Can you talk about making the transition from athletics to a visual and creative artist?
Savanah Leaf: In a way, I think a film is this combination of working in a team environment.


Can you talk about making the transition from athletics to a visual and creative artist?
Savanah Leaf: In a way, I think a film is this combination of working in a team environment.

One of the most priceless moments in the film is when Lady Bird escapes from the car. What was it like putting that scene together?
Greta Gerwig: That scene was such a monster on the page because there are so many emotions.

Can you discuss your inspiration for writing this story?
Robert Machoian: It was really motivated, to some degree, my own life in the sense that I’ve been married for quite a while, and I have children, and coming to this period in life where many friends of ours were starting to separate.

Can you describe the origins of the story as it is portrayed on the screen?
Regina King: I would say that none of us were there that night.

We spent three years filming, and we went to twenty five countries with Quincy.

What inspired you with this film and why did you set it in the world of 1950’s London fashion?
Paul Thomas Anderson: I had a thin story for a romance about a man, woman, and maybe third party.

Can you talk about genesis of the film?
Kazuo Ishiguro: I can tell you about the origin story of this film, before the real work started. I can take credit for having the original idea, because it was kind of an obsession of mine for years. It was partly because I was a Japanese kid growing up in England and I was always very interested in any Japanese film that was shown in England.

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?”

Mr. Turner seems to use a wonderful shorthand of grunting in the film at times to communicate his point.
He did grunt, but – and we also have this in the film – he was capable of great articulacy and a great number of classical references.

Mr. Weitz, did you write this role for Ms. Tomlin knowing she’d play the part?
Paul Weitz: Yes, I— well, no, I didn’t know she’d play the part!

The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. You really weave so many stories together so beautifully in the film. How did you and Nan weave in and out of each other’s lives? Laura Poitras: Nan and I have intersected, sometimes literally […]

How did you get from First Cow to this story?
Kelly Reichardt: Well, both films were written with Jonathan Raymond and we started out with this idea of making a film of this little-known Canadian painter, Emily Carr. We wanted to focus on a ten-year period of her life when she was a landlord.

Can you talk about some of the sources of inspiration for this film?
Joey Kuhn: I’ll start with the emotional inspiration for the film: In college, I accidentally fell in love with my gay best friend, and was afraid to tell him for years.

You did almost all of the work on this film— what was that experience like?
Jessica Kingdon: I did have a close cinematographer, Nathan Truesdell, and we shot it together. But, yeah, it was very much a film that was coming out of my own mind.

Can you talk about adapting your own book for the screen?
They initially approached Dan Fogelman, who’s a very established screenwriter. And he actually flipped it back to me and said he thought I should do it. At that point I just assumed I was talking to someone who was insane, and that this would be a terrible mistake.