Can you talk about conceiving this story, and you’re writing process?
Noah Baumbach: It was inherent in the title that we are asking, “Does anyone really know what the story of a marriage is, and if that story has an end of sorts, does it mean it wasn’t a marriage?”
How did that expansion work? How do you open up that short story?
Kogonada: I had the best experience a filmmaker can have with an author.
Can you talk about playing someone who is emotionally disconnected or doesn’t show emotion?
Casey Affleck: I don’t often think myself about how much emotion I’m showing in real life.
What attracted you to this project?
Kate Winslet: When I first read the script, I was really taken by the physical demands.
Ms. Varda, you say very early in your film that “chance” is your assistant. JR, would you say that you agree with that philosophy?
JR: Yes, definitely and that’s why we got along well.
Can you talk about how the idea for the film came about? I read it was somewhat autobiographical.
That sounds weird off the bat. I have not committed fraud.
How did you get on this project? How did it come to you?
John Krasinski: So I was about to start pre-production on Jack Ryan, and some of the producers on Jack Ryan were Platinum Dunes, and they said, “Would you ever act in a genre movie?” And I said, “Oh no, I can’t do that, I don’t do horror movies.”
As a producer on the film, can you talk about the struggles of shooting abroad?
JR: Turns out you can’t just march into Yosemite with some horses and light some fires. It’s a lot tougher to shoot in some of the places we were looking for.
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.
What was it like developing the script with your cousin Jessica Barr after she had written the first draft?
Jessie Barr: We did a lot of talking and a lot of sharing; there were intimate conversations about what we’d gone through when we lost our parents.
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.
How did you make this film without relying on CGI? The animals are incredible.
Niki Caro: I couldn’t conceive of making an authentic movie out of this story about a female zookeeper with fake animals.
Mr. McConaughey, how did you approach Cooper?
I always saw Cooper as a man out of time.
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.
What was the research process like, preparing to play such a quiet man with a strong presence?
Joel Edgerton: For Ruth and I, the documentary became a road map for us to think about the way we needed to look and how we needed to carry ourselves.