The Edge Is A Battenberg (ft. guests Brett Goldstein, Emma Thompson, Paul Thomas Anderson)

19:55Chris Hewitt:And just to clarify for people who obviously I'll set the movie up in the intro, this is not a remake of the Steve Martin 1984 classic All of Me. No, this is the sequel All of You in which Lily Tomlin becomes inhabited by Steve Martin. Yes, yes. Did you think about that at any point? Were you going down that route? We tried that and then we thought it's not going to break Chris. It would in a different way though. If there's a bit about you inhabiting Imogen Poots or Imogen Poots inhabiting you for half of the film. Not a bad idea. There's still time. I'm going to throw it out there. All of You slash All of Me is the sequel in which that happens.

20:42Chris Hewitt:Okay. Are you on board with that? If it helps people. I just don't want people to be disappointed when they watch it and go, there's very little footage of Brett slapping himself in the face whilst trying to urinate. That was all cut, right? Yeah. I still want to see that movie. Yeah. Absolutely. We could. But there really is, I mean, Brett, let's get into it, right? The title is also very, very apt because we see almost all of you in this. Oh, right, okay. This is probably the sort of stuff you haven't been able to talk about on the one show. Thank God. Or this morning. Yeah. I mean, I didn't have Brett Goldstein's bum on my bucket list.

21:23Chris Hewitt:He lied. But there it is. It's undeniable. And on the big screen as well. Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. You don't think about it until afterwards. You don't think about it because you make the thing and it's so kind of intimate when you're making it and it's so small. the thing says you know not my butt the film you're making this thing and it almost feels like private you're making it and then when you have to sit in a room at like the premiere and you're like oh I don't know what face to do when my butt is on the big screen what am I meant to like go hmm mm-hmm this is the sort of thing you write it yeah you write it in the abstract yes Simon is making love yeah I imagine the script says sweet beautiful love as well short sloppy love disappointing love and and then that's completely in the abstract you've no idea you know you know it's going to be you but then obviously it comes to the day and then it's you and then you you watch it with hundreds of people yeah the worst is when you're like testing the film when you're in the like late stages of the edit and i i was in LA and I invited like friends to come and see it in the screening room just to tell me like is this working you know and I again forgot it and then at the end of the screening I sort of said I'm so sorry I made you all come here to watch my part like it does seem weird when you've invited people come watch this on a big screen tell me if it's all right yeah do they notes and the only notes in my heart.

23:10Chris Hewitt:Yeah. They all did. Did they? Yeah, yeah. What was it? Not, what, too big? Size. Everyone's different sizes. Momentum. Too big. Sensitivity. Yeah. Rhythm. Rhythm. Curvature. All of it. All the notes. Yeah. All right. We should point out, because I don't want people to get the wrong idea about this movie. This is not pure filth. This movie. This is a beautiful, heartfelt, romantic drama. Thank you. It is. Yeah. but also happens to have Brett Gillespie's butt it doesn't have my butt in much so I don't want you to think it's 90 % butt because I'm going to be disappointed no this should be called 80 % of you really to be honest but it is it's such a it's such a gorgeous story and it's something that you know I know that love and romantic love I mean you did a stand-up routine about about love a few years ago this is something that's been on your mind you wrote Super Bob which you know listeners of the show will know is a film I adore.

24:08Chris Hewitt:And that's wonderfully romantic as well. So is this something that, the idea of soulmates, the idea of love, the unattainable love, is that something that's... I think it's all I care about, actually, really, is in terms of stories. And the only thing I'm interested in is relationships, is how people are with each other in all genres and everything. And I'm sure I've said this before, but I remember reading something it was like a Buzzfeed like 10 things we're sick of in sitcoms or in rom-coms and one of them was The Will They Won't They, we're sick of it and I thought what a load of shit I will never be sick of The Will They Won't They that's the reason I watch stuff that's what hooks people into shows when you think about Frasier it's an amazing show but you watch every week because you want Daphne and Niles to get together that is the hook that gets people involved in a story is the romance part.

25:07I think it's true in everything. In every single film that I love, the bit where I lean forward is, and I think we all do, I think it's like a natural human thing. And I kind of think it's a bummer when things don't have human connections. You sort of go, but that's the bit we care about. Yeah.

25:31Chris Hewitt:It's fascinating though, because the Will They Won't They, sometimes when it becomes they have the bloom can come off the rose very very quickly you know I love Frasier but I think it's probably fair to say that once Niles and Daphne do get together that it loses its luster a little bit Friends had that problem massively with Ross and Rachel so they kept bringing it back together Moonlighting is one of the great examples as well that show a lot to spark when the will they won't they evaporated and in a way All of You is about I don't want to get too much of the spoilers just yet, but it's about the will they, won't they of these two characters, Simon and Laura.

26:10Chris Hewitt:And you know that there's got to be a moment when these two who are clearly very deeply head over heels with each other, but they're stymied by this thing of the soulmate test that means that Laura has a husband and a kid. But you know the once thing, that once the walls come down, there's going to be repercussions it's going to be tricky a minefield to navigate how difficult was it for you guys you and Will Bridges who directed and co-wrote it with you how difficult was it for you to navigate that once the wheel lay has stopped to make sure the bloom doesn't come off the rose it's all to do with again if I'm serious for a second I think one thing I learned as a writer and I believe this so strongly is that you have to write all your characters we love you have to love all your characters and so in a way this is a film there's four main characters and we love them all and give them all their uh sort of space and and so for example in a in a rom-com generally when there's a love triangle the other guy is a dickhead or they're boring yeah it's easy it It makes it so easy.

27:29You go, well, leave the boring guy and be with the hero, obviously. But in our film, we were like, these things happen in real life. You know, like these relationships happen. And so making her husband, he's her soulmate. He has to be her soulmate for a reason. So it's Stephen Cree and he's handsome and he's funny and he's a very decent man. He's a good dad and he's stable and he's all these things. It's like, it's not easy. Someone said to me, it's such an odd experience as an audience because you're kind of rooting for these characters to do the wrong thing. You really want them to do the wrong thing.

28:03And then you're also going to be very upset if they do the right thing. And that was kind of part of the... I think that was one of the things that interested us in writing it was making this thing that's... I know enough people who've done these things. It's real. and we, I think, in culture it can be very judgmental and very simplistic. It's always like people who have affairs are bad. And I don't know, it's just like real life is so much more interesting and complicated and hopefully we captured some of that.

28:35Chris Hewitt:I'm kind of astonished by how you guys shot this movie as well. It was over 23 days. 25 locations, 23 days. Yeah, loads of locations, going back and forth in time as well. Well, not going back and forth in time because it's very linear in a way, but you're jumping about two, is it two years pretty much every time? It's two years and then there's a section in the middle where it's less time. It's less time. There's a montage of stuff that happens. And it's kind of incredible. I mean, it must have been a hell of a thing to approach from a logistical point of view. As well, like just knowing where is Simon at this point?

29:13Chris Hewitt:Because in the morning he can be in a very, very different place to where he is in the afternoon. Yeah, there was one. I mean, the whole way we did it was beard-based. That's how we knew the order to shoot it in, is I grew the most beard, and then we'd shoot that sequence, and then I'd trim it a bit, and we'd shoot the next sequence, which could have been earlier or later. Right. But you're a very hairy guy, Brett. Yes, thank you, Chris. But my dad was like this, and it bypassed me completely. He would wake up in the morning, he would shave, and by the end of the day, he would pretty much have a beard.

29:45Yeah. It was useful for if we missed a shot. Oh, we need the big back. You can just go.

29:54I got it.

29:56Chris Hewitt:That must be a boon, right? Yeah. Because you're like just... I think that was one thing that we retook. How fast does your beard grow? Give me a weekend and I'll get back. What about the hair? Does the hair mush your mouth if you don't? It does too, yeah. Because you strike me, you've got such beautifully maintained hair. Oh, thanks, man. You know that line in 30 Rock where Jack Donaghy says to Liz Lemon, he says he has his hair cut every two days. He says, your hair is your head suit, Lemon. So you have to maintain it. Are you a two... Every two weeks. Every two days. Is my head suit? Head suit?

30:34Chris Hewitt:Your hair is your head suit. Go ahead and keep it. Go ahead and keep it. Who says I don't get to the bottom of the important shit on the Empire podcast? that is amazing I'm so glad I know that how difficult was it to get this movie made because I imagine making Super Bob I imagine was not analogous to getting this off the ground or was it still difficult I think it is always difficult to make films it is always always difficult and I've never met anyone who goes like yeah we just write it in and we shot it and we made it and we went out and we go I've never had it's always every film is genuinely a miracle every film and every film that's good is a double-double miracle because so many things have to go right.

31:17But having said that, other than the very long kind of development of it that was between us, between me and Will, it wasn't that... We were lucky. We found these amazing producers, Aaron Ryder and Andrew Sweat, and I'll tell you, and Aaron Ryder had done like Arrival and Eternal Sunshine. And so we were very excited to meet him. He'd read the script and he said to me, this film is beneath me it's so small he said this is the smallest film I'll ever do but I love the script so much so I want to do it and I was like okay I was like I guess that was a compliment

31:55Chris Hewitt:wow that's what you said about this podcast when you walked into the door this is so far beneath the script but I like it it's on the schedule I go where they tell me so we got him and then we yeah and then the financing we had it all with MRC and they did it all in one go so like we were pretty lucky it took probably a year to get from script to shooting bloody hell it's very unusual I've got to go in a second but what's next what is happening for you that you can talk about currently we've just finished Shrinking Season 3 yes which will be out I don't know when soon maybe one day good to see you're on top of this and I'll be out and what if it's out right now and someone check and and we're filming Ted Lasso which I can't tell you anything about other than it'll be brilliant and Ted Lasso's in it which is good Ted Lasso is in it that I think is is a given can can Sudeikis grow a moustache as fast as you can grow a beard yeah you know what He did trim his moustache the other day, and I said, what are you doing?

33:11And he said, it's fine. And then it grew immediately back. It's his magic trick. Yes, and then I have a film next year coming out with Jennifer Lopez called Office Romance that I wrote with Joe Kelly. Yes. That's going to be great. This is exciting. How was that? It was great. Yeah? It was really great. It was really fun. It was much more fun than I expected it to be. I thought it might be, I don't know. it's such a big it's like the opposite of this film it's such a big film I'd never done anything that big and I thought is there going to be a lot of bullshit we have to deal with and it was a fucking delight it was great

33:45Chris Hewitt:how about J-Lo? she's great she's so good yeah amazing she's a fantastic actor like she's the best rom-com person yeah she's great what do you call her J-Lo or Jennifer? I called her Jennifer okay out of respect I can't who would call her J-Lo to her face? only dickheads like me

34:08Chris Hewitt:dreadful dreadful human beings and SuperBob is coming up for another 10th anniversary we were talking about this the other day yeah it's the 10th anniversary of SuperBob we're doing a screening at the BFI we're going to do a Q &A and it'll be the first time me and John have watched it I probably haven't seen it in 8 years and I hope it hasn't horrendously dated I hope that our Q &A isn't just us apologizing and saying it was a different time Superbob is superprob-lomatic We shouldn't have shown this actually Sorry everyone

34:48Chris Hewitt:Oh my god It could be UP cancelled in real time This could be a hell of a thing When's it happening? Oh fuck October Something October something Have a look on the BFO Alright Do you know anything about when anything's coming out, bro? No. I don't pay attention to it. Do you know when all of you is coming out? Friday, September 26th. In the cinemas. Go to the cinema and see it. It's in the cinemas in London. It's in Cursons. It's in Cursons. It's in picture houses. It's in showcases across the country. Yeah. And then there's an Apple TV Plus as well. And then there'll be an Apple TV Plus. That's kind of where you live, Apple TV Plus, isn't it?

35:23Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I live there. Yeah, I've got a house. Yeah.

35:28Chris Hewitt:I think they're renaming it Goldstein Plus isn't that they have to that's what they're doing yeah it's contractual now yeah alright so that's coming out people know that it's good we told them that Ted Lasso you don't know Shrinking you don't know Office Romance you don't know well thanks for coming on Brett thanks for clearing that you're not sure what the Super Bowl screen is this is good what are you doing next where are you going immediately after this you don't even know that oh no ITV News I think I'm doing the news I think I'm presenting the news probably now with me classic Brett presenting the news again up to no good in America again unbelievable man grows beard in five seconds flat and now here's the film amazing Brett Goldstein always a pleasure my friend lovely lovely lovely to see you thank you for having me on again just realised we haven't said the C word this would be the first there you go I was going to say the first time you've been on the podcast and you haven't bellowed cunt so that's that's good brilliant Brett always a pleasure man thanks thank you very much thank you okay that was Brett Goldstein and we will be talking about all of you later on in the reviews section of the show alright shall we get into the movie news section what is there to talk about folks wicked wicked wicked is it wicked jungle is massive well there was a new trailer for Wicked for Good, which I'm sensing Helen was more excited about than I was.

36:57So, Helen, on your excitometer, where does Wicked fall? Oh, very high. As you will know if you have been reading the new issue of Empire. For which you wrote the cover feature. Indeed, which is Wicked for Good.

37:09Chris Hewitt:Yeah, take that, people who say when you put Marvel stuff in the cover. Hey, look, do you know what? I said this the first time around. I have seen Wicked twice on stage and was bored off my tits both times. But when I watched John Chu's film, I really, really liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I am very excited for the second film. My only ever slight concern, as I mentioned before, is whether or not musically it will stand up to the first film. All the bangers have gone, right? No. There'll be a lot of reprising, I would think. No. I mean, yeah, some, but not as much as you would think.

37:37And they've got new songs, haven't they? They've got new songs, which we have them talking about in the issue. More than one? More than one. One for Glinda and one for Elphaba.

37:47Chris Hewitt:Wow. Yeah. So what is Jonathan Bailey, just chopped liver? Apparently, for these purposes, yes. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. Disrespectful. Loathing. Unaductorated loathing. Wow, you've learned a lyric. I'm so proud. I know. This, yeah, but look, this also has For Good, which is a song, I know I bang on about this, but it has genuinely never failed to make me cry when I've tried to sing along with it. I cannot. Go on to it now. No, I'm not going to do it. Is that because it's out of your range? and you're trying to hit a high note. I mean, it is, obviously, but no, it's genuinely a thing. That's very kind.

38:26Thank you. But it's genuinely a really moving song. I find it really powerful. It brings home the idea that this entire story is about friendship, which is not something we see celebrated that much, and which is something, bringing it back, John Chu talks about in the feature.

38:40Chris Hewitt:Oh, it's just John Chu to you, is it? John M. Chu. You're all pals now. Mr. John M. Chu. Wow, okay. Yeah, if you please. But yes, we spoke to everybody for that, and I just think everything they're saying sounds right. If you're a Wicked fan, this is the stuff you want to hear. If you're not convinced by the stage show, this is also the stuff you want to hear because I think it is giving it scope, giving it grandeur, giving it a bit of dazzle. I feel like the stage is not deep enough for a huge amount of scale and scope in that show particularly. Some shows manage it. I don't feel like Wicked 100 % does, but this should have some oomph to it.

39:17I'm excited.

39:17Chris Hewitt:Yeah, new trailer then for Wicked for Good. Did you guys like it? I made you both watch it. You did make us watch it. Genuinely, I do want to see this because I didn't want to see the first one and wasn't very pleasantly surprised by it. So yeah, I'm actually quite excited about this. Yeah, looked very, very good. You get little glimpses of a young girl, a lion, a scarecrow, and a tin man. I don't know what that was. That was weird. Yeah, weird. And a road apparently is made of yellow bricks. Yeah, didn't understand the reference. I mean I'm sure it'll come through to somebody it'll make sense to someone yeah but so yeah so this is a proper this is properly going for it then isn't it it really is really connecting to The Wizard of Oz oh yeah the second so this second half of the musical and this is true in the musical as well as you know James it does kind of parallel at least partly the story of Dorothy and her friends so they are they're not big characters but they are well Dorothy isn't a big character but they are present in the musical yes of Wicked okay alright well this is out in November isn't it it is Wicked for good very very exciting shall we pivot very quickly into a shameless plug of the issue bearing in mind of course we have a show called The Shameless Plug in which we dig into it in a big old deep dive so we don't need to plug it quite as shamelessly as we used to but nevertheless Helen has been allowed to write a cover feature oh god who let Dougal do a funeral and and very good it is as well that's very kind of you I just read the first sentence I figured but solid start appreciate it there we go worked hard on that also like Alex went and talked to Daniel Day-Lewis what I mean that doesn't happen every day that's very exciting it does happen every day actually they're all they're like buddies they hang out all the time most of the time Daniel Day-Lewis doesn't know Alex is there right yeah Alex is more of a spectral presence in Daniel Day-Lewis' house okay Daniel Day-Lewis has not been able to explain.

41:14Chris Hewitt:I'm sure that serial was somewhere else when I came in this morning. That sort of thing. Okay, okay. Well, Alex does like a serial. But this time, DDL answered back, which was good. Which was nice. Yeah, Alex flew to New York because Daniel Day-Lewis is back, back, back. After taking some time off acting, he's back, back, back. And he's working for a young up-and-coming director called Ronan Day-Lewis. I wonder how he found Daniel Day-Lewis' number. moving cereal around his flat, probably. And yeah, it's a really great conversation with the two of them as well. There's a Predator Badlands feature.

41:51Chris Hewitt:There is a Frankenstein feature, I think. Oh, I'm so excited. I'm getting confused with the months which some idiot wrote. And Nick, who talked to Josh Brolin, that's a great conversation. There's all sorts of stuff going on in there. Reviews, Catherine Bigelow and her new movie, A House of Dynamite, more Avatar stuff. There's stuff in my section that I'm sure I can remember in just two seconds. Oh, yes, Gareth Edwards. James, you went to, where did you go to, Thailand? I did, to see Gareth. I sent you to Thailand, and you ended up in a toilet with Gareth Edwards. Yes, it was great. It was a lovely toilet, big fluffy tiles, porcelain as far as the eye could see.

42:31It was at the White Lotus. Was it? It genuinely was at the White Lotus, yes. Really? That was the hotel. Wow, that's amazing.

42:38Chris Hewitt:there's a piece in there on that on Jurassic World Rebirth on the Ballad of Wallace Island on Kyle MacLachlan and hey you never guess where a pint of milk is this month it's only Brett Bloody Goldstein he's everywhere he's here he's there he's everywhere Brett Goldstein I said bloody not fucking someone's gonna write in some Ted Lasso superfan's gonna go I think you're fine I think you're fine it's not Geonosis it's actually yeah yeah AFC Geonosis would not play. Well, that is a cracking, cracking issue. Wicked for Good on the cover. There they are. Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo. How were they?

43:17Oh, they were lovely, actually. Yeah, really, really nice. Everybody I talked to had kind of like interesting things going on in their lives for that film. Like everybody had like little interesting stories and fun stuff. Like Cynthia Erivo's tattoo artist was literally sitting in the room behind her getting ready to give her a new tattoo. Oh, so she wasn't actually being inked while talking to you. She wasn't being inked while talking to me, no. Because that would have been hilarious. I mean, it kind of would have been, but like, and also would have, you know, betrayed amazing control skills if you're able to carry on a conversation instead of, as I have done every time I've had a tattoo, go, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

43:49No, it's fine, really. I'm fine. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

43:52Chris Hewitt:Yeah, because you really had to focus on your questions, which I'm sure were probing and interrogative and incisive. I don't want to brag, but like Woodward and Bernstein called me afterwards and were like, wow, that's amazing. Like Isaac Faulkner was like, whoa, take it down a notch, you know? Could you please not? You're making me look bad. Exciting. So questions like... How did you get involved in the movie? Did you enjoy making the film? What was it like? Did you like working with the other people with whom you worked? What attracted you to the role? Have you seen The Wizard of Oz? Amazing stuff.

44:26Chris Hewitt:It's available right now. It's on sale on all good evil and virtual news agents. A snip at 10 times the price. And there it is. Daniel Day-Lewis interview Wicked for Good on the cover Frankenstein all the nuts and bolts I was on set at Frankenstein folks it looks good looks very very very good indeed more news yes but let's break right here for some breaking news a new full avatar Fire and Ash trailer has dropped this very second as we're recording let's stop right now and watch it well well well well we have just paused for two minutes of sheer Jim Cameron goodness and Jimbo are you okay?

45:08Sweet! Yes Oh my god There's so much to unpack there There are a lot of little things like you know spoiler for anyone who doesn't want to watch the trailer but there's some big plot developments given away in that The Return of Turok Maktou

45:22Chris Hewitt:I was about to say the same thing That's right The Leonoptus That's right The great Leonoptus Obviously he is the writer of the Leonoptus not in a sex way Who's he? Jake Suley Jake Suley I see you And Spider Moida has some AWAS surgery, essentially, so that he can breathe on the planet, which looks very exciting as well. Yes, very exciting. So I don't even notice, we see Neytiri in what looked to me to be Fire Tribe war paint. No. So maybe she turns to the dark side. But then I think the Fire Tribe, presumably, are basically, they seem to be basically nihilists. I mean, like in... Nihilists. Yes, like in the Big Lebowski and the strength of this trailer.

45:55Yes, Peter Stomari. And they are willing to piss on everyone's rug, it seems like. Yeah. Regardless of whether it ties the room together. because their rug has been pissed on, I think. It seems to be the message here.

46:09So, anyway, yeah, it looks cool.

46:12Chris Hewitt:Doesn't it? Big jellyfish things, big pie-a-can things. We were watching it on Jimbo's laptop. As James Cameron expected, yes. It looked absolutely incredible, I have to say. In jerky laptop-a-vision. It was jerky at the beginning, but that might have been you. I'm not sure. I didn't either confirm nor deny something was moving but it does look absolutely insane I didn't see any David Hulis though so I'm deducting one Empire Podcast point for that okay or Mick Scoresby and PyCAM was in it no PyCAM well I mean I couldn't tell there were lots of oh you call yourself an Avatar fan you're a disgrace it's too painful yeah but this is it right that's the final trailer presumably or do you think There could be one more.

46:59That's the first full trailer, isn't it? Because we had the teaser, which was expertly introduced by me when it was debuted to journalists in the West End. But this is the first full trailer. So, yeah. Exciting. Exciting. It is. Fire. And that's not the only trailer we've seen this week. No. It's been that. It's been wicked. There has been another one. Hang on. I think I hear the patter of feet. Is that Ben Travis running desperately towards the studio? It could be. Yes. From Liverpool. From Liverpool. I need to talk about Grogu and Babu Frigg.

47:30Chris Hewitt:In some weeks, this might be the biggest trailer. It still may be the biggest trailer. It may be the trailer that... I'm more excited about The Mandalorian and Grogu. You are not. I am. Shut up. I am. Ridiculous creature. No. It's a very exciting trailer. It's not. It is. It's very exciting. Look, don't get me wrong. It tickles me in all the right places for a Mandalorian movie. but it's I mean look the word low rent is harsh but it would be completely misplaced it is not in any way cinematic it just feels like a TV trailer what do you mean I'm sorry cinematic you cannot come off the trailer for Avatar Fire and Ash and then watch the fucking Mandalorian and Grogu trailer and be like wow this is cinema it's fucking Star Wars I mean is it yes I mean technically it is literally you know what you are banished from this conversation Helen you and I are going to have a lovely conversation about the Mandalorian and Grogu trailer John Favreau bringing Mando Pedro Pascal has one word in the trailer but I'm sure he was on set every single day I'm sure every single day his voice notes were emailed in in a timely fashion why would he email in his voice notes?

48:46Chris Hewitt:why wouldn't he just send them via text? because I don't know maybe they were large files I guess over there much more don't do that that Grogu was talking was he yeah he talks more in this trailer babbling babbling well we don't know that about them we know they have a relationship it's an Anzellan we know that we don't know which Anzellan we're just assuming there were lots of Anzellans in this but we're assuming that the main one that a baby Grogu baby Yoda is comporting with was indeed Babu Frick as seen of course in a Star Wars fan movie that was released some years ago good movie yes and this is the trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu which is coming out next year and I'm excited about it and I kind of hit upon something the other day I was thinking about you know how we did an Empire VIP club event a couple of years ago with Favs where we showed the final episode of season 2 of The Mandalorian and it was on the big screen beautiful big screen I think it was at the Curse of Mayfair and I don't think Favreau had seen the show on the big screen like a screen that big before and he was blown away it looked incredible and you know I don't know we should take credit for that but I wouldn't be surprised if he went away from that going you know what this looks good on the big screen and I think I'm going to develop a movie like this and he developed it instantly this is the way he wasn't working on it already no He came out of that cinema and went, I'm going to make a Mando movie.

50:26Yeah, and I'm going to have Sigourney Weaver in it doing a double of trailers this week.

50:30Chris Hewitt:Yeah, Sigourney Weaver. She's in Avatar and she's in The Mandalorian and Grogu as well. That's exciting. I mean, she's completing the geek EGOT. You know, Star Wars, Star Trek. Actually, it's not usually. Is she in Star Trek? Kind of. I don't think she has completed it. I'm just saying what the geek EGOT is. What's a geek Egot? Well, on Galaxy Quest, you can kind of get what I was saying, is a Star Trek tribute. No. You can almost tick that box. The geek Egot. What is a geek Egot? Is it Star Trek? So it's Trek Wars, Lord of the Rings, which is a bit more difficult to get into, obviously. And there's another one that Carl Urban's been in.

51:08He's in all of them. The Boys. No, definitely not.

51:12Chris Hewitt:Bourne. No. The Chronicles of Riddick. Marvel. Marvel. And DC. If you're including Marvel, then you have to include DC. Yes, DC. What about Aliens? It's not in the thing, but she's obviously all over that. Who makes these rules? Internet. The internet has made these rules. The internet has suggested that there is a sort of geek EGOT. They have not been canonical about what constitutes that EGOT, except that everyone's pretty sure that Karl Urban has it, and probably Andy Serkis as well. Hmm. I'm not sure. I'm not convinced. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I think there could be more titles in there.

51:52Chris Hewitt:I think you could throw more titles in. There could be, but then you just make it more and more and more difficult. You know, you've got to stick with the Emmy, Grammy, Oscars, Tonys, like, equivalent. You can't start introducing, like, Olivier's and shit because then it just gets too complicated. Yeah, that's true. That would be Igut. It would be Igut. Yeah. Or Igoto. Igoto. Anyway, I thought this trailer was good and I don't really know why you're pissing on everyone's ships apart from... It's like Hannibal Crossing the Alps, but this time he has, like, you know... I mean, come on! Yeah, I mean, that bit was quite fun.

52:21Chris Hewitt:It's got everything you want from The Mandalorian and Grogu. It's got Mando and Grogu being cute, going on adventures, flying around, shooting at things. It looked fantastic. I'm all in. It looked fine. It looked like an episode of The Mandalorian. It didn't look like an episode of The Mandalorian. It looked better than an episode of The Mandalorian. But I don't think, I mean, you're getting me wrong, I don't think that's a bad thing. I enjoy episodes of The Mandalorian. I'm very happy. All right, Avatars just look like the other Avatars. I mean, it did. How about the wrestler Hulk? How about the giant mecha dudes fighting Mando?

52:55This is cool stuff, man. Yeah. It's Rotter the Hutt, isn't it? That's Jeremy Allen White. Is it? Huh? Huh? I didn't know that. Well done, me for keeping track. He's looking quite hench, it has to be said. Take your shirt off, Jeremy Allen White. I got a little bit of goosebumps when the Goranson score fired up. Don't get me wrong, I'm here for it. I enjoy it. it's fucking it's been forged for IMAX James what more do you want? the only thing I'm going to say if I were to you know dribble on your chips a little bit I would say that the Mandalorians last season was a disappointment and we now live in a post in your opinion objectively and not objectively we now live in a post and or world and so I feel like the bar has been raised a little bit so I am I'm slightly less enthused than I might have been in the before times.

53:51Chris Hewitt:Not everything is going to come close to Andor being Andor. I know, sadly that is true. We can't expect everything to be Andor. Some things just have to be pulpy fun and this is pulpy fun and I thought it was great. So there, take that. All right, so that's the trailers. We've been holding space for casting news. Has there been any? No, in fact there's been deliberately non-casting news in that Denny Villeneuve has talked a little bit about the new Bond. And from what I understand, he has said that he will be casting someone. What? That's the news. He's going to cast someone to play Bond. You might have thought he wouldn't, but he is, in fact, going to cast James Bond in a Bond film.

54:31Holy shit. Breaking news here. Yeah, but he said it'll be, he's looking for a new person, so not an existing famous. And he's saying he does want someone from the British Isles, and he's going to do the casting once he's finished with Dune Part 3. Dune! Yes, so he has his priorities in order. He has his priorities in order.

54:49Chris Hewitt:June 1st, yes. And to quote him, I think, he said, I'm going to shit June Part 3 out. Just toss it off with wild abandon. Don't really care about it because Bond is my new priority, baby. No. Direct quote. The opposite of that. No, the opposite. We all know Denis Finlow finishes every quote with baby. Yes, he does. Famously. Yeah, famously. Famously, he says that all the time. Yeah, okay, that's interesting. But then you're a bit of a quandary, aren't you? if you're someone who's on the cusp of stardom, but you might have a shot at being Bond. I think if you are... What, do you want to not become a star?

55:24Do you not want to become a star?

55:25Chris Hewitt:Just don't work for a while. So you become Bond. I don't think that tends to be how it works. I feel like the ceiling for fame is probably, roughly speaking, where Craig was when he was cast as Bond. Like, people kind of know who he is. He's been in, like, a Tomb Raider, like, that kind of thing, but isn't, like, a star. Yeah, like, he got some attention for, like, the mother and North and South, was it? and stuff like that. Layer Cake was like... Layer Cake, yeah. But that's like the maximum. Our Friends in the North. Our Friends in the North. That makes a lot more sense. You would have thought the guy who hosted a TV podcast might be able to correct you on that.

55:56Chris Hewitt:I was looking to him and I got nothing. He's too busy over there getting Geonosis and Camilo mixed up. Unfortunately, someone had mentioned Dune so I was suddenly feeling sleepy.

56:07Chris Hewitt:As if the Avatar trailer hasn't put you over the top already. So that's exciting. Well, we'll keep an eye on that and see how that develops. and there's been some Spider-Man casting news. Marvin Jones III is going to be playing Tombstone in Spider-Man brand new day, which is still filming at the moment. I thought they had to pause for about a week or so because apparently Tom Holland suffered a concussion on set. Oh no. Yeah, so they gave him a week or so to recover from that. We're going to finish off with some very, very sad news. Lost Robert Redford last week. We lost Claudia Cardinale. Helen.

56:41Yes, the Italian actress who starred in Eight and a Half, The Leopard, and of course, the Once Upon a Time in the West for Sergio Leone. She was 87 years old. She was one of those stars who kind of burst through in the 60s, you know, with Sophia Loren, people like that, and worked steadily right through. I mean, I think she won her last award in 2010 for an Italian film. So she really kind of kept going and, yeah, made some incredible, incredible films. Yeah. Her breakthrough was she was voted most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisia and sent to the Venice Film Festival. And that kind of helped her make a splash and get some attention from producers and launched her film career.

57:26I think so. Yeah, apparently so. That is absolutely amazing. I think it's fair to say.

57:31Chris Hewitt:Yes, yes. Very, very different time. But my God, the films that she was in and she graced with her presence. She was an astonishing, indelible presence. Obviously, beautiful woman, but an amazing actress as well. She broke through in Hollywood in The Pink Panther, didn't she? She did indeed. She did indeed. Alongside Peter Sellers, of course. Very, very good in that. Fitzcarraldo, Eight and a Half. My favorite, Claudia Cardinale film. I think this is probably most people's, although 8.5 is obviously amazing, is Once Upon a Time in the West, the Sergio Leone film, in which she's just absolutely transcendent, as Jill, who is this woman who's kind of like the connective tissue between the three gunslingers who are duking it out for supremacy throughout the film.

58:20Chris Hewitt:Her Ennio Morricone theme is iconic. Yeah, she was just absolutely amazing, and very, very sad indeed. She passed away. This week at the age of 87, the great Claudia Cardinale. Time now for our second guess. Who do you want? We have left Emma Thompson. Brilliant. Emma Thompson, then. If you can get a dame into the midpoint of your podcast, then get a dame into the midpoint of your podcast. And this is Dame Emma Thompson, of course. She is a national treasure. She is, where is she on the EGOT Stakes, Hells Bells? Do you know? Oh, I don't know, actually. I must check. Yeah, check it out. Check it out.

59:00Chris Hewitt:Because the number of people who've won EGOTs recently has really increased. You notice this? It used to be like only 11 or 12. It's still pretty low. I think it's in the 20s now. I don't know. It's outrageous. They just hand them out like sweets. I don't think they do. I think they do. All right. She has... She's won two Oscars. Two Oscars. One Emmy. Two Golden Globes. The Tonys, man. And no Grammys, actually. No Grammys. No Grammys. She's been nominated twice for the Grammys. Has she now? Hadn't taken it home. All right. There's a chance if we submit this episode of the Emperor podcast for consideration by the Grammys next year, she might win.

59:40Chris Hewitt:And become one step closer to becoming an EGOT. Fingers crossed, guys. We're all pulling for you, Emma. Let's tame Emma to you. Yeah, she is absolutely terrific. And she is the star of this week's Dead of Winter, which is a thriller in which you will see Emma Thompson as you've never seen her before. Essentially as an action hero. Although not in the Liam Neeson style. This is no Jerry action movie. she plays Barb who is an ordinary woman who is driving to a lake a frozen lake in Minnesota in the dead of winter hence the title and she stumbles upon a kidnapping essentially and she does with no way of flagging down the police or indeed any other law enforcement agency she does the only thing she knows how to do and she tries to free a young girl from the clutches of the kidnappers led in this by Judy Greer, of all people, at her most un-Judy Greer-like.

1:00:44Chris Hewitt:And it's a really terrific thriller. And I was really, really taken, as I always am, by Emma Thompson's performance and jumped at the chance to sit down with her a couple weeks ago in a London hotel room. And we had a good old natter about that, about a great many other things as well, including her love of This Is Spinal Tap. So here we go. Me talking to Emma Thompson. Do please enjoy. Emma Thompson, welcome to the Emperor Podcast. How are you? I'm fine. It's very nice to see you and I love Emperor. I'm very happy to be here. Oh, no, mutual appreciation. We love you as well. But you were just saying you might be getting to see Spinal Tap 2.

1:01:19Chris Hewitt:Yes. But this will be out after Spinal Tap 2. It's almost on my top six. So I will be going immediately. Immediately to see it. Spinal Tap, the end continues. I mean, come on. Right there, there's a joke. No, it's just a great joke. This is just a solid joke, right? Oh, man. So do you find yourself quoting Spinal Tap on an almost daily basis? On a slightly embarrassing basis, yeah. No, I'm not even going to tell you because that's just so nerdy for me. Yeah. But there are certain elements of it that you just can never get away from. Obviously, 11. Of course. Of course. But, yeah, let's not go into that because we just don't want to reveal ourselves.

1:01:55No, we don't. Too deeply to your discerning audience.

1:02:01Chris Hewitt:How much more do we want to reveal ourselves? None. None much more. None much more. I'm misquoting, but, you know, deliberately so, deliberately so. You said it was part of your top six. So that's a very curious number. Most people say five or ten. What else is in the top six? The Apartment. Oh, great one. I mean, pretty much anything by Billy Wilder, but The Apartment in particular. Yeah. Although some like it hot, it's just, yeah, I watch these things regularly. Young Frankenstein. Oh, my God. Yes. Mel Brooks' great work of genius that just is a regular yearly watch. Then, you know, I was watching actors on a thing.

1:02:43Do you know Letterboxd?

1:02:44Chris Hewitt:Yes. And, you know, everyone says, what are your favourite films? The four favourite films. And everyone's always quoting the most obscure films you've ever heard of by brilliant Italian directors or Russians or, you know, it's always Tarkovsky and, you know, and I thought, are you telling the truth? Yeah. Or are you just know it's Letterboxd and you're in Europe and you're just saying it's got to be Les Enfants du Paradis because, you know, because you're there. I don't know. So I am afraid it's revealing my deeply sort of low tech, low sort of, well, not, you know, they're just beautiful brilliant funny things and I think funny things are so hard yeah oh god funny films are so hard to find they're like little tiny little gems in a seam of coal because it's easy to make a sad dark film easier yes not necessarily a good one but it is easier to make a film that's consistently funny and that really completes itself from beginning to end yeah you know like Billy Wilder's the end of his screenplay for The Apartment the end screenplay wise.

1:03:58Yeah. Screenplay wise. You know, this is genius. He was a genius. And that sort of thing, I think, gets overlooked, comedy. And one of the reasons why I love this film, Dead of Winter, is because the writers, the two Minnesotan writers, Nicholas Jacobs and Larson and Dalton Lieb, are funny. Yeah. Because they're from Minnesota. Yeah. And it's tough out there. Yeah. You know, you don't get serious because the weather's too difficult to deal with. You're constantly finding ways to rise above it. So there's a great deal of comedy in it. It's why I'm one of Mick Heron's greatest fans. Because when I first read him, I thought, oh, my God, this man is so funny.

1:04:38And whatever they are, John le Carre, Robert Harrison, well, actually pretty much all the thriller writers are not funny. They're not funny.

1:04:46Chris Hewitt:No. Mick Heron is hilarious. So. Absolutely. Well, listen, you're preaching to the choir. I get on my soapbox regularly in the podcast and say that comedy is damned difficult and people should be rewarded with Oscar nominations. But there's a sort of snobbishness, I think, towards comedy and horror. Always has been. It was when we were young. You know, on television, light entertainment was regarded as sort of a bit sub. Yeah, absolutely. A bit lower than. Not the case. And you go, how do you do it? How do you make it work? Absolutely. And then you think of The Office, the work of absolute genius.

1:05:19Chris Hewitt:Yeah, absolutely. Genuine genius. Indeed. But this movie, as you say, just to bring it back to the dead of winter, is very difficult, I imagine, was very difficult for you to film in a lot of ways. Because I've racked my brains, I've gone through your storied career, and I was looking at film after film after film. I don't recall a scene in your career where you've had to perform surgery on yourself before. Is that fair to say? Fair comment. never have no obviously suggested it said many times you know sentence flexibility would be really good if she could just stitch her arm up you know or name it be she could just maybe remove one of her own warts you know there was so there were so many possibilities but yeah that was part of her journey this woman who's so heroic and so resilient and so gritty and so funny and just getting on with it just like any woman does she's one of my favourites because she's such a heroic figure without being heroic and I love that and that sequence which was we only did it once we could only shoot it once because it being an independent film and a small budget you actually had to win yourself yes we actually had to win myself so I had to be taken to hospital immediately after we finished the surgery and the actual piece, the prosthetic is very expensive It's a very hard thing to make work, you know, because it's, I mean, I don't know whether this is of interest or whether these are sort of spoiler things.

1:06:55It's fascinating to me that this beautiful piece of artwork really, which have these tiny, tiny little tubes in so that when you do start to put the needle into the skin, the lymph and the blood you can see coming out. I mean, this prosthetic work is such a great art form.

1:07:16Chris Hewitt:Yeah. And I've worn prosthetics before, but not in that way. And then to imagine what it was like to do this to yourself, to have to do it because you know that if you don't do it, she's just going to bleed out and she'll lose and she'll die because it's too cold as well. It was a wonderful thing to be asked to do. And Brian Kirk, our esteemed and beloved director, had the scene. I mean, it was 10 minutes of surgery originally. I said, Brian, I need to have a lie down after that. I think you might be asking for trouble. I think your audience might need a gin and tonic more than to see the rest of the movie after that scene.

1:07:59So it's shorter than it was.

1:08:03Chris Hewitt:So you had one shot at it? One shot, yeah. Did that jangle the nerves? Were you thinking, oh, God. No, you just say, you haven't got time for that. this is we're in frozen tundra actually we're in studio there but okay but we're in frozen the i mean it was a very demanding shoot yeah but in its own way a kind of life changer and brian and i would find ourselves with the crew and this amazing wonderful finnish crew um on this frozen lake going i'm i've never been colder ever but also isn't this so the most beautiful location we'd ever been on judy and i were doing our fight sequence yes yes and we were scuffing around on our hands and knees and our knees are bleeding because the ice is very hard and we've got we've got um you know um buffers but they're scraping against our knees and i'm weeping everything hurts everything hurts I've pulled every muscle in my body by then but every so often I just stop on the ice on all fours and look around and go guys this is this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life ever and then I carry on gurning and bleeding and um and it was it was a it was a remarkable to be in that landscape for all of that time again I don't think I might be wrong this might have happened in Love Actually but I missed it don't think you've been headbutted on screen before no I've been headbutted many times off camera on set obviously by people just had enough you know that's happened but not on camera and yeah that's that's a tough one I mean we had a wonderful stunt team an amazing stunt team so so we did we all But I did it all.

1:09:59We did all of our stunts. The only one I wasn't allowed to do, literally not allowed to do because of the insurance, is when Barb falls down the stairs. Yes. You couldn't do that unless you'd had training because you'd break your neck. And that was so wonderful. And, of course, it's also a film about gloves. Yeah. There's just so many pairs of gloves. And just working our way through when she was wearing what gloves was absolutely Byzantine. We have a table laid out with gloves because everyone just, what is she? Is she in the small gloves? We got the women. Has she lost that glove by then? And we had also been given all this essential information by Minnesotans because it's set in Minnesota.

1:10:47Yes. So in order to keep the accent really real, I would do hours of conversation with all our Minnesotan friends who helped us make it. Okay. Particularly Dalton Leib's auntie, Tracy Lynn Leib. She's amazing. And she would take me through it. In fact, we talked and talked and talked all the time about what life was like and what the cold did to you and how you did keep your hands warm. and the big gloves that Barb wears all the way through the movie and how she, however difficult the situation is, even if she's being shot at, she'll still remember to pick up her gloves because it's a survival instinct.

1:11:25You just are taught from childhood, you've got to look after your gloves or your walls, you'll lose your fingers. You know, you'll lose your fingers because it's that cold.

1:11:36Chris Hewitt:It goes in minutes. Yeah. So I've never been colder. my hands just would constantly be in terrible pain and had a wonderful um makeup um um technician and she would warm my my my hands up on her face because actually it's best to just be skin to skin to warm you know it was a real sort of survival movie for everybody yeah not just us i mean everyone had to work out how to stay warm on a frozen lake when you've got nowhere to go There isn't a nice hotel or a caravan that you can get into. They would bring somewhere for us to be warm in slightly closer when we were getting into the water. Okay. Because that was dangerous otherwise.

1:12:27Yes. But otherwise you just had to keep warm somehow. So walk to and from, set, keep moving, you know. and each morning you'd come onto this pristine environment and all that would be there would be the new prince of, you know, a wolverine or a fox or a wolf. You know, it was just, it was so, so beautiful.

1:12:55Chris Hewitt:You said it was life-changing in a way. It was, it was, it was. And running about, running on snow. Also, of course, the snowdrifts are eight foot deep. So one of my favorite moments was running through the woods behind me on what we call the chicken cam, which is little baby Steadicam on a bar that is movable. So one of our wonderful camera people, Ilana Garrard, who's just extraordinary, tall, tall girl, she was running after me. And one by one, the boom up, then the focus puller just disappeared into these snowdrifts. I turned because I'm worried, you know, I'm looking round because I'm frightened.

1:13:39And three of the crew had completely disappeared, engulfed in eight foot of snow. The only one still standing, because she was on the same path as me that had been prepared, was Lana. And of course, can you imagine? Then we just turned around and then we had to dig them out. We had to dig out the crew. I mean, of course, hilarity ensued.

1:14:02Chris Hewitt:Yes. and stiff drinks later. But it was just insane, an insane place to shoot. Teeth chattering, ruining takes, all that sort of stuff? I'm not sure about that. They didn't quite let you get that stage. Yes. But yeah, we blew up a car and flung ourselves here. It was just, anyway, it was something I'm very, very grateful to have experienced and I really love the film I love the character so much and I hope everyone gets the kick out of it I've got that to go but what I love about Barb is that she's not you know an action hero in the traditional sense of the word she's not someone who's got this incredible background of having killed 500 people with her bare hands she is making she hasn't got those skills but she has got skills she does have a particular set of skills and I'll tell you one of the reasons why I took the job was because when I was reading the screenplay, she kept on doing something that was so surprising, but so right for the, you know, you understood why she was doing it because she knows the weather.

1:15:12She knows that if you wet things down, they freeze. If you take away at the source of heat, people are helpless. Just everything is so practical. So female, it's kind of female heroism at its height, you know, and as you say, none of it is the heroics that we're used to, the grandstanding heroics and especially my absolute favourite is I have special skills which basically means that yeah you can kill anyone in any way that you want yeah she doesn't do that any of that

1:15:45Chris Hewitt:she's amazing Emma Thompson's been a pleasure I'm glad you go but I I wish you luck in your quest to see Spinal Tap 2 The End Continues Thank you The End Continues yes push it up push it up all the way to 11 amazing thank you so much indeed nice to see you Thank you. Okay, that was Emma Thompson, star of Dead of Winter. And now it is time for the reviews section of the show, talking about the films that you can see on your multiplex or in your sofaplex. Swap those two around, Chris. And this week, should we start with Dead of Winter? May as well, yeah. Bell spells? So this is directed by Brian Kirk, who's actually a Northern Irish director.

1:16:22Well done, us.

1:16:22Chris Hewitt:I knew there was a reason I liked it. And yes, it stars Emma Thompson as Barb, a woman who we see preparing for this fishing trip, ice fishing trip basically so she does this like oh my god please stop uh who is as you say interrupted by discovering uh accidentally discovering a kidnapping and with no service on her phone with no way of contacting the outside world she basically has to try and figure out how to rescue this girl herself and she is not an action woman she is not a secret assassin she is not a hit woman. She is just somebody who is pretty resilient and pretty resourceful and very, very, very sensible and practical and caring and just trying to do her best in a very bad situation.

1:17:08I just thought this was pretty clever. I mean, it doesn't really reinvent the action wheel. You know, this is basically one person trying to get another person out of a remote in the woods. But what it does do is give you a slightly unexpected hero, I guess, for the story and just deliver all the kind of like tension and excitement that you could kind of want. It also tries to do something quite interesting with its bad guys. They are not who you might think they would be. And I find that really clever as well. I think it doesn't overplay it. They're still very bad, but they're working from a place of desperation, maybe.

1:17:49Chris Hewitt:More understandable than you might. James would love them. They're still demented. Let me be very clear. Demented? Completely demented. Hello, James. Welcome back to the podcast. Hi. But it's just a bit more interesting than the usual, you know, sneering bad guy twirling their moustache. I thought it was cool. And Judy Greer is obviously fantastic and an interesting person to put Emma Thompson against just rather than just having her face a great big hulking man or something, you know? Yes. I just, I really, really enjoyed this. and I think it has a lot of heart to it. I think Barb is a really interesting character.

1:18:22She's not Marge Gunderson, if we're honest, a little bit, you know, 40 years later or something.

1:18:28Chris Hewitt:Right, yeah. But I loved that about her. I thought that was a kind of an interesting kind of archetype if it's that. I just like how inventive she was and how resourceful she was and the film very nicely parcels out her backstory as well and just gives you a little bit more every 10, 15 minutes or so. Yeah, yeah. and she does genuinely get you know character development during this film and it's pretty thoughtful by the way it goes about things so I had a really nice time loved it yeah I agree Helen I thought it was a very very nicely paced thriller it unfolds neatly as it goes some interesting developments that I didn't entirely see coming and Emma Thompson just is brilliant kicks ass give her an EGOT you cowards for this film alone give her an Emmy give her a Grammy give her an Oscar and give her a Tony and I give this four stars fair four stars yeah shall we yeah let's do it let's do it let's go rogue I don't know what the official Empire review is but we're going to give this four stars four stars then for Dead of Winter Alex hang on a second wait a second what what's happening Alex Godfrey is here materialized he has materialized what happened was I must, when I put the microphone up like that, you see, I turned this microphone on, the flashing light attracted Alex Godfrey.

1:19:53Chris Hewitt:And now he is here. Hello, welcome. Flashing lights doesn't take much. The flashing knobs. What? The flashing knobs from Hello, Hello. Oh. Listen very carefully. I would say this only once. Please talk about one battle after another. I remember that. I get that reference. Is that why I'm here? That's why you're here, yes. You're here to talk about Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. I mean, to be clear, some of us have also seen it. Yes, I haven't. We wanted you involved. Because you wrote the Empire Review, right? Yeah. And you gave it five stars and you love this movie. You'd like to kiss it.

1:20:29Chris Hewitt:PTA would be really pissed off if I kissed that saleloid. That would be a PTA. Yeah, there we go. PTA, PTA. It would be a PTA. Yeah. We need to make a PTA, PTA, PSA to make sure. Anyway, Alex, talk about One Battle After Another, please. One Battle After Another is Paul Thomas Anderson's action, epic, family... Sci-fi. Crime drama. It's not sci-fi. It's not sci-fi. It's not sci-fi. He's been working on this for years. It says in the opening credits that it's, I think, loosely, or certainly inspired by Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. I haven't read Vineland. Vineland? Vineland? Vineland, Vineland, Vineland, Vineland.

1:21:09but from what I gather he's a big Pynchon fan he adapted Inherent Vice from Pynchon but from what I gather there are bits of Vineland in this film that he has taken and used as inspiration and basically concocted his own as I wrote in my review this is for me this is like Paul Thomas Anson taking on the great American novel it's a sprawling ensemble epic that takes in a band of freedom fighters one of whom is Leonardo DiCaprio's character Pat and his comrades who are basically fighting the good fight to some extent, blowing shit up but taking aim at the powers that be it starts off at an immigration centre and they're going in there and they're wreaking havoc and they're having a go at the authoritarians and they are making a right scene of things and for the first half hour of the film it's this band of revolutionaries doing what they think needs to be done.

1:22:09And then, I really don't want to get into any spoilers, but let's just say it doesn't end up all going according to plan for this group, and then it jumps 16 years ahead to the future, or maybe the present. It's not really clear. It's not massively clear. It's not really clear when any of it is set, and both time periods look and feel exactly the same. It doesn't really matter. It's just like, suddenly now, Leonardo DiCaprio is older, and he has a kid and they're basically fugitives in hiding because they were part of this very, very wanted fugitive group and on their tail is Sean Penn's Colonel Stephen Lockjaw who is basically the motherfucker of all motherfuckers and he absolutely will not stop until he's got what he wants.

1:22:54I don't want to go into any more plot because it's a very twisty, twisty, turny plot. What is incredible about this film I think is that it's obscenely plot driven. it does not stop moving James you are looking at me with such disgust I don't even want to hear I don't even want to I can hear your thoughts in your eyes and I don't want you to talk I don't want you to talk I'm here to do this honestly you're looking at me as if I've just done

1:23:20Chris Hewitt:something awful to you this is my dream this is my dream that someone comes into the podcast and just looks at James and goes shut up I don't want to hear you talk I don't want you to even breathe also I can hear your thoughts in my eyes It's just one of your best sentences ever. Well, no, he's squishing at me with such coldness. And I haven't even offered an opinion of the film yet. I just laid out for a couple of minutes what happens in it. And you're looking at me like I'm a piece of shit. And I don't want to know. Okay, carry on. Thank you. I will. So anyway, my point was this plot doesn't stop.

1:23:54It's very propulsive. Every two minutes something is happening. It just doesn't stop. But the whole time it's about character. It's character-driven as much as it's plot-driven. It's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant drama. And PTA is really getting into some quite hairy politics here. There's immigration, there's white supremacy, there's racism, white supremacy, there's revolution, there's freedom fighting. Feminism. Feminism. And what's interesting is that he has been asked about it in a couple of interviews, and he sort of batted it off because it feels so timely, this film. in terms of what's going on with immigration, in terms of what a hot topic that is, in terms of what's going on with ICE agents and what some of the authorities do in this film.

1:24:38But he has said, well, the whole point of the film is it always like that, and it always feels like a shit show out there. And, you know, he's adapted it to some degree from Vineland, which was, you know, inspired by, is it the Weather Underground and the Freedom Fighter movements in the 1960s? So he's sort of deflecting that a bit. But there is no way, and he has been working on it for 20 years, but there's no way you can watch this and not think of what is going on in the world at the moment. But with that in mind, it never really feels like an on-the-nose political statement. It doesn't feel like he's on a soapbox.

1:25:10And that is part of the fabric of the film in terms of the plot. But it's really this brilliant, brilliant family drama about DiCaprio's character trying to protect his kid. And it's about their relationship. And so it works on so many levels. I could go on about how amazing this cast is. DiCaprio is it's a really funny panicked he's a he's an absolute weed junkie so he's got this sort of paranoid panic going on the whole time but he's really sincere in it and he's really sweet in it and the way he looks at his kid and you know his sort of uncompromising mission to protect her I found really moving Benicio Dottori is hilarious in it he's great as this sensei who's well I don't want to say what he does but he's got his own mission going on Sean Penn is an absolute shitbag in it on every level.

1:26:00He's a rancid, repellent human being. And the women of this film, Teyana Taylor, who I hadn't seen before on screen, but she's, as I wrote in the review, she's like a Molotov cocktail in human form, and she really is. She is ferocious. I mean, force of nature is a phrase that's overused in film review language, but she really fucking is. And Chase Infinity, who plays DeCaption's daughter. What a name. Yes. and I spoke about this on our WhatsApp chat recently. Chase Infinity was genuinely named after Nicole Kidman's character in, is it Batman Forever or Batman? Oh yeah. Chase Meridian. Dr. Chase Meridian.

1:26:37Her first name is named after Chase Meridian and Infinity is named after Buzz Lightyear to Infinity and beyond. No joke. That is why she is called Chase Infinity. So top marks to those parents. But she has been in one screen thing before, Presumed Innocent, the recent Apple TV Plus TV series. Which is great. Oh, thanks, James. But she is incredible in this film. This is her first movie, and she is as good as anyone else in this film. She's going to be big, kids. Watch this space.

1:27:07Chris Hewitt:I should probably shut up, but that's... No, no, no. No, this is good. This film has been... There were rumors about it, that Paul Thomas Anderson was butting heads with people at Warner Brothers about his cut and about it being slightly uncommercial in a way. Because it costs a lot of money. Because it costs a lot of money. And then the movie has come out, and I don't know how it's going to do at the box office this weekend. Hopefully it'll do okay. But critics are raving about it. Not just us. You've gone five stars. There are people who are saying it's the best American movie of the decade.

1:27:41Chris Hewitt:It's the best American movie in years. It may well now be a big old frontrunner at the Oscars. obviously never bet against Paul Thomas Anderson is a lesson to take away from this. But that's a lot of hype. It's an interesting proposition because you say... I don't know if I'd call it mainstream. What I would say is it's extremely entertaining and completely accessible. There's nothing impenetrable about it. And to be honest, I found Inherent Vice a little impenetrable. Inherent Vice was. I think this is much more accessible than that. It's really fun. It's not even close. No, it's really fun. But there's still something, you know, it's still kind of weighty and it's grappling with things in a really interesting way.

1:28:27It doesn't feel like, it's not as mainstream as a lot of the multiplex fodder out there, but it's completely accessible and entertaining. I can't, okay, here we go. I was going to say, and I've said this before, I can't imagine anyone not liking this film. I should qualify this for saying I really do like this film. Like, I don't not like it at all. I think why I looked at you as skunts, if it can be said, is when you said it's very plotty, and I was like, is it? But I get what you're saying. It's propulsive. Like, I guess it is driven by plot. I just don't think it's particularly plotty. I think it's much more parental-led.

1:28:59I think it's, I don't feel like there's a lot of, you're saying twists and turns, and that's probably just not the wording I'd use. No, but shit is constantly going down. Shit is constantly happening, but not in a sort of plotty way in the sense of, I don't know I just feel like that's associated to me with like lots of people having different plans that they go through different steps and explaining lots of things that are happening and nobody explains shit in this film but it's all very clear because it's all very obvious what they're all doing but it just keeps coming and coming It has almost like a Fury Road-y quality to me where it's incredibly propulsive but not plotty And it is and you're right it's so quick moving that like it's nearly two or three hours long and it feels like one and a half like it is so fast In that way, it reminded me a bit of Goodfellas, which is like, if you put Goodfellas on, every scene, every sequence bleeds into the next, and you can't stop watching it.

1:29:53And I think this film has a bit of that big Goodfellas energy. So you mentioned Fury Road, was it? We should briefly, without spoilers, get into the car chases in this film, or certainly one of them. I don't even want to say what one or where it comes, but I did write about it. It's just on these desert roads with these rolling hills. And I've never seen a sequence like it. It is really thrilling. It is really spooky. It's quite scary. And the castle aren't even going that fast. No, but it's the way it's shot, isn't it? It's the way it's shot. And do you know what? It sort of reminded me in a weird way of the scenes of Danny Torrance on his trike in the Overlook Hotel, where he's just gliding through that lobby and he's going on and off the carpet.

1:30:34And you hear the sounds of just the carpet and the floor, the carpet and the floor. and this isn't exactly like that but you've got the hills going up and down and it's almost like that Overlook Hotel has just sort of been unfurled on top of these sort of desert landscapes. It's really, really weird and exciting and tense in a way that I haven't really seen before. Yeah, it's hypnotic, that is. It's quite a thing. And they are great, great performers. I did have a great time with it. My only sort of caveat is some of the people going best American film of the decade, you know, best one in years.

1:31:03I'm not there. No, neither am I. I thought it was great but I'm not there. I might be after I see it again. I don't know. I probably will see it again as well at some point pretty soon. But, like, performances-wise, story-wise, and just pacing and filmmaking-wise, this is fucking great. I should say, I've never read Pension myself, but Boydie, from the Pilot TV podcast, has indeed. And he says it has an absurdist, satirical humor to it, which definitely translates here. Because it's played for laughs. It is played for laughs, but I think Sean Penn really comes into his own. Because Sean Penn, I don't know the man personally, but certainly on screen, is excruciatingly humorless.

1:31:38And I actually think it works so well in this. It makes him fucking hilarious in this because he is so utterly devoid of humor. He's just incredibly funny. And he's so effective in that role. He can't control himself. No, it's... It's all on the surface. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful performance. In fact, so many of them are. In Chase Infinity, it's wonderful. Leonardo DiCaprio, always good. But I really liked the drive of that father-daughter relationship which kind of propels that story. It gives it a real heart. I mean you said in your review she is the heart their relationship is the heart of the film and it very much is and it's the emotional anchor I think that really draws you into it yeah

1:32:12Chris Hewitt:I'm excited I haven't seen it yet but I'm a huge fan of PTA the possible exception of Van Haren Weiss and I am so excited I'm so glad to hear that this is great according to Alex better than great according to people like David Ehrlich and very good according to Helen but I am very very good I'm excited and sci-fi apparently according to James as well, who does know how time works. So that is good. Maybe it works differently on Kamino. I don't know. Who the fotic knows, but five stars in, five stars for one battle after another. And Alex, do you have to go back upstairs now to fight one battle after another as well to get the next issue out?

1:32:53Chris Hewitt:I have to go upstairs to use the toilet. Well, that's one battle after another, isn't it? We probably didn't do that here. Bye, Alex. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for nothing. All right. Well, Alex is gone, and you'll hear him again very, very soon because he has spoken to Paul Thomas Anderson, and that is coming up in just a few minutes. But first, we will be talking about all of you, the Brett Goldstein, Image Impulse, romantic drama. Jimbo. Hello. Time works in interesting ways in this one. Yes. It is a sci-fi. I was about to say, much like PTA's film, this is also a sci-fi. Good Lord. And it's connected to a TV show, so it's a win-win for me so this is something that Brett Goldstein and William Bridges have been trying to make for what is it 10 years now?

1:33:41Chris Hewitt:About that maybe 12 They did a short film they've been trying to get it off the ground they've had some difficulty getting it off the ground and as a kind of segue to this as a kind of side project they ended up doing Soulmates which was a TV show that ran we reviewed it on the part of the TV podcast during the pandemic I think it was 2020 that it came out and it was essentially it's kind of an episodic series that dealt with the idea that scientists had developed a test whereby you could find your perfect soulmate and some people were single and found their soulmate some people were already in relationships and then were told that person wasn't their soulmate it was someone else and it was like are they happy where they are does true love exist does a soulmate solve your problems you know so it kind of explored that area with lots of different relationships and lots of different couples got cancelled after one season but it was actually quite good but this is a much more focused telling imagine one of those episodes sort of spun out over a feature film and that's kind of what this is I am absolutely obsessed with this film I can't even begin to tell you and one of the reasons for that I think is the central sci-fi premise that this test finds your soul mate on the one hand it's kind of the inciting incident and it is the spine of the story but on the other hand if you took that out of this film it would make no difference to this film whatsoever I believe because ultimately it's about people and about relationships and how messy they can be and I think the scientific aspect is an interesting wrinkle but I don't think it makes up the whole film So this film is essentially about two characters.

1:35:04It's Brett Goldstein, who plays Simon, and Imogen Poots, who plays Laura. Now, they met at university, and they are best friends. And at the beginning of the film, Simon is taking Laura to the place where you get the test so she can potentially find her soulmate. Because she's single, he's single. At that point, we're not sure. Is there like some frisson between them, or are they just friends? We don't really know. She takes the test, and the test delivers her a guy called Lucas, who is apparently her soulmate, and then she begins to date him. now Simon has feelings for Laura it starts to become apparent that Laura has feelings for Simon but she already has her scientifically approved soulmate so then it becomes well then what is he to her and are the feelings that they're both having real if they are not each other's soulmates and it's exploring I guess that kind of love and the messiness of relationships and how you can love people in different ways but the way this story is told it's a really weird almost staccato rhythm to it where you'll get these very unsignposted time jumps where you've no idea how much time has passed.

1:36:03I mean, you can, I guess, judge by the thickness of Brett's beard a lot of the time that time has gone past. But, you know, it hops about, and she's got children. Time has obviously moved on. He's in a relationship. She's in a relationship. And it's how these two people stay in each other's orbit. And ultimately, whether or not they do or can pursue a relationship with each other, the ethics and the emotional sort of tentacles that go between these sort of relationships that they have and what shape it is. I'm being wildly incoherent about this. I'm very aware of it. But I think it's interesting to me because I think what this film has at its heart is two incredibly raw performances.

1:36:43I think Goldstein and Poots are both fantastic. I was in tears watching this film. Really, really loved it. And for me, it had a verisimilitude to it that I think you just don't see in romantic dramas. You really don't. Like it didn't have that very sort of fiction-based structure to me. It felt organic. It felt real. And if you told me that I am just watching people's lives, I would have believed you. And the dialogue had an almost sort of like before sunsetty Linklater-y vibe to it. I know it isn't because you've told me, but I wouldn't have been surprised if a lot of the dialogue was improvised because it feels so naturalistic and it feels so real.

1:37:17And they're behaving in ways that real people do, not the way characters in stories do. and I think that gave me a real connection to it. I think you add that to the emotional honesty of this and the emotional intelligence of this story and how messy and just all over the place it is and I just thought it was I thought it was wonderful. Absolutely loved it. I'm a bit more down on it. Of course you are. A little bit. You've got no soul, Helen. That's not my problem. I really, really like the romance of it and the sort of the, you know, I mean, to me, he was clearly in love with it from step one.

1:37:48Like, it's not a question even in those early scenes as far as I'm concerned. I do have I do have questions about how this soulmate thing works like they can only match you with somebody who's also signed up to the service right well this is explored quite a lot in the series there's some people like when they go on and say who is my soulmate your soulmate has not been tested yet I know so yeah there's a whole that's a whole thing to it they don't explore any of that they don't explore any of that and that kind of threw me because I didn't think that made a lot of sense but anyway like even just taking it on its own terms I feel like it's one of those rom-coms where the male character is a lot more developed than the woman, actually, and I didn't think that her desires, maybe is the wrong word, but where it's explored and it's developed and it's sympathetic, quite frankly, as his are.

1:38:42Yeah, that's an interesting thread. Me and Chris were talking about this over lunch. This is a conversation for a spoiler special, but there's a real conversation to be had here about her mindset and why she makes certain decisions and whether certain decisions are selfish or selfless and I think there's arguments made on both sides I would disagree on most of those I suspect but I just think that it did feel a little bit two dimensional in comparison to him because I think he's a great great character in this so yeah I didn't think she challenged him on a lot of his bullshit which I think she probably should have and I don't think that made for a healthy dynamic between them.

1:39:21Interesting, I didn't think he challenged her on her bullshit. And I thought there was an element of that from both of them because I felt a little bit like there were certain things they were just, as is so often the case in relationships, they didn't want to give voice to, they didn't want to confirm. No, that I get, but again, it's maybe a spoiler conversation. I understand that some of it was very deliberate, but also some of it I thought was just not knowing really who she was. So that was my big issue with it. I feel like if you're writing a two-hander, it has to be a true two-hander, and it wasn't quite there for me.

1:39:51I don't know what the official Empire rating for this is because I've just messaged John and he hasn't got back to me yet, but I would give this a resounding four stars. A resounding four stars.

1:39:59Chris Hewitt:I'm also in the four-star camp. John has given it three stars. Three stars. Because he is wrong. I'm in John's camp. He is a correct person. Helen is a heartless monster. I'm sorry, when did you decide that I'm not into romance? But wait a second, but you're each other's soulmates. Oh my God. Pretty sure not. It's fine. Massive development. Huge twist. Who saw that coming? Anyway, three stars in, sadly, for all of you. And we're going to wrap up the podcast now with Paul Thomas Anderson, the aforementioned Paul Thomas Anderson, speaking to the aforeheard Alex Godfrey. And here's their interview, talking about one battle after another.

1:40:44Chris Hewitt:enjoy. I wanted to ask you to some extent, or to a big extent, this is a big, sprawling, sweeping, epic action, crime drama, but the whole, now I don't know you personally, but I've seen all your films over the years and, you know, I've interviewed you a few times and read a lot. And there's just something about this all the way through where I felt there was so much of you in personally it felt to me now you've done you know personal work before and I know to some extent all films are personal on some level but there was just something that hit me as I was watching this film in terms of the thematics and the interpersonal relationships and the fatherhood aspects of it and the family and and some of the politics I just felt that you are in the fabric of this whole film more than I've felt before.

1:41:33To what extent is that true? Well, I hope it's, I think it feels true to me. But to your point, you know, you never, you always, you're always putting yourself out there and into it. But, God, how do I get the words right? I am still a little cobwebby because I want to, I mean I feel deeply about this movie I feel deeply about I feel deeply when I look at Chase playing Willa and I feel my heart kind of pounding my chest for her and I suppose that is a connection to being a father and what that means um I don't know I let's just leave I take it is a great compliment I hope because you're always putting yourself in but sometimes you sometimes maybe what you're saying is you just you touch you reach through and you touch it every frame and hopefully that that's what you're always struggling for and maybe sometimes you miss that or you're just shy or just to the left or just to the right but if I will take your your comment as a great compliment so it wasn't something you were more conscious about this no No, not at all.

1:42:53You're always trying to pour your heart into what you do. It's, I mean, you've done, it's on record. You've spoken about it in the past. Magnolia, obviously, the stuff with the father was very much influenced by what you'd be going for. That's right, yeah. And I spoke to you for Empire for Licorice Pizza, and you had told me that I think all of your kids are in that film. Yeah. and it just feels like I just make me wonder I'm a father myself and it just makes me wonder as you get older and your life and your work intertwine more instinctively maybe this is something that just happens more naturally as your life experiences increase and pile up and your work gets inspired by who you are that is how it should go I think you know I mean, I, look, I remember when I wrote Boogie Nights, which is sort of the first thing I really wrote, it was only after like writing things that I knew nothing about, just practicing writing and writing scripts as a kid.

1:44:08And you'd write, you know, science fiction movies or things like, you know, whatever it was, you were just kind of copying other things. And when I wrote Boogie Nights, I was like, well, I actually know a little bit about this. This is where I'm from, you know, and you kind of clue into that.

1:44:28And I don't know. I've always tried to write something of my life from my experiences. I think there's a lot in Boogie Nights because... Tons, yeah. Not just because of what you'd seen on, you know, of that industry going on in your hometown, But obviously the family and father figures are a big part of that film. But I was thinking about it even the other day. When I saw your video and your company know about VistaVision even, and you wrote it down. What did you say? Seeing film on film is the way nature intended. That's a big line in Boogie Nights. You know, there's, you know, Jack Horner is, you know, he's defiant against the blossoming of the video era.

1:45:08He wants to preserve film. And that's basically you. I know. It's quite sad. I've become Jack Horner. You know, I have really, that's not lost on me, honestly. It's kind of hilarious. And, you know, at that time, who would have thought, I mean, no one would have thought, I mean, that was that whole premise in Boogie Night that, you know, we're going to stick to making these things on film and we're not going to kind of switch over to video. Yeah. Was kind of hilarious and ridiculous and, but, but true to, to that time and the kind of invention of the camcorder and all that kind of stuff. And then we never, for a million years, would have turned around and thought, oh, these big legitimate movies are going to be faced with the same exact thing.

1:45:54Ah, funny, isn't it? I'd love that you've become Jack Horner in your own words, though. Who would have thought? So Boogie Nights was, what, over 25 years now, my God. It was 1997. Okay. You've said you've started coming out with ideas for One Battle about 20 years ago as well, to some extent. Yeah. This might be me being a corny journalist, but for me, this film is really about how we change over time and how the person we become changes how we feel about the world, how we feel ethically, morally, politically, how we relate to people around us, and how what we do or how what we think we do or what we want the world to think we do changes because of life and how that's affected by what happens to us.

1:46:54And it's interesting to think about the fact that you came up with some ideas for this or an idea for it 20 years ago, and you are very much a different person to who you were 20 years ago. Sure. I'm interested to talk about that and how that has influenced the evolution of this film. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an easy thing to see now and thank God I didn't see that as it was happening, you know, that you have to be blind within that process because I was really looking at like, if you look at some of the things that we based the film on, In other words, radical groups of the 60s, sort of movements like that, weather underground.

1:47:32People who were kids and making really big decisions with their lives to protest the war in Vietnam, protest government, et cetera, et cetera. Here they are, 18, 19 years old, making massive decisions about their future, trying to change the world, going about it in a very misguided way, ultimately. You know, the violence, they never really blew much up but themselves, quite honestly. And then the kind of entire movement shifted and changed. And here you are, you make these decisions as a teenager, really. But now you're faced with it the rest of your life. You know, you're trying to kind of outrun these choices that you've made and trying to kind of adapt and move and live in the real world.

1:48:23that even by the time they were 25, they sort of didn't feel the same, the way they did when they were 19 and they were trying to change the world. So those kinds of things you're looking at as a kind of touchstone to tell the story. But to your point, of course, I'm bringing all that into it as well, you know, far less consciously than I would be. You know, I'm just trying to tell a story. Yeah. But yeah, of course, it's impossible to, it's impossible to escape. isn't it? You know, and yeah, to your point, Leo's character starts out wanting to change the world. And when we find him 16 years later, he just wants to be left alone.

1:49:03Yeah. He wants nothing to do with it. It's funny because where we were shooting up in Eureka, there's a common character and they call them hipnecks. A hipneck is half hippie, half redneck, right? I can call them rednecks. I'm a redneck myself. Don't worry. But the idea is that these hippies and these rednecks who presumably share very little are actually share quite a lot, right? That their essential premise for living is leave me alone. I don't want anything to do with the world. Okay. That's kind of a tragic result, really. you know just of idealism just disintegrating slightly as we get tired i suppose so well middle age approaches you know yeah it's just it's a battle just to get up out of bed or off the couch right especially if you're jell-a-jell exactly no so you know you're like yeah you go from saving the world to just getting you know just getting to a cup of coffee in the morning is a success.

1:50:15We talked about Boogie Nights a bit before. Leo has talked in some of the press he's already done for this film about, you know, we know that he was up for Dirk Diggler and didn't do it. I, which would have been amazing, but I love Boogie Nights. And personally, I cannot imagine, you know, once something's done, it's done right. I can't imagine anyone else having done what Mark Wahlberg did in that film. No, we got the right man for the job. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, was there a point for you, though, where you thought it might be Leo? Was that what the deal was? Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it was. I mean, we talked about it for a long time.

1:50:57OK, so we were actively getting to know each other and talking about it and thinking about it. But it didn't go on forever. It didn't really go on for very long. you know what's funny within this story what Leo needs to get more credit for is that Leo so graciously decided not to do it but pointed me towards Mark because Basketball Diaries had not come out yet and he said and Mark was really just Marky Mark the underwear guy you know and not to be taken seriously and Leo said this guy is an amazing actor and you should really meet him. So he, Mark is the reason, you know, Leo is the reason that Mark's in the movie.

1:51:41He introduced me to him. I did not know that. Yeah. And that's the part of the story that's kind of missing that I think is critical at what Leo didn't just sort of say, you know, no, thank you. And I'm going to go do the Titanic. And he said, he was very generous in terms of helping me find somebody that was right for the part. It's very shrewd of him as well to suggest Mark Warburg, because I guess he wasn't on people's radar in that way. No, he wasn't. And he had two films under his belt and neither one of them had come out yet. Fear, which he was terrific in with a Jamie Foley movie. And Basketball Diaries.

1:52:14So had you stayed in touch with Leo over the years after that? Yeah. Okay. So have you been talking to him about this or on and off? No, we talked about other things. Okay. Or just a kind of friendship, mutual people in common. um we first started talking about this seriously a i don't know maybe after phantom thread times okay six or seven years ago i was reading um he was talking about a bit of gonzo work you did in this film i don't know if it was just the one scene he talked about the supermarket scene in which you just i guess you just went in there with a camera or two right Yeah, I mean, did he say, you know.

1:53:00He might not have said Gonzo. It's not that wild. I think that we, you know, we tried to create situations where we didn't have complete control. Yeah. You know, so of course you can't casually. Sometimes we did have situations where we would just kind of walk into a restaurant and start shooting a scene. Some of them didn't make it because maybe it wasn't important what they were saying or visually we needed it. And maybe we're in a small town. So we were able to do stuff like that. And that was fun. The supermarket scene was one where we had two cameras and they were on long lenses and they could kind of slightly be out of the way.

1:53:43but it's a very very very busy supermarket um just outside of sacramento and quite honestly you make a little bit of noise for about 15 minutes when you get in there but if you stay there long enough it just turns into a working supermarket and everybody kind of gets they just kind of go about their business but for the first first hour or so there was a lot of people taking pictures of him. But that kind of shakes off. And what you end up getting is a kind of environment and a sound, you know, things that light moves around in a certain way that you can't anticipate, you know, because people are coming in and out and lights reflecting off things.

1:54:28And so there's just an activity and a life to the scene that would be very, very hard to recreate. But it's rocky at first because he's such a big star and he's so recognizable that people do kind of get busy around him. And then it all just sort of fades away. You know, it just sort of fades into the fabric of a daily life in the supermarket. But it's great with a film of this level, you know, with a big budget and, you know, the most A-list of A-listers that you are still able to go and grab something like that. It's important to keep that kind of, you know, it's very important that, you know, it doesn't matter how big your budget is you still have to attack the film for what is right for those scenes and that was what was right for those scenes you know yeah i mean i look at whatever the budget is for the movie i look around it's still the same 15 people around the camera that i've had whether it's a big budget or a small budget it is not it's not different yeah at all yeah it feels exactly the same you've said that when you did come up with ideas 20 years ago, I think maybe the germ of it was you wanted to make a car chase movie.

1:55:34Yeah. Has what you've ended up with, does that relate to what you had in your mind 20 years ago, or has it changed? It changed. There's still a way that that movie could kind of reemerge, that there's some pieces of it that are still unique. I have so much material that there could still be, that could be a whole other film, quite honestly. you have to think of it like this you have to think of it like if you I think didn't Jack Kerouac write on one long string of paper possibly I think so I think you have to think of it like that it's kind of just there's kind of no beginning middle and an end there just has to be some point when you feel confidence of more good material than bad material I have to credit Adam Sumner, who I worked with for 20 years, as a person who really kind of pushed to say, you have to put your pencils down.

1:56:35And now it's time. I think it's really time for us to make this film. And it's had been floating around for so long. And everybody that I work with knew of it. And we had been talking about it for so long that it was just like, it was at a place where it was ready to go. well I'm glad you did it yeah me too it's incredible congrats on making a film that you've been wanting to make for so long and doing such an incredible job I loved it yeah thank you very much thank you thank you very much

1:57:05Chris Hewitt:alright that was Paul Thomas Anderson talking about One Battle After Another with Alex Godfrey and speaking of One Battle After Another that is it for this week's Empire Podcast join us next week for more film related fun we will have yet another battle with movies and we'll be joined by another incredible cornucopia of guests including Harris Dickinson who'll be talking about his directorial debut Urchin Benny Safdie who'll be talking about his new movie The Smashing Machine Gromit and Malcolm McDowell who'll be the legendary Malcolm McDowell returning to the podcast to talk about The Partisan his new movie and there'll also be a couple of interview specials up next week which may or may not tell you that I overbooked wildly for next week's episode but keep them peeled there could be some interesting interview specials coming your way folks and more supported specials coming up Alien Earth with Noah Hawley Fantastic Four First Steps with Matt Shachman now that film is out on digital and as we move into October there's going to be loads of other great stuff coming your way as well my word your cup overfloweth and then some but enough of my long walk strategy it is time to end this podcast until we meet again until then until that suspicious occasion it is time to say goodbye to my two colleagues of such lethal kind but first goodbye to Adam goodbye thank you for having me thanks Adam that microphone technique is perfect he sees a light he runs towards the light he says something very brief it's not controversial it's positively Pavlovian yeah doesn't I don't want to annoy Ofcom so I'm just keeping it safe.

1:58:51Chris Hewitt:Doesn't swear, doesn't sing, doesn't do anything and then the light goes off and he sits back down again. Beautiful stuff. Thanks, Adam. Hope you've enjoyed. It is goodbye from Camino Boy himself, James Dyer. Go and see all of you. It's fabulous. Don't listen to Helen. I said three stars which is a recommendation. She has a heart of stone. I think James' soulmate might be all of you. Yeah. I don't think that's the case. All of you. Aww. oh you guys I hope you'll be happy together oh no oh no it's goodbye from hell in a hour toodaloo toodaloo and it's goodbye from me take your shirt off Glenn Powell thanks for listening see you next time bye bye