know, that

35:28

the studios have to deal with, and it's always

35:30

hopefully it sort of inspires them to

35:34

to you know, make

35:38

more, you know, take more risks,

35:40

make more interesting films. I know that's not always the case, but

35:42

you know, I always say, the first time I saw two

35:44

thousand one was on VHS. So

35:47

yeah, it's like, by

35:50

the way, congrats on the engagement. I just wanted

35:52

to mention that was last year. You haven't got married

35:55

yet, right since? Uh

35:58

well yeah, no, well dight

36:00

in the future. We we we uh we

36:02

technically gotten there. We eloped um

36:05

um back in the back

36:08

in the Christmas you know, Christmas holiday,

36:10

back around the winter holiday. Um.

36:13

Uh we're having we're having

36:15

like you know, we're doing uh ceremony,

36:18

you know, uh celebration. Awesome,

36:21

but we're to send the invitation U s

36:25

Yeah, Brandon right here in person, tell

36:28

her hello for me. Actually,

36:30

Livia's right here. We can do it. We can do it right here. Let's do

36:32

it. The PMC team

36:35

here, the research guys to to to be

36:37

the Witnesses. Movies

36:39

called First Man. It opens October. Well,

36:43

and you should see it. It's fantastic.

36:45

I think it's amazing. And as I

36:47

tell Damien all the time, I'm very angry with him

36:50

for being thirty three years old and this talented.

36:53

But congrats with everything man you're

36:55

doing. So thanks for coming on the show.

36:57

Thanks