0:00

Images like, you know, frames like this,

0:02

this use of the lens

0:04

as the mirror and all of these

0:06

mirror scenes that recur through the film,

0:09

setting up that

0:12

frame and letting, having the actors look into

0:14

the lens as themselves and looking off the

0:16

lens as the reflection of the

0:18

other woman standing next to her. But

0:21

I knew it needed that kind of strong

0:24

framing element that would make you go, okay,

0:28

not everything is going to be on the surface

0:30

here. Hello,

0:49

and welcome back to The Director's Cut, brought

0:51

to you by the Directors Guild of America.

0:54

In this episode, a married couple

0:56

buckles under the pressure when an

0:58

actress arrives to research their infamous

1:00

past in director Todd Haynes' drama,

1:03

May-December. The film

1:05

follows Gracie and Joe, a married

1:07

couple who two decades prior were the

1:09

subject of a scandalous tabloid romance. When

1:12

an actress visits their home to research

1:14

Gracie for a movie role, uncomfortable details

1:17

from the scandal emerge, causing

1:19

long dormant emotions to resurface. In

1:23

addition to May-December, Haynes' credits include

1:25

the feature films Dark Waters, Safe,

1:29

Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven,

1:31

I'm Not There, and Carol, an episode of the

1:34

television series Enlightened,

1:37

and the miniseries Mildred Pierce. Following

1:41

a screening of the film at the DGA Theater

1:43

in Los Angeles, Haynes spoke

1:45

with director Greg Araki about filming

1:47

May-December. Listen on for their spoiler-filled

1:50

conversation. They

2:01

said that I should introduce Todd, but

2:04

I think he needs no introduction. We

2:09

haven't done a Q&A together. Have

2:12

you ever seen that thing? It's on YouTube. I

2:15

had a screening recently at UCLA, and

2:18

one of the students says, look at this

2:20

YouTube clip. And it's us,

2:22

the two of us, we're doing an interview

2:24

together at Sundance, 1995. And

2:29

it's for the Michael Amareta movie. Remember he did

2:31

that weird documentary with the Pixel camera? And

2:34

we are babies. We

2:37

look like babies. Yeah, we look like babies.

2:40

And it's like, I think you were there with safe,

2:42

I think, 1995, right? And I

2:44

was there with Doom Generation. But we

2:46

did our interview together, and it's

2:49

just, that's why I'm so thrilled.

2:52

When I got asked to do this, I said, oh my God, I would

2:54

love to do it. It's such an honor. Thank

2:56

you. Thank you. Let's talk

2:58

about this fantastic

3:00

movie. I

3:03

would, you know, it's like, I know you've

3:05

been talking about this movie so much. You've

3:09

been doing so many interviews, and you're such

3:11

a good, you know, loyal

3:13

director for your project.

3:15

You don't have kids, right? Yeah,

3:18

because I, no, I don't either. And it's

3:20

just like, I've talked about how my movies

3:23

are like my kids in a way. You

3:25

know, I mean, so you really, you

3:28

got to give your all for your

3:30

kids. So I think you also have

3:32

to let them go. Yeah, yeah, you got

3:34

to let them go, too. You got to let them go.

3:36

And it's just, people are like, people are always like, what's

3:38

your favorite movie of yours? And

3:40

it's like, they're all my favorites. They're I love

3:42

them all. But

3:45

you have been working, you've been working so hard for

3:47

this movie and doing so many interviews. And

3:50

I do, in case people here are unaware

3:52

of it, I wanted for you to talk

3:54

a little bit about how this move the

3:56

genesis of this movie, how it came to

3:58

be, how it's a little different than

4:00

some of your other movies because like

4:03

myself sometimes you write and direct something

4:05

completely original it's your own thing sometimes

4:07

a script comes to you and it's in a

4:10

different so if you can talk about the difference

4:12

of those two kinds of projects

4:14

and how this particular project came to you

4:16

sir yeah

4:20

this one this came to me

4:22

through Natalie Portman she

4:26

she had there we've been sort of

4:29

talking and hoping that there's

4:31

some would be something someday that would

4:33

that we could do together and

4:36

this script came to me at the height

4:38

of Covid 2020 everything

4:40

was shut down in our world she

4:43

was in Australia where everything was like

4:45

fully operative with all their great protocols

4:47

and all their intelligence and

4:50

and I read this script by

4:53

Sammy Burch who's this extraordinary

4:55

I mean you look at Sam and you think

4:58

she's 25 or

5:00

you know she's 36 but she's

5:03

such a she's so brilliant and

5:05

she's got such an original voice

5:07

and she and

5:09

the script was full of

5:11

anxiety and discomfort

5:14

and you know and it and

5:16

our specialty and

5:19

and it but it but it trusted the reader

5:21

and let the reader navigate

5:24

without without overly directing what

5:27

to think and where to go and and

5:29

so you're you're kind of confronting your own

5:32

projections expectations moral

5:35

moorings around this very

5:37

loaded and disturbing story

5:39

and complicated story and

5:43

of course these were exactly the things

5:45

that excited Natalie about the script and

5:48

and talking to Natalie made

5:51

me think of another

5:54

insanely brilliant gifted person who I

5:56

actually know very well and I've

5:58

worked with my entire career and

6:01

here was this second female lead

6:04

sitting right there. Do you think

6:06

that Natalie had that in mind when she gave it

6:09

to you? You know, it's so funny. It's come up

6:11

in Q&A's and I mean

6:15

she's a good actor so she could certainly

6:17

have been all like, do you think she'd

6:19

do it? Julie? Really?

6:21

Do you think she'd do it? You know,

6:23

I slipped into Julie Ann before I even

6:25

mentioned it to Natalie. I wanted to feel

6:28

out, I wanted Julie Ann to safely be

6:30

able to say, no, it's not, you know,

6:32

it is or isn't something she was interested

6:34

in. She was very interested and

6:37

I told Natalie and she was like, oh my God, do

6:39

you think she'll, I asked, I said, what do you think

6:41

about Julie Ann for Gracie

6:43

and she said, do you think she'd do it?

6:45

And I said, I think she might do it.

6:49

So that's where it started. That was the groundwork.

6:51

We didn't know when. This was a long time. This

6:54

was years ago and we

6:56

were all doing other things and

6:58

following other commitments. And

7:01

then as things happen in our crazy

7:04

careers and stuff, something

7:07

I was developing and it

7:10

didn't happen last year or fairly

7:12

spring of last year, I think we found out it wasn't going to

7:14

happen. And all of a sudden I

7:17

was like, shit, maybe I wonder if there's a way to

7:19

do May-December. And

7:22

we looked at the fault. We realized Julie Ann and Natalie both

7:24

had the fall, a few weeks

7:26

free in the fall. And

7:31

so, but the challenge

7:34

was the script was originally set in Camden,

7:36

Maine. It had to

7:38

be set in May because it's graduation

7:40

month. You know, you're

7:42

counting the minutes to when those

7:44

kids are going to leave this

7:47

couple alone in that house to

7:50

really confront each other alongside all

7:52

the, in addition to all the

7:54

stuff that Elizabeth Barry,

7:56

the character Natalie plays, brings into

7:59

it. And

8:01

so we, but we knew we couldn't shoot in Camden, Maine

8:03

or anywhere on the East Coast in

8:05

the late fall for

8:07

spring. And so I had

8:10

just been in Savannah at the

8:12

Savannah Film Festival. And I

8:14

started to think, wow, Savannah, Savannah, wow, that

8:16

would be curious, interesting,

8:18

layered and complicated. And

8:21

Sam Lissenko is the production designer on May December.

8:24

And he and I had just set up this,

8:26

had built this other project together. We're so excited

8:28

about working together. And I said, Sam, that's

8:31

over. Let's

8:33

get on our dancing shoes and go

8:35

to Savannah. And we went

8:37

in August of last year, sweltering

8:39

heat and started to

8:41

sniff around. And

8:43

we had already sort of

8:45

thought, okay, Gracie

8:48

wouldn't live in downtown historic Savannah if

8:51

we shot it in Savannah. But she'd live maybe,

8:53

there was this beach community, Tybee Island, about

8:55

20 minutes outside of downtown

8:57

Savannah. And I was

9:00

like, that's interesting. That's curious,

9:02

sort of a middle-class beach community,

9:04

not a hoity-toity area.

9:08

And we went

9:10

there and started to look and smell

9:12

and sniff. And

9:14

we literally went off the beaten

9:16

path of the Savannah Film Society, Film Commission

9:18

telling us where to look for houses. And

9:22

we found that street and

9:24

we found that house and we stuck a

9:26

little note card on the door of the

9:28

house and said, we're

9:30

in town, would you consider, let

9:33

us come see your house? The guy called

9:35

back that night, we saw it the next

9:37

day. All those things. Did you leave a

9:39

picture of Nellie Portman and Julian Moore? Julian

9:43

Moore, Nellie Portman and Charles Melton age 14.

9:48

No, but yeah, it was

9:50

just the serendipity, the

9:54

unexpectedness of making it.

9:57

And also the fact that we had very little.

10:00

money and we

10:02

shot this movie in 23 days

10:05

in Savannah. And

10:09

that meant it took everybody all

10:13

sharing, being on the same page and I

10:16

had to bring everybody in and

10:19

open my doors and so

10:21

we really made optimum use

10:23

of our time. Correct

10:25

me if I'm wrong but you did not have

10:27

your usual cinematographer Ed Lachman and was

10:30

your production designer new as well? Yes,

10:32

Sam was. This was the first time I

10:34

would be working with Sam and this became

10:36

our first project and the other one. And

10:38

your costume designer as well? Yes, so all

10:41

new collaborators. So you were all just trying

10:43

to figure it out. Because

10:45

when you worked with somebody for a long time, and

10:47

this was actually one of my later questions about Christine,

10:49

I mean you guys, I first met

10:51

Todd and Christine, we were just talking back in the

10:53

late 80s in

10:55

New York when they had a

10:58

company called Apparatus Productions where they

11:00

made experimental short movies. And you

11:03

and Christine, your collaboration through the years,

11:05

I was wondering if you could talk

11:07

about that a little bit and just

11:09

I think in general about

11:12

these collaborations. You have an old, you

11:15

know, your old longtime collaborator.

11:17

I'm sure you have a shorthand with,

11:19

I'm sure you know, you can think

11:21

the same thoughts, you know, you can

11:23

complete each other's sentences. And then there's these

11:25

new collaborators because when they're, you

11:28

know, I have a DP that I worked with probably

11:30

the last six projects and it's nice because you could

11:32

just, they know what you want. You know what I

11:34

mean? They know how, they know what the shots should

11:36

look like. They know they're in your head a little

11:38

bit and new collaborators aren't. So if you can talk

11:40

about maybe those differences, that'd be great. Well,

11:44

yeah, there's nothing that

11:46

I can really compare

11:49

to that foundational

11:52

good fortune of what,

11:55

of Christine's in my entire

11:57

life working together. We

12:00

knew each other before I made my first

12:02

feature, Film Poison. We

12:04

were doing this nonprofit organization that shot- Did she

12:06

work on Superstar? She didn't work

12:08

on Superstar. She watched a cut of Superstar. And

12:12

when I was cutting- For people who don't know,

12:14

Superstar is Todd's underground masterpiece. I don't know. It's

12:16

one of the, I remember showing it in a

12:19

film class that I taught at UC Santa Barbara

12:21

back in the, I guess late 80s,

12:23

early 90s. Yeah,

12:26

if you can find a bootleg copy

12:28

of it somewhere, definitely check it out. I

12:31

had a roundtable conversation today with, at

12:33

the Hollywood Port of Roundtable with Greta

12:35

Grogan. She was so sweet and she said,

12:37

you know, Superstar is

12:40

the real Barbie movie. That

12:42

should be on the box. And that was just so lovely

12:45

of her to acknowledge it. Very

12:48

different movie than what she did.

12:52

But yeah, so Christine saw very different,

12:54

but in a way, very

12:56

similar. Interesting. No,

12:59

there's, there's stuff there. There's some stuff

13:02

there for sure. Christine

13:04

we were just talking about at the producer's PJ

13:08

talk that we just had. And she

13:10

was talking about seeing the kind

13:12

of Superstar in my Brooklyn apartment. I

13:15

was on the flatbed cutting in my apartment. And

13:18

she said it, she just wrapped it as a sort of epiphany

13:20

for her where she was like, this is the kind of movies

13:23

I want to make. You know, I

13:25

want to keep making these kinds of movies. I mean,

13:27

we were trying to do this with Apparatus, but we

13:29

weren't doing our own films at Apparatus. We were there.

13:31

It was a nonprofit organization for other filmmakers, which is

13:33

how we met you. But

13:38

we, and so she said, I

13:41

want to produce your next film. And that was, ended

13:43

up being my first feature film, Poison and

13:45

her first feature film producing. She's

13:49

produced every film I've made since. And,

13:53

and it's just one of the deep, mysterious,

13:59

credible, relationships that, you

14:01

know. How do you

14:03

work together exactly? Does she ever bring stuff

14:05

to you, or do you just work

14:08

on something, sort of craft

14:10

it and go, Christine, this is the

14:12

next thing? How can we make this?

14:14

How is, she, you know, since

14:17

I, and this goes back to part

14:19

of your very first question, which is

14:21

since I did Carol. Carol was in

14:23

2015, and it was

14:26

the first time that I made a shot

14:28

of film that

14:33

I didn't write myself. That was a

14:36

script that was circulating, and actually been

14:38

circulating for almost 20 years in

14:40

various forms of development. And

14:43

a very, very dear friend of Christine's,

14:46

but also mine, Elizabeth Carlson

14:48

and Stephen Woolley, producing partners

14:50

in the UK, had

14:52

it. And Liz said, do you think Todd would

14:54

ever be interested in doing, you know, something like

14:56

this? And they sent it to me,

14:58

and I was just so, of course, you know,

15:00

I read the Patricia Highsmith novels based on Price

15:02

of Salt, and read that beautiful Phyllis

15:05

Nage adaptation, and it

15:09

was an amazing experience. And so since

15:12

then, I've sort of cracked that door open

15:15

a little bit, and so scripts come,

15:18

scripts are sent to me, right, when

15:20

they hadn't been before. And

15:24

I'm still also developing my

15:26

own original work, but that's

15:28

where Christine feels a lot of stuff,

15:30

and she gets a lot of stuff

15:32

sent to her for me. She

15:35

screens it, and she sort of sends me stuff that she

15:37

thinks that I might like. But for the

15:39

most part, it's pretty much stuff I know I want

15:42

to do, and then we, you

15:44

know, she just works until it happens. Like,

15:47

you know, Safe was my second feature film,

15:50

starring Julianne Moore. The first time

15:52

I worked with Julianne, that's an ongoing relationship,

15:57

a lifetime relationship with Julie.

16:00

But that was a film that took two years for

16:02

us to get finance even after the, you

16:05

know, poison did relatively well

16:07

for an independent film at that time

16:10

because the way you sort

16:12

of monitored how films did or how you

16:14

remarked on how films did, it was successful

16:16

in that in the new queer cinema era

16:18

when we were starting our

16:21

work together. But

16:24

it still took two years to get a

16:26

million dollars together to make safe. And

16:31

I probably would have given up and just not,

16:34

you know, had a career as a filmmaker if it

16:36

wasn't for Christine. She was the one, she would

16:38

say, you know, are you sure

16:40

you, you know, I was like Christine, it's never

16:42

going to happen, you know, it's such a downer

16:45

in this movie. And she was

16:47

like, you tell me if you want to

16:49

do this movie, we're going to go back out and keep

16:51

fighting it, keep fighting to get the money. And I would

16:53

read it and go, yeah, I

16:56

really want to do it. I really want to do it. And

16:59

she'd go back out and slay the dragons. And

17:01

we finally managed to get

17:03

the money together. I'm sorry

17:05

if I keep going off on tangents. My

17:08

boyfriend said when I do Q&A said I'm

17:10

getting asked questions. I never really answer the

17:12

questions. I just keep going off on all

17:14

these crazy tangents. I just get so inspired

17:16

by everything you're saying. But

17:19

it's like speaking of that, you were

17:21

just talking about safe,

17:23

right? Now I'm getting so confused. Yeah,

17:27

I mean, in terms of when I

17:30

just recently did a Q&A with Rick Linklater,

17:32

and we were talking about in those days

17:34

in the 90s, when we all were young

17:36

whippersnappers just growing up, he

17:38

said it's, you know, you're talking about the

17:40

idea that it's different, it was different than

17:42

it is now because it was so much

17:44

harder to be a filmmaker, like

17:46

just the means of

17:48

production of making a movie like Poison or

17:51

like When I Made the Living In, in

17:54

16 millimeter. You know, I mean, just

17:56

the drudgery of it was so intense.

17:58

And we were talking about the idea is

18:00

that to be an indie filmmaker

18:02

in those days you had to be a

18:04

little bit crazy you had to be a

18:06

little bit not

18:09

narcissistic but just really believe in yourself and

18:11

just really be like kind of a zealot

18:13

you know I mean in a way that

18:15

now that filmmaking is so easy with iPhones

18:17

and everything else you know that

18:20

you it's it's much simpler

18:22

than it used to be

18:24

and I was just my

18:26

two cents on your idea just how you

18:29

had to be so driven to make

18:31

it but don't you also think that

18:34

when you have too

18:37

many choices and too

18:39

many ways of doing you know a lot

18:41

of different ways of of

18:44

skinning the cat but when

18:46

you had less choices and you had to do it this

18:48

way and you had to do it on film and you had

18:50

to put the camera here and the camera wasn't gonna digitally fly

18:52

out the window and fly back in you

18:54

had to figure out where the camera was and

18:56

why and whose point of view that camera was

18:58

assuming and why that

19:01

those decisions are so elemental to what

19:03

how you tell stories and why and

19:05

how great movies really

19:07

think about the physical body of

19:10

the camera and the character and the

19:13

storytelling and it's rooted in something you

19:15

know it feels rooted

19:17

it feels heavy and

19:20

there's sweat and you

19:22

know blood in all

19:25

of those choices that you

19:27

make and I and I I'm I

19:29

feel so ultimately grateful that like I

19:31

started when we started because I'm

19:33

so happy I cut on film that I

19:36

that I've caught film you

19:38

know and that you could carry your image

19:40

from one part of the room to the

19:42

other with your hands you could carry it

19:45

you could record sound on a dubber and

19:48

carry the sound of birds from one

19:50

part of the room to the other

19:52

and then put it into your film

19:54

with your hands and then you go

19:57

where's that frame looking

20:00

for the one frame. But

20:03

you know what I mean. It's just, it's

20:05

how, it's sort of like

20:08

the way we all would navigate things

20:10

without digital navigation and you'd use maps

20:12

and you'd use your memory and you'd

20:14

use your eyes and you'd walk

20:16

down streets and you'd go, oh right,

20:19

I turned left here because I remember that sign and

20:21

I remember that place, I was like, I'm so excited,

20:23

I remember the turn of the street. And

20:25

it makes you, it makes

20:29

your mind alive. Well I mean that's, that's my

20:31

next question. I don't know, should we answer the

20:33

other questions? I feel like we're just braced, I

20:35

keep asking questions without getting the answers. And

20:38

we have three seconds left from the conversation.

20:40

Oh here's the light going, you were almost

20:42

done. It's

20:44

like, that's one of the things I love

20:46

about this movie and I love about all

20:48

your movies is that one

20:51

of my pet peeves as directors are

20:53

terrible audience members actually because we're so

20:55

particular. Is it when

20:58

I feel the camera's in the wrong place, when

21:01

things feel random, like I just don't like

21:03

that feeling of like, oh this is so

21:05

real, this is so documents, like not even

21:07

like a movie, it's like real life. It's

21:09

like I don't want to see real life,

21:11

I want to see a fucking cinema. And

21:13

you make cinema, you make Todd Haynes movies

21:16

that are so distinct. They're,

21:18

you know, that you always feel

21:21

your hand, your intention, you

21:24

know, your, there's a deliberate

21:27

point of view, you know. And I

21:29

wonder if you could talk about that

21:31

a little bit about your methodology and

21:34

your style and how

21:36

much of it is conscious, how much

21:38

of it is just intuitive. I know

21:40

you work with storyboards too because I.

21:44

Storyboards really. I mean, it's

21:46

more image, my image books

21:49

are the sort of visual narratives

21:51

I put together, drawing

21:54

from the references to other movies

21:56

or photographers or painters or

21:59

the, or the. location stills I've

22:01

taken, you know, and that's what the

22:03

May-December image book was, for instance. It

22:06

drew from things I could

22:08

not think about right away when I read the

22:10

script, like Persona by

22:13

Bergman, and the idea

22:15

of the twinning women in mirrors,

22:17

and those

22:20

kinds of frames that would

22:22

hold, and places

22:24

in Bergman movies where direct

22:26

address to the lens was

22:29

established or made such an impression. And

22:33

so the whole visual language of

22:35

this movie evolves from all that,

22:37

you know, that sorting through films

22:41

and references and grabbing one's

22:43

own favorite images as you

22:46

do it yourself and put it together in a linear form, and

22:48

then start to share that with everybody.

22:51

And because there were all these new

22:53

relationships involved, Ed Lockman, who

22:55

has been shooting my film since Far

22:57

From Heaven 2002, was going to shoot May-December and

23:01

then had an accident. He broke his femur bone

23:04

on a movie, and we only

23:06

found out about it like weeks before we

23:08

were going into a while, days before we

23:10

were actually planning to leave for

23:12

pre-production in Savannah. I had to find somebody really

23:14

fast. So sharing

23:17

the image book and then

23:19

sharing this crazy

23:21

score that I heard

23:23

in a Joseph Lozi

23:25

movie watching TCM one

23:27

day, the

23:30

movie is The Go Between. It's a Joseph

23:33

Lozi movie. Oh my God, right? For people

23:35

who know it. But the

23:37

thing is that it's not that well known for

23:39

Joseph Lozi. It's not, it's somehow fallen out of

23:41

circulation in the United States. It's very

23:43

hard to see, and I hadn't seen it since I

23:45

was a kid. I think when it came out in

23:48

1971, and

23:50

I had not

23:52

seen it in all these years, and

23:54

I watched it on TCM, and

23:57

I was completely

23:59

gutted. I was slapped

24:01

across the face by that Michelle

24:04

Legrand score, which

24:06

asserts itself like an alarm bell

24:11

in the opening credits of the Go Between. And the

24:13

Go Between set in 1900, you

24:16

know, England's countryside coming of age story of

24:18

a boy who visits his rich family and

24:20

develops a crush on his beautiful older sister,

24:22

Julie Christie. So

24:26

it's even less, it

24:28

seems even less related to the subject matter

24:30

of the film, the score, than

24:33

even in May-December, but it was like an

24:35

example. I was like, okay, guys, this is

24:37

what I'm thinking. Images

24:39

like, you know, frames like this, this

24:41

use of the lens as

24:44

the mirror and all of these mirror scenes

24:46

that recur through the film, setting

24:49

up that frame and letting, having

24:52

the actors look into the lens as themselves

24:54

and looking off the lens as the reflection

24:57

of the other woman standing next to her. But

25:01

I knew it needed that kind

25:03

of strong framing element that would

25:05

make you go, okay, just the

25:07

way the script did, make

25:09

you go, not everything

25:12

is going to be on the surface here. It's

25:15

going to be up to you watching

25:17

it, to be thinking and questioning and going,

25:19

hmm, you know, laughing at times and then

25:21

feeling uncomfortable that you're laughing and then laughing

25:23

more and then going, wait a minute, I

25:26

thought I trusted Elizabeth Barry to

25:29

be my reliable narrator in this

25:31

movie and then, no, not so

25:33

much. But

25:37

I just, the

25:39

way we achieved it in such a short amount

25:41

of time and the way these

25:43

new relationships got anchored

25:46

was by just opening up the

25:49

creative doors and

25:52

letting, bringing everybody in and saying, these are, this is

25:54

kind of what I'm thinking, guys, let's

25:56

all go for it, let's all hold

25:58

hands, figure it out. out our relative

26:00

parts and how to realize this and

26:04

also rely on an

26:06

incredible producing team, a

26:08

line producer I'd never worked with before, Jonathan

26:11

Montepar, somebody

26:14

knows. I

26:17

will never make another movie without Jonathan. Oh,

26:19

awesome. He is and that's such a hard

26:21

job. You know this. Oh, yeah. It

26:24

is just the most thankless job. It's such a, my

26:26

heart goes out to line producers. And

26:29

ADs also because there's a lot of them. No,

26:32

seriously, and Tim Bird, my AD on this

26:34

movie, he had a long relationship with, was

26:37

a combination of Jonathan, a

26:39

new relationship, Tim, an old relationship, Christine,

26:41

an old relationship, Julianne, an old relationship,

26:44

Chris, and Chris

26:46

Blavelle, and Sam, and April,

26:48

all new relationships that

26:51

forged this delicate,

26:54

passionate little brief

26:56

moment that we all shared there. Yeah,

26:59

and I think they

27:01

were all, they

27:03

were all there for you. No, as I said,

27:05

I mean, that's what makes the movie so

27:07

great. I think it's bold choices. You know what

27:10

I mean? That is a director kind of

27:12

operating at the peak of your powers. And so

27:14

everybody's walking the plank with you. You know what I

27:17

mean? And you get that sense. I mean, I

27:19

think that's what makes the movie so fantastic.

27:21

Okay, we're already getting our five

27:23

minute warning and I think I'm

27:26

like so, let's talk briefly about

27:28

the performances are obviously so fucking

27:30

fantastic in this movie. Your

27:34

methodology in terms of your actors

27:36

and creating the safe

27:39

space for them to work and

27:41

how do you manage? Was

27:44

it a lot of rehearsal or how did that work? No,

27:47

there was not any rehearsal. There

27:49

was a lot of conversations shared

27:51

between Julianne and Natalie and I

27:53

and in the lead up to

27:56

actually being in Savannah together. lot

28:00

of, you know, planning the wigs and the

28:02

color palette and the things that take the

28:04

time that you have to build in. They're

28:07

both such complex

28:10

thinkers such but

28:13

and they come so prepared. They're very similar

28:16

in the way they work, Julianne and Natalie.

28:19

And I and you still don't know like,

28:21

how are they gonna interact together,

28:24

you know, in reality,

28:26

you know, and they

28:28

just put each other at

28:30

ease, you know, I think I was able to

28:32

make them feel like there was a solid ground

28:34

upon which this was being built. And

28:37

then they felt secure and

28:40

supported and, and

28:42

then with these very strict

28:44

and sort of austere and minimal

28:47

kinds of coverage and shots that

28:49

hold, then it's all

28:51

about what they do right in front

28:53

of you, you know, in the I

28:56

mean, just astonishing. Yeah, I

28:58

was really kind of went back

29:00

to the last shot of safe. And

29:03

I was just close up to Julianne

29:05

and you get so much from

29:08

her face and her performance. And

29:10

it seemed that that was a

29:12

very recurring motif in this movie.

29:14

Was that conscious or? I

29:18

thought I want to

29:20

use the mirror, the lens as the mirror, the

29:24

camera as the mirror and how the actors look

29:26

right into it. And I

29:29

thought, I haven't seen that in so many

29:31

movies where, of course, there's all kinds of

29:33

uses of direct address, but not

29:35

as the literally using the mirror and

29:37

that the actors would make you know that it was a

29:39

mirror, you didn't have to establish that

29:42

the mirror is on that wall and then we're cutting from

29:44

inside it, you know. And

29:47

then Brian, my, my partner for many years,

29:49

he said, Well, you did that in each

29:52

of those like, Oh, yeah, that's true. I mean,

29:54

it's kind of one of the very shots of

29:57

that movie that last shot of Julianne and just

29:59

said, long held close-up. Yeah. But

30:02

couldn't you believe Charles Melton? Well, yeah, that

30:04

was the other question is... I

30:07

worked with Charles Soupe like for five minutes. He did?

30:10

Yeah, in Riverdale. He did an episode of it. I didn't know you

30:12

did in Riverdale. Yeah, and I like, I've met him and he's such

30:14

a sweet kid and he's such a... We

30:17

barely... I don't know, he had like me

30:19

in one scene or something. Yeah. And then,

30:21

you know, of course he's such a revelation in this movie. If you want to

30:23

talk about him for a bit. He,

30:26

you know, we auditioned, we did

30:28

the normal route with my casting

30:31

director, Laura Rosenthal, and auditioned actors

30:33

for Joe. And I

30:35

got tapes and she screened a bunch of them

30:37

first and I saw about 10 of her favorites.

30:39

And Charles, I first saw a

30:41

picture of Charles. I was like, oh, I

30:43

don't know. He's so... He doesn't look like a

30:45

real person. He's so insanely gorgeous. Yeah, he looks

30:48

like he's genetically like modified or something. He

30:50

just literally, his face is perfect.

30:52

It's a little... It's

30:55

crazy. Yeah. I

30:57

said, Charles, you're going to put on 30 pounds. He

31:00

put on 40 pounds. So

31:02

he changed his body into a little bit

31:04

more of a suburban kind of dad

31:07

body or something. But man,

31:10

what he did, what he did in his

31:12

audition without any direction, without any communication from

31:14

me, his instincts were

31:16

so remarkable and

31:18

so restrained and so, you

31:22

know, it was like someone who was

31:24

learning. It was like pre-verbal. He

31:27

was encased in his

31:29

body, you know? And

31:32

all of a sudden I saw in ways

31:34

I... You know, there were other really fine

31:37

actors who we were comparing

31:39

him to, but I

31:41

saw the present Joe and

31:44

I saw the past Joe in

31:46

him. You know, the whole story just sort of

31:49

unfolded in his

31:52

incredible instincts and they weren't... The thing

31:54

about Charles is he's not just a

31:56

diamond in the rough. He is a

31:58

fine... Conscious technical

32:01

actor there's comic time

32:03

and in that performance There's of course

32:05

pathos and pain in that performance and

32:08

there's such a sense of understanding physicality now

32:10

I think all of that got developed when

32:12

we work together But

32:15

I remind him, you know when he's like Oh Todd

32:17

I could never have done that without you that that

32:19

he he Taught

32:22

me who Joe was in

32:24

his audition, you know, and

32:27

that's what you that's what's

32:29

so remarkable about filmmaking When

32:31

you learn and the alchemy

32:33

is a three years together. It's just oh

32:35

I'm blowing I mean he's standing

32:38

up there next to Julianne Moore and Natalie

32:40

Portman and the third

32:42

act of the movie really belongs to Charles,

32:44

you know and what he did and so

32:48

the whole thing was just we

32:50

also just had the Time

32:52

of our lives making this movie. We just had

32:54

such a Beautiful time

32:57

together. It was really special. It

32:59

was really rare, you know, very

33:01

very cool Yeah,

33:03

I mean it's all just all there on screen They

33:05

want me to wrap up and I have so many

33:07

questions left. I'll try to make them I'll try to

33:10

make them all into one question. Okay

33:12

queer new wave. I don't know We're

33:14

both for the queer new wave your

33:16

queer perspective and also I

33:18

had a question for you about being

33:21

a like George Cucor

33:25

the overlap between being a

33:27

gay filmmaker a queer man and

33:29

being Put labeled as a

33:31

woman's director and how you felt

33:33

about that if you felt that was in some way

33:38

Pigeonholing or limiting and if

33:40

you think that women's films

33:43

are maybe

33:45

not necessary taken as seriously

33:47

as Men's

33:49

films and anyway, like I said, I have a

33:51

lot of questions and we're out of time. So

33:55

answer with it No,

33:57

it's the highest praise

34:00

It's the highest honor to be

34:02

called a director of women and

34:04

someone who has told stories

34:06

about women that connect

34:08

to people. And

34:11

the stories that we might

34:13

denigrate by calling women's films are

34:16

the stories of domestic

34:18

life and homes and families and

34:20

raising and relationships and children. In

34:23

other words, they're the stuff of

34:26

real life. They're where we all come from.

34:29

We just happen to denigrate women

34:31

all the time and go to

34:33

our society. So anything that

34:35

attaches that

34:37

characteristic or that signifier, we

34:40

look down on. But

34:43

come on, man, women are,

34:46

women rule. I

34:49

learn everything from women. I

34:52

always have. Men

34:54

are just scrambling to catch up to

34:56

what women already- This is straight men. Yeah.

35:02

But no, man, I

35:05

have formative relationships with women and I've

35:07

always had them from my mom to

35:09

my sister to my grandmother to Julianne

35:11

Moore to Christine Vachon to

35:13

Kate Blanchett and Kate Winslet and all

35:15

these just

35:19

Natalie Portman and the

35:21

women who we

35:23

owe everything to. I guess

35:26

that's it. Todd

35:28

Haynes, everybody. Thank you so much, Todd.

35:33

Thanks for listening to another DGA Q&A.

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