It’s not your first time directing a Mission: Impossible film, and you’re the first director to come back. I hear you were kind of hesitant about that. Why?
Christopher McQuarrie: I had worked on Ghost Protocol. I came in midway through and was working on that movie. I saw Brad Bird going through what could only be described as a meat grinder.
Can you talk about the collaboration between the two of you in terms of writing, producing, and performing this?
Rafael Casal: Yeah, Diggs, can you?
Daveed Diggs: I mean we’ve been working on this for ten years at this point with our two producing partners the whole time, Jess and Keith Calder.
What are the origins of the script?
Gus Van Sant: I live in Portland, Oregon. I had moved there, I think, in 1982. I had made a couple of films, and John Callahan was a visible, local character.
Let’s start from the beginning. Where did this come from?
Boots Riley: I knew I wanted to write something that happened in the world of telemarketing.
The letter’s from a five year old boy and it says, “Dear Mr. Rogers, are you for real? Are you for real or not?”