Gus Van Sant - 'Dead Man's Wire' [LIVE]

15 Dec 2025 · 1 h 12 min · 29 chapters

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In short

Gus Van Sant discusses his career in an Awards Chatter live episode recorded at the Miami Film Festival’s GEMS event, focusing on how his filmmaking evolved from low-budget, experimental indie work to major studio films and back again. He traces key projects: Alice in Hollywood, Malanoche, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Psycho (shot-by-shot), and his “death trilogy” style period (Elephant, Jerry, Last Days), then returns to mainstream with Milk.

Guests

Scott Feinberg (Hollywood Reporter executive editor/host). Gus Van Sant is the main guest (2025 Precious Gem Award recipient). Kerry Woods is mentioned as Van Sant’s agent during the Malanoche-to-Drugstore Cowboy transition.

Guest backgrounds

Feinberg is an awards-coverage editor and podcast host. Woods is an entertainment agent who represented Van Sant during his early indie breakthrough.

Key claims

Van Sant credits specific teachers and a 1975 Rome film trip for steering him toward film; he funded Malanoche by saving money from an ad-agency job and made it for $20,000 on 16mm. Malanoche’s festival recognition helped him secure an agent and the next film, Drugstore Cowboy. He says he declined bigger studio offers after Drugstore Cowboy, choosing My Own Private Idaho instead. He describes Psycho as a literal, unchanged remake he pitched during Oscar attention, and says critics “killed” the film. For Elephant/Jerry/Last Days, he frames the shift as reacting to media coverage of real tragedies and using non-narrative, long-shot, dialogue-minimal methods inspired by films like Jeanne Dielman and influences such as Béla Tarr.

Notable examples

Malanoche’s explicit sexuality; Drugstore Cowboy’s $4M budget and Portland drug-addict premise; My Own Private Idaho’s Shakespeare adaptation (Henry IV elements) with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves; To Die For’s Nicole Kidman casting and River Phoenix’s death context; Good Will Hunting’s casting negotiations and his eventual directing; Elephant’s Cannes Palme d’Or and Best Director win.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Gus Van Sant's Early Life

0:06 to 0:42

Gus shares his upbringing and influences in early life.

“Set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, the series features a powerhouse cast led by Billy Magnuson, Sarah Goldberg, and Zach Galifianakis.”

Gus Van Sant's Early Life

2:26 to 3:11

Gus shares his upbringing and influences in early life.

“of this year's 2025 Precious Gem Award, Gus Manzant.”

Art and Film Education

3:11 to 5:43

Discussion about Gus's teenage years, artistic influences, and schooling.

“Yes, yes, which we'll definitely speak about more specifically.”

Trip to Italy and Filmmaking Influences

5:43 to 9:11

Gus details his life-changing trip to Italy and film influences.

“but the future members of Talking Heads were your classmates there?”

Moving to L.A. and Early Career Struggles

9:11 to 14:00

Gus recounts his move to L.A., early career, and struggles with filmmaking.

“So you graduate, I believe, that same year, 75.”

Gus Van Sant's Journey to New York

14:00 to 16:40

Explore Gus Van Sant's transition from L.A. to New York and its impact on his identity.

“and another year to edit, I couldn't get into any film festivals.”

Inspiration Behind Malanoche

16:40 to 19:40

Gus Van Sant discusses the inspiration for his film Malanoche and its unique themes.

“I mean, which was the part that seemed like I'd never seen, you know, a film quite like that.”

Funding and Making Malanoche

19:40 to 22:40

Gus shares how he financed and produced his first film, Malanoche.

“Film Critics Association's Douglas Edwards Award for Independent and Experimental Filmmaking.”

Impact of Drugstore Cowboy

22:40 to 25:40

Gus discusses the critical reception and impact of Drugstore Cowboy on his career.

“Yeah, the line in there, Bob says, I'm a junkie, I like drugs, I like the whole lifestyle, but it just didn't pay off, close quote.”

Creating My Own Private Idaho

25:40 to 28:00

Gus reveals the creative process behind My Own Private Idaho and its influences.

“So it was a little dicey because I thought, well, am I going to bring down my success just because I'm solely writing the screenplay?”
Show all 29 chapters

Casting Choices and Risks in 'My Own Private Idaho'

28:00 to 30:20

Explore the casting decisions for 'My Own Private Idaho' and the perceived risks.

“and he could just ask Mike questions, whatever he needed to ask him.”

The Emergence of New Queer Cinema

30:20 to 31:40

Discuss the impact of 'My Own Private Idaho' on the queer cinema movement.

“And, but yeah, it was a question, you know, like was it really playing with fire?”

Navigating Critical Response and Resilience

31:40 to 34:25

Understand the challenges faced after mixed reviews of 'Even Cowgirls Get the Blues' and the resilience required.

“Not so much influenced by My Own Private Idaho, but influenced by just themselves and some other gay films that they had seen.”

The Transition to 'To Die For' and Tragedy

34:25 to 37:18

Delve into the transition to 'To Die For' after River Phoenix's passing and the casting of Joaquin Phoenix.

“I mean, it was a huge tragedy, a huge, huge tragedy.”

Directing 'To Die For' and Nicole Kidman's Role

37:18 to 39:38

Learn about the directing process of 'To Die For' and the pivotal role played by Nicole Kidman.

“And Buck had wanted to do something together after the few films that I'd made.”

Getting Involved with 'Good Will Hunting'

39:38 to 42:04

Discover how Gus Van Sant became involved with 'Good Will Hunting' and its initial script appeal.

“And at the time, I was unaware that she was Tom Cruise's wife.”

The Journey to Directing 'Good Will Hunting'

42:04 to 44:15

Gus Van Sant shares his experience of becoming involved in 'Good Will Hunting' and the challenges faced in casting.

“a friend that I knew from film festivals, he said, you know, those two guys, they've written a script.”

The Decision to Remake 'Psycho'

44:15 to 48:20

Van Sant discusses his controversial decision to create a shot-for-shot remake of 'Psycho' and how he navigated industry expectations.

“eventually I was the kind of last guy willing to use them.”

Transitioning to Non-Narrative Filmmaking

48:20 to 51:43

Van Sant reflects on his shift towards non-narrative films and the inspiration behind projects like 'Jerry' and 'Elephant'.

“you had started out so indie spirit, grassroots kinds of projects, and then you, Good Will Hunting was a larger scale suit, right?”

The Unique Style of 'Elephant'

51:43 to 56:00

Gus Van Sant reveals the stylistic choices in 'Elephant' and the creative challenges he faced during production.

“So, yeah, Diane said, oh, we know, a few years had passed, and Diane was, like, at dinner at the same agent's house, and she said, oh, we know Colin Callender over at HBO, he might be really good.”

The Evolution of 'Elephant'

56:00 to 56:40

Learn about the unique approach and influences behind the film 'Elephant'.

“And I think me saying, you know, it's going to be in black and white really long, boring shots.”

The Journey to 'Milk'

56:40 to 58:00

Explore the challenges and historical significance behind the making of 'Milk'.

“and Best Director for the same film at the Cannes Film Festival for Elephant.”

Brokeback Mountain's Impact

58:00 to 1:00:00

Discuss the connection between 'Brokeback Mountain' and 'Milk'.

“when California had just rejected gay marriage in its Prop 8, was it?”

Career Highlights and Transitions

1:00:00 to 1:02:00

Reflect on the key films and projects throughout Van Sant's career after 'Milk'.

“potentially with Matt and Joaquin, were going to do that.”

The Development of 'Dead Man's Wire'

1:02:00 to 1:04:40

Understand the rapid development and the timely themes in 'Dead Man's Wire'.

“It was the, during COVID, I made a feature for Gucci, which was a, it was a 12-day project that was basically a whole feature length film.”

Reflections on Film Direction

1:04:40 to 1:08:20

Van Sant shares insights on his directorial choices and approaches to different genres.

“$15 billion budget, does that sound right?”

A Creative Perspective

1:08:20 to 1:10:00

Explore Van Sant's views on his creative journey and future aspirations.

“Yeah, I had a friend who was writing it.”

Creative Process and Importance of Storytelling

1:10:00 to 1:10:28

Gus Van Sant discusses the significance of creating and storytelling in his work.

“was that it was something that I could work and form into something.”

Creative Process and Importance of Storytelling

1:11:07 to 1:11:27

Gus Van Sant discusses the significance of creating and storytelling in his work.

“Pandora jewelry brings the sparkle to your summer.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00This episode of Awards Chatter is brought to you by AMC and AMC Plus, presenting The Audacity, the all-new drama from Emmy Award winner Jonathan Glatzer. Set inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, the series features a powerhouse cast led by Billy Magnuson, Sarah Goldberg, and Zach Galifianakis. Praised as irresistible by The Wall Street Journal, the darkly comedic drama looks at what happens when the architect shaping tomorrow can barely manage their lives today. For your Emmy consideration in all categories. Episodes available to screen at amcfyc.com.

0:42Good evening, everyone. I'm Scott Feinberg from The Hollywood Reporter. I'm our executive editor of awards coverage and the host of our Awards Chatter podcast, which this evening's conversation is being recorded for. Well, I should say for those tuning in, this episode's being recorded in front of an audience at the Bill Cosford Cinema on the campus of the University of Miami as part of the Miami Film Festival's GEMS event, a production of Miami-Dade College. Thank you to Executive Director James Willey and Programming Director Lauren Cohen for having me back to this great fest in City and to everyone in the audience for being here.

1:18Tonight we have the privilege of being joined by a legendary filmmaker who has made 18 narrative features over the past 40 years, including instant classics like Drugsler Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, To Die For, Good Will Hunting, Elephant, Milk, and Dead Man's Wire, which the audience here has just screened. Along the way, he has twice been nominated for the Best Director Oscar for Good Will Hunting and Milk, both of which were also nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. And he has directed five performers to Oscar noms as well, two of whom took home the prize, Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting and Sean Penn for Milk.

1:56The New York Times has described him as being in the front ranks of America's most innovative, independent filmmakers. The Los Angeles Times has called him an iconoclastic visionary and declared few American directors have a body of work as varied and idiosyncratic. And The Guardian has described him as the most consistently adventurous director in America, an artist whose fire, playfulness, and taste for experimentation has only increased over time. Would you please join me in welcoming the recipient of this year's 2025 Precious Gem Award, Gus Manzant.

2:48I want to go back, if we can, first to the very beginning. Can you share with folks where you were born and raised and what your folks did for a living? My dad was a traveling salesman when I was born in Louisville, Kentucky. They moved around a lot from Kentucky to Denver to Chicago, San Francisco, and Connecticut, and then Portland. Yes, yes, which we'll definitely speak about more specifically. Obviously, Portland's played a big role in so many of your films. But first, if we can zero in on your teenage years, because it seems like painting, even before film, was the first love, and then film comes along.

3:28And it seems like, from what I've been able to gather, there were two teachers, two classes that really put those on the map for you and really made it a tough call, right? In junior high school, we had this really good art teacher named Mr. Levine and Chloe Sevigny also. And she followed me 10 years later and had Mr. Levine and was influenced by him. and he was extremely influential, and he was painting in class, and I was trying to emulate the things that he was painting using acrylics. At the same time, a little bit later, when I was in ninth grade, the English teacher, David Soane, was showing films in class, which was kind of interesting.

4:23He was very experimental. He had written a book called stop, look, and write. We were writing from photographs that were in that book, which were supposed to make you feel something's happening in the photographs, and you would make something up according to the photograph. And he was showing us Citizen Kane in class. He was showing us experimental scratch films. He was showing us Canadian Film Board shorts. I think all the students in his class got very interested in film and were making animated films mostly animated not so much live action in his class and showing them in his class you started doing that on your own time I did want make one animated film with one of the students that had bought a camera you know sort of reliably like shoot still frames yeah the art teacher took me aside once and he said, you know, he's showing art films, not English films, not literature films.

5:24And he was a little jealous of the other teacher. Both of them were like fantastic teachers. So it seems like the ball was still up in the air about which direction you were going to go. And by the time you went off to Rhode Island School of Design, where I believe you had a dual major in painting and film, and that, first of all, just to set the scene a little bit, correct me if it's apocryphal, but the future members of Talking Heads were your classmates there? At RISD? Yeah. Yeah, the first few years, or actually all four years, they were my classmates. Nice. And we're in one or two of my classes.

6:08Chris and Tina were in Richard Merkin's painting class in junior year, and I didn't really get to know them too well. I got to know them later. David I knew more through a common friend that we had. Yeah, so they were there, and they did their, there was a video department run by Bob Jungles, and David Byrne and Chris France mimed to the record Mustang Sally, I think it was, and made a video, like a funny video. But then they actually formed a group and were playing as the Artistics, it was called. And then later they went down to New York to sort of find their way with Tina Wymouth as the bassist.

6:59So what was it at RISD that apparently tipped the scales towards film? I've heard about a trip to Italy that couldn't have hurt. Maybe you can share what that was about. Well, we had a film teacher named Marian Marzynski who had been schooled at the Polish film school in Lodz. And he had escaped Nazi Germany, for one thing. And he ended up in our film department as a teacher. He preferred documentaries, so he was a very, you know, a lot of the students started shooting documentaries. and he would bring people down to, you know, the Russian circus would be performing in Providence, Rhode Island, and he would bring the kids down and, like, talk his way into the backstage area of the circus, and he was a big influence.

7:51But during our senior year and after we graduated, we were offered the opportunity to go to Rome with Marian Mersenski, and a compatriot that he had in Rome who was the sort of U.S. and English-speaking journalist. Gideon Bachman. Gideon Bachman for Rome. And somehow they found each other and decided to have a group of students. I think there was like 15 of us or 16 of us. Gideon and Marion brought us to, it was a good year. It was 1972, I mean 1975. Lena Bertmuller was making Seven Beauties. Pasolini was finishing Salo. Fellini was shooting Casanova. Tinto Brass was making Salon Kitty. And you went to see all of these?

8:44And we went to all those sets. I went to Pasolini's house, not the set. He had finished shooting, and he was about to be killed, and he was mixing. So some of the students went to the mix, and some of the students went to his house, so I went to his house. Unbelievable. And we talked to him and we talked to Lena Vertmuller and Giancarlo Giannini. She was making Seven Beauties. You know, talked to all of them. I didn't get a chance to talk to Fellini, but we were sort of walking together with a group of students as he was speaking to us. Incredible. So you graduate, I believe, that same year, 75.

9:22And at that point, I guess, what was your outlook? It seems like you did what most people who had aspirations to work in film would have done, which was go pretty soon after that to L.A. I guess just what were your first impressions of being there and how did that shape the first feature that you made but that was not, I believe, ever actually released? Well, I stayed in Europe for a while. I went to England and was trying to find work in England and stayed in a friend's apartment. eventually got tired of looking for work as an outside American looking for work in England and decided just to go straight into Hollywood and see what happened.

10:07So I moved to Argyle Street in Hollywood and found a job working. I was an assistant to a comedian named Ken Shapiro who had made a pretty interesting comedy named The Groove Tube from an original workshop called Channel One that he had with Chevy Chase. And the Groove Tube had been very successful in the U.S. It was a skit humor piece that later Lorne Michaels had been his writer. And he had basically taken the format of the Groove Tube or was influenced by that format, at least. Other people were having, you know, had a similar format and pitched it to NBC. and he was going to make a series, Saturday Night Live.

10:56And he said, Ken, so come on to New York because we're doing Saturday Night Live. It's gonna be fantastic. And Ken had worked in New York television a lot, so he was very sort of dismayed by it. And he said, well, you know, you'll do a few shows, they'll cancel it and you'll come back. So I'm gonna stay in Paramount with my three picture deal. and he would watch it every Saturday night at Ken's house with him like sort of dismaying about the success of the show and it's still on today. It's crazy. Yeah, 15 years later. This is like 1975. But you were seeing, and I don't know if there's a reason why this would have been of, or this has been of interest to you throughout your life, but sort of the underbelly of cities that have great wealth in some areas, but then, you know, obviously this will come to be the case when we talk about Portland, but in Hollywood, it sounds like you're seeing, you know, people living out on the streets, just minutes from mansions and movie stars.

11:59And that was your first inclination was, or your first inclination for a feature film to direct was to make that part of the subject, right? Yeah, I think it was just I was one block away from Hollywood Boulevard. It was sort of where everything happened, where the post office was and where places to eat were and where the newspapers were. So you were kind of always on the street with all the other people that were on the street, which were generally like normal traffic of people. but there were a lot of people that had come to find work, trying to figure out where they fit in. There were also a little more today than back then, but there would be people in costumes busking and playing roles of characters that were famous.

12:50And then a lot of tourists looking at the names on the streets, on the stars. And yeah, I think the numbers of sort of wayward people was kind of well known and it had a history you know that people ended up in hollywood you know even starting in the 1910s um looking for work and they were sort of still coming and still kind of being rejected and ending up kind of wandering the streets of hollywood and hollywood boulevard in particular and sort of you could see the stories around you and yeah alice in hollywood was an early film that I made that was about a girl who comes to Hollywood from the Midwest.

13:35So that was 1981, I believe, when you made that. You didn't get it out, weren't able to get it out in the way that you made it. I had made a short that did pretty well in film festivals and played in the New York Film Festival. And so I was encouraged to make a feature. and after finishing the feature, which took a year to complete and another year to edit, I couldn't get into any film festivals. So it was very disappointing. So that's the end of L.A. That was basically, L.A. wasn't working out. You ended up in Portland after a while, but in between there's this pretty consequential period in New York, consequential professionally because that lays the groundwork, which I'll ask you to explain for the first film that did get out, but also, I guess personally, because you've described that as the first time you were living authentically yourself, right?

14:33In New York City or even with making my own money? Well, that's the professional side, and then I think you've also said, I raise this only because it's related, I think, to quite a bit of the subject matter that you would choose to focus on that I don't know. I think you've said it was when you were in New York that you first felt you could be out about your own sexuality. Oh, about and with Malanoche. Yeah, I mean, I think Alice in Hollywood had been a comedy. It sort of begged to be something else. I think my sexuality as a gay man was part of the inspiration behind making Malanoche. It was also like if you went to gay film festivals in Hollywood, for instance, the Vista used to have one every year.

15:27There were no American gay films. It was all Danish, Dutch, Swedish, British, French. the American representation was usually Tennessee Williams or Truman Capote like 50s movie that that had gay themes but like was a Hollywood picture I felt like there was a place for that American like independent gay story and I had at one time worked before even while I was living in LA I I worked as a sound man on a film called Property in Portland. And one of the lead characters was a poet named Walt Curtis. And he had written this novel called Malanoche. And it was about his sort of exploits, getting to know this group of Mexican teenagers that he befriended and gave rides into the country in his car and sort of became obsessed with one of them.

16:30and it was kind of a story that was, I'd never really seen on film. It was unique enough and I chose that as my next film. And just to, you know, it's a bit of a time travel thing to think in these ways, but you've said, going back to that time, quote, it was the kind of thing that I remember keeping hidden under my bed because it was real explicit sexually and just seemed like a dirty book, close quote. Exactly. I mean, which was the part that seemed like I'd never seen, you know, a film quite like that. And so I thought if I could try to like be as true to Walt's book, it might be something interesting.

17:16Yeah, and that would require, though, raising what at the time must have seemed like a very daunting amount of money. So this is while you're in New York, in between that time in L.A. and the time when you go to Portland to make this movie, how did you come up with the funds for that movie? I wanted to make this film from Walt's book, and I was working in New York City. I had taken a job in an ad agency. at the time making a lot more money than I think I ever had which was a pretty good paying job and I but I didn't like the job and I was going to um to leave the job and just go to Portland and try and make Walt's book the other choice was maybe to stay in New York and adapt the story in New York City somewhere like the Bowery or someplace because it took place on Skid Road or Skid Row in Portland.

18:13As I was deliberating about what to do, I realized that the money that I was making was enough that if I just stuck out like a year or two more, I would have the budget of the movie if I didn't spend it going to Danceteria or the Mud Club, which I didn't. I didn't go to CBGBs, didn't go to the Mud Club because going there would entail staying overnight and I was commuting from Connecticut and spending money. So I tried to save my money and just keep my nose to the grindstone and save up enough to make Malanoche. And so for$20 ,000 with a crew of four, in just four weeks, you make this movie on 16mm black and white, which was, I think, the precedent which is often cited.

19:05I just, you know, for Spike Lee, when he's doing She's Gotta Have It around the same time, he's citing Jim Jarmusch with Stranger Than Paradise, which was just right before yours. This wave of exciting young filmmakers who are doing these low-budget, black-and-white, very indie projects. In your case, having come off that 1981, probably heartbreaker, where you make a movie and then it doesn't go anywhere. In this case, I know it played at the 1987 Gay and Lesbian Film and Video Festival, which is now known as Outfest. It was chosen for the L.A. Film Critics Association's Douglas Edwards Award for Independent and Experimental Filmmaking.

19:45This is in 87. I guess after already it had been out for completed for a while. Not much of a theatrical release. But how did that film change things for you? because it seems like it really did. I was trying very hard to find a home for it, like a way to show it. And I went to a lot of film festivals, including the LA Gay Film Festival. The other two filmmakers that resembled my film, She's Gotta Have It and Stranger Than Paradise, which were also both very low budget, it as low as the budget I was working with, and we're also in black and white, and we're also very personal to the filmmakers, was a trial.

20:37But it also, that particular award was something that allowed me to find a, with the help of an agent, find somebody that would make the next film, which was Drugstore Cowboy. And Kerry Woods is here tonight, my agent from that period. That's great. Kerry, stand up. There he is. He's still here. He's a boy gun. I was avoiding the business side of Hollywood and yet found an agent. He luckily, you know, like, was energetic enough to use that award to help get the next script that I had going. So Drugstore Cowboy, 1989, a group, again, set in Portland, but in 1971, a group of young drug addicts who will stop at nothing to score their next fix based on an unpublished autobiographical novel by a criminal who had sort of lived this kind of a life.

21:45And it became, in this case now, you're from$20 ,000 from El Anoche. Now it's like$7 million approximately I'd seen for this one, slightly larger scale. And this movie comes out to the world via Avenue Pictures and I think Bingham Ray. This is kind of really the thick of the indie boom taking off. Yeah, it was, I think,$4 million. $4 million, excuse me. All right. Which was very high for me. I mean, I think Sex, Lies, and Videotape at the time was$1 million. Wow. but at the same period of time. Same year, yeah. So we had a good budget. Yeah, James Fogle had written this great pulp fiction novel.

22:24He had a collection of them. One of them was called Satan's Sandbox, and this one was called Drugstore Cowboy, the one that I got going. But they were about his life as a career criminal in and out of jail, like Satan's Sandbox was in San Quentin, and Drugstore Cowboy was out in the Northwest with he and his friends, like, taking advice from people that they knew in prison that drugs in a drugstore were worth more than, like, dollars that you could rob from a bank. Their original intention was to rob the drugstore to make money, but then their proximity to the drugs made it so that they occasionally would take something, and then eventually they got addicted, you know, just to keep their habits going, they're robbing drugstores.

23:16Yeah, the line in there, Bob says, I'm a junkie, I like drugs, I like the whole lifestyle, but it just didn't pay off, close quote. So in this case, your movie gets seen by a lot more people than anything before. Wins the Best Screenplay Award of the New York Film Critics, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Society of Film Critics, and at the Spirit Awards, chosen as the year's best film of all films by the National Society of Film Critics. After that kind of a reception, you had a decision to make, which I'm sure now you have studios wanting to work with you, offering you probably quite a bit more money, offering you money to make bigger budgeted films.

23:57But you decided not to really go that far. I don't think I'd go that far. No? Which part? I mean, I don't remember anyone offering me. I mean, Drugstore Cowboy was a critical hit, and it influenced a lot of people, but there was not really, like the box office was quite low. That's usually what brings the people, like is the box office. Was there not something with G.I. Joe though? Yeah, there were films that were offered me that were action movies because the Drugstore Cowboy, as a critical hit, it did attract actors. And Matt Dillon had like sort of been recognized in his portrayal in Drugstore Cowboy that impressed other actors so that if you were a director of a film for Universal, for instance, they could lure a good actor in there.

24:47So it wasn't really me so much as the criticism. You were the bait. I was bait, really. So I did have that, but I didn't do any of those. I just made another Portland street film, which was My Own Private Idaho. Yes. So, yes, terrific. for anyone who hasn't seen it or needs a reminder. That's interesting that that stands out. That was kind of an interesting film for me because this time I was like, I had been writing these street stories starting with early writings on Hollywood Boulevard when I lived there. And I had maybe four screenplays. One of them was entirely Shakespearean. And then I kind of distilled it all down into one story, which was My Own Private Idaho.

25:31and it was based on like three other screenplays. But since it was sort of entirely my writing, it was unlike some of the others. It was more like Alice in Hollywood. So it was a little dicey because I thought, well, am I going to bring down my success just because I'm solely writing the screenplay? So it was a little scary. Well, and so you mentioned drawing from different threads for my own private Idaho. So first, I guess, just stop me if any of this is not accurate, but the title is from the B-52s song, Private Idaho. The story, though, you're saying, first of all, the film is about these two young male hustlers, Mike, which is the River Phoenix character, and Scott Keanu Reeves.

26:15One has a mother problem. One has a father problem. The mother's missing. The father has to be rebelled against in this case. but you said that there was a Portland Street kid actually named Mike, who was one of the influences. There's one of the actors who had been in Malanoche was one of the influences, Ray Manji. Ray Manji. And then Shakespeare, where you have this, you know, there's a portion in this where Shakespeare just kind of... Yeah, I mean, I guess I did have a co-writer in Shakespeare, which would probably save the script. But, yeah, there was an adaptation of basically Henry IV that was the Shakespearean part of the story.

26:59Prince Hal and Falstaff were two lead characters in that play and the King of England. And so Prince Hal is about to, you know, accept the throne. and his father is very disappointed in him running around town and drinking and wenching and being a bad boy. It was hard to find a Portland equivalent of that, you know, the royalty. And so I made the king, the mayor of Portland, and I made Keanu Reeves' character to his son. So it was the closest I could come. So Keanu had a really kind of difficult part, although he had done Shakespeare. And he difficult in the sense that there was no kind of tangible, real connection.

27:50It was Shakespeare being ultimately fictional. His was a fictional character, whereas River Phoenix's character playing Mike Parker, there was an actual Mike Parker who was with us, was one of the characters in the story, and he could just ask Mike questions, whatever he needed to ask him. And so it was like very kind of different between the two of them, which was the cool thing about the story as well and the two characters. We are talking almost exactly 35 years since that film. The world is in a lot of ways a very different place. But I wonder at the time when you cast River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as these characters, was it seen by you, by them as like a professional risk for them to play these parts?

28:37We had the script. I remember being at the Toronto Film Festival and because of Drugstore Cowboy, I would run into different types of funding and I would show them the script for my own private Idaho. And it looked a little bit like an E.E. Cummings poem. It looked like the type was kind of playing all over the page. And I was using an Apple computer so you could change the typeface as you were writing. so it was made up of all these different typefaces and the conformity of Hollywood was so strong that just anything besides just pica type at 12 point was unacceptable. It had to look like a screenplay, not like an E.

29:18E. Cummings poem. So nobody really was taking it seriously. And we were going to, I was planning to shoot it for a lot less money with just people that I cast real characters. like Gillo Panticorvo casting. And then we thought, well, we might want to check with our two favorite actors, River and Keanu, and just see, which we assumed they would say no, and they just didn't say no. And I think that was because of just Matt Dillon's experience doing Drugstore Cowboy. And also I think they liked the script. So they did feel, in some ways, as young actors, similar to the characters on the streets of Portland, you know, like working for money and when they should be like studying in school.

30:12And I think they felt their own version of exploitation. Also, they knew it was risky, but they were confident enough that it didn't bother them too much. And, but yeah, it was a question, you know, like was it really playing with fire? I don't know. It didn't seem to hurt their careers at all, obviously, and great film. And I wonder, a year after that, that comes out in 91, 92, Be Ruby Rich in the Village Voice coins this term, new queer cinema, in response to what was then, thanks to you and a select few others, this kind of wave of gay-themed films. Did it feel to you that things were changing in the industry?

30:56I mean, we were talking a few minutes before we came out here about a Sundance where, well, I'll leave it to you, but I mean, I guess, did it feel like you were part of a change in the industry or was it, did it seem slower while it was happening? Just the advent of new queer cinema? Yeah. I mean, for somebody to come out and call it that and suggest it's a movement. Yeah. I think that was B. Ruby Rich herself was calling it that. And there were a lot of new young filmmakers making new queer films, you know, sort of in the wake, very close to like My Own Private Idaho within like even six months.

31:35You know, they were kind of burgeoning, coming quickly. Not so much influenced by My Own Private Idaho, but influenced by just themselves and some other gay films that they had seen. And Derek Jarman or Fassbender. Todd Haynes. Todd Haynes. Well, Todd was one of them. I never felt like I was part of the wave, but that Todd was a sort of spearhead. And then with regard to something like Sundance around that time, did it feel like there was like a quota almost of, you can have one or two gay films, but... Well, that was Malanoche. Yeah, back in the Malanoche period, I had sent it to Sundance, And they called and they said, we really like this, but we have two other gay films.

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32:26And they were Parting Glances and Desert Hearts, which were a little shinier than Malanoche. And so didn't get in. But only one of them lives on on the Criterion Collection. So after My Own Private Idaho, there's even Cowgirls Get the Blues, another adaptation. This one, I guess, was one of the first times where you got pushback from a segment of the critical community. and, you know, I've got some, I wonder, does something like that affect you or are you able to? Out of failure, you mean? Well, I mean, however you want to. Yeah, no, I think that's correct. Was that, is that, how do you bounce back from that, which you did just a year or two later with To Die For, which we'll talk about, but like, I wonder for a young filmmaker who's not been knocked down before, was that really rough?

33:15Yeah, I think it was pretty rough. I was always being positive about it. and it happened slowly because we went to Toronto and people seemed to have a problem. And the releasing company, Fineline, who had done My Own Private Idaho, they were in favor of revisiting the cut. So I actually went in and recut it over a couple of months and it seemed to have no effect. It was still the same movie. There are quite different movies, but there are two versions of it and only one really was released. The release of it was delayed enough so that I was already shooting another film, To Die For, when the release actually happened and we were on the set of To Die For like the morning after the first press came out for Cowgirls and it was bad enough that I literally thought that the actors on the set of To Die For weren't going to listen to me.

34:15and then I realized oh they were actually listening and responding and it wasn't like they weren't holding it against me and then I thought we just kept moving on so to die for which I still think is one of the best out there it's so well done story of a beautiful ambitious TV meteorologist played by Nicole Kidman who uses an infatuated young guy Joaquin Phoenix to kind of help her escape her marriage to Matt Dillon again. I want to ask you just about how personnel-wise that one came together, because first of all, obviously, very tragically, something that happened between, I think, the time of making Even Cowgirls and To Die For is this actor who you had really clearly befriended and bonded with.

35:06River Phoenix suddenly passes away, and now his brother Joaquin is in to die for alongside a very early Nicole Kidman and I just wonder you work after River's passing with Joaquin several times it'll it'll come up and then also with his sister I guess I just wonder clearly and understandably really must have knocked you for for a loop with with River did that in any way how did that shape your next few years and decisions His death, you mean? Yeah. I mean, it was a huge tragedy, a huge, huge tragedy. I mean, I think the To Die For project had been started, so I was working on something, which was good to have something to work on.

35:55And I think that was Joaquin's thing as well. He wasn't acting, and suddenly River was gone, and I think that he, you know, was just like the thing that he needed. and we happened to be looking for somebody just like him. And he came up from Florida to audition, which was really touching. He was really excited about trying to get the part. And so he got it. That was the first time directing from a screenplay that you hadn't also written. This was Buck Henry's screenplay. It was the first time directing for a major studio, big studio, Columbia. And you once described To Die For as, quote, a cleaned-up version of one of my films, close quote.

36:40What does that mean? I don't know. I don't know if I was just making something up. Cleaned-up version of one of my films. I guess is it more... Probably cleaned up in the sense that it had, you know, Buck Henry writing it and was very astute and, you know, sharp and just cleaner. But, yeah, it was a Joyce Maynard, interesting novel that the producer at Columbia had found this novel and had this idea. She knew my agent at the time. Both were clients of John Burnham, Buck and I. And Buck had wanted to do something together after the few films that I'd made. And so they sort of put it together as a package, like Joyce Maynard's novels.

37:29She had a marriage advice column syndicated and had recently been divorced. And so her advice column was no longer successful. But she wrote this sort of fictionalized story of a true event in New Hampshire. She made it in the form of a spoken word novel, statements from each of the characters in a form that was kind of popular at the time. George Plimpton was doing it with Edie Sedgwick. He'd made this amazing spoken word novel. But she was, like, pretending to make a spoken word novel. And Buck and I decided to do it. And Buck was very, he was very funny and a professional comedian and professional comic writer.

38:20And he was super into the new, like, form of news, which was cable news, which was sort of everywhere. where all of a sudden there were large numbers of reporters that would descend on courthouses and things when there hadn't been before. There were only, you know, the three main ABC, NBC, CBS. But now there was like hundreds of local news channels or programs so that it made trials very much like a circus. He was into just cable TV and he was watching everything from, I remember calling him up and he said, that I'm watching perhaps the most interesting thing I've ever seen. It's Charles Manson defending himself as an inmate and trying to get a pardon with his own defense, which was pretty interesting.

39:13He was sort of obsessed with the form, and he wrote this kind of great piece that we made him to die for. And I just want to one quick follow up on that. But Nicole Kidman, I still think it's maybe the best thing she's ever done. And she very nearly was not going to be in that part. How did that happen? Nicole had come in and tried out and done a reading. And at the time, I was unaware that she was Tom Cruise's wife. But that sort of added to her the interest in her, I think, in the production. Very interested in Nicole. and I had found somebody else to play the part, but we had to wait until she shot another film.

40:01So there were a number of actresses that were afraid because they were playing a kind of very difficult, somewhat evil or very evil, murderous character that was difficult. They didn't necessarily want to know whether that would work for their characters that they were playing. Nicole, on the other hand, really understood from the start way to play it and what was in the character. I was waiting for this other actress, and then I think Laura Ziskin, the producer, gave Nicole my telephone number, and she called, and she said, look, I know I'm not the favorite actor. And I said, no, that's not necessarily true.

40:43And she said, look, I know it, okay? So just listen. I was destined to play this part, and I will play it perfectly. And she used the word destiny, and so I fell for it. Okay, so this brings us to a little movie called Good Will Hunting, which is 1997, the story of a Harvard janitor who turns out to be a lot more than meets the eye. And now this is Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wanting to get into the movies, wrote this for themselves to star in. Script was more desired than their acting participation was, but they held firm, is my understanding. How did you first come to know about them and their script?

41:25And what was the appeal for you about getting involved with this? It was given to me by somebody at Miramax. And they had said that Ben and Matt, who were people that I knew, Casey had played in To Die For. We tried to get Matt to play Jimmy, which was Joaquin's role. We tried to consider him, but he was just too, like, normal-looking to, like, play this character. and even though he tried to lose weight and so forth, I got to know him and he suggested Casey Affleck, who was in the film with Joaquin. So I knew the group and Mark Tusk from Miramax, a friend that I knew from film festivals, he said, you know, those two guys, they've written a script.

42:10I had read about it when they were writing it. The trade publications showed them holding up checks that like two actors make money writing screenplay, which was at that time news, which is strange because a lot of actors write screenplays now, but it was like big news. And so I knew of the screenplay. It didn't occur to me to read it because I assumed it was an action movie that they had written, which it was actually. And Castle Rock had bought it and had developed it over 10 drafts. They had to sort of excise the action qualities of the story because Will, as a super genius, was desired by outside forces like Russia, and the NSA had to keep an eye on him in their action-adventure version.

43:01And so there was little sequences where, or big sequences, Matt would play games with the NSA that were trying to always tail him and would race around town. So they exhalized those parts. I read it because I happened to be in New York making a video and Mark Tusk had given me the script and I thought it was great you know I thought this is kind of amazing and I found I called Joaquin to get Casey's number and called Casey to get Ben's number and you know talked to them he and Matt and they were like great you know like I said thanks for the you know support And I said, if you need a director, you know, I'd do it.

43:43They were happy about that, and that was okay, but Harvey had other plans. He had the idea to, you know, offer it to Robert Redford. He could play the character of Sean that Robin Williams eventually played, and he could direct it. Ultimately, he wanted Brad Pitt to play one guy and Leo DiCaprio to play the other guy. So that was the problem was in tossing Matt and Ben out of their roles that they'd written. And so they kept saying no to any idea that they would not play the roles. And I think through the months that we went through, eventually I was the kind of last guy willing to use them. And it was sort of, for me, a plus.

44:27I wanted to always work with lesser-known characters. And in this case, it was a plus. All the way to the Oscars, who would have imagined. nominated for an Oscar, your film's nominated, you have all this attention on, you probably had more opportunity to do whatever you wanted than ever before, and you decided that the thing you wanted to do was a shot-by-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Why was that? I think that I probably didn't appreciate the position I was in. This is a position where I I really was in that place where all the studios really want you to do, not necessarily what they have, but whatever you want.

45:12There was a one pass you get. In my case, it was one pass. Because I made the wrong move. But there was a remake being done at Paramount of seconds that they wanted to change the ending. And there had been through the times that I had gone into studios and talked to the studio heads, they always were, you know, the studios themselves were always remaking things. They were making the Flintstones into live action. They were making the Brady Bunch into live action. They were remaking old 50s films. I remember having a meeting with Casey Silver at Universal who said, introduced me to some of the other vice presidents.

45:59One was in charge of the library. And so there were scripts that had been written that had never been shot, but there were illustrious writers had written them. There were films that they had that you could remake. It just kept dawning on me that the studios would remix things but always change the ending or change things about it that they really should, they being the studios, should try to just literally remake it and not change it. and so I would pitch that not change the actual structure of the shooting and the camera angles and they would laugh it was funny to them and they would say well we won't be doing that anytime soon so at this moment where we were all nominated for Oscars for Good Will Hunting my agent was doing the work and he got the paramount idea going with the remake of Seconds and there was something else we had at another company and then he called and he said um universal like wants to know if you have anything for them because and this is the the day before the oscars so i always figure they're like desperate to get this like prospect with you so that if you win they can turn to their studio head friends and say, we've got his next thing.

47:21And just for that moment alone. And I felt that I know, like, tell Casey Silver at Universal, he'll know what I mean. Remake Psycho, which was the one that I always brought up with Psycho. But don't change anything. And the agent called back and he said, Casey thinks that's a brilliant idea. Aside from laughing, he thought it was brilliant. And so they were up to it. and I had to decide whether I wanted to do it, which was a big decision. Danny Elfman was a really good idea for the Bernard Herrmann score. And he was developed into a friend and he said, you know, the critics will kill you. They will kill you.

48:04And I said, but I'm not really concerned about the critics killing me. And he said, well, they're going to kill you. And so I said, okay, we went and made the movie and the critics killed me. And it's sort of like getting beat up in a bar or something. Well, I wonder if there was some sort of a reaction to, you had started out so indie spirit, grassroots kinds of projects, and then you, Good Will Hunting was a larger scale suit, right? Just a different kind of movie. Now you have this experience with Psycho. Two years after that, you have Finding Forrester, another with Sean Connery. It doesn't get more movie star than that.

48:43And then you embarked on a period with Jerry in 2002, Elephant in 2003, and Last Days in 2005. So three and four years that were, it was, you couldn't have gone more in a different direction. People talk about them as your, like, death trilogy. I guess you could include Paranoid to some degree as well in that group after that, right after that. The LA Times, just to give some context, wrote about Jerry, the first of these, quote, Jerry is about as non-narrative a film as you're likely to see in commercial theaters. You told the New York Times at that time, I'm not really interested in narrative filmmaking anymore.

49:24What happened in your mind to trigger this new period in your career? Were you sure that there was even a viable career path going in this kind of a non-narrative direction? All three of those films were projects that were kind of coming along as I was working on other projects. I think both Last Days, which was loosely based on Kurt Cobain's death, was the first one. And it was really a reaction of the journalistic activity after he died. The amount of newspapers that had Kurt's death on the cover. the amount of articles in each of those newspapers. There were film documentaries about the same subject, but the idea of making a dramatic piece about that would be seen in bad taste, as it was made in bad taste.

50:23And I thought documentaries had become fictional, and fiction films had become documentary sort of through those years already. so I thought there was a place for a dramatist to kind of investigate that subject of Kurt Cobain dying and I started working on that one first and that existed as a sort of loose idea screenplay and then Columbine happened and the same thing was happening during Columbine it was like so much attention but in the drama world you were sort of not allowed to go there. So I was loosely working on that as well. And then Jerry was a much smaller story, you know, in a newspaper in Boston that when I was living in New York, Finding Forrester, Matt and Casey and I had dinner and Matt had this desire to make something small together.

51:28and he was with Winona Ryder at the time and he they had a company and he said there's this story about these two guys who were very um unused to going into the wilderness and they get lost and one kills the other so um we had this news story I had the idea to keep working on it and keep having meetings writing something and going to shoot it inexpensively somewhere with like video cameras and eventually we did we we used bigger cameras and that was the first one and then after that then i i sort of wanted to make the next one which which was the columbine one elephant with we can just shout out wouldn't have happened without someone who just passed away of all people right yeah she was involved in looking for because i was looking for somebody that would fund it.

52:23When Columbine actually happened, there was no way that the media was, especially TV, I wanted it to be a TV movie, and the TV people were battling to keep their police shows on the air because those were being blamed as reasons for violence in high schools. So, yeah, Diane said, oh, we know, a few years had passed, and Diane was, like, at dinner at the same agent's house, and she said, oh, we know Colin Callender over at HBO, he might be really good. And so we went and he agreed to do it. The other thing that kind of unites that group of films is stylistically you were doing things that were very different.

53:04Long shots, slow pacing, repeating things from different perspectives. That was not a coincidence either. Who had you been exposed to and why did that appeal to you? Just cinematically, there had been some, you'd been exposed to different sorts of filmmaking that made you go in that direction, right? Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, the reason for, you know, the sort of languid long shots and dialogue that didn't really connect to the story, which was something I had seen in a film called Jean Dillman, you know, dialogue that was more like realistic dialogue. It didn't have to do with, like, guiding you into the aspects of the story.

53:43The reason that sort of existed was when we were making Jerry, I thought of it as a John Cassavetes film where there was a lot of talking and when you were with Casey and Matt they kind of were joking and talking all the time and making each other laugh I was assuming that's what we would do when we went into the desert and started that we had really sort of no script we did write a script that we kind of put away later tried to get back But as actors, they were afraid to act like themselves because they think they would look like idiots. And so I was like, well, that's sort of the whole point of the project.

54:29And I sort of struggled with how would we continue. We were in the desert ready to shoot. This kind of improv that I wanted to do was something that they were really against. And I thought, well, we'll do it in a different way. and I started to like draw on films that I had seen that didn't rely on dialogue, really as a result of like the uninterest that my two actors had in doing their own dialogue, which is kind of a passive-aggressive way to even go about it. But it did go into this whole other dream world and the whole other like thing that I liked. So by the time we finished it and I still had a responsibility to go back to HBO to do what Colin called Elephant, I kind of wanted to not do what we had written a script.

55:23It was very didactic and it was very ordinary. And so I tried to get out of that job with Diane leading the way as a producer. And by saying in a meeting with Colin and Diane and another producer, that I didn't want to have any dialogue. I didn't want to have any recognizable characters, all like natural characters. I was really trying to get them to say, well, we can't make it like that. I was trying to get out of the job. And because of Diane's presence, just her existence really makes it feel like you're in a Woody Allen movie because just the way she is. And I think me saying, you know, it's going to be in black and white really long, boring shots.

56:10I didn't say boring, but really long shots. And I was trying to put everything bad into the ideas. And at the end, somebody had tipped off everybody that I was going to say this, so they were ready for it. Colin stood up and he said, well, we need something very unique and original. So we think this is perfect for Elephant. And then I thought, okay, well, if they're really willing to do this, I'll do it. Next thing you're one of only two people who ever win the Palme d 'Or and Best Director for the same film at the Cannes Film Festival for Elephant. So it just shows you can get pretty crazy. But it was a continuation also of Jerry.

56:55Jerry became Elephant. And so we were kind of perfecting like a thing for us. And that Bella Tar. Bella Tar was a really big influence, yeah. His movie, Satan Tango, I had seen was a very big influence. Okay, so after that period of really kind of back to your experimental roots, kind of out there, unusual, non-narrative filmmaking, you go back in the other direction in the best sense with Milk, which, interestingly enough, you had been associated with an earlier incarnation of that that didn't get made, right? But what had happened in the meantime, I guess, was that Brokeback Mountain had happened, right?

57:39And I wonder if, which is another one that I think you at one point were associated with, and I'll leave it to you to share what did or didn't happen there. But with Milk, these are big footsteps that, following in the footsteps of the great documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, obviously about such a giant in the gay civil rights history. and also at a time, just to remind people, when California had just rejected gay marriage in its Prop 8, was it? And just before, another community organizer was about to be elected president of the United States. So it's just a really interesting moment in time.

58:20How did that all come together, and why hadn't it come together sooner when you'd been involved? You mean just the story of Harvey? Yeah, and just your history. Well, there had been a great documentary made, The Times of Harvey Milk, that won the Oscar for Best Documentary. Way earlier in the, I want to say 70s, 79, maybe I'm wrong about that. I think early 80s. The story was very powerful. There was a book Randy Schultz wrote called The Mayor of Castro Street. And the idea to do it was originally tied to Oliver Stone. and Robin Williams was going to play Harvey. That was like in 1991. The script was very, you know, sort of weak in its description of the gay community.

59:08It was more about Dan White and his sort of eating too many Twinkies that caused him to shoot Harvey Milk in defense. And he almost got, he basically got off with manslaughter, you know, with this defense. So it was more about that, I think. and we wanted it to be more about the gay community and more about Harvey. That sort of made me get sort of squeezed out of that project. And later I ran into Lance Black, who was writing a new script about Harvey that didn't really include the trial of Dan White, which was sort of the key to getting rid of that side of it and just letting Harvey be the lead character.

59:52So what was your story with Brokeback? because that came out three years before Milk, but that had been around also, and there was a time when I'd heard that you, potentially with Matt and Joaquin, were going to do that. Larry McMurtry had optioned the Annie Pruill story, and he had made it into a screenplay. I think they just called me directly, like Larry and Diana Asana, who was co-writer, called and said, would you direct this? So it was like, yeah, I knew the story from the New Yorker who was really happy about it and started working on it. And there was just a number of confusions with like the production and Larry and casting.

1:00:35And it just got slowed down, the progress of it, really during the casting, who could play the characters. I partly was slowing down as well. Everything was just slowing down and it got reinvigorated and again offered to me again. and I think I just had other things that I was doing, and Ang Lee did it instead. And did that version coming out in 05 make it easier for Milk to come together shortly after? Yeah, possibly. Yeah, it possibly did affect. Interesting that these things would take so long. Yeah, it probably did, yeah, no doubt. So in the intervening years, we'll just note, Restless in 2011, dying young girl and a grieving young guy come together.

1:01:20There's a promised land. In 2012, you're back with Matt Damon directing him again from a script that he co-wrote, full circle kind of thing there. The Sea of Trees goes to Cannes with McConaughey, Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot, back with Joaquin in 2018. Then you did something that you'd never done before, a limited series for TV with Feud, Capote vs. the Swans, six of the eight episodes there, I believe you directed. But there had been this gap between Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot 2018 and Dead Man's Wire, 2025, seven years when you'd been away from narrative features. And I wonder, was that just sort of the way things worked out or had you wanted a little bit of a break?

1:02:02No, there was no break. It was the, during COVID, I made a feature for Gucci, which was a, it was a 12-day project that was basically a whole feature length film. Right after that was the Ryan Murphy show but that was it was an eight show series and I did six of the eight so there was six hours so I was really working hard before so there was no break maybe there was media change one was for fashion and one was for TV when you heard about Dead Man's Wire this is one of these handful in your filmography that was written by somebody else You've often written your own screenplays and then directed them.

1:02:49In this case, it's a guy, Austin Kolodny, who had written it. It's from this true story from 77. But I wonder if you can talk about, I guess, to come back to Nicole Kidman's word of destiny or fortuitiveness or whatever. I mean, this comes out, set in 77, but comes out in 2025 at a time of Luigi Mangione and kind of a number of modern versions that are not that different than this, I think. What appealed to you? Certainly not the first time you made a film about a little guy taking on the system. It was a screenplay that had been developed during COVID by Austin Kolodny, first-time screenwriter.

1:03:34He had been showing it around. There were a lot of different lower-budget companies that had read it and considered it. Tom Culiver, one of the producers, was interested in producing it. They got it together with an actor and with a director just within the last year and a half. And that team fell apart for different reasons. And Cassian, the main producer that I knew that was part of the project, Cassian Elwes, he was somebody I ran into in a restaurant and he said hey you know I have this story you might be interested in doing we have to shoot it soon it was September he wanted to shoot it in November and finish it before December and I sort of like that challenge you know like can you and I had done all the Ryan Murphy things were done super fast so I was used to working fast and I kind of liked it so I I said okay let me read it it was shooting in Louisville Kentucky where I was born and I thought well this could I could you know learn more about Louisville my birthplace and so I you know I got a hold of it and then I suggested Bill Skarsgård and Dacre Montgomery where'd you know I knew them I had never met either one of them but I knew them from their films that I had scene and um and i'd asked at times i'd ask bill to play parts and he would say yeah if it's yeah for sure if it's the lead but if it's if it's not if i'm not playing a lead then i i'll play a bit part but i never really got him into anything and uh so i suggested them cassian said fine and we didn't shoot in november but we like did prepare through november and shot and at the end of December.

1:05:38$15 billion budget, does that sound right? No, it was, there is an undisclosed amount of money. Undisclosed, okay. It's something like that. Not a huge thing, and now going out to the world with a new distributor, Roe K. Roe K, yeah. Just as you share this film with the world in this moment, as I mentioned, just kind of these weird real world parallels, what's... Yeah, I mean, at the time it was September of last year, there was no Luigi Mangione and there was no election yet, presidential election yet. So so many things had changed while we were shooting that really brought into question all these different things that were in our film.

1:06:20And sometimes we were worried. It's like, is this good or bad? We weren't sure. But they were timely. And I was a little, when we first showed it in February, I knew I was a little curious about the sort of activity in the film and the mindsets in the film that the audience that were going to watch it had really sort of been kind of hit over the head with a lot of different things that had happened in the last few months. So I was concerned about the audience, but they had laughed a lot. I don't know, I didn't stay here. A lot of laughs, yeah. Oh, good. Well, that's good. With our last minute here, just a few random rapid-fire things just first thing that comes to your mind.

1:07:04You've directed a lot of music videos. People may or may not realize. David Bowie, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tracy Chapman, Elton John, Katie Lang, Stone Temple Pilots, Hanson, John Mayer, on and on and on. What's the most memorable one for you? Well, the Chili Peppers was kind of the breakthrough. Under the Bridge. For Under the Bridge for them, the breakthrough song. And it was kind of like a good one for me. I mean, I'm really not very good at music videos, but that one was pretty good. You interviewed for the job of directing 2011's The Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn. That doesn't strike me as something that you would obviously be interested in.

1:07:45What was the appeal there? I had read that some of the actors, you had said my name when they were thinking about people they wanted to be directed by, and so I just tried to see if I could get the job. Okay. I couldn't. But I was so unprepared, too. It was like one of those things where I just thought we'd just walk in and talk about it. But they needed, like, a hard sell. Okay, a similar situation. Just in the out-of-left-fieldness of it a little bit, is it true that you expressed interest in directing Fifty Shades of Grey? Yeah, I had a friend who was writing it. and so I thought just the popularity of the book I thought it would be an interesting project I didn't really know that at the time like when we had a meeting about it and I actually made a reel for it but in talking about it I didn't really realize that their intention or the author's intention was quite powerful in the making of the film version.

1:08:50The book is like very much like a lot of sex each moment in the long book. I didn't know that they were not interested at all in any sex in the movie version. I thought they were going to go make something new or something. I think they did a good job. I don't know if my version would have been a little bit different. Maybe too much. If you were making milk today, could you and would you make it with a heterosexual actor playing Harvey Milk? Well, that's what we did, but I don't know. Any question? It'd be sort of a question. Yeah. Lastly, we've covered in depth just an amazing career and body of work.

1:09:37Is there something that you have not yet done that you still really want to do? I think that it's been, you know, I'm at a stage in my life and career where it's been and just great to work on stuff. It doesn't, it almost, that's why I think I was so easy to like say yes to this, to Dead Man's Wire, was that it was something that I could work and form into something. That the subjects and the stories, they're important, but just the act of like making something is the thing I most want to do. That's great. Well, thank you for all the great work. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

1:10:24Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

1:10:38Thanks for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. And to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.

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From the publisher

In front of an audience at the Miami Film Festival's GEMS event, the trailblazing filmmaker reflects on helping to usher in New Queer Cinema with 'Mala Noche' and 'My Own Private Idaho'; subsequently jumping between mainstream films, like 'Good Will Hunting' and 'Milk,' and experimental works, like 'Elephant'; why he came close to directing, but did not direct, 'Brokeback Mountain,' 'Call Me by Your Name' and '50 Shades of Grey'; and returning to feature filmmaking, after seven years away, with a film that is set in the '70s but is eerily timely today.
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