The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Bodies Bodies Bodies. How did your experience in the industry as an actress influence your approach to this film? Halina Reijn: Yeah, I used to be an actress, mostly on stage. I was in a theater company and lived in […]
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.
There is a scene with an East Timorese woman, a non-actor named Senhorinha Gama Da Costa Lobo, that is completely amazing. Wagner, can you talk about that scene, and about casting that role?
Wagner Moura: I think that’s my favorite scene in the film. That was the most difficult casting we did.
What inspired this story?
Martin McDonagh: I saw something similar to what’s on the billboards in the film when I was on a bus going through one of the Southern States about seventeen years ago.
Why did such a good script take so long to come to the screen?
Glenn Close: Have you heard of something called the “#Metoo” movement?
The film is based on a book of short stories by James Franco. Can you tell us about how the project developed?
Coppola: James and I met up randomly – I had seen him at a deli and then later that night I ran into him again.
What was your emotional reaction as a filmmaker while telling this story?
Part of the impetus for me in making a project is that I’m already emotionally affected by something.
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.
What in your own life has helped you connect with the story?
John Crowley: I moved to London when I was 27 to direct a play at the National Theatre. Having been back and forth from London since I was about ten, I knew London better than I knew Dublin.
What were some of the bigger challenges you faced in making this film?
Euros Lyn: One of the things we worked very hard on, as a team, was to collaborate so that every department worked together very closely.
What was the genesis of this film?
Paul Schrader: The process began about three years ago when I was giving an award for Pawel Pawlikowski, for his film Ida at the New York Society of Film Critics.
This is a very adult film about children and childhood. What were your inspirations for the story?
Eskil Vogt: I think I never would have made this movie if I hadn’t become a parent.
How much fun was it to play someone that rude?
It was bliss, of course, because I think we were all far too well brought up. From very early on we’re encouraged to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to everyone for no good reason, and of course for things we don’t actually want.
Emma, what was your inspiration for the film?
I feel like a lot of film students heading into their senior year want to go out with a bang, like a huge dystopian sci-fi film or a period piece, and I was one of those kids.
How did the idea for script originate?
Emerald Fennell: I had a few friends over for dinner and something uncomfortable had happened to one of the girls at the table on the tube on her way over.