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CreativityTranscript
00:00On one of these Avengers movies,
00:02you take off your shirt and you're in really good shape.
00:07And the director was like, we got it.
00:09You're like, can I please stop dieting and working out now?
00:14There is no one I've ever come across
00:17who is actually more anxious to not be vain
00:21past the point where it is necessary
00:23to achieve an end for their work.
00:25Is that a compliment?
00:25It's a huge compliment.
00:30account and why she has so much fun.
00:43Robert Downey Jr and I met in 1995.
00:46Yep.
00:47And I was dating an old friend of his-
00:50Yes.
00:51Sunrise Cuenle.
00:52Correct.
00:53Who was close with my previous administration
00:56Debra Falconer.
00:58And we were over at, I think, well,
01:01it was that beautiful kind of Spanish style in the hills.
01:04I'd had that.
01:05On Grace Avenue.
01:06That's right.
01:07Grace Avenue.
01:08And Sonny brought me over to meet Debbie.
01:11Yep.
01:11And you came by and I was like,
01:14holy shit, that's Robert Downey.
01:16And Sonny was like, hey, Robert.
01:17Yeah, don't flatter me too much.
01:21We were already hearing about this Mark Ruffalo guy
01:26who was making a splash and was gonna be on the come up.
01:32Yeah.
01:33You didn't buy that.
01:34Do you want me to try another take?
01:35No, no.
01:36I was just bartending at that time.
01:40And that's what I heard about me.
01:43But Sonny did see something in me.
01:45Yeah.
01:46Really, I would say we knew each other,
01:49ancillary reasons,
01:53but we really met when Fincher cast us in Zodiac.
01:57Yeah.
01:58And I remember Mark is doing a scene in a phone booth,
02:02about take 218, and I'm visiting San Francisco
02:07because I'm about to start.
02:08That's right.
02:09And I could just see the character that you had built
02:12and I was like, oh my God, I better find one.
02:15That's great.
02:17You're amazing.
02:18The minute, didn't we do a table read too?
02:21Yes.
02:23Yeah, we did that table read.
02:25Yeah.
02:26And that was, that movie was,
02:31what a wild ride that was.
02:33Yeah.
02:34I called Fincher recently because in retrospect,
02:38everything changes.
02:39It's like 15 years later,
02:41you have such a different perspective on stuff, you know?
02:44And then for me, even after working with Nolan,
02:47I developed a new respect for Fincher.
02:50But I remember that was maybe the first time
02:52that our feet put to the fire with an exacting director,
02:55a real director who does things a certain way.
02:58And I mean, the result was, you know,
03:00people still say that scene with you and Ruffalo
03:03in the parking lot or those scenes and blah, blah, blah.
03:05And I kind of go like, I've just a vague memory of it all.
03:08Yeah, me too.
03:09But that is on the top level of so many people's favorites.
03:15And I have a story to tell.
03:17Okay, okay.
03:19We're shooting a scene in the mailroom
03:21and we've done it about 60 times.
03:2460, yeah.
03:25And you know, Mark's been working a bunch of days in a row.
03:27I'm feeling a bit mischievous.
03:30And he's like, we got it, right?
03:33And I was like, yeah, this is ridiculous.
03:35And then Fincher says, well, do we got it?
03:37He goes, Downey, come here.
03:39I want the scene to start, like,
03:39because I want it to work.
03:40I go, you want it to work as a one-er?
03:42No, we don't have it.
03:42And he goes, Downey says we don't have it.
03:44So Mark, you can go to lunch.
03:45We'll scrap all those takes and we'll start over again.
03:47Exactly.
03:48And he invented the delete button.
03:51There was no delete button ever in digital cinema.
03:54And he specifically had it invented
03:58so that he could say, we're going to delete takes one
04:01through 45.
04:03And you're just like, no, no, no, no.
04:0738 was my baby.
04:09But isn't it because some part of this
04:11just wants to be off the hot seat and done.
04:14And we also know that there's always that thing
04:20A, you want to make mom or dad happy.
04:22B, you kind of just, it's not that you want to be done.
04:25It's that you want to feel that there's progress
04:29that's being made because you're helping.
04:31Yes.
04:32And you just want someone to say that was good enough.
04:35Let's move on.
04:38I mean, do you feel like after all this time
04:41that you still have that kind of,
04:44that sort of push and pull with it?
04:46Of course.
04:47Yeah, everything is,
04:50it's a constant battle between either seeking approval
04:54or seeking my own subjective kind of like
04:59being able to maintain interest over time.
05:03And then we had this on this whole decade
05:05and a half Marvel run
05:07where we were just looking at each other like,
05:09God, we're really lucky.
05:10What are we doing?
05:12Who's a wizard?
05:13Who's coming from outer space?
05:14Which I think was another great challenge.
05:17Nice.
05:18From where we came from.
05:19Yeah.
05:20I mean, I'll never forget, you know, you,
05:24we don't have to go down this road, but you,
05:26Let's go down it.
05:27You, to see this great character in the actor
05:35who is always doing this great character work,
05:38so alive, so relatable, so human,
05:44to take that step into a studio world,
05:47which was totally different back then than it is now.
05:50And you and I know what that is.
05:52It was such a different world.
05:53They didn't really cast people like us.
05:58And just to see you transform that whole concept
06:05of what a studio picture was
06:07and to elevate sort of this character work
06:11within that big tentpole system,
06:14which appealed so massively to so many different people
06:19and made the space for other people like us that,
06:23you know, I'll never forget.
06:24I was like, I don't know if I'm right for this.
06:26And you're like, come on, Ruffalo.
06:29We got this.
06:30Yeah.
06:31How's that new brownstone on the Upper West Side?
06:33Thank you.
06:34Yeah, please, dude.
06:35I mean, who, I don't know who thanks who.
06:37It's just kind of, it really is odd.
06:42For those watching at home,
06:44it is a surreal experience to be sitting here with you,
06:47lo these years later,
06:50and now to both be here on behalf of projects
06:54that I think we're so proud of
06:56and are done by such gifted filmmakers.
06:59And, you know, you kind of wonder, right?
07:01Like, didn't I already have my act two?
07:03Isn't this the slow decline that they foamed the runway?
07:07So back to your first question is, of course there's,
07:10it's nowhere to live though, right?
07:12It's nowhere to live thinking your best days
07:15or your best creative moments are behind you.
07:17A, it's not true.
07:18And B, it's just debilitating.
07:19Yeah.
07:20Which is why I even brought this up.
07:23Okay.
07:24Because, you know, you've done it all.
07:30I mean, you have it all.
07:33You don't have to prove anything to anybody.
07:36Dad.
07:37Oh, no.
07:38Go ahead.
07:39You did that even to some degree.
07:41You got that at the end, you know?
07:43Sure.
07:44In the most beautiful way, right?
07:47And then you come and you do this part in Oppenheimer.
07:52Dr. Oppenheimer.
07:54An honor.
07:54Mr. Strauss.
07:56It's pronounced Strauss.
07:58It's just another level.
07:59You know, it's just, it's just, you, you break it all down.
08:03You put yourself out in a way that you didn't have to.
08:08We see a total character, a physical change,
08:11a vocal change, a different kind of guy.
08:16None of the mannerisms of anything
08:19that we'd ever seen before that you had perfected
08:23and had become so second nature to you.
08:26And they had that kind of discipline
08:30and that kind of reach, you know, for that next thing.
08:39It's like really admirable
08:42and why I have always looked up to you
08:45and why I continue to look up to you.
08:47And that thing still, I mean, talk about that.
08:50Like, what was that?
08:52Why is that still alive?
08:54I mean, look, and then we'll move on
08:58to a far more interesting subject,
09:01which is you and Poor Things.
09:03Alls I know is I got a call, Chris Nolan.
09:09I had a new kind of what it was.
09:11I went over to his house.
09:13It was black type on red paper, you know,
09:15and they send it like that so you can't copy it.
09:18It was like Sudoku to get through in 180 pages.
09:23And I left there just knowing I was going to do it.
09:25And everybody and, you know, Susan and everyone was like,
09:28you need a challenge like this.
09:29And I go, I don't like it
09:30when everyone else is telling me what I need.
09:32And the truth be told is it all wound up to,
09:34I've tried everything else.
09:35How about trying to really focus
09:37on yourself as possible just once?
09:40And correspondingly, I have, I've known you a long time.
09:44I know what you're like when you're feeling froggy
09:49and you're kind of having a good time and you're loose.
09:52And I know what you're like when you're pensive.
09:55I know what you're like when you're concerned
09:56about the state of the world.
09:57I know what you're like when you're comfortable
09:59with the homeostasis.
10:02But I did not know that this character
10:06existed inside of you.
10:07You were in my son.
10:09What?
10:16I remember how apprehensive you were about doing this too,
10:19just as I had all this approach anxiety.
10:21Yes, did you have that apprehension too?
10:23For Louis Strauss, of course.
10:25Because you always wonder, someone else believes in you.
10:28You know, that person is formidable.
10:29You've seen their other work.
10:30You go, wow, this is like an opportune moment.
10:34And yet it's natural to have that doubt.
10:38And I'm interested to know, for Duncan,
10:42how you got past that approach anxiety.
10:44Because you're such a thoughtful guy
10:47and you're one of the people that I always say
10:49has such a strong and formidable moral psychology.
10:53And you really don't make decisions lightly.
10:56So knowing what an absolute archetype,
11:01cad, misogynist, self-centered, shaming, blaming guy.
11:07But you redeemed it with this spark that was so delightful.
11:12I mean, I can't tell you what a joy it was
11:14watching you in this and seeing the whole arc,
11:18the way you constructed it.
11:20But I want to know what it was like before,
11:23during, and after.
11:25It did scare the shit out of me.
11:27And I did say, well, this isn't the kind of guy I play.
11:33You know, I had all that.
11:35I'm embarrassed to say.
11:37And Sonny and my wife, Sunrise,
11:40was like, you have to do this.
11:42And everyone was like, you have to do it.
11:44Just like you, you have to do it.
11:47But you really have to get outside of your comfort zone.
11:51And you also start to doubt yourself.
11:53Like you were saying, you hit 55.
11:56And you are kind of like, maybe it's as good as I'll get.
12:00Maybe I am on the downward slide of this thing.
12:04And I also at that time was like really kind of tired
12:10of my brand or, you know, whatever people
12:15you put on yourself, you know.
12:16And isn't it funny when our wives will flat out say,
12:18just don't worry, everyone else is tired of it too.
12:20That's why you need to do this.
12:22But with Yorgos and McNamara,
12:25I think you obviously had just two amazing partners
12:30in knowing how it would be executed
12:31and what was in the text.
12:33And I've gotten to speak at least to McNamara recently.
12:37So what was that process like for you just a little bit?
12:42And at what point in the shoot did you feel like,
12:44oh, okay, I'm cooking with gas now, I get it.
12:46I don't even know what scene you shot first.
12:48I would love to just know that.
12:49Well, we had this amazing rehearsal period,
12:53which we've never had, you know.
12:55And it was literally 10 days of just theater games.
13:00Dancing, singing, movement,
13:05playing with each other's faces and bodies
13:08and then playing together as a group.
13:12And then we probably spent maybe only 20%
13:15on the actual script.
13:16And when we did read the script,
13:18we were telling people, you have to raise your voice.
13:21Anytime you lifted your hand,
13:23that person would have to raise their voice
13:24when they were doing the line.
13:25You had to touch someone's face when you were doing the line
13:28and in the middle of a line say,
13:29this is the most beautiful part of you.
13:31And so it just like, it obliterated your ideas
13:37of what you think it should be.
13:40And the script is still there living in you.
13:44So as you're playing, the character and the story
13:48is still kind of like surfacing its way up
13:51through the subconscious a little bit.
13:54And you just get really free and you could go broad
13:59or you could go small and no one's judging.
14:02You know, everyone's laughing or they're not.
14:04And there's no, you can't do anything wrong.
14:06You can't do anything right, really.
14:08And then you have those great words.
14:10Like the script is really telling you a lot.
14:13I mean, who gets to say, you know, some stuff I say.
14:18The first day though, it was a screen test
14:22that turned into our first day.
14:23Yorgos had built it.
14:25Yorgos Lathimos had built it as a screen test.
14:28But we're in full costume, full set, full everybody.
14:33Everyone's there.
14:34And it's a scene between me and Willem, Willem Dafoe.
14:39It's the first time.
14:40It's the only scene we really had together.
14:43And I'm sweating bullets.
14:46I am shitting my pants.
14:49I'm like, what in the hell am I doing here?
14:51I like that Willem is in full SFX makeup
14:54and you're sweating.
14:55And he's sitting there like this.
14:58Really?
15:00And Yorgos comes up to me, he's like,
15:03oh, what are you doing?
15:06And I said, I don't know.
15:08He said, you already did this in rehearsal.
15:14You know what you're doing.
15:17And then he walked away.
15:19So wait, break that down.
15:20What did that mean and why did it help?
15:23You know, you get in front of the camera
15:27and then you're just, I gotta be.
15:31You gotta do something.
15:32I have to do something.
15:33God, man, we're literally on the same page.
15:35Right? It's crazy.
15:36I have to do something.
15:37And he was like, you don't have to do anything.
15:40You did it.
15:41You are it.
15:42Don't do anything.
15:44Don't do the look.
15:45You don't have to tell us what's going on here.
15:49Just trust what we did.
15:52And he scrapped that first day.
15:57I had to reshoot the first day.
15:59Great.
16:01It wasn't the first day.
16:02It was a screen test, Mark.
16:02You said so. It was a screen test.
16:04Wow, I wish every first day was a screen test.
16:06I know, isn't that genius?
16:09I have to say, I also stole from you in this.
16:12Great.
16:13Some of Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chaplin.
16:16I mean, you, more than any other actor,
16:20you have this kind of physical mischief.
16:24You know, you know the cad very well.
16:28It's the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?
16:29It's beautiful.
16:31Well, thanks for that.
16:32I mean, we're all always drawing from myriad influences,
16:36conscious and otherwise, you know.
16:38But again, it's so funny how,
16:40because I remember seeing you on screen first,
16:44and I know right when I was starting off,
16:45I seemed to have this ability to say,
16:48be subtle, do less, let the emotion come to the forefront.
16:53Sometimes I watch stuff I did when I was younger
16:54and I just go, well, that's how you should do it.
16:57What the hell am I doing nowadays?
16:59And obviously we fall into ruts and patterns,
17:01but you know, with Nolan, very much unlike your ghost,
17:06but also effective, we were doing screen tests on IMAX,
17:11which is crazy.
17:14So you know that you're being captured
17:17in like a David Lean sort of format,
17:23and some part of you is going, what's this gonna be like?
17:27You're just trusting the director and Hoyt Van Hoytema,
17:30who obviously, this is what they do.
17:33And when they go, this is good, this is good,
17:35you're kind of like, all right, so I'm off the hook.
17:37And you would go back and sit in your set chair.
17:39No, you wouldn't, because there were no set chairs.
17:41So it was very Spartan and very,
17:43like 100 people making a watch every day.
17:46So, and I've had experiences like you discussed,
17:49and I love that feeling like I'm going back to basics
17:53in a sense of play and melding with the cast.
17:56And I think because of the nature and the scope
17:59of what Chris was doing,
18:01there honestly just wasn't time for that
18:05or money or energy or whatever.
18:07And the schedule actually became even more truncated
18:11for reasons as we approached shooting.
18:13So then it felt like every day
18:15we were just doing something
18:16that he knew what he was after.
18:18He had written it, he was directing it,
18:20and it was a very small amount of people on set.
18:24And I liked that too,
18:25because that reminds me of being a kid with my dad,
18:27and it's him and his cameraman and the editor
18:31and some college dropouts, gaffers,
18:34and it's just kind of like, let's try something.
18:38I had no idea there was that kind of intimacy.
18:41When I think of his films,
18:43I'm just seeing this like mass scale,
18:46but that makes a lot of sense.
18:50Yeah.
18:50Because there are some really intimate performances
18:52in that film.
18:54And I was wondering, how are they able to settle down
18:58with such a big production around them?
19:00Because it's all he cares about,
19:02and he demands and requires this almost monastic energy.
19:08So there are beyond no frills,
19:13which as we know, having been very well taken care of
19:16in certain situations,
19:18you kind of feel like you're being stripped of your armor,
19:22which he does intentionally,
19:23but he also does it just so there's this,
19:26it just creates a different vibe.
19:28And then you're moving at such a clip
19:32that you realize if you're not getting
19:34and staying in the zone and not checking your phone
19:38and not hanging out at craft service,
19:41oh, there is no craft service,
19:43that you're going to miss the pace of what he's doing.
19:46But at the same time, I've never ever in my career
19:49worked with a less judgmental director.
19:52I've been in situations that were exacting
19:54and it seemed like if I would just do it correctly one time,
19:57we wouldn't have to still be here,
19:59whereas that was the exact opposite.
20:01And I felt like I had to do all these things
20:04to give you the time you need
20:06and see what kind of time you might need
20:08or I might want and all that stuff.
20:10So I felt that there was both in poor things
20:15and I FaceTimed Emma and really want to reach out to everyone
20:21but it was this thing where y'all seem to have this
20:25very concise execution,
20:27but you feel all the sense of play in it.
20:31It was a really a high wire act.
20:33Was it fun?
20:34It must've been fun.
20:35Oh, it was a time of my life.
20:37I mean, once I got to play that guy
20:40with no sense of self-consciousness
20:45or no sense of morality really,
20:48no sense of any bounds whatsoever that hold us.
20:54But you redeemed him because there's something so lonely
20:57and it's almost like he wants to wake up,
20:59but there's something that's happening or happened.
21:03But also I've never seen you play someone
21:07who is hopelessly hung up on something he can't control.
21:11And I think it was genius casting
21:14because it was this thing that I could,
21:17there's a version of you
21:18where if Sonny had rejected your advances,
21:20you may have pined after her for a decade.
21:24Totally lost.
21:26I'd still be living in the garage that she found me in.
21:30Oh brother, it's beautiful.
21:32And yeah, it was a blast.
21:36It was such a gift and it was such a,
21:39that moment where you're like,
21:40I don't know which way to go anymore.
21:44I don't even know how I feel about this anymore.
21:49And then I know you dude,
21:50even that scene you're on the bench
21:52and you're yelling the C word.
21:53And I'm just like, this is not my brother here.
21:56Like, it's just not in your wheelhouse
21:58to think, to act, or behave that way.
22:00So were you ever feeling like,
22:03if not self-conscious about it, a little bit like,
22:05I don't even know if this is something
22:07I want to do as an exercise
22:08because I would not want to ever normalize this
22:11on screen or in my, so I'm wondering.
22:13Well, and we're also living in this
22:17just incredibly oppressive feeling time.
22:21And you just, there's not a lot of room
22:24to be a human being anymore, it feels like.
22:27And that goes from art to society to,
22:31I mean, it's just, it just feels incredibly oppressive.
22:38And something about that movie is like,
22:41just, it's just like, fighting out against it.
22:45And it's walking like a disaster.
22:48There is a disastrous self-destructive quality about it
22:54that felt so antithetical to this oppressive time
22:59that we're living in.
23:01Even though the character is so dark
23:04and so fucked up and so selfish
23:09and so all the things that we're supposed,
23:11not supposed to be.
23:12But it's almost like you're behaviorally modeling
23:14the world that you're wondering about.
23:18And blowing it open.
23:20Yeah.
23:22All the eyes are on us.
23:24Everyone's eyes are on us all the time.
23:27And we have to be a certain way.
23:29And we have to look a certain way.
23:30And we have to sound a certain way.
23:32And our cabinets have got to be stocked
23:35with a certain kind of product.
23:38This sounds very mid-century to me.
23:40And it's just like, we're getting squashed
23:44into these boxes that don't let us express ourselves
23:50the way that we're made to express ourselves.
23:53Your behavior is unconscionable.
23:56We behave.
23:57The food was cacking my throat.
23:59The baby annoying.
24:01That was my experience of getting to say the C word
24:04at the top of my lungs, getting to be a cat.
24:09Because it's underneath all that is still a humanity.
24:13All of that behavior,
24:16there's still a humanity underneath that, right?
24:19That was the thing is the fact that I'm feeling bad
24:22for you in those moments.
24:26And again, it's so masterfully constructed
24:30because of course it's a fable,
24:32but it's really underselling it to call it a fable.
24:36And the fact that with all of the indulgences that occur,
24:41it doesn't feel exploitative of the artists, of the medium.
24:46It feels very much like a reverse empowerment story
24:52that you have to tell it in almost this kind of
24:57fantastic way to be able to get all the information
25:00that's being downloaded.
25:01So there's just so much wisdom in there.
25:03That's such a great way of expressing it.
25:06But hats off to you, dude.
25:07Hats off to you, man.
25:10Seriously, Robert,
25:11it's a, you're one of those fine artists
25:18who is constantly growing as they move through their career.
25:25That's rare.
25:27And you are that.
25:29And I love you for it.
25:30And you have everything, Robert.
25:32You don't need to do that.
25:37What a terrible place to be.
25:39What do you mean?
25:41To quote unquote, if it's true,
25:43to be said about any of us, to have everything,
25:45is that sense of completion?
25:49And also convincing myself,
25:50well, I should be perfectly happy as I have everything.
25:54And yet you go like,
25:55we know where the work is that's left to be done.
25:58I know those little corners that I sweep the dust into
26:02that I spent a lot of time making sure nobody sees.
26:05I know, if not the defects,
26:07I know the things that I haven't really looked at.
26:11And again, the crazy thing for me is I've been obsessed
26:15for the last five to seven years before Chris called me,
26:18probably longer, with the culture of the Cold War
26:23because I felt it was so back upon us.
26:26And so by the time Chris called,
26:29I actually knew a fair amount about Louis Strauss
26:31because I'd done a lot of deep dives
26:33into all the characters around this time
26:36because I think it informed
26:38and then led to the Vietnam era,
26:40which is the era that I slash William Oldham
26:43knew we were born in.
26:45And was everything I was seeing on TV
26:48that wasn't a Nabisco commercial
26:51or a Charlie Brown cartoon was this dark mistrust
26:57of our misplacing of our forefathers' highest wishes
27:05and that kind of dark corruption and all that stuff.
27:08That has to be born out of this Cold War
27:12that is born out of looking for answers
27:14to the conflict of World War II.
27:18And you were already down that road when this came along?
27:21Yeah, and I have to credit my deceased grandfather,
27:25Captain Robert Elias, who I never met.
27:27I had this fascination with a grandfather
27:29that I had never met and I looked at pictures of him
27:32and it reminded me of dad and my dad told me about him
27:34and he was deployed in Sicily in North Africa.
27:38He was, yeah, around.
27:41But then he became a glass manufacturer
27:44and his big claim to fame was that his family
27:46had done the glass for the Chrysler Building.
27:50My family painted the Chrysler Building.
27:54They were construction painters.
27:56So you see the touch points?
27:58That's how close we are to all this, right?
28:00Yeah.
28:02So that's light blue collar stuff to do
28:06and please just punch about that.
28:08I think his marriage to my grandmother
28:10who wound up being kind of like a Vogue model
28:12and a bit of an absentee parent to my dad, no wonder.
28:15He just kept going back overseas
28:18because he didn't want to deal with a marriage
28:20that wasn't working.
28:23And so anyway, always been into it
28:27but had been doing this deep dive.
28:29So then I felt like I had an idea
28:33of someone who might've been back in that time.
28:34Then Louis Strauss was the president of Temple Emmanuel
28:37which we've walked by in New York a bunch
28:40and I just did my little Louis Strauss tour.
28:43And he's a kind of a Salieri kind of, you know.
28:47That's what Chris said.
28:49Well, I'm here to tell you that I know
28:51J. Robert Oppenheimer and if he could do it all over,
28:54he'd do it all the same.
28:56What did you relate to in that?
28:58Bro, come on.
28:59I mean, whether you're here or in New York,
29:03we will never forget and I think still are imbued
29:07with the sense of being on that outside looking in.
29:13And when will it ever happen for us
29:16and so-and-so's doing it and so-and-so's doing it
29:18and I'm going to be left behind
29:20and why even bother to dream?
29:22But the truth be told is he's both
29:24because he's a self-made guy
29:26who was a lifelong civil servant
29:30and how refreshing it was to not be playing the genius,
29:35the gifted one, all that stuff.
29:37All the characters in the audience in the script
29:39imbues you with this status that you don't really possess
29:42but you presume it.
29:45And I know what it's like to wish someone else
29:48hadn't embarrassed me in the street.
29:50Wish that I'd gotten past that velvet rope
29:53to go into that club.
29:54Wish that I'd gotten a call back for that part.
29:56Wish that I'd gotten the second date with that girl.
29:58Wished, wished, wished, wished, wished.
30:00So, unlike Strauss, I wasn't doing the right things
30:07while I was wondering why my life
30:08wasn't going the right way.
30:10This is someone who, you know,
30:11from working for President Wilson
30:14to getting the Jewish refugees the notice they needed
30:19to be given support when that wasn't even popular
30:21in the US to this, to that, to this.
30:23Every single step of his life, of course,
30:26was consciously looking toward a political payoff
30:29but he really just wanted to be acknowledged
30:31by the people that he admired.
30:33And so Chris constructed this story to what happens
30:37when people don't listen to each other
30:39and don't make space for each other
30:42or in this case of someone who can't even relate to people
30:45because he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders
30:47but that still doesn't mean they don't feel like,
30:49hey, you know what, if I get a chance to stick it to you,
30:52I will because you embarrassed me three times, three times
30:54at my birthday party that you attended
30:56when you blow off me introducing my daughter,
30:59when you, you know, give me crap in the Senate
31:03and when I don't understand this conversation you're having.
31:05So anyway, mid-century insanity
31:10and we're still living with it today.
31:14It's such a great performance, man.
31:16Why do people not just do this all the time?
31:24If we want to talk about Courage Under Fire,
31:28the fact that 11 seconds into this performance
31:31you are buck naked and going for it
31:34in a way that, again, wasn't gratuitous
31:37but it was very, how was that?
31:41And is that really how you get down?
31:43I don't know, Robert.
31:45That to me is the ultimate risk.
31:48It's so, it was the one part of the thing I was like,
31:53do I have to, what are we going to do with this?
31:56You know, all I could hear is like,
31:58nobody wants to see your old ass anymore.
32:02You know, maybe you shouldn't be doing movies
32:04like that anymore.
32:06I mean, it's my least favorite part of it
32:09but I also saw it as very comedic, you know?
32:12And it also is like an extension of the physical comedy
32:16that we're already sort of finding.
32:19So it was just another way to tell the story.
32:23I just want to say this too, because knowing you forever,
32:27on one of these Avengers movies,
32:29you like take off your shirt or thing
32:31and you were in really good shape.
32:34I mean, you were in really good shape.
32:36And the director was, I don't know if it was,
32:39it might've been Joss, it might've been the Russo's,
32:42but anyway, it was like, we got it.
32:43You're like, oh, can I please stop dieting
32:46and working out now?
32:48There is no one I've ever come across
32:51who is actually more anxious to not be vain
32:55past the point where it is necessary
32:57to achieve an end for their work.
32:59Was that a compliment?
32:59It's a huge compliment, but I got to say,
33:01every single one of you,
33:03was that a compliment?
33:04It's a huge compliment, but I got to say,
33:06A, you look pretty bangable to me,
33:08in case you were wondering.
33:09Thanks, man.
33:10Because the guy, I mean.
33:11I mean, yeah.
33:12Yeah, it was pretty good.
33:13He is who he is.
33:13And by the way, the costumes,
33:15I don't even want to.
33:15The costumes.
33:16We start going down the road of just like
33:18all of the delights of the department heads
33:21and it was shot in.
33:23Budapest.
33:24In Budapest, right?
33:25So you get all those artisans and you're all there
33:27and just you're getting so much value,
33:29but it's still this kind of fantastical backgrounds,
33:32but then everything you're physically seeing
33:35is just so fine down to the detail.
33:39I mean, dude, I'm just looking,
33:40I'm literally looking at the back of some of your jackets
33:43going, God, I've never been able to wear a jacket
33:44with a cool cut like that.
33:46I was like, dude.
33:47Do you know I had an ass pad in?
33:49I had, my legs were like four inches bigger.
33:54My calf was four.
33:55I mean, he really wanted the silhouette.
33:59So I was wearing a corset with like shoulder pads.
34:04So I was so squeezed in.
34:06It's beautiful.
34:07And you know, that whole, that was the corset.
34:11That was the high collar.
34:13It was the whole thing.
34:13Are you wearing a corset in one of the scenes?
34:16Yes, I wear a corset when I take off the,
34:19and that's Duncan wears a corset.
34:21You know, it was like kind of,
34:23yeah, I mean, that stuff was, it was even more extreme.
34:28He wanted me to look like a bird.
34:29So I had this, I had this whole built out chest piece
34:34that I was wearing.
34:38It never made it because it was just, it was too much.
34:41But the big ass pads, the leg pads, the thigh pads,
34:46the calf pads, those were all playing.
34:50So when you look at that and you're like,
34:51wow, he looks great.
34:54Now, you know, I was just wearing what the Avengers wear.
34:58But underneath my clothes.
35:00Honestly, I didn't, I didn't expect
35:04that there was any augmentation going on.
35:06So it was done really well.
35:08Yeah, but the bird chest would have been too much.
35:10But I think I know what he was going for,
35:12particularly with all the hybrids that are occurring
35:14in the movie and the nature of it, you know.
35:16It's just the tweak it.
35:18But I love it when a director has an instinct
35:20that they go, I have this instinct,
35:22I'm sticking to it, I'm sticking to it.
35:23I'm wrong and they dump it.
35:25That's when I begin to really trust someone.
35:28And I think that's what I love about the Avengers
35:30is they are changeable and they're not fixed.
35:34They're not obsessive.
35:35They're actually exploring, you know.
35:37And Yorgos, we explored all the time.
35:39It was all an exploration.
35:40I just want to say before we run out on this card,
35:43so many of your scenes are with Emma Stone.
35:47And I am pretty obsessed with her now.
35:51I've always thought she was great,
35:52but this is just a, this is just such a defining moment
35:56of the joy and also the, you know, the ability.
36:00It seems like you guys just have this,
36:02you've had great chemistry.
36:03Thanks.
36:04And what was all that whole arc like
36:07in supporting her in this?
36:10Well, I mean, I think she's one of the greats
36:12and still like developing into how great she's going to be.
36:18You know, I'm insecure and she gets that about me
36:23and at the same time is like so nurturing to me.
36:26And we were kind of playing that part with each other
36:28because, you know, in a lot of ways
36:30this could have been disastrous.
36:31We're right on the razor's edge.
36:33It could easily fall over, you know.
36:35And so we both had a lot of fear and insecurity about it.
36:43And so we were just, found ourselves
36:45really taking care of each other.
36:48But then also all that play, like Emma laughs,
36:52her laugh like travels the world, you know.
36:56When she laughs, it comes up to your feet
36:58and it bubbles up to your body.
36:59And the next thing you know, you're just lit up with that.
37:03And to have that, you know, every time, every take
37:07we're both sort of laughing and playing
37:10and seeing how far we could push it.
37:12And turning into these, like there's just a lot of space
37:18to just, it was just very safe between us.
37:22And so to turn into these two people,
37:26to come back like Mark and Emma,
37:28and then all of a sudden, you know,
37:30become Bella and Duncan.
37:32It's great, man.
37:33There's such amazing, just physical choreography
37:37between the two of you.
37:38The choreography.
37:39That it seemed like some of it was managed,
37:41but a lot of it was discovered.
37:43But you can tell when you have a good dance partner.
37:45Because it just seemed like you guys really knew
37:48how to do the, to share the stage.
37:52And that came a lot from our rehearsal
37:53and doing all this movement stuff together, you know?
37:55Right.
37:57And so we were moving, as a troupe, we were moving as one.
38:01And then as individuals within that troupe,
38:03we were sort of, a lot of it was getting in the sync,
38:06was listening to somebody's body.
38:09You know, so you'd have an exercise
38:12where every movement that I made,
38:15you had to move your arm like that, you know?
38:17So it'd just be like, and then turn around.
38:21Someone else is conducting you, you know?
38:24And that really, like, that kind of connection,
38:29it plays, you know?
38:30You pick that up and then you take it with you.
38:32Particularly on the boat in the dining hall,
38:36that whole sequence, which to me, in and of itself,
38:38is like a little one-act play.
38:40It's showing about how you want to be perceived
38:44and how she's not playing along.
38:46And then by the time you're just smacked down on,
38:50you know, all these guys, I was like, oh my God.
38:53How much of that really was,
38:56the stunts or all that stuff was choreographed?
38:58Because some of it felt just like safe chaos.
39:01It was safe chaos.
39:02Okay.
39:03We would try to choreograph it with a stunt man,
39:05and your girls would be like, no, this is, no, no, no.
39:11And he's like, what would you, you come in,
39:14what do you do?
39:16And he would ask me, and I'd be like, oh, I think this.
39:18And he's like, okay, I like that.
39:20And what if he gets on you here?
39:22And we just sort of made it up.
39:25And in the end, there's that kind of target war thing.
39:30That was just background people, you know,
39:33he said, you come in and grab them and you help them
39:36and you fight them and whatever happens,
39:38we're going to shoot it.
39:39That's why it was a wide shot, you know?
39:41And it was, all we knew is that me and her,
39:44that Duncan and Bella would be doing this target war.
39:48And these guys would try to be pulling us apart
39:51and I'd be fighting them off and then coming back.
39:54And it just, it was chaos.
39:57Wow.
39:57But we learned how to be safe with each other.
40:00And we had the dance, which was choreographed,
40:04but he didn't want it to feel choreographed.
40:07So-
40:08Every director always says that,
40:09and then they wind up choreographing it.
40:10And then they end up choreographing it.
40:12And he was just adamantly throwing that out.
40:15Wow.
40:21We have our decades of Marvel,
40:24which is its own style, right?
40:26You have Iron Man, Tony Stark,
40:30who is its own style.
40:33And it's so different than Strauss.
40:37Sure.
40:38And how do you make that transition?
40:39I mean, and yeah, how do you go about that?
40:42Because it takes, I mean, when I see your work in that,
40:46I'm like, that is such a disciplined, thoughtful,
40:53unique expression of what Robert does
40:58and so different than what he had done up until that point.
41:03You know, I've always wondered why you didn't involve him
41:07in the Manhattan Project.
41:10Greatest scientific mind of our time.
41:13I'm going to build on something you've been saying
41:15of going back to that kind of like theater camp play,
41:18but also knowing the discipline of theaters.
41:20You know, sometimes you're doing theater so long
41:24that by the time you're doing film, you're too big.
41:27Sometimes you're doing film so long
41:29that by the time you're doing theater, you're too small.
41:34And then sometimes, you know what I mean?
41:36It was always kind of like trying to calibrate
41:38just to keep yourself interested.
41:39And I just remember going, this is a lot of words
41:44and they're really specific and they're really important.
41:46So I just went back to like the first time
41:50I had to do a one-act play
41:51or when I was doing Jiva Theater in Rochester
41:54and I was like, just get off book.
41:56And I obsessively went into a mode
42:01where I was name, rank, and serial number.
42:05If you woke me up in the middle of the night,
42:06I would know it.
42:08And the last time I really, really did that
42:10was for the Iron Man screen test
42:12when there were these three scenes
42:13that I could have been off book in two days,
42:15but I just went crazy on them for two and a half months.
42:18This time I needed the three to five months.
42:22So I, again, like theater, I started with the words
42:25and I knew that I wanted to do enough physically
42:29to be different.
42:31I knew that in black and white,
42:33getting the right shape would be good
42:36and losing the right amount of weight
42:37and moving a certain way.
42:39And again, like I know this kind of person.
42:44I know the political animal.
42:45And then it's just watching what else is going on,
42:48like watching Killian, like, okay, that's Mozart.
42:52So that's what he's doing.
42:55And I have to be this other thing.
42:57So it was also great because I got a lot of perspective
43:00on people through the years coming into play.
43:03Oh, the great Tony Stark.
43:04I mean, it's all, you know,
43:05we're all kind of doing the same thing.
43:07And I hate it when people poo-poo a genre
43:10because they're all hard and they're all high art
43:12when they're done well.
43:14But I just remember that it was the text.
43:16It was really thinking about, he didn't want voices.
43:19He didn't want accents.
43:20He didn't want makeup.
43:22He didn't want anything.
43:24He wanted the very least amount of interaction
43:26with the department heads as possible.
43:31But even by the time you're going on set
43:33and they're like filling in my earring hole
43:37with stuff just so that you couldn't see
43:40in an extreme closeup because he wouldn't have one.
43:42I was like, God, they're really paying attention
43:45to detail here, so why don't I?
43:47And it was really framed because you know me.
43:49I'm very ectomorphic.
43:51I don't like to be constrained.
43:53I know.
43:54And it's all Chris wanted.
43:56So I thought, well, this is gonna be hard, but easy.
43:59But you, back to that discipline.
44:02It's transformative.
44:04I didn't see Robert Downey Jr. in there.
44:06I didn't see it.
44:07And you know, I didn't see that.
44:10And it was so exciting.
44:12And it's so interesting because it was that containment.
44:19You have the comedy, the movement.
44:23I remember every time we worked together,
44:25you have props set.
44:28You have this.
44:29You're moving from there to there to there.
44:30It's bop, ba-da-bum, ba-da-bum.
44:32And it's electrifying.
44:35But just for you to just, whoom, and be that still.
44:41And I love what you say about learning those lines like
44:44that because that's, man, what a great plan.
44:49Well, I mean, also in the Marvel days,
44:50everything might change or we're talking to a tennis ball.
44:53Or, I mean, you and I, the science bros,
44:55we would have these long passages
44:57about absolute gobbledygook.
45:00But still, it's important to us
45:03because we know it's important to the characters.
45:05We didn't know what that was.
45:06Yeah, it'd be a little hard to dig in.
45:08I mean, we would just drive each other insane on set,
45:11going like, why can't I retain this?
45:13But again, we know when it's time
45:14to tighten things up a little bit.
45:17Anyway, I found great joy in it.
45:19And it was this 50-year circle of going back to Santa Fe
45:22where I was with my dad when he shot this film
45:24called Greaser's Palace.
45:26I stayed right 50 steps from the place
45:29that I remember the crew meeting up to hang out
45:34when we weren't shooting and going and seeing Los Alamos.
45:38They didn't actually have any scenes there,
45:39but shooting in the Baton Memorial building
45:43and just going in all these places.
45:45It was all done very practically.
45:47And I've said this before, but it was this moment
45:49where we were shooting something in Pasadena
45:51and Nolan just put this mag of a 70-millimeter
45:56I didn't hear that.
45:57Yeah, well, they were changing out mags
45:59and he was like, man, hold this.
46:00And he just put it on my lap and I was just like.
46:03Because, you know.
46:04Film.
46:05Yeah, I will continue to love and I'm happy to eventually
46:10in some way re-engage with sci-fi fantasy.
46:12It's got its own upside, but anything that over time
46:16takes you further and further away from the experience
46:19of just the hardware of what it is we do,
46:22which is these machines, these souls,
46:25that sensitive metal, which is why it was all so beautiful
46:29just to be shooting on film, not digital.
46:31I got used to digital after Zodiac
46:34because I knew if Fincher's doing it, it's not going away.
46:36And is it more efficient?
46:38Yes, but you lose those natural rhythms
46:40of changing out the mag.
46:41Yeah, man.
46:42It was just those little times
46:44and everyone kind of socialized.
46:47You know, even the clapper loader knew
46:49like he was kind of like hitting the brake bell
46:53or if not the brake bell,
46:54it was like running a metronome on the rhythms
46:58of this mode of working.
46:59So it was all that stuff, you know.
47:02You know, we have this, we have the Marvel universe.
47:06We have the,
47:10we have all of this product
47:14that is either already part of something or a brand.
47:22And then you have Oppenheimer come out,
47:25which is completely original kind of source material.
47:29And it explodes in a time where people are like
47:33really wondering, well, what is cinema now?
47:37After Marvel, after franchises, you know, after IP,
47:42what is cinema now?
47:44And what did you feel and think about that?
47:47It's kind of exceptional.
47:50Looking back now, I think about Robert Pattinson
47:55being in Tenet, which I thought, wow,
47:58it's another great Chris Nolan movie.
48:00It happened at the worst possible time.
48:02There was the fracturing with the studio, all this stuff.
48:04And Pattinson gives him on wrap Oppenheimer's letters.
48:09These moments in life where you realize the inception
48:13of something occurred in the most organic way.
48:16And also Pattinson and Tenet
48:18was an incredible departure for him.
48:21So this incredible departure from one of our younger peers
48:25turns into him making a personal gift
48:28to arguably one of the greatest directors of his generation,
48:33turns into him deciding that it's sticking with him.
48:37And then I always wonder if something
48:40about the organic nature of how something starts
48:43and how pure it is and the confidence
48:45of the people who bring it forward
48:47is in a great contributor.
48:50And then there's just that thing,
48:52Zeitgeist, whatever you want to call it.
48:54And honestly, I would be every bit as proud
48:57if it hadn't broken even or just done pretty good.
49:01But I think the great thing is it speaks to our taste,
49:06the audience's taste for novelty and for craftsmanship,
49:10which is again, why I'm telling you,
49:13I mean, Poor Things is already making a splash
49:17as it's on the horizon of coming out
49:19and whether this airs, but it'll be after.
49:22People have already seen this.
49:23I mean, you're next, buddy.
49:26That's all I got to say.
49:27We'll see.
49:28Well, it's so fantastic.
49:32Thank you.
49:33Yeah, some people say,
49:33I don't know if it'd be for everyone.
49:35I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:07I don't know if it'd be for everyone.
50:08I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:09I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:10I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:11I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:12I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:13I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:14I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:15I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:16I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:17I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:18I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:19I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:20I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:21I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:22I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.
50:23I go, then maybe you don't know everyone.