High Octane with Rose Byrne & Emily Blunt

0:01so i am emily blunt what's your name i'm rose burn we're gonna chat about our films we are here to talk about A24 films. On the A24 podcast. Yes, yes. Can I just start by saying I wanted to scream directly into the pillow with you, watching you in this very slow-paced nervous breakdown, which is one of the most painful types of nervous breakdowns to encounter, that it doesn't happen all at once. It creeps in on you insidiously, and it was just extraordinary. You were so wild, so unhinged, so broken. And it's had such a lasting effect on me. It spoke to me on so many levels about maternal pressure and all the symbolism of the cord representing the umbilical cord in there.

0:54It was just beautiful. You were un-freaking-real. That is so kind and sweet. Oh, my gosh, I feel like this is going to turn into a festival of lovingness. Such a love fest. I loved The Smashing Machine. I thought you guys were extraordinary. And the movie was so, like, not what I had expected. It was very intimate and it was very quiet in so many ways. And then obviously with the, disperse with the violence of what he's doing and then the violence of the relationship. like the emotional violence of the relationship. But it is a kind of surprising movie. I think people are surprised. They think it's going to be a fight movie, and it's so fragile in many ways, you know.

1:42Exactly. It's so delicate, and you guys have extraordinary chemistry. Oh, thank you. And I know you have a working relationship with the role. We can call him Dwayne. Okay. Does it feel strange to call him Dwayne? I'm going to follow your lead. He gets called DJ. Okay. I like to call him Turts. just to really, really emasculate him. Are you the only person who can call him that? Well, my whole team call him that now. And I think also encouraged people on his team to call him that as well. So it's now just stuck, emblazoned. These are the insights that I needed to get. This is why we have great chemistry.

2:19Yeah, right. Yeah, you've got to just undercut all that the rock. Wow, that's extraordinary. And I'm so, you know, anyway, and I'm such a fan of Benny Safdie and his, you know, work. And so anyway, I have a million questions and I'm very intrigued by the process you guys did. What should we start with? What should we start with? I have one question to ask you, which is like a question that I thought about when I watched the film, seeing what you put yourself through in such a high-octane sense. What was your car ride to work like and what was your car ride back from work like? My adrenaline was super high doing it so I was just always on the brink like a little bit just and even like maybe only later did I realize you know when you're in it you're just you're just doing it and you're in it and you are I'm not wanting to mess it up and we had had a good rehearsal period which was lucky so I felt like I had we'd had all the conversations you know we had a million conversations and so I felt um and some car rides home I would I'm pretty hard on myself I'm like I didn't do this I should have done that.

3:27You know, you go through the reel in your head and we had. I do that like three months after I'm done with something. Oh, fascinating. I'll be driving. I'll go, that's how you should have played it. Yeah. It'll hit me. Yeah. That's okay, though. Maybe it's good to keep investigating what we could have improved upon. I, is it? But do you torture yourself or are you like, hmm? Like, or is it like real self-flagellation? This one was tough. This one was me constantly. But you're so exposed in it. I mean, it is literally, did you know how much your extraordinary face was the window into the soul of the movie?

4:03Did you feel it when you were shooting it? Did it feel like the camera was in your face all the time? I did. I did. Yeah. Because on the first day, the camera got closer and closer until it was here. And there was no zoom lenses, so it literally was that close. And I could hear that it was 35, so I could hear it going. Yeah. You know, it's that whole thing of being, you know, hyper aware. And so, and I kept, I said to Mary, are you going to get that glass? Is that how close you're going to get? And she was like, Mary Bronstein, the writer, director. And, and then once I knew you go, okay, surrender, that's what we're doing.

4:36And it was just like a technical, just pushing myself to the limit of like at this technical performance, right. And what we do with the camera and how, what they would need. And more importantly, like what they didn't need, you know, when it's that close, because often it would just be her eyeball but but it was so subtle what you did and like I mean truly the stress I felt watching you was rather unparalleled to anything I've seen before and the impact it had on me and and it was lasting it was lasting afterwards I'm still thinking about it about the pressure I think Smashing Machine explores pressure as well you know it's sort of an interesting thing to be in a movie that explores it on such an unrelenting level and it's such a window into the inadequacies maybe we all feel as mothers a lot of the time and it was painful watching you go through it because it's such a mirror it's such an amplified version of probably what we all feel like when we're on the last rung on the ladder for keeping it together and you have to be calm and the together one when you're deeply white knuckling it most of the time absolutely yeah did you feel playing her that you related to her i felt like my i was sort of intrigued by because you this situation she's in is so specific right and most mothers or fathers for that matter won't go through it right to have this very specific yeah horrible illness that she's that's happening it's such an intense connection and they have you know that it's you know 99 % of parents won't go through this but I was sort of obsessed with like why is she reacting like this everyone's going to react differently in a crisis and who what why is she doing this like what what is it about this person that is crumbling under this right now and not to say that you wouldn't I wouldn't crumble or whoever wouldn't crumble but like why is she responding exactly like this what happened before who was she before because yes I wondered that too I was like what's the shadow of her life and therefore is this that line between high stress and mental illness and it exposes that and explores it and it did make me wonder like who was she before she had a kid with this terrible condition and totally and that was like that's the question we ask right like what happened to this person before and yeah and it's the homework and you don't want to see the homework like you know you just want it to feel lived in but I she was so lived in like so lived in like it was really really visceral I felt the same for you guys and I was so I was intrigued like did you guys rehearse like what's Benny's process what's um Dwayne's process like you know what the I mean Benny is so wonderfully collaborative you know and he's known for these you know that his movies have this unrelenting at times suffocating energy but based in being terribly human and Benny's got such beautiful humanity to him that he's so interested in people's brokenness you know and we shared our souls with each other in the few weeks we had leading up and endless conversations on the phone voice notes back and forth to each other so So we were so intertwined by the time we started, partly because I think we all felt we had to do our homework with the real people we were playing.

8:14Of course, yeah. And they're no longer together. They're no longer together, but they are good. And they share a child. They share this beautiful child together, and they've done an amazing job co-parenting him. But that relationship is so volcanic and so it broke my heart in speaking to them because I think they really did strive for a happy medium. But they both struggled with so many demons that they could never find it. And they were addicted to chaos, hazard. Their love language was that kind of passion.

8:55and had an addiction to that codependency. You know, she was codependent. He was controlling. It was just such a recipe for disaster when they couldn't live with each other, couldn't live without each other. That she had an attempt on it. It did. Wow. And I talked to her about it. You know, she was nervous to talk to me at first because there was a documentary that the movie was based on. and I think the film didn't really reveal the full spectrum of Dawn's story I think it focused on Mark and I think she was villainized a little bit as the creator of his undoing and I think anyone who's had addiction will own it and say that's not true it it is on me and so she was so nervous about the movie and and when I first started speaking to I could see that I needed to really advocate for her in the film and I said I know I'm playing you during this incredibly volatile time in your life and I would hate it if someone made a movie about one of the more tumultuous times in mine but I said I'm going to advocate for you I will take care of you and I said so if you tell me the full weather system of your story I'll make sure it's in the movie and she's one of the first things she said was like I know that it's not for the faint of heart and it's not everyone's love story but it was mine yeah and it killed me I was like oh it just moved me and and it and it is and I'd never had this gift before I don't know if you've had this experience where you're playing someone who's alive and you get to absorb them normally you're building it from this ground up and it's your invention of someone particularly some yeah yeah but to have like the person where I get to ask her tell me about your childhood tell me about your relationship with your mother yeah what were you marinated in why are you this way it was unbelievable it's such a gift have you ever had that we've played someone who's still with us I did a film that has not come out yet called toe and I played a real woman and she was really candid with me and and uh very open and it was um very really cool she like it is funny though because you do feel like you're interviewing them you know it's totally personal it's so personal and I was like how would you make up after exactly she was like we would make love like I was like got it I don't know how you feel but like you work and you work and you do your work prior and then but once you're there you sort of have to you have to kind of let it go and I said that to her as well I said this this is my version of you I wasn't a fly on the wall and I'll watch you I'll learn your mannerisms I'll listen to you and I did like a stalker I mean I watched her every morning as I went to work just staring at her just what I just watched her and watched her and watched her and spoke to her as much as I could the boys didn't speak to Dawn we all spoke to Mark but Benny was so collaborative anything she shared with me I would tell him and he would put it in somehow.

12:05He'd find a way to funnel it in somehow, even in a blink. It's such a heartbeat of the film because it's so intimate and it's an insight into how he relates and his performance was so interesting. Isn't it astonishing? Yeah, it was really obviously he looks so it's him but it's not him and that work, the prosthetic right, he was wearing some stuff. It was beautiful, yeah. It was like 14 little prosthetics including the cauliflower ear and like it was mainly the brow, the nose eyebrows the ear and then longer in prosthetics if he was in a fight with swelling bruising I mean he is the most patient man on earth wow yeah I've never met someone more patient and someone better at sitting in a prosthetics chair unbelievably chill that's not for everybody it really isn't and he would just sit there quiet quiet as a little mouse and was not very social and we're pals yeah right he didn't talk to me in the makeup trailer oh wow he was in a zone yeah and we were opposite ends of the trailer and I feel that DJ's I don't think DJ knew what his process was until this movie fascinating I think he had always played these invincible characters I mean I have to say I loved him in pain and gain I loved him in like these other movies where you've seen glimpses of like this ranginess that I think he has and I remember when I met him on Jungle Cruise he was so the antithesis of what I had imagined quiet contemplative interesting so wise so kind yeah soft spoken yeah quite shy yeah and I was like oh my god and I said to him one day I was like I think the rock is the performance of a lifetime I'm realizing now I said I said how did you make that character the rock how did that's a self-generated character and he said no one's ever spoken to me about the rock as an acting performance system but it is I said there's such theatricality to wrestling right I mean it's just larger than that it's the ultimate yeah theater so I kind of thought well maybe he could be an amazing character actor in this kind of enormous frame there might be like endless bonkers characters that he hasn't unearthed and so when he walked in for the first time as Mark and he had the makeup on he had the clothes and we did the camera test it was he did change the air in the room well everyone was like and I almost cried because he was it wasn't just a physical transformation this is what was so spooky about it it was an entire um demeanor shift yeah interesting like an immersion like I hadn't really seen before and he stayed it that way for the whole film wow he was really just sort of in in it and still so fun and we would laugh and you know we definitely after some of those scenes we'd all have a tequila and try to like you know have therapy on the bathroom floor like after the bathroom scene we did just have we sat for an hour and a half trying to come down that was awful really and I didn't anticipate it so I was very like yeah knuckling when I was watching you know that feeling where you have a fight that just snowballs out of control I mean their version of Outer Control is probably more than ours.

15:21But I know what you mean. You do feel that tension. You just feel it. You're like, ooh, ooh. And even when he's trimming the cactus and that kind of weird exchange. That awful tension. Yeah. And what was it shot on, the film? It was 35. Because it had such a great book. A graininess and a look to it. Yeah, it had such a graininess. It was so beautiful. Like very, yeah. Kind of a nostalgic feel. Yes, exactly. It felt like that. But I felt yours had that too that, you know, sometimes where you watch a movie which is so high def and it's so clean yeah I don't feel I get held captive by it as much I feel it pushes me away it's very presentational the graininess and the full kidnap of yours was like I just felt pulled inside your soul it was so intimate like I shouldn't be in your head I shouldn't be that close to you you scared me deeply uncomfortable It was deeply uncomfortable.

16:16And I'm so curious about when you watched it for the first time, were you unnerved by it? Yes, I was. I was at the offices in A24 and I had been avoiding seeing it. Mary Bronstein, the writer-director. Do you always avoid seeing movies? This one I did. Why? I'm a huge fan of I'll watch it, but it's not until sort of years later that I can watch it and really watch it. Yeah, for sure. I just wasn't, not that comfortable with it. And, but this time Mary was like, you ready? And I'd be like, yes. And then I'd be like, well, maybe in a few weeks. Are you ready? Oh, soon. And I was just scared. But why this one just, you felt?

16:56I was so scared because it was just, it was everything, all of me there, you know, it's just like stretched to the limit with this one. And I was like, oh my God. So naked. And I just was terrified. And then I finally couldn't avoid it any longer. I had to go in. Yes. Stomach in knots. I was totally, yeah, very nervous. Yeah, like, yeah, so nervous. And then I just didn't move. I was like that and almost forgot I was in it. You know those things where you're like, I forget you're in it a little bit. That's a huge deal. Which is wild. That doesn't happen ever, right? No. That doesn't happen. No.

17:34But because of the language she was using with the camera, the film she was making and all the sort of the feeling she was creating with the movie was sort of beyond my – I couldn't anticipate it. Yeah. And so I knew what she was doing and I knew there was lots of different sort of genres and tropes like the horror tropes and the comedic kind of set pieces and stuff. And the tone is so wild that you don't feel preached to ever. Yes, yeah. It's very – Ever because it's so bonkers that you self-examine watching it. I think and it's been cool because friends of mine who don't have children or you know have totally responded to the film in a way that I couldn't anticipate.

18:12That they understand her. They get it. They get the feeling like you could be a caretaker or you don't necessarily have to be a parent you know but or you could be an addict or someone who's trying to get out of a terrible situation but that the feeling she's expressing in it and sort of the existential kind of nausea around the film too I think that she's just running from herself more than anything else. and I think it's a wonderful thing to see you know because sometimes my issue with a lot of female characters in movies is that they're sort of held in this ideal that they have to be feminine and good and palatable I don't know what you're talking about what do you mean and um or they're described as like she's a badass and I was like I don't want to be a badass either badass as I say in my accent but because you don't want to have all the answers I think I really related to her completely unraveling.

19:03Good, yeah. Completely unraveling and being stretched so thin. Yeah. It was so relatable. Yeah. Oh, good. You know, I think back to all these women in the 40s and 50s who just went absolutely insane at the ironing board, you know, having to be the perfect woman. and how much anger and rage and misplaced dreams they must have had. And it made me think of it when I watched your film, like, oh, this is a very exciting experience as a woman to watch this. And it's important for men to watch your movie and understand the pressures, not just watch it, but feel it. And your film is a film that you feel.

19:54You don't watch it. You experience something on a cellular level. The way yours was shot was so in your face. With Benny's process, we barely saw a camera. He shot a lot, long lens, kind of prowling, hiding behind walls. Yes, yes, yes. And he said, I wanted that spying. He said, I want it voyeuristic. I want you to feel like, oh, God, I shouldn't be in the kitchen with them. This is so intimate. I shouldn't be watching this. and for us it was so freeing because you didn't feel anything technical around you whereas I've done that experience that you had I remember it on girl on the train the camera was directly in my face the whole time claustrophobically but then you you're right you get used to it and it doesn't bother you after a while yeah but I think Benny felt even with the fight scenes with the ring he wanted to be like three rows back as if you're watching looking up that you're not in the ring with them yeah yeah so you miss stuff in quite an interesting way you feel yourself looking around him to try to get around his back and he created that beautifully because I did feel um I felt like I was spying I did feel like that and I was like did that and then at one point I was like did they know I'm spying on this like do you know what I mean I was like did they know that I'm like how self you know it was very particularly in like the locker room and these sorts of little moments that was like that and and I loved the I loved your look so much the hair I was it was just fun and such a like you're such a chameleon I was like wow you know I just love you always inhabit uh from one to the next in a way that is really singular thank you wonderful no I loved it and I was curious about that like were you just really delving into her kind of archive yeah Yeah, Heidi and I, Heidi pulled lots of photographs of her and there is so much footage of her.

21:51So it was like 97 to 99, that sort of era. So great. The music was so great. So good. So great. And I do need a physical transformation. I feel it helps me. It's the in. With her, it was those extraordinary nails. You know, those. I remember the first time I put those acrylic nails on, I was like, whoa. they were just so long and the as much white as there was beige of the that 90s french tip and when you speak to dawn she's handsy she's like this all the time and she talks with she talks with her hands a lot and she's like in his face with them and i saw on the documentary she would like touch his face all these nails so i just that was quite a big in and then you get the spray tan and the wig and the wonder bra and then the wonder bra oh my god no it was sponsored by wonder bra they were like two heads by the time Heidi I had wonder bra and fillets in there they were like under my chin now you could see every man on set was like that like not like looking not looking looking just looking looking at your hairline they they was it was so overt and so overly glamorized but I loved it that she was so glamorized but their connection wasn't their relationship wasn't it was so messy and yet everything she did about the way she dressed looked all of it it was intentional it was deliberate to draw him to her yeah so I even found that quite vulnerable she was so freshly blown out and done and it was all to bring him to her yeah right and I know and I felt that was so that you know the big final scene where she's just what she's sort of confessing all that stuff and he's like it was really just vulnerable and just like heartbreaking and I felt like so I don't know I just was yeah so felt so felt so because finally see you know what she's trying to do and what she's trying to like and I think She really desperately was trying to save his life and be there and be the center of his universe.

23:56And I think it's a very complicated thing when you're married to a fighter whose life is on the line in the ring, but his life is on the line in the rabbit hole of his own addiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she didn't have all the tools given the givens to save him and catch him because she was struggling so much herself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was so exciting to play a relationship that wasn't kind of movie-fied. It was sort of very untidy. And I don't know. It just, I think it's, again, it's Benny is unafraid of that, that he wasn't. And I've never been concerned about being likable in a movie.

24:39It's sort of the worst word on earth because you do just want to be exposed. I wonder if actors get asked that, male actors. Never. Right, yeah? Never. Or if they're like, you played a pretty complicated character. Oh, yeah. Like, how do you feel? Like, I just wonder. I have found that with Dawn that in my experience promoting it and everything, women really understand her. And it's not to say that every man does. A lot of men really, really understand her and they do see her as the victim. But a lot are really scared by that. Yes, yeah. Whereas because she's not always nice. Yeah. She doesn't always say the right thing.

25:23Yeah. And she's not always there for him. And yet I think there's such a free pass for male characters to be unhinged, behave poorly. It's celebrated. I would go further. Yes. And then they're like, but, you know, he really came through for his kid at the end. I was like, okay. Or like, but he's really funny. or I don't know or whatever but he's like and you go it's fascinating because you know when you play a character that it's more polarizing as a woman I just think the scrutiny is people are very uncomfortable. Have you found that especially on this one? Oh, yeah. I was really curious about what kinds of questions you've had on this that have been irritating.

26:02I mean. That's what I want to know. Yes, yeah. What question has irritated you? You know, it's the – it's a sort of a quiet sense of deep disapproval that I find in there that's intrinsic that is fascinating to me. From men and women or everyone? From both, I would say. I think for me, young people have been brilliant because young people are just, they're so brave. They're so much braver. Like they've asked the best questions and the bravest questions and they're not as kind of, I don't know, cynical or conditioned or whatever yet. But I've found that, yeah, that sort of constant thing of like, why are you drawn to a character that's so, and I'm like, what do you mean?

26:42Why wouldn't I be? Why wouldn't I want to do that? I mean, that's the beauty of it. You were so exposed on a human level and those are the people you want to play. Yeah. Yeah, of course. That's what you want to gravitate towards. That's what you run to. Exactly. So it's always, it seems, I don't know how to answer that question when people ask them, like, why wouldn't you do it kind of thing? But I do think there is an inherent distrust of a woman who is misbehaving. I agree. You know, that is kind of, it's tough to ignore. I totally, totally agree. I'm sure you've come across that. You've played a lot of complicated women.

27:19I've played a lot of women who, you know, I completely understand, relate to. I might not always agree with what they do, but I don't really care if I agree with them or not. No, that's not the point. No, it's not the point. That's not our job is to like, yeah. And it's also not a morality play. I'm not sort of, I don't want to take a moral standing on someone and how they behave. It's that these people exist. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And there's parts of all of us in Dawn and there's parts of all of us in Linda. Like there are. We have all done that to a certain extent. Or thought about doing it.

27:51Or thought about it. You know, and that's the difference is I was intrigued. So you brought this project. How did this one come together? Because you guys obviously had your relationship from Jungle Cruise. So we've been friends for like, well, a few years before this came up. So DJ had apparently brought the documentary to Benny in like 2019. They loved meeting each other. But then COVID happened, people's schedules happened, and it sort of just drifted. And then I was shooting Oppenheimer with Benny, and we were in the makeup trailer getting our old people makeup on, sitting there for hours.

28:33getting prosthetics on and he said you're friends with duane right and he said please tell him i cannot stop thinking about smashing machine and will you reconnect me can you give him give me his direct number so i called dj and i was like were you gonna work with benny safter you have to do this movie and then i watched the documentary that night and i called dj and i said you have to do it and you have to do it now. It's like the full wingspan of what you're capable of. And they reconnected and then a few months later, I mean, deep down when I watched the documentary, I was like, I would quite like to play Dawn, but I didn't want to muscle my wings.

29:13Oh, you hadn't had that? No, no. So initially I felt like I was like a matchmaker. Right, yeah. And then a few months later, Benny called me and said, I really would love you to be Dawn. And I was like, okay, because I loved in the documentary that relationship. I was like, God, there's so much to mine there. And it's, I've never done a relationship like that. Yeah. Never played a character like that. Yeah. And I wanted that exploration of something and somebody and a relationship that was so broken. Yeah. Yeah. And precarious. So when Benny called, I was thrilled. And then I think it was like six months later we were making it.

29:52Wow. that's I'm so and you guys are from such different worlds totally and we're like best friends I mean we are so polarized and we do laugh about that we we are we should be like chalk and cheese but we're not we we we are pals and I just adore him and he's become this incredibly wise profound friendship in my life and someone who I have learned a lot from yeah you know I learn a lot from DJ I think he's got an amazing life as well it's so much struggle so much pain and yeah he was always playing the guy who had all the answers and I was like oh it'd be so cool to see you unravel yeah yeah and be so vulnerable and so fragile and I think that this part was I think cathartic for him yeah right you know yeah yeah yeah yeah really really cathartic and That's partly why I almost cried when I saw him as Mark for the first time because it was like seeing relief wash over him.

30:53Oh, wow. He came and he looked so calm. He must really trust you. I think he does. Right? I think so. To be able to go there and to be – I think so, and he really trusted Benny as well. So like the three of us were like the musketeers. We were so connected. We really shared a lot of our own souls. as I was wondering how much you guys talked beforehand. So Mary Bronstein and I, she has become a great friend and this story is based on what she went through. Really? Yeah, so not entirely obviously. She doesn't do what my character does but she's spoken about this, that her daughter was ill and she had to go to California for treatment.

31:42Her husband lives in New York. I mean, they live in New York. Her husband had to work and she went for this treatment and was told it would take eight weeks and it took eight months. And she was living in this hotel room with her daughter, like two demented kind of roommates. Driven insane by the beeping machine. Exactly. That was like a big character in her life. And she, you know, her daughter would go to sleep every night and she would go into the bathroom and, you know, eat junk food and wrote the screenplay. And just to be alone as well. totally to like finally have that time and so it was born of a place of real you know experience and I think it's reflected in the in the film it's like a very oh it's so you know she really had something to say um and she was really candid with me really really candid with me and we had this great rehearsal period of about five weeks where I would just go to her apartment and we would um three days a week and we would just sit there and and go over the script like just it was like preparing for a play it was just every line of dialogue did you work like in that way before not only on a play never yeah i mean you don't get time have you had that experience before you get no the the only longer time is if i was doing like a musical like a like a mary poppins or something a very long rehearsal but you're learning all the dance numbers you're learning yes yeah but that's how rob marshall works but on smashing we would just talk a lot and i don't remember the last time I had rehearsals yeah I agree no I I like for TV you don't get that like if you're doing a series it's very rare so um but thank god because we shot the film in 25 days holy shit yeah did you really yeah yeah we shot like a runaway train two takes maybe three oh my god so and Mary was hands off she like because we talked about it you know so we would come to the set every day go over everything and then and then we would just go we just didn't have time So you felt great freedom in it.

33:35I did feel freedom. It was a tightrope. It was just a tightrope because too much it would fall into being melodramatic. Like the trap is just a screaming hysterical thing, you know, but too like sort of comic or I don't know, whatever, it would become not realistic. But all the clever injections of bizarre bonkers comedy, it all worked because tonally and the way she shot it, it was like you were having an out-of-body experience watching something it was it was really captivating in that way that you know when you watch movies and you feel like maybe the director or the writer has seen too many movies I didn't feel like Mary Bronston has watched too many movies it was such a singular voice even though I'm sure she's watched every movie but she had this singular mad voice yeah she really yeah it's uh it's um she's uh she's a force she pushed this thing uphill for eight years and it's not easy to get a film made as you know like a dark script like this and she like she fought um you know every step of the way to get it made but um I was so curious I wanted to ask you how you like how you choose your projects like That's a good question.

34:53I know that's like an annoying question. It's actually a great one. You have such a great, extraordinary, I've worked with extraordinary directors. You're so funny. And I feel like you're such a true chameleon. Oh, thank you. How do you anticipate it or don't you anticipate it? I don't think I do anticipate it. Definitely between projects, I'll sort of yo-yo between genre. Like if I've done, okay, so I did The Fall Guy before this and then I took a year and a half off because I just felt like I needed a breather from being on a film set. Which was so fun. So fun. And that was just a hoot and it was just like a giant blooper reel and just so fun.

35:36In Australia. In Australia. And I loved it. and then smashing seemed like the antithesis of that so I think between projects I will oscillate you know in tone so that I'm I guess excited and yeah a bit terrified I think I do want to feel terror that's probably one of the things I look for if I read something and I think oh I know how to wrap my arms around this then I probably won't choose it or if I maybe it feels derivative or to something I've done and so I think that's a big thing I think lately I look I love all the genres but I want a world builder and I want it in the writing that it's a unique world and a unique voice and and what's the director's world like what is it and that's why your film spoke to me because you can't pin it down it's carved out completely new space for itself so I think I do look for that in the writing like a freshness that is exciting to me and then good at reading scripts I find them very hard to read yeah I'm pretty good but I it's awful if if I'm not in in 20 pages then I yeah you have a rule yeah yeah yeah to try it yeah it's and it's not fair you should probably read the whole thing but I think it's like if I'm not really immersed in it and if I don't see an in, whether it's the tone or whatever it is, like, listen, obviously, if it's a smaller part and I come in later, I'll keep going.

37:14Go to the end. Yeah, I'll just flick through, yada, yada, yada, there's me. Yep, me, me, me, me, me. Me, me, me. But I do, I try not to anticipate the type of thing I'm looking for. I guess I just wait to be spellbound by something and it will be a really strange reason as to why I love it and I'll never be able to really explain it yeah like an intuition what about you I mean similar I think that's why I use that word because I feel like you don't know what's around the corner you know what your corner you've just come from sure so it's a bit like trying to stay open trying to not anticipate it and and I mean I'm just agreeing with everything you said but like It's true if you go, I can do that too.

38:00I've done that. Yeah. I don't need to do that again. Do I need to do it again? And then, of course, it's like director, right? Like trying to seek out the people that are making those worlds. Yeah. Which is quite rare, you know. And I know that the movies we've been in this year, it's why A24 is so good at like, you know, fostering these types of challenging, exciting, rare material that don't conform. You know, you just I'm always looking for movies that don't conform or subscribe to something. But they are rarer and rarer. You know, it's like so many numbers are crunched on. Will this movie deliver?

38:45like we need to have an action scene within 10 minutes of the movie otherwise it's gonna tank and it's like yeah it's it's just sad you know all of the hoops you have to jump through and so to get to do a film like the ones we the gift of these movies this year is rare and I know that and I don't want to feel like those opportunities are slipping through all of our fingers but I think the earth plates are moving with our industry and they they're becoming harder to harvest and so you have to relish the opportunities when you have them because you think because it's it's harder and harder it's just harder and harder and it's just changing so much what people how people consume stuff and what they consume and all those sorts of things like so i yeah when these opportunities come i always think this may never happen again yeah you know like it could very well never happen again so to because all you have is the experience at the end of the day you know it's like that's all that's ours that's it that's it and you can't really control anything after that which I kind of surrendered two years ago and I don't mind that relinquishing it's kind of important otherwise the experience of the film will be curated towards how do we get bums in seats how do we do this and I don't want to work that way you know yeah I wanted to ask you about Linda and like what did you what did you love about her what did you feel for well I was she's brazen yeah you know and she she does not she's anti-authority yeah she doesn't like being told what to do yeah she's the opposite to me I don't have those qualities at all like I'll just get in line I really don't like she's brazen she's not that and that was challenging in those scenes particularly like with James played by A$AP Rocky, you know, who's this like, you know, so great, so charming.

40:42Had he done a lot of acting before? He had done one other job and then after that he did the Spike Lee movie, Highest to Lowest. Oh, my God, he was so good. Wasn't he good? So good. I love working with people who haven't acted very much. I mean, Dwayne and I were the only actors in it. So they were all non-actors? They were all fighters, like all from the MMA world. and I think Benny loves working in that way. And what about the girl when you have your scene where you guys have margaritas? So was she? She's an actress. She's an actress. She was awesome. I was like, I was wondering if she was from that world as well.

41:17She was an actor. But everyone else, like the guy who plays Mark Coleman, he's a real life MMA heavyweight. The guy who plays Bass Rutan, who plays Bass in the movie, who plays his trainer, he was Mark Kerr's trainer. Oh, my God. So that was weird, you know, for him. Did Dawn come to set? No. No. She was really nervous. Did you want her to come to set? We actually didn't really want. I mean, Mark came to set a little bit and watched it a couple of times. But I think it's healthier if you're playing people for them not to come to set. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think I would be concerned about them watching and feeling exposed.

41:59and it was very scary showing them the movie the first time. Yes, how was that? It was very scary. She was very scared. We had shown Mark two weeks or a month prior. It really rocked both of them. But Dawn has since watched it about four times and she said to me at the LA premiere, it's become very healing, which I never expected. I really was scared because I care about her that it would unearth so much pain, which I think it has, but probably on a necessary level. I think it's been able to heal stuff between her and Mark. I think he has recognized his accountability through the film. And that's an amazing thing, and none of us expected that.

42:50We didn't know it would be a healing thing for them. So we're so grateful that it has been. would be what you would hope for but not even consciously but you know yeah I mean we were hoping yeah you know that they would see themselves and go okay I'm seen people get me now yeah this is my imprint on the world you know and because it plays that delicate line between should we only strive to win and succeed and then sort of eviscerate your own need to be okay and I like that about the film that it's sort of the anti-Rocky it's not the guy with his fist in the air it's actually the guy who's okay losing yeah yeah you know yeah which I didn't I yeah I wasn't sure how it was going to end either and I was like oh my god this was it was just again surprising yeah that was not not what I had anticipated and Conan O 'Brien was so good he was awesome He was so good.