Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, & Ronan Day-Lewis On Anemone: An Empire Podcast Interview Special

0:14Hello Pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to an Empire Podcast interview special. It's been eight years, would you believe, since Daniel Day-Lewis, the three-time Oscar-winning star of films like There Will Be Blood, Lincoln, My Left Foot, and The Last of the Mohicans, appeared on our screens in Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread. And that's a long time to be deprived of the services of one of the greatest actors of all time. And we all thought he'd retired, quite frankly, packing it in for a quiet life, perhaps filled with endless episodes of Countdown and The Chase. Ah, bliss. but not so for he is back back back returning to our screens in An Enemy which came out on Friday in the UK in it he plays Ray a man who has shut himself away from the world including his family but then his brother Jem played by Sean Bean arrives at Ray's secluded cabin in an attempt to bring him back into the fold for reasons that will soon become clear the film not only stars Day-Lewis who is on typically blinding form going toe-to-toe in intense scenes with a never better been, but is co-written by him, along with his filmmaker son Ronan Day-Lewis, here making his directorial debut in assured fashion.

1:25We at Empire were so bowled over by the film that we chose it for our gala screening at this year's London Film Festival in October. And it was the morning after the night before, the morning after the gala, in fact, when Alex Godfrey, who interviewed both Day-Lewis's father and son for a recent issue of Empire, sat down with Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean for the chat you're about to hear, in which they talk about the film, their different approaches to acting, and much, much more. It's a great chat, very loose, very casual, lots of great stuff in here as well. And we do stick around for Alex talking to Rona Day-Lewis after this.

2:01In the meantime, here's Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean. Enjoy. Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean, welcome to the Empire Podcast. Thank you for joining me. How are you both? you're in the midst of promoting this incredible film how's it going how are you doing all right actually yeah all right it's all bad you sound surprised sean yeah it usually can be a bit of a grind these things but i've thoroughly enjoyed it this this time around yeah well is it nice atmosphere really nice atmosphere at the festival isn't it yeah yeah yeah lots of positive in there yeah how did you find last night the film screen to an enraptured audience yeah they seemed very warm the audience last night yeah yeah and we talked to Mark afterwards Mark yeah yeah and it was yeah it was it went well yeah we just had a big meal haven't we yeah we did that's right because we got we got whisked away that's how we got that yeah we got whisked away from sort of the screening we'd done did we do it anyway?

3:14We did a screening. Well we can't even remember but we took us to this dinner and it's like it's a very odd sequence of events so all these lamb chops kept arriving and then we had to go and do a Q &A. Yeah, yeah. I should just explain for our listeners so yes it was the Empire screening of Anemone at the London Film Festival last night and I hosted that and the Q &A afterwards That's right, yeah. which I enjoyed immensely and then and you two went off to be fed. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, they fed us. They fed us. And then we went to the West End. You know, it's a bit like, you know. You went to Leicester Square?

3:48We went to Leicester Square after they fed us. To do what? To go and sit next to the Mr Bean station? We were out with Mark Kermode, which was really good. On a full stomach. On a full stomach, yeah. But by the way, I said this to you privately, but we were so delighted that you chose our film for the Empire screening. Thanks, Alex. I'm really, really delighted. Well, thank you. That's nice to hear. And it's because we loved the film. You know, I saw it, excuse me, back in August. And it's, I mean, it stays with you, that film. I've tried to explain to someone this morning, this doesn't sound like the right word, but there's such a thick atmosphere in the film that really lodges itself in you.

4:37I mean, it's such a rich, murky, evocative experience. You know, I mean, it goes in and out. We'll get into it in a minute. But, you know, much of it is set in this cabin, in the woods, this shed, this hut. And you can taste it watching the film. You know, you can smell it. You can really feel it. And you could taste it being in that shed as well, couldn't you? Yeah. Southings taste of stew nice stew you made that day we're lovely and there was a lot of particles in the air as well which probably acted as good diffusion for particles is that a negative of Horseman's light well because when we were talking to Chris Oddie the sort of magician who designed it amazing he did it in his zone of interest that's right we couldn't believe our luck when he decided he'd he'd go along with us.

5:33So we were just talking about the way in which Ray might have, initially, the way we wrote it, Alex, is that in the script it was like a scavenger's dwelling that made up of bits of wood, both stolen, cut from the forest, some stone, tarpaulin. It was basically like a ramshackle structure. But when we were scouting the locations in Anglesey, On the second day, the first day we were in all this forestry thing, it's not quite right, not quite right. The second day, first thing in the morning, we walk into this small clearing and it was perfect. And there was the shell of the house, basically just a ruin.

6:17Yeah. And we thought, well, and Chris, you know, Chris always sort of thinks in a very practical way. it's like, well, yeah, if you found that in a forest clearing, wouldn't you use that rather than start from scratch? So that became, you know, it just became the right place for Ray. But every detail we went into, including he stuffed a load of, to put some insulation in the roof because it would have been bitterly cold in the winter. So a lot of hessian sacks filled with bits of wool and old blankets cut up and all stuffed. But all that stuff was sort of basically sort of filling the air. Very meticulous kind of detail.

7:03And then it allowed it to settle, didn't it, before we started filming? So you've got the elements, the rain and the wind, and it kind of allowed it to settle into this very kind of authentic kind of absolutely retreat for Ray I should explain for the listeners just so the film is about these two two brothers Ray Daniel your character and Jem Sean who haven't seen each other for I guess 20 odd years and Ray has intentionally estranged himself not from you and Jem but from the outside world and has confined himself to this place for reasons I won't go into because they are they can't they they transpire they reveal themselves later in the film but um so really all i should say is it's about these two brothers who reunite after a long time and jim is on a mission to uh to affect change in ray i should say i don't want to go too much into the plot and then much of the film is is you two sort of just working that out mentally spiritually physically um daniel you wrote it with with your son ronan who's done the most incredible job on the script and the direction of this film it's it's it's a beautiful as i said on stage last night it's a beautiful brutal piece of work it's really haunting um i know the process was kind of organic um it took you and you i think you first maybe had an idea even pre-2020 Was it 2018 or something?

8:40Did you first start thinking about it? Yeah, I think it was maybe a bit like, I'm terrible ahead for dates, but maybe a little bit later than that. But it was certainly the first seed of an idea, which really began just with the desire to try and do something together, no matter what it was. But that would have been five or six years ago, yeah. So that would have been maybe three years since you'd been out of the game, as it were, I guess you would have filmed Phantom Fred maybe 2016, I think, came out 17. Probably, yeah. During that time, had you missed it at all? What I'm trying to get at, I think, is had that time away of not acting and not even being involved in the film industry, Do you think that was necessary to then refuel you and make you ready for when an idea came back?

9:40That's definitely always been true in the past for me, that cycle of work and then moving away from the work. That was initially, I suppose, when I was younger, I thought, what's wrong with me? Why do I just keep working? But I settled into myself. I settled into understanding that if I was going to keep going and I wanted to do it for a long time, this work, it was a vocation from an early age. And I thought, well, I haven't got limitless, you know, that your imagination isn't limitless, that, you know, sometimes you need to let things lie fallow for a bit and re-engage with the world and people and normal things through whatever it could be.

10:29Other interests, yeah. Other interests, whatever it might be. So, yeah, so in that sense, it was, it had felt initially like it was going to, that I might not find my way back to it again. But I always have in the past, and really the mistake was for me to open my mouth about it when I did, but, yeah. Well, it's good to sort of set your intention out, I guess. but yeah sean have you have you do you you've just been sort of nodding just there have you ever had similar thoughts yourself over over your career over the decades have you ever thought i could do with a few years of not doing this yeah yeah sometimes depends what i've just done you know i gotta give this a rest for a while i don't wish it that when i just but uh no i just kind of lie low for a while.

11:23But I've never, no, I'm just having a laugh there. And I think what I did was shit. I think I've done some pretty, you know, an anagame. I think we've all done the Duff film, you know, not through any fault of our own, but perhaps because the project that we first enrolled upon was diluted through, by other means, somewhat by a committee. And the original intention of the film, which was so pure and so emotional and heartfelt was kind of diluted and pulled apart by various other people maybe their producers or investors or whatever and what I liked about Daniel and Ronan's film is that it was so pure and so organic it came straight from the heart and it was just a joy to read and an absolute joy to perform alongside this fellow and his son and um but in regard to having distractions i like having distractions i don't like to work all the time you know i feel as though when i've worked i've i have worked you know i put my heart and soul into it and i and i you know i'm not complaining but i you you kind of feel tired you feel as though you've completed something yeah i can't go on to something straight away maybe when i was younger i could do that but i have to let it settle and just like let it kind of filter away a little bit and then look into other interests i like going i like being outside like working with my hands like i like um playing the piano now and again like different things reading and i think that's so essential for an actor to have it to then come back fresh yeah and you think oh rediscover why you wanted to be in this game you know all you really have to offer is yourself like it doesn't matter how far away from apparently far away from your own character is you're just offering yourself through that life theory you're exploring and if you're just lurching from one film set to another what precisely have you got to offer because you don't really learn anything on a film set you're giving out you're giving what you have to offer but the the learning process happens in between times i think yeah yeah in a way well you you told when so um for those people listening we met at the end of august i think it was in new york to talk about it all and you said one i think you told me one of the things you'd been doing in your time away was making violins yes yeah um And how is that similar in any way to what you do?

13:55Because I can imagine once you when you're concentrating on something that specific, you must get into an almost a meditative state into a zone where, you know, because that's that's a no mean feat building a violin. How how was that for you and how did it help you as a person? If I was challenging as anything I've ever attempted in my life, what it has in common, you sort of hit the nail on the head there, is it's just the sort of the loss of yourself through work. It's, you know, it's not the abandonment of the self, but the loss of the self. In other words, the hands on the clock keep turning, but you're unaware of the passage of time.

14:33Yeah. And that's the beauty of the arts, isn't it? You may wake up and suddenly you're 68 years old or anything. I don't want to say it. What just happened? But those periods, when you invest yourself in a certain kind of way in the work, be it making a violin or acting or whatever, it is a form of meditation in that you see – it's odd. It's like it is the letting go of the ego. So it's not, it's the character, it's your, because you live with your, you think of yourself as being your character, but that's not yourself. Yourself is your soul, your spirit. It's not the same thing. And your character is just a sort of like a thing that you've become over the years through circumstances and through DNA or whatever.

15:23But that's not, I don't think, at the essence who you are. But it's a tremendous relief to let go of that. Yeah, yeah. Do you have the same feeling? Oh, yeah. It's like you put on a persona or a mask for a certain thing. Not just literally an actor you do it, but you also do it as a person. And then when you get away from that, I'll take time to get away from that. And as you said, it's a soulful experience to have time on your own. I like time on my own. Yeah. It's essential. Now and again. Yeah. But it is essential. recharge your batteries and find out you know you think about what who am I what you know what was interesting what what makes me tick and you know and then go back and feel excited about it all again I think that's probably similar to what you were describing about the violin but you you know to make a violin and to do the things that you did it just it requires 100 % concentration it's impossible to think of anything else it's like playing a musical instrument you can't be thinking about something else when you're doing that and it's so great to get get away and then come back and you learn so much quicker I find learning lines I mean in terms of the actual process itself it's the antithesis I think of like what we do as in the performing arts because that's got a wildness to it it's the unconscious that really and the imagination that informs everything if it's working properly.

16:59So, but making things, and Sean makes things as well, and he's a great gardener too. What do you make, Sean? Sorry to interrupt. Oh, Sean, bird books. I kind of make things. I'm making a big path. I'm planning out a new kind of aspect of the garden in order to be able to get some stuff from one place to another in order to do with it, I have to build a small bridge and a path and plan it out. And I take great interest in that. I find it fascinating, probably because it's so far removed from the imaginative. Well, you're still obviously using your imagination, but you're not performing in front of someone.

17:38I like it. It's so different. It's so far away. And I need something to be so far away from what I usually do. It's my job in order to kind of function properly in my life. and you're not sure use your hand yeah and gardening and you can be doing something so tiny you know planting a few seeds in the greenhouse and doing this and that and it's so distant from what you do but you can come snap back into it it's an answer though isn't it because it's quantifiable it's like what we do it's a matter of taste whether people like it like it or don't like it it's a matter of taste it's not about the quality of what we're doing probably for the most part.

18:21Some people want to look at our faces. But when you're making something, you look at it and you think, well, that's good. That's rubbish. It's like you know what it is. It's more objective. You know if it's a good thing that you've made. The quality of it is that it's undeniable. If you run a race and you come in first, you've won the race. If you come in second, you're doing all right. But this is all kind of like speculative, isn't it? You can measure the degree of success in the thing that you've done. So it's a good antidote in a way. Because we're just sort of working in unknown terms all the time.

19:01Yeah. Just chasing ghosts. With what you do, there's a certainty to it. This is all speculation acting. You don't want anybody. Well, let's talk about the acting. We talked about it briefly on stage last night. Sean you said we talked at the beginning of this conversation about the hut or the shed whatever you want to call it it's kind of this demonic alcove that Ray lives in I said to you before Danny it's almost like the manifestation of his mind of his mental state yeah it's a good image yeah it's a foreboding and forbidding place and Sean I think you were saying something on stage last night you I mean obviously you weren't involved in the years of preparation you turned up on the film to act and were thrown into that hut, right into the thick of things.

19:51And you said, did you say it was almost like an intentionally hostile environment for your character to be put into and get on with it? What was that experience like? It was good. It was like being on the set for the first. That was kind of an unnerving experience being on any set and starting the first day. I don't know, I find it like first starting a new school or something, you know, there's that kind of trepidation, that kind of queasy feeling in your stomach, which I think is quite positive, I think, you know, to an extent, as long as you don't fall apart. And I like the fact that I felt like that because it was the first day and when I first entered that hut and saw him and I saw his surroundings and that kind of makes you feel a bit queasy it was very Spartan but he knew where everything you knew everything and a little thing is tennis are either all actually stacked everywhere and you know as a man of precision and discipline but it also a man of kind of wild kind of emotions and we should wish was quite intimidating when I first walked into that into that arena as it were because So, Daniel, I take it you were in character.

21:08Have you met before? Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, not in the immediate period of time before we started shooting, except, you know, say hello and how's it going. But Sean, you know, a good few months before we started, Sean came over and we had a few days together in Ireland, which was lovely. and it wasn't even about really it's just sort of finding that ease with a person you know the brother, I've always been not having grown up with brothers I've found brotherly figures over the years in my life and really enjoyed that imagined relationship and it was sort of like that with Sean coming over it just felt yeah I'm like that, I ain't got and our brothers and a lot of my family are coming from women and um and so it was uh of course you find kind of brotherly instincts with friends and that but it was particularly interesting in this instance to get together with daniel we're a similar age and we have similar interests and it was great to have that time together we didn't necessarily rehearse we didn't it was just a kind of yeah getting to know each other feel for each other and it was such a great and you know brothers fight and i don't want to spoil the context um but you two do come to blows at one point in this film it looks very convinced i mean there's a lot of uh intense sort of physical wrestling between you i mean there's the you're drunk dancing at one point um there's a beautiful score soundtrack on this film but i believe uh i think ronan said somewhere that actually on set he was playing black sabbath yeah what was that like you two just rest in peace yeah Yeah.

22:54What was it like thrashing around to Black Sabbath? Oh, it was fantastic. I was tempted to get really drunk, and I'm glad I stopped short of doing that, because just doing what we did, I was absolutely – and I'm fairly fit, but I was genuinely wrecked at some point doing that. Because it was reckless, wasn't it? Yeah. That ties you up. We ended up on the floor a few times. I don't think it all ended up in the movie. And there was always that threat of violence in it. yeah exactly yeah there's always like almost yeah yeah you know like the Shakespeare so the the audience when they first saw the Shakespeare they're kind of dancing but kind of hitting each other yeah there's never the biker dance they used to do the thumbs tucked in and I was doing a lot of that right yeah there was a lot of that but sometimes you get it wrong and you just like wallop we collided a few times proper it's a good morning it mornings work yeah it's a bad way to got to wrap up but that's a it's a great note to end on thank you so much both of you it's a pleasure thanks alex thanks alex yeah thanks all right that was alex godfrey talking to sean bean and daniel day lewis about an enemy and now here is alex's interview with ronan day lewis in which they talk about the film of course and also what it's like to not only direct your dad but direct your dad when he is in character enjoy ronan day lewis hello hi how's it going all right Welcome to the Empire podcast.

24:23It's good to see you again. Great to see you too. We met in August. Yes. In New York, which was very exciting. I'd seen the film, oh, I know, a couple of weeks earlier. And as you know, I absolutely loved it. And it was incredible. Thank you. Incredible to talk to you and your dad about it. Yeah. And we chose it as the Empire LFF screening. It was, so we're talking the day after we screened that. Yes. That was incredible. I mean, it seemed incredible for me. The audience seemed to lap it up. How was it for you? Yeah, it was incredible. Like, I almost wish I had actually been watching it because it felt like the energy from the audience felt amazing afterwards.

25:02But yeah, it was just such an honour that you guys chose it as the film this year. And yeah, just such an incredible energy. Do you know what? You could feel it in the room. You could feel that it went down really well. people were really engaged and nobody left their seats. That's amazing. That's great to hear. So and then earlier today, so your dad did a career talk. Yes. On the stage on NFT1 and then you joined for half an hour at the end. Yeah. You were in the audience. Yes. Yeah. What was it like? I mean, anemone stuff aside, what was it like for you being part of the audience, seeing your dad being interviewed and going through his life and career and talking what was that weird it was trippy yeah i was like i i was kind of i kept forgetting that we were that we were going to talk that they were going to talk about anemone too like because i was just so absorbed in you know these clips from like my left foot and the boxer and just all these yeah great films he's done that i was i was like i don't know i um it was surreal when i'd kind of remember that we were that you know when they play a clip from anemone and i was like oh this this I don't know, it was a pretty out-of-body experience, honestly, to watch that.

26:23And, yeah, I thought it was just such a fascinating conversation. Like, yeah, I was really happy I got to witness it. He's a good storyteller, your dad. Yeah, yeah. Dare I ask, because, you know, he's talked a lot about the importance of separating, you know, when the kids, and you were one of them growing up, of separating his work from his life, you know. The fact that sometimes it's been hard to completely do that contributes to the fact that he's not active for a few years a couple of times. So I imagine he hasn't over the years just brought his homework with him when he's not working. So was there stuff in that interview that you didn't know?

27:03Were there things he talked about that you hadn't heard before? Yeah, I think there were. I mean, it's funny because some of the things he talked about, I feel like I had heard but not through him. I'd heard through the kind of mythology, just the way people had talked about, you know, his, the work he did, like his, his process on my left foot, for instance. I, I feel like I had heard, I'd heard some of those stories, but it was really interesting to hear them from his perspective. And I had, there were definitely some things that I hadn't hadn't known about. Because I feel like we've, we have talked over the years quite a bit about more in recent years like like as you know not when i was a kid but about how some of his experiences on on these films but but yeah no it was i thought it was such a it was such a like i loved how detailed the the conversation was it felt like it really had space to to go into all these kind of nooks and crannies of those experiences you so you joined on on stage for for the end part of it and you talked about some of the things you've been influenced by and seeing Kez at a young age and you talked about how much David Lynch has informed you yeah yeah I wanted to ask about that David Lynch was you know one of my all-time heroes yeah obviously I had the fortune of interviewing him a couple of times for Empire which is amazing absolute dream wow he was just one of my favorite people on the planet wow um and I wanted to find out about your history with him as a fan and yeah what films you watched and when and how that how that informed you as a person and as a filmmaker because clearly it's influenced anemone yeah oh absolutely yeah when um i think the first film i saw by him was my mom showed me a razor head so she started at the beginning how young were you because that's i was i was i think like i must have been like 19 or something uh okay so i was old i wasn't that young but i was like but yeah she she showed it to me and And I don't think I at first quite knew what to make of it, but I loved it.

29:02And then she tried to show me Blue Velvet. And the first time I watched Blue Velvet, I actually couldn't stand, I couldn't watch it. It's tough. It's a tough watch. I had a kind of visceral experience of it. And then I came back to Blue Velvet a couple of years later and rewatched it and it immediately became like my favorite film of all time, like the second time I'd seen it. And that like, I guess that polarity between the first time I watched it and the second time, just there was something exhilarating about that. And I just got so, I started watching some interviews with him and just the way he would talk about his work also just felt kind of spiritually enlightening or something.

29:41I just became so hooked on his, I guess, methodology of how to make things. Yeah. And it's interesting in the case of Anemone because it straddles sort of tones and worlds really delicately. Because on the one hand, it's a very intimate human drama about a family and essentially two brothers. And I would say the majority of the film takes place in this evil cabin in the woods. Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, you do have some more abstract and surrealist imagery. and I know some of it has made itself known before in paintings and work you've done before. Yeah, yeah. But that's obviously come from some of those Lynchian influences.

30:30Yeah, yeah. Is that something that's just so much a part of you that it just needled its way into it all? Yeah, I think it really was. Like the images that kind of were already, I was already kind of fixated on in paintings, I think came really subconsciously and and and then when it caught when it came time to work on the film the a lot of those a lot of I think I was really just Instinctively drawn to a lot of the same images and kind of feelings that I'd been Thinking about in in the paintings, but I do think watching David Lynch's films and just hearing him talk about them liberated me to just think to allow for more of those abstractions to to exist in in a film like anemone which could be could be done in a far drier more kind of kitchen sink yeah way but i think like i think just like liberating myself to to to kind of think about as he describes it kind of what's what's hidden and and and and because i think that like in reality we're constantly actually experiencing both to the world in two ways like we're experiencing just what the visible reality and then we all have these inner lives and these daydreams and these these constant kind of um inner experiences that are kind of superimposed on the outer experiences and and i think that um film as a medium is kind of uniquely qualified to be able to to depict that so it just felt like why not let that let those two sides of reality kind of bleed together but they do work together really well in the film because um even though much of the narrative is about you know real things that happened and trauma and family and and violence and cycles of violence um you've got this beautiful um sort of existential imagery going on you play a lot with the landscapes with the elements with the weather you've got these these foreboding shots of the sort of wind shooting across the sand and these trees swirling and almost like a god's eye view of things yeah But even with some of the down-to-earth conversations that are happening, it's like the film is still grabbing at something more cosmic at the same time.

32:44So it all coheres. Yeah, I think a lot of like, as you said, I think a lot of the way we ended up trying to marry those two things was through the actual physical world and giving like this sense of portent to the trees and the skies and just the physical environment in the way we photographed it and also actually in the sound design because as you're saying like in some of those scenes where they're just in this enclosed interior space, like always having the sense of wind outside, kind of battering the hut and, you know, intermittent rain. And just always the, yeah, like I love the way you put it, just those constant reminders that there's something bigger, something like more cosmic kind of behind the, or like surrounding the human drama that we're looking at.

33:40Yeah. Well, in terms of the human drama, something you said to me, we touched on very briefly when we spoke in New York a couple months ago. You wrote this with your dad, and it started off with the idea to write something about brothers, and then it sort of organically, you know, started growing into, you know, a bigger family story, and then you've got, you know, the troubles in some form, some of it. But also we talked a lot about fathers and sons and talked about your grandfather a bit, and you said that it was never meant to be a personal story, but at some point during the process it became clear that it was quite personal here and there and you both decided to embrace it yeah can you say anything more about that what what sort of things got into it yeah i think the like the at first the my personal way into it was really just the um just the idea of brotherhood and my personal experience of being a brother and just the I guess just the volatility and the the of and but also just the the beauty and the all all the kind of Range of human emotion that's contained in that relationship that I think was that was the comfort for me going in even though because the the actual Circumstances of the story and like these two characters are so distant from my own Experience, but I felt I was worried at first that I wouldn't really be able to find enough of a personal way in and then i think actually the the um addition of when brian when we first has spent a scene alone with brian in his bedroom i think that opened up a whole new perspective of just generationally of this like younger this younger person who's kind of fascinated with the the mystery of uh his parents past life and that was that was something that i felt like I could kind of understand on a on a deep level that I think helped me helped me think about helped me kind of make like make the film a lot more personal than than it would have been if it was if it was our original intention of just keeping it contained to the cabin and that ended up also just widening the scope yeah in general but but also just in terms of the yeah kind of introducing another another perspective that felt like i could find my way into more easily what was it like as a director as well directing acts i mean this is your first feature yeah you've got an incredible i mean on stage last night i mean i couldn't but you know you've got daniel lewis you've got sean bean you've got samantha morton these are all the best of the best i know i know best to ever do it right and they're all a game in this film but also you know much of it like I say, is March Visitor is two-hander between Daniel and Sean.

36:22Yeah. And they are extremely different contrasting characters. Yeah. Very different performances and very, from what I speculate and believe, very two different actors in terms of how they approach the work. Yeah. What was it like for you navigating that, like being in that location and directing these two forces who are so different to each other? Yeah. Because I imagine they both have to be approached differently. No, definitely, definitely. I think, yeah, it was kind of, I think that both of them, even though they approached the work in such different ways, had such a palpable inner life of the character that it actually helped me kind of get inside that world and almost coexist with them in it more than explicitly kind of direct them, even though it was obviously, you know, helping both of them in different ways kind of find their way to the feelings and the kind of rhythms of these scenes.

37:30But I think, yeah, with my dad, it was helpful because we had, obviously having written the script together, we'd had so many of these extremely detailed conversations about the character that it sort of grew like over the course of like four years into into this this person that we both understood really had a really deep shared understanding of by the time we got on set so that kind of that a lot of the work had been done before we got there in that case which was really helpful and then with sean i think what was so amazing to me about his performances as just a master class in what to do with silence and just with listening and so many of the scenes he's basically in this torture chamber with Ray.

38:11I mean, not so many of them, but especially the priest scene where he's just kind of glued to this, glued to the spot, basically being performed to in this extremely volatile kind of aggressive way. And so it was like working with him to kind of find what the least he could do physically was while portraying this kind of epic emotional journey within this one scene was something we worked on. And yeah, it was really just trying to kind of meet each actor where they were and try to give them what they needed to really hypnotize themselves into the world. And with Sam Morton, it was really interesting because she was so detailed about the...

39:01We worked together to kind of figure out a very detailed backstory for her character that we wrote down. But then also actually for her, I think it was really important, actually, similarly to my dad, just in terms of her house, the actual physical environment, like we would just go through the house and she'd be like, she wouldn't have that. She wouldn't have that. Like that would be this, you know, this thing would be over there. Yeah. Just extremely, extremely specific kind of shaping of the actual physical environment, which I think then had a big, I think for her, it was all just in an effort to kind of create the right circumstances for her to really be inside, like sink into into Nessa.

39:39And also just in terms of everything, her costume, her, you know, what, you know, her nails, like, all these really minute details that I think, I think, became this great kind of armature for her to just give her best performance. And, yeah, and yeah, I think also with all of them, it was just I was really trying to trying to make sure I to tell the difference of when I could be of help and when I needed to just shut up and let them like find things of their own accord. Because so much of it is also about them finding their own private inner life for the character that it's like if you're too intrusive with that, you're almost actually doing more harm than good.

40:20Well, and how does that play out specifically with your dad? Because as we know, he, you know, he's he's he's fully in character. and he stays in character. Yeah, yeah. I wonder what that is like for you as a director because then you're, I mean, how does that play out? Because are you directing Ray? Yeah, directing Ray. But what's, sorry, let me try and get into the weeds because Ray is not an actor. Ray is, to all intents and purposes, that character. Yeah, yeah. But you're directing, you're trying to get a performance out of the actor. Yeah. So what does that mean for you as a director in that set?

40:54How do you make that? Yeah, well that was actually something I was pretty nervous about going in even though I had like so many conversations with my dad leading up to it about the character that like I That I did I didn't want to like how do I direct you without without stepping on your toes and destroying the illusion? Yeah No, and exactly But when we got on set, I think the pleasant surprise for me was that he was actually so like it was this weird paradox where he was both Ray a hunt undeniably ray but then also was able to have this objectivity about yeah the cat like you know the dance with the camera and the kind of the technical requirements of it as long as they didn't get too intrusive and that was always just the dance and the kind of tightrope to walk but we would we would kind of um we didn't do a ton of rehearsal but we would each each evening before the next day's shoot we would go into the space together with uh ben the dp and we would just basically walk through the scene and and he'd kind of figure out how he would move through the space but we'd also talk to him about you know the the shot list and you know what we what we were hoping to achieve and so it was really um i was actually really uh relieved at how collaborative it was in that way because i guess you could run the risk of you or you're asking race to do something and you say fuck off you know exactly And sometimes and it's like sometimes it would be like that and and it would just be.

42:17And that was but in the long run, that was always for the best. Yeah. Like when like whenever something felt like it went against his instincts, like he was always like he knows his character like better, obviously, than than anyone else to such a deep degree that he's always right when it comes to staging a scene. So it's like, you know, when you're trying to figure out that that choreography, I guess, of the scene. So it was, I think it was, yeah, it was kind of just, we had to just go about it intuitively. I just find that, like, for the most part, I think we managed to really dance that dance without it encroaching on his process, which I was relieved about.