Movies Are Like My Parents with Ari Aster & Bill Hader

0:28I'm Ari Aster. Sam's daughter, like in his house. Right. And Soderbergh is like, that's, yeah, that covers it. Yeah. Or Lemdobb is like, yeah, instead of her entire backstory that I spent years writing, we just put a photo of her. It's like every screener. He would never have that photo. He goes, he would never have that photo in his house if he was somewhat responsible for her death. Why the fuck would he have a picture of her in her house? And then I remember watching it kind of laughing. Like it felt really intimate where you're like at a dinner and you're like, oh, these are two friends kind of ribbing each other and then you realize like oh no yeah by the end they kind of have to clean it up a little bit like they have to patch it up before it's over but but it is it is like every every screenwriter's fantasy right is to finally get the director in the room and just air their grievances one by one as the film plays um and and Soderbergh is just like yeah well I like it yeah he handles it really well I mean he handles it incredibly well he's pretty graceful he's like okay alright well he's probably gotten these conversations with Lem Dobbs before you know like he's familiar with oh no you feel like it's definitely like a fraught a fraught relationship well also didn't he it was Kafka too that he wrote oh yeah and Kafka was like just a reviled yeah right film yeah I like Kafka a lot I like Kafka actually it's really really cool Jeremy Irons is incredibly good in that movie.

1:56It's beautiful. Yeah, it's a gorgeous movie. I remember when that movie came out and knowing about Sex, Lies, and Videotape and seeing the trailer beforehand. It was like from the director of Sex, Lies, and Videotape. And I was like, wow, that's a cool left turn. It was just like to be your follow-up to Sex, Lies, I thought was cool. And then doing King of the Hill I thought was cool. King of the Hill is so good. Yeah, I just thought those early things were so interesting that he swerved like that. And then Schizopolis. And then Schizopolis, I was like, I was obsessed with that film. Schizopolis is amazing.

2:30That's also got a great commentary track. Oh, yeah. Where he's interviewing himself.

2:38I forgot about that. Soderbergh is great. Soderbergh is really... He's very funny in that movie. He's so funny in that film. And that film is... There's a book he put out with... Richard Lester. With Richard Lester. Yeah. That's just incredible at that time. Yeah, so good. Yeah, actually, when I moved to L.A., the Sex Lies and Videotape, his journal, there was like a forward in that. Of the making of it, right? The making of it. And there was a forward in that, which was basically just about him moving from Louisiana to L.A. and just trying to get work and everything. That was so inspiring to me.

3:17And every time I would get really down, like 25 years ago when I moved to L.A., I would break that out and read it and go like, all right, I just have to work harder, make connections, you know, and just do all that. That was a bit of a tradition. There were a lot of those. There's Spike Lee did one of those for the – I'm a diary for pre-production and production for Do the Right Thing. And then Emma Thompson did one for Sense and Sensibility. Sense and Sensibility, that's true. I forgot about that. Yeah, that was really good. But yeah, they should bring that back. Why don't you do that? I don't know.

3:51I don't know.

3:55Really, it just seems like such a waste of time. I could be working on the movie. I could be working on the movie. Instead of reminiscing about what just happened. Yeah. Yeah, I don't even think I want to relive it. Because I would be writing the diary entry and then realize how I fucked up the day's work. You know? Yeah. And be like, oh, wait a minute. No, I want to read somebody else's, but I don't want to memorialize anything. Yeah. Yeah, but the Sex, Lies, and Videotape ones were really good. And the Richard Lester one is really great. Really great. I remember he's like, Richard Lester as the man who knew more than he was asked.

4:30Yeah. I thought it was very funny. I tried showing my kids the new Mission Impossible, and they were not having it. I haven't seen the new one yet, but I do think the first one is incredible. Oh, the Brian De Palma one? It's amazing. Yeah, I love that movie. It's so great. I love that film. They like that one. Isn't that script written? It was written by Steve Zylian, Robert Towne. Yeah, yeah. Like Ben Hex. Yeah, like Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz. Yeah. It's like every great, like William, I'm not, I think William Goldman might have been on it. It was just like some crazy. I think it was William Goldman.

5:04It was, yeah. Every great writer, like historical writer, wrote on the first Mission Impossible movie. And then De Palma. It's so good. It's really good. It is really good. And it's funny. Yeah. It's very funny. And there's no action. It's all like intrigue. Yeah. It's all. Until the end. And then you have the bullet train. Yeah. With John Voight on a bullet train and masks. But that sequence where he's being lowered into the room is like, yeah, it's masterfully done. I mean, that is one of the best. I remember seeing that in the theater and people just losing their minds. Like it just, it works so well.

5:47I got to talk to you about your movie a little bit. So you sent me the script for it a while ago. I remember us actually sitting outside at an Italian restaurant and you telling me the story. And you're like, I'm doing a COVID Western that's kind of Jim Thompson-y. And I went, oh, okay, wow. That sounds – You thought it was a bad idea. I thought it was a bad idea, yeah. I was like, all right, well, that's interesting. No, but then when I read it, I was like, this is awesome. But then we just – but you can never really fully understand. And like you're such an actual – like a real filmmaker. Like when you read the scripts of actual filmmakers, they just they read where you could see the movie in a way that's not written for like executives.

6:35You know, like I as an actor, I would read a lot of scripts that I was like, oh, this is to sell, you know. Right. But your scripts are so full and interesting because I'm like, oh, this is the guy who's seen the movie. And they read really well and exciting. But then seeing the movie, which I just saw a couple weeks ago, and I called you after. There's no hyperbole. I think it's a masterpiece. I really do. I can't stop thinking about it. My girlfriend, Allie, we are still talking about it constantly. And anybody we talk to, we're just like, you have to see Eddington when it comes out. You have to see it.

7:16And Alec Berg, the co-creator of Barry, was there. Jason Walner and all of us Guillermo del Toro was there and we've all been texting each other going like what did we just see that was phenomenal and I think that the thing that the the word that I that I related to is Ali said that was very refreshing that somebody came out and made a movie that just kind of just stated the problem you know it's that like sorry to be pretentious but that checkoff thing of like you present the problem, not the solution, you know, and so many things today I see are trying to be the solution or at least some, if we just did this, this would, you know, and that never really works.

8:01But something going like, well, here's how I feel about a lot of things. Um, I don't want to ruin, I don't want to give anything away, but But I was just really, truly, the feeling I had, we got in the car and I told LA, I go, I can't believe I'm friends with a guy who made that. That thing's unbelievable. So it really is like, I don't know what else to say. I thought it was a complete, I do think it's a masterpiece. Oh, thanks, man. I know it's. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I don't want money or anything. No, no. I'm not asking for money. I'm not about to hit you up. I'll give you money.

8:42It's okay. We'll do it after the thing. But when you're writing something like that, is it just like, I know you're going to be talking a lot about how did you come up with the idea and all these things, but I'm always interested just like in process stuff because I'm so insecure about my own process, which is like not very disciplined at all and kind of like, I would say kind of lazy. and then suddenly I just get like a ton of work done and then I'm lazy and I get a ton of work done. But with this idea, was it a thing that, okay, every day I'm just going to like work on this thing or was it a burst of, you know?

9:25It was kind of a burst. Well, it was, I don't have much of a process either. I think mostly it's intuitive thing, but also like an impulsive thing where I just, if something's there, I write it down and I tend to try to not censor myself or edit anything until it's down. And then once it's down, it becomes a process of just stealing yourself and not taking out the things that you know should probably not be there. Well, I mean, that maybe need to be there for the integrity of the thing, but that for your own peace of mind would be better taken out. and this film has a lot of those. Yeah, there were a couple things that I'm actually happy I took out.

10:17But when you look at that first, you kind of get that inspired draft out and then you take a period and then look at it and go, oh, okay, what was I thinking? Or, oh, I like this. In this case, I had been wanting to write something about the atmosphere, but like just the environment we were living in. And that of course just includes the internet. Like what does it feel like to actually just be living in the internet? And I didn't have like a, I didn't have an idea beyond that. And then I realized that I had this script called Eddington that I tried to get made like eight years before I made Hereditary.

11:07Oh, wow. And it didn't happen. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. It was just sort of like this contemporary Western that I lost interest in because it needed something else. Like it was missing something. And then I realized, oh, I could take the basic structure and world of that script and then use that as a thing to hang all these other ideas. That's great. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So that kind of allowed me to write something in about three weeks. Oh, wow. And then I left it alone because Bo is Afraid was the thing. And then in editing Bo, I kind of started to polish it and return to it and revise it.

11:50And then I went to New Mexico, which is where I'm from. and kind of drove around the state, going to different small towns and pueblos and interviewing sheriffs, police chiefs, public officials, like, you know, mayors, and just started getting as full a picture as I could of the state's politics. Yeah, yeah. And that really, like, once I had done that and I met certain people that felt like really great models for different characters, it started to get away from me in a good way. And then it started to stop being kind of me playing with little like army men, you know. Yeah, yeah. Some people don't like let that happen.

12:41You can see the movies people make where like, oh, they're playing with their army men. Yeah, I know what I mean. But I like that you don't do that. We'll talk about those after, yeah. Yeah, we'll talk about those off camera. But that's what I like about your stuff is that it feels so personal. I remember seeing Hereditary for the first time and shooting it too. And I went with some of the people who were making that movie. And I remember going, well, that's not only a great horror movie. I mean, the last 20 minutes of it were really breathtaking, I thought. And funny. I don't think anybody – Hiram Uri was the first person I met that we found Toni Collette's head falling, the sound effect of a head falling, like funny.

13:24Well, it's satisfying. It's very satisfying. When you hear her head falling, I remember laughing because I was like, that's funny that this guy included that because you don't need it, but it's there. Like most movies, a horror movie would have taken that out, but it's so funny that you hear it. And I was telling Hiramirai, and he goes, oh, my God, I laugh so hard when you hear the head fall. And maybe that's just like a filmmaker thing. It's like we found it very funny. But I was also like, this is an amazing filmmaker. I was like, Jesus Christ. This is like because it was so personal. I could feel all the – it just felt incredibly personal.

14:09And for me, that's the best. We've talked about this. you see something like Rosemary's Baby or something like that, and you go, wow, this feels like a very personal story, you know, on some level. Yeah. And was that – The details feel so personal. The details feel very personal. Yes, with Polanski, it always does. But was that a thing that, again, is just instinctual, or was that something AFI that are like, all right, you need a bit more of yourself, you know what I mean, was one of those things. David Lynch, too, does that, too. I would actually say David Lynch, you know, when he passed away, I think we were texting, but I, like, watched all his movies again when I grabbed you, passed away.

14:54Yeah, me too. And that was the thing that knocked me out of it. I was like, God, these are so personal. These feel so almost, like, embarrassingly personal. Well, yeah, just, like, the vision is so complete and singular and, like, and just idiosyncratic. and his picture of America is always including the things he loves and the things that scare him. Yeah, these motifs. That he's kind of drawn to. He's like a fetishist. Yeah, no, his death really hit me hard in a way that kind of surprised me. Part of that has to do with him being something of like a spiritual teacher for a lot of people. Yeah, I think so too.

15:35I think he also just was a person that showed – I remember seeing Eraserhead and watching it again this time and just thinking like, oh, this is about a guy who is terrified of having a family and terrified of all this responsibility and having a child. But that it came out of him in this way. Like the in-laws. Oh, yeah. Bill and – Look at my knee. and I mean that whole scene with the family is just amazing and it's still I could that movie is also kind of timeless too like you watch it and you think it was made during the 70s but it could have been made at any time I just can't I couldn't imagine seeing that in the 70s and just going like well someone found a new language yeah i don't know it really is and it just was all instinctual and um i feel that in your stuff though it's like it's a similar like midsummer i remember i think that's how you and i started talking was i was supposed to do a q a or moderate something or something and then i was like well can i just say hi to him it was during pandemic and I think I called you and I was like I just was watching yeah we talked for like four hours during COVID yeah during lockdown and then I was just like this is amazing what a this is like one of the greatest breakup movies of all time you know but uh yeah what is that a thing that's like you tend to be drawn towards it's just an instinctual thing in your writing and the personal aspect of it

17:21Well, yeah, I would say that for me, I kind of, I think I use genre in some ways as like a shield or like it's a way of like obfuscating. Yeah. So in some ways it's like cowardice, right? It's that I need to veil just how personal the stories are. and so yeah I think if anything I'm sometimes a little embarrassed by just how it verges on solipsism sometimes but I know that just writing is hard and I can only ever really do it when I'm in some kind of crisis or if I'm really stuck when we first became friends you sent me a script for a feature that you haven't made yet that is, I won't talk about it, but except to say that it's incredibly personal and has a lot of things from your life.

18:25And I, I found it to be just like, so real and like really beautifully observed. And it's like, it's just, it's a movie that was so vivid on the page that I feel like I've already seen it. It doesn't exist yet, but I really, really wanted to. So I know just as far as that project is concerned that you operate in a similar way. It really made me, I mean, you mentioned Chekhov and it really brought Chekhov to mind. In its unsentimentality, its lack of sentimentality and then also just the way that it sets up kind of a familiar problem, but the innovation is that it ends the way life does, not the way a story does.

19:09Yeah, yeah. Which is why it's been so hard to get it made. Has it been? A little bit, yeah. But not like in a huge way. But yeah, in a bit of a way, yeah. It's so great. But that's the thing I always, you know, when we talk about, and I think I mentioned this to you after I saw Eddington, was I had written a horror movie right after Barry wrapped. And I didn't really take a break after Barry. I kind of went right into writing this feature and I was like, I'm going to make this feature. And I had a meeting with a big producer who's actually very smart, lovely guy. But it wasn't for him. And if you've seen his other movies, I won't say it was, but great guy, but it's just not for him.

19:54But his response to it was so bad. This is this is this is so mean spirited and horrible and everything. And I was like, yeah, it's a horror movie. And it's like, but it's so just it's just so disturbing and just so cynical and this. And I was like, did you not see my TV show? You know, but it was this interesting thing that happened that it did kind of not it did kind of. And I think it was just because I was very vulnerable after finishing Barry and this kind of pressure of like, what are you going to do next or whatever? That was all self-imposed. No one was asking me that. And it was just my own neuroses that I really lost my confidence.

20:40And so I kind of set it aside for a bit. And we'll go back to it, I know. But when I saw Eddington, I think I told you I was seeing that. I was like, yes, okay. I'm going to go back to that project because he did it. You know, I go, he had the balls to do the thing that I kind of was like talked out of. You know what I mean? Let's see how Eddington does. It might not have. No, but for me, it's fantastic. Open the door further. No, but I think it's fantastic. I don't, you know, some of this you just can't control, you know. But I do think it's a film that will last forever. Oh, man. But it is a thing that we, you know, I haven't had an experience like that in a while where we were all in the parking lot afterwards kind of looking at each other going, what the fuck did we just that that was that was that was amazing and like jason walner who's like such a lovely guy was just like and alec berg and it was just like that was phenomenal i know guillermo talked to you afterwards and he was texting me just like that was amazing it is a masterpiece you know the balls or he has just got big balls man like he just loved it you know And so that's, you know, it's very, but that gave me this, that's the best thing you could say about a piece of art is it inspires you to like, you know, go for it, go for the risk.

22:06But with you, it almost seems like it doesn't even occur to you that it might be an issue, but maybe it does. Like you go, okay, this might be an issue, but I got to keep moving, you know, like. Yeah, I think I just really. the minute I started thinking strategically I just lose steam those thoughts just don't go very far because I can't get the energy to do that kind of thing but I there were a lot of nerves in making this am I going to do this? I'm like why?

22:49I told a filmmaker friend And I told him the idea, and he was like, you're just going to walk into that meat grinder? I don't know. But thanks, man. I'm so glad that you liked it. Oh, yeah. Loved it. And then I was happy, too. People have asked me, what's it like working with him? Because I was in Bo's Afraid. And it's always fun when people tell me they saw Bo's Afraid. I've had this happen now four times where people are like, oh, I love Bo's Afraid. I really like that scene where he's on the phone with the UPS guy and everything. And I'm like, uh-huh. You know that's me, right? And they go, no, it's not.

23:26I'm like, yeah, that's me. That's happened to me three times where people don't believe me. And I'm like, no, that's me on the phone. The guy crying about finding his dead mom and everything. That's me. And it's like, shut the fuck up. I'm like, I'm in the movie. You're amazing in that scene. That's probably my favorite scene in the film. Well, it was very funny because my poor assistant. And it hinges on. Sorry, I was just going to say the humor of that scene hinges on. you just being that guy absolutely in hell. Like just, it's not like, it's. I remember just recording that in my house and my poor assistant, Alyssa Donovan was just in the other room and she would just peek her head in like, cause, cause I would do a couple of takes.

24:09And then my memory I have is you, you do it with Joaquin and then you would come in and go, Hey Bill, that was great. And then you went, I have a question. Are you really crying? I go, I'm not crying. And you go, I think you should really cry. And so I really got worked up, alone, just alone, really crying and got really sad. And then I did this thing. And I felt like, man, I really poured my heart on that one. I'm like wiping tears on my eyes. And then you come on and you're dying laughing. You go, oh, Bill, we're cracking up over here at the monitor. It's really great. so i didn't know what what i didn't have a monitor in front of me or anything so i'm just going off of what was on this other end of the phone so it wasn't until i saw the movie that i saw the shot and the slow pushing on him and everything and i was like oh that's what they were looking at and then i thought of incredibly funny when i saw it but over the phone it i just was like i just yeah i was just trying to play the reality of the moment you're so great in it we did like 35 takes of that or something it was a lot of takes because it was one shot yeah it was very funny Joaquin was just in it the whole time people were like any sort of small talk and I was like no he's just fully in it do you know Blue Jam by Chris Morris it's a radio show by Chris Morris that he ended up doing as a TV show called Jam.

25:43And those sketches are so funny to me because there are no jokes. It's just the most hellish nightmare situations. Like a woman whose baby just died and she calls over a plumber to fix the baby because he fixed her boiler last week. And she's just manic. It's a woman whose baby just died, clearly. who's in like denial. Yeah. And it's so funny because it's so morbid and it's just so real. Like the minute it would have become kind of arch or camp, like it would stop being funny. Yeah, he never does that. He never does that, Chris Morris. He's like my favorite. I love him so much. When I was at SNL, the pedophile episode of Brass Eyes.

26:36Pedageddon. Yeah, Pedageddon. We would all sit in an office and watch it and kind of just marvel at that they were finding genuinely great jokes about this. The pedophile dressed as a school? The school with the little legs? The hardest I've laughed, I think, at anything. One of the hardest times I've ever laughed was the - The prison vessel? No. Wait, is that the thing where it's like they shot the world's worst pedophile into outer space? In the one-man prison vessel, but a little boy accidentally - But somehow - An eight-year-old boy got on board and he goes, said NASA, this was the one thing we didn't want to have happened.

27:16And I fell out of my seat laughing. But I remember going to South Park and they would quote Chris Morris constantly. And just I think he's just somebody that. Of course, those guys love him. No, they love him. And I think they're probably I think Matt's friends with him. But yeah, that stuff was something that you just – we were kind of like, God, could you imagine they're getting away with this stuff? And I remember meeting Simon Pegg and he was like, oh, Sean, I don't know. So I go, no, no, no, the guy in the stocks who's like won't – doesn't find – Chris Morris is like, don't you want to have sex with my son?

27:54He's like, no, I don't fancy him. And he's like, what do you mean you don't fancy him? Look at him. He's beautiful. It was like, I cannot believe they're making these jokes. Yeah. But somehow it was more of a bit. It was amazing. But it was all, all of Brass Eye is phenomenal. Cake. Animals episode. Yeah, cake. The drugs. The drugs episode. Yeah, is a non-existent but real sounding or whatever it was. And before that was on the hour and the day today. Day today was amazing. Which he did with Iannucci, which is just. Coogan. Yeah, Coogan as Alan Partridge. As Alan Partridge. And I remember Coogan did a very funny thing where he was the guy that saw a bank robbery.

28:31Do you remember that? Yeah. And they go, what did you see? Do you remember this? Did you not like this? No, no, no, no, no. I've seen them all. He's a bank robber. He's like, well, the guy came out and he was like. And he gets hit in the head. And what's the bomb dogs? The dogs that are being used as bombs? Yeah. There's so many. There's the priest. The priest is being bullied by the other priests.

29:00I mean that was stuff that you know I mean yeah that and then when he did Four Lions and everything Four Lions is fucking incredible yeah it's unbelievable which he did with I think he wrote that with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain who did Peep Show you know yeah so funny Jesse Armstrong obviously did one on Succession Succession the greatest and the thick of it yeah the thick of it was unbelievable but Four Lions was so yeah just like the three stooges as as jihadist yeah where he's like how did you keep where did you get all the was it manure or something for the bomb they just kept going back to the same store and he goes I went as a disguise and he was like a disguise and he just put his hands covering his beard he just put his hands over his face to cover his beard and he talked in a woman's voice I need to watch that movie again but I just remember seeing it.

29:55It's great. But that was another thing. It's so funny. You see that in the theater, I remember, and I would say 20 % of us were howling. Yeah. And then there was 80 % of the audience that was just like, this is not funny at all. This is like really in poor taste and everything. And I don't know, I really admired that. Well, for me doing Barry too, it was like a thing where you go, oh, this doesn't look like a comedy. It looked like when those guys blow up, it's very realistic, but also funny. like the tone is very you know a specific way well barry has this amazing trajectory of beginning in its first season it's it's there's something familiar about it i really i really really like its first season but then two three and four for me it goes to four right yeah yeah two sorry but two three and four for me it just becomes incrementally more like fascinating and strange and sad and bleak.

30:55And it becomes kind of like experimental. I don't know. I really love how Barry evolved. It really became something totally unique. Oh, thank you, man. And some of those, I mean, just as a director as well, like you're so distinct. And there are action scenes. I mean, Ronnie and Lily, right, was the first. Yeah, that was the Karate Girl one. In season two, that was, because I just love like a sustained, like prolonged action sequence that kind of just, that goes beyond the breaking point. But that one went so far beyond it. And then in season three, there's the motorcycle chase, which is one of the most like cinematic, vividly realized things I've ever seen.