Chloe Domont ('Fair Play'), Andrew Haigh ('All of Us Strangers'), Cord Jefferson ('American Fiction'), Tony McNamara ('Poor Things'), Eric Roth ('Killers of the Flower Moon') and Celine Song ('Past Lives') join The Hollywood Reporter for our Writer Roundtable.
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00:00 - So there's a Dorothy Parker quote that I love
00:03 that is familiar, I agree with you, Selene,
00:06 which is, "I hate writing, but I love having written."
00:10 - Right.
00:11 (upbeat music)
00:14 - Hi everyone, and thank you for joining us
00:18 for the Hollywood Reporter's Writer Roundtable.
00:20 I'm Scott Feinberg, and I am so happy to be joined
00:23 by the writers of six of 2023's
00:25 most outstanding screenplays.
00:27 Let's meet them.
00:28 We are joined by Tony McNamara, the writer of "Poor Things,"
00:32 a screenplay adapted from Alistair Gray's 1992 novel
00:36 of the same name about a young Victorian woman
00:38 resurrected by a scientist following her suicide
00:41 who goes out into the world an uninhibited innocent.
00:45 Celine Song, the writer of "Past Lives,"
00:46 an original screenplay about a young Korean immigrant
00:48 living in New York who winds up at a bar
00:51 with her childhood sweetheart from Korea
00:53 and her husband from New York.
00:55 Eric Roth, the writer of "Killers of the Flower Moon,"
00:57 a screenplay adapted from David Graham's 2017 book
01:00 of the same name about the Native Americans
01:03 of Osage Nation who held oil rights worth vast fortunes
01:07 and the white men who preyed upon them in 1920s Oklahoma.
01:11 Chloe DeMont, the writer of "Fair Play,"
01:13 an original screenplay about a newly engaged couple
01:16 whose relationship dynamics are jolted
01:18 when the hedge fund at which they both work
01:20 promotes the woman but not the man.
01:23 Cora Jefferson, the writer of "American Fiction,"
01:25 a screenplay adapted from Percival Everett's 2001 novel
01:28 "Erasure" about a black college professor
01:30 who writes books that nobody reads
01:32 because he is told they are not black enough
01:35 and then out of disgust writes one under a pen name
01:38 employing all the stereotypes that he disdains, thank you.
01:42 And Andrew Haig, the writer of "All of Us Strangers,"
01:44 a screenplay adapted from Taiichi Yamada's 1987 novel
01:48 "Strangers" about a gay man living in present day London
01:51 who visits his childhood home and finds living there
01:54 the parents who he lost 30 years earlier
01:57 when he was just 12.
01:58 Thank you all for coming from near and far to do this.
02:02 We're thrilled to have you.
02:03 And I think to begin with, I'd like to ask you each
02:07 about the origin story of these projects
02:11 and then we'll loosen it up after that.
02:13 But Chloe, you've been climbing the ranks
02:16 in the world of TV for a few years,
02:17 writing on shows like "Ballers"
02:20 and directing on shows like "Billions."
02:22 My understanding is that things were going on in your own life
02:25 at the same time that may have motivated you to sit down
02:29 and write "Fair Play," your first produced feature-length
02:32 screenplay.
02:33 Can you share a little bit about that?
02:36 Yeah.
02:38 I think the story had been compounding for years.
02:43 But I think it really kind of came together.
02:47 It was this feeling I was having at the time when my career
02:49 started to take off in television.
02:52 And it was this feeling that my success
02:56 didn't feel like a total win.
02:58 It felt like a loss on some level.
03:00 And it was because of the relationships I was in.
03:03 And these were relationships with men
03:06 who, on the one hand, adored me for my strengths, my ambition,
03:10 what I was trying to do.
03:12 But there was this unspoken feeling and tension
03:15 that me being big on some level made them feel small.
03:19 And it just made me realize how much
03:22 hold these ingrained power dynamics still
03:25 have over us today.
03:26 So that's something that I wanted to sink my teeth into.
03:29 Fantastic.
03:31 Andrew, you have written and directed
03:33 some truly beautiful films over the last decade-plus.
03:36 We're talking about "Weekend," "45 Years," "Lean on Pete."
03:40 But if I'm not mistaken, you have generally originated--
03:44 you've brought the material to others
03:45 and said, this is what I want to do.
03:47 In this case, it started a little bit differently, right?
03:50 Yeah, it came to me.
03:51 Someone sent me the novel.
03:53 And I think whether I'm adapting something
03:55 or whether it's an original screenplay,
03:58 I need to be able to connect on a very deep level,
04:00 whatever that material is, personally connect with it
04:02 in some way or other.
04:03 And they sent me the novel.
04:04 And it's a very traditional ghost story,
04:07 I think, in a Japanese sense.
04:09 But that central idea of meeting your parents again
04:11 long after they've gone--
04:12 and I would say my parents are actually still alive--
04:15 there's something about that reunion and that reunion
04:19 with the past and what that can do to you
04:21 and how it can make you remember, relive,
04:24 very painful experiences.
04:27 And how reliving that in a very visceral sense
04:30 can help you move on, can help you find perhaps
04:34 some kind of liberation.
04:35 And I mean, when I read the novel,
04:37 it felt so personal to the writer.
04:39 I've never met the writer of the book.
04:41 Maybe it wasn't personal to him, but it felt personal.
04:44 And I felt like I had to do the same thing
04:47 and throw myself into that novel as much as I could.
04:50 And so that became my adaptation process,
04:53 was take this idea, put myself into that story,
04:56 and see what comes out.
04:57 Kord, you've been a journalist.
04:58 You've written for TV.
05:00 And it's kind of amazing how you move between comedies--
05:03 Master of None, The Good Place--
05:05 and dramas, Succession, and then Watchmen,
05:08 which you won your Emmy for.
05:10 What led you to Erasure?
05:12 And were you actively looking for something
05:15 to write a feature-length screenplay about?
05:17 I had a horrible 2020.
05:19 I don't think that's unique to any of us here.
05:21 We all had a bad 2020, I think.
05:23 If you didn't have a bad 2020, I would
05:25 like to talk to you as to why.
05:27 But besides the COVID thing, I had a really big professional
05:30 failing that year, where I came very, very close to getting
05:33 a TV show on the air.
05:34 And then at the last minute, it was killed.
05:36 And so I was kind of adrift toward the end of the year,
05:40 trying to figure out what my next creative project would be.
05:43 And I just, by chance, read this novel for--
05:45 I'm sorry, I read this review for this novel called
05:48 Interior Chinatown.
05:50 And the review said that there was a satire reminiscent
05:54 of Percival Everett's Erasure.
05:55 And so I went and read a synopsis of Erasure,
05:57 and it sounded interesting.
05:59 So I bought it.
06:00 And I don't know if you guys ever had a feeling--
06:02 I had a feeling that the book was written specifically
06:04 for me.
06:05 Like, it was as if somebody sat down
06:06 to write Kord Jefferson a book.
06:09 It was like I was 20 pages into it, and I was like, oh my god,
06:12 this--
06:13 I might want to adapt this.
06:14 And 50 pages into it, I thought, maybe I want to direct this.
06:17 And then I started reading the novel in Jeffrey Wright's
06:19 voice.
06:19 That's how early I started thinking of Jeffrey for it.
06:22 It just felt-- the themes of the professional--
06:25 sort of what it means to be a writer of color,
06:28 and sort of the restrictions people put on your life,
06:30 and sort of the stories that you can tell because
06:32 of your identity--
06:34 that was stuff that I'd thought about since I was a journalist.
06:37 And then the more I got into it, there
06:40 was a bunch of family stuff that I really
06:42 empathized with and understood.
06:43 And so I just felt like I understood it deep in my bones
06:46 in a way that I hadn't before.
06:48 It just resonated with me deeper than any piece of art
06:50 had before or since.
06:52 Tony, you previously wrote another film
06:53 that Yorgos Lanthimos directed.
06:55 That was 2018's "The Favorite."
06:57 Then you remained in the period royal world
07:00 with "The Great" on TV, which I think
07:02 had even been gestating before "The Favorite."
07:05 And now you're back with Yorgos for "Poor Things."
07:09 How did you and he begin working together?
07:11 And how did this follow-up project come about?
07:14 We began working together.
07:15 He was-- he had some--
07:18 a script for "The Favorite" that he didn't-- he liked the idea
07:20 of, but he didn't like the script.
07:22 And he was reading a lot of writers,
07:23 and he just read something I'd written.
07:25 And I didn't know anything.
07:27 He hadn't made any of his English films at that point.
07:30 So I went and watched the-- they said,
07:31 do you want to work with this Greek director?
07:33 There's no money.
07:34 And I went and watched his film.
07:37 And I was like, dog tooth.
07:38 And I was like, I'll do it for free.
07:40 He's amazing.
07:41 And then I started-- we worked on "The Favorite,"
07:43 and we had a really good time.
07:45 And so just before going into production, he came.
07:49 But he had told me about Alistair's book.
07:51 And when he first--
07:52 he really loved it, but he couldn't get anyone
07:54 to give him any money to get someone to write it.
07:56 But then he'd made--
07:57 you know, he'd made "The Lobster," and he kind of went,
08:00 people give me money.
08:01 Do you want to do it?
08:02 And then I read it, and it was such a wild story
08:05 and such a crazy premise of--
08:08 it's, you know, like a Frankenstein story,
08:10 but she's pregnant.
08:11 And they take-- when I first read that, I was like, what?
08:13 They take the baby's brain out and put it in her head?
08:15 And like, I'm like, it's a comedy, right?
08:19 So then-- but I read it.
08:21 It was such a great screenwriting challenge,
08:23 because it seemed fun.
08:24 It seemed really hard to make a movie out of it.
08:27 And also, what was really interesting about it
08:31 was that the book told the whole story from the men's
08:35 perspective.
08:36 Her story is never told by her until the last two pages.
08:39 And so we kind of immediately--
08:41 you know, that was the character he wanted to kind of--
08:44 Bala was the character.
08:45 But it gave us this great freedom,
08:47 because we had everyone else's view of it.
08:50 And also, that was the key to the movie for me,
08:52 because I was like, oh, this is a movie about control
08:55 of someone's story, control of someone--
08:56 you know, how you enter the world,
08:58 and everyone wants to control your ideas, your upbringing,
09:00 how you see the world, your body.
09:03 And it became like a really key to how I could kind of see
09:07 the movie.
09:07 And it became really--
09:09 I knew it was an interesting movie on a philosophical level,
09:12 as well as be this wild ride that
09:14 was sort of slightly unhinged.
09:16 So yeah, so I said yes.
09:18 Brings us to Eric Roth.
09:19 You have been at this first, let's say, for, I think,
09:23 about 50 or more years--
09:25 almost 60 years as a writer.
09:27 So a wealth of knowledge here.
09:29 And-- Good luck to you.
09:32 Well, I'm going to just mention a few things here.
09:34 Forrest Gump, The Insider, Munich,
09:35 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Stars Born, Mink,
09:38 and Dune--
09:38 and those are only the ones that got nominated for Oscars,
09:42 and winning for Forrest Gump.
09:45 How did you and Martin Scorsese, who I don't believe you'd
09:48 worked with before, connect for Killers of Flower Moon?
09:52 I gave them my take, and they decided to say, OK,
09:55 give it a whirl.
09:56 And I spent like a year plus on it.
09:58 And they gave me their notes.
10:00 I tried to fix those, as bad as they might have been.
10:02 And then--
10:04 I'm kidding.
10:05 Some were good, some were bad.
10:07 Anyhow, they were good.
10:10 Very nice.
10:11 Dan Preeton and Bradley Thomas, very good producers.
10:15 And then I went to Marty.
10:17 And Marty felt this was something special.
10:21 And I felt the same way when I was doing it.
10:24 It showed the lack of education I had.
10:27 I never knew anything that existed.
10:29 It reminded me of the Tulsa Massacre, which
10:31 was part of the same thing, 1921,
10:34 that I knew nothing about.
10:35 And I said, what is going on?
10:38 And plus, I knew about the erasure, as you said,
10:42 the Native Americans.
10:44 That I knew about.
10:45 I had written a script called Comanche earlier.
10:47 But I'd never seen something that was as heinous as this,
10:52 in some ways.
10:53 And I became very passionate about it.
10:56 And I'm very passionate about research, also.
10:59 And Marty and I set out-- and I'll just be quick now.
11:01 But we decided we were going to make a gigantic Western.
11:05 John Ford, we started actually with the Oklahoma land
11:08 rush, which would have taken about a month.
11:11 And it slowly became something else.
11:15 Marty said quite right up front, I don't want to do a whodunit.
11:21 I want to know.
11:23 Because we all did.
11:24 We were all comfortable.
11:27 And it was a long assignment, like eight years.
11:33 Which isn't the longest I've been anymore.
11:35 But it was pandemic.
11:37 He made another movie.
11:38 But we worked.
11:40 It was, I think, a defined collaboration of a certain
11:43 kind.
11:44 It was a wonderful relationship.
11:47 I'll be obsequious for a moment.
11:49 It was wonderful.
11:50 A man I've worked with.
11:52 If you say, I think I want to do the movie backwards,
11:54 I'll try.
11:54 Celine, you had spent the decade or so before Past Lives
12:00 as a very admired playwright.
12:02 But my understanding is that you were very consciously trying
12:05 to move into film.
12:07 It wasn't-- sometimes it's an accident or whatever.
12:09 In this case, you were looking to do that.
12:11 What convinced you to make this story, which
12:14 is personal in ways that I'll ask you to talk about?
12:18 Why was this the story that would be the one
12:20 for your transition into film?
12:23 Well, I think that it all goes back
12:25 to this particular feeling that I had.
12:28 And sometimes you just have to chase the feeling
12:30 that you have in your own life.
12:32 And it was a feeling that I got while I
12:34 was sitting in this bar in East Village in New York City,
12:37 sitting between my chalice sweetheart, who
12:39 had come to visit me from Korea, who's now a friend,
12:41 and my husband that I live with in New York City.
12:44 And because they do not speak each other's language,
12:48 and I do, I was translating between these two people, who
12:53 cared for me and knew me very differently.
12:56 And what was so clear is that in that moment,
12:58 I was sort of becoming a bit of a bridge or a portal
13:02 between not just these two people and these two cultures
13:05 and these two languages, but also parts of my own self
13:09 and my own history.
13:10 And I think at that moment, I just felt so full and massive.
13:17 I felt very big.
13:18 And I think that strange feeling that I had in that night,
13:22 I think it really stayed with me for a long time
13:25 until I decided that it was something
13:27 that I wanted to write.
13:31 And I think it really did just come from the feeling that,
13:34 yeah, but I want to talk about it.
13:37 And I'm just wondering if other people are going
13:40 to also know this feeling.
13:42 And I think it really did come from the question of, yeah,
13:46 this is how it felt like for me sitting there.
13:49 How does it feel for you?
13:50 Did this feel like that for you?
13:52 And I think it became a script from there with anything.
13:56 That's great.
13:57 So Celine and Chloe, your lives, as we've established,
14:01 helped inspire your screenplays.
14:02 But for the other four of you who
14:05 have adapted pre-existing material,
14:08 Andrew alluded to this a little bit
14:10 when he was speaking earlier that he has to have
14:14 it feel a bit personal.
14:15 He tailored it to be a character who wasn't gay in the book
14:20 is gay in the screenplay.
14:22 So how important is it-- and anyone,
14:25 please jump in-- to feel that personal connection if it's not
14:29 material that's originating from your own life?
14:31 I don't think you can go past page--
14:34 word one without the passion for it.
14:36 So you have to find something that's important to you.
14:40 And what does it say to you?
14:42 So that's how it felt with that.
14:45 I don't think I look for necessarily a literal that's
14:49 me or something, but I do--
14:51 I think I have to feel it.
14:52 Like, I have to read it and go, I
14:55 feel like I know something in this story is about me
14:59 without knowing what it consciously is.
15:01 I've got to know that I feel what--
15:03 that being thrown into the world like Ballad,
15:06 not really knowing what the fuck you're doing, is a feeling.
15:09 And I have to know what it's--
15:11 I kind of feel like, without being too literal about it,
15:14 I just read it and I assume there's something
15:16 because I've connected with it.
15:17 I assume it'll come when I write it.
15:19 Rather than feel like I have to--
15:21 it's like even God when the scientist's like,
15:24 I know what it's like to be a father who
15:26 loves their child too much and doesn't want them to go anywhere
15:28 because you want to protect them.
15:30 In the same way, I know I want to get out in the world
15:32 and see what the world will hammer me into.
15:35 So you can know those things without--
15:36 I guess, for me, anyway, it's just kind of an instinct
15:39 that I feel like there's something in there for me.
15:42 I just think that there's--
15:43 I'm fortunate because the book that I found
15:45 was about a Black writer.
15:48 So I kind of--
15:49 I lucked out in that.
15:50 And I'm like, oh, I know this guy.
15:51 He's about a Black writer who lives in LA.
15:53 OK, yeah, I get this.
15:55 But I think that the sort of--
15:58 for when you're not--
15:59 I mean, just to be any good writer,
16:01 I think that you have to--
16:03 so for instance, when I worked on "Succession,"
16:05 I don't know any white billionaires, right?
16:07 And I sort of like-- if you were to tell me
16:10 that I had to write a show about this sort
16:14 of like conservative billionaire family,
16:17 I sort of go in there and I'm like, well,
16:18 I'm not going to be interested in these people
16:20 because I have nothing to relate to them about.
16:21 And they have nothing to relate to me about.
16:23 But I think the reason that "Succession" works
16:25 and sort of the reason why people loved it so much
16:27 was that people don't know anything about being
16:31 white billionaires necessarily.
16:32 But they know what it's like to sort of have this sibling
16:35 rivalry and to want to impress your father, who's
16:37 never sort of like given you his entire sort of heart and soul,
16:40 right?
16:41 And they know what it's like to have these sexual hangups
16:45 and to have these drug addiction problems.
16:47 Like all of the stuff that makes human beings human beings
16:50 is sort of what you understand and can empathize with.
16:52 And so when you get to that kind of show
16:55 or when you sort of read a book or something
16:56 or you're reading a character who's a woman and you're a man
16:59 or vice versa, I just think that sort of you
17:02 just need to tap into the things that make people human beings
17:06 and sort of like what is it about this human being
17:09 that you can relate to that has nothing to do with necessarily
17:12 their class or their race or their gender.
17:14 It's just kind of like what's the humanity that you can find.
17:17 And I think that that to me is always a more--
17:20 that's always the first important question when you sit
17:22 down to write something is like what is this human being having
17:26 them that I have and how can I tap into the emotions
17:28 that they're going to have.
17:29 And it's why we read and watch films anyway is to connect.
17:33 We all want to connect.
17:34 We all want to understand ourselves,
17:35 understand each other.
17:36 So it makes sense that any material you get is that, oh,
17:39 no, I understand something that is being got at here.
17:42 There is something that is being discussed and talked about
17:44 that I'm interested in.
17:45 So I think you have to-- for me personally,
17:47 I have to feel that.
17:48 A bunch of you have come to writing films via writing TV.
17:53 Chloe, Cora, Tony, Andrew, you had done film
17:58 but then went and did "Lucky" and "Can't" simultaneously.
18:02 What do you guys find to be the biggest differences
18:05 between writing for one medium versus the other?
18:09 Celine, of course, coming from theater, same kind of--
18:12 just as you've made those transitions, some of you
18:15 quite recently now, what struck you the most
18:19 about the different art form?
18:23 My movie "Past Lives" had to be a film
18:25 because it's about endings.
18:26 It's about the finiteness of time.
18:29 So actually, it is suited for film.
18:31 And I think different stories are
18:33 suited for different mediums.
18:35 And I think part of the reason why
18:36 I wanted to make "Past Lives" as a movie
18:38 is because I know what is required in theater
18:42 because I was there for 10 years.
18:44 So the thing about theater is that it is--
18:47 its relationship to time and space
18:49 is very different than the relationship that film has.
18:52 And in theater, time and space is figurative.
18:56 So time and space can be as small as a light change
19:01 or just the way that an actor turns and looks at someone.
19:03 So theater, you can-- it's in a way,
19:05 even though it's happening in usually a room,
19:09 it is going to move very differently than in film.
19:12 And because "Past Lives," the villains of the story
19:16 is time and space.
19:18 It's 24 years and Pacific Ocean.
19:23 That's the villains of the story.
19:24 So in that situation, those things
19:27 needed to be depicted literally.
19:29 So that's why I felt like it was--
19:31 it needed to be seen in a filmic way
19:34 because you need to feel the tangibility of time and space
19:38 in a way that in theater, you don't need to.
19:40 And I guess the thing I love about film
19:43 is the collaboration with the director.
19:45 And that I know--
19:47 like, when I write for Yorgos, I'm like,
19:49 I wonder what he'll do.
19:51 I sort of know, but I sort of also--
19:53 he's going to bring something that's not me.
19:55 And I think that's what's interesting.
19:56 And as a writer, working with a good director,
19:59 they make you a better writer.
20:01 And they push you, and they collaborate with you.
20:04 And I think when I do a film, I know
20:07 I'm ultimately serving them.
20:09 But I also work with directors who
20:12 let me bring what I bring.
20:13 And so I think that's what I like about that.
20:17 And then TV is kind of different.
20:19 I mean, it depends.
20:20 If you're show running, then you have a lot of control,
20:22 almost too much because it's tiring.
20:26 But I think that they're the differences, I guess.
20:28 And then for me, the screenwriting--
20:29 writing a screenplay for a film, it's such a pure--
20:34 has to be so--
20:35 it's such an unforgiving thing as a piece of work.
20:39 Whereas TV, you've got 10 hours, and you can probably
20:41 make a lot more mistakes and get away with it to some degree.
20:44 But I think with a screenplay, they're
20:47 really tight, machine-like things.
20:50 And you've got to find the heart of it.
20:51 And you've got to find the simplicity of it that
20:53 will give you the complexity.
20:55 And so that's such a beautiful challenge.
20:58 And when you're working with a director,
21:00 that you go, they're going to ask so much of you
21:02 that you know you'll bring things
21:04 you didn't know you had in you that in your own TV show,
21:06 maybe you can't because no one's pushing you in that way.
21:09 I mean, in my experience, I feel like--
21:12 I mean, what they say, I feel like, is cliche.
21:14 But I think it's kind of true.
21:15 And I think it's changing.
21:16 But I do feel like TV is a writer's medium,
21:19 and film is a filmmaker's medium.
21:22 But it is changing.
21:23 And you have filmmakers more and more in television
21:27 that are having more control.
21:29 But for me, when I was working in television,
21:32 I was serving other people's vision.
21:34 And I was the director.
21:35 I was the day player.
21:37 So for me, my movie was my baby.
21:41 That was finally my story that I got to tell.
21:44 I think I'm super grateful for all those experiences
21:47 in television.
21:47 I actually-- I felt like television
21:49 was kind of like boot camp for me,
21:50 like gearing up towards making my first feature,
21:54 because it was just-- the experiences were invaluable.
21:57 And what I'm so grateful for in those experiences
22:01 of television, it taught me to think so fast and just
22:05 constantly--
22:06 like, really, it was like boot camp.
22:08 You're just-- you just have to pivot.
22:09 You don't have-- you don't have time.
22:11 And not that you have much time in independent films, either.
22:14 But I would say, you know, television,
22:17 it's like I shot a one-hour action show that was--
22:23 we shot 60 pages in seven days with actions and stunts.
22:26 And yeah, it's crazy, like, the pace that it moves.
22:28 But I think just the--
22:31 having to pivot so quickly and all of that was just--
22:34 you're honing-- you're honing your craft and your muscle.
22:39 And you get to try out things on someone else's dime, you know?
22:42 And it's not necessarily something that's your baby,
22:44 so you're not as precious about it.
22:45 But yeah, I think they're very--
22:48 they're very, very different.
22:49 I feel the same way that everybody else does
22:51 when they're saying sort of about how, you know,
22:53 I don't have necessarily the best perspective on it
22:56 because I didn't just hand over the script to a director.
22:59 I sort of did it myself.
23:00 And so I'm not sure what the difference would have been.
23:02 I think that--
23:04 I do know that one of the reasons why I was interested
23:06 in making the film is because I wanted to--
23:11 I, like, really wanted to challenge myself.
23:12 I worked on a lot of great TV shows.
23:14 And I'm, like, forever grateful for those experiences.
23:17 And I learned a lot.
23:18 And I really enjoyed my time there.
23:20 But there was always kind of a voice in the back of my head
23:23 that was like, do you think you can do this on your own?
23:25 Like, do you-- are you sort of, like, riding
23:28 on the coattails of other people?
23:29 Can you execute something on your own?
23:31 Because you are always in service
23:33 of somebody else's vision.
23:34 And I had-- I'd had a very difficult time getting
23:37 TV shows on the air, as I just said.
23:38 I sort of--
23:40 I came very close a few times, and it never happened.
23:43 And so there was always kind of this chip on my shoulder
23:45 that was like, can you do this?
23:47 Do you think you can actually do it?
23:48 And so being able to execute that was great.
23:52 I think that it is different in many ways.
23:55 But I think that, you know, I think that I
23:57 found a lot of similarities.
23:59 I found, you know, one of the things
24:01 that I was really happy about that I was able to bring
24:03 from TV to film, hopefully--
24:06 one of the reasons why I like making TV and watching TV
24:09 is that I think that TV, because of the time,
24:12 allows you to be discursive and digressive
24:14 and sort of, like, go to weird places
24:16 and sort of, like, spend time with these characters
24:18 in a very real, nuanced, layered, complex way.
24:21 And so I think that when I got to film, you know,
24:24 there's some characters in my movie that
24:27 aren't driving the plot forward.
24:29 And I actually got some notes from people that were like,
24:32 you know, do you actually need this person?
24:33 Do you actually need this scene?
24:34 Like, what does this have to do?
24:37 You know, you could get from A to B faster
24:38 if you sort of eliminate this.
24:40 And I thought that--
24:40 I was like, there's no way in hell
24:42 I would ever do that, because I think that, you know,
24:45 I want to do more than just drive the plot forward.
24:47 I want to sort of, like, service these characters
24:49 and make them feel like real, lived-in human beings.
24:52 And that is important.
24:52 And that's sort of--
24:53 that is important to the satisfaction of an audience
24:55 watching this thing.
24:56 Like, that's why they care about these things
24:58 in the first place.
24:59 And so I'm actually really happy that I started out in TV,
25:03 because I think I learned a lot of lessons that were helpful
25:06 when it comes to storytelling that I
25:08 could apply to the film.
25:10 The thing that I struggle with with TV
25:12 is what something Celine said about endings.
25:15 Like, for me, when I'm coming up with a story,
25:17 the ending is so important to that story.
25:20 And TV is so different.
25:22 You never know if your TV show is going to be canceled,
25:24 which they often are.
25:25 Mine was canceled.
25:26 And you expect it to happen, sort of.
25:28 So you never really quite know where you're going to go.
25:31 And I struggled with that, because it's so important.
25:35 I don't know how you can tell a story unless you
25:37 know what the ending is.
25:39 And I think there's so many more voices in TV,
25:41 which can be great.
25:42 But there's also different demands.
25:44 Like, you know that the audience is sitting there,
25:46 and they're on their phone.
25:47 And maybe they're doing that when they're watching films,
25:49 too.
25:49 Let's face it.
25:49 But the washing machine's going off, and stuff's happening,
25:53 and the doorbell's ringing.
25:54 And so you have to constantly keep their attention.
25:57 And I quite like not to keep people's attention sometimes.
26:00 I want them to drift off a little bit
26:03 and sort of sink into the story.
26:05 And TV, you can't do that.
26:07 You'll get notes like, I'm bored.
26:09 People are turning off.
26:10 You've got to keep them in in that first five
26:12 minutes or 10 minutes.
26:13 It is hard, because you have to sort of write endings
26:15 that aren't actual ending.
26:16 Do you know what I mean?
26:18 Especially towards the end of a season,
26:19 you've sort of got some great ending that
26:21 isn't really an ending, because you want another season.
26:24 So you're always not quite--
26:26 it's not quite serving the characters in the way.
26:28 Or you're sort of like some weird shell game.
26:30 You're like, yes, it's the ending, but not really,
26:32 because there's 10 more.
26:34 And then if you get cancelled, which lots of you do,
26:36 then the thing doesn't exist as a whole.
26:38 It's just ended.
26:39 And so you've got this thing that essentially disappears
26:41 from the world.
26:42 Whereas a film, you can watch it from 20 years later.
26:45 It's like, there it is.
26:46 That's that thing.
26:47 Well, I was going to say, I've done it the other way,
26:49 from movies to television.
26:51 I'm not sure this was the best thing,
26:53 but we did "House of Cards," and we all know the result of it.
26:57 But I found-- and I've done like six other TV shows.
27:01 And I never did any writing except for dealing
27:04 with the showrunner and then giving my Yoda notes
27:07 and telling me to blow it out.
27:10 But I found it a little too analytical,
27:13 to be honest with you.
27:15 I didn't-- I felt you could get into moments.
27:17 And I think some of the television's getting better,
27:20 like "Succession," I think, where--
27:23 I'm very close with the unfortunate bad Alzheimer's
27:25 David Milks, and I got to write on Deadwood and stuff.
27:29 And that, where he gave you permission to try to--
27:32 you could do a one-off and just have characters
27:34 really have some intimacy.
27:36 But I find a lot of the television--
27:38 I'm not saying some of it is just brilliant, but--
27:41 I didn't know you wrote on Deadwood, man.
27:43 You're even more of a legend.
27:44 Jesus.
27:45 That is unbelievable.
27:47 You wrote on Deadwood, dude?
27:50 My goodness.
27:51 I want to springboard off of something
27:53 that Andrew said about, I don't know how you can write
27:55 without knowing the ending.
27:57 I want to pose that to Chloe and Celine, because I guess,
28:02 yes, your films, your original scripts,
28:05 are personally rooted in personal things.
28:09 But when you sat down to write them,
28:13 did you have to know exactly where it was going to end up?
28:16 Or do you find that along the way?
28:19 I knew the ending before I knew the beginning.
28:21 For me, I wanted to make a thriller about power dynamics
28:26 in a relationship, and really on the ugliest level.
28:31 But for me to talk about the ending,
28:33 you have to talk about what happens in the bathroom.
28:37 So for me, the film always had to escalate to sexual assault,
28:41 because when you break it down, sexual assault
28:45 isn't really about sex.
28:46 It's about power.
28:47 And that's what I was exploring.
28:49 And so what happens in the bathroom,
28:51 that is the only way for Luke to reclaim
28:54 the power over Emily in that moment
28:55 through physical dominance.
28:58 So because that happens, and because I
29:00 knew it had to go there, then it was
29:02 like the ending is about Emily reclaiming the power
29:05 that Luke takes away from her.
29:07 And also for me, it was like I decided
29:12 to tell the story through the lens of a thriller.
29:14 And my intention was to manipulate the genre
29:17 and twist it to serve as something that I felt
29:20 like had to be told now.
29:21 But I do feel like no matter how much you twist genre,
29:24 you still have to pay it off.
29:26 So for me, the ending was about where
29:28 genre and the story kind of comes together in one punch.
29:33 And since I was working within the thriller genre,
29:37 that is a genre that uses violence
29:39 as a means to solve conflict.
29:42 So for me, it always had to get violent.
29:44 But the ending was never really about female revenge.
29:50 While there are elements of female fury and female rage,
29:53 the whole movie really builds up to the moment
29:57 that she gets Luke to mutter the words, "I'm nothing,"
30:02 and finally submit to his own inferiority.
30:05 Because really, I've kind of said,
30:10 more than being a film about female empowerment,
30:12 this is really a film about male fragility.
30:14 So the film resolves when he submits to that.
30:19 And that's where it needed to end.
30:21 For me, the ending was--
30:24 I think dissimilar to what Chloe's talking about,
30:26 I needed to know the ending for me
30:28 to actually do the whole thing.
30:30 But if you talk about how the process is,
30:33 because I work pretty structurally,
30:36 I'm a pretty structural person when it comes to that.
30:38 So I had to figure out the structure of the opening
30:41 and the ending being connected for me
30:43 to actually write the whole thing.
30:44 So it was like four months of procrastination
30:48 and just writing just random dialogue from the final scene
30:53 that I imagine will happen.
30:55 So I just have a random thing open
30:58 just where I'm just writing, well,
31:00 this piece of dialogue, whatever.
31:01 And then I think at the end of those four months,
31:04 there was a moment where I figured out
31:06 that in the beginning has to be the ending,
31:08 and in the ending, it has to be the beginning.
31:10 So it wasn't like, from day one, we're
31:13 going to do a framing device.
31:14 That was not at all--
31:15 I knew what the story was, but I didn't
31:17 know that that frame was going to exist.
31:19 And then, of course, once I knew the framing,
31:22 and then, of course, then all the dialogue
31:25 that I've been playing with for four months,
31:26 I know where they're going to go.
31:28 And then from there, I could write the whole thing
31:31 in one breath.
31:32 And then it goes really fast.
31:34 But until I crack the structure, usually it
31:37 takes me months of hanging out.
31:41 Now, even for the folks at the table who adapted,
31:44 doesn't mean you're doing it beat by beat the way
31:47 the novel or the book was.
31:49 Eric, I could see that you kind of lit up
31:52 when we were talking about this.
31:54 I'm a mischievous little--
31:55 Yeah, yeah.
31:57 First of all, bad books make great movies.
32:00 Bad plays make better movies.
32:03 And because you have the freedom to be original with it.
32:06 I mean, I always know the beginning and the end.
32:09 I mean, I spend way too much time on the beginning.
32:12 And they say mathematically, what I spend on the end
32:15 is ridiculous.
32:16 You don't give it enough time to it.
32:18 But I must say, I guess I'm--
32:21 I don't know if this is a brag or not,
32:22 but every movie I've ever made has had the same beginning
32:26 and ending, except for Munich.
32:28 What do you mean by that?
32:29 I mean, the very scene that I imagined as the beginning
32:32 and wrote and the end.
32:34 And some might have been from the book.
32:36 I have to really think back.
32:38 The end was different in Munich only
32:39 because he reconstructed the World Trade Center.
32:44 But it was the same thing, a conversation.
32:46 Kord, I mean, both the beginning and the ending of your film
32:51 are so memorable.
32:52 And I think that the ending was not at all what necessarily--
32:56 or not exclusively what happens at the end of Erasure.
32:59 So just talk us through how you got there.
33:03 When I was adapting Erasure, I knew
33:05 that I was going to have to make some pretty big changes in order
33:08 to make it a movie and make it cinematic.
33:11 I think the movie that I made is a little less cynical
33:13 than the book.
33:14 The sort of changes that I had to make,
33:18 I knew were going to be big in some areas.
33:20 But I always wanted to maintain the essence
33:23 and the spirit of what Percival had tried to execute.
33:25 So the book's pretty metatextual at points.
33:29 And so you get some surreality there.
33:31 And so I wanted to find ways to insert that in the film
33:36 while still keeping it grounded in many ways.
33:38 And so I frequently write with no idea what
33:42 the ending is going to be.
33:43 I appreciate everybody's style.
33:46 But sometimes I come in, and I'm like, yeah,
33:48 I know what the ending is going to be.
33:49 But sometimes I'm just like, let's just
33:50 go for it and see what happens.
33:52 And so this was one of those instances where I just wrote.
33:54 And I wrote an ending that I was not happy with,
33:57 that I knew was going to have to change at some point.
33:59 And so we got about a month out from pre-production.
34:02 And I was on a long drive to Joshua Tree for this wedding.
34:06 And I had to talk about the ending
34:08 with one of the producers.
34:09 And he called me and said, just, you know--
34:12 he said, the movie's a big swing.
34:14 The movie's audacious.
34:15 Try to write an ending that feels like a big swing,
34:17 that feels as audacious as the rest of the film.
34:19 So I thought about that.
34:21 I slept on it that night.
34:23 And then I woke up the next morning.
34:24 And I wrote the ending pretty quickly.
34:27 I'm a very, very, very slow writer.
34:29 I'm a very slow writer and a very slow reader.
34:31 But I wrote the ending in about 15 minutes.
34:33 It just sort of came to me.
34:35 And I was just like, oh, OK, this is what it should be.
34:37 And so I sent it in.
34:38 And there was some reluctance from people
34:41 who were a little nervous that it was going
34:44 to be too much of a big swing.
34:45 But a lot of other people were just kind of like,
34:48 yeah, this is it.
34:48 And that's why I think I wrote it so fast,
34:50 is because I thought of it.
34:51 I was like, oh, yeah, this is--
34:53 sometimes you just have the thing where it's like, oh,
34:54 yeah, this is what it needs to be.
34:56 Like, I figured it out.
34:57 And so it came to me really quickly.
34:59 But it is a-- you know, it's a big departure
35:01 from the ending of the book.
35:02 But to me, I've tried to think of endings that would
35:06 be as satisfying to me.
35:08 And I haven't been able to--
35:09 I haven't been able to think of one.
35:10 But that is-- you know, we came right up to the--
35:13 right before pre-production.
35:14 So I was like, you know, sometimes you just
35:16 got to, like, build it as-- you got to jump off the cliff
35:19 and build the plane on the way down.
35:21 That's sort of like-- that's sometimes my method.
35:23 [LAUGHTER]
35:24 I think it's about-- for me, it's about, like, a question
35:27 and then an answer.
35:28 So you're answering something that you've set up.
35:30 Like, and I have to sort of know what that answer is.
35:33 I don't need to know what it is on a plot level.
35:35 And with this, I sort of had no idea on a plot level
35:38 how I was necessarily going to end the film.
35:40 But I knew what I wanted it to feel and feel
35:43 for that main character.
35:44 Like, all of my films are actually
35:46 so single protagonist.
35:48 Like, I think there's probably five shots in all of my films
35:52 that don't include that single protagonist.
35:54 They're in all over it, and every single shot
35:56 of almost the whole film.
35:57 And so it's about, what is that journey that he's going on
36:00 or she's going on?
36:01 And what do I need to feel at the end
36:03 has happened to that character?
36:04 So I sort of know that from the beginning.
36:07 And thematically, I know how I'm trying to get there.
36:10 I don't always know how the plot is
36:11 going to help reveal the themes that I'm trying to talk about.
36:16 But I know where I want to end and start.
36:19 I want to start with Andrew, but ask all of you
36:21 if there was a scene that--
36:25 maybe the one that you've received the most feedback
36:28 about from people who you've talked to at Q&As or whatever.
36:32 And if you can just take us into a little bit of how
36:35 you cracked that scene.
36:37 If it was-- sometimes it can be a 15-minute process
36:41 to do something that blows people away.
36:43 But just to dissect a little case studies
36:47 from each of your films.
36:48 Let's start with you, Andrew, if we can.
36:50 Yeah, I think my film works for different people
36:53 in different ways, I think.
36:54 But for me, there's a scene where
36:56 he talks to his dad about how he felt growing up in the '80s,
37:02 growing up gay in the '80s.
37:04 And to me, that was such an essential scene.
37:06 It's a film about the pain that we keep inside
37:09 that stays in us even though life changes, and we move on,
37:12 and we get older.
37:13 And I'm 50 now, and I can be dragged back
37:16 to how I felt when I was 13, 14, 9 in an instant sometimes.
37:20 You just need the smallest of trigger, and you're like,
37:23 oh my god, I'm a child again, and I feel terrified.
37:25 Or everyone's going to hate me, or I'm
37:27 going to be kicked out on the street,
37:28 all those kind of things.
37:30 So that scene with the son and the father
37:33 where he gets to talk to the father
37:35 and ask, why weren't you there for me?
37:37 Why didn't you understand?
37:39 Why didn't you come into my room when I was crying?
37:41 And for the dad to answer that in an honest way
37:44 was really fascinating for me.
37:47 I wanted to be compassionate to parents and children
37:50 in the situation, especially in relationship to queerness
37:53 and how that relates to family.
37:55 And so that was quite a powerful scene to do,
37:58 and it was certainly emotional for me to make.
38:01 And it was like, as I say, my dad is still alive,
38:04 but he's got dementia now, so I never
38:06 get to have those conversations.
38:08 So it was a very strange experience doing it,
38:10 because I felt like I was having a conversation
38:12 with my own father that I won't ever have with my father.
38:15 But somehow, it just being in the world
38:18 made me understand myself and understand him, I suppose,
38:21 in a lot better.
38:23 Tami?
38:24 Wow.
38:26 I think there's a scene--
38:28 well, I guess there's one scene that people have--
38:31 when Bella first takes a job at the brothel,
38:34 because of her nature, her immediate response
38:37 is to change the way the whole brothel works.
38:42 And this idea that she comes down and go,
38:44 why don't we pick the men?
38:46 Because then otherwise-- and she explains to the guy,
38:48 otherwise you won't feel the horror
38:50 we feel when you come to us.
38:52 And I think it was a pivotal scene for us,
38:54 because it was, how do we tell this story
38:56 about this person who has--
38:58 I think for me, it was like her optimism of adventure
39:01 and her ability to not know anything
39:04 about the rules of society, so to be
39:06 able to consistently come up with her own
39:09 and consistently skirt around our social mores
39:12 and how we would approach anything,
39:14 was something I loved about the character,
39:16 because she had this optimism about the adventure
39:19 of her life.
39:20 And that the questions you ask, the questions we ask society
39:25 are what changes society.
39:26 And her ability to continually keep coming back and asking
39:29 those was something I loved about the character
39:32 and I loved about the way Emma loved that about the character
39:35 and played that.
39:36 I think that the scene that everybody who's seen the movie
39:42 usually talks about is the very final scene, where
39:46 my main character, Nora, walks with her childhood
39:51 sweetheart to a spot to get him picked up for an Uber.
39:57 And then, of course, the Uber comes.
39:58 And then her friend gets in the car and leaves.
40:02 And then she turns around and she walks home crying.
40:05 And I think that, to me, it really
40:07 did begin with this thought of, first of all,
40:10 trying to find that street more than anything.
40:13 And I think, amazingly, this thing that in the script
40:16 was very much about, and then she walks home crying,
40:19 was really the--
40:20 she walks home crying.
40:21 And of course, there was a description
40:23 about what kind of a cry it is and things like that.
40:25 But none of that was unlocked until we found the street
40:29 that this walk was going to happen.
40:32 And then my DP asked me--
40:35 and it was a practical question when we actually
40:37 found the street, which my DP found--
40:39 he asked me which direction should Nora and Hyesung
40:44 walk to the Uber.
40:46 And my answer was so-- it was so clear,
40:48 because of the way we wanted to shoot it,
40:50 that that street looked like a timeline.
40:53 And of course, Nora and Hyesung should walk into the past.
40:57 So it would have to happen from right to left.
41:01 Walk into the past, and then wait there
41:03 for an Uber for two minutes.
41:05 And then when the Uber comes, Uber is going to also drive him
41:08 into the past.
41:09 And then, of course, then Nora would have to turn around
41:12 and start walking towards her present and the future.
41:15 And I think that--
41:17 yeah, it would be like cracking that--
41:20 it being that street being a timeline, then, of course,
41:24 inform the rest of the film.
41:27 As in, then, of course, the language of the film
41:30 was then built out of the decision
41:34 about treating these walks like it's about time itself.
41:40 And I think that that really was all of it.
41:43 Well, I'd say two things.
41:45 One was I never knew if it was going
41:47 to work once Leonardo decided to switch characters as to if we
41:52 were able to show, which I believe to be true,
41:54 that this man loved this woman and was trying to kill her.
41:57 And it was complicated until he did it.
42:00 And I thought he did it with great tenderness on one hand.
42:03 On the other, being complicit in this.
42:09 I'm not sure people talk about it one way or the other.
42:12 I think they wonder what was his feelings about it.
42:14 I think I mentioned some of you guys here about we could only
42:17 think of three examples.
42:19 It was Desdemona, talented Mr. Ripley,
42:22 and maybe he's placing the son that ever had that.
42:25 I think if you watch the movie, you'll see where Leonardo
42:29 was amazing at being able to pull that off, his confusion,
42:32 and then his tenderness with her.
42:34 And I think he did love her.
42:35 And in doing the research, the real man
42:40 wanted his ashes when he had cancer and was dying,
42:43 spread over the Osage Hills.
42:44 So he had some great feeling about this place.
42:48 And on the other hand, wanted to murder her.
42:50 The other thing, which is more about the theme of the movie,
42:53 which is equally important, is the complicity of people.
42:57 And I think it's--
42:58 I'm not sure people have talked about it or not,
43:00 but I think the fire in the movie is really important.
43:03 Marty kept telling me, any time we have anybody look out
43:07 the window, I want him seeing people who would walk over
43:10 dead people and wouldn't care about it.
43:13 And so we always had that feeling,
43:15 whether a banker or a farmer.
43:17 And then that fire scene, which was kind of a metaphor for that.
43:21 Wow.
43:22 Yeah.
43:22 I think the most talked about, actually, scene
43:27 is the opening sex scene, which was written about as the most
43:30 shocking sex scene, which is, I think, hilarious.
43:36 But it was also the trickiest scene.
43:38 And I rewrote-- I think I rewrote that scene more
43:43 than any other scene.
43:45 Because, I mean, first of all, I was looking for a shocking way
43:52 to get to both hook the audience and grab them,
43:57 but also get you to fall in love with these characters.
43:59 And you have to fall in love with them.
44:01 And also because, structurally, it's
44:04 like things have to get going.
44:05 The story has to get moving.
44:09 You really have to fall in love with them in this scene,
44:11 because it kind of turns pretty quickly.
44:16 And I knew that they had to get engaged.
44:18 And so it was like, how can I show a fun engagement proposal
44:22 that's absurd and messy?
44:25 And for me, that was if he had blood on his face.
44:29 I was like, he has to propose to her with blood on his face.
44:32 And I think that it was something
44:36 that some audiences and some more conservative audiences
44:39 are too shocked by.
44:42 But for most people, it just makes you fall in love with him,
44:46 which I think is you have to for where the story goes.
44:49 And also what I wanted to set up, too,
44:52 is that I wanted to set up to the audience,
44:54 like this is a man that's on some level
44:57 not threatened by women, because he has her blood on his face.
45:00 How could he be threatened by a woman
45:01 if he has her blood on his face?
45:03 But that's what I was really trying
45:05 to sink my teeth into with this character,
45:07 is that he's not one or the other.
45:09 This is a man who represents many generation of men caught
45:14 in the middle between wanting to adhere
45:17 to a modern feminist society, but still
45:19 having been raised on traditional ideas
45:21 of masculinity.
45:23 And yeah, he's someone who adores Emily,
45:26 because she's a killer, because she's intelligent,
45:29 because she's incredible at her job.
45:32 But just because of the way he was raised,
45:35 what was instilled in him, there's
45:37 just this feeling that he needed to get there first.
45:40 And I don't think those feelings make him a bad guy.
45:44 I really don't.
45:45 I think this is a societal, systemic problem.
45:48 But obviously, what he does with those feelings
45:51 and how he weaponizes his pain and insecurity against her
45:54 in increasingly violent ways is not acceptable.
45:58 But I think that scene was really
46:00 about establishing the modern man, to me,
46:04 as someone who is both not threatened, but also threatened,
46:08 based on how they are.
46:09 In keeping with the essence of the book,
46:11 as I was talking about before, the last page of Erasure,
46:16 after the plot is done, has this Latin phrase
46:19 that I wasn't familiar with.
46:21 And it's apparently used in relation
46:23 to complex mathematical equations.
46:25 And the rough translation is, I offer no hypothesis.
46:28 And so to me, if I wanted to keep up
46:31 with the spirit of that, then I couldn't
46:33 make a movie that was didactic, that
46:34 felt like it was spoon-feeding people morality and lessons.
46:38 And so there's this scene toward the end of the film
46:41 in which Monk, played by Jeffrey Wright,
46:44 encounters Issa Rae's character, Sintara.
46:46 And they have a conversation about Black art
46:52 and their ideology when it comes to making art.
46:55 And when I was reading the novel,
46:56 I was very excited for that confrontation that never came.
46:59 And so when I sat down to adapt it,
47:00 I knew that that was a scene that I wanted to include.
47:03 The reason I really like it is because--
47:07 and people have responded to it in screenings--
47:09 is because it depends on the day that I watch it
47:14 whose side I fall on.
47:16 I think that I wrote the damn thing,
47:18 and I don't know who I agree with more.
47:19 To me, that is--
47:22 I think that the art that I really like
47:27 tends to allow you to go away and answer
47:30 the questions for yourself.
47:31 And it doesn't-- it's not really binary.
47:33 It says, these people are the good guys,
47:34 and these people are the bad guys.
47:36 And so I like that scene because it
47:38 felt like Jeffrey's character, Monk,
47:41 is really pugnacious the entire time.
47:43 He's arguing with every single person
47:45 and generally winning those arguments.
47:46 And you're following this character, played by Issa
47:49 Sintara, who sort of--
47:52 it's easy to kind of fall into this--
47:54 trapped in thinking that she's the villain,
47:56 that she's a bad--
47:58 she's sort of this bad artist.
48:00 And Jeffrey writes characters as a crusading, righteous hero.
48:03 And then all of a sudden, he's confronted
48:05 with this formidable woman that he's
48:08 been underestimating the entire film.
48:10 And she's got a lot of interesting points
48:13 as to why she makes the art that she makes
48:15 and why she does what she does.
48:16 And sort of, to me, that kind of grappling that we see,
48:21 that we weren't expecting, that sort of like you
48:23 were expecting Monk to just come in and sort of like
48:25 bowl this person over because he's been so arrogant
48:29 and sort of bullying the entire film, you sort of see like,
48:33 oh, this is--
48:34 he's like, all of a sudden, the tables have turned.
48:36 And I think that as the tables are turning on Monk,
48:39 the tables are turning on the audience as well, who
48:41 sort of may have been along for the ride
48:43 and thinking that this person was going to be the villain.
48:46 And I think that--
48:47 you know, I just love that scene because, as I said,
48:50 like it just feels--
48:52 I feel confused as to who I agree with more
48:54 every time that I watch it.
48:55 I think that that is--
48:57 you know, I think that more art that like leaves you confused
49:00 and questioning sort of your life as opposed to just telling
49:03 you who the heroes are and who the villains are,
49:05 you know, that's always the goal.
49:07 More interesting.
49:09 So with our homestretch here, I am
49:12 going to throw out some things that, for the most part,
49:16 require only a word or a sentence.
49:18 And please do not be shy.
49:21 Everybody get ready.
49:23 Where do you write most frequently?
49:26 Cafes.
49:28 Office.
49:29 Office.
49:30 Home office.
49:32 Where I can.
49:33 Wherever.
49:34 Wherever.
49:35 Living room and sometimes on the floor, actually,
49:37 to ground myself and get my-- you know,
49:39 my head out of my ass sometimes.
49:41 So just writing on the floor just helps center me.
49:44 Front room in the morning, cafe in the afternoon.
49:47 On what do you write?
49:49 And I'm going to insist that we start with Eric Roth here,
49:51 because I've heard a little rumor.
49:54 Yeah, I have a gospel.
49:56 This is from like--
49:57 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
49:58 Yeah.
49:58 [LAUGHTER]
50:01 I only have-- you have like 38 pages of memory.
50:06 And that's it.
50:07 So it makes you finish the act.
50:10 But it's also can't--
50:12 it's only-- it's right there.
50:13 I can print it out, and that's it.
50:14 It can't go on the internet.
50:17 And I also have it--
50:21 I did something wrong so that I wanted
50:23 to have it look like typewriting, black on white.
50:25 But for some reason, it's white on black.
50:28 I didn't have to think about it anymore.
50:31 So do you have to like courier service your pages to people
50:34 when they want to read it?
50:35 Well, what happens eventually is I have either my--
50:37 if I have an assistant, they'll--
50:39 or the production company will have to retype it in the file.
50:43 So I don't really have a lot of my movies on there.
50:46 I have whatever I had done to a point.
50:50 So that's what I do.
50:51 Amazing.
50:53 OK, the rest of you guys?
50:54 Lots of paper to start with.
50:56 Handwritten.
50:57 Handwritten.
50:58 Bits of scenes, just ideas, that kind of thing, then computer.
51:02 So stained-- coffee stained, yellow legal pad to start with,
51:06 and then laptop.
51:11 Everybody's so romantic with the paper and gauze.
51:15 It usually starts in my notes app on my phone.
51:19 And then I feel like I would usually write on final draft,
51:22 but this particular script, because it
51:25 had to be written bilingually, because this whole script
51:29 is bilingual.
51:29 And I wanted it to be written in English
51:32 with just the Korean parts written in Korean as well.
51:35 And final draft doesn't support Korean language,
51:39 so it's absurd.
51:41 And this is why maybe I'll switch to DOS.
51:43 [LAUGHTER]
51:47 So what happened was I ended up using
51:49 WriterDuet for "Past Lives," because they do support it.
51:53 Eventually, I guess WriterDuet is going to call me and ask
51:56 me to do an ad for them.
51:57 But I think, to me, the biggest thing about final draft
52:01 not supporting Korean language, to me,
52:03 was when I was first writing it, because it's a spec script,
52:06 there is a kind of implicit, systematic feeling
52:11 that the whole industry does-- because final draft is
52:15 an industry-leading platform.
52:18 There is a feeling that they really don't want something
52:21 that's bilingual.
52:23 There's a messaging that I felt, where they were like,
52:26 Celine, we don't want your script.
52:27 [LAUGHTER]
52:28 I had a feeling there was going to be a mix.
52:30 Yeah, we might have to change that now.
52:33 I hope so.
52:35 I do a lot of notes on this--
52:37 well, my assistant laughs at me.
52:38 It's like a book this big, and it's just blank pages.
52:40 It's like a mini whiteboard that I carry around with me.
52:44 And then, eventually, I just do a yellow lego pad.
52:47 And then I type.
52:48 And I do a whole draft on that, and then I type it up.
52:51 On a yellow lego pad?
52:53 Yeah.
52:53 Whoa, handwritten?
52:55 Yeah.
52:55 My god.
52:56 Clark?
52:57 I do final draft.
52:59 I just do it in final draft.
53:01 I literally sit in bed and type in final draft.
53:04 Favorite part of the writing process?
53:07 Everything.
53:08 Everything?
53:08 I love it, from day one.
53:10 And I've said this many times.
53:12 If I start to get a writer's block, I change the weather.
53:16 [LAUGHTER]
53:18 I would say that spark of an idea at the beginning,
53:20 which is like, oh, this could be really good.
53:22 And then you start writing.
53:24 Oh, I'm a terrible writer.
53:25 That's when it gets hard.
53:26 But that initial idea is like, oh my god,
53:28 this could be something.
53:30 I would say the first draft, just writing, just flowing.
53:35 The worst-- well, no.
53:37 I start with an outline.
53:38 So I spend a lot of time on the outline
53:41 before I get to the first draft.
53:43 So the first draft, it's like I just get to fly,
53:45 because I feel like I've done all the work.
53:47 So the first draft is nothing but joy.
53:50 And the second draft is nothing but pain.
53:53 [LAUGHTER]
53:56 You're going to annoy me.
53:57 No, you're going to annoy me.
53:58 You go ahead.
53:59 After what final draft did you--
54:01 [LAUGHTER]
54:03 Yes, you know what?
54:04 I should go.
54:04 [LAUGHTER]
54:07 I was just going to say that you seem
54:09 to have such a lovely and healthy relationship to writing,
54:12 because I was going to say none of it.
54:15 None of it.
54:16 I enjoy none of it.
54:16 But that's not fully true.
54:18 I feel like I love it when--
54:20 I usually call it like it gets me dancing or something,
54:23 where I crack something, where it's
54:26 been the thing that's been annoying me and frustrating me
54:28 this whole time.
54:29 And then there will just be moments of breakthrough,
54:31 where you're like, oh, it's like it should
54:34 be said in a different place.
54:36 Sometimes it's not even a huge thing.
54:38 And then I usually do a little dance,
54:41 because I'm excited that I figured it out.
54:44 Can we see that, though?
54:45 [LAUGHTER]
54:46 You saw the beginning of it.
54:47 Yeah.
54:47 [LAUGHTER]
54:48 I'm like-- so there's a Dorothy Parker quote that I love,
54:52 that is familiar--
54:54 I agree with you, Celine, which is, I hate writing,
54:59 but I love having written.
55:00 That's the key.
55:01 It's like, actually, every time that I sit down to write,
55:03 I'm like, this is a miserable experience.
55:05 What a life I've made for myself.
55:06 Why am I doing this?
55:08 What do I think I'm trying to accomplish here?
55:11 And then as soon as I'm done, I'm like, oh,
55:13 that was the best thing ever.
55:14 But literally, it's like, as soon as I'm done,
55:16 it's like I heard once that women have a hormone when
55:20 they're giving birth that allows them to forget the pain
55:23 that they're experiencing, so that they're
55:25 willing to go through it again.
55:27 And so I feel like that's probably
55:29 the same hormone that's being released when I'm writing.
55:31 Something is like-- so that I'm like,
55:33 we'll go back and do it again, because I hate it so much.
55:36 I think that's certainly--
55:38 that feels very real.
55:39 The other thing is also, though, I
55:41 feel like what you were saying, that you
55:42 like the first draft and you don't like the--
55:44 second draft is harder.
55:45 To me, it's the other way, because the first draft
55:48 is the pain of the birth, where you're kind of not even sure
55:53 what you're writing into.
55:55 And then the editing, I actually really--
55:58 that part is enjoyable, because then you can be--
56:00 then I'm allowed to be my judgy, critical, mean self.
56:05 But I'm like, why did you do it like that, huh?
56:07 To my old first draft, Celine, that
56:09 would be like, come on, man.
56:11 And I think I do enjoy editing quite a bit.
56:15 I think for-- oh, sorry.
56:16 The only thing I was going to say about that is just like,
56:18 I feel like for me, the first draft is just like,
56:20 you just get to write without realizing
56:22 what all the problems are yet.
56:24 And then the second draft, because you have a microscope,
56:26 you're like, oh, shit, shit, shit.
56:28 Yeah, exactly, yeah.
56:30 I'm everything as well.
56:31 I just like it.
56:32 And I like doing it.
56:33 It's my favorite part.
56:35 See, these two are proper writers.
56:37 [INAUDIBLE]
56:40 Well, I don't know what's going to happen to it.
56:42 I'm like--
56:43 [INTERPOSING VOICES]
56:44 I'm always philosophic.
56:45 Suicide.
56:46 [LAUGHTER]
56:48 It's not like it's not tormenting at times,
56:50 but I love it.
56:51 And I don't know what's going to happen to it later,
56:53 what it's going to turn into.
56:54 But I know I can enjoy one thing about it, and that's doing it.
56:57 If you could have written one other script that
56:59 became a film any time in history, which would you
57:03 most like to have written?
57:06 2001, "Space Odyssey" from Eric.
57:10 "Network."
57:11 I was going to say that.
57:12 Sorry, sorry.
57:14 Now you can't copy me.
57:15 I beat you.
57:17 I'm going to say, yeah, it's hard.
57:19 I'm going to say "Don't Look Now," because I love that film.
57:21 But I can't even remember what the script was like.
57:24 But I know I love the film, so it's tricky.
57:27 That's funny.
57:27 I'm going to say "Harold and Maude,"
57:29 because I love "Harold and Maude."
57:31 "Some Like It Hot."
57:31 "Harold and Maude."
57:33 That's a great one, too.
57:34 Can I change mine, please?
57:35 Yes.
57:36 "Some Like It Hot."
57:37 Has to be.
57:39 I'll say "Eyes Wide Shut," because it has the best
57:41 last line of the movie ever.
57:43 We got two good bricks right next to each other.
57:45 Terrific screenplays.
57:46 Thank you, guys.
57:47 Thank you.
57:48 Thank you.
57:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]