The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Materialists.

Congratulations on this incredible film. I want to start with your producer credit. What does that role mean to you?
Celine Song: Being a producer can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it’s financial, but for me, it meant being in the creative trenches—casting, budgeting, locations, all of it. I learned so much from Past Lives, where I was already doing that work in an informal way. On Materialists, I made it official. It’s my original script, so I wanted to be fully involved from day one. And it wasn’t just about control—it was about responsibility. If I’m going to write about how money and value influence relationships, then I have to be accountable for the way the film itself is made, down to who we cast and how we frame the story. Being a producer let me shape the world onscreen in a way that felt authentic and complete.

it broke my heart even as we filmed it

I read that you worked as a matchmaker before becoming a filmmaker. How did that influence this film?
CS: In my twenties, I worked as a matchmaker for six months. It started as a way to pay rent, but it ended up being one of the most illuminating experiences of my life. When you ask someone what kind of partner they want, you get startling honesty—more honest than they are with their therapists! You hear what they desire, what they fear, what they think they deserve. And it made me realize how commodified romance has become. People shop for love like they’re shopping for apartments. They treat relationships as transactions. That time in my life gave me raw material—not just stories, but insight into how deeply our self-worth is tangled up with how we’re perceived. Eventually, I had to stop matchmaking because it distracted me from writing, but it shaped my understanding of human vulnerability in profound ways.

Speaking of performance, Pedro Pascal gives an incredible, heartbreaking portrayal. That final scene—was it as emotional on set as it is on screen?
CS: Oh, completely. That moment when Harry returns to his pre-surgery height is quietly devastating. It’s not about height, really—it’s about watching someone’s perceived social value evaporate in real time. Even if the audience doesn’t care about those metrics, they recognize how the world does. Pedro brought so much empathy and nuance. He understands objectification deeply—he’s lived through it in the industry. That’s what Materialists is really about: how commodification dehumanizes us, especially when we start internalizing those values. And Pedro didn’t just perform that scene—he embodied it. The silence, the resignation in his posture, the vulnerability in his eyes—it broke my heart even as we filmed it. It was one of those rare moments on set where the entire crew went silent because we all felt it.

I noticed how many of your scenes feel like conversations that suddenly take a life-altering turn. How do you write that way?
CS:I call them “transformational conversations.” It’s my favorite kind of moment in cinema. You think it’s just a casual dinner or an everyday chat—and then by the end, your entire worldview has shifted. I wrote the beer-and-cooking scene first—where Lucy and Harry first talk, and then John arrives. That triangle held the whole story. Another early scene I wrote was the breakup argument at the barn wedding. Those were the emotional cornerstones. I don’t outline rigidly. I daydream. I imagine the emotional shape of a moment before I write the dialogue. I think about what’s at stake, what needs to be revealed, and how the characters might resist revealing it. The structure comes from how people try to hide their truth—and how it eventually slips out anyway. That tension is where the best scenes live.

The film’s shot selection is so restrained and deliberate. Do you plan that all in advance?
CS: Yes—and I do it with my cinematographer, Shabier Kirchner. We’re creative soulmates. We shot list every frame together. But we also leave room for discovery. For example, that negotiation scene at the restaurant, where Lucy and Harry are essentially discussing terms before going home together—we shot that like a business deal. It’s in a wide two-shot that allows the actors to perform the entire scene, theater-style. I hate over-relying on close-ups. I trust actors. I love giving them space to move, to reveal things physically. Blocking is storytelling. When Lucy chooses to lean forward or stay back, that’s part of the narrative. And we always ask: does the shot respect the emotional truth of the scene? That’s our guiding principle.

Shooting in New York must have been a challenge—how did you make that happen?
CS: It was a fight! New York is difficult—permits, paparazzi, limited space. But this story couldn’t take place anywhere else. New York is the perfect contradiction: it’s where dreams and brutal reality coexist. The rent is astronomical, the living conditions can be rough—but people are here because they’re chasing something intangible. Love, ambition, meaning.

Materialists is about how we put a price on everything—ourselves included. So we had to be honest about the setting. We scripted everyone’s rent and neighborhood. We updated those numbers based on the market. There’s power in specificity. I wanted to make a film where the backdrop isn’t just pretty—it’s economically and emotionally truthful. And A24 believed in that. They trusted me to make a film that was both deeply personal and logistically ambitious.