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Q&A with Sean Baker and Mikey Madison

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

Sean, you always treat your characters with such humanity and respect. How did you come up with a character like Anora?
Sean Baker: The origin of this story goes way back, about fifteen years. Karren Karagulian—who plays Toros in the film—is a good friend, he’s been in all of my films, and we were trying to figure out a story that took place in the Brighton Beach/Coney Island area for a very long time. I heard a few stories that involved the Russian mafia in that area and there was one story about a woman who married the wrong man. She realized she married a gangster, someone irresponsible, and the seed of the idea sparked from that. Anora was a character that I drew on from many of the sex workers I had met over the years. I wanted her to be a very strong protagonist with a strong New York attitude. I always thought of her as a scrapper, somebody who could hold their own in a fight if they got themselves into one. Somebody who’s independent, and who is fun. When we were moving forward with the film, I had my eyes open for somebody who could be our Anora. And this happened to be right around the opening weekend of Scream. I had seen Mikey [Madison] in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and I loved her performance in that film so much. She really stole the last fifteen minutes of the movie. She was in my head already as a potential somebody that I wanted to work with at some point. And when I saw Scream, with the combination of those two performances, she showed me everything I needed for Anora—the range, the intensity, the attitude. I turned to my wife and producer, Samantha Quan, in the theater while watching Scream, and said, We’re going to call Mikey’s reps the minute we step out of the theater. I was that convinced. We had a meeting, we connected, and I was able to then go off and write this screenplay while knowing that it was going to be Mikey. I had her in my head as I was developing this character.

nobody is just angry or wanting to fight—there’s pain underneath that.

Anora is such an intense and ferocious character, but there’s an understated vulnerability. How did you weave that into the performance?
Mikey Madison: I always saw her as someone who was deeply vulnerable on the inside but is constantly protecting herself by covering it up with anger and spunk. Because nobody is just angry or wanting to fight—there’s pain underneath that. I was very aware that that needed to be on the inside. It comes out in some private moments where you get to see the facade crack a little bit, and see some of that vulnerability, which is needed for a character like this.

I imagine the preparation was fairly intensive for this film—from the accents and the dancing to the general cultural environment.
SB: I’ll just start by saying that as a director, I was blessed with an actor who was beyond dedicated to taking on the accent and taking on pages and pages of dialogue in a language she doesn’t know. There were like four pages of Russian dialogue she had to learn. And then, of course, all the physicality. Mikey did her own stunts in the home invasion scene. And the dancing—she took months of pole dancing classes. We also had to choreograph the erotic dance that she gives on that second date when she goes to the mansion. There was so much preparation.  

You also hired a lot of strippers to act in the film. How did you work with them to help portray this world accurately and honestly?
MM: There were some amazing consultants that we had on the film and I was able to talk at length to them about what their work is like. I think that was vital to my performance. I also shadowed dancers at the club, observed, got some dances… I was taught by a dancer named in Kendi in Los Angeles how to get a lap dance, how to twerk, how to dance on the pole. I really wanted to go upside down. I wanted Anora to seem like she was very seasoned, like she’s been dancing for years. I had a handful of months to really master that, but I’m very stubborn and I was determined to get her to the place we see in the film. Then obviously there’s amazing women who are actresses and real dancers in the film, for example, Lindsey [Normington] and Luna [Sofía Miranda], who play some of the girls in the group.

SB: They play Diamond and Lulu.

MM: Yes, Diamond and Lulu. They were amazing and were able to offer so much insight into the kind of work that they do. I think that really helped create a realistic environment.

SB: Our chief consultant was Andrea Werhun, who wrote an incredible memoir called Modern Whore. It came out a couple of years ago and it was so insightful. It was a reflection on when she was younger, being both an escort and dancer. So it really applied to this character of Ani. Mikey was able to consult with her. Andrea read our script and gave us notes and details of the world that only you would know being in that world. It was incredibly vital to have consultants on board—for accuracy, but also to make sure that the representation was responsible and respectful. Hearing their feedback throughout all stages of the production was invaluable.

MM: It was also a catalyst for me as an actress to want to study and do as much research as I could and completely dive into the character in an even bigger way than I have before because everyone around me had similar lived experiences to my character. I wanted to seamlessly blend in; I didn’t want to stand out in any particular way. I didn’t want to look like an actress. I wanted it to look like I was really a dancer. To be around that kind of energy and to be in the club, listening to what the girls were saying, I was able to implement that into the improvisation as well. It was wonderful.

SB: Yeah, these women brought the vernacular, the slang, and they also helped us with the soundtrack. Like saying which songs are of this world and that will really show that we know what we’re doing. There were a few songs there that came directly from our consultants telling us that we must have a Slayyter song in the film.

The first five minutes of the film really puts the audience in that place and it feels so authentic.
SB: That’s all Mikey. That is probably the least scripted section of the film. Basically, I just wanted to set up the mechanics of the club, a night in the life of Ani before she meets Ivan. I had Robert Altman on my mind while we shot the opening. We had to have the club up and running. I mean, of course, they were all our people, but there were also background actors playing our clients and the dancers interacting with them. The music was blasting. We had our producer Alex Coco literally DJing and that’s usually a no-no, because you can’t marry music with dialogue. But like I said, I wanted the vibe of the club. I wanted to see people moving to the music and feeling like they were in this environment. Having to raise their voices over the music so it’s very realistic. We had a wireless mic on Mikey and we just followed her around with a telephoto lens for thirty minutes. We were shooting on film. We had a ten-minute mag, and another ten-minute mag, we just ran out the whole ten minutes one at a time. She had an earpiece, and I would say, okay, now approach the man on the right. And I would just watch her, having done so much research, it was incredible to see that she was giving the exposition to her improv. She was hitting all the beats I needed to really set up this world in that short four to five minutes before she meets Ivan. She’s incredible.

All the locations in the film are fabulous, but we need to talk about the mansion because it’s insane that house exists in New York City.
SB: I was sitting in my West Hollywood apartment writing this thing, and we were getting close to production and I was like, I’m going to need to find this mansion. So I literally just googled, “biggest and best mansion in Sheepshead Bay.” And it pops up! And it happened to have been on the market a few years ago. I’m going, Oh my god, this is the location. I told my incredible location manager, Ross Brodar, who had already locked these other incredible locations, Get that pie for me. It was actually designed for and lived in by a Russian oligarch up until the beginning of Covid. And then he sold it off to a local Russian American who grew up in the neighborhood. He was very proud of the house and was very happy with us shooting there and was extremely gracious by allowing us to shoot there for about three weeks. It’s in Mill Basin, actually.

Shooting the home invasion scene took eight days. Can you two break that down?
MM: I think the most challenging part, or the most time consuming, was just trying to block all of it. To choreograph the stunts because it’s such a big sequence with so many different characters and moving parts. We took a lot of time in rehearsal to block out where we would be at each point, when this next scene needs to happen, and then we’d go through it all kind of half speed. And then you just have to jump in and shoot. Nothing could prepare me for what that might feel like, I have to knock over this lamp and turn that vase over… I also had to know, in terms of stamina, how many scenes I would be able to do at full speed, at full energy, so I kept that in mind. I tried to get it right on the first take.

SB: Also the screaming, right? After like the fifth take or sixth take of the big screaming, Mikey was like, we should probably stop for today or we’re gonna lose my voice. Everybody had to be on board, you know? The cast and crew understood that this had to play out in real time. So we had to have our coverage. And there was a lot. I think that’s probably the difference between this sequence and the other sequences in the film—I had to over cover myself.  The other thing is that we’re shooting over eight days with all that glass. There are going to be some weather changes. And it’s not always going to be that overcast, the way it’s supposed to be throughout the film. Sometimes the sun will pop. But my wonderful cinematographer, Drew Daniels, and our gaffer, Chris Hill, they got it. They were even like calculating and timing when the sun would pop, and we’d use those sections. Hopefully it’s subtly worked in, but there are moments where the sun will shine through, and, for example, Toros runs by with the scarf, and that allowed a big flare into the lens. There was a lot of thought put into it. I really have to thank my incredible crew and cast for making it happen.

The sequence is so funny because she’s outwitting and outfighting them… but also, there are three strange men that are trying to physically restrain her, and that seems terrifying. It’s a balancing act.
MM: I think that’s one of the reasons why Ani fights so hard. She’s fighting for her life in every single sequence because she doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her. But at the same time, playing her, I know that these scenes will be funny just because of the situation that she’s in. But Ani doesn’t think it’s funny. That’s one of the things I really appreciate about Sean. He takes a scene like that, which could go such a different way, such a dark way, and he makes it something that nobody expects. He inserts his sort of dark comedy into it, which I love. I think we share a similar sensibility in terms of what we think is funny.

Q&A with Jesse Eisenberg, Jennifer Grey, Will Sharpe, and Kieran Culkin

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

Jesse, what inspired this story? I understand it was a long road for you, between the initial idea and getting it up on the screen?
Jesse Eisenberg: Yeah, I’d been, like, sitting with the seeds of this movie for twenty years. My wife and I took a trip to Poland to see where my family’s from; turns out her family’s also from there, so we were kind of visiting both sites. And we essentially went to all of the stops that the characters visit in this movie, and ultimately wound up at the house in the movie, which is the actual house that my family lived in up until 1939. And, you know, I was standing outside the house (this was 16 years ago), expecting to have some amazing catharsis… and nothing was coming, and then I realized I was just a weird, invasive person standing outside a house in Poland. And it was that feeling, that strange dissonance, that kind of always stuck with me. Why didn’t I feel something? Why was I so disconnected from something that’s not too far off, historically? And so you know, as I wrote different things throughout the years, I would touch on these kind of themes… the materially comfortable privilege being disconnected from, from real world historical pain. And so that’s kind of where the seed began for this.

When you work with brilliant people, they come up with stuff like that.

What excited you about the script and got you on board with the project?
Kieran Culkin: I mean, I just I loved the script – it was beautifully written. It was one of those rare things where I read it and just loved this character and got excited about getting in there and having fun and jumping in. I think the character was just so surprising and spontaneous. I didn’t really know what he was going to say or do next! Just when I thought I had a good sense of who he was, he would do something else entirely. And I just wanted to go in there and do it, and not really prepare it, and see what was going to come out. That was sort of the exciting part. It’s a great script.

Jennifer Grey: I loved every word of the script. And I saw the movie when I read it, and I loved the movie when I read it. And I just wanted to be part of the journey with these incredible, smart, talented people that I admire. And it’s gotten to the point in life where, when you’re offered something this beautiful, you just think, “oh my god, gorgeous things are possible in life.”

Will Sharpe: I mean, I second everything that’s been said already. It was a really fully formed, precise script. One of the most beautiful scripts that I’d ever read. I felt like the tone was so clear. It was making me laugh, but there was also something profound that was being asked of the reader and now the audience. I felt like, even though they were quite complex, kind of nuanced questions, I felt like I knew exactly what Jesse was trying to say. So, yeah, I was just excited to talk with him about it and to be a part of it.

The tonal shifts of the film are incredible. It has a seriousness to it, but also incredible humor. How did you all create the relationships that we’re seeing throughout the film?
KC: I mean, to me it was all there on the page. And sometimes you get lucky, I guess, when you can actually just do what’s there. You don’t have to fill in any gaps. And that’s what happened here. There wasn’t a lot of work from us, right? I mean, it was right there.

JG: I met you, and you talked to me, and I felt that kindred spirit… thing chemistry that has to do with feeling seen, and seeing into somebody and I just saw your magic. I saw it before I met you, but then when I met you, I was like, it pierced me, your magic. And it was really exciting, and all I wanted to do was just play with you all the time!

KC: It was in the script. I’m just doing my job. I don’t know… what’s cool about Benji is, he just tries to get right into people, in a way, and tries to find the best avenue in there, which, as it turns out for our scenes, was just by being… I don’t know, I called you a fucking loser. And just to get in there and make fun of you. Yeah, maybe I was being flirty… fine, if you want. But then it took a different turn when it came to talking to [Will’s character] because, like, it was hard to penetrate that guy because, you know, he’s our tour guide and he’s pretty seriously smart. So that came out in the form of, like, criticizing him and berating him and telling him how he’s doing his job. But it got to the real person, and that just, like, worked and was a lot of fun.

WS: Yeah, I mean I think the tonal shifts were inherent in the script. And I feel like so much of the humor and the kind of light handedness was all there in the plan. But what I felt as I read it, and what I feel as I watch it now, is that that kind of light handedness sort of allows for a space for the more serious, profound questions to flow through. And that seemed to me like a kind of, almost sort of magic trick. It just felt like such depth in filmmaking. So if you’re asking me to explain that magic trick, it wasn’t me who did it!

JE: We just got really lucky. The actors just understood the exact tone, and I guess, to me… it’s my taste, so it seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but it is an unusual tone. And so, we just got so lucky that everybody kind of understood it. That’s something that, you know, if it’s one percent too comic, it would make the movie feel too light and irreverent, and then if it’s one percent too serious, it would make the movie feel kind of deadened and academic and kind of… you know, like the movie is kind of asking the audience to pat it on the back for being about these important themes.

One scene that really impressed me is kind of at the end of the trip, when James wishes them farewell and has this long, dramatic goodbye with Benji. And to David, he literally just waves and walks away. And it had the same kick for me the second time I watched it: I just laughed even more. How did you guys go about that scene? Was that an improv?
JE: Yeah. So the scene was this long, scripted, thing where Will is just, you know, pouring his heart out and Kieran is just saying like, “what? I don’t remember saying that…That sounds great.” And the point was that he’s just this frustrating, adorable character who kind of goes through the world and yells at people and doesn’t worry about it. And then when they tell him that, “actually when you yelled at me you changed my life,” he’s like, “oh, that sounds awesome.” As though everything’s new. You know, the dog who forgets that he just ate. And so in that scene, Will was supposed to just kind of walk off, without acknowledging my character. But in the last take, and it might have even been the only take, Will (a comic genius), turns to me and goes, “thanks David!” and abruptly leaves. And I was off camera, which was lucky because I was laughing so hard. And I turned to the producer and I was like, “that is so unbelievably funny… and will be nowhere near the movie.” Because I just thought it was too funny. And I thought the movie couldn’t support a joke like that. And then the editor and I are sitting in the room six months later… And I was like, “oh yeah, go look at this really funny thing.” And he was like, “yeah, it’s great, it’s great.” So it’s in the movie and not only is it great as a one-off thing, but it’s also great where it takes place in the movie because we’ve just been on this kind of long journey to this camp and it’s been quite somber. And it gets you back into this sly tone. It gets you back into the sphere of the kind of lightness of the character’s relationship. I’m so indebted to Will for that moment. It’s great. When you work with brilliant people, they come up with stuff like that.

Q&A with Halina Reijn and Nicole Kidman

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

A lot of people have talked about the content of this film being edgy and subversive, but it’s actually a pretty sweet story about self-acceptance. Can you talk diving into that idea?
Halina Reijn: For me, that’s core of the film. There was a question that I wanted to ask myself. Is it possible to love all the different parts of yourself? Not just the ones that we like to present to each other or the outside world, but also the parts that are darker and more shameful and that make you nervous. And so that was the core question that we had with this movie.

everything becomes performative.

And why did you choose this particular story to explore that?
HR: Well, I also wanted to make it light and not too self-serious or pretentious. I started to play with a tone that was maybe a comedy of manners, maybe a little bit of a fairy tale and fable. Then I thought it would be fun to have a woman who was very powerful, and a young man who was trying to find his way as a man, because for me it’s also very much about masculinity and not only femininity. I had the idea that he would be her intern, that he would dominate her sexually, because I thought that was a fun sort of twist and hook. Something that was also in conversation was the sexual thrillers of the 90s. I love those films, but I always felt in the end someone was punished, or killed or died, and I didn’t want that for this story. I love to show that everybody’s human and we’re all ambiguous. We all have a beast in us and an angel.

Romy is such a complex character, and it feels like much of that is held under the surface. Your performance is somehow very controlled and very uninhibited at the same time. How did you connect with the character?
Nicole Kidman: Just the minute I heard it was called Babygirl, I was like, I want to play Babygirl! I knew of Helena’s work. I sort of seek out women to work with and support. There are up-and-coming directors who are either starting or restarting their careers. We were already talking about things because she was writing something else for me.

Then I heard she was writing Babygirl, and she hadn’t mentioned it to me. But then it appeared and as soon as I read it, I was completely absorbed. I called and her and went, Oh my god, please, can I do this with you? My husband happens to have a “babygirl” tattoo on the back of his neck, so that seems to be destiny!

I just understood it and I understood that it was also fun, that it was sexy, that there was so many different things it was circling. We talked about it and bonded over it. I told Halina that I was in her hands, in her world, in her playground, and let’s go. From that point on, we were kind of joined. What’s beautiful is that when you work with a director who’s also the writer, they start to write for you, they rewrite it, they shape it, they change it, and it sort of morphed along the way. Even when we were filming, she would be working at night. She’d come in the next morning and ask, how about this? Or late night at night after we’d finished, I’d call her and ask, What about this, or I’m feeling this. She would absorb it, and then we’d explore that the next day. We had a limited budget, we were trying to shoot so many scenes, and she’s relentless. We had an amazing crew and an amazing cinematographer. If it started raining, we’d shoot in the rain. Whatever it was, we would adapt.

HR: That was also incredible for me! We were sometimes shooting in the streets, and the cinematographer is Jasper Wolf, he’s Dutch. He loves to improvise, and he thinks that he shot this movie in the Amazon [laughs]. He’s very much an adventurer. I’m not at all! But he’s very hands-on. While we were shooting in the street, like you said, it was raining, remember? And then you [Nicole] went into this taxi!

NK: I flagged a cab and got in the cab in the scene. And the guy was looking at me.

HR: Because it was a real cab!

NK: And I had no money on me! I’m like, I need to find my wallet. The production can’t afford it [laughs]. It was just that kind of filmmaking experience. It’s so alive and that I think is what you capture. So that’s probably what you feel and see on the screen. Even seeing that set piece for the song Father Figure… we had the hotel room for the day. That’s it. Halina had written a structure to it, but she was like, I still want you to find things. And it was a constant discovery and exploration, which is really exciting as an actor. At the same time, so many of the scenes were so structured. So many of them had a rhythm of the dialogue and the back and forth of the game they were playing, and who had such a strong grasp of the power. When it starts, how it starts, when the power shifts, it was all extremely thought-out ahead of time. And hopefully it’s funny. I found it very funny! Among other things.

HR: The system that we created with each other, with the actors, was that we wanted to be very prepared. Everyone learned their lines very well. We talked in detail about the blocking and the choreography, so everyone felt confident and safe. And then, you can let it go in the moment and be open to whatever they bring, to really collaborate in the moment. Because of course the tension between Romy and Samuel for me is electrifying. That’s because we were so prepared. Only then, can you totally let go. They have these long scenes—the mentor meetings in this kind of basement office room. These are very long takes with a lot of dialogue. The scene in the hotel room was very long too. We built that in the studio and it was only me, Nicole, Harris, and Jasper the DP in there. We prepared that very well, and then we just did huge takes, like a theater play. I come from the theater, so that’s all I know. I like to look at it as a play. You get so much if you get to do the whole thing. They were excellent—you need very, very talented actors. What we had found with the tone was that “everything is performance.”  This woman has this feeling that she needs to be a good mother, a good wife, a good leader, a good lover. And everything becomes performative. And we kind of wanted to show that almost breaking through the fourth wall when Harris, for instance, says, Get on your knees, and then Romy is like, Oh, sorry. She’s going in and out of it, so it almost shows that Romy is acting. And that I think they did that exceptionally well. That’s where the humor and the humanity comes from for me.

NK: Because a lot of times with sexuality in film, the way in which it’s done, it’s all so perfect. And we wanted to show it’s real. And so that’s why Halina would sometimes say, if you feel like laughing, then laugh. So there’s an awkwardness, because rarely does someone enter into a sexual game and it’s all perfect and you know exactly how to behave. It’s awkward. You’re finding your way and then suddenly before you know it, you’re overcome with what hits you, and then you’re not, and then you are. That messiness of it is hard to capture on film. There are exceptions. I mean, sure, with Cassavetes, when you look at Gena Rowlands and her performances, it was beautiful how he would capture her, but it’s difficult. Having a woman direct you as a woman in this, it’s very safe. I felt like she was there to protect me and take care of me, and I knew I wouldn’t be put in a position where I felt dominated or like I didn’t have any power. Halina made it safe for all of us as actors, because she’s been an actor. She’s been on stage, she’s been in films, she knows the process, and she knows what you start to feel. Some days we’d come in and we’d be like, okay, what next? And she could perform it for you. We wouldn’t necessarily do exactly what she did, but she would share ideas. She would be crawling around on the floor! That’s the beauty of having someone who completely understands the material.

HR: Acting for me always felt it was so vulnerable. It can be embarrassing. Even if you’re doing a comedy scene, everybody’s just standing there with their North Face jackets, like, what is she going to do now? Meanwhile you’re crawling around. I think it would be helpful for me if I was acting and the director was like, okay, get on the floor. It’s not a method everyone should use, but it’s my language, to be the one of the floor first. So the actors feel like we are in this together. Because it can be quite humiliating as a profession. You feel like a clown that has to dance for everyone, and that’s not a nice feeling! If you do it together, it’s easier to go into vulnerable places, and then you can use those nerves, use that shame, use them in the scene and make it a weapon.

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.