Darren Aronofsky, Vol. II

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0:44There's something so important about storytelling because every single person in the world can remember seeing a movie where it blew them away. and they remember the exact theater, the exact time, the exact place where they were when they walked out and that feeling. And there's no one that's had a two-hour session on TikTok that knows where the f*** they were, except for maybe their couch or their bed. But that was memorable in an emotional way, and that's the power of stories. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Hey, guys, I'm Josh, and this is another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused with the one and only Darren Aronofsky, one of my favorite filmmakers on the podcast after a long, long break talking, caught stealing, his entire career, his flirtation with comic book movies, and so much more.

1:39Thanks, guys, as always, for watching, for listening, however you're enjoying this episode of Happy, Sad, Confused. You guys know I love a great filmmaker, and Darren Aronofsky certainly fits the bill. A very formative filmmaker for me growing up, so thrilled that he is back on the podcast. Before we get to Darren, a quick reminder, as always, hit up our Patreon. Check out what we've got going over there. That's where you get announcements like who's coming up on the podcast, bonus materials, merch, autographed posters, announcements of live events. We've been doing a lot of live events lately, and there are many, many more to come.

2:15I will be at New York Comic Con doing a lot of things. I will be doing stuff at 92nd Street Y, other places, things, announcements to come. And as always, patreon.com slash happy, say I confused as the place for all of that news. Check it out. Okay, let's talk about Darren for a second. Darren is one of those guys who, look, I'm a guy of a certain age. And for guys of a certain age, he was and is and always will be a very important filmmaker. I mean, I've seen all of his films. I think this is his ninth film, perhaps. and have been a fan of all of them to different degrees. Certainly, the early work made a huge impression on me.

3:02Pie and Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain. And then, you know, as my career progressed, I started to get to know Darren and talk to him over the years about films like Black Swan and The Wrestler and Mother. So he's a fascinating guy. He's a New Yorker like myself. and I just love his big swings as a filmmaker. He was one of actually the first guests on the podcast over 11 years ago, if you can believe it, talking Noah at the time. And somehow it took 11 years to get him back on the podcast, but I'm thrilled it's happening for this. Caught Stealing is the film. It opens this Friday. It is, in some respects, a real change of pace for Darren.

3:44It is a fun movie. That's right. The F word, fun, which is not necessarily something you could say about Taron's films in the past. As much as I've gotten tremendous amounts of enjoyment out of them, this movie's goal is different. It is to entertain and be an escape and be a ride. And we have a great vessel in Austin Butler. You guys know. I know and love. He is our leading man in this. And he goes on quite the journey through New York City in 1998 in this. Definitely a story cut from the same cloth of Martin Scorsese's After Hours and the works of Scorsese and Spike Lee, etc. So really cool to see Darren channel his amazing filmmaking prowess in this way.

4:34He, as you'll hear in this conversation, is at a different point in his life where, you know, given where he's at, where the world's at, he is more open to these kinds of films. So it's an interesting time to talk to Darren about his priorities. This is a great chat. Always could have used more time, but hey, I'll take what I can get with someone like Darren. There'll be more chats to come and it won't be another 11 years, I promise. But yeah, we talk a little bit about this film's connections to the past, to Pi, set in the same time period, ironically, and also his flirtation over the years with these kind of, you know, comic book movies, big screen entertainments that he's come very close to doing, whether it was Batman or Superman or Watchmen or Wolverine.

5:22So there's some stuff in there for folks that enjoy that kind of stuff. And there's also stuff in here talking about his work on things like Requiem and Pi and Black Swan. So something for everybody in this conversation. He's just one of the cool guys to talk to. So really enjoyed this. If you want to see more of my conversations around Caught Stealing, coming soon, probably any day now on MTV's socials and YouTube page, had a really fun catch up with Austin Butler and Zoe Kravitz. Actually, it was on Austin's birthday. Surprised Austin with a cake. It's very sweet. I've already posted the photo on social.

6:02So that was a really cool moment. And yeah, lots more excitement to come, guys. Later this week on the podcast, we've got Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman together. Yep, you heard that right. Talking the roses and many other things. And then soon, very soon, I will be off to some film festivals, seeing all the cool stuff this fall. Telluride, Toronto, to go recording some stuff out there, getting into the really fun time of year for us film nerds. So that's where we're at. Here we go, guys. Enjoy this conversation. Check out Caught Stealing this Friday in theaters. Support Darren. Support Austin Butler.

6:44Support Zoe Kravitz. Support Matt Smith playing a punk rocker. Amazing. And yeah, without any further ado, enjoy this conversation. Here's me and Darren Aronofsky. Darren Aronofsky. It's good to see you man. Good to see ya. We're doing this. It's been I was telling you before 11 years 11 years you were one of my first guests on the pod so it means a lot to your back I'm glad that I'm not your first or last. Yeah, no, we're not we're not done quite yet nor are you Congratulations on the film very much enjoyed it. I think the highest compliment I can pay you and this is not a backhanded Compliment is that I feel like this is like a young filmmakers movie.

7:20This is like a guy just starting out. Thank you You've been doing this a minute. Yeah. Well, maybe it's because just new leaf, new turn. Wanted to try something different. I just sort of, I don't know, like I just noticed my own habits of going to see movies right now. And I just really wanted two hours of escapism, something really fun. And not much else. So kind of when I look at movies, I'm always like, well, work. I don't know. Just lately, I've felt the need for this. It does look I mean it I love first of all like Griffin done right from the start It's like okay. Yeah after hours. I get it.

7:59We're in that we're in the right vein here by the way Since you're a film freak in the movie after hours his character's name is Paul, right? And this is Paul's bar but Same to your coincidence your coincidence pure coincidence Is that does this show continuity is this in the Darren Aronofsky universe are the pie characters running around at the same time It's the same timeline. Yeah, there's actually a bunch of hidden pies throughout the production design. Amazing. And I've just decided right now to do an Easter egg hunt, and whoever gets the right amount gets a free copy of a signed script.

8:39Look, there is a punk aspect to this. You literally have a punk in the film. But talk to me a little bit about what it's like for you to still be kind of a punk filmmaker you know, in your 50s as opposed to when you were starting out as a punk filmmaker in your 20s. Well, I like punk music. I still listen to punk music. It's funny because I had my music supervisor, Jen Malone, make me playlists for each actor in pre-production. We're actually going to release them now on Spotify as part of the promotion. And the only one I really listened to was Russ's over and over again. He's got a taste. I just loved the old punk music.

9:16I don't know. I think it's just the music I came up with at one of those founding moments. There's no, it's not weird that the Beastie Boys were originally a punk band. That's all. I think those aesthetics were floating in the water in the 80s in Brooklyn. So that's part of it. It's interesting because I know a lot of people are talking about this as kind of an outlier for you. And I get that in some ways. But also, it's funny to me that you didn't write the script for this, but you're all over this movie. I mean this is about this is a film that's about addiction and redemption and paranoia and the setting It's like you could have written the script yourself.

9:56This does feel very much out of you So I guess my question is like chicken or the egg Does this come to you and you see all the themes that resonate with you or do you kind of put your own into it? Yeah, I mean There's a reason I read the book 18 years ago and responded and was excited by it But then when it came back to us three years ago and I started working with Charlie, I was definitely pushing in certain directions. A big part was like the characters, which, I mean, was partly co-written by the casting process. You know, first, I think Ross, the next door neighbor, was just sort of a guy that looked like Hank.

10:34And I was like, that's not so interesting. And then I kind of, you know, one of the great things about living in New York in a fifth floor walk up for many years of my life is you just slowly find out that behind every door is another crazy New Yorker. Yeah. And I just imagined there could be an over the hill punk living in one of those doors. And so, you know, it started to go that way. I originally was a guy with an American accent and then I started doing the casting process and one really good actor came in who was English who did it perfect American accent. But I was like, you know what? Try it in English and it was like, oh wow, that's interesting.

11:15So then I was like told Mary Vanu, the casting director, I was like, let's look at British actors too. And then Matt shows up. I'm the president of the Matt Smith fan club. Yeah. I don't know how that, but so that helped. And also New York City itself helped write it. And that was me looking at locations to solve certain problems. And that led to certain things. So like the big kind of hostage handoff that turns into the chase scene all happened in the baseball fields on the East River Park by the FDR. But that was being ripped up and redone. And also just trying to do a chase scene on the FDR would be extremely difficult.

11:54Yeah. So just out of need, we just started looking, where else could we do it? And the idea of doing it in a park where there's no streets you have to shut down became very controllable. And then that linked us to Shea Stadium because it's right there. And I had one of those aha moments. I'm like, oh, the Mets are there and this whole Giants wildcard backstory. So that's not in the book. It just sort of happened because we were really making it in New York City. I appreciate that you honored the actual as a New Yorker the geography I always think back to like I love Die Hard with a Vengeance. It's a great New York film anyways The geography is all fucked up.

12:31Yeah, I can't I can't do that You know the biggest geography jump for us is like when he gets on the seventh train I don't want to do any spoilers and gets off before he goes to Coney Like that where he gets off the train isn't quite appropriate You know what that's the seventh train. No one really knows those stations anyway Exactly. Are you stealing any shots in this? Is Darren Aronofsky at this point in his career? I mean, I assume pie was all stolen. Well, we definitely we stole that drone shot through the Unisphere. That was not a permit acceptable. So that was a stolen shot. No, we had permission on the subway this time.

13:07This time we actually had control of the train, which I was like, oh, you could do that. Yeah, we had like a conductor and the whole thing and safety so that it was very fun. Is there some nostalgia though? Like, you know, you are recapturing literally the same timeframe some overlapping locations to a degree with some of your early stuff. Well, the funny thing is how Coney Island functions in this film is actually structurally and emotionally character exactly the same as it does in Pi. In Pi, Max wakes up in Coney Island, the last stop, and then goes down to the beach, stares at the water and kind of has a turning point.

13:43And it's kind of very similar, which is there was a fan site that posted that and I was like oh they're right. Discovering stuff about your own movie from the fans, that's how it works. I mean look this is, you've talked before about like the influence of folks like Scorsese and Spike. And like I feel like this is the kind of film that like they'll get a kick out of too. I hope so. Have you, yeah I mean I assume they are acquaintances by now in your life so are they? Yeah, no I didn't get to show it to Spike. I mean Spike's movie comes out this weekend. And Maddie's a DP on that right? The two great New York films.

14:15I can't wait to see it and I just I wish Freak I hope I can see it when I get to Europe. I'm dying to see it. So

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17:50So elaborate a little bit more on just kind of where you were, because you were saying, you were kind of like when you wanted to make this. Because knowing your career as I do in our past conversations, you've had some opportunities. You've come close to doing kind of like the quote-unquote popcorn movie many times in your career. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I don't know. First, go back for me for a second. So out of Pi and Requiem, I feel like that's a point where you could have probably... I assume the offer... That's when Batman showed up. Right, that's where Batman... But I wasn't... I was really focused on the fountain.

18:20I really never took that seriously. So I wanted to make The Fountain. That's where I was at. Can you clarify though, because like, how, like did you have meetings with Frank Miller? Like how far did you get on Batman? We co-wrote a script, but my whole strategy on that one was I wanted to make this totally wild, crazy film about love and the search for the Fountain of Youth. And I felt like if I was on Batman, they might let me make it, which is kind of what happened, sort of. That's a longer story. But it was also, you know, I think the Batman that me and Frank pitch was like really or wrote was a really kind of down and dirty duct tape type of movie that was never really going to, you know, it wasn't going to be selling Batmobiles.

19:12I don't think I was the right guy at the right time. It was rated R. Right. It was definitely I think a whole a whole world of superhero films had to first come out to yeah Scrape the bottom of that barrel before they would go to rated R films like right like some of the later ones Did you did you have a actor in mind? I've read somewhere that Joaquin was yeah, that's true Yeah, I mean, but you know the famously I pitched Joaquin and they were into Freddie Prince jr. And so I didn't know that Yeah, it was like a different it was a very different world back then of like like, aesthetically what was going on, I think.

19:51So you were focused on The Fountain, which was a bit of a journey. Were there other, were you getting, like, a lot of offers at the time for, I don't know, like, genre films for studio films? I mean, what was coming to you at that time? Well, you're going way back. I'm not sure I was that, that any of it really stuck and none of it was real. I mean, I did. I remember I chased Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. That script was such a hot commodity at the time. It was amazing. It was amazing. And I got nowhere near it. But it was funny because I had the book. That's why I knew about it. And I lent my copy to my producer, Eric, and he lost it.

20:33I was pissed off. And I went to the bookshop on St. Mark's. There's that East Village bookshop down the flight of stairs. and there was a copy of it. And I was like, oh, great. And I looked and the price was a dollar and there was an inscription and it said, to Red, I hope you like it. If not, don't sue me, Chuck. And the book is dedicated to Red, who I think is the Julia Roberts character in it. So I have the autographed signed copy for a dollar in my house. So I was like, I'm supposed to direct this. And I told the story to Alan Horn And it just didn't happen amazing Okay, so then throughout the years we don't have to detail all the near misses or whatever Yeah, like you did kind of like dance with a lot of things.

21:19There was man of steel. There's yeah, Vareen. Yeah Watchmen yeah watchmen for but that most of them were like a week I think I was that watchman I brought it into Sherry Lansing and she was excited And then I think a week later was when she retired okay, and so then it kind of disappeared And I never really I forget what film I was working on at the time. I was interested in that one You said you were a fan of Zack's. I remember we talked about that. You liked what Zack did with that film, actually. I thought it was a really committed, faithful to the source material, and it was great. And then I watched the animated one that just recently came out, which was fantastic.

21:57Really? Yeah, it's great. And then Man of Steel was pretty quick, too. That's like a... I never got Man of Steel. I think they gave it to Zack. Okay. I was never on that. I think I think I did just a meeting on it but You know it was never it was never mine or anything I didn't I didn't Superman is really hard as we know Yeah, I thought James did a really great job with it. I thought I mean It's it's a crazy difficult box to work in because of like the the lore and the legend is so huge But it was incredibly creative So where where do you find yourself now coming off of something like this? because now you have kind of made your popcorn movie and it's getting a really nice reception.

22:38Are you in the headspace to kind of like go back all the way in the other direction towards Mother, etc., or play in the sandbox more? I haven't really decided. I kind of want, I really think where I'm at right now is one of the great things that Hollywood does is it takes strangers with all different types of persuasions into a dark room and it puts a hero in front of them and takes you on an empathy journey where hopefully if it's a well-made film, you leave your shoes and you're with someone else for two hours. and that connects you to a larger world and tells you an emotional story. And those heroes are the ones that kind of connect us as a culture.

23:37And that's kind of, we need that glue right now. And we do it really well with superheroes and characters that are larger than life. but I think it's great when it's like human heroes and Hank in caught stealing is is a really it's a pretty good guy. Yeah, he's not hurting anyone He's probably hurting himself quite a bit ruffling himself, but he's he's he's not her anyway He's minding his own business and we don't see heroes like that guys that keep getting whacked down But keep getting up trying to figure out what the hell's going on and so that's what I hope I hope like people from everywhere come into this movie and you know can forget about their phones for two hours and just connect.

24:21So I kind of like, I keep going back to like, if Hollywood can do anything right now, it's shut up and dance and do what we do best. Yeah. Which is like, just remember, let's entertain people. Like, let's bring back the big musicals. Not in real life, although that would be fine. But like, just bring people in to have a good time. What you say really resonates when I think of like Austin's performance in this. It's really cool to see him do something like this, because it does feel like, it's like a back in the day. It's like what I love about the people like Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise way back one is like they they they knew the power of like getting hit in the face a lot.

24:55And that connected you even. Harrison Ford's perfect on Frantic. He did this. He did the hero completely. And he always did. Yeah. Sometimes he would play the president. Sure. But even though he was the president, he was still a normal guy. Yeah. Same thing with The Fugitive. Yeah. You don't see them that many of these stories. And Hitchcock did it a ton. After Hours does it. Yeah. But I just like, you know, all those films from the 70s, they're just great. And they're so grounded in the beauty of New York. So talk to me a little bit about, this might be the first film of yours that has no protests associated with it.

25:28There's no controversy for caught stealing. I don't know. Some people might come out against Bad Bunny. I don't think so. I think you're okay. I mean, that's an odd thing. I mean, look, you have been a bit of a provocateur over your career. It's not on purpose. It's not on purpose. No, I don't think so. I don't actually, I couldn't believe that there was anything provocative about the whale. I mean, it was such an exercise in empathy. Right. And trying to connect with a character that most of us don't have exposure to, you know? Yeah. So at least I don't. So what about on something like Mother, which I feel like some people.