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Q&A with Daniel Craig and Justin Kuritzkes

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

Lee feels like he’s vibrating with how nervous he is. He has this energy that makes you feel like you could touch him and feel static. Was that exhausting to play?
Daniel Craig: If it was, I don’t remember. I mean, I’m trying to think of something intelligent to say and I can’t think of anything, because I’m trying to think of something that sort of says that, “yes, I was trying to achieve that,” but I can’t say what I was trying to achieve. I just… I was just trying to embody him. You know, through Burroughs’ words, Justin’s words, you’re kind of… you can feel this man just trying to communicate, trying to attract people’s attention, probably quite annoyingly, doing all of these things.

And none of that mattered. I didn’t want to judge him; he was trying to connect with the world. That was all I wanted to do. Luca asked his brilliant researcher to go and find a piece of work by Burroughs about love. And it’s the last page in his journal. And I was like, “well, that’s it. That’s it right there.” That tells me everything I need to know about the man. And all of the drug taking and the sort of, you know, that image that he set up for himself, that was the sort of the truth of it right there.

I told him I’d never seen anything like that in cinema.

How is Lee described, on the page?
Justin Kuritzkes: Well, interestingly with this film… Maybe it was just because of the work I had gotten to do with J.W. Anderson, our costume designer on Challengers, which he was also our costume designer for this. I think the first line of description is of what Lee’s wearing, and it’s this tattered white Oxford, you know, that he’s sweating through.

And he’s looking across the table, and that was the first scene I wrote, which was the first scene of the movie. And I kind of knew that… I knew that I had found the rhythm or the vibe of the movie, when I figured out that the movie was going to start with Lee looking into the camera and saying, “You’re not queer.” That involving the audience somehow in that, you know, and then we would flip around and see that he’s talking to this nervous straight kid who’s… you know, whose mother wouldn’t like it if he were queer, because he’s got the Star of David on his neck, you know. And so that was… all of that was something that sort of came before anything else and helped me get into who this character was.

Do you allow yourself to look at Burroughs himself when you’re preparing to play Lee?
DC: For sure. There’s actually very little real footage of Burroughs. Well… two things: One, Lee is an invented character of Burroughs. So it was important to remember that. I wasn’t trying to do an impression of William Burroughs. And two, the only footage I really could find of him shows him in very sort of stiff-mannered interviews that he would give, and where he would talk in this very deep voice. And I just thought that was sort of a carapace around something, especially because I’m reading Queer and, and even Junkie to a certain extent. And you know, the person underneath was who interested me, so we had to construct that. And so Lee is an invention. There are only little bits of footage of Burroughs where they’re caught sort of more privately of when he’s, let’s say… more at ease. Those felt much closer to reality, to me. Those are the bits I really clung on to.

There is sort of a performance art element to the movie, which is the tripping scene deep in the jungle. I understand it was carefully choreographed; it’s a stunning sequence. Have you ever done anything like that before?
DC: No, isn’t it obvious? No, I haven’t. I’ve wanted to. I’ve always dreamed of being a dancer. I’ve always had an admiration for dancers and people who use their bodies so beautifully. When Luca was talking about that scene, he said, “I’ve never taken ayahuasca, I don’t want to, but this is what I think it could be,” and for me that was just sort of glorious, you know, how delicious, to be able to kind of get into something like that. Drew [Starkey] and I had to discover this relationship very quickly, as you always have to do on a movie. There’s never enough time. So from day one of rehearsals, we were sort of rolling around on the floor doing interpretive dance! It’s a great icebreaker. I encourage you all to do it.

Justin, what did that scene look like on the page? Is it detailed, or just in brackets, “[cool things happen?]“
JK: Very detailed. I mean, I could have just written in brackets, “cool things happen,” and you guys would have figured out something beautiful, but You know, it’s, with something like that you want to evoke what’s going to be more than describe it. Because you’re dealing with light, and sound, and, you know, mood, and texture, and all these things that you couldn’t possibly describe.

You know, I mean, I remember when Luca showed me the first cut of the movie, and I saw what has become the ayahuasca dance sequence, and I told him I’d never seen anything like that in cinema. That’s like the first time I’ve seen something that moves like that. So I tried to write something that would give the energy of that, the mood of that. But certainly, I didn’t describe every movement – I left that up to my brilliant collaborators.

Q&A with Jon M. Chu, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, and Marc Platt

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

Marc, I believe Wicked has been on Broadway for about twenty years now.
Marc Platt: Beginning of the twenty-second year.

Incredible. Why was now the right time to turn this into a film?  
MP: I waited a long time to make the film. I did it with my original creators, Stephen Schwartz, and Winnie Holzman—who wrote the brilliant screenplay and created this story based on Gregory Maguire’s novel. Even though there are parts of it that feel very much like it’s written about the world we’re living in today, it was written thirty years ago. I wanted to do justice to the original and respect it. I’m always trying to seek some kind of perfection, and I wanted to wait until I knew I could get it right. Universal, which is a partner on the Broadway show, has wanted to make the film for twenty years. Many wonderful filmmakers have come into my office asking to make the film. One of the reasons that I wasn’t ready was because, always, even if I didn’t know it, I was waiting for this man—Jon Chu—to come into my life with the intelligence and the talent and the heart and humanity that he brings to the film. And it’s the same with these two wonderful women. Because there’s no film without these two authentic, truthful performances. So, the three of them, that’s why I waited so long.

It felt like a way for me to funnel the understanding of what it feels like to be the odd one out

There’s a certain thrill and energy to seeing live theater, but there are limits. With film, there are more possibilities to expand a universe and its fantastical elements. Jon, how did you approach this world?
Jon M. Chu: I called and emailed Marc for twenty years, so I had to be ready! I remember seeing the show in San Francisco before I ever made it to New York. I was in college, and my mom called to tell me there was a new Stephen Schwartz musical. I had zero context, and I remember sitting there in the dark just being blown away by the emotion, by the relationship of these two powerful women and the scope of it all. I imagined in my head, she did fly around during that production, right? To me, it felt like watching E. T. for the first time in a movie theater, just magical. And I remember thinking, the person who makes this movie is very, very lucky. I just didn’t know that twenty years later it would be me.

 I imagine the pre-production process for this was… intense.
JMC: Marc, Stephen, Winnie and I were on Zoom, during COVID times, every day for four or five hours a day, five days a week. We would go through every line in the script. And I would ask questions. Like, what is her power? Things that I didn’t get the answer to necessarily in the show or in other contexts. With the design and build, we had a whole war room with all the drawings, and Paul [Tazewell] coming in with the costumes, and there were a lot of questions about, well, what is Oz? If these people are going to really exist there, what does it look like? What’s the culture? So we spent those months asking hard questions and taking those apart and putting them back together. Beyond just, what does it look like.

It’s rare to see such a strong story of female friendship on screen. What drew each of you to your respective characters and when did you know that your chemistry was going to be successful?
Cynthia Erivo: I had seen the show when I was twenty-five, I took myself on a birthday date. When I watched it, I felt really close to this wonderful woman who didn’t quite fit in. There was something about it that I could understand, and that I knew deeply. That stuck with me for years and years. I had known the music before I had seen the show, so I really was in love with the sound of that music—the way the voices rang, the way the score was written, the build of the songs. When I found out that it was being turned into a film, I did the very Elphaba thing and said, don’t tell me anything, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know if it’s possible. Deep down I really wanted to be a part of it, and a part of me was like, if I just avoid it, then I won’t get hurt if I don’t get asked. I knew that it was a big deal for everyone, and I knew how important this piece was to so many people. When it finally did come my way, Jon did his due diligence, and we spoke many times before I came in for an audition. I worked hard because I wanted to make sure that he knew that it wasn’t just a piece for me; it wasn’t just a job. It felt like a way for me to funnel the understanding of what it feels like to be the odd one out, the one that doesn’t belong, the one that doesn’t feel like they are seen. When I went into the room, I felt safe enough to be vulnerable. It’s one of those things, the idea that this character who walks in with a tough veneer, actually, very close to the surface, has a lot of vulnerability. That’s the thing I really wanted for this character. For people to see the humanity and the vulnerability in this being. I wanted to dig into her a little bit more.

Ariana Grande: I first saw Wicked when I was ten years old and immediately Glinda was my favorite thing I’d ever seen. Of course, with the comedy and the high notes and the jumping on the bed and the laughter from the audience. It was so infectious, and I remember it made me feel so happy. I looked around and I thought, how powerful that is to make people laugh. It immediately became something that I was attracted to… I memorized the soundtrack, I sang the soundtrack every day in the shower and in the car on the way to school, but it wasn’t until later in my life that I realized how adjacent Glinda’s path and mine kind of are in certain ways. As I got older, I experienced loss and grief, and some dark situations that are not very different than the ones that happen in Wicked, you know? And the idea of having to maintain a hopeful public face amidst all of it. That’s a very specific and interesting thing to share with a character. I spoke to Jon about it early on. After all my auditions, I had written to him about how I felt like I had spent a lot of my life transforming darkness into light, fluffy, popular music. I don’t think I realized this at first, but a reason I was so attracted to the character of Glinda was because of her strength. It was strength that I think I needed from her; and a certain specific strength that maybe I needed to give to her. And, meeting this incredible woman to my right was just the most amazing part. When we first me, we sat on that floor.

CE: We sat on that floor and chatted for hours. Our relationship started before we filmed. We never met each other until we were cast. And we chose to sit down on my floor and hang out in my house and it was easy.

AG: And we immediately loved each other, but we also had a very real conversation about how we need to take care of each other, like, there’s nothing you can’t say to me. During this long process, we must be able to say: I need your hand; this felt this way, I want to take care of this with you; I noticed that happened, how can I take it on with you; what can I help with? We needed to be there for each other in a very real way so that…

CE: … we have the space and the safety to be able to play these scenes and go through these things that we were going through as both our characters and as ourselves, safely and openly and without any hesitation. Because that’s the ground where you can grow—when you’re in a space that feels safe. You can do anything being uninhibited.

AG: And we’re so grateful for Jon and Marc. This thing is extraordinarily huge and spectacular and beautiful, with the flying monkeys and the sets and Paul Tazewell’s costumes. It’s all larger than life, but it felt so incredibly intimate and real and honest and that’s thanks to the people who are sitting around me right now. I’m so grateful.

Can you talk about the decision to use such massive practical sets on this film? I imagine there was an easier way to do this, but I don’t know if there was a more awe-inspiring way.
MP: I’ll let Jon take that because I spent twenty years envisioning what a movie might be, wanting it to be real and authentic. He helped us navigate that from his extraordinary imagination.

JMC: When you visit Oz, the bar is high. Right now in movies, the bar is high. People want to see and experience something that sweeps you away—it’s why I fell in love with movies in the first place. And [Production Designer] Nathan Crowley is a little shit-starter as well! He was like, let’s build it [laughs].

We were looking at Shiz University and thought, there have been so many magic schools. But in the L. Frank Baum books, it says all the places are connected by waterways. Let’s build it [laughs]. We were like, yeah they’re going to hate us! But I said, it’s okay we’ll figure it out.

AG: The tulips!

JMC: The tulips. Nine. Million. Tulips. The train is real. A sixty-ton train on real tracks. We had an amazing engineering team. I mean, VFX is all over this thing too—it was a combination. VFX would say, “Build as much as you can. It really helps us.” We were all in it together, conspiring to figure out how to do it.

But the reality was, when we ask questions about something like Munchkinland, it seems very simple. Munchkinland, we all know Munchkinland! But if this is going to play through both movies, this has to be the place that we want to exist, this has to be the place that Glinda and Elphaba are willing to sacrifice their lives for. Then there are the people in Munchkinland—who are they? Why would they just leave? Then we have to build a culture. Then we have to dive further in—what’s the culture? They cultivate the colors of Oz. Maybe they harvest the honey and the sugar. They could cultivate the joy of Oz. This is the pure Oz. The Wizard has come in and said, don’t worry, don’t fear. Follow this yellow brick road. They’re innocent and they want to be optimistic. That relationship is there from the very beginning of the movie. Even though it’s barely explored in this movie, establishing the real things is very important because by building a reality that you could touch and you could scratch, then the stakes of these two women are real stakes. In this film, we drop you into a crime scene! What you think is blood is actually water. You see a blue feather and a little evidence that you’ll find out about later. And you end up at the most famous crime scene in the world—that hat! Then you burst in, and it’s not just a skip around the land. No, you’re going to see the land. This land exists, and these people live within that. To me, that was our starting place. Instead of, she’s just a witch, she’s the green girl.

When I see both of them together in Defying Gravity, talk about masterful work. One person’s ascending. One person is getting the confidence, believing in herself and escalating to the top, while one is not quite ready. And you can’t hate her for not being ready, because that’s kind of where we are, as the audience. We start with Elphaba and she grows in power in ways that we wish we could. And then when she takes off, we’re sort of Glinda. We wish we could do that. And hopefully in movie two, we start to maybe see the pathways for us. They all play together in that sense.

Can you talk about the comic timing in the film? You’re both very funny, but in very different ways.
CE: Jon just let us play. We were mischievous. Some of it is scripted; some of it is not. I think most of my comedy is in the roll of my eyes.

AG: It’s so good.

CE: But the thing is, they’re just responses. When I first saw it, there were eye rolls that I don’t remember doing. Those were things that I naturally responded to in that way, and Jon would catch them, and he would just say, go with it, react, be there… and then if I’m in a room with Glinda—with Ari—I’m just, I’m alive. I’m waiting. I’m open. I want to see what I’m going to get, because she’s a live wire, you know? You get this wonderful tennis match that we get to play, so the comedic timing is literally OUR timing.

AG: It’s still honest, too. We like surprising each other, and surprising Jonathan [Bailey]! We would always get one take where we say what’s on the page. And then we would get like twenty of them where we’re just kind of messing around. That was my favorite part—being surprised by what actually made it into the film. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that nonsense thing I said is in the film! Another great part was collaborating to find our physicality, like on Popular with our brilliant choreographer, Chris Scott. He had this amazingly choreographed number, and it was perfect, literally perfect. And then he came in and he showed it to me, and I said, I love it. Now we have to “Galindify” it. And we found certain little beats together, like with “you’ll be good at sports.” He  was going to train me to have the ball spin on my finger, but I was like, oh no, please can we have it fall off and I still think it’s there? I think it’s there, but it’s not there. We had such an incredibly collaborative, open, and playful group of creatives. It was really fun.
 

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW NAMES 2024 HONOREES

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NBR Awards Gala to Take Place on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 in New York City

New York, NY (December 4, 2024) – The National Board of Review (NBR) announced today their 2024 honorees, with top awards including Wicked for Best Film; Jon M. Chu for Best Director for Wicked; Daniel Craig for Best Actor for Queer; and Nicole Kidman for Best Actress for Babygirl. This year, the NBR will present the NBR Spotlight Award to Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande for their creative collaboration in Wicked.

“Wicked represents the pure magic that movies can bring to audiences. Every detail is beautifully crafted and designed, the actors are all exceptional and the music is second-to-none – together it adds up to a transporting experience like no other. The NBR is proud to honor director Jon M. Chu and his remarkable cinematic vision,” said NBR President Annie Schulhof.

Established in 1909, the NBR recognizes excellence in filmmaking. This year, 246 films were viewed by a select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals, academics, and students, many of which were followed by in-depth discussions with directors, actors, producers, and screenwriters. Ballots were tabulated by the accounting firm of Lutz and Carr CPA.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate the art of cinema, with categories that include Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Breakthrough Performance, Best Directorial Debut, Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography and Outstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry.

The honorees will be fêted at the NBR Awards Gala, hosted by Willie Geist (Host, NBC News’ Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist and co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe) on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 at Cipriani 42nd Street, in New York City.

Below is a full list of the 2024 award recipients, announced by the National Board of Review:

Best Film: Wicked

Best Director: Jon M. Chu, Wicked

Best Actor: Daniel Craig, Queer

Best Actress: Nicole Kidman, Babygirl

Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Best Supporting Actress: Elle Fanning, A Complete Unknown

Best Ensemble: Conclave

Breakthrough Performance: Mikey Madison, Anora

Best Directorial Debut: India Donaldson, Good One

Best Original Screenplay: Mike Leigh, Hard Truths

Best Adapted Screenplay: Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing

NBR Spotlight Award: Creative Collaboration of Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande

NBR Freedom of Expression Award: No Other Land

Best Animated Feature: Flow

Best International Film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Best Documentary: Sugarcane

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Jarin Blaschke, Nosferatu

Outstanding Achievement in Stunt Artistry: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Top Films (in alphabetical order):
Anora
Babygirl
A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Gladiator II
Juror #2
Queer
A Real Pain
Sing Sing

Top 5 International Films (in alphabetical order):
All We Imagine as Light
The Girl with the Needle
I’m Still Here
Santosh
Universal Language

Top 5 Documentaries (in alphabetical order):
Black Box Diaries
Dahomey
Look Into My Eyes
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
Will & Harper

Top 10 Independent Films (in alphabetical order):
Bird
A Different Man
Dìdi
Ghostlight
Good One
Hard Truths
His Three Daughters
Love Lies Bleeding
My Old Ass
Thelma

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year, this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year. Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, foreign-language, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with Directorial Debut and Breakthrough Performance awards as well as grants to rising film students. With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come.

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

# # #

TO APPLY FOR MEDIA CREDENTIALS TO COVER THE RED CARPET, PLEASE FILL OUT THE ATTACHED APPLICATION NO LATER THAN MONDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2024 –
MEDIA CREDENTIAL APPLICATION LINK

Press Contacts:
Shawn Purdy / Alicia Mohr / Elyse Weissman – SLATE PR
shawn@slate-pr.com / aliciam@slate-pr.com / elyse@slate-pr.com

THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW TO ANNOUNCE AWARDS RECIPIENTS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2024

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NBR Awards Gala to Take Place on Tuesday, January 7, 2025
in New York City

New York, NY (September 4, 2024)  – The National Board of Review will announce the recipients of the 2024 NBR Awards on Wednesday, December 4, 2024. The NBR Awardees will be fêted at a gala event on Tuesday, January 7, 2025 in New York City, hosted by Willie Geist; host, NBC News’ Sunday TODAY and co-host, MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate excellence in filmmaking with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best International Film, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Performance, Directorial Debut, Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography and Stunt Artistry. Additionally, they award signature honors such as the NBR Icon Award, NBR Freedom of Expression, and the William K. Everson Award for Film History.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year, this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year. Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, foreign-language, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with Directorial Debut and Breakthrough Performance awards as well as grants to rising film students. With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come.

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

# # #

Press Contacts:
Shawn Purdy / Alicia Mohr / Lindsey Brown – SLATE PR
shawn@slate-pr.com / aliciam@slate-pr.com / lindsey@slate-pr.com

Q&A with Austin Peters

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

Can you talk about the decision to set the film in 2013, and why that specific year was the right choice for this story?
Austin Peters: If you think about where we, as a country, were at in 2013… It was such a different time. The sort of depths of the darkness that exist online we were aware of, but not in the way that we are now. And it didn’t feel as dangerous, these social media platforms and the things that we know about them now, what they do and what sort of scams are run on them. That was really outside of our line of vision at the time in many ways. And especially for someone like Hope, who’s so… offline, and has built her whole career on face to face relationships, and being in person and all that sort of thing.

When she starts thinking about putting herself online, building a brand, that entire idea is like a foreign language to her. And so you know, it felt crucial to set this story in the modern era, but not quite in the time we’re in now. It felt that if this story happened in the present day, it just would not play the same way because we know so much more about the internet and we have so many more tools, and falling into this dark underbelly of the Internet and the city like she does would require almost different pathway, I think, for that to happen now because we know so much more.

we sent her the script almost as a gag

How did Elizabeth Banks get involved in the film?
AP: Well you know Elizabeth was the person who signed on to this movie, she was our first choice to play Hope Goldman and we thought there was never a chance in hell that she was going to do this movie, which is so small and dark. After all, she’s a very successful producer and director and also a movie star! And all of those things led us to believe that she would never be interested in this. And we sent her the script, almost as a gag. And she responded to it, and we talked about it. And then once that happened… This movie became a real thing that people could see in the script, because you could understand what kind of part this was for Elizabeth.

And for me, just as a fan of hers, this is the movie that I wanted to see her in, you know? And she blew me away every single day: she would be jumping between scenes in the beginning and scenes at the end of the movie within the space of a few minutes. We shot for 18 days, so some of the days we would have to do, you know, six scenes that were from all over the timeline of the story, and she would just go between where this character was … it was kind of breathtaking to watch, honestly.

And our producers Jonathan Schwartz and Logan Lerman had worked with Lewis Pullman on a previous film, and they really loved him. I’m so grateful that we went with Lewis because I think that he brings so much to that character. You know, and, and obviously Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is so amazing. And so we just went for all these people that we thought were not going to do it, and they agreed to do it!

The work done behind the camera was exceptional as well. Can you discuss building the team? The music, makeup, camera work… all of it was just phenomenal.
AP: Oh, I’m so glad that it worked for you. The Director of Photography is Christopher Ripley and he’s amazing. And he’s sort of a mad scientist that I had shot some music videos with, and he is constantly working. He’s done videos for some of biggest artists, their most exciting videos. Megan Thee Stallion, Bad Bunny, Harry Styles… And he got wind that I was making this movie and he called me and he said, “can we talk about it?” And he read the script and he immediately stopped doing everything else while we were in prep, turning down all the jobs, just coming to my house every day: talking about the movie, looking at photos, looking at movies, doing page-turns for the script…And so he really was an amazing collaborator.

The score is by Fatima [Al Qadiri], who I am a massive, massive fan of. She did the score for a film called Atlantics in 2019 that won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and when I watched that film I was so smitten by the whole movie, and I thought the music was such amazing an part of it. I had sort of known about her then, and I wrote down her name because I thought maybe she would be interested in doing an American movie—and this is her first American film. So we got connected and I loved the score that she did here.

And Laura Zempel, the editor, is an enormous talent. This is her second or third movie, but she does a lot of TV. She did Euphoria, and Beef, and Lessons in Chemistry… and the costumes by Angelina Vitto were really important to us, obviously, to set us in 2013. And because this character is someone who is constantly thinking about how she appears and what she looks like, even when her life is crumbling, and even when her sanity is crumbling, she is constantly trying to present herself in a certain way. So we just knew that every outfit had to be a very specific look. She always had to be giving a look. And Angelina was an enormous talent. Liz Toonkel did the production design: she had a huge stack of architectural digests from 2008 to 2012, to get a sense of what places looked like, and she bought a book by Kate Somerville, who was one of the first celebrity facialists circa 2013. So there’s all these photos of her studio and what it looked like because it’s sort of… now we’re almost getting there, but 2013 is sort of long enough ago that it feels really jarring and out of date, but it also doesn’t feel like a period necessarily. You don’t immediately register that this is a time period thing, you know?

What was it like to direct a narrative feature for the first time, after directing TV, music videos, and documentaries in the past? Were those skills transferable to this project?
AP: What was transferable was working on set and collaborating with people. Doing music videos, I think what you learn is that you have to get it done, you know, you have one day with the artist and if it doesn’t come out right, it’s your fault. There are no reshoots, and that’s what it is. And there’s never enough money on music videos. And so, you have to sort of train yourself to get the strongest image you possibly can, and know when you have to compromise, and know when you can push.

And so those sorts of learning experiences were helpful, in terms of going on set and bringing that to it. That said, I had never worked with actors. That’s different from working with musicians on a video, you know, because musicians create something in a studio and then the video is the supplementary part of it… whereas with actors, the moment of creation is on set.

And so getting to be a part of that and, and doing that with them was really thrilling. The thing that was the most confusing for me, even having done documentary, was the absolute scale of it in prep and really in post. I just could not… it sounds so stupid to say now, so I should stop saying it, but I could not believe how big it was when we got into the edit. I could not believe that we would spend all day working on one scene. And the next morning look at it and be like, “is it better?” And it was so uncertain, and that was something that I didn’t know was coming, and I was lucky to work with Laura, who is a genius, and I could lean on her because she only lives in narrative. She’s never done a commercial, she’s never done a music video, even though I would love to see her do both of those things! But she is only in storytelling and so, she was someone that I could lean on in that in that process.