The Interviews (ft. Bob Odenkirk and Aline Brosh McKenna)

13:55Chris Hewitt:And did you bond over that?

13:58Bob Odenkirk:Sure. I mean, we bonded over Ben constantly making jokes. You know what I mean? He's always making wisecracks. And also just his confidence. He's very deadpan. Yes, he's very deadpan. Yeah. for me um the action uh the the horror aspect was new um there are deaths in this film normal that i perceive as being straight out of a horror film yeah and i don't know i guess i don't want to spoil it for people but the old lady um i'll just say the old lady just say the um yeah very few people walk away from this movie unscathed uh yeah i don't really know that stuff i don't i don't watch it and so that's uh ben wheatley has it intrigued you though bob are you thinking it does intrigue let's watch that stuff now look my daughter aaron who's 25 now she just loves those movies and she's loved them since she was like 10 i don't i don't know what the attraction is i i did see weapons okay so what do you think i thought it was good um i didn't like that in the end it was just a a lady who was doing um yeah witchy spells yeah yeah that was not a uh i thought it was going to be a metaphor for school shootings and like mass hysteria.

15:37Bob Odenkirk:Yeah. And it was just about a witch. It goes in a different direction at the end. Absolutely. It ditches any thematic bigness or resonance and says, no, no, it's just an old lady who thinks she's a witch or is a witch.

15:56Chris Hewitt:Is a witch. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. So that hasn't enticed you to watch more.

16:01Bob Odenkirk:That was kind of, that was like a bummer.

16:04Chris Hewitt:Okay. All right. Well, maybe you'll dive back into horror another time. I'm sure Ben's put together a list, or he could put together a list of films for you. Of movies that I should see?

16:13Bob Odenkirk:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like the movie Repulsion. Okay, that's a cracker. By Blansky. Yeah. I can't really name too many other horror films that I've even seen. So what were the movies that lit your fire growing up? Were they comedy films? American Graffiti was a film that was the first movie that I saw that really got me and made me see what a movie can be. And Chinatown is my favorite film. Lehane, Annie Hall, Zelig, Hoosiers. There's, is there a cohesive quality to those films that I love so much? They're about, I mean, I also love Jackie Chan Police Story.

17:04Chris Hewitt:Yeah, I can see that.

17:05Bob Odenkirk:And I love Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. I can see that. Look, look, I'm not a citophile in a way that I'm delighted by just excellent storytelling in the film world, I think. I think if you don't sit with the characters and I get to know people and feel affection for them, I don't really care how adept you are at the formulas of filmmaking. Now, look, you might think I'm saying that I'm not the biggest Kubrick fan in the world. and if you're thinking that well you're a real jerk who's right

17:59Chris Hewitt:i would never make that accusation bob so you're not i mean if i'm trying to characterize what i love in film yeah and i recognize how unbelievably proficient he is

18:17Bob Odenkirk:and how mechanically pristine he is, I have to say, you know, and yet somehow I would rather watch Hoosiers. What is it I'm liking? What is it that I'm wanting? You know what I mean?

18:39Chris Hewitt:You want connection. You want an emotional connection. Yeah. Which is really interesting because you come from, you know, this sketch comedy background and sketch comedy is just get in, get out.

18:49Bob Odenkirk:Okay, but hold on a second. One of my favorite things about Mr. Show, we didn't do it every sketch and we didn't even do it every episode, but we got the audience to feel sorry for characters quite a bit. We got that, oh, react, out loud reaction probably three or four times in four seasons. And that's a big deal. And you don't hear that on Saturday Night Live. That's a real big deal. You don't even, probably Monty Python does that a few times.

19:21Chris Hewitt:Yeah.

19:21Bob Odenkirk:Where you just feel bad for that person. You're genuinely sad for how dumb that character is and how much they're going to be abused by the world.

19:36Chris Hewitt:I'll tell you what, the character you played on I Think You Should Leave achieved that. Yes, I hope so. There's a real pathos to that guy. Yes, real pathos, yeah. Yeah, which I loved. While we're talking about sketch comedy My favorite Mr. Show sketch Is the audition Sure Sketch Yeah that's a very good one That's one of the all timers As far as I'm concerned It's clean and sharp Yeah Such a beautiful concept Yeah thank you What are your memories of Oh well Dino Samatopoulos

20:02Bob Odenkirk:Wrote that sketch One of the great sketch writers And a joy to do A lot of A hard thing to do Because David had to do that sketch Verbatim as written No of Messing around because he does repeat himself exactly each time. A very high level of writing and performing on his part. Fun for me, just simply fun. And I love the sketch. For film buffs, we didn't riff on films as much as we did on the Ben Stiller show.

20:37Chris Hewitt:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

20:38Bob Odenkirk:Because Ben is so film obsessed. And I worked on the Woody Allen Husbands and Wives, or Woody Allen's Frankenstein which is Husbands and Wives

20:50Chris Hewitt:I haven't seen that one I've got to check it out oh it's good yeah

20:55Bob Odenkirk:there's a lot of parody films on the Stiller show but I think the best one is Woody Allen's Frankenstein

21:03Chris Hewitt:oh amazing yeah Bob Odenkirk it's been an absolute pleasure I'm glad to go but thanks so much for your time oh thanks for having me thank you okay that was Bob Odenkirk and Normal is in cinemas right now folks. It is a cracking time at the movie's really, really good action movie and we gave it four stars. Go check it out. And you've probably already checked out The Devil Wears Prada too. The long-awaited sequel to 2006's The Devil Wears Prada, which threw Anne Hathaway's idealistic young wannabe journalist into the world of high fashion magazine runway and pitted her against terrifying editor Meryl Streep.

21:37Chris Hewitt:Now the gang is back, back, back, including co-stars Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, director David Frankel and writer Aline Brosh McKenna. And it has been lapped up by audiences worldwide. So it is a perfect time to bring you this chat with McKenna, who popped onto Zoom recently to talk about the movie just before its release with our Helen O 'Hara. Enjoy. Welcome to the Empire Podcast, Aline Brosh McKenna. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. Congratulations on the film. Did you expect to be back here 20 years later? you know I didn't but it's it's uh you know one of the things about being a writer you don't have a regular workplace you kind of you go where the tide takes you and um didn't expect that we'd be back here but here we are I mean it seems to be just you know people still completely love this story and I think partly maybe that's because let's be honest stories about women at work are under catered to but I think also there is something about there's there's something very satisfying about seeing people do things well we talk a lot in the empire podcast about competence porn and miranda priestly is definitely that yeah absolutely so andy trying you know the book it was the book was a big hit it took a it took a while to figure out um how to you know transpose the the book to the screen initially and what's interesting is it isn't a it's it's if the book was written by somebody who really did work in that workplace and so it had a veracity that I think readers could feel that we wanted to capture in the movie.

23:10And same thing with this, we really are trying to capture with some authenticity, what it's like to work with in the media at this time, and how challenging that is. Really? I hadn't noticed. I was gonna say, I don't know if you know anything about that. But, you know, the whole world has become, I've always had to be an entrepreneur, I've always had to find new jobs. And, you know, sort of now all the workplaces have become Uber and DoorDash and, you know, work piecework and work for hire. And the idea of having a cozy sinecure somewhere where you can lose money and nobody bothers you, it just doesn't happen anymore.

23:52And everyone has to pay their way. But it's so in a world where advertising doesn't mean it isn't the same. There's, you know, eyeballs and clicks and likes and views and engagement and all these other metrics. People now say like, oh, what's on my algo? What's on your algo? It's just a fascinating, completely different way of looking at what it means to communicate in journalism. It's completely different. Yeah. So was that the way back in? I mean, when did you guys start talking about this? I mean, Dave and I have been friends since the first movie came out. And so we would talk frequently about, you know, how things were changing and how Hollywood was, you know, how our lives were changing.

24:35But then, you know, what would be happening to these characters? And, you know, I remember, I'm sure you remember getting on a plane with a stack of seven magazines, you know, and now I got on a plane with a tiny metal device, you know, and I'm, I'm reading my book on there. I'm reading, well, quote, unquote, magazines, I'm reading quote unquote newspaper. I'm doing my crossword puzzle there. And so we live in a completely different environment of non tangible things, where a brand really matters. But what is it? What is it? What is you know, and I grew up with my parents would save the Time magazines, and there were like big stacks of Time magazines in our den.

25:20And it's like, and now as she says in the movie, you know, entire publications get deleted, entire cultural institutions get deleted. I also grew up with a giant world book encyclopedia. And as a kid, you know, I would take down the world book and read like G and read the section on Gecko. I mean, that's ridiculous now, you know, and so just the idea of how information flows, power, fame, what's interesting, what a writer is, what a writer does. Those were all such interesting things to engage with. Yeah. And I guess it makes sense at this point that all that turbulence and all that change might throw Andy and Miranda back together again.

26:05Because I think David talks about this the other day, but it wouldn't have made sense if they were back together a year later or two years later, and you followed the usual sequel kind of rules. No, no. And, you know, we really weren't interested in it for a long time. And I think we felt like we had, as they say, dropped the mic on it. But once we started thinking about the world and then, you know, one of the things that's unusual was I started talking to David first and then we talked to Meryl and then we brought it to the studio. It wasn't ordered by the studio. So, you know, in terms of sequels seeming like, quote unquote, cash grabs, if so, we gave them, you know, we asked them, do you think there's cash to grab?

26:52We don't know. We just thought it was a good idea. one of the differences is that the first movie was made by Fox 2000, which was a division of 20th Century Fox. And Fox 2000 was known for doing literary adaptations. They did Life of Pi and other sort of like highbrow movies, like they did Walk the Line. And so we were made in sort of a female-based, somewhat literally oriented subsidiary of 20th Century Fox. And then that got bought by Disney. And then 20th became part of Disney. So we're making it for 20th for Disney. So it's gone from being a Fox 2000 movie to a Disney movie. And that's a completely different entity.

27:41And it's also reflective and indicative of how the world has changed. But the way we, the people who made the movie are virtually identical. We're just working for a different corporate entity because of course, because everyone is, you know, because you sort of look up and say like, okay, wait, everybody works at companies where it's like, oh, who owns us now? Oh, okay. So, it's really been reflected in our experience because we made it at a place that was a little bit more like an artisanal cheese place. And then now we're making it the same way. It's really still artisanal cheese. It's still really virtually the same folks, but we're making it for an entity that can take that and transfer it into Diet Coke and hairspray and stuff like that.

28:32or something. Yeah. I think Miranda herself would be very impressed with the marketing reach because she's had to pivot from being solely someone who thinks mostly about, you know, beauty and design and high-end concerns, fashion, obviously, to someone who's had to stay alive, has had to figure out all this monetization and online presence and all those word, without losing the sense of what she wants to do. And that's really what's in peril in this movie is, you know, Meryl, not Meryl, Miranda has managed to find a little place where she can still do what she wants to do in this digital age, but it's getting pulled away from her.

29:18And it's getting, it feels like it's getting smaller, even if the metrics online are still good, it's a very different world. Tell me then about Andy as well. Like she's obviously, made a name for herself. She's been working. She's been in journalism. She's been doing what she went off to do. But, you know, that comes crashing down. No spoilers in the first few scenes. Yes. Well, as we were saying, you know, sometimes it's not long. I mean, a lot of the stuff that I wrote that's in the movie was not happening when I wrote it, even though we made this very quickly. So, you know, the idea of like Washington Post firing so many people, that hadn't happened yet.

30:03A lot of the things that are in the movie that seem like they're pulled from the headlines, which you can't with the movie anyway, because the lead up time is so they happened while we were making the movie. There were so many things that happened while we were making the movie that were in the script that Meryl would like tease me about being a witch. but you know I think we can see the trends I just think we don't know what to do and there's a speech that um that um Benji you know the character Benji has sort of played by Justin Trudeau is such a I think brilliant performance that you have to kind of just let it come you have to let it you know you have to figure out where these new where this new world is taking you and it's scary.

30:46I really enjoyed that role. I was actually talking to someone who didn't realize it was Justin Theroux until after the movie. I think he was watching the credits and was like, oh. Yeah. Yeah. People have said that. No, he did it. He disappeared. And one interesting thing about our cast is that a lot of the folks are also showrunners or writer directors, BJ, Patrick Bramall, Justin, um caleb huron is a content creator so there's a lot of folks who have multiple jobs and but are also sort of writer creators and that's always really fun for me to work with people who do a similar job because they completely understand what i'm doing and and the exigencies of what i do and how i do it and that was really fun to have a lot of writer pals on set what about the sort of core four, if you like, you know, Nigel, Emily, Andy, and Miranda, did they come in with requests for you or big, strong feelings about these characters?

31:45Emily had, this is really embarrassing, but we didn't have a scene with all four of them. Oh. And she pointed that out when I first met with her, when we first met with her, and I felt very stupid. The scene that's in the conference room had three of them, but not four of them. And so we added, I think Nigel was not in that. um and i mean they're all filled with great ideas you know from tiny lines to big moments to um and and because we have a shorthand now where they feel like you know i'm not one of those please say everything exactly is scripted or i'm gonna cross my arms and stamp my feet and cry i want it to be a live experience um you're not sorkening at them i i did 62 episodes of a television show where, you know, my, my approach is shoot it once exactly as written if possible.

32:37And then, um, and pretty much we always did that. And then you can play around because you're also trying to convey information. If you throw out lines, um, without shooting them, you'll often go back and go, Oh wait, nobody said that that's that specific piece of information. And these actors are just very disciplined and very amazing at like getting what you need and then playing and they're just all people I really enjoy playing with like even a little thing like Stanley had the line where he said he bought her a Monet and then I just said to him do you want to say and Clint just because Klimt is just a funny word and any word any word that starts with K is funny and so and then so he just like doubles back and says and Klimt so just little things like that I enjoy I mean you compared I think it was you that compared the first film to Wall Street which which is something I have repeated many times since, because I thought that was exactly right.

33:31Did you have a sort of like comparison or a model in mind for this? Because it is kind of almost like two gunslingers coming, teaming up to take down. You know, Broadcast News is one of my favorite movies. And I don't know that I, I mean, I don't know that I thought about it specifically, except insofar as Broadcast News, Tootsie, Jerry Maguire, are sort of like the workplace comedies that I have come back to and watch multiple times broadcast news is also about an industry and an inflection point where the visual is is taking over from the informational and where handsome people are becoming more important than you know and that's a movie that um you know i could quote lots of that movie but the you know the the contrast between the the handsome guy um and albert brooks and that she is in the corner she is in the crosshairs of this inflection point i think that there's a connection there that makes sense i feel like that's one of the most influential movies ever made i feel like so many people i speak to cite that as an influence it's an incredible movie yeah it really is a tootsie for me is my number one in terms of like how well i know it and what i like about tootsie is that he is wrong right from the beginning um when you see him in the beginning and he's talking to the students.

34:56He's being sort of a pompous ass. And I know that this is not primarily how people think about it, but in the first Prada movie, she's wrong. She thinks she's better than it and everyone, and there's a little smugness to her. And that's, to me, there's the DNA of Tootsie, where he thinks he's above something, and then he realizes there are humans there. Very much so. So do you think you'll be back in another 20 years to explore the state of journalism? I mean, I don't know about 20 years. I don't know. It's funny because I was the youngest on the creative team, not on screen. On screen, the gals were younger.

35:38But I was sort of one of the younger people on the creative team the first time. And I still get to be the young person now, which is great. I never feel younger. yeah it was only your what was it third film or something at that point it was my third film yes and i can't say that the first two were international blockbusters um but i had gotten a good amount of experience but i um you know the magic for me was that david and i just have a shared vision you know he's we have some surface things not in common but otherwise a lot in common and the movies both movies were built in conversation with each other and we have different points of view different temperaments um but that's sort of the one of the luckiest work blind dates i've ever been on long mate to continue to be so i wanted to just finish up this yeah the interview at least uh by talking asking you just about you know people's reaction to maybe people who've seen it to this movie but also just the long tail of of the last one you You know, what's been surprising about the way that people have talked to you about it over the years?

36:44What theories or anything have people come up with or reactions that you didn't expect? Well, it's so rewatchable for people. And I don't know what that is because I have those movies for myself. But that's something that you can't quite, you know, I don't know. I'm not sure why that's a movie that people will watch all the way through if it pops back up. But I know I have mine that are like that. And, you know, sometimes they're the most unexpected things, but there's something familiar but surprising. I think it's a combination of familiar and surprising. But I get, you know, I'm happy about how many young women respond to this movie.

37:23Obviously, we have a lot of support from the gay community. And I trust their taste so much in so many areas. and um and then you know it's funny how many how many men want to come up to me and say well they'll sometimes tell me they like the movie but boy people really like to say oh my my wife my sister my my daughter blah blah blah and um love that movie and i just i always take it as them telling me they liked it too i think that's right um thank you so much for joining us and best of luck with the movie. Thank you.

37:59Chris Hewitt:Okay, that was Aline Brosh McKenna talking about The Devil Wears Prada 2 with Helen O 'Hara. And if you haven't seen that film, it's in cinemas everywhere at the moment. And if you want more from Aline, then the pair of them went on to talk spoilers for the film. And you can hear that chat in our The Devil Wears Prada 2 spoiler special, which will be up on Monday, May 18th, featuring me, Helen and Clarice Lockery as well, making her Empire Podcast debut. And if you don't already subscribe to our Sporter Specials, I can thoroughly recommend them. Check out empiresporterspecials.com for details on how to sign up.

38:41Chris Hewitt:It'll be well worth your while. And on that note, that is it for this week's episode of The Interviews. The main Empire Podcast is up featuring a lovely chat between John Nugent and Ian McKellen and plenty of film-related fun featuring me, Helen, James Dyer and Harry Stainer. So check that out wherever you cast your pods. Thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye bye.