You all shot for a few nights on the actual BART platform where this tragedy took place. Can you talk about that experience?
Diaz: It was one of the most intense things. You can still feel the ghosts there, the presence of the pain and violence and fear and everything that went down that night. That day was special. We started off with a prayer. It was powerful.
Can you describe your writing process for this film?
Trey Edward Shults: It started when I wrote this in 2014, and it comes from a personal place of having a rough relationship with my biological father who suffered with addiction.
Can you talk about the origins of this project?
Tony Kushner: Steven told me the story that’s the core of the movie on the first day of filming Munich, in 2005, in Malta.
It is obvious from the first frame that a tremendous amount of work went into this film, even by the high standards of feature animation. Can you discuss the seven year process?
Tomm Moore: The story development went hand in hand with the art development.
How did this project manifest?
Leo Scott: I was editing a half hour comedy where Val Kilmer was playing himself as a motivational speaker in this sort of parallel universe. It was such a great performance, so bonkers and I wanted to tell him that.
Were you the one who conceived of this tour in the first place?
Tim Seelig: We were coming out of the 40th anniversary of the gay men’s chorus. San Fransisco Gay Men’s Chorus birthed the movement.
What made the story right for a modern day interpretation?
Nicholls: I think if you pitch the story – an independent woman has to choose between three different contrasting men while maintaining her independence – I think that would feel very modern and contemporary.
How did you find the book this film is based on, and what attracted you to adapting it?
Thomas Bezucha: The novel “Let Him Go” was written by Larry Watson, who I’ve been a fan of for well over twenty years.
Can you talk about that decision, and how you thought about the various meta elements of the project?
Theo Anthony: That idea of accounting for the act of observation in observing is something that I’ve always been drawn to, as a big science nerd!
What was the process of you discovering the source material and trying to get it produced?
DeCaprio: As soon as I read the novel I thought, “This is like a modern day Caligula.”
What drew you to the role of Gladys?
Anjana Vasan: My agent sent me the script and said Thea Sharrock wants to meet you, have a read, and Olivia Colman’s attached and before she could finish saying Olivia Colman I went, yes!
What was your original artistic challenge when you were approached with this project? A profile of one person is quite different than your previous work.
Ted Braun: The previous films I’ve done, feature documentaries I’ve done (Betting on Zero, which looked at allegations of global economic criminality, and Darfur Now, which looked at allegations of massive, systemic violent crimes in Sudan) were, in different ways, ensemble stories about people trying to expose wrongdoing.
The author of the book had a great line about your films: “Laughs are never free. There are always strings attached.” Can you speak about the humor in this film and its fine calibration, especially in its opening sequences?
Taika Waititi: I always thought that humor and comedy are very powerful tools and effective weapons against bullies and bigotry.
What drew you to this story?
Adam McKay: We had done a movie with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg called The Other Guys, and the goal of that movie was to do a comedic parable of the collapse.
Stephen, you’re no stranger to bringing musicals to the big screen, and you’re no stranger to stories about teenage longing and discontent. How did you get involved in the project?
Stephen Chbosky: I saw the show about three years ago, on Broadway. And I loved it. I didn’t know anything about it when I saw it. And I loved the show.