How did the two of you first connect, and when did you know that you were going to make this film together?
Jesse Short Bull: Laura and I first met in a parking lot of a hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota… and we met nervously, over a cigarette or two or three.
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.
Speaking of actually having a greater scale and a greater budget, what was the coolest special effect that you got to deploy in this film?
JS: I mean, I loved making the monsters. From the very beginning, I remember thinking, for the next film? Let’s go monsters.
We’d been trying to cast Sam for months. And we were having a really hard time. My younger sister was, at the time, an eighteen-year-old senior in high school. Almost as a joke, I asked her, do you know any actors? Like, help me out here! And that was how I found Lily. I still can’t believe that’s our story.
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?
What is it like finally bringing a film into the world after you’ve been working on it for close to five years?
Gints Zilbalodis: It’s been very intense, and very strange, sitting in a room by yourself for such a long time and then going to twenty or thirty places and meeting crowds of people.
Can you talk about bringing Furiosa to the screen, particularly as it relates to the previous film and the way they were, in some sense, created simultaneously?
George Miller: That’s exactly right. The movies made three decades ago really weren’t connected except for the Max character.
The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Sorry, Baby. The film feels like you have a lot of trust in the audience to be patient, to wait for explanations, and to understand nuance. Was it that way during development?Eva Victor: Yes. I was honestly forced to be […]
Can you start by telling us about your exposure to Flannery O’Connor throughout your life?
Ethan Hawke: I was first given Flannery O’Connor by my mother, who was trying to prompt the inner feminist in me. Because all I was doing was reading guys.
I love what you said about how the book never judges its characters, despite their actions. How did that inform you as you began to adapt the book?
Emerald Fennell: I think everyone in this book is kind of deeply troubling. That’s what makes it such a masterpiece, you know? The sum of its parts and the sum of their parts are so much more.
Congratulations on this powerful and sensitive film. When did Alexandra Fuller’s book first come to your attention, and what made you want to adapt it and take on so many roles?
Embeth Davitz: I read the book when it came out in 2003, and it just stayed with me.
Can you tell us how you first learned about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program?
Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin: One night, I was going into the yard, but it got closed down, so everybody got directed to the theater. And while I was in the theater, there was a play going on—One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I believe, with my brother Dino Johnson. I got to witness these brothers doing some creative work that I didn’t expect, because I know them from the yard. I’ve seen them in the yard, I’ve seen them in the gym, I’ve seen them everywhere. But when I see them up on stage, the camaraderie that they had with each other was a beautiful thing to witness and I wanted to be a part of that
You mentioned the first act was the hardest to edit. Can you expand on that?
Christopher McQuarrie: Every time we finish one of these movies, we’re at the premiere and in that moment where the film ends but right before the credits start, Tom will lean over and say, “we could do better.” We came away from Dead Reckoning knowing not only that we could do it, but we had to do it.
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.
It’s such a beautiful film with no false notes. I wasn’t surprised to hear it was influenced by personal experience. What was it like to write this and then find someone to portray the protagonist?
Carla Simón: For me, the writing part was quite organic because I had done two previous films that already were inspired by my own story and my family. This was a bit like another chapter. It was interesting because the film was born out of my frustration of not being able to remember my parents because they died when I was a kid.