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.

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?”
This is something of a personal story, correct?
Ari Aster: The beautiful thing about genre filmmaking and the horror genre in general is that you can take a personal story or feeling that you need to work through and push it through this filter
How did you end up bringing it to the screen?
Daniel Pearle: Jim Parsons read the play and he had just started his company, That’s Wonderful.