The Top Five Ethan Hawke Movies and a Double Shot of Richard Linklater, With Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater!

22:47And the film does communicate a lot of that. And when you're in the Coyote Cinema office or when you get to go to the film with them and then have them like shit talking it afterwards. That stuff is very charming and fun.

23:01Sean Fennessey:That stuff is my favorite stuff in the movie because it felt the most like everybody wants some but for the new wave. Yeah. Where it's just like friends hanging out, shooting the shit, kicking ideas around, making fun of each other. Right. There's nobody in the world who's better at that than Richard Linklater. Like he is the master of that kind of a hangout movie. The actual making of the film stuff I thought was kind of interesting only insofar as how much tension can Zoe Deutsch bring to the film as Gene Seberg. Right. And whether or not you believe that she actually was like really struggling during the production of it and like mad at him all the time, which is very reasonable.

23:34Sean Fennessey:His producer is also mad at him. He's working in this very difficult way where he's waiting for inspiration to strike. Like he's trying to follow Roberto Rossellini's, you know, colon like, you know, philosophical digressions about the way to do things. That's a great scene of driving along in the car. I love that scene. Yeah, it's wonderful. Everything that is like that, everything that is like Chris Sabo played third base for the Reds, that stuff is so good. And everything that involves poor Zoe Deutsch having to speak fluent French in her American Gene Seberg accent. I was like, I can't. And I know what this is like.

24:06And I know that Gene Seberg did not have a perfect French accent. in the film Breathless. But let's be real, everybody. She tried. There's only so much. Well, it's not anybody's fault. It's just the structure of the movie of having to have everyone. It's implausible and grating.

24:22Sean Fennessey:Yeah. She looks like her though. Totally. The pixie haircut and the styling of the film, the production design of this movie is pretty amazing. Oh, no, it looks beautiful. And that's another thing where it was just very, yeah, comforting and charming. It definitely has charm. to be wandering around for a while. And, you know, they go to Cannes and there's a conversation had while someone's doing like a pinup Cannes photo shoot. I was like, all of this, the vibe is very good. It's just, once you're recreating Breathless, I mean, Breathless is currently available to stream on HBO Max, you know, which I then did go do.

25:01Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I didn't do that. It's funny. So I rewatched it last night with Eileen. I'm sure Eileen and I watched Breathless 25 years ago, But I haven't seen it in a very long time. And I was just trying to situate her in what this movie was. Right. And what it was attempting to do. And it's a little hard about halfway through to be like, so what are we really worried about here? If you accept it as a hang, I think it works really, really well. If you're looking for something that is sort of like driving in some way, it's not that kind of a movie. Most Linklater movies are not really like that. I do think though that it's very consistent and Godard's point of view on making this movie is very consistent with what Linklater is interested in like his ethic you know it's like work with your friends trust your gut acknowledge tradition but try to break your own path like all of these things they just feel like they're things that resonate deep inside of him you mentioned something interesting though which is like does this film like Godard?

25:57I think that it it has empathy and um and recognizes what's going on you know i the godard and the link later like the filmmaker is obviously the stand-in for the other filmmaker but there there was some knowing um lovingness about the way that this person is young and idealistic and like preposterous and but impassioned and believes in in what he's doing that i think i think link later is rooting for him. I think the film is, yeah, of course, which like how, how could you not? But it's also like, you know, what an idiot sitting there being like, no, no, no, we're done for the day after two hours.

26:40Sean Fennessey:Which is seemingly not the way that Linklater would work either. And it has learned how to survive in, in, within independent filmmaking for a long time. I think he obviously has a tremendous amount of respect for him. I thought this when I saw, first saw the movie and then Linklater confirmed it too, that he was like, I'm really more of a true foe guy. The humanism of Truffaut just seems much more in step with what Linklater is usually after. You know, Godard is this very kind of like dogmatic, almost ideological, hard-edged figure in the history of cinema. And he has that great scene where they're fighting about the continuity of the cup, which I did think was very funny.

27:19And he's just yelling and being like, but what is real? Like the reality would be that you, you know, I can't recreate it. It's also in French, but it's very funny. It is very funny. And it gets to, you understand that Linklater relates more to a different style of filmmaking, but he is, it's a funny idea. And also just a funny portrait of what it means to be like a young, idealistic artist setting out, which I do think that Linklater has a lot of affection for.

27:49Sean Fennessey:He definitely does a staggering resemblance across the cast. Guillaume Marbeck. It's true. just looks just like Godard. I mean, you know, I think anybody who has that kind of like widow's peak hairstyle and is slim and can wear shades, you could pull it off to some extent, but he really captures what we imagine at least the energy of him to be at that time. And that helps the movie a lot. A lot of the other historical figures, even if we don't really know what those people were like, it feels very close and that goes a long way. You know, what was it that Linklater, he cited a recent example of trying to find someone in a movie that looked like the person that they were representing and he was really appreciative of the work that was done there i want to say it was in justin chang's uh piece about link letter that was in the new yorker a few weeks back but the the attention to detail yeah is what makes this movie i would say more or less successful it's an interesting experiment i mean and the production design and the i mean i did i was sitting there being like okay so clearly they were in paris but like how did they do this this is a it, you know, which is, it's worth seeing.

28:55Sean Fennessey:Definitely. Definitely worth seeing. Fun movie. It's, I'm not quite sure internationally how it's being distributed. I know in France it's playing in movie theaters. I think it's only in the U.S. on Netflix, but definitely fun and worth seeing. Yeah. Let's, let's talk about Blue Moon now. Yeah. So this movie is written by Robert Kaplau, who is the author of the book Me and Orson Welles was based on, but he did not write that screenplay, but he did write this. This is his first screenplay. He's also, did you learn this related? Do you remember The Watcher? I did. I read this, yes. Yeah, he's involved in, so The Watcher was a Reeves Wiedemann New York Magazine story from five, 10 years ago.

29:37Sean Fennessey:Adapted into a Netflix miniseries? Yes, which Kaplau was involved in because he was not actually The Watcher or living in the house that was part of The Watcher, but he lived in the same town and was also doing some watching of his own or something. It's fascinating stuff. At first, some thought he might have been the watcher, but then he was not the watcher. Yeah, but check that out. Interesting life for Robert Kaplow. This movie that he's written is quite fascinating. It sounds like it was written many years ago, maybe more than 10 years ago, and that Hawk and Linklater have been circling it for a long time.

30:12Sean Fennessey:It's been more than 10 years since Hawk and Linklater made a movie together. They've made nine movies together. they're one of the great cinematic partnerships certainly of our lifetime and this movie is set in 1943 it is about Lorenz Hart the lyricist who is confronting shattered self-confidence in a bar it's an all-in-one night movie for the most part as his former collaborator Richard Rogers is getting set to arrive at Sardis the legendary New York City theater bar after the opening night of Oklahoma exclamation point Yes, which is his first piece working with Oscar Hammerstein, the composer who would then go on to create one of the most successful duos in the history of musical theater.

30:58Sean Fennessey:Prior to this, Rogers and Hart were a tremendously successful duo who made musical theater. And wrote some of the great songs and standards of the early 20th century in America, including Blue Moon. and also My Funny Valentine, which is referenced in Nouvelle Vogue. That's right. That's right. I forgot about that. So Linklater was for years, apparently a huge fan of Ella Sings, Rogers and Hart, which is an Ella Fitzgerald album that features 20 of those standards performed by her. And this is, I'll just say one of my favorite movies of the year. I think this is just a tremendously beautiful and sad movie and kind of the inverse of Nouvelle Vogue, where Nouvelle Vogue on its surface, you would think would be tough.

31:44Sean Fennessey:difficult and underneath the surface is actually a very warm and kind of sweet movie about friendship and about success and about pursuing something that you believe in and achieving it. And this movie is the opposite. It's a movie that on the surface, you have this smiling Ethan Hawke who's got his head shaved and has got a comb over and has been shrunk down to five feet and is very sweet and charming and charismatic, but right underneath the surface within the first five minutes. Embittered and wistful and just like life is not even slipping away but like has slipped away. Yes. And you can watch that reveal itself in real time over the course of the night.

32:28Sean Fennessey:Desperate and unloved. Yeah. Is how I would describe this version of Heart. And I think it's like one of the best things Hawk has done in years and very out of his traditional range. And also it's just a great all in one place movie. And it's hard to make an all-in-one-place movie entertaining and interesting. And the way that this movie is shot and blocked is unfussy, unshowy. It's not trying to do too much with the fact that it has limitations. But I was, like, just tremendously emotionally engaged in this movie. What did you think about Blue Moon? Oh, I loved it. I mean, any movie that starts with the characters quoting Casablanca to each other, no one ever loved me that much.

33:06I mean, it's, and it uses, this is a movie that loves movies and, like, you know, old Hollywood as much as we do. And it's very much built into the text and to the script, which I think is very good. In some ways it is like, you know, a play, but a movie. But I mean that in the best possible sense where it is really focused on it. It's like tightly written. It has ideas. It's focused on the performances. People show up for kind of one or two scene arias and And it makes the most of what it has. And it's, you know, just a very, I agree, very sad.

33:49Sean Fennessey:Very sad movie. Movie about being really old and not being able to. But not that old. Right. To your point about Katrina Balfe, I believe Hart was 46 years old. That's why we're also like, oh God, you know, life is coming for us. This film does the thing that you normally don't like. which is something at the beginning yeah i didn't love that either okay even here even though i do find that that choice sets the tone because i honestly i don't know what before this film i didn't know about the life story of lauren's heart you know and i don't know his outcome i mean i know what happens with oklahoma uh just in just incredible theater criticism of oklahoma throughout this movie it's really really funny but um i and you know so i know that he i know that rogers and Hammerstein go on to great fame, but I didn't know the, the pretty sudden tragedy that happens after this film.

34:45And, and so knowing that does help you interpret the film in a different way, because it's kind of, it's all sort of a lost cause, you know, and there's like, he keeps, he keeps talking about, so Andrew Scott plays, um,

35:04Sean Fennessey:Richard Rogers, Richard Rogers. Thank you. sorry and they keep talking about how they're gonna revive and i'll play with five more songs and there is and you know and that's presented a connecticut yankee yeah um the heart character is like this will you know i'll be back in it this will be my big break and i think we all know because of the way the film opens that like even if that does happen it doesn't matter that this is not going to be the beginning of another career so i i think functionally i understood the decision That's interesting. It's the only thing that I really took issue with in the movie.

35:37Sean Fennessey:I also did not know much about the life of Hart. I was happy to not know much about it. I think the movie does that very interesting thing where it allows the character to kind of talk through their own personal history in a way that felt mostly naturalistic in the setting. It didn't feel like forced exposition. No. And I think if you remove that opening sequence where we see him fall in the rain. Yeah. For someone who didn't know about the person's life, it would have felt more dramatic. It would have felt, and the sort of revelations about the aftermath of this opening night of Oklahoma, I think would have felt stronger, more powerful.

36:14Sean Fennessey:It would have hit, it would have been a little bit more tear in my throat than it ultimately is. I guess so, but it's not, the movie is not a mellow drama, you know, it's like an elegiac, there is something, you're watching this guy and it's like it's over before it started. Yeah. And that is what the film and the character is about. And he is the only character who has not quite made peace with that. But to understand what's going on with him, I do kind of think you need to know the contours to get the full. I don't know. It worked for me. Setting that aside, the other thing that I think this movie shares in common with Nouvelle Vogue is that, to use a word that you used to describe Godard, both of these movies are about delusional men.

36:59Sean Fennessey:You know, like men who are just like convincing themselves that what they're going to do and how everything is going to work out. And in one case, someone is incredibly successful. In another case, someone fails miserably. But there is something too about the, I think, a sensitivity to artists, people trying things, which is just a really vulnerable, strange thing. Like you and I get in front of a camera and we talk at each other and it's fine and it's vulnerable. But not like when you're like, here's something I have poured my soul into that means the world to me. and Hart in particular, a writer who was sort of moving out of fashion in the mid 40s in terms of the style of comedy lyricism that he was gifted at.

37:36Sean Fennessey:And also like a sense of how the world was changing. This is like amidst World War II and there's a kind of optimism in Oklahoma that is completely absent from most of what Hart pursues. He can write a romantic song, but it's usually a little bit more pointed and cultural. And Rogers originally went to Hart to write Oklahoma and he turned him down and then Rogers turning to Hammerstein leads to this... Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the most successful collaboration in the history musical theater, probably. Yes, absolutely.

38:12But, you know, those are all pretty sappy. I say that as the world's... I'm not a huge fan. World's number one sound of music fan over here, but, you know.

38:20Sean Fennessey:I can't pretend to be an expert on the shows of Rogers and Hart because they're actually just so out of fashion that they're not produced as often as the Rodgers and Hammerstein stuff, which I've seen most of, and most of I just don't think is that great to me. But people love them. And Hart being a known genius who's washed up is as tragic as it comes. You know, just like the way that Hawk embodies this incredible sense of sadness without having lost his wit and his intelligence and his kind of nascent, annoying charm. Right. There's a charisma. Yeah. That is kind of like flickering in real time and the bitterness and the alcoholism and the delusion breakthrough throughout the course of the film.

39:15But every once in a while, he just steers it back to something just completely effervescent and amazing. And you're like, oh, this is who this person was. Yes. and just cannot get back there. And life won't let him get back there.

39:27Sean Fennessey:Another thing that this movie shares with Nouvelle Vague is that there are a handful of famous figures who crop up in the story. These are significantly more invented than what you might see in Nouvelle Vague. For example, at Sardi's on this night, sitting at a table by himself, writing in his journal, is E.B. White. Yeah. E.B. White, seemingly at the doorstep of writing Charlotte's Web. And Stuart Little, because he gets inspiration for Stuart's name and how to spell it from heart. I don't think that's actually how that happened. I don't either, but it is written into the script of the film. They reference it, you know?

40:01Sean Fennessey:I really like that little jag where E.B. White comes in as kind of like the gentle, observant conscience of creativity for a short period of time. And then there's like a fairly amusing, but also a little silly introduction of a very young, presumably Stephen Sondheim, who is neighbors with Oscar Hammerstein and who, you know, joins him at the premiere of Oklahoma and has seen every musical theater performance and has some withering takes for the work of Lorenz Hart. Right, yeah. And it's just a funny, like, nudge in the ribs of any musical theater fan. Sondheim obviously would go on to kind of take on the mantle of the greatest living musical theater writer.

40:41Sean Fennessey:I mean, probably immediately after Rodgers and Hammerstein. Yeah, I guess so. this movie is this doesn't usually always work for me when an actor is like I'm doing a biopic or I'm recreating a figure I'm transforming yeah I'm hair and makeup we're gonna use trenches to make me seem smaller than I actually am and Ethan Hawke he never does this he never wears makeup he's very naturalistic yeah he almost always embodies a version of himself it might be in the year 2300, like in Gattaca, but he still looks like Ethan Hawke. Yeah. And I thought this was a fascinating choice. This is also a small, low-budget movie made, I think in 15 days, which would have been pretty challenging.

41:33Sean Fennessey:And I think it's like among the best things he's ever done. He's wonderful in it. And I think, I want to talk about the Margaret Qualley character, who is, for lack of a better term, the love interest, though how that works out is in keeping with how things work out in the rest of the film and is kind of another dimension to, I don't know whether it's delusion or denial or self-hate, but it is very funny to see Ethan Hawke not getting the girl mode or not even close to getting the girl. I asked him about this. Yeah. I asked him specifically, like, I can't think of a single time where you played the guy who cannot get the girl.

42:20Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And the level of self-hate, that's the other word that I use, this self-loathing that Hart has. Hart was believed to have been a closeted gay man, but he proposed to multiple women and wanted to be seen as a... A man about town. Yes, exactly. And maybe even like a conqueror in some ways and was constantly falling short of that. And in the film, um Margaret Qualley plays a young woman named Elizabeth Weiland who is a Yale student who's an aspiring musical theater composer and wants to be in this world and she befriends Hart and they have this kind of confidant relationship and he feels romantic feelings for her or at least says that he does and she sort of leads him on in part so he can introduce her to some people but she also seems to have affection for him but certainly not in the way he keeps asking for.

43:13Sean Fennessey:I think there's an extended sequence of them alone in an office that runs a little long for me. Yeah. I think modern quality is well cast. I think this is like actually... Best use of her, yes. A good use of her. And what her kind of wide-eyed beauty represents and her ability to sort of like be one step ahead but the audience thinks she's one step behind for most of the sequence. So I liked that part okay. It does. It's just kind of the final nail in the coffin, almost literally. Right. Of Hart's ego and his sense of self-worth. Right. And also his the idea of himself versus the reality of the world that he's living in.

43:59Sean Fennessey:Do you think many successful people feel this way? Have this intense sense of regret, longing. Oh, um. Failure. When it runs out, yes. How do you know if it's run out? I mean, I think he knows it's run out. I'm just asking for a friend.

44:18Yeah, this is a very sensitive portrayal of somebody who is losing it. Yeah.

44:23Sean Fennessey:And I really like it. Hawk, well, let's talk about Linklater really quickly. Okay. So he's 65 years old. He did not. He does not seem it. His hair is brown. Yeah. You know, he's in good shape. Still seems like an athlete. He's in the midst of this production of Merrily We Roll Along. Right. Speaking of Sondheim. How many years has it been now? I think it's been less than 10. So I think he's about a third of the way through. Okay. Maybe a little more than that. And the plan is to film until 2040. Okay. And he's doing this with Paul Meskel, Beanie Feldstein, and is it Ben Platt? That sounds right.

45:00Sean Fennessey:I think it's Ben Platt. So he'll be 80. So he'll be 80 at the conclusion of this production. It is Ben Platt. So that is, you know, he's obviously done this before with Boyhood, these kind of durational projects over time. You know, I think Justin Chang also pointed out that this is sort of his version, again, of what Truffaut did with Antoine Donnell. Like this idea of like tracking the same character and the same actor over a long period of time. But in this case, he's doing it in standalone movies. Yeah. Which is just one of his ultimate, fascinating, time-based innovations. But just in the last few years, he's been very productive.

45:41Sean Fennessey:He made the rotoscope animated film Apollo 10 and a half a few years ago for Netflix. And then Hitman last year for Netflix. And then now Nouvelle Vague and Blue Moon in the same year. Very vital at this stage of his career. He's made over 20 movies. Good for him. It's fucking killing it. He loves to make movies. What are you going to be doing at 65?

46:03I don't know. I'm reading a very grim book about the future right now. What's the book? It's the new Ian McEwen novel.

46:09Sean Fennessey:Oh yeah, you've been anticipating it. It's wonderful. It's really, really good. I'm almost done, but it's not optimistic about what any of us will be doing at 65. What's the name of the book? It's called What We Can Know by Ian McEwen. I see. So that'll be 22 years from now for me. 22 years will be 2047. Okay. My daughter will be 26. Oh, that's fine. I can be dead by then. Okay. That's fine. I got to get to 21 for my daughter. That's the most important thing. Her age. Yeah. You need to get, and then good luck, Alice. Well, I don't want to die, but if I die, it'll be okay. Okay. I won't fight it, you know?

46:45Sean Fennessey:That's good. I will fight it. I'll fight it tooth and nail. Don't pull the plug on me, as George Carlin once said. Okay. I mean, I, you know, I hope you have other arrangements for that written in your will. No, you're the first call. When I'm on my deathbed, you are the first call. Because I trust you to be unsparing. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? ZepBound Terzepatide may be able to help. ZepBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off.

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48:48or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. ZepBound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. ZepBound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if ZepBound is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2.

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50:32Sean Fennessey:Learn more at wellsfargo.com slash autographjourney. Terms apply. Before we go to Hawk and Linklater, I want to talk about Hawk quickly. so I hope he gets nominated for Best Actor I genuinely hope it's an extremely competitive year and this is a small listen, Sony Pictures Classic has done it before no doubt, they're amazing at this never forget the wife yeah, well I have forgotten it but I know what you're saying let's very quickly go through Best Actor before sharing our favorite Hawk stuff so at the moment well, look at this glamour shot we changed to him, looking great I mean, he's always looked great.

51:11Sean Fennessey:You know, he's also on The Lowdown on FX, which I haven't started watching yet, but I intend to watch over the Thanksgiving break. Along with Andor, I'm going to set movies aside for a week. Wow. Watch some television. Okay. I'm going to be on an airplane with two children under four. Yeah, a blue moon of your own. Good luck to you. I'm so excited for that week because I'm not going anywhere. So at the moment, Variety has... Here's the top 10 for best actor in reverse order from 10 to 1. Clooney for Jay Kelly. Plemons for Begonia. Dwayne Johnson for The Smashing Machine. Brendan Fraser for The Rental Family.

51:45Sean Fennessey:I still haven't seen that. Nor have I. Jeremy Allen White for Springsteen. I can't believe we're still doing this. Michael B. Jordan for Sinners. Uh-huh. Wagner Mora for The Secret Agent. Uh-huh. Timothy Chalamet for Marty Supreme. Yes. Leonardo DiCaprio for One Battle After Another. Yes. And in the number one position, Ethan Hawke for Blue Moon. Who has this? Clayton Davis at Variety. Okay. This was published on September 26th. Okay. I take issue with some of that ranking. I would love that for Ethan Hawke. I don't think that he is in pole position. Is that the correct usage of the term pole position?

52:21It certainly is. Thanks so much.

52:21Sean Fennessey:Sounds like you've seen F1. Let me tell you. I was actually going to ask what sport it's from. So good. As a counterpoint on October 23rd, Awards Watch said that Ethan Hawke was in 11th place behind Will Arnett, Dwayne Johnson, Jesse Plemons, Jeremy Allen White, Joel Edgerton. I don't think that's right either. Yeah. This is almost three weeks. Three weeks going on too. I mean, I think Michael B. Jordan, yes. Leonardo DiCaprio, yes. Wagner Mora, yes. Still haven't seen that film, but I'm looking for two. I gotta figure out how to talk about that movie. I know, I'm very excited, but I just... Who is the fourth guarantee that I'm forgetting right now?

52:55No, I already said Leo.

52:57Sean Fennessey:Leo, Wagner Mora, Michael B., and Timothee Chalamet. Oh, and Chalamet, of course, yeah. Gold Derby currently has him at fifth, so that's a little bit in the middle between the two. I think that's probably right. And that's what I'll hope for. I think that would be an awesome five. That would be close to what I think are the five best actor performances of the year. And that doesn't usually happen. But this is a really, really competitive year. I think some of the lower, I think Brendan Fraser and Daniel Day-Lewis and Russell Crowe for Nuremberg. Have you seen that yet? I haven't seen that yet.

53:28Sean Fennessey:That's also going to be part of the Hedda episode where we talk about 10 movies that we didn't talk about. Okay, so Hedda, Nuremberg. What about the, what's it called? The Choir, The Corral? The Coral. The Coral. I just, the trailers before my Blue Moon screening were just like an incredible 1998. Yeah, the SPC rundown. Sony Pictures Classic throwback situation. I like those. Have you seen Surratt? No, but don't tell me anything. Tell me nothing. I'm going. What about Kiss of the Spider Woman? No, I haven't seen that either. I will see it. We haven't talked about Ballad of a Small Player. I know, that's just on Netflix.

54:02Gotta see that. It is. Yeah.

54:05Sean Fennessey:The Lost Boss. Threw that on last night. what did you put on last night I threw on Ballad of a Small Player completely forgot it was out it's not very good it's a disappointment The Lost Boss The Lost Bus oh The Lost Bus with Matthew McConaughey oh right these are all in theory yeah we're gonna listen we're gonna get there we're gonna get there Hawk let's see we can do this fairly quickly we match on one movie I did that well two movies yes and I put I matched at number four so we could be cute with our lists What do you think makes him a good actor?

54:41There is a...

54:48I don't know. He's just so cool, honestly. There are a bunch of different things that I was trying to describe. He's very calm and he sits back, but also really emotionally open. There's a physicality to him. I don't know. I saw him in Reality Bites when I was 11. And I was like, that's it. That's what's going to haunt me for the next 35 years of my life.

55:12Sean Fennessey:I know what you mean. I think he has changed a lot as a performer over the years. I do think that he was really puppy dog as a kid and in one of your picks. Sure, yeah. And had this kind of like G. Williker's kind of anxiousness to him as a performer. And then he really like almost does the exact opposite in his 20s where he pulls back way back. Right, right. He's cooler than cool, you know, when he's in, is it Hamlet? the modern adaptation of Hamlet, in Reality Bites, of course, like in a lot of those 90s performances. And then in the 2000s, I feel like he goes back the other way. He goes back to this, like he has a kind of jitteriness to him, like in Training Day, where you can right on the surface, you can feel this is a person who's having a hard time and he's not, nothing is settled.

55:55Yeah.

55:55Sean Fennessey:And being able to toggle between those two energies is very cool. I mean, I do kind of think like for us, it's just an emotional, register over time and, you know, an up and down that I recognize, you know, of being like fairly earnest in your teens. And then what I thought was cool was also what he was trying to be. I have just kind of watched him go through the phases of life about five years ahead of myself and feel about them the same way that I do. That's exactly what he's somebody that it's very easy to map your own experiences onto because he's made a bunch of movies about going through those experiences.

56:32Sean Fennessey:and obviously the Before trilogy is signature in that but a lot of his movies are like that. So he's a special guy. Yeah. He's a special actor and one of the great podcast guests so I'm very excited to hear your... He's just an awesome talker, you know, he's read a lot and seen a lot and he loves music and he's just into figuring it out and is very eloquent in conveying how he feels. So hopefully people will enjoy that conversation. Before we get to it, do your five and I'll do my five. I put Dead Poets at five, which is just how I remember probably the first time I saw him. And also, you know, that openness that I do think characterizes all of his work, except for the 20s when he's, his 20s when he's trying to be an asshole.

57:17I put Blue Moon at four because you also have Blue Moon at four. I do have Blue Moon at four. It's pretty, it's extraordinary. And him trying something different, which is cool. Boyhood at three. Boyhood, not my favorite Linklater, but it is as much a study of, I mean, it is a study of Ethan Hawk over time and what they're doing together.

57:36Sean Fennessey:And I've not seen divorce dad energy represented so clearly. And what Hawk is doing, like in terms of vulnerability and, and like openness and also anger, you know, it's the full gamut of what he can do over time. It is that like career that we've been talking about. Him picking up Eller Coltrane at the house in his muscle car is like, gives me sad chills. Yeah. Two is Reality Bites. Yeah. Forever. Yeah. Great film. And then number one before sunset. Yeah. I know. You go by. You go by. I know. My number five is Training Day, which is... Yeah. And he's been very good over the years at toggling between mainstream Hollywood movies and projects that light him up that are a little smaller.

58:26Sean Fennessey:He obviously also loves the theater. Trainee Day is like the perfect fusion of the two disciplines that he is interested in. It's like it's a big time Hollywood crime movie opposite Denzel, but they both get to do really interesting work as actors in it. and I would argue that we would not think about that Denzel performance in the same way if he was opposite a lesser actor. For sure. Because I think that movie is like pretty well written but not really that well written and it's like pretty well directed but not that well directed. But you're there for those two guys exploding. And some other actors on the periphery as well but those two guys specifically bouncing off of each other.

59:01Sean Fennessey:I also had Blue Moon at four. I agree with everything that you said. I have Before the Devil Knows You're Dead at three. Good one. The Lumet crime movie. Ethan mentioned Philip Seymour Hoffman And during our conversation, they're magic opposite each other as two very different but very similar brothers. Before Sunset is number two for me. Number one is First Reformed. Sure. It's First Reformed season. Boy, it sure is. Although Pope Leo, the 14th. Pope Leo. I mean, he's really, he's coming through for cinema. Sure. It's beautiful. Yeah. What if I went back to the church? We'll talk about that. There's another movie where we can talk about it.

59:38Why not now?

59:40Sean Fennessey:What if I rejoined the church because Leo hosted a great number of filmmakers at the Vatican? Greta Gerwig was there. Yeah. You know, Spike Lee was there. I mean, I appreciate all that he's doing. The Pope? Yeah. For cinema, I guess. He says you should go to the movie theater to see films. You know who else says that? You. Yeah. And me too. Yeah. Should I be the next Pope? Yeah. I think you do a really good job. I think I've earned it. You know, you have the outfit already. from our Oscar show. I do. So that's good. And Conclave taught me how all that stuff works. So I'll be really good at winning that race.

1:00:18Sean Fennessey:But First Reformed, Paul Schrader also came up when I was talking with Ethan. Man, that movie, I should have fought for for 25 for 25. That movie fucked me up. I love that movie. And that movie is also so on the money about how everything feels right now. Yeah. So on the money. And Ethan Hawke, again, and is at the center of it as a desperate person who's lost hope and can do that just as well as he can do Loren's heart. So he's a wonderful actor. Any closing thoughts? I'm excited to hear you talk to the two of them. Okay. Let's go to my conversation with Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater.

1:00:59Sean Fennessey:Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke back on the show here to talk about Blue Moon. Guys, it's been 12 years since you made a film together. I was stunned to learn that. When I was reading up on your long-term collaboration, was there anything that came up in the interim? 10? 10 since boyhood. Well, 14. That came out in 14. Did it? Yeah. Okay. But we shot this in 24. So there was a 10-year gap of us rolling camera. We were in a horrible fight. Yeah. I didn't speak for, what, nine? Yeah. He has these temper tantrums. Then he comes and he apologizes. And he falls off the wagon. And it's a real thing.

1:01:36I just have to. At some point, he has to cut. So this is an art reflecting life situation.

1:01:41Sean Fennessey:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you, were there any other things that you were thinking about doing in that time? Like, why the break? God, I hope so. 10 years, we better have thought of something to do. Yeah, we're always throwing around things. No, this was, Blue Moon was in the works before. He gave me the script to Blue Moon before we finished Boyd. Probably like in 2012. No kidding. Am I close enough to the microphone? Yeah, yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Yeah, this was something been kind of rolling around in our heads for a long time. And we would get together in New York usually because Robert lives, he's in the area.

1:02:11Ethan's there. I would be there. We just kind of do a table read and talk about it more and just kind of just working with Robert over the years on the script. In fact, I was so impressed with Robert's patience with our methodology, you know, because we really enjoy doing readings, talking about it, thinking about it, because you know you never get a second chance. It's not like a painting where you can do one version of it and then a year later try it again. And it's like we were going to have one shot to make it right. So we took our sweet time. We were building up to something. And it's such a minimal.

1:02:44And we shot it in 15 days. It's a no-budget movie, all that stuff. And yet, we treated it over these years as some kind of really thing that we would just have to perfect. And it would be hard to do. How did you know it was the right time to do it? I knew because he said so. How did you know? Ethan tells these jokes about when he first started. It's like, well, you're too young. You're too tall. It took Ethan all those years to lose the height, actually. About an inch a year. An inch a year. Yeah, we finally got there.

1:03:16Sean Fennessey:It's funny, though, because you were 10 years ago around the right age for Lorenz Harp. And maybe you weren't ready to look the way that he looked at that time in his life. Well, 54 is 47 back then or whatever. Yeah, definitely. there was some, I mean, that's a very simplistic way of looking at it. We also knew that the thing about a movie like this is the bullseye is extremely small. And if you don't hit it exact, if you don't penetrate the exact bullseye, this movie is not really even a movie. It has to, for it to ring the bell, you know, for it to vibrate and sound right. We knew it had to be just right.

1:04:00And so we would do these readings and Robert, it's never like we did a reading and thought, okay, it's ready to go. We would thought, oh, this is a great idea. What is it? And then Robert would have some ideas and he would go back and Rick and we would all talk. And then, but there was no time pressure. So it'd be like six months later, Robert would send a new draft and we wouldn't read it aloud again until we were all in the same city again. Which might be a year and a half. There goes another year, you know, and then we would do it in the same conversation would take place and certain missteps would happen and scenes came and go came and went yeah you know we were breaking we were just kind of it was getting more minimal and the last the last reading we did was really fantastic we're at my house and um i remember it was over and everybody left and we both kind of were like wow it's we're ready this is the time it was great i felt okay i'm ready to go into rehearsals and like we're shooting in you know a month yeah that would be I think we're ready to get, we were that close.

1:04:59And in the meantime, I had gotten a lot older and also strangely felt more ready to try. A lot of the parts that I've done in my life are variations on something you might call close to my own identity. And this was a farther push out. But I really felt I loved Larry. And I felt like I'd grown up with people like Larry my whole life in the theater this this movie is intimate with those men yeah um and and so i really really wanted to do it badly um and i really believed that we could do it and do it well um and now i feel after so many years of every you know it's like a to-do list on your in your brain that you have and a blue moon was always there we gotta make that we've got to make check that one off i can't believe we've checked that one off i still with margaret last night i I was like, oh, wow.

1:05:55It was a couple years ago we were sitting there with her. We got all of our, we went to cast Elizabeth. It's like, I wonder if Margaret Qualley would, and sure enough, she met with us, really liked the part, totally got it. Years ago, we said, well, we got to get Cannavale to play. When we were first talking about it, we were like, you know who should be the bartender is Bobby. Bobby would be amazing. But, you know, actors' availability and all that, we just got lucky. Everybody was, and then Andrew Scott came aboard. That was really the crucial piece, the last piece.

1:06:27Sean Fennessey:Are there like 10 or 12 other projects like this for both of you guys? Where you're like, we're still, we're checking boxes. We have things that we know we want to do. 10 or 12 is a lot, but there's certainly a bunch. Interesting. Because sometimes the universe isn't... It's never on your time schedule, that's for sure. Yeah, you know, a project like this, we need the right partners, you know, to come through to help finance it. But nobody's doing this movie because they think they're going to make a quick fortune. They have to kind of believe in it. And we have several projects like that. Unfortunately, none of our projects seem to have their finger on the pulse of what America really wants to be watching.

1:07:08But we've had some that have never gotten made and some that might still.

1:07:13Sean Fennessey:Since you guys hadn't been on set together in a long time, had either of you changed in any way? Was there anything that was different about actually making a movie 10 years later? I wouldn't say either of us had changed in any way that affected anything. It's just the demands of this particular film required us to be different. It was a different vibe. I want to hear about that. For sure. The challenge was such that, well, I knew it. Even in the readings we were doing, I was like, I look at Ethan reading it a little as Ethan. I was like, oh, he doesn't know what he's in for. This is all going to go away.

1:07:49You know, he would put an emphasis on something. And then, so I knew this day was coming when we had to sit down and like really get into this. And I was like, okay. And that was very difficult. Yeah. It was like, this all has to go away. That's a masculine, confident Ethan gesture from a guy who's six feet tall and, you know, used to get laid a lot.

1:08:14See, Larry has none of that. I can feel that now. That was the biggest difference in the 10 years of the project. But it actually, he's not lying. I didn't realize that. And Rick did.

1:08:37But this is the vow. It's a weird razor's edge to walk when we all love the idea of long-term collaborations, but it's very hard not to get sick of your friends. It's very hard not to tire them.

1:08:50Sean Fennessey:And sometimes it's very hard to be honest with your friends, you know, because it feels like things are at stake. It's, it's not just a movie. Like Rick and I can't go make Blue Moon. I can't let him down or disappoint him or have a fight with him and, and walk away from the movie. I'd be walking away from a 30 year collaboration. It's, it's bigger than one job. and Rick was really giving me the opportunity to be the actor that he knew as a young person I dreamed of being. He knows who my heroes are. He knows the kind of work that I find significant and important. And he was giving me that opportunity, but it wasn't going to happen just by showing up.

1:09:34You know, all the things that people like to talk about, you know, whether you're talking about movies where people gain weight or lose weight or joking about the height or hair, shaving the head or, you know, gestures, voice, all that stuff is meaningless if it doesn't unlock something true and something with soul to it. You know, all those details are things that will ruin the movie if we don't get it right, but they won't actually give the movie the heart and soul to make it worth your time to watch. So this one had so many things we had to work on to like on before the before trilogy for example i'm being asked to play a certain position on a team and this movie was like i was in the same team but i was playing a different position than i'm normally asked to play if that makes sense can you can you give me the literal position

1:10:27Sean Fennessey:change that you made so that we can even deepen this metaphor like are we moving from quarterback to tailback or are you moving from tailback to quarterback to water boy and the masculine and the tough guy yeah yeah i mean but a very colorful water boy a really charming charming water boy um i think the better analogy might be a band and i used to play rhythm guitar and now i'm being asked to play the violin you know um it's like we're like and and the band leader's the same so a lot of when you're on a link letter set there's I think it would if you think about your older friends have they changed I venture to say most of us not that much it might be imperceptible they may have but you can't see it our sense of humor is the same we're still making each other laugh with jokes that happened that are citing things that happened 30 years ago and I still laugh and we still find the same I know when I'm reading something whether Rick will like it or not you know so you know I'll come across you know we know I even, the other day I was like, I had this really kind of crisis moment in my brain, something that was really profoundly depressing me.

1:11:39And I went for a walk and I just imagined talking to Rick and I felt a lot better. I didn't actually need to talk to him. I'd say this and he'd say, well, why are you going that direction? And I'm like, oh yeah, he's right. Yeah.

1:11:51Sean Fennessey:It's funny you say that though. So, so Glenn Powell was on one of our shows last week and on the show, he said, he was paying you a compliment and he said, Rick was the hardest director on me in terms of performance. He was the person who was the most direct about what I was doing and whether it was working or not. And that some artists are a little bit uncomfortable giving that feedback that you're talking about. Do you think it's even more harsh with Ethan? And how do you even communicate that? Well, it was on this time. I try to give specific directions when it comes to performance. I think that's the best you can do.

1:12:23Not just like, oh, go again, do better. you know it's like no playable notes yeah like that's actually you know this we were we rehearsed this we worked on it for a long time we had knew what we were going for but this was just different and we knew what arena we were stepping into it this was just going to be much more rigorous and i think had we not had each other's back for 30 years and the other films we had a trust you know I saw my friend working to his absolute limit. And this is built around his ability to deliver what the film had to. Ethan has to peel off these seven-page monologues.

1:13:01We have 15 days to shoot the movie. I knew we could do that. We had done versions of that before. But then this physical thing, it was a deductive process. Ethan had to disappear. So that was the naggy. I was a naggy. like you know that thing again like it would have been i think because we had this communication shorthand it helped that it was less confrontational but it was it was exhausting kind of it really was this was but we loved it it was a joy we were so happy to have the opportunity to finally make this film but within that it's like holy crap this is but we knew that's what we were heading it.

1:13:43You know, the thing that Rick's talking about, which is really, really truly remarkable, I think, is that he didn't, it wouldn't be an honor and it wouldn't be fun if we didn't do our absolute best. And so he has to be discerning with somebody that he knows really well. He's also spent 30 years of me complaining about directors, right? And as soon as I know you don't like this, but I have to, I have, if I don't say this right now, we cannot return to this moment. This is not as good as it needs to be. And I have to be humble enough to hear it and, and not lose my confidence, you know, and that's, that's it.

1:14:22And one of the things that I think what Glenn is talking about perhaps is, um, that Rick can, because Rick's an athlete, Rick can be extremely direct without being malicious there's no sometimes you sense in directors or producers a desire to um oh to be crass to pee on your shoulders or something just to have dominance and um and that is creates an atmosphere of competitiveness aggression rick is not rick you genuinely feel he wants you to excel. And so, and you know, he doesn't like being mean or critical. So if he's, I would have to do this. I remember when I was directing Maya, I had to explain, listen, obviously I want to say great job.

1:15:19I have every incentive in the world. That is what I want to say. But I can't yet. So don't, I'm not being mean. I'm not telling you you're doing something wrong. I'm telling you it can be better. And it's not as good as I know it needs to be to be before we're done today. And so there's that. But that doesn't mean it wasn't. But I do think it's so important. I remember this. It pops in my brain about he's standing on a beach somewhere and they're asking John Lennon before he died, like, would you ever play with Paul McCartney again? And he says, play what? He's like, I definitely would. Yeah. But it's what?

1:16:00and it's not that we can be friends every day of the year what do we want to make together and we wanted to make this together well it has to be the best movie he can see and has to like we have to actually work that's what i thought what john was saying was like i call him john yeah yeah but um i think what he i always liked that answer because you you could see in the answer that if there was a cool idea he would jump on it but it wasn't just to be together The point can't be that we're together. Then you're making Cannonball Run 5.

1:16:33Sean Fennessey:Which is a great film. We would watch your version of Cannonball 5. I think I understand why you wanted to do this and why you loved Larry. But why did you want to tell this story? Well, those same reasons. I love Lorenz Hart. I've been a big fan all these years, since my 20s when I discovered his music, I would say. and when Robert told me he was writing a story about him because I knew I knew a little bit about his life kind of the you know a little bit of the tragedy and Rogers moved on and he was a beloved character you know if you ask anyone okay Rogers Hart or Hammerstein almost everyone says Hart as the lyrics musicians yeah but the shows you gotta go with Hammerstein those are still performed it's a different era different era different time but there's something endearing about heart.

1:17:26And so just his life and what I read in the script is something that we never, isn't expressed much or talked about in artistic world, you know, circles, but it's kind of that an artist would have an expiration date that you could be left behind, not only by your collaborators, but by the times. It kind of lingers in your mind. It's something kind of sad and poignant, but like an athlete's career comes to an end just biologically, you know, no ballerina or gymnast or even ballplayer thinks they're going to be playing at 60 or 50. But every artist thinks, yeah, no, I love this. I'm going to do this forever.

1:18:05And in certain arts, particularly performing arts, film, theater, it can sort of be taken away from you. They can just not fund you. You can fall out of vogue. Yeah, you need that support. So when I first read what Robert sent me, I said, oh, this is like the sad little howl into the night by an artist being left behind. He said that to me the first time on the phone we were talking about it. Yeah, it's a funny, witty, but it was kind of like, oh, that's such an interesting for a movie to be about. A guy who's kind of at the end, he even says it in the movie in different ways. Forgotten, but not gone.

1:18:42That was my tagline. Yeah, so I don't know. I just loved it. It was Portrait of Art. And that time, you know, it's such a fascinating little moment in musical theater history. I love that period. I love all the music. So it's hard to say what makes you want to make a movie, but it definitely got into me, this character. And also the utter challenge on how to make it work. Can this even be a movie? One room, you know, like, is that a movie? Most would say no. And people did say no for a long time. But, you know, we got it made. So it's a little cinematic challenge, but really a storytelling. You know, it's hard to say what makes you want to tell a particular story.

1:19:21Sean Fennessey:I have some questions about how you did it, the single location idea. But before that, it definitely does feel like a second half of your life movie. You know, and I feel like it will resonate more deeply with people who are like, am I at the end of this or is the end coming closer? And obviously the film sets that up too for Heart to Life. The film itself is a final act. Yes. but Larry Hart didn't make the transition into the second half of his life you know I I see that with some of my friends you know you you have to keep growing and you have to keep changing and adapting you know maintain your curiosity and maintain your health and make these these things that require a certain um vigilance to weather the vicissitudes of life you know and And Larry didn't make that turn.

1:20:09And I do think that that's haunting to people like us who dream of doing this at 80. And my brain is, since I was young, my brain is, why is Stoppard so great in his 80s? Why is Dylan still making relevant music? What happened to so many? Why did they lose? Why did this filmmaker, why is first three movies amazing? What is it? Is it them? Is it their instrument or is it the times losing interest? And my brain is fascinated by that. Or it's the old personal demons. We're watching an alcoholic kind of put himself on the bench. That's for sure. Let's not forget that. So yeah, a lot of the people you go, what happened?

1:20:55It's like, oh, you know, they didn't help themselves.

1:20:57Sean Fennessey:Do you have any fears about the time running out or not being able to do all the things that you want to do? I don't. Illogically so. Do you? Well, I mean, I definitely feel like I'm motivated to just keep doing what I'm doing. But one of the other things is that you don't give the responsibility of your own creativity to anybody else. Right. Meaning the industry could very well just totally dismiss both of us. I feel like it has. You know, that's not the issue. But it wouldn't stop you from making things. I mean, I remember somebody said that about Paul Schrader. if you put him in jail, he'd come out with a movie.

1:21:39He would riot it. He would have something. And that's the way I feel about Rick. It's like, that's not going to, you don't even need the world to care. You're going to do it. And I always feel if you left me alone, I would do something. I don't put that much weight on people's responses to the work. I love, you know, obviously I love a compliment. I love it. And I live for it, but it's not my main motivator. I mean, that really defines our 30 plus year collaboration. It's like, we both are excited. You know, we always have stories. We're trying to tell characters we love. We're exchanging ideas.

1:22:22Some things become a potential movie, you know, others don't, but yeah. And, you know, we're just always kind of saying that forward. I did an interview the other day with somebody who's a lot younger than you and I are. And he said, well, it must have been so hard for the fans of Before Sunrise to wait nine years for the next one. I was like, there weren't any. Fans? Wait? No one wanted a sequel. The only people that wanted that sequel were you and I and Julie. Yeah, and Martin Schaefer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe John's. Yeah, there was about five people on the planet Earth. He couldn't quite register like, wait, oh, then why was there a sequel?

1:22:58Because we really like ourselves. Yeah. Now that was our tagline, the least successful film to ever spawn a sequel.

1:23:07Sean Fennessey:Proved to be a smart move, though, in retrospect. The other movie that I was thinking about is Tape and the idea of a single location and a smaller cast. And, you know, it's been a long time since that movie and the challenge of that movie, too. That's a great point to your question about how have we changed. Not much. One room, no problem. Real time, let's do it. this film was a lot more challenging. It's period, the verbiage, the ideas at play. But we learned a tremendous amount on tape that I think was really valuable for this movie. Yeah, not that we did that for any other reason than to do that movie, but years later, it's like, oh, this is kind of our bigger version of that.

1:23:54It's good to have gone through that too, because that, from a production standpoint, It's completely reliant on the actors being able to, because we shot that in six days. We shot this in a whopping 15 days. So it's completely reliant on the actors being able to just kind of us be able to shoot for seven minutes straight. And, you know, I have two cameras, and that's just kind of the technical. We can't be fumbling around figuring out what we're doing. We have to shoot all day. And I have to get long stretches of dialogue. and we can do as many takes as we need, but it has to start off pretty close to perfect.

1:24:32But your desire, interest, and curiosity to rehearse, meaning some directors really get bored without a camera in their hand. But Rick can work for a long time before he picks up the camera and work. And that's what makes doing seven minute, 11 minute, 14 minute, 17 minute takes possible because we've talked about and worked on the nuances of the performance, the ins and outs of where the pauses are, where the rests are, when it needs to speed up, when it needs to slow down. It's like, what's so thrilling about as an actor is you're a part of the filmmaking process because he's not, your relationship with Sandra, his editor is amazing and they do amazing work together, but we're invited into that process of like, you would like to edit the movie based on what the best cut is not to edit around your performance you know like yeah yeah i never feel like i'm constructing it in posts or we're putting anything together it has to work on the day it's it's always self-evident right in front of us so and i just enjoy that collaboration too because you find everything i can't imagine making a movie where you just start let's say i'm nervous with the crew standing around while we create and while we feel indulgent yeah like we have to talk intimately about every little thing and you find so much.

1:25:51You know, even, it's amazing what on the page doesn't really, it works on the page and then in the room it just doesn't work because it's not real. You know, we're all looking at each other like, oh, we're doing, this is a big opening night party. What's missing? It's like, oh, all the interruptions. It wasn't really in the script. All the people, hey, Dick, great show. You know, you can't talk 45 seconds to someone at your own opening before someone else. That wasn't even in there at all. Like, yeah, what's not working? So we kind of - And that reminded me of like one of my favorite things about Philip Seymour Hoffman is he would often stop in rehearsal and go, why is this fake?

1:26:29Yeah, what's wrong here? What is it? Is it the line? Is it the line? The first thing you have to realize, what's not, what's fake? It's like he could smell, something doesn't smell right. Is it the way I'm sitting? Is it the costume? Is it the set? Should we be standing? Should we be further apart? Or is it the dialogue? Is it, you know, am I not in the right emotional space? And that's where good things happen, when you sniff that out and then get rid of it.

1:26:57Sean Fennessey:I wanted to ask you something about your performance. So a lot of, it seems like, hearts, when you view artistry, is born of this, like, self-hatred or this sense of his own, maybe, ugliness. And, you know, you have to transform physically in the film. But I suspect that maybe you don't have the same relationship to your own appearance. You've been a star for a long time. And that's a very difficult place to get to mentally of like that level of like, yeah, there's a little self-hatred, you know? There's a self-loving for your own body because, well, no one's ever noticed. No one's ever wanted you.

1:27:33That was the, we talked about that. You don't understand. Like no one has ever wanted to be with you. Right. For your body. You have this incredible wit, mind. people love you in a certain way but not that way yeah yeah so that's a huge leap one of the things we laughed about was um and this this is the real challenge for me is there's a great story mike nichols would tell about um redford really wanted to be in the graduate you remember this story right and and and and redford called him up and said look i really like this script and and mike said well i love your work but let me ask you a question you know that feeling when like you meet a girl and you ask for her number and she doesn't want to give it to you and everybody goes what do you mean and and he goes that's exactly why i can't cast you yeah you know yeah and and um but i'm at a place in my life where one of the things that acting has taught me is that um our experiences in life are not nearly as unique as we think they are in that we have the capability to understand each other.

1:28:38And our powers of empathy are very strong. And that I do not know what it's like to have rejection every day. I know what rejection feels like. And I can imagine what that would be like. I've been punched in the face. I haven't been punched in the face 90 times in the same day. Larry Hart has. But I can have empathy for that and I can embody that. And that is part of the wonderful part of my job is putting on other people's clothes, looking through another keyhole at life. And the powers, our imaginative powers are so, so powerful. and you can and if things in a film when Bobby's treating me a certain way and Margaret's treating me a certain way and the dialogue is right and there's this the yeast starts to rise and there's this thing that starts to happen um that that can have the stuff of magic to it where you really can I really felt for him and I definitely understand the feeling of being misunderstood and trying to express yourself and being rejected and, um, to try to pour that into the performance and make that real.

1:29:55Um, I don't know. I just really wanted to do it. And, um,

1:30:04yeah, anybody, any artists, actors in particular, I think finding a connection with someone is, that's never the problem. I think we're all got our antennas out there. And in this case, a little rejection, who hasn't been rejected? And a little bit of that goes a long way. And so he looked to someone and he's like, oh, their whole life. You know, we all grow up with people or we see someone who have certain things about them that just like, oh, wow, what would that be like? An artist goes through the whole life going, what would that be like? Oh my God, that's a whole nother world. That's a whole nother thing.

1:30:39And it was fun to see you once you were five feet tall looking up at everybody you're like holy crap it's a different world it's yeah when you're looking up at the world and you're not and the world is so highest it's amazing yeah

1:30:51Sean Fennessey:i mean i could just see it come over him it was like oh yeah try to not let that get away i'm curious rick for you this year two films set in the past two films about artists you know you've done things like this before you mentioned robert wrote the book that me and orson wells is based on You've been in these worlds before, but what does that indicate to you about where you're at in your life, that these are the things that are so compelling to you? Well, these were two longstanding, long gestating projects that they just happened to come. I shot them back to back and they kind of came out near the same time.

1:31:25But it were just two stories I really wanted to tell, two places in history I really wanted to drop back in on. And I think I've done that a number of times, not only in a nonfiction way, but even in the fictional worlds I've created, like even if it's a college or high school comedy I've done, I'm doing the same thing. I'm dropping a camera back into a moment in time saying, this is what it was like. And it's fun to do that if that moment in time is my own life, but it's even more fun to drop it in to a moment before I was born and imagining, oh, what it must have felt like. Like, to me, that's really magical and fun, the kind of creative, you know, constructive element of that to put that together historically.

1:32:10And so, yeah. And with Nouveau Vogue, just the filmmaking aspect of that, the cinephile heaven that that represented to me. So that was fun. I mean, these films are clearly in some kind of conversation with each other. You know, Blue Moon's the end of an artistic career. Nouveau Vogue's the beginning of one. and but uh you know portraits of two two amazing 20th century artists that's for sure so i don't

1:32:36Sean Fennessey:know i just i want to ask you a big open-ended question about this okay yeah so i was thinking about this idea that you're suggesting which is that blue moon's about the end of something nouvelle vox about the beginning of something i think among a lot of film fans there's a concern that we're at the end of something that that or maybe something already ended and some not everyone knows. Guess what the great news about that is? If they're right, every departure is an arrival. So no sooner does something end than invariably something else has to begin. I feel really strongly that something, I feel this, and maybe it's just my nature, but with the ways in which things are moving right now, it's like, oh, you know what's about to happen?

1:33:22Things are about to get really exciting. I think with this thing about, I think I see a lot of the young, I have a lot of young people in my life and I see them getting absolutely sick of manipulated images of stupidity, of they're getting tired of short attention span theater. It's not like we're going to rebel from a lot of what's happening. I think politically, emotionally, artistically, we all operate in a interconnected community way you know like it was funny I got to see there was Scorsese produced a documentary he was giving a talk back and he was talking about the early period of his career and how he just thought oh god everybody's over using the word masterpiece every damn movie is a masterpiece and he's like it was I was living through this amazing 10 years Oh, wow.

1:34:16Yeah. Bergman, Godard, you know, just, you know, Hal Ashby. He's like, actually these are. You're friends. You're godfathers, yeah. It was, these were phenomenal films. And that happens because a collective thing is happening. And not just with the artistic community, with the audiences. You know, the audiences have to care about David Bowie. They have to think that's cool. They have to be interested in John Cage. They have to be interested in Frank Zappa. They have to be interested in Miles Davis. They have to be like, and that makes the money people want to make more of it. You know, and there's this, so we operate together, you know, and this, and I do feel there more and more as we kind of get depleted.

1:34:56I think what you're talking about is kind of an exhale. But the good news about that is there's about to be a giant inhale. And I do feel it coming. I feel it politically too. Do you feel that? Yeah, I mean, I just know film history. Let's just talk about film because I think that was your like, is it over? Do films matter in the culture and all that stuff? And we've always been under existential threat. You know, if you really look at the last 70 years, it's always there's threats. And I think whenever technology and art and commerce intertwined, there's a lot of jobs threatened. There's a lot of challenges always.

1:35:36So it has our little amygdalas going all the time. You know, it was like TV. Oh, that's the end of that. That's the end of that. Oh, you know, video is going to kill, you know, so it's always been that. But, you know, there's a bigger threat in the world. And it could be the thing that interrupts what you're talking about, the audience and the thing and what people want. we have an adversary now that um is coming after our attention and consciousness in a way that we hasn't before so i think that's the great interrupter that's what up to each individual to kind of uh stifle that yeah you got to save yourself you got to admit you're addicted we just need a group session you know like no you have to put that down you have to but i'm seeing it a lot You know, I'm a film society in Austin.

1:36:31I saw these young people. Just when you thought, oh, they grew up watching, you know, YouTube and TikTok. Audience is full at the theater of young people in their 20s, really discovering movies, the history movies, current movies, out in the lobby talking about them, having a drink with friends, community. So each individual has to kind of save themselves by participating in community and humanity and art and giving a shit and realizing, oh, that's a fun life. Wherever you fall in the spectrum of art or just appreciator of art or consumer, just, no, it's more fun to be engaged with art and other people.

1:37:10And, you know, so that's how you save your own soul. But there is an opposition. There is an enemy out there who wants something else from you. If I can, I'll risk telling a personal story. I hope you don't mind, which was one of the best things that happened to me this year. We were at the Telluride Film Festival, and we went on a long hike with my kids. And my two daughters were working Rick over in front of the walk, complaining that their mother and father were trying to limit their screen time. And asking, you know, that they thought it would be better that they learned control over their own screen time.

1:37:50It's not that they thought that I should just have unlimited screen time, but they thought we need to be able to monitor ourselves. We need permission to do this. And Rick said, well, you know, that's an interesting point. But the real goal, I'm paraphrasing, but you said something like this, which was, is to be your own best friend. And that phone is getting in the way of you being your own best friend. Because if you're your own best friend, then your best friend's always with you. And this algorithm and this thing is this giant distraction. Yeah, to follow your own instincts. Your own instincts.

1:38:23That book led to that movie. It's changing what you're thinking about. You were telling Clementine about passing through that space of boredom that feels uncomfortable. It's this liminal space of what the world calls boredom. And when you come through it, oh, hours can disappear. And it's your own mind. It's your own mind that leads you to these beautiful thoughts and beautiful things. And now you're in control of where your mind is going, not an algorithm that's trying to sell you something. right and and and then you when you're through that space there's your best friend right over there just pass through that doorway it takes but a second you know and um it really had a big impact on them and um and i think that's that's the true adversary um yeah that used to be the thing finding yourself that was the cliche for the last several generations i'm gonna find myself well you're not gonna find yourself today that's not that you're gonna find yourself of being delivered to advertisers.

1:39:25That's always been the thing. It used to be via TV and radio. Now it's this thing that's attached to you. So it's time to be more vigilant than ever. But yeah, that always needs to be in the air.

1:39:36Sean Fennessey:I have one more layer for that question. So one thing I found maybe 10 years ago when we would have a conversation like this, we would point it at your kids, my kid, younger generations having this problem. I always think of you as one of the great daydreamer filmmakers. I can see you in a room coming up with an idea just sitting there quietly but I find that I am more distracted than ever I don't know if you're more distracted I'm finding it harder to just sit there quietly I'm enjoying this conversation as further ammunition to give me the energy I was among my friends I was one of the last to give in to a cell phone people would text me and I would be like what are you even doing?

1:40:16I'm never going to send a text I'm never going to do that Yeah, I remember saying to a friend, I said, I know cell phones are catching on in LA. That's never going to fly in New York. I was like, what was I talking about? And I feel one of the great joys of people talk, like the amount of verbiage I had to learn for Blue Moon, for example. And it was one of the things I remember most about the summer was the fact that I didn't look at my phone hardly at all. because I had too much work to do. Yeah. But oh, the space in my memory, it occupies now of just being in my dressing room. You know, I would roll the set, make some texts in the car, go over there, set the phone down, change, leave it in there.

1:41:03And I wouldn't pick it up till we wrapped. You know, in a little drive home, I'd look at it. But the day actually felt so much more expansive without looking at it. You don't realize how it's contracting your brain. And I know it's important. We're all thinking the same thing. But I think we do need to give each other permission to rebel. Yeah, but no, you feel it. Do I have the patience like I used to, to lay around and read all day? It's like, no, what's this little thing in me that's kind of jumpy, a little irritating, a little, no, I'm going to get up and I'm going to check the news feed.

1:41:35Sean Fennessey:That's the number one thing I'm struggling with at this stage. It's like, I would roll through 50 books a year. And now if it's 10, it's shocking. And that's just a huge change. Huge. Well, it's really, really impacting society. I mean, when you think about, I mean, even a literary star, we haven't had a literary star like we used to have, because literature is not the way that we're communicating. And that's a huge loss. I just read Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. It's an old book the other day. It felt, to read literary fiction again, it literally felt like, Oh, oh yeah. Well, there you are.

1:42:17There's my true, like, cause she was speaking to me in a way that I, that made my soul feel like it mattered. That my experiences are part of a collective experience that actually is significant. And what I think about a rainstorm and what I think about my daughter and what I think about actually has some substantive value. And I was like, all right, nobody's talking to me in this way. There's great paragraphs I'd have to read three times. And the third time I read it, I was like, oh, so glad I read it the third time. It was worth it. The power of the language, the power of the ideas were not easily understood.

1:42:55And they were better because of it. Right. That was the delivery system. It was novels. It was poetry. It was films. It was, yeah, the interrupter there. If you're going to get all paranoid, big picture, it's like, yeah, if they can, you know, the way you go after institutions, if you can go after all the art forms and make them just not that relevant, you got a whole nother population here. So we all have to stick up for our art forms and give them that kind of, you know, that space. They're still there. They are writing the novels. Oh, yeah. People are making the movies and writing the poetry.

1:43:36It's just, it's up to everyone to elevate.

1:43:39Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It's, for me personally, it's a little nuanced because what you're describing requires not just focus, but consideration. And that's, the consideration is the, that's why I like doing this show. Well, that's the hard thing to do. It's an invitation for you. You know, that's what I feel like, what I like about when I feel like a movie is made well or a book is made well. It's an invitation for you, the audience, to join us in this conversation. it's not telling you what to think it's it's the audience is a part of that i felt that way when i was a kid watching one for the cuckoo's nest or something it's not telling me when when the chief is running into the woods and those drums are playing and there's the broken window with the sink that's through it and i'm like i'm looking at that going what does this mean it doesn't it's it's not clear like wait it's it's better than clear it's it's it's the great miss you know it's the mystery things without mystery have no power mystery is the reality we do not know why we're born and why we have to die we are we are living inside immense mystery in this illusion is that you have some control or power or that you like things that invite mystery are off they're giving you a chance to consider it yourself the artist isn't right or wrong it's what do you think and now we're in dialogue together and that's what made those movies or those albums or those books, things that you could revisit.

1:45:04Yeah, but, you know, new waves are always in opposition to the status quo, the mainstream. Our particular mainstream of this era is we talked about great novels and stuff. You realize, well, those novels used to be on talk shows. You know, they used to be part of the culture. That's a producer, an editor. People are making those choices. Like, let's, oh yeah, it's a great book. It's the book of the year. It's the best book I've read. But our audience doesn't, you know, they don't occupy the spot on the talk show at night. Let's give that to some 21-year-old who has a million followers who did this thing.

1:45:42Right. Because that's going to get the eyeballs. So, you know, it's just straight up money. But that's something to rebel against, for sure. First, you have to admit the mainstream is overall pretty weak.

1:45:55Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Yeah. You know, pretty weak.

1:45:59Sean Fennessey:on dick cabot yeah on youtube though but yeah they're on youtube where you're being assaulted at all times with other things to look at yeah but it's there's a record a historical record look who's on the dick cabot show that night and you have three different people like oh my god what a lineup and that's what the world wanted to they wanted to converse and hear from them right it's one of the great things about like when i was making the last movie stars that documentary is i got to watch all those old talk shows and see the other people before and after and see how meandering they were and how intelligent they were and they it was the position they had in the culture was exciting like who has that now you know even room for public intellectuals and what do you mean you guys are here right now we're doing it yeah yeah people like that we're here and we're grateful to be here you got to flip it yeah it is this the the podcast era is kind of that is that now that's where people get together and talk so you know thanks for contributing to this Be grateful for that.

1:46:58No, things, we lament what's not there, but what is here. Yeah, this is here. There's a whole new thing. You just have to, you know, you can't really. I mean, yeah, you're absolutely right. Like oftentimes we don't see what's good. I listened to, I think I called you after, but I listened to Ken Burns, who's got this revolution documentary coming out. Listened to him on Joe Rogan for two and a half hours. It was brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it was as good as anything we're mourning. It was amazing, staggeringly intelligent conversation. Yeah, there's never been a medium that gave people that space to talk.

1:47:28So there is... 30 minutes on Dick Cavett is one thing, but even radio shows back then weren't... They were commercial programs. Yeah, it was 90 seconds. Yeah, you didn't get... You were on to talk about your book for five minutes or something, but it was not the space and time to talk, so... Everything's terrible.

1:47:43Sean Fennessey:Everything's great. I know. As always. I know. It's always a thing. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. It doesn't have to be on YouTube, obviously. Because see anything good that you like. You were in Telluride? You were in Telluride? Yeah. Well, the last thing, I have to say, this is going to be kind of annoying, but I did just watch Wim Wender's American Friend. Oh, my God. And I have to say, that photography is unbelievable. Was that Robbie Muller? Yeah. Yeah, that was, yeah. I personally wish I was really good friends with them and I could have done a second draft of the script.

1:48:24It was like some plot holes. He's not interested in the details of her story. Dennis Hopper and those images, they're like, wow. And it's not flashy photography. It's just stunning. Absolutely stunning. That's a great pick. I love that movie. Yeah. I mean, this is a big question because I have modern stuff and then. Anything you like. I think, you know, I watched Story of Adele H recently. Truffaut. Truffaut, yeah. And I hadn't seen that lately. and it was just as beautiful. I talked to Noah Baumbach yesterday

1:48:59Sean Fennessey:and he recommended a Truffaut film as well. Yeah. It's a small change. That's funny. Oh, yeah. Truffaut never goes away. Never goes away. He's the guy, you know, for forever. And then Current, you know, oh, like everybody, one battle after another. Things like that. You know, got to give it up. This has been happening for many years, but my just hat is so off to DiCaprio. Yeah. Holy shit. He's just such a leader in my profession. And it's just been staggering to watch. Just really, really inventive, thrilling work. You can like one, love one, dislike one, but they're always worth your time. They're always bold.

1:49:41They're always daring. And he and Paul together in this is just amazing. Just fantastic. And I also thought Emma Stone, Begonia, I was like, wow, who is this woman? She just keeps being great. And it's nonstop. And so, hats off to... But there's so much. There's always, you know, I never rag on... Every year is a good year for film. Worldwide, there's always a lot of films, more than most people have time to even watch, that are always great. Blue Moon is great too. Thank you both for being here. Thanks for having me. Congrats on the film. Thank you.

1:50:22Sean Fennessey:Thank you to Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode later this week. What do we have, Amanda? Number four from 25 for 25, which we recorded several weeks ago at the Egyptian theater, or at least a week ago. And as of this recording has not been leaked that I know of. Nor I. Why do you think that is? Because we built a society of trust. Do you think that the listeners are afraid of you? I don't think that I led with fear. I think I led with inspiration. I invoked Beyonce and I invoked mutual respect and I gave people an opportunity for their clout photo.

1:51:01And then you gave them some letterboxd how-to. So, you know, we're creating a safe space.

1:51:07Sean Fennessey:I think the pick is good and I hope people enjoy it. We'll see you then.

1:51:30Sean Fennessey:Turn it up! Storm has zero sugar and 200 milligrams of caffeine, so you can turn that workout up a notch. Good energy in, good energy out. Energy for life. This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required, compatibility and availability varies 18+.