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00:00 At the time that I was writing the script, Final Draft didn't have any alphabet except
00:08 for an English alphabet.
00:09 And I think it's still true.
00:12 But so the fact that it doesn't support a script like the one I wrote, which is the
00:16 bilingual script, as in like I would want to write out the Korean and then also trans
00:21 write the subtitle translation underneath, right, the whole script.
00:25 And given that, given all of those things, that there was a kind of implicit messaging
00:29 that I felt like the industry was telling me that they were not interested in a story
00:36 like this.
00:37 So I think there are some things in it that made me feel discouraged about this movie
00:41 getting made when I was writing the script.
00:43 But thankfully, I've been in theater for so long that I'm used to writing things that
00:49 may not get done.
00:50 You know?
00:51 So there was a part of it.
00:52 But they can't stop you.
00:53 They can't, they can't stop me.
00:54 So there was a real thing where I was just like, you know, who knows?
00:59 Let me just write it and see.
01:01 Is he attractive?
01:04 I think so.
01:07 He's really masculine in this way that I think is so Korean.
01:20 Are you attracted to him?
01:26 I don't think so.
01:28 I don't know.
01:29 I mean, I don't think so.
01:32 He was just this kid in my head for such a long time.
01:44 And then he was just this image on my laptop.
01:47 And now he is a physical person.
01:51 It's really intense, but I don't think that that's attraction.
01:54 I think I just missed him a lot.
01:57 I think I miss Seoul.
02:01 Did he miss you?
02:04 I think he missed the 12-year-old crybaby he knew a long time ago.
02:08 You were a crybaby?
02:11 Yeah.
02:12 Most of the time he'd have to just stand there and watch me.
02:27 When is he leaving again?
02:29 Welcome to Behind the Lens.
02:30 Today, she's having quite a year.
02:32 I can read off all these awards.
02:34 A Gotham Award, a National Board of Review Award, LA Film Critics, nominated for two
02:42 BAFTA British Academy Awards.
02:44 That's exciting.
02:45 Original Screenplay and Film in Another Language, two Indie Spirits, Director and Screenplay,
02:51 AFI Top 10 Lists of the Year, and two Academy Award nominations for Past Lives, Best Picture,
02:58 and for you, Best Original Screenplay.
03:00 This is Celine Song.
03:01 Welcome to Behind the Lens.
03:03 Hi.
03:04 Thank you for having me.
03:05 Wow.
03:06 You know, your first movie.
03:08 Did I say she just won Best First-Time Director at the Directors Guild?
03:12 Yeah.
03:13 I was there for that.
03:14 And that was exciting.
03:15 And boy, we were just mentioning, but you were so excited.
03:19 And I would be too if I won in that room.
03:22 Of course.
03:23 All around, you look at people, there's Martin Scorsese, there's Christopher Nolan.
03:26 Oh, it is so completely amazing.
03:29 And I feel like I was just saying to you that being there with the team, being there with
03:34 the ADs and the line producer, the ones who actually made the movie with me, you know,
03:40 back in 2021, I feel like that crew being there, they flew in from New York and getting
03:45 to celebrate with them.
03:46 I think that really, really kicked off how excited I got.
03:49 Exactly.
03:50 What does that kind of award mean to you?
03:52 Because this is your first feature film.
03:55 And here you are, you know, in a room and a place where very few people get to go.
04:02 Yeah.
04:03 That's really how it feels.
04:04 It is just a completely an amazing thing.
04:06 And I also get to experience everything for the first time on this first movie.
04:11 And I think the joy of that and then the kind of the everyday excitement of that, it's just
04:18 it's a thing that's sort of like running through my whole existence right now.
04:21 And I think, yeah, it is.
04:23 And what's amazing about the DGA award is like just to know that this jury of my peers
04:28 now, I mean, my peers as one movie.
04:30 How does that feel to say my peers?
04:31 My peers, it's amazing.
04:32 Because, of course, I became a DGA member because of Past Lives, right?
04:37 Because that's my first movie.
04:39 So to be so new and then for for me to feel like I'm being so welcomed into the community
04:45 of filmmakers and I mean, so through every guild, every group, Academy, the Academy,
04:52 like every part of it is just like a completely an amazing thing.
04:55 I feel so at home and welcomed in.
04:57 Yeah.
04:58 The Academy had a nominees lunch.
05:00 Yeah.
05:01 Another room.
05:02 You're in the same room, by the way, you know, and welcome to L.A.
05:05 Everything goes on at the Beverly Hilton.
05:08 Yes, definitely.
05:09 You're a DGA.
05:10 And then two days later, there's big giant Oscar statuettes.
05:12 Oh, yeah.
05:13 You're taking class photos with all the nominees.
05:15 Well, we were coming in to the Oscar nominee lunch and then at the Beverly Hilton and we
05:19 were like, you know, back at it again, back here again, which was amazing.
05:24 Home away from home.
05:25 Home away from home.
05:26 But that's got to be surreal, too, to be at an event like that where, oh my God.
05:31 Oh my God.
05:32 I mean, it's like it's such a massive honor and it's in itself such a just one of those
05:37 achievements that you're like, I cannot believe it's a completely unreal thing.
05:41 And then for it to happen for my first movie, I don't have you know, I'm totally speechless
05:46 around it because I just have no idea what I can say, except that I am just really happy.
05:51 Like people ask me, like, how does it feel to be nominated for an Academy Award?
05:55 And I'll be like, incredible.
05:57 Like I don't have a complicated feeling, except that it just feels so cool.
06:03 And it's amazing.
06:04 It's so cool.
06:05 And of course, the movie, Past Lives, started its life at the Sundance Film Festival and
06:12 was just widely acclaimed immediately.
06:16 And did you know going into Sundance what you had there, that this was going to be something
06:20 that touched so many different people like it did?
06:24 Well, I think I remember standing in the green room of the Echo Theater, which is where the
06:29 movie first played and knowing there are like over a thousand people in the audience.
06:33 And just walking around the green room with my producers and just like my cast and just
06:37 like freaking out a little bit, being so scared and being like, I don't know, I feel like
06:43 this Past Lives is a conversation.
06:45 It's a movie that I made as a conversation that I wanted to have with the audience.
06:49 So it's meant to ask the question of, well, this one night in New York City, I felt this
06:55 way.
06:56 I felt my past, the present and the future sit in a bar together and have a drink.
07:01 Have you felt this way before?
07:03 And then I think that the movie is meant to be that question being posed to the audience.
07:07 And once the movie showed at the Echoes and Sundance Festival, something that was so amazing
07:13 about it is that the audience there, the over a thousand people responded with, yes, I have
07:19 felt that way before.
07:21 So there's something completely unlocked for me where I felt so much less lonely because
07:27 I felt so seen and understood in that room.
07:30 And ever since then, the whole year of being able to share Past Lives, releasing it, going
07:37 through the Oars season, all of this is just an extension of that feeling of every time
07:42 one more person watches it and tells me that they loved it or even better, like they feel
07:48 like they needed it.
07:49 Every time that happens, it feels like the movie and my life gets a little bit bigger
07:56 and I feel less lonely.
07:57 So this is semi-autobiographical, but it's pretty close.
08:03 You moved to different cities and you got married and you rekindled friendship with
08:10 someone from Korea.
08:12 That's the story.
08:13 Yeah.
08:14 Well, it's inspired by this, the opening scene of the film, which is literally a moment that
08:19 happened in my own life.
08:21 So I think that, but of course, because it is inspired by that, one of the things that
08:25 I was wanting more than anything is to not feel so bogged down by the fact that it is
08:30 so autobiographical and to really lift the autobiographical to something that's personal.
08:36 And universal that everyone can identify with, I think.
08:40 Right?
08:41 Yeah, exactly.
08:42 So did the scene, I got to know, did the scene in the bar with your husband and your former
08:49 love?
08:50 Childhood sweetheart, I would say.
08:51 Yeah, childhood sweetheart.
08:52 Okay, we'll call him that.
08:54 They're all there and you're in the middle.
08:56 Was that it?
08:57 Was that the spark?
08:58 Was that the thing that happened to you?
08:59 That was.
09:00 I think that just sitting there, and we weren't having the kind of conversations that the
09:04 characters have.
09:05 Right.
09:06 Right, because that's just something that I-
09:07 And they don't speak each other's language.
09:08 No, but I was translating between the two of them so they could get to know each other.
09:12 Right.
09:13 So I was translating between these two languages that I speak and these two cultures that I
09:17 understand.
09:18 Yeah.
09:19 And then at one point I realized that I'm not just translating between these two people,
09:23 I'm also translating between two parts of my own self and two different ways of understanding
09:29 me and loving me.
09:31 And I think that while I was translating within my own history, I think that's where it felt
09:36 suddenly like, what a really special thing that an ordinary person like myself can go
09:41 through in this room just because of the way that time and space passes through our lives.
09:48 Right.
09:49 Right?
09:50 Yeah.
09:51 And I think for example, I know we were both 12 once.
09:54 Right.
09:55 Right?
09:56 But we're not 12 anymore.
09:57 No.
09:58 But somehow if I was to talk to somebody who knew you as a 12 year old, and if you talk
10:03 to my mom or something who knew me as a 12 year old, there's a way in which that are,
10:10 if I asked you, what was Pete like?
10:13 What was he like as a 12 year old?
10:16 For whoever knew you when you were 12, that 12 year old kid is completely vivid.
10:21 And they would usually say like, well, he was the same and not at all the same.
10:26 It's contradictory.
10:27 Yeah.
10:28 And I think that that is something that is completely a universal feeling.
10:32 And I was having that universal feeling.
10:33 And of course, for me, my childhood is in a different language, right?
10:37 A Pacific Ocean away.
10:39 Right.
10:40 But I think that even something as small as being an immigrant from one part of your life,
10:45 being from being 12.
10:46 Right.
10:47 To being your age.
10:48 And that kind of a move through time and space is enough for you to feel connected to the
10:53 story of past lives.
10:54 Well, that's totally true.
10:56 Even me watching this and I'm from LA.
10:58 But I had a friend up until, and then we moved away up until I was 10.
11:03 And I've never seen him again.
11:05 But he was my best friend.
11:06 We were inseparable.
11:08 And I've never been able to find him.
11:10 But he would know me as that age, which would be totally different.
11:15 And that's what I found so fascinating about this movie.
11:20 It's different identities.
11:21 Yes.
11:22 Also entering into it as well.
11:24 Of course.
11:25 Maybe somebody way back would not understand your current identity.
11:29 Of course.
11:30 And I think that's, and in that way, we, these are pieces of ourselves that we leave behind
11:36 to a place, the time, but honestly to people.
11:39 Yeah.
11:40 Right.
11:41 And we have a lot of lives who hold onto a piece of ourselves that we have moved on from,
11:47 or maybe we still hold onto, but it's now a secret.
11:49 Right.
11:50 And they hold onto that kid.
11:51 Right.
11:52 Right.
11:53 So there's somebody, so I'm sure if you reconnected with your friend, that kid, you'll realize
11:57 that that kid has probably preserved who you are, your identity as a 10 year old.
12:03 And when you talk to that person, you will suddenly feel like in some ways you're still
12:08 10.
12:09 Wow.
12:10 I'm going to call Mark.
12:11 Give me a call.
12:12 I want you guys to reconnect.
12:13 That's lovely.
12:14 Wouldn't that be amazing?
12:15 It would be amazing.
12:16 Yeah.
12:17 I have to ask you about your directorial style because it's unusual from what I understand
12:22 is you kept your actors apart from knowing each other as actors and as characters.
12:27 Right.
12:28 And you wanted that in the camera, those first meetings.
12:32 Can you explain how that worked and how you decided to do that?
12:36 Well, the actors are kept apart until that scene where the characters, each other, they
12:41 meet each other.
12:42 Right.
12:43 And we were rolling when they first did that.
12:44 And because that particular take was so good, because of course it's the first time you
12:49 get to see actual humans encounter each other for the first time.
12:52 Right.
12:53 After, of course, building the idea and an image and a concept of the other person for
12:59 months leading up to that scene.
13:02 And then you see the way that everything they believed about what the other person is like
13:07 collapse.
13:08 Right.
13:09 And we wanted to capture that.
13:10 So we were rolling.
13:11 And the first take where it actually happens is what's in the movie.
13:15 And I think the reason why I wanted to do it that way is because in this movie, it is
13:20 about really big feelings that happen to ordinary people.
13:24 And I don't have costumes or VFX to help them.
13:27 Right.
13:28 And a lot of things are about just what I would call the sunrise and the sunset of their
13:33 faces.
13:34 That's it.
13:35 What happens to their face, the cameras is pointing at their face and every expression
13:40 that is going through the landscape of their face is going to be where the storytelling
13:47 happens.
13:48 So I thought that those kinds of extra things that you could do to help capture that, to
13:53 capture the fleeting sunset and the sunrise of the feelings, I thought it would all be
14:00 worth doing.
14:01 It definitely works on film.
14:02 Yeah.
14:03 No question.
14:04 I was wondering what your actors think about it.
14:05 Greta Lee, you know, very accomplished actor.
14:08 And of course, the other actors are too.
14:11 Yes.
14:12 So do they ever say, well, we can act that?
14:15 Yeah.
14:16 But you don't want them to act that.
14:17 I'm happy for them to act that.
14:18 But the truth is that some of it is about all of us being in on a project where we believe
14:24 that it matters that much.
14:26 Right.
14:27 Because it's a lot of fuss.
14:28 And the thing is, it's like sometimes all of us believing that the fuss is worth it
14:32 is what gives it weight.
14:34 Right.
14:35 I fully believe they could have acted that.
14:36 Right.
14:37 But I think that just the fact that the AD team, everybody who worked on the movie were
14:42 in on this plan of keeping the actors apart until they really meet as characters.
14:49 I think the joy of that and then the kind of combined effort of that and the collective
14:54 belief in that is actually going to end up in the performance because we are all, at
14:59 the end of the day, we're all people.
15:02 And of course, actors can act all kinds of things.
15:06 But I think that just knowing that this moment matters this much is actually enough.
15:11 So cool.
15:12 I remember talking to Greta Lee about it and she told me the story of heartbreak that
15:17 she didn't get the movie.
15:19 She so knew that this was a movie she could do, but you had cast somebody else.
15:24 Well, it was one of those things where it's like you're putting together a cast and then
15:29 like something falls apart and then it falls apart and then I get to rethink it.
15:33 And what an amazing thing that I got to rethink it.
15:35 Yeah.
15:36 Interesting.
15:37 Well, it all worked out in the end.
15:38 It's all fate.
15:39 Yes.
15:40 Beyond.
15:41 And it's what you're talking about.
15:42 Yes, exactly.
15:44 So as a filmmaker now, you like that term I bet.
15:49 Yes.
15:50 Yeah.
15:51 Quite a filmmaker.
15:52 But you spent years, a decade, writing plays, experimental plays, different things.
15:57 Really fascinating.
15:58 They went on Twitch, a production of The Seagull that was like bonkers different than any version
16:06 I've seen of that.
16:08 And doing all of that and then this came along from your own life and you suddenly decided
16:15 you were a filmmaker.
16:16 How did that switch from playwright to filmmaker just happen?
16:22 Well, I think it just has to do with what the story is about because the story is one
16:26 where I think we were talking about the kind of the contradiction that it has to exist,
16:31 which is that like Seoul and New York coexisting or the 12 year old kid and the four year old
16:36 adult coexisting.
16:38 So those are some of the things that I realized that could only really happen in cinematic
16:43 form because you're dealing in, you're telling a story through images.
16:48 And also part of it is the sound, sound design.
16:52 So Seoul has to sound different.
16:54 You have to smell it differently and all of that.
16:56 So there's a way in which that because the villains of the film are the 24 years that
17:03 they spend apart and the Pacific Ocean, you actually need to really commit to the literalness
17:10 of the locations and literalness of different times in these characters' lives.
17:15 So I think because of that, something that I really knew that this had to be was that
17:20 it has to be told in a cinematic language.
17:23 So what happened was that I wrote a script.
17:24 So does this mean the playwriting career is over and you're just going to go forward with
17:30 movies?
17:31 I really love making movies.
17:32 If I can tell, you're smitten.
17:35 I'm smitten.
17:36 Fully honeymoon phase in love.
17:39 Smitten.
17:40 All I can think about.
17:42 And why not?
17:43 Now you're suddenly getting these things like Celine Tung's next movie.
17:48 This is incredible.
17:49 And Chris Evans mentioned in it and different people.
17:54 How does that feel?
17:56 Well I feel like the project itself is early days and I can't wait to talk to you about
18:00 it once I've actually made the movie.
18:02 I can't wait for that.
18:03 Well that's sort of what I mean.
18:05 It's sort of out there whereas you were able to make past lives kind of quietly.
18:09 Totally and I think that but I think to me I feel like what I really love more than anything
18:13 is that the attention for films and attention and all of that, you can't take for granted
18:19 because it is so appreciated that people are curious about what I'm going to make next.
18:23 What an amazing thing.
18:24 What a special, what an amazing thing for me to know that people are interested.
18:29 The audiences are here and they want to know what I'm going to make next and I can't wait
18:33 to share what I'm going to make next.
18:34 Well without telling me what it is, tell me is it completely different?
18:41 Are you looking for something more challenging to you than simply staying in the same zone
18:47 of something that you may have lived or something like past lives and now you're going to make
18:52 a different kind of movie?
18:53 Are you, do you have a style in other words?
18:56 Are you a filmmaker that you can immediately spot, oh that's a Wes Anderson movie?
19:01 Yeah, I really think that and this has been true when I was a playwright as well.
19:05 I believe in the authorial voice so I know that everything that I make is going to be
19:10 me.
19:11 You know?
19:12 Okay.
19:13 You know what's interesting too, I meant to ask you this when you were talking about subtitles
19:16 and things.
19:17 At the Golden Globes it was nominated for best motion picture drama and for best foreign
19:22 language film and at the BAFTA it also is in that category as well.
19:28 I looked at it as not being a foreign language film or what you think of that.
19:34 You know, you were opposite like in those categories of a zone of interest and you know
19:39 Anatomy of a Fall, those kind of films.
19:41 This to me seemed like, I don't know what you call it, it's its own thing but I didn't
19:46 think of it as a foreign language movie.
19:48 Well to me I'm like, I think it's an American film and I think the thing about it being
19:52 an American film and also it is about what are we considering American films, right?
19:57 And I think that is something that everybody is always talking about.
20:00 It's a movie about immigrants, right?
20:02 And that is such a specifically an American but also it's a New York film because it's
20:06 a movie about immigrants.
20:07 And I think that, but I think that the way in which those definitions are going to be
20:12 asked to be stretched and things like that, it excites me that Past Lives is a part of
20:16 that, part of the stretching of what it means for a film to be an American movie.
20:21 And where it can contain multitudes and it can contain many languages and it can contain
20:26 a story about an immigrant woman.
20:28 And I think that to me is, I don't know, I think it's a really cool and interesting thing.
20:33 I think it's very cool right now too because immigrants are so in the news here and so
20:39 many vile things are being said by certain segments of our society that a movie that
20:46 humanizes people, like this one so beautifully does, is much needed now.
20:53 As a conduit for understanding.
20:56 Yes.
20:57 Well, I think that it's also that there is always, there are different stages of humanizing
21:02 a group of people, especially marginalized people.
21:05 And I think that there is a way in which that you can talk about humanizing people in a
21:10 way where you're talking about the way that they're different, with the way that they're
21:14 the same as the primary, the dominant group of people.
21:20 As in like, well, immigrants are the same, right?
21:22 But to me, Past Lives is very much about how the immigrants are different.
21:26 And there is something that they've gone through in their experience that makes them different
21:31 in that way.
21:32 And I think that also is a part of the humanization of people and especially marginalized people.
21:40 Yeah.
21:41 It's so interesting.
21:42 Yeah.
21:43 And props to your cast here.
21:44 All of them.
21:45 All your three main actors, John Magaro.
21:47 Yes.
21:48 And Tae-woo Yoo?
21:49 Yes.
21:50 He's so amazing.
21:51 He's from South Korea, right?
21:52 Yeah.
21:53 But also he actually is German.
21:54 He's German?
21:55 He's a Korean German.
21:56 Yeah.
21:57 Wow.
21:58 So when he speaks English in his own voice, he has a German accent.
22:03 In Korean, he also has a German accent.
22:05 It's amazing.
22:06 Yeah.
22:07 That's different.
22:08 Yeah, it's very different.
22:09 Well, it's a terrific film.
22:11 You deserve all the success you're continuing to have.
22:15 And thank you so much for joining us on Behind the Lens today.
22:18 Thank you so much.
22:19 This was so fun.
22:20 What a great conversation.
22:20 Thank you.
22:20 Thank you.
22:21 Bye.
22:21 (upbeat music)
22:24 (upbeat music)