Telluride's Great Vibes and Emmy's Early Winners, Plus Andrew Garfield on the Stirring History of The Uprising

0:00And if it does that, like, how are we not taking this seriously as like a best picture? I think it's absolutely in the best picture 10 right now. Hi, everyone. I'm Katie Rich. It's the Prestige Junkie podcast. And today, Chris Rosen and I are back together to talk about everything he saw at the Telluride Film Festival, from celebrity sightings to secret documentaries to, I don't know, Mountain Views. You haven't told me much about the Mountain Views yet, but I assume those are in there too, Chris. Mountain Views are beautiful, Katie. They're the best. as reported. There were some people getting canal views over in Venice.

0:30We'll talk about what's been happening in Venice. Labor Day weekend is, of course, a very busy fall festival weekend. It was also busy for the Emmys. Two nights of Creative Arts Emmys happened. There are some Emmy winners already. We'll talk about those at the end of our conversation. And then after all that, you'll hear me talk to Andrew Garfield about his new film, The Uprising. So much to get into. Welcome to the show.

0:53Chris, we are catching you just hours before you leave Telluride. I think you're just saying you're ready to go home. But, you know, from the dispatches we did together on SubSecond YouTube over the weekend, it seems like it's been a really good Telluride. The vibes seem pretty stellar. Katie, I've been coming since 2021 and I've never the vibes here are through the roof. I would say like people are saying like every movie was a banger. I didn't hear really people talking about like maybe one or two movies that missed. And even the ones that people didn't love, they are still like, oh, these are OK.

1:19Like it's a much different vibe. And yeah, so it's very exciting. And like we were talking, I was talking to somebody on Saturday night and it was like, oh, typically at this time of year, we knew this from last year, movies will kind of a couple of the contenders will flop or fall out when you start seeing them. But that hasn't happened. And maybe even more contenders are showing up. So it feels like incredibly a full awards season. Well, and I feel like we're going to talk about a lot of awards contenders in a minute. But it seems like a lot of the energy came from the guessing game you guys got to do about this secret movie that was screening on Sunday night, which is finally revealed.

1:52and you can talk about it. It's known to the world. But how much of the vibe of the Cellular being special is like, we're going to see something. We don't know what it is. And it's a world premiere and it's totally secret. It feels like that was a boost. Yeah, definitely. That started from Thursday for people who hadn't been watching or whatever. But Thursday, they announced the schedule and there was a big block of an unknown TBA movie on the schedule for Sunday night. And then the guessing game immediately started. So it's like, is this going to be like Digger or Cliff Booth or, you know, I don't even know, name another, Dune Part 3.

2:21and it was revealed three i heard some speculation my entertainment system is down the ruben oslin movie that's presumably not going to be an original can next year all kinds of stuff and so then it was like trying to figure out what it was and certain people knew which we kind of i realized like so few people knew but weren't saying or they weren't allowed to say and so yeah then we just spent the next four days trying to figure out what it was and there was a lot of speculation that was a frank ocean movie with taylor russell and uh david johnson and then there was more speculation on sound on saturday night i guess that it was going to be a frank ocean movie and a companion album release and it was going to be back to back in the theater because it was so long uh there was a reportedly like a hybrid element to the movie maybe it was a doc maybe it was music and it ended up being almost all true in certain ways because it was a 24 which was long speculated and it was a hybrid movie because nathan fielder and lance oppenheim made this incredibly uh unbelievable movie about Elizabeth Holmes that I think is to be believed and to be seen.

3:20And so it was really a really cool moment. But they they went so far as to lock up our phones, which I've never seen before in a film festival or anywhere like with those. I guess they're I called them Yondu. I think it's Yondu or Yonder. Yonder bags. I thought it was Yonder. I've never I'm not cool enough to go to concerts that use those. So I don't actually know. Same. Same. So anyway, they locked up our phones. You couldn't really talk about it. But there we go. So it was this you can see everything is the name of the movie from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. And they have been working on it for years, as you see in the movie.

3:50It starts like in 2022, basically. And they had this incredible flex. I mean, all of this has incredible flex, including how secret it stayed until the end. But they sent out the teaser trailer pretty much immediately after your screening started, maybe. No, I'm sitting at home and I see four different emails from four different publicity firms being like, here is, you can see everything. It says coming in theaters October. So it's coming out relatively soon. And you've been instructed not to spoil parts of it. There's all kinds of stuff. And like, honestly, given my experience with Nathan Fielder work, I feel like describing it isn't going to give that much away.

4:19But what can you tell us about You Can See Everything? It's like, oh, it's three hours long, years long project. Actual Elizabeth Holmes is in it. What else should we know? So it starts. Yeah, it's there. That was one of the secretive things. I guess there's a like a little bit of a twist. But I know we could talk around this and stuff. And I'm sure it's out there already for those who want to spoil it. I was thinking if it is spoiled for you as you after you listen to this, it's probably OK. because like you're still not going to believe what happens in the in that part of the movie i would say so uh yeah it's right it starts like right before elizabeth holmes is going to go to jail maybe like 30 days before and him and it's her and her husband billy who is a major character in the movie and revealed to have many layers of uh just many layers he's an incredible character um and and then nathan fielder is in there and so it starts in san diego they're like filming in a house that clip you saw is part of those interviews and it's a lot of him talking to her and talking and Hemmin just kind of like recording what they're doing through the remaining days of her freedom before she goes to jail.

5:20And even after the movie, they did a Q &A with Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim and Emma Stone, who is the Telluride fave and was obviously working with Nathan Fielder before she like moderated this Q &A. Oh, is she a good moderator? I know celebrity moderators can be hit or miss. She was a good moderator. And it seems like a tough crowd because Nathan Fielder, as you probably could tell, is not very. I am not brave enough to interview Nathan Fielder. I don't think I can hold my own. So it was like a tough room, but she's friends with him. So I kind of helped. And even there, he was like, I still don't know why they wanted to like that.

5:50The big question of the movie is like, why, why is this even exist? Like you don't even, and you maybe could get your own answers after you watch it. But like, it's crazy that they allowed Nathan Fielder to come and like document this part of their life. Well, and it's her, from what I've read, it's her being like, I didn't do anything wrong. Like why? Like I, I, I've never lied a day in my life. Like, is that really what she's going with? Literally a scene in the movie. He goes, have you ever lied? and she says no i've never lied a day in my life and he's like not even a white lie and she's like i don't know and it's like the thing and he says this in the movie and he becomes like i mean it's not a surprise maybe if you've seen some of his other work but he becomes a character in the movie like he's like he's part of it and um yeah like he's trying to like he says like he's trying to figure out like how much of how much can i believe her because she is you feel like empathy for her honestly and like it's interesting like listening to her speak and like but you know she She's like a like a proven like liar.

6:46Right. So like, how do you balance that and what can you believe? And yeah, it's just a fascinating movie. It was it's a three hour movie. And the first hour is very or maybe less. But like the first chunk is very much like here is Nathan Fielder doing a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and her family. Sure. And so it's in the house. Regular Nathan Fielder, not a character that presumably emerges. Correct. He talks to them and there's like definitely cutaways to him where he's making like weird face. like he's like you know like that's gonna make it a face a lot of faces and like a lot of him like kind of looming in the background with his laptop like he did in the rehearsal and stuff you know whatever um and then at the pivot it becomes an entirely different thing and this is where the hybrid element comes in the pivot is when she actually goes starts her prison sentence yes because and this is like and he ends up bringing in somebody to play her and like talk to her that's like not that and that is when it becomes absolutely incredible because the whole movie for me, I was like, what is real?

7:44What is real here in terms of this documentary? Not just like Elizabeth Holmes and her husband, but what is Nathan Fielder doing here that's real? What is scripted? What is not scripted? And you honest, there's no way to know really. And I think that's like fascinating. And I've been turning over scenes in the last like 12 hours, like just like, how did this work? Yeah. There is a couple of moments that felt so unscripted that they almost seem dangerous. I was like, you literally, I was sitting there and literally like, I do not have any idea how this is going to end because like how are they going to get out of this scene that they're in like they're it's just a crazy crazy movie and apparently like the backstory is like him and lance oppenheim were lance oppenheim director of primetime we should say who had a huge weekend with primetime premiering in venice and so i guess they went to i think that the story they told the q a and then it was in the the press notes that they sent separately um they met at like uh magic castle i think it is in la right or something like that and they had talked about like Like, oh, they had also heard that like Elizabeth Holmes had talked to A24 about doing something, but nothing was going forward.

8:45This is a few years ago. And Nathan Fielder was like, oh, I'd love to just meet Elizabeth Holmes and talk to her. And so then he went and met. And that's how this kind of started. And then their collaboration moved from there. So it's a fascinating movie. I mean, coming out in October. So we'll see where else it goes. I mean, I think we'll have more time to talk about it. But I think my big question, like knowing the concept of this would have been like, what is there possibly new to know about Elizabeth Holmes? Like there's all the books. There's the dropout. There's, you know, she's kind of this figure, this grifter figure from a different era, like a different era of Silicon Valley.

9:13And it's interesting, but I kind of feel like she is just still a self-promoter. She is still going to try to tell her own version of it. But it seems like the only way to get something interesting and new out of Elizabeth Holmes is if it's Nathan Fielder doing this weird approach to it. I think so, because it's not just I think it's about like how we process Elizabeth Holmes. And it's also about like how we tell like how do you find out what's true? like a lot of like and no matter what side you're on and like it's like interest like it not just like political i mean like when you're telling a story like we know elizabeth holmes again has documented like not told the truth but then in in the coverage of her and how we've seen how we've ingested it whether it's like in books or in articles or on tv like how much of that is true and that's what the movie is kind of really wrestling with in an interesting way and it gets more interesting as it moves on so great movie it sounds fascinating sounds like a real contrast to a Frankenstein screening late on Sunday night at Telluride last year and making everybody crazy.

10:07So real, real way to end the festival on a high note, it sounds like. Yeah, a hundred percent. People were, you know, like, again, even like, so like by that point, by the time we got, I mean, pulling back the curtain a little bit, Katie, by the time we were all walking in as members of the press, it was like, oh, this is a Nathan Fielder movie. I didn't know how far like it was going to go or whatever. But we were like, we knew it was like Nathan Fielder. We had heard it was like Elizabeth Holmes by that point. And there was a hybrid element or whatever. But people who were like, not as online as maybe us and other journalists were like i was talking to somebody and he was like you think it's like dune three it's like well no i don't but like i'm glad people did it and even in her opening remarks julie hunsinger was like you know uh she was trying to implore people not to like spoil the movie or like kind of like reveal certain things about the movie because they wanted people to experience it uh on their own and she was like you know and in youritu is here he always says like what stays in telluride what happens in Telluride stays in Telluride.

11:02And then somebody was like, and then she was like, but it's not Digger, basically, which made me laugh too. Okay, so Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder send the things off with a bang. And again, for people who want kind of the more granular day-by-day of Telluride, we recorded two live dispatches that are on YouTube and on Presti's Junkie after-party Substack, despite some Wi-Fi issues that we powered through. But I'm just going to throw out to you as a summary thing, the other most powerful image or most lasting thing that happened was a video that Focus Features posted of Oprah hugging Andrew Scott coming out of a screening of Elsinore.

11:32Is that the biggest flex of festival season so far? Yes, I think so. As we talked about over the weekend, I'm a documented fan of this movie. I thought it was like really good. And it definitely, again, it feels like the normie movie here because when I talk to members of the media, like our pals or whatever, they were mixed, being kind maybe, some of them, right? Like, uh, and, but when I talked to regular people, I was talking to one woman and she was like, I absolutely loved Elsinore. It was like my favorite thing. And I was like, I agree. So you're playing Oprah Normie? I think Oprah is a beyond definition, but I do think like, like a regular person.

12:13And I think, uh, uh, I could see really doing well at the Academy. And I think like, I'm just, I'm bullish on that movie more so than a lot of our friends, because I do think it's just going to play really well. And I think the playbook, like you mentioned this in the after party that we sent out on Monday, but it does feel like Focus can just really run back the Hamnet playbook because it's an emotional movie. It makes people cry. It has this powerhouse center of performance. And however far the movie goes, it kind of doesn't matter. I think it could get into Best Picture maybe. And Andrew Scott, if it does, would be a formidable frontrunner.

12:46But I do think it's like this is the Andrew Scott moment like last year was the Jesse Buckley moment. Yeah. Well, and you were saying Andrew Scott, like he introduced the film like he's been there and he's like he's good at this kind of crowd work thing until you're right is a very specific spot. But it does seem like you do get to see a lot of these people shaking hands, meeting people in a more casual environment than what will come later in award season. But probably a good preview of who's going to be good at doing this stuff. Yeah. I mean, I'm very I'm bull. If we're talking about campaign, Andrew's got number one with a bullet on campaigning, I would say.

13:14I mean, Jessie Buckley, I guess she was like she was busy doing other stuff. Paul Meskel was busy doing stuff, but I feel like she really got out there and campaigned well, too. So, yes. Well, but the other movie that I feel like you came away with saying was kind of the universally acclaimed one that everyone's talking about is Wild Horse Nine. Does that still have kind of the prize for the one that everyone went nuts for? Of the premieres? Yes. But I got to say, Katie, the number one movie that I heard about, I just saw this one on Sunday and I was absolutely blown away by it. And then everyone I spoke to felt the same way was Club Kid, which I know you saw at Cannes.

13:46Let's talk about Club Kid first then. Because I think you were saying like it's the one that wins the you know what I really loved, which is a very powerful thing. It was absolutely the one you know what I really love movie. Yeah. It played through the roof here. And like we said, this is a very specific audience, very wealthy, very white, very boomerish. Right. And so this does the movie like Club Kid was going to be like challenging for like if you were expecting it to be challenging, like this is the audience that it would be challenging for. Because they had trouble with like uncut gems. They did embrace a Nora.

14:17This movie opens and you've got your main character kind of in the throes of his club life. You're getting into a taxi with all these all these club kids acting absolutely obnoxious. And you're like, how am I going to tolerate spending a movie with all these people? And then the movie unfolds and does a lot of other stuff. And they were just blown away. they they had a lot of the people here from the movie i mean 24 not just jordan first man the child actor like front and center in that big class photo they took the kid and a lot of the queens are are there too and they're all walking around so and they were treated like uh like superstars on the street like people were like stopping them and saying what a moving movie it is um i was like this i think we've been like even at can i know you like and it's so funny like i think people really have to see because you said you saw everyone i know who saw it i can was like this is a great movie and i was like i can't wait to see it and i said i was like wow it's actually even greater than i thought it was gonna be with that i think it's like like so the playbook fear is like how does this not place in the tiff audience award because i think it'll play through the roof at tiff i think it absolutely will i agree and if it does that like how are we not taking this seriously as like a best picture i think it's absolutely in the best picture 10 right now like i was just like i know i can't get a ton of nominations like it's not like a nora probably a nora had picture and director and screenplay but it also had a lead actress like i think and I think Jordan Firstman does very well in the center role of this, but I don't think that's what the play for this movie is, especially given the way best actor is shaking out.

15:37And I think that is a challenge for it that like the invite doesn't have, for example. Totally agree. I will say this, though, that I think he's so good in it. And I do think if people love the movie, they have to love him. And so like, is there enough people who love the movie that he could actually get in for best actor? I don't think it's like beyond the I was trying to think of who like the Andrew Scott fans go nuts because Jordan Firstman bumped out of like it's such a bloodbath of Best Actor already. I know, I know. But I was like, I mean, and I think like, you know, it's got the cinematography is Adam Newport-Berra who also did The Invite and has an amazing job.

16:11So if it's like, oh, like, can he get in with that branch and recognize him for that? I think that's a huge part of what makes us feel like a movie movie is how good it looks. It looks incredible. The score is incredible. The editing is incredible. And I just think if it could get like, and the screen, so like picture and screenplay, maybe it's like past lives and it just gets those two. But I do think it could get like maybe more and I think it's like I don't think I I don't know if like who knows but I don't think it would win best picture because like that would be kind of a crazy thing to say on September 7th but I do think like people have not at least people I've spoken to no one really had it taken it as seriously as a best picture nominee and now having seen it here and hearing the response from this audience specifically I do think it's like a very serious best picture contender so uh that kind of blew me away what I have been curious about since can because can kind of famously was like a little bit down key.

16:59Like it was, you know, a lot of quieter movies. And so something like Club Kid and Teenage Sex and Death of Cammy Asma, another one like really kind of like blew people away because it was just like big feelings. It's got stuff to it. And I wondered how Club Kid would do stacked up against like Wild Horse Nine, Elsinore, some of these other like more crowd pleaser feels derogatory. But you know what I mean? Like a movie playing to the crowd. And it sounds like Club Kid does really hold its own in that crowd. Yeah. And I think we talked about this a little bit with like when we were handicapping like like Project Hail Mary in terms of like what people are going to want this year and that kind of like thoughtful hope or whatever it is.

17:30Right. You know what I mean? And like this movie, I just felt like it was so, it's really emotional. And like, you really, like, I was crying. Like, I mean, I cry at all these movies, but I was like, I was really crying. I thought it was like, so seeing it when you're far away from your kid is real, is real tough. And like, like you said, I think the trick of the movie is like when you first, the first scene is like alienating almost because you're with these people, it's so loud. And like, Like you're kind of like, who are these people? And they're doing so much drugs, so many drugs in the beginning of the movie.

17:56And so much lingo that you're like, I don't understand what this is. And to take that character, the Jordan Firstman character, Peter, who's like the club promoter or whatever, and to take him from where he starts there to like where it ends and have it feel like earned is so special. And I just think it's like a really, really special movie. And I was like, to a person, everyone I talked to here was like, but you know what? I really love Club Kids. So I was like, that's a great sign. But then is A24 going to get three Best Picture nominees? Because we already think the invite could get in. And the debut was really well received here, too.

18:27Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just going to say, like, what are the other ones that have been super well received? It sounds like all of them. Like, I threw out Wild Horse 9, which, of course, had a really good Venice premiere as well. Ink had a good Venice premiere, played well at Telluride. The debut was a world premiere. You really loved that one. Was that more muted than what I'm reading for some of the other ones? No, I think it was pretty high. I still think it was pretty high. And I think it could, I mean, of those three A24 movies right now, I'd put that, if they're all going to get in, I think that's still third.

18:54Just because I think it's tonally, it's just a strange tone. And I think if you're not on the wavelength of the tone, you might like not vibe with it. Even if you're like, Julianne Moore's incredible and Paul Giamatti's amazing. Like, I think they're kind of separate from the whole movie. But I do think it's so well made, again, that it could get in, certainly. And I have all three of them in now, which maybe is crazy. But like, I do think like, like, you know, like it'll be interesting to see how they manage those three throughout the season. But yet do not sleep on Club Kid among those A24 titles.

19:25Yeah, it's a big one. So Focus had a good weekend. Searchlight had a good weekend. A24 had a good weekend. Anything else we had to be throwing out here? No, I mean, like in terms of like, like I was saying, I kind of maybe was saying this earlier, but like the biggest issue with this weekend for other movies is that none of these movies flopped. You know, like last year when we had Frankenstein missing and like Jay Kelly was a little muted or whatever. Frankenstein came back. Frankenstein came back. But you know what I mean? Like it made like room for other movies to be entering the conversation.

19:53And now I'm like, we've seen everything between Cannes and like Telluride in Venice, a lot of things. But I'm like, now it's even harder, I think, for Digger or Dune or like, you know, maybe even I play Rocky, even though I expect that to be like a crowd pleaser, too. Because you're not selling that I play Rocky stock until you absolutely have to. I won't. But I'm like, you know what I mean? like it's like we've already like there's so many movies that have succeeded already and gone above and beyond expectations maybe even that i'm like i wonder how much room there is for anything else coming out so we'll have to see if and maybe those will all be great too and it's like the best it's a champagne problem where you have so many good movies it's a really good year we had a good oscar year last year too like uh i do feel like after um after this past oscar year it was like okay that's three good best picture winners in a row like what are we at least something's got to change at some point so i mean it's not too late for i don't know i don't know what's the example of some bullshit that would win Best Picture and make us all mad would be this year movies.

20:44But yeah, the Green Book will come back and win Best Picture again. Yeah, that's how we'll mess all this up. I'm so excited about Toronto. I'm going to get to see a lot of these things. Neither of us has seen primetime. We should say got great reviews for Robert Pattinson in Venice. So yet another best actor contender into the mix. I mean, we'll be talking a lot from Toronto, but anything just in particular you're excited about now that we're heading to another festival? I mean, in terms of I'm excited to see how these other movies, how these movies keep playing, because I think Elsinore is another one that I was like, I think that will, I'll be curious to see how it plays in Toronto and like how that does with the big audience.

21:16We should talk about Lobola Negra. Did you see that at Telluride also? Katie, I did see Lobola Negra at Telluride. Speaking of TIFF, audience award potential winners, I assume. Very good movie. I thought it was very good. I know, I really enjoyed it. It was incredibly well-made and I didn't love it as much as these other three, but I still thought it was great. And I was like, it maybe is, is it Netflix? I was trying to talk to people and I was like, is this the best Netflix, like best picture contender since Marriage Story? Like that's like a long time. But I'm like, it's really, it's really good.

21:48I think it's like really one of their better, better movies. And the response has been great. People love that movie. And I think they'll really fall for it. I was thinking back to Kyle when we had him on was like, could get like 10, 11 nominations. And when you watch it, you're like, oh yeah, it really could. And it's going to just rack up the nominations in terms of like, it's below the line tech. and like the writer and the director is obviously and everything. It's a great, great movie. Yeah, I am very curious about how it shakes out in the acting races because I do, I think Guita Rica De La Fuente is the closest it has to a lead.

22:18Like it's so evenly split between these three different stories that it's tricky. He also co-wrote the song that's going to be the big contender, you know, the one that comes in at the end in the snow. And I guess maybe similarly with Club Kid, it's like how is it going to shake out in the Oscar race? But I think it's got so many of the crafts locked down that I think predicting it for that kind of double digit nominations total is very smart. What surprised me most about it was, so for people to know, it's told across three timelines. It's like 1932, 1939, and then 2017, right? I believe is the three timelines.

22:47I think so. And I was really most enamored with the present day, but to the modern day timeline. And I thought that actor, I think his name is Carlos Gonzalez, who plays the main focus of that section, was fantastic. And the scenes with his mother, who is... Oh, she's amazing. I think it's Dola Fuentes, right? Yeah. That's her name. Was incredible. And so if there's an actor, a surprise supporting actor contender from that movie, I would hope it's Carlos because I thought he was just so wonderful. And I think people really respond to that section of the movie. Yeah. And so hopefully, like that could be an acting play for them.

23:24I was like, can they get it in for, this is why they are, maybe Netflix has so many great people, but I'm like, can they get in for SAG Ensemble or Actor Award Ensemble? I think that's a great ensemble pick. I think so too. Yeah. casting certainly but yeah so we'll see see how it goes yeah i think casting is a great call too finding all of those like young guys who presumably like not we're all like i think guicharca delafonte was pretty famous but you know a fascinating thing i'll be talking to the directors los javis and tiff in a week um so we'll be have lots to get into about that um very soon um okay so we'll get to toronto we'll have lots of time to talk about it you'll talk about the emmys before i let you go catch your flight home oh yes of course creative arts emmys happen over the weekend night one and night two however you want to put it um i got i think two or three different pr emails saying widows bay leads all shows with wins so they want to make it very clear that widows bay won a bunch of uh uh technical emmies i guess apple 120 total um betty gilpin winning guest actress huge we love to see it um what else stood out for you from these two nights of emmies i mean certainly widows bay dominating was impressive it beat hacks head to head in almost every category except I think editing where it had three nominations and Hacks had two nominations so I guess maybe that's tough but hilariously enough Pluribus had three editing nominations and also won one of theirs so I guess you if you were still up for Hacks you could be like oh that's good for Hacks that it maybe won that but yeah I was like I think Widows if if I was expecting Widows Bay maybe to win comedy series and I still think now it's even more likely to win it because I think that's pretty certain right yeah yeah I mean it winning like casting that's such a huge vote of thing you know the pit won that um i feel like you can just kind of get a sense of of the favorites in these things and in terms of the other category so pit certainly like you said like that one we we're not really sweating the drama categories i would say at this point but yeah i mean ernest ryan jr winning guest actor for playing louis on the pit like i think that's what we thought might happen but that seemed like a tough one because it was a lot of vote splitting with that show then the other category spider noir got canceled but also won some Emmys so uh good for spider noir sorry sorry to see you go five five Emmys for spider noir great show great show wow um the other one I was looking at was the limited series because I think this is a really tough weekend for our friends at beef which I kind of was anticipating a little bit we've talked about but it lost writing and directing and both supporting actor uh awards supporting actor and supporting actress in a limited series to DTF St.

25:56Louis yeah it lost casting to Love Story. And so that to me means that DTF St. Louis is probably going to win limited series. And I would not be surprised if Sarah Pidgeon wins best actress. I think she will. For Love Story. And so I think then that would leave beef with really nothing to win unless Oscar Isaac could win actor. But I don't know if that's going to really happen based on how the rest of the show is performed. Who is going to win actor though? Maybe Matthew Rhys for Beast and Me? Oh, sure. Yeah. Give him to him. He's in a single night. Why not? No, I mean, I just I guess I've accepted that other people don't understand.

26:27that beef is a masterpiece the way that I clearly thought that it was. And DTS St. Louis has its charms, but I don't get it. I'm happy for Linda Carlini and David Harbour. They have their first Emmys. And they're very good on the show. I'm not going to hold that against anybody. Rob Reiner won guest actor in a comedy series as predicted. I imagine that will be very emotional. So we'll see this as a broadcast next Saturday on FXX. You know, broadcast rights for word shows are in a strange place these days. We've got to say it. But I won't watch it. I'll be seeing Missy Green, I think. I don't know what you're going to be doing.

27:03We'll be in Canada. Can't we even watch the Emmys in Canada? We're going to try to figure it out. We're going to figure it out. We have to Google it. We're going to have to learn how to use a VPN maybe to watch the Emmys as the technology gods intended. But that's, I mean, our colleague Lane Lowe was there. I am excited to hear her kind of tell us about what we missed. But yeah, more Emmys to come. Are you ready for the next week is going to be kind of nuts, Chris. Yeah, but it's so much fun. I love this time of year. It is. the best. Really fun. You're not getting into Toronto in time to have like the pregame dinner or to go to the 8.30 a.m.

27:33press screening of the Mike Lee movie, which I'm expecting to be very intense. I think I'm going to get in line an hour early, maybe earlier. See how that goes. Any last things before I let you go and see you in Toronto in a couple days? No, I think this is great, Katie. What if this is the best season yet? I don't know. I mean, to be at the other end of Telluride and still have that like, wow, look at all these great movies feeling like that's I mean, we're in for something. Something is going to be a hilarious disaster at some point, but we don't know what it is yet. It has to. Well, Chris, I'll let you go catch a flight.

28:02Those of you listening, stick around. I'll be back with my conversation with Andrew Garfield. Now let's hear my conversation with Andrew Garfield, who is starring in a lot of movies this year. But this time he's here to talk about the film The Uprising. It's from director Paul Greengrass. It's about the peasants revolt that happened in the 14th century in Britain. And he plays a character who is named Plowman. He's just named after his profession. That's kind of deliberate. He's someone who's being kind of awakened to the political moment around him. And when you talk to Andrew Garfield about a story with political ramifications, the conversation goes in all kinds of different directions.

28:38He is so persuasive talking about why this story about people rising up against oligarchs basically feels very relevant to today. And not just because he went directly from the set of Artificial playing Sam Altman to the set of The Uprising playing a revolting peasant, which is a real contrast that he said was very helpful for him. Although he also says he's very much in need of a break from being on sets. He's got some secrets for how to quit social media, at least for two weeks, which is what he's done so far. He reads aloud from The Atlantic at one point. That was a real highlight. And he's just a really lovely person to go down some historical rabbit holes with.

29:13You can just kind of tell he's the guy who's going to pick up a good history book on a vacation and tell you all about it. So I feel like we got a little bit of a glimpse of that. You can hear all of that and much more in my conversation with the star of The Uprising, Andrew Garfield.

29:28So after I saw The Uprising, I wound up talking to a colleague of mine who was a medieval studies major in college. And he got me on such a deep Wikipedia rabbit hole on Piers Plowman, which I had never heard of before sitting down with this movie. and for people who don't know, kind of a maybe real, maybe not real medieval figure who may or may not have been the inspiration for your character. And the extent of a rabbit hole I was able to do tells me that maybe you did one 10 times as big on this part of history that we don't actually know that much about. What was that rabbit hole process like for you?

29:59Yeah, no, I'm glad you went into the Chaucerian kind of holy rabbit-y, as he would probably, the rabbit-y holy and um i studied chaucer in um school and yeah medieval like we almost did the film in medieval language but we realized how alienating that would be wow cutting so hard too that's just and it wouldn't have served the kind of the modernity of the story really um but um yeah i mean what was interesting because i thought you know dan jones was our consultant and our historian and he's written numerous books, one being Summer of Blood, which was about the Peasants' Revolt. And he's such a brilliant storyteller of history and a kind of contextualizer of history.

30:45And he's so kind of, he's like Paul in a way, because Paul obviously tells a story with such emotional vitality and vividness. Dan is cut from the same cloth. So to have Dan as a kind of an ally and a friend and someone who can just pull the most incredible pieces of information out of his back pocket in terms of what it was like to live in these times. It was just a rare gift. But for me, what I realized very early on, I was like, oh, I don't actually need a lot of information. And it's better if I don't have a lot of information about the political context, the grander themes of the time. Because Plowman is someone who would, the only things that he would know intimately were the rhythms of the seasons, the relationship to the land, the relationship to crops harvesting, the work that he's doing, his relationship to the sunrise and the sunset, his relationship to local life, village life, and his relationship, obviously, to the plague and the Black Death.

31:57and the loss and religion. It's all very domestic. It's all very ordinary, the research that I had to do, which is actually some of the hardest stuff to get real clarity on. But there was certain revelations, which was so interesting to me, like his relationship with his ox, whose name was Prince. His actual name is Prince, this ox, that would be the main source of central heating during winter and autumn months. and the ox would sleep in the Waterland Dorb house. And I learned how to patch up damages in the Waterland Dorb house and using soil and hay. And it was in straw. It was just such an interesting, fascinating thing to immerse myself in.

32:44And then, of course, as the story unfolds, the plowman starts to have some kind of awakening about the context that he's living in. So I'm talking about like a rabbit hole of like, you know, medieval studies degree but it sounds like the rabbit hole you go down is like though what does the dirt feel like what is the ox's name like there's a there's a tactile thing it sounds like you you dive into even more it's more living it's more how do i live how do i convince myself that i'm living as truthfully as this person in this time in this context as possible and what is the world that he knows what is the world that i know what is the world that i don't know what emerges um and and and also like relationship to loss relationship to death very very different back then the the sheer kind of volume and frequency of death that's got to that does something different to the psyche it does something different to a sense of ritual but also it seemed like a time of real destitution and lack of ritual lack of um leisure um for people um who were being squeezed and pressured it would be the equivalent of a kind of single mom working three jobs in order to kind of keep their kids fed and alive.

33:52Is that kind of practical thing something you generally do with approaching something? Or do you have to kind of do it more with this period of time that we know some things about, but not that much about? It's kind of harder to put yourself in if you're coming from modern day. Yeah, I think practical is the way it's for me, it's tactile and physical. And also there's a rhythm, there's a rhythmic thing. So in terms of I love accessing the character through physicality and external characterization. And a lot of that has to do with the rhythms of the day, and what kind of animal he is in his environment, how he uses the space, his spine, his center of gravity, his weight, the way of seeing the world, the way he inhabits a space, the way he moves through a space.

34:34And I love, and I think especially for this character, he's a man of few words, but he's a man of great... He's also a man of great interior life and inner soul. And there's a lot rumbling in there. And there's a kind of... With Plowman, it's interesting. It's like I've been feeling this kind of way of describing. It's like he's kind of... Where we find him at the beginning of our story is there's this one thin layer of identity that is being held onto by a very, very thin thread. And over the course of our story, we see that final layer of identity, maybe ego, maybe, I don't know, sense of control being worn away gradually until the final part of the film, where you kind of see him reach a kind of depth, a zenith of depth that is essential and raw and a kind of core being.

35:34It's like more spirit than body. He becomes more soul than body. you're talking about like the kind of one year later coda at the at the end of the film where you kind of see what happens after the revolt ends yeah i think i think i think it kind of happens i think the the the bottom is hit the bottom falls out when he finds his way back to his village and everything is gone and that's the moment of transformation where the new the deep self emerges and some new belonging some new birth there's a death and there's a rebirth that happened yeah now and just for the record did you guys ever discuss robin hood in the context of that moment at the end of the film since it has come up in recent weeks yeah yeah of course um yeah that was that was a big part of our conversations as a kind of archetypal energy that is that that was emerging during this time there was a kind of a it's a direct response when the psyche starts like creating these folk figures i think it's a direct response to um a world to living within a context living within a world where you are being violated abused and disempowered and um beating the shit out of in a daily basis on a physical emotional spiritual and soul dignity level so i think that that image and that archetype of the green man i i prefer the green man um but also robin hood being part of that kind of folklore starts to emerge as a direct kind of unconscious response of a balance with the kind of the injustice that's occurring.

37:13There's a kind of natural justice that wants to, you know, emerge and balance things out and restore some order. And I think what is exciting is that the plowman becomes a vessel for that kind of energy at the end. Yeah, that vessel thing is so interesting because both the Pierce Plowman story and the Robin Hood legend are these figures that have been around forever. They've been turned into different things. No one really knows where they really came from. Whereas you've got these characters being played by Jamie Bell and Cosmo Jarvis in the film who are real people. They're kind of the charismatic leaders of the movement.

37:43They're the guys who are going to get up and make the speeches. And your character Plowman is kind of observing and supporting and I think is an audience vessel in the way that the movie is told and also as part of the storytelling. And that can be a tricky character to play. It can feel passive sometimes, and there's a moment of action in this. But I just wonder if that's something you think about approaching something, of knowing you've got a character who has to be a symbol of a lot of things, but you've got to play him as a person and figure out how to get that across. Yeah, I didn't. I never.

38:09You can't play a symbol, I don't think. So I couldn't do that. I had to find the history and the memory and the baggage that he's carrying. But I think, again, it comes back to what I discovered, which is he is more spirit than body. He is more that there is a humility and a purity. And he's been worn down enough to where he can actually hear things deeper. And he can actually hear the wind. He can hear the spirits of his family recently deceased. He's able to actually pay attention to what's happening around him in a deeper way because he has been so, you know, Any sense of control, any sense of wisdom has been beaten out of him.

38:56Any sense of right and wrong. There's this kind of surrender. And then he gets to the point where it's like either everything changes or today is a good day to die on behalf of that change. So I feel like there is a kind of, again, a pure core essence of a man of that time, a man of the land, a kind of indigenous person to the British Isles, which obviously, indigeneity to the British Isles is something that is kind of oxymoronic in certain ways in our modern context. But Christianity was the thing that oppressed and suppressed this kind of very nature-based pagan original connection to a land spirituality, a spirituality of the seasons.

39:45So, you know, it's a kind of reclamation of that on the British Isles going against the church. It felt very, very powerful. Yeah, this is again, I think maybe as an American, you just realize how old Britain is and how much of this history is there that is so far in the past and we've made up most of it and we don't really know it. It's so fascinating to kind of dip your toe back into that. and bring it to life as best you can. And this is the modern version of this. And 100 years from now, someone might make a totally different movie version of this. It might mean something different, but you can find that meaning for the present moment.

40:16It's fascinating. It's not really a question. No, no, but also in terms of history, it's like the majority of the time this story is told, you know, the history is on the side of John of Gaunt and history is on the side of the hoarders of the wealth and the resources. And the villains of the story are usually the rabble-rousing kind of gang of, you know, kind of, you know, the ones doing the uprising. So I feel like this is a very important way of telling this story. Well, I think you've said that knowing the political context of this movie is going to come out in, there's going to be people on all sides of things saying, oh, this is about us.

40:54Like, this is what I get in this, and it can be interpreted. I'm just curious, since the movie's been opening, you've been screening it. Like, are you getting some of that? Are you getting a sense that it's being read in all these different ways in different corners? I am not sure yet. I'm curious to see that as well. I think the thing that is true is that everyone is living in a context right now where not many people are particularly being served. I think that is true. And I think whether it's true, it's like the most evident abuses of power on minorities that we're witnessing day in, day out, and horrifying frequency and cruelty, or a kind of disenfranchised working class in all parts of this country.

41:44I feel like everyone is rightfully feeling a disjointedness. I think that is the common thing that binds us all, no matter what we look like or sound like. And I think this idea of us, you know, and it's the oldest trick in the book, where those that the system does quote-unquote serve, I would say they aren't being served either, the ones that are managing to hoard all the wealth and resources. I think they're probably the most soul-sick out of everybody. But those that the system does serve are, you know, create and manipulate a narrative where each smaller group of downtrodden people are seeing each other as the enemy and seeing each other as the reason why they're suffering.

42:32So it's the same thing, again, as we can see. But I think what's exciting about the idea that most people will be able to watch this film and see themselves represented is that I hope that it's kind of a unifying story. A story of kind of – this has been the way in the best parts of our kind of socialist democratic uprising throughout history is groups of underserved, underprivileged, disenfranchised people coming together. you know, queers striking with the minors in the UK, you know, Irish people and, you know, understanding their connection to the, you know, black slaves in America. Like, there is this kind of, if you go back far enough, there is this deep connection that every single group of people have.

43:28And there is actually no such thing as white people. There is white thinking. There is a kind kind of a pervasive white thinking that has become this kind of, this optimal way that people are framing as the kind of, a kind of superiority. And obviously it's complete bullshit. And it's the thing that gets us most in trouble. And it's hierarchical thinking. It's lack of connective thinking. And I would say the ultimate, yeah, anyway, I could go on and on about that. Well, I mean, you're just doing some historical deep dives here. So I can just, somewhere in there, you're doing some history reading, even if it's not for a role.

43:59I can tell you've gone down the rabbit hole.

44:06I mean, are you a history person? Like, is this something that you are kind of prone to seeking out? I mean, I think being an actor, you get to study all kinds of different things, which is great. But do you kind of explore this stuff on your own as well? I do. I do. I mean, not as much as I'd like to. I will say this. I am now two weeks sober from any kind of social media, which feels really... Wow. Congratulations. so I'm reading again it's amazing how quickly that can happen I'm like literate again which is crazy and I'm thinking more and feeling more which is tough but yeah I think I lost I think it's really hard to to you know we're being encouraged towards less and less effort less and less more and more malaise more and more apathy um less and less soul so i i i'm i i feel i feel like i have to be really disciplined with myself in terms of my practices now uh how did you do it any advice to share for those of us who like to be a social media less um i honestly it's i i'm not gonna say this is easy i i took i know i know it's two weeks come on let's not give me too much we celebrate every step okay thank you i appreciate that but still i mean like give me let's see if i last a couple more okay um but i i you know what i i needed a circuit breaker i think and i think that is the way it is addiction we're all addicted i do i i don't think that's a controversial i don't think that's a pain it's a fact they are doing addiction research on us as we speak and it's working and they're making things so that we are just addicted so i i i did this i think we need a certain there needs to be a circuit breaker that happened so i i went into i went camping for um five days, six days without any technology, without any, you know, electricity power.

46:00So that was the beginning for me. And I didn't have access to a phone for five days. And since coming back from that, I feel I've just kind of tried to continue that good habit. Yeah. Once you realize you can live without it, you're like, oh, look at the flowers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what I did realize, because I was trying not to look at the news at all i was like oh no i need to know what's happening somewhat like i need to read about what's happening in nepal i need to read what's happening i just saw the decision the supreme court made which is just disgusting and um i yeah anyway so i i i have i have like certain news outlets that i now um just read in a in a deep way reading a really interesting article i just started reading oh and then and then you've had to call sorry i had to talk to you I, um, no, this is about, um, anyway, I literally just read, just read the, can I read a paragraph to you?

46:54Please, please. It's about AI. The stories, the, the story, so it's a, it's a article about, um, um, you know, Musk, Sam Altman and Peter Thiel and the kind of like the science fiction that raised them and how they misread it. Um, the, the stories the boys were imbibing came from a distinctly mid 20th century moment in age of anxiety and of mutually assured destruction scarred by the living memory of one Holocaust and fearful of what seemed like an imminent second one. This was the nuclear age, the space age, and the dawn of the computer age. Hannah Arendt, hearing Sputnik's beeping up in the ether, was horrified that her fellow man seemed so keen to escape Earth and the limitations of humanness.

47:31Responding in 1958 to the excited proselytizers of space exploration, she wrote in The Human Condition, nobody in the history of mankind has ever conceived of the Earth as a prison for men's bodies. Arendt displayed her own science fiction prescience by worrying that this rush towards artificiality would result in a world where people need artificial machines to do our thinking and our speaking and it's um it's a really great article um where's the article it's on it's in the atlantic okay and it's called we are living in the fantasy world of 13 year old boys and it's about this new book it's about this new book by jill la poor the rise of a fall of the artificial state okay and um so anyway i read and i'm reading an article that's exciting well and you're also about to have to talk about AI a ton presumably when artificial comes out.

48:18I need to steal as many smart people's talking points so that I can assimilate or create my own Frankenstein's monster of opinions. I think there are many worse ways to prepare for talking about AI. So you had this crazy schedule, I think. I don't know if you... It was artificial and this and the Siegfried and Roy show that filmed all back to back to back like a year straight of work, something like that. yeah so i mean obviously when opportunities come and you can't say no you have to do them but i'm curious about how you think about planning something like that and saying i am going to say yes i am going to go take this five-day camping trip without technology can you plan it or do you have to just jump when something says so and figure you'll take a break later i this was a very very rare year where a few things came along at the same time that i i i really didn't want to not do and i i it's so funny my my team and me worked and the and the different productions all worked really really hard to make sure that i could create a schedule that allowed the three of them to coexist in my world um and i'm very very grateful for that and yeah it's really hard like it was like it was a it was a lot to jump from one to the other and and and yeah it was it was definitely I kind of pushed myself beyond what felt healthy and so I yeah I'm definitely longing for some just to come some rest do you feel like you have to teach yourself out of the scarcity mindset of this like fresh actor being like well someone offered me a job I better take it no no no it's weirdly not that I don't have that scarcity mindset so much it's more like i'm a person that operates from calling so when i feel a calling it like grabs me body and soul and it's just very very rare that i would that i feel called to it to make i i make like i usually make like one thing a year yeah because i don't i know that i know that i need it needs to be my body and soul it needs to be a kind of visceral response to a thing and it just so happened that these three things came along at the same time.

50:29So it was more like, fuck, damn it. How do I, can I let any of these go? And I was like, I wish I could. I'm really struggling to. Like I, they all just felt like they were for me. Do you have to do a process of shaking? I don't know if they overlap or something like that, but getting from the mindset of being in the uprising to being Sam Altman and back or going back and forth, like, do you have to come up with a system to jump from one to the other? Well, the Plowman came after Sam Altman and that was the perfect kind of yeah it was a great medicine because they are i would say interestingly enough i think they're both they both feel like very current cultural figures one that then being this literal polar opposites on um on on the end of um what it is to be a human spectrum right now in terms of being a man um and everything else yeah yeah power and the lack thereof um authority and the lack thereof, influence and the lack thereof.

51:29It's haves and have-nots. And it's control and lack of control. It's, yeah, so I, and one is at the mercy of the other. You know, it's, so it was really interesting. I'm really, really glad I started with Sam and then I could respond with Plowman. Yeah, I could reset back to someone a little bit more relatable, maybe. Well, I mean, it was actually, it felt like a kind of, it felt like a direct response in a way. Yeah.

52:02That does it for today's podcast. As you heard from me and Chris, there's a lot coming up in the future. We'll be doing some live dispatches from Toronto over at the Ankler's YouTube page and on Prestige Junkie After Party. So make sure you're subscribed in one or both places. Prestige Junkie After Party is on Substack in case you forgot. And you'll be hearing lots from us. We'll be doing a live stream of the Emmy Awards next Monday, so you can join us live there. That will also be next week's podcast, so you can catch up on all of it, even if you're not there live. And we'll be doing a ton of interviews in our TIFF video studio.

52:33Again, the Inkler's YouTube page is maybe the best place to keep track of everything that we're going to be up to. It's plenty. In the meantime, this podcast is edited by Brett Fox and produced by Brett Fox and me. Our theme music is by Dave Gonzalez. Thanks, as always, to my partner in crime, Chris Rosen. subscribe to the Prestige Junkie newsletter at theangler.com subscribe to this podcast on Apple Spotify YouTube or anywhere else you get your podcast if you're not watching us in video you should be we're all over the place we will see you next week