Simon, this is an incredible true story. How did you come to write the script?
Simon Farnaby: I was brought up around golf—my father was a greenskeeper at a little club in northeast England. Golf’s a game I love, but I came at it like Maurice [Flitcroft], from a lower-class angle.
What drew you to this material and inspired you to direct the film?
Sian Heder: I came to this because it was originally a studio film, and Lionsgate was looking to do a remake of La famille Bélier, a French film that came out in 2014.
Is it correct that you had a very small crew, during production? Was that always the plan?
Chris Smith: When we first went out to Robert Downey Jr.’s house in the Hamptons, he said that we couldn’t bring a crew. Which I only found out two days beforehand.
Can you take us through the process of making this film? There was a long period of time when you were building toward something like this.
Chloé Zhao: During my third year at NYU, I was thinking about what feature film to make. That’s when I first went out to Pine Ridge.
The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of I’m Thinking of Ending Things. The film adheres to the novel in some ways, and not in other ways. Charlie, when in your process do you make the decisions about where to stick to the text and where to depart? […]
How did you decide what to include and how to show how the puzzle pieces fit together?
That was the main question in the beginning, because it is so overwhelming. It’s likely there are at least 500 survivors of Nassar alone.
Why do audiences love Kirk and Spock so much? What gives their relationship such dynamism?
Pine: I think the Enterprise represents, psychologically speaking, parts of one person. I always think of the triumvirate of McCoy, Kirk and Spock as representing parts of a single human being.
Baz, I read that you were not setting out to make a biopic. Tell us a bit about that approach and how that informed the film we saw today?
I love a good biopic as much as anyone, but they tend to be formulaic… someone is born, then this happens, then that happens
Can you talk about the evolution of Caesar’s character from Rise of the Planet of the Apes to this film?
The approach to the role for me has always been to think of Caesar as having a human mind within an ape’s body.
What goes into fully developing characters like Margaret and David?
Andrew Semans: I don’t have any brilliant insights into that, I don’t think. I think it’s just a matter of building up characters bit by bit, little by little, stealing from anybody you know, or any experiences you’ve had that seem to be relevant, and of course stealing from other films and other stories!
get involved?
Andreas Koefoed: A producer friend of mine got in touch and told me about this incredible story. He was in touch with this British art critic—Ben Lewis—that was writing a book about the whole affair.
I’d love to hear how you developed the script.
Andrea Pallaoro: Well, it’s a film that I had envisioned as part of a much larger exploration on the traumas and the dynamics of what it means to feel abandoned and the consequences of that.
The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of She Dies Tomorrow. Can you talk about the origin of this project? Amy Seimetz: I was dealing with a lot of anxiety and I realized that to alleviate the anxiety I was talking to my friends – namely Kate Lyn […]
What was your initial reaction to the script?
Elijah Wood: I came into the script about five years ago, at a film festival in Austin, Texas, called Fantastic Fest.
When was it clear that there was enough here to make a compelling feature?
Amanda McBaine: I love the word clarity; it’s not something you really have until you premiere your film and you hope people respond.