Sean Baker (Anora) and Brady Corbet (The Brutalist) discuss how hard it is for young directors to break into the industry these days, why run-time shouldn't be a concern of distributors and how Sean casts for his films by walking up to people in public.
Variety Directors on Directors presented by "Nickel Boys"
Variety Directors on Directors presented by "Nickel Boys"
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00:00Now, it's not just street casting, you know?
00:02Now I have access to agents I can call.
00:05You're not like a creeper anymore.
00:06Yeah, well, yeah.
00:07I remember, when I was catching Childhood of a Leader,
00:09I kept walking up to parents and being like,
00:11I'm like, you have a beautiful little boy.
00:13He'd be perfect for my movie.
00:15It's not the best opener.
00:17♪♪
00:25All right, so, Nora is one of my favorite movies of the year,
00:29and I really mean it.
00:30And I think the movie's extraordinary,
00:32and on a technical level,
00:34I think the performances are unbelievable.
00:36I think the editing is amazing.
00:38I think the sound editorial
00:40and the dialogue editing is fantastic.
00:42And so, congratulations.
00:44I mean, you know.
00:46Congrats to you, man.
00:47Brutalist is amazing,
00:48and I wish I got to see it a second time
00:50before sitting down with you,
00:51because it was just so overwhelming, so much to take in.
00:54But you said that Brutalist was even harder for you
00:59than Vox Lux, but you had a bigger budget.
01:02You had a bigger budget, right?
01:03Has budget helped you get...
01:04The Brutalist was either the same as Vox
01:09or a little bit less.
01:10It's a bit hard to say,
01:12because on Vox, we shot in New York.
01:14It's very expensive to shoot in New York.
01:16The Brutalist was shot in Budapest, like my first film.
01:19So, it's funny, because my production budget
01:21was much bigger, even though the gross number
01:23was more or less the same.
01:24Right.
01:25I eventually have to get out of the country.
01:28It's very expensive to shoot here.
01:31It's really, really difficult.
01:33I know.
01:33The way I was able to do New York this time around
01:36was basically to do it tiny, to do it under the radar,
01:40use all the guerrilla filmmaking techniques
01:43in order to do it, putting all the money on the screen
01:46by baking, borrowing, and stealing.
01:48But I don't know how much longer I can do that,
01:50because it's taxing on everybody.
01:52Well, no, no, that's exactly right.
01:54Well, I mean, the thing was, when I was finished with Vox,
01:58and at that point, we already had a draft
02:00of The Brutalist finished, and I said to Mona,
02:05there's no way in hell that we're gonna shoot this
02:07in the US.
02:09My experience on Vox was so grueling,
02:11and I saw so much money being spent
02:14on a lot of the wrong things.
02:15And then the other thing is, is that the film
02:18is set predominantly in Philadelphia
02:21or around Philadelphia, and Philadelphia has changed
02:25so, so much since then, that other than going
02:29to Philadelphia to grab some plate shots for VFX
02:33to put some of the most iconic buildings and stuff
02:35in the deep background of some of our shots and stuff,
02:38it wouldn't have made sense to shoot there,
02:41because we would have had to paint out so much anyway.
02:45I just needed a place that could pass for Kensington,
02:48which is a lot of smokestacks and warehouses,
02:51and there's plenty of that sort of stuff in Hungary.
02:56There's something in Hungary,
02:58there's just great texture everywhere.
03:00There's cobblestone, and the paint's peeling off.
03:03It feels stuck in time.
03:04It does, certain parts of it especially,
03:07and it's also a dynamic place.
03:11It's easy to find locations that pass
03:14for an American locale, there's also places
03:16that feel very, very European, and it's great for period.
03:21And then there were also shoots in very, very small units
03:28in New York, Philadelphia, and Italy
03:32for the Carrera marble sequence,
03:34and for the end of the movie in Venice.
03:36Wait, where did you shoot the marble?
03:38It's shot in Tuscany in Carrera,
03:41so where all of that Carrera white marble comes from.
03:46We actually shot in the quarry where Michelangelo
03:51carved the Pieta.
03:52Oh, really?
03:53Yeah, I mean, it's an insane place.
03:56It's incredibly beautiful, but Mother Nature
03:59is, of course, pretty pissed off
04:01because there's constant rock slides.
04:04They only have enough marble there
04:06to last them for perhaps about 500 years.
04:09So in 500 years, those mountains, and they're stunning,
04:12they'll be gone, and that material will be gone.
04:15And so it's an eerie place because it's incredibly beautiful
04:21but we've taken a bite out of the landscape.
04:23And it was important to me somehow
04:27for the visual allegory of the movie
04:29because so much of the movie is about possessing
04:32that which cannot be possessed,
04:34like this patron trying to possess an artist
04:37by collecting not just his work, but collecting him.
04:41And so there was something about that place
04:43where I felt like this is a material
04:45that should not be possessed,
04:47and yet we are using it to line our bathrooms and kitchens.
04:51I think it might be my favorite sequence
04:54or set piece of the film.
04:56It's mine, too.
04:57Yeah.
04:58It's mine, too.
04:58You really captured the beauty of,
05:00I was even wondering, how did you get the whole crew
05:04and the big VistaVision camera down there?
05:06Well, you know, we shot with only available light,
05:09the whole sequence.
05:10It was made with a very, very small crew,
05:14about 16 people.
05:15And so, I mean, considering that there's
05:17a lot of sequences in the film in Hungary
05:20where it was 150 to 200 people on set every day.
05:25But that sequence, the only way that we would be allowed in
05:29was if we kept our footprint really small.
05:31And it adds up to like over 10,
05:34at least 10 to 15 minutes in the film.
05:36Yeah, I mean, I think the whole sequence is,
05:39yeah, it might, it's 15 to 20 minutes.
05:42Okay.
05:43Yeah, I mean, but it was kind of common.
05:44I mean, we were, the screenplay was over,
05:47it was almost 170 pages long.
05:50And the whole film was shot in 33 days,
05:52including these smaller unit sequences.
05:55And so, we were shooting about seven to 10 pages a day
06:00on the regular.
06:01Okay.
06:02So you knew it was gonna be over three hours,
06:04or approximately three hours.
06:05I knew that it would be three hours.
06:06I didn't necessarily know it would be three and a half.
06:10I don't know how long my screenplay is, but I knew.
06:14I knew going into this film, into a Nora,
06:17that it was going to be 220.
06:20And about two weeks out from production,
06:23we had to make a presale in order for everything to work
06:27and for us to move forward.
06:28An international presale.
06:29For, yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:31I'm not gonna get into all the details, obviously,
06:33but I had to sign a contract saying
06:36I would deliver the film at 210.
06:39Right.
06:40And you know how that killed me?
06:41That killed me, because I knew I was lying
06:43when I signed that contract.
06:44I knew it, and yet I thought, okay,
06:46but I don't even understand.
06:47Am I gonna be held to this?
06:49And you're an editor, too.
06:51So you really have that depth perception.
06:54You know, I understand.
06:55I mean, I had a similar situation.
06:59It's not cool, because I lived with that stress
07:02for over a year, for a year.
07:05And when I got to the point where it was two hours long
07:08and I knew there's no way I'm wrapping this film up
07:11in 10 minutes, that was when I was like,
07:14what am I gonna do at this point?
07:16And they were just like, oh, well, just make a good movie.
07:18If it's good enough, no one will complain.
07:21By what metric and based on whose subjective opinion?
07:25Never, ever again.
07:27I would rather not make that film
07:30than have to deal with the stress.
07:32I mean, listen, I couldn't be more sympathetic,
07:35because I also sort of had this sort of Damocles
07:38hanging over my head for the better part of a year
07:42if not longer in post-production.
07:44And it was very, very difficult.
07:48I mean, it's a lot of sleepless nights.
07:50And the other thing is, is that you wanna be focused
07:52on just making the best film possible.
07:54And then unfortunately, you're constantly on the phone,
07:59having to step out of your mix, your grade,
08:01you know, all of the things that actually,
08:03you know, you have to step away from making the movie
08:07to have conversations about runtime.
08:11And I just found it to be so, you know, old-fashioned.
08:17I was like, why are we still having this conversation
08:21about runtime in the age of streaming,
08:24when people are binge-watching five or six hours of,
08:28you know, a movie's over two hours,
08:31and it's like, you know, the number one topic
08:33of discussion in post-production.
08:36And the one maybe good thing that has come,
08:40I don't mean to be too disparaging,
08:41but from streaming and episodic TV
08:44is that audiences have become used
08:47to being with their characters a little bit more.
08:50It doesn't maybe totally equate to, you know,
08:54a character development, but I think they're just used
08:56to living with characters a little bit longer.
08:58So therefore, feature films have now almost become
09:03a little bit longer to satisfy that with audiences.
09:06And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
09:08I mean, I know that Alfred Hitchcock has that quote.
09:11It's like, the running length of a film
09:13should be in direct relation to the size of your bladder,
09:17or something like that.
09:19Well, look, I'm hitting the restroom anyway
09:21at 80 minutes at my age.
09:23So I'm gonna go one time anyway during a movie.
09:26It doesn't matter.
09:28And so I just wish that wasn't such a talking point.
09:34I wish that you didn't have to.
09:36Well, I mean, you know, listen,
09:38I think what's so strange about it is that, you know,
09:42like with the novel, you know,
09:45a novel can be as long as a novel needs to be.
09:49I just think it's because years ago,
09:51the issue was that an exhibitor wanted to do
09:54at least five shows a day, five screenings, right?
09:58Which I understand.
09:59But now that, you know, we're working so hard
10:02to get viewers to get off their couch
10:04and go to the cinema anyway.
10:06From my perspective, it was like,
10:07shouldn't we do three sold out shows a day
10:10as opposed to five screenings a day that are half full?
10:14And, you know, what's the problem with that?
10:16And then the last thing I wanna say on the issue of runtime
10:18is that I don't understand why, you know,
10:21like when folks are wearing tights and a cape,
10:24it's okay for it to be three hours long.
10:27And yet when you're making, you know,
10:28a drama about adults for adults by adults,
10:32that it's like, well, you know,
10:33you have to like, you know, mop this all up in 90 minutes.
10:36And 90 minutes is like, it's not,
10:39it's not that much time to really settle in with.
10:42It's almost too little time.
10:44It can be, it can be.
10:45I just think it's the wrong conversation to be having.
10:49And it's frustrating that it's so standard
10:52to include that in a director's contract
10:56about delivering it under a certain runtime.
10:58Oh, oh, so to wrap up that story,
11:01I delivered and not a peep.
11:06I got pushed back from another company about it,
11:08but not the distributor I signed the contract with,
11:11which was just like, oh, of course, of course.
11:14You have a very big problem, brother.
11:16You have a big problem if you don't get the fuck out of my house.
11:19Vanya, what the fuck is going on?
11:21I need to see, wait, is this a marriage ban?
11:24Nora is really not boring.
11:26It is really not a boring film ever.
11:29Thank you, thank you.
11:30Like at any point, so.
11:32Yeah, no, that's the rule.
11:33Yeah, you can't get boring.
11:34You know, that's the number one crime
11:38of filmmaking in my eyes.
11:40Well, my issue, for me,
11:42one thing that was important to me on our film
11:45was that time is an important ingredient.
11:48So my question was not, you know,
11:51to viewers in early cuts of the film,
11:54did you feel the runtime?
11:56But, you know, were you ever not engaged?
11:59Because you're supposed to feel the runtime
12:01at a few moments, because it's 35 years
12:05in a character's life,
12:07and time is a very, very important ingredient.
12:10You know, and any time that I would ever try
12:12to pull something out,
12:14suddenly things would feel really kind of rushed.
12:17And so, you know, and I actually,
12:19I feel that in movies all the time,
12:21where I feel that there's been some meddling.
12:24Right, I can tell.
12:25I'm like, what happened there?
12:27We were just, you know, settling in,
12:29and then suddenly it just is like,
12:31you know, boom, boom, boom.
12:32And I actually find that, you know,
12:35that can really take me out of an experience
12:38if something, it feels too rushed.
12:40I think it's just because we've been told
12:42that movies should be 90 minutes or whatever.
12:44I actually read a review the other day
12:47that said, it was a user review for Enora,
12:50that said something along the lines of,
12:52ran a little too long, but I didn't want it to end.
12:57What?
12:58Does that make any sense?
12:59Yeah.
13:00But anyway.
13:01There's this kind of strange thing
13:03that I find sometimes with reactions from,
13:06you know, a general audience,
13:08where I feel like, you know,
13:10a lot of the rhetoric that they're, you know,
13:13citing seems to be very corporate in a way,
13:16where, you know, people are talking about,
13:20films box office receipts
13:22versus whether or not it was a great movie.
13:25And I find that really strange, you know,
13:27like, I mean, when I was growing up,
13:30I didn't know how much or how little
13:32something was making at the box office.
13:34And, you know, it was irrelevant.
13:36And I didn't see, you know,
13:38there are many films I've loved
13:39over the course of my life that were not,
13:41you know, like, you know, big hits
13:45that were very culturally impactful movies
13:49that have stood, you know, the test of time.
13:50So I find that to be really, really strange.
13:55Me too.
13:55It's quite capitalist.
13:57It's like, it's hooray for the,
14:00let's cheer for the big box office win
14:02and let's shame the bomb.
14:04Yeah.
14:05Let's shame the bomb.
14:06I love big tentpole movies.
14:08I really, really do.
14:10And I love arthouse films.
14:12And I think that arthouse films are frequently guilty
14:17of being as algorithmic in a way
14:20as many, many tentpole films are.
14:22That's true.
14:23And like, they can be very,
14:23if you're on a jury at a film festival,
14:25you can see, you know, 20 films in a row
14:27that sometimes are very, a little bit too similar.
14:30Yeah.
14:31I think it's important that we really kind of,
14:34you know, keep alternative cinema,
14:37alternative music, alternative literature alive.
14:40And I think with the absence of physical media,
14:43that's become more and more difficult.
14:45Yeah, most definitely.
14:47With the oversaturation of media though,
14:48I can't, I can't poo-poo it
14:52because it's like, it is giving more,
14:55there are more voices, right?
14:56I agree.
14:57And giving people just more choices.
14:59I think that's good.
15:00But I do feel for younger filmmakers coming up
15:04because they have a,
15:05I think they have a bigger battle, a harder battle.
15:09I mean, I feel like I got in the door just before,
15:12my foot got in the door just as it was slamming shut.
15:15Yeah.
15:16If I had to navigate the current climate,
15:18trying to start off as a first time filmmaker
15:21and have my film get seen, really tough
15:23because you're just so much more competition.
15:27What I always, and when filmmakers ask me,
15:30like for any advice, I hate giving it
15:31because I feel like I haven't really figured out my life.
15:34But I do say to them, I'm like,
15:36look, I think cream rises and it might take a while.
15:42But if you're making good stuff,
15:45you'll eventually get recognized.
15:46It may take 20 years, but it'll eventually.
15:51And just to keep that persistence,
15:57to keep that faith that you're making something good enough
15:59to be recognized.
16:00Well, I think what's so difficult about the job
16:04and something that even though I grew up on film sets,
16:07I performed in television and movies
16:10since the age of seven years old.
16:12And so of course I had a real advantage
16:15by the time I was 18.
16:16I was gonna ask you.
16:17And I started making my own projects.
16:19But even with all of that preparation and experience,
16:24I don't think anything could have prepared me
16:26for how difficult the next decade
16:31and change of my life was about to get.
16:35Because you're sort of required to be like a broker
16:40and a therapist and a car salesman.
16:45And a poet and a hustler for sure.
16:48And this is something that I was sort of introverted.
16:54And I struggled with these aspects of the job
16:57that required me to be more extroverted.
17:01And I think that when I speak to young filmmakers,
17:07I'm like, what they should really be teaching everyone
17:09in film school straight up is just like,
17:12they should be educating people on every line item,
17:15how much everything costs,
17:17and anticipate inflation and what it will cost
17:21in five years versus while you're in school.
17:24Because the problem is when I first started out
17:26and somebody told me, well, we can't afford that.
17:28Oh, we can't afford a six foot slider.
17:31I had no idea how much a six foot slider costs.
17:33So I said, I guess we can't afford a six foot slider.
17:35Yeah, I think as independent filmmakers,
17:37we have to understand budgeting.
17:40We have to understand the finances of filmmaking.
17:42Hubert did.
17:43Yeah.
17:44I mean, David Lean did.
17:45It's absolutely necessary.
17:46Of course.
17:47Yeah.
17:48But when you, okay, so I was introduced to you
17:50as an actor, obviously, and I remember thinking
17:55at one point, this guy's making a lot of amazing choices.
17:58You were going from like incredible director
18:00to incredible director.
18:02You worked with, you know, Montreer and Haneke and Araki.
18:07Did you, were you, while you were on those sets,
18:09knowing that, did you know you were gonna become
18:12a filmmaker or a director?
18:13Yeah, I was like a cinephile out of the womb.
18:16Okay.
18:17And I don't.
18:18So that must have been really special to work with.
18:20Well, it's interesting because folks always ask me like,
18:23oh, when did you?
18:24And I was like, I just don't remember a time
18:27where I planned to do anything else.
18:30Yeah.
18:30There's a long story about how I sort of fell
18:34into performing because my mother was
18:37in the mortgage industry.
18:38I had a single mother.
18:39I was an only child.
18:41I was living in a very small town.
18:43It happened to be this, one of these hubs
18:46for national casting calls.
18:48And prior to Windows 95 and like the dawn of the internet,
18:52there were about 12 to 13, you know,
18:56sort of hubs all over the US where if they were looking
19:01for someone to play, you know, young Ethan Hawke
19:05in a film or something, they would, you know,
19:08go to these casting directors that were based
19:10in Tallahassee or Dallas, or in my case,
19:13in a town called Glenwood Springs
19:15with a population of 10,000 folks.
19:18And what was strange is that, you know,
19:21I grew up with all of these child actors.
19:25Like I grew up with, you know, a young woman
19:28named Hannah Hall, who was a little girl
19:29that screams, run, Forrest, run, and Forrest Gump,
19:32or, you know, all of these child actors
19:34that were from this valley in Colorado.
19:38And so it's funny because I didn't have
19:39a very Hollywood upbringing because I remained
19:43in school and stuff until I was around 12 years old.
19:49And so I had a relatively normal childhood,
19:50but, you know, for me, acting was something
19:53that was sort of, it was like a, you know,
19:56extracurricular activity.
19:58It was something I would do occasionally,
19:59and sometimes I would travel somewhere for it
20:01for a few days, or a month or something,
20:04and then I would come home.
20:05And it sort of took on a life of its own.
20:07And as soon as it took on a life of its own,
20:09and I started actually working quite a bit,
20:14everyone starts having these conversations
20:16with you very early about, you know,
20:18you gotta do one for you and one for them.
20:21So I struggled with that a lot,
20:24because when I was 12 or 13 years old,
20:27I had, you know, really just come into my own fully
20:31in terms of my taste and sensibility.
20:34And when you're that age, that stuff matters a lot,
20:37you know, I mean, I loved Fugazi, and I loved,
20:40you know, I had, you have these things that,
20:43you know, that at that age are really definitive
20:46for you of your character.
20:48And I really struggled with working on things
20:52that were not, like, aligned with my own sensibility.
20:55Then, of course, by the time I was in my late teens,
20:58I started realizing that, I was like,
21:00I just don't think I'm a performer,
21:03for a variety of reasons.
21:04I felt like, I started to feel really fraudulent somehow.
21:08Like, I was like, I can get by,
21:10and I can do a decent job, you know, for somebody,
21:14but I was not very technical.
21:16I didn't really enjoy it.
21:18I loved making movies, I loved that process.
21:21But I was sort of, you know, the lack of autonomy,
21:26I really struggled with, and I kept doing it
21:29for several years, until finally,
21:32I was really able to phase it out,
21:33because, you know, I started making my own films
21:35when I was about 15, 16 years old.
21:38Music videos, short films, you know, whatever it was.
21:42And I realized when I was, you know,
21:44setting up Childhood of a Leader,
21:45which I didn't end up making until I was 24,
21:48that the only way I would get that movie done
21:52is if I was only focused on that one thing.
21:54Because I now know well, that this is not a job
21:58that you can sort of do part-time.
22:00100%, and I can't creatively juggle.
22:05Me either, me either.
22:06And I actually was really struggling
22:08right after Florida Project,
22:10because I was starting to get, you know,
22:12this attention from studios, or producers
22:15who wanted to work, and say, oh, you can,
22:16let's develop this series as you're prepping
22:19for your next film.
22:21And I was starting to get seduced in those areas,
22:23and I was actually feeling very torn, because I couldn't.
22:26I literally could not focus on one project
22:29while trying to develop, and I just couldn't.
22:31So I was actually, I was in Copenhagen,
22:34and they asked me, I was there for the opening of Florida,
22:38and they asked me, do you want to meet
22:40any Danish filmmakers?
22:42And I'm like, von Trier, maybe?
22:45And they're like, yeah, we can make that happen.
22:46I'm like, okay.
22:47So we end up going over to Zentropa,
22:49and he was so nice, he sat down with me,
22:52gave me like 25 minutes of his time.
22:55He didn't know me, he didn't have to do that.
22:56It was such a nice.
22:58He's a beautiful human being.
22:59And I asked him, I said, look, I'm having this problem.
23:03Do you creatively juggle?
23:04And he said, no, I put one film entirely to bed
23:07before moving on to my next.
23:09And I just do one at a time,
23:11and I don't focus on anything else.
23:12I said, thank you.
23:14That's what I needed.
23:15I got back to LA, and there was a show
23:18that was literally greenlit.
23:20And I said, sorry, guys, I'm not doing it.
23:22And I went ahead into the development of my next feature,
23:26which I was in development for for two years
23:29before COVID killed it.
23:30But the reason I bring that up is because, yeah,
23:33von Trier really helped me, really helped me get to a point.
23:36Well, I mean, there is this sort of like myopia
23:41and obsession that I, for better or for worse,
23:45it seems to be a requirement of the job.
23:48Making a movie is a marriage.
23:51It's not a one night stand.
23:52And it is like, you really, you have,
23:55it's also, it's baggage you carry with you
23:58for your entire life.
24:00And so you wanna make sure that you're able,
24:04at least for yourself, to be able to defend
24:08why you made that decision at that time.
24:11And try to choose projects based on themes
24:16that will never not be relevant.
24:18Like for me, I want, that's a very important thing.
24:21Like I usually don't start with a story.
24:24I usually start with a theme.
24:28That there's something, you know, it's either,
24:30it's usually a moment in time, a decade.
24:34Like I had wanted to work on something
24:38on the post-war years for a while for a variety of reasons.
24:43And I think partially because of the fact
24:46that, you know, what's funny is that, you know,
24:49The Brutalist was written during Trump's first term.
24:53And little did we know we would have a little intermezzo.
24:56And it would then be released years later
25:00during his second term.
25:03And, but, you know, at the time,
25:04what was really on my mind was about how, you know,
25:08the conservative agenda was to go back to the 1950s.
25:13These 1950s ideals of women belong in the kitchen
25:17and, you know, men belong in the office.
25:20And there was this thing that I thought
25:23was really interesting because I was like,
25:24well, the 1950s were very, very difficult years.
25:28I mean, everybody was dealing with the trauma
25:31of the Second World War,
25:34whether they had fought in the war or been drafted for it,
25:37or, you know, or of course, you know, for Europeans,
25:42you know, the impact of the Holocaust,
25:44you know, is resounding to this day.
25:47And I was thinking, you know, in the 1950s,
25:50you were not encouraged to speak about your feelings,
25:54male or female.
25:56I mean, also everyone was pumping out kids,
25:58but they also, you couldn't talk about sexuality.
26:01You couldn't, everything was off limits.
26:03And so I, there was something about this
26:06that was really, really on my mind
26:08and about how, you know, I thought it was important
26:12to think about, you know, the mid-century
26:16in a different way, where it was like,
26:18these characters have inner lives,
26:21they have erotic lives, they have adult lives.
26:25And, you know, the film treats them with respect
26:28and dignity and curiosity.
26:30And I think that even though, I mean,
26:33the character that Adrian plays in the movie,
26:36he's not able to express himself necessarily,
26:38you know, verbally,
26:39but he expresses himself through his work.
26:42He expresses himself.
26:44It comes out like a league.
26:46Right.
26:47Because they do not want us here.
26:48Of course Attila wants us here.
26:51But Attila.
26:51Then who do you mean?
26:53The people here.
26:54They do not want us here.
26:57Were you already a student of that,
26:59of the history of mid-century and brutalist architecture?
27:03Was there like an influence for Adrian Brody's character?
27:06I mean, I had always also wanted to do
27:08a film on architecture.
27:09Yeah.
27:10And brutal.
27:11Because you study it?
27:12I mean.
27:13No, I never studied it.
27:14My uncle, who lived with my mother and I
27:17when I was very young, he was studying
27:19at Frank Lloyd Wright School, Taliesin West in Arizona.
27:23And so my wife, who wrote the film with me,
27:26we worked together on almost everything.
27:29Her grandfather was also an architect in Scandinavia.
27:33But really the story came about
27:35for more conceptual reasons.
27:37I was fascinated by the fact that
27:40brutalism came about in the 1950s.
27:43And for me, it seemed that post-war psychology
27:49and post-war architecture really marched in lockstep.
27:54That there is, they were intrinsically linked.
27:57You know, there's a great book that I read
27:59called Architecture in Uniform by Jean-Louis Cohen
28:01that was really about this.
28:03About how a lot of mid-century design
28:06came about from materials that had come about
28:08for life during wartime.
28:10And I was just thinking about how we have these monuments,
28:13all, you know, all over the globe,
28:16that seem really, you know, to speak to the trauma
28:21of the first and second war.
28:23And they were so unlike anything, you know, anything else.
28:28I mean, it was, some of these monuments,
28:30they're so outsized.
28:32It's like, you know, like a spaceship,
28:34like plopped down, you know, in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
28:37So I was, for me, there was something
28:40about the visual allegory,
28:41which I thought was potentially really powerful.
28:44And that's kind of where it came from.
28:46And the terrible recollections of what happened in Europe
28:49ceased to humiliate us.
28:51I expect for them to serve instead as a political stimulus.
28:57I'm also trying to focus on themes right now,
29:00because I feel every, I got too close,
29:04I think, at certain times to focus on an issue,
29:07where I think then suddenly I'm just, basically,
29:13it just becomes an issue-based film,
29:15and it's just kind of preaching politics to the audience,
29:19where I would rather have, you know,
29:20I'd rather have an audience really, you know,
29:23connect with the themes of the movie
29:25and have like universal themes applied to my plot.
29:29But I just rewatched, actually, Childhood of a Leader,
29:33because I wanted to, I wasn't able to see Brutalist
29:35the 32nd time, so I wanted to, and I love it, by the way.
29:38And I actually see a kind of a theme
29:41running through all three of your films now.
29:44And I think you like telling stories, histories,
29:47like life stories about extraordinary people
29:51who are, in a way, defined by fate.
29:55Like the fate actually defines who they are,
29:59which we don't like to think that that happens to us.
30:02You know, we like to think we control our own destiny,
30:07but your characters, I think all three of them,
30:10all three of your main characters had, you know,
30:15life around them really dictating their,
30:18and fighting against it, fighting against that fate,
30:21but they're-
30:22Yeah, I mean, all three films are virtual histories.
30:25And my feeling about, you know,
30:28a virtual history versus a biopic, or a biography,
30:33is that it frees you, first of all,
30:39it's a more honest contract with the audience.
30:41Because when you watch a biopic,
30:43you're constantly watching and going,
30:45would they have actually said that?
30:47And they certainly weren't saying it in English.
30:49It's almost not fair.
30:50It's not fair to fictionalize somebody's life.
30:52Yeah, I can't really struggle with it,
30:55because I come from the school of,
30:59once you start writing, it all becomes fiction.
31:01So for me, it's important to me to not feel like
31:05an obligation to the relatives of this real person
31:09to represent them.
31:11There's no way for me to do that,
31:13because there was nobody taking notes
31:14when the two of them were in bed together.
31:17Yeah, we're gonna get a fucking divorce,
31:19but first I'm getting a lawyer.
31:22Then I'm gonna sue Yvonne and you,
31:25and I'm gonna walk away with fucking half,
31:27because I didn't sign a prenup.
31:29I don't know about you, but I need 10 years
31:32before realizing why I made a movie,
31:35or even if I've made a good movie.
31:37And that's true, that is true.
31:39I have no idea whether a Nora is a good movie or not.
31:43And I won't know for 10 years.
31:45When I saw, just recently,
31:47I got to see a 35 millimeter print of Tangerine.
31:51We made one and I got to show it at the Hammer.
31:53A movie I really love, by the way.
31:54Oh, thank you.
31:55I think you'll like it more now.
31:56I wanna talk to you about Tangerine.
31:57Because it's iPhone to celluloid.
31:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:00It's complete.
32:01Which is a beautiful process.
32:02Complete.
32:03Like Julian Donkey boy style.
32:04Yeah, exactly, yeah.
32:05Beautiful.
32:05I've actually done 35 millimeter prints
32:07of all my digital films.
32:08Oh, great.
32:09Because I feel that that's the final finishing touch.
32:11Yeah.
32:12But I was able to sit in the theater
32:14and finally appreciate it,
32:17and finally be like, okay,
32:18I think I made a decent film here.
32:20And I'm laughing at these jokes.
32:21Whereas right now, there's no way.
32:24There's like, I don't know about you,
32:26but I'm certainly incapable of judging.
32:31Well, I mean, historically,
32:33whenever I speak to someone where I say, how's it going?
32:37And they're like, it's, you know,
32:38it's honestly, it's going really well.
32:40It's kind of a bad sign.
32:41Yeah, that's a cringeworthy.
32:43No, it's really, no, it's cringey.
32:45It's like, oh, dude, don't say that.
32:46Just say, yeah, just get to the shelf.
32:48Well, because the thing is,
32:50is that you have to constantly be reflecting on,
32:56you know, like, you gotta be hard on yourself.
32:59And that's part of the job.
33:01I think that, I don't know anyone that's more critical of,
33:05and I, because when I revisit the films,
33:08unfortunately, I only see flaws, you know?
33:11I only see what I wasn't able to do
33:12if I'd had 30 more minutes or 45 minutes,
33:15if we hadn't gotten stopped.
33:17But, you know, the way that I think about the films,
33:19it's like a high school yearbook.
33:21It's this interesting thing where, you know,
33:24after enough time has passed,
33:25you finally stop being so hard on yourself.
33:28Like, oh, I was a little chubby then.
33:30I had bad skin, you know, I had what,
33:33there are these sort of, you know, documents
33:37that encapsulate everything that was important
33:38to you at that time.
33:39Yeah, that's essentially why I put my,
33:42I'm putting my first film out into the world,
33:45which is not nearly as accomplished as your first film.
33:48I mean, it's not even a film
33:50compared to Childhood of a Leader.
33:52It's called Four Letter Words,
33:53and I made it when I was the same age you, 24,
33:56but I was not on the maturity level,
33:58was nowhere near, and I hadn't found my style yet.
34:02But I'm putting it out into the world
34:03because I spent more time on that film
34:06than I did on any other film.
34:09And I think it would be weird and disingenuous of me
34:12to try to bury it, to try to hide it,
34:14because it does speak to my beginnings
34:18and where I came from.
34:19And I think it hopefully maybe shows some young filmmakers,
34:22look, you can start at nothing, you know,
34:24and maybe, you know, get to a place.
34:27Well, I mean, Michael Haneke, for example,
34:29started making films when he was already, I think,
34:32in his late 40s, if not early 50s.
34:34Yeah.
34:35And so, you know, that's-
34:36And Pasolini too.
34:36Yeah, exactly.
34:37I mean, but you know, so something
34:41that I'm genuinely curious about,
34:42that I just, this is something that I'm 100% sure
34:47you get asked about all the time,
34:48but I really just, I personally want to know
34:51about the way that you cast the movies.
34:55Yeah.
34:56Like, what is, how do you approach it?
34:57I've always been casting my films.
35:00And then there've been a few cases
35:02where I've worked with wonderful casting directors,
35:04but I've already cast 80%, 90% of the film.
35:07So at a certain point, I was like, you know what,
35:09I'm just doing it all and taking credit for this.
35:11So I cast now along with my wife, Samantha Kwan,
35:15and now it's not just street casting.
35:18Now I have access to agents.
35:20I can call-
35:21Sure.
35:22Directly.
35:22And so I'm basically always keeping my casting cap on.
35:26I mean, I'm always looking.
35:28Sure.
35:29I was actually going to ask you,
35:30are you totally not acting anymore?
35:32Well, we'll see.
35:34It depends on what it is.
35:36By the way, Simon Killer just bought the Blu-ray.
35:38Oh.
35:39One of my favorites.
35:40Oh, and Tony will be so happy.
35:42But no, but I'm always looking.
35:44So it really, you know, I can be on the street.
35:46You know, Susie Sun was found
35:49because we were at the ArcLight.
35:50Samantha and I were leaving a movie.
35:52She was across the lobby of the ArcLight cinemas,
35:54and there were 50 people in that lobby,
35:57but she was a bright light, and it was incredible.
36:00We were like, there's something special about her.
36:03We have to go and talk to her right now.
36:04And it's gotten easier with my films
36:06because now I can actually say, you know,
36:09I've made the Florida Project, I did this,
36:11You're not like a creeper anymore.
36:14I remember when I was casting Childhood of a Leader,
36:16I kept walking up to parents and being like,
36:18I'm like, you have a beautiful little boy.
36:20Oh, yes, that Florida Project was awkward.
36:22He'd be perfect for my movie.
36:24It's not the best opener.
36:26Yep, exactly, exactly.
36:27But yeah, I was just curious because like, for example,
36:30I know that like Bruno Dumas,
36:31like when he's making his films in the north of France,
36:36like, because, well, I know you have a mix
36:40of a lot of actors and non-professional actors.
36:43It's both.
36:43But do you have any specific process
36:45when looking for non-professional actors?
36:47Do you set up casting calls or it's just as you meet folks?
36:49It's strictly, well, it has to be based on physicality first
36:54because you haven't talked to the person yet.
36:56So it's physicality, then as soon as you meet them,
36:59it's persona, and then the most important part, enthusiasm.
37:05They have to return the enthusiasm to you.
37:08Because I've been in a weird situation
37:10where I found somebody that I thought was going to be
37:13the lead of Starlet at a local coffee shop here in LA.
37:16I assumed anybody working at a coffee shop in LA
37:19is an aspiring actor.
37:20So I go in there and I'm like,
37:22I would really like you to audition for this role.
37:24I really, I see you as the lead of this movie I want to make.
37:27And she was like, eh, okay, well, and take my info.
37:30And I did, and we set up her audition
37:33and she didn't come in.
37:34And I went back to the shop.
37:35I'm like, you missed the audition,
37:37but I still really want you.
37:38So we'll do another one, didn't show.
37:40And then I realized she didn't give a crap.
37:42She didn't want to do it.
37:44And that would have been hell on earth
37:46because I've been in those situations
37:47with like supporting cast where they've just walked away.
37:51We have somebody actually in Florida Project
37:54that we shot with for a day and then she disappeared.
37:59And she had more scenes.
38:01So I basically had to just make her character smaller.
38:05But she made the trailer of the movie.
38:08She was good in that one scene we shot.
38:10And then a year later, when the movie is released,
38:13we got a call from her, a text from her saying,
38:15oh, I'm available for more roles.
38:17And we were like, where'd you go?
38:18You dropped off the face of the earth.
38:20And so that can happen.
38:21That's the scary thing that can happen
38:23with first timers who are not, that's not their dream.
38:27They don't aspire to be actors.
38:29So why would you expect for them to be putting in
38:32so much energy and whatever?
38:35The enthusiasm has to be there.
38:36But now, I guess I'm being talked about as somebody
38:41who only works with non-professionals or up and comers,
38:43but that's so not true.
38:45I mean, like Nora, the entire main cast
38:49are famous overseas.
38:52I mean, Mikey Madison is breaking right now,
38:54but as we all know, an overnight success
38:57is 10 years in the making.
38:58She started 10 years ago at 15 on better things.
39:01I think it's because I don't gravitate towards A-listers.
39:05And that's a detriment in terms of-
39:07Of putting together film financing.
39:08Yeah, 100%.
39:10I mean, you've chosen a difficult route.
39:12Yeah, and it's not-
39:13Which is, by the way, a great thing.
39:15And I mean, we could do this forever.
39:17I love Brutalist so much, and I can't wait to see it again.
39:20Congratulations to you, the entire cast.
39:22I mean, it's really something to be proud of,
39:24and I mean it.
39:24Oh, thank you, David.
39:25Thank you so much.