We've Gone And Caught A Sniffle (ft. guests Nia DaCosta, Jeremy Strong, Rebecca Ferguson & Kathryn Bigelow)

30:43And I think her way of searching is quite destructive. It's great, yeah. I mean, she's obviously been called the female Hamlet. Weirdly, I've just come from an interview with Riz Ahmed about his Hamlet. But there is that shared element of just searching and being out of kilter with everyone around you is telling you this is the way to be and you're kind of going well no I don't know that it is actually but I'm not sure what the answer is and sort of trying to figure that out I guess. 100 % yeah yeah what is the answer to the you know and and interestingly Hamlet also has a father who's no longer here who's looms very large and so yeah there's there's that commonality between them but um It's also why I love Hamlet.

31:23It's one of my favorite plays. But yeah, she doesn't really know it, but she's a searcher. And I think what's fun about her is that she, like a lot of us do things without knowing why we do them. We speak without thinking about what we say, you know, we just naturally, it's the way our brains work. And I think it's something fun in that play and in the film, breaking that down. And also I wanted to ask about like, obviously the big change to Eileen. So you've gender-saulted a character, basically. You've got Nina Hoss in that incredible performance. And that, to me, felt like one of those changes where I'm like, oh, this works so much better.

31:58It's like when I've seen The Tempest with a sort of Prospera instead of Prospero. Yeah, yeah. It resonates so much more for me. But that seemed like a no-brainer. I don't know. Was that a difficult decision to come to, or was that quite early on for you? I'm going to support a little more water. That's all right. Sorry for my... No, no, don't be silly. Yeah, the decision to make Eilert Eileen was really organic, actually, and it was something that I don't even remember it being sort of a math decision in any way. It was just sort of a feeling, and I thought it was a what if, which is, I think, how I like to approach all of filmmaking, actually.

32:35like, what if we did this or this? And seeing where it goes. And it was a what if Eilert was a woman, and all of a sudden she became more legible, she became more believable in a way for me. I mean, I believe Eilert, you know, I understand his, I mean, because I think his thing is really his mental illness, like his depression, his addiction, which is really sad, But I also, I think for me, again, thematically, what I wanted to dig into more was service by an Eileen as opposed to an Eilert. And it really ended up just flowering into this amazingly complex and interesting dimensions, like more dimensions of these characters.

33:16And then I also was like, oh, now everyone's queer. And that was so interesting. And also, again, I really emphasize these three women. Because the other thing was I wanted it to be about three women as opposed to one woman surrounded by three men. And so it's about these three women. And now these are three queer women. And there are these three queer women trying to figure out how to be free. And they all choose different paths. And I thought it really strengthened that journey. And Nina having played Hedda herself, was it a bit of a moment for her to shed off that role and try something else in the play?

33:54I don't think so. I also think Nina had a great time just being Eilert, or Eileen, because a woman's ever played that part before. And also, it must be so interesting, being Hedda and this person is the object of your desire and ire and energy, and then you are in that role. It's quite interesting. but I think it was just fun for her to dig into another character in the play. Absolutely. Tessa talked about the fact that even when she didn't have to be on set right that second, when they were waiting for the next setup or whatever, that she tended to hang around the cast tent and keep herself almost on show to other people because that's how Hedda feels all the time.

34:37But that was a really interesting thing, even just among that small cast, always being on display and the focus of attention. Yeah. And also part of it was that, but also part of it was like all of our cast were always on set. Like if they were in the scene, even if the camera wasn't on them, even if we were doing a close up, they're there on set. They're miming in the background like an extra, you know, and the energy was so collegiate and it was like a company of actors touring, you know, like it was very sweet. And Hedda, yeah, was our leader. You know, Tessa was the leader. And also she embodied that so beautifully.

35:12yeah yeah how long did you guys have to shoot this there's a pretty oh um i want to say 35 days okay okay yeah it wasn't too bad but wasn't too long either no um yeah i think 35 35 days so you're pretty much in that one location yeah yeah there's one night where we went to the maze which is 20 minutes down the road okay yeah on location a couple weeks like three or so weeks of night shoots. Yeah, it was a good one. It was a good one. Yeah. I wanted to ask as well about just the look of the film and that location as well. It's very kind of sumptuous. It's this incredible place. I was reading interviews with you, I saw you kept some of the incredible decal-amp from the movie and Tessa's portrait as well.

35:55Yes. I said, I'll give it to you when you move to London. But it's in my dining room right now, um similar to where it is in the um in the movie but um yeah it's just amazing it's like cara brower my production designer stella fox our set decorator just two amazing brains and um stella was so funny she's just so good she's so specific and and cara's the way cara's brain works is so amazing and they really just populated the world with with with a reality that that just again emphasized all the themes that i was really interested in but also just made that house feel like Hedda's, feel like a real person's house.

36:33So of course, when we finished and they were doing a set deck sale, I said, I want that and that. There's got to be a perk to being a director. Exactly. I don't like a first dibs, you know what I mean? But I did not. But that's also, that's probably right. Right into your contract in future. First dibs, set deck sale, yeah. So did this feel like a sort of creative recharge? Because I know that the Marvel was an incredibly difficult film to make and sort of went through a lot of challenges, both before and after release but did this feel like you know it kind of fired you up again yeah i mean i mean the thing is that's so funny thing about making a marvel movie it's so dynamic and i had a great time on that film like yes there are challenges and you know and and and that were about the movie but also about the studio and about the industry at large and but at the end of the day like we put our heads on we're making a movie and a bunch of my crew from the marvel film are on hedda and are on 28 you know i've really inherited a lot of beautiful amazing people like I love those people who work at Marvel like Kevin I'm always harassing him and I was I visited the Avengers Endgame set actually on Endgame sorry the Avengers yeah yeah Doomsday thank you yeah Endgame set and it was just so fun to be there and see everyone again and just like nerd out the way I always went to Marvel Cinematic Universe stuff so you know it was but it's but it's a specific world and it's not my world and I don't have control in that world and the way that you do want to film that's you know you're written and produced and directed by you which which is what Hedda is um so it was it was absolutely like a recharge and a revisiting of myself and like kind of coming back to to myself as a filmmaker um and not worrying about anything besides the story I'm trying to tell and so it was really great but you met I mean you mentioned 28 there years later the bone temple I mean the the trailer for that looks amazing I'm so excited to see it.

38:22But again, it obviously hasn't put you off other worlds. You're very happy to visit other people's play pens. 100%. I think it's just a learning experience about the conditions in which I will take that kind of job. And for 28, my big pitch then was like, listen, I'm not going to make a Danny Boyle film, but that's what you want. And I'm like, cool, but that's not really interesting to me. And I don't think actually it's a good choice. If you want a Danny Boyle film, Danny Boyle needs to make it. Exactly. And I'm saying this to Danny Boyle. I'm like, listen, like, but here's what I see in this script.

38:53And here's what I think could be really great. And if you want to do that, great. But if not, like, I can't wait to see it. And thankfully, I can convince them that I should do it. And, and it's been great. It's been really great. And like, I love big franchise stuff. I love visiting people's worlds. But I also know now, like how I really need to have a voice in those, in those worlds. That's non-negotiable. And, and there are certain worlds where that's possible. So yeah. Fair enough. Has it left you with very different feelings about tracksuits and blonde hair? like no you know i would never wear a drag suit really so um so and and i dyed my hair blonde last year and it was wonderful for the time but it really destroyed my hair so that's a no-go for me on both of those fronts that's a no thank you yeah yeah um so do you know what's next have you have you figured out your next movie yet i mean i have two movies coming out in the next three months so that's sort of the what's next for now yeah yeah i'm just asking because like last time you were already.

39:46I know, I know. I mean, I kind of am, but I'm like, it's over there, it's not real yet. Fair enough. Nia DaCosta, thank you so much and everybody go see Hedda. Thank you. Okay, that was Helen talking to Nia DaCosta about Hedda and we'll be reviewing that film later on in the show. Right now, it's time to dig deep into the world of movie news. Should say, we're recording this for various reasons on Wednesday. Wednesday, the 22nd of October. Two days before this comes out. So if anything happens, and we know that Kevin Feige has this office slash studio bugged, so something will happen in the next two days.

40:24We'll have to, I don't know, reconvene somehow virtually to talk about that. So hopefully nothing big will happen in the interim. But right now, what has happened? Anyone got anything they want to talk about? I've got a weird one for you, and that is that Netflix have signed a deal, an exclusive deal for the rights to Settlers of Catan, or Catan as it is now. Now, this is the board game. I can only assume they went to the owners of the rights and offered them three woods and some sheep, and they gave them the rights to it. That's a good Catan joke for you there. Have you ever played, any of you played Settlers of Catan?

40:54No, I've played Ticket to Ride. You're just listing other board games at this point. No, but I'm trying to think of board games I've played. Monopoly? I collect, to an extent, some monopolies. I've got Monopoly and Monopoly, and I've got the Evil Dead 2 board game, of which I was actually a Kickstarter contributor. but I've never played. It's still Pride of Place unopened in my office at home, and I've got the Thing board game, which I also have not played. None of these, Jermaine to the question, though. No, I've never played Jermaine. No, you are a Catan. I have once played Catan. Oh, you have?

41:28Like a decade ago at uni. It was like the game that people vaguely interested in board games, like everybody has Catan, and you've got all the little hexagonal pieces, and you put them together, and you do your little roads, and you make your little houses, and you trade sheep for stone and stuff. nice or you can just be an absolute prick to people. No prizes for guessing how I play that game. What's it about? Essentially it's trading resources and building roads and building houses and stuff like that. It's settling. It's settling in Catan. Anyway, it is a big thing. Chris Catan? No. Kristen Bell talked about this quite a lot because she was obsessed with it at one point so she added a little bit of celebrity sheen to it but it is exactly as you say.

42:03It's kind of the board game that people who don't play board games play. It's appeared in a bunch of films and TV and stuff. It's huge. I think Community. didn't they play Catan and Community? Almost certainly. That kind of thing. So Netflix have bought the rights to make films, shows, and indeed reality shows, around the Catan IP. So who knows what they'll do with it. The noise that they made of like, we've got Catan! Yeah. And everyone's like, do you? Okay. I mean, that is exactly as good or bad as they decide to do with it. You know, they could make something kind of special and genius. The thing that sounds best to me out of those is the reality show.

42:44Everyone just plays Catan. It's just like life-size Catan sounds fun. A Catan movie, beyond the fact that it's got that IP name attached to it, that could be absolutely nothing, or they could find something really fun to play with, but the fact that they made a huge noise out of it, it was like, this feels like Netflix clutching at straws. But reality Catan, isn't that basically just Clarkson's farm? You're just going out and you're getting sheep and wheat and stuff and having a little house. Is it people sitting around playing it and just chatting? Is that what they're talking about when they say Reality Catan?

43:17Who knows? I think they just have the rights to do that. They can do what they want. In the way that they've like squid gamed to existence. But that led itself to something quite specific, didn't it? This is quite nebulous. See this, if they could turn it into like the traitors or the faithfuls, but it's Catan and like, oh, do you choose to trade with these people or are you trying to hoard all the resources for yourself. That could be fun. I don't know if I want a Catan movie. No. I don't think I do either. Has anyone got any wood? Would you like to trade it for some sheep? No. Okay. Fundamentally no.

43:49At its highest level, you know, maybe we get a Dungeons and Dragons honor among thieves. Right? Maybe. Honor among sheep. I don't know. But like, maybe there's a way to make it feel fresh and interesting and exciting like that was. Maybe there's a way to take the essence of playing like being a bunch of people setting up a community and turn it into something for fun. Is it something about like is it a critique of capitalism and if we all just gave each other things and were nice to each other things might be okay? I mean I don't know. As I'm saying that I think that sounds fucking terrible. And also I just feel like you know I would I'll be honest what I want to do is have fewer mega corporations making projects that criticize capitalism and more criticizing and more taking apart late-stage capitalism.

44:36But that's maybe asking a little bit too much from one board game. Yeah, but I think there might be a way to do a fictionalized thing that's cool and interesting. And I genuinely, I'm not kidding, I think the reality show, if they're talking about a reality show, I think they are literally talking about maybe you get a bunch of celebrities around to play Catan and you try and make an interesting show out of that. Of all the possible things we've discussed, that's maybe the thing I'd watch the most. If they had celebrity Catan tournaments, I'd probably watch it. I mean, like, if one of us was asked to, you know, Vin Diesel or Joe Manganiello's D &D game as an observer, we would 100 % go just to see what kind of madness goes on at those, right?

45:15I can't even imagine. I don't think I'd go to Vin Diesel's house to be fair. Okay, but, you know. You know, maybe it's that. Maybe that's the way to go with it. Because otherwise a reality show, quote-unquote, makes no sense to me. I don't understand what the fuck that could possibly be. I mean, they may not be doing one. They just could do one. So there's no guarantee they're doing any of these things. Isn't it mad that we might get a Catan movie and we're not going to get the hunt for Ben Solo? I mean, that's an excellent pivot, Ben. Well done. Yeah. Let's talk about an extraordinary segue. Let's talk about the thing.

45:46Definitely something we should discuss. First thing to talk about. They were going to do a Ben Solo movie with Adam Driver, with Steven Soderbergh, and they have a fucking script. And Lucasfilm said yes, and Disney said no. That is genuinely mad. Disney said no. It's a lot. You look at the shit they've greenlit. Well, this is them. I think this must be them thinking Star Wars is for the kids, at least on the big screen. We're not spending that much money on something that might possibly end up R-rated. That's got to be it. What other possible reason is there for this? But would it be R-rated? I'm not saying it would.

46:22I'm just saying maybe that's why they think... That's the only thing I can see them complaining about. What seems to have come out, because there was an interview with the AP, And so there does seem to be some somewhat coordinated, we are going to go on the record about this. And Steven Soderbergh, who was a big part of the development of this, this project that was developed on the quiet for two years, as we're told. So this was meant to be, just to clarify, this is post Rise of Skywalker. Post Rise of Skywalker, Adam Driver keen to come back as no longer Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, who, yes, admittedly did die, sort of at the end of how Kylo Ren has returned.

47:04I mean, did he though, Ben? Because the last time we saw him, he had just fought Luke Skywalker, the projection of Luke Skywalker. And then we never saw that character again. A lot of things happened after that. And he was on the verge of taking over the First Order and he was becoming quite despotic embracing the dark side of the Force. So I don't know what they would have done. For two hours and a half, it's a bit long, two and a half hours. and then we'll pick up the mics again. Yeah, he's back. Ben, good movie. Travis is back defending Rise of Skywalker. Good movie. Ben Solo did die. He sort of gave his last little bit of life force to save Rey.

47:46He had a kiss, not a romantic kiss, mind. I don't think it was that romantic. I'm happy for the Reylos who are obsessed with that being a romantic smooch. I think it was a kiss of relief of, oh, you're back, hooray. we don't need to do this again. That's 100 % the thing. It was on the lips, right? Yeah. It was a long... Chris, Chris, how many times have you and I had a kiss on the lips of release? I mean, who knows? She a relief. Did you say relief or release? I mean, Freudian slip, huh? I think we know what my alibi was. Every month when the magazine goes to press, we all share a kiss of relief.

48:20We all just snog rampantly in the office. We all shed our clothes. Oh, no. Humans centipede ourselves into a frenzy. Ben Solo died, but he was supposed to get better. And Adam Driver wanted to do it. And they spent two years developing this stuff. Scott Zedburns wrote a screenplay for it. So they had something concrete. And they presented it to Lucasfilm. Lucasfilm were like, yay. They presented it to Bob Iger. Bob Iger said no. Can I just say, even without any of the other details, if someone sends you an email that says Steven Soderbergh wants to make a Star Wars movie the only only acceptable response to that is fuck yes where can he start yeah it's just wild and this is Soderbergh as well he would have had it made in two weeks I mean this is what's so frustrating about just film they spent a quarter of a billion dollars on Tron Aries it's true it is true yeah I don't know what they're thinking honestly this is infuriating as the early confidential sequel oh yeah that Brianna Helgeland had written that he'd written for Chadwick Boseman, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce and Warner Brothers said no.

49:32What? I don't understand what goes through their minds. Clearly someone's crunching numbers and typing stuff into a little calculator and they're going, ah, it's not really going to be worth it and maybe they were so burned by the negative reaction to The Rise of Skywalker, even though it made a billion dollars. But by and large, Ben, that movie is not seen as the peak of Star Wars. And I wonder if maybe they thought that maybe we can't go back there again. Well, there's a quote from Adam Driver on the record saying, we took it to Bob Iger and Alan Bergman and they said, no, they didn't see how Ben Solo was alive and that was that.

50:06I mean, who gives a fuck, right? Somehow Palpatine came back and he was fucking lightninged and throwing down a giant generator into a place that then blew up. This is Star Wars. They should know, they of all people should know that dead is just a word, right? The Grabber came back. I don't think he's in Star Wars. Oh, I completely misread that film. I mean, look, there are, I guess, there's a number of crunching reasons why you might not want to do it, right? You might look at both of their filmographies, and because they have made projects that really fascinated them for, you know, indie films for tiny budgets in both cases, I mean, Soderbergh obviously can make a film for 50p and a packet of crisps, and it'd be interesting, but that means that those films do not get mega budget marketing and they don't get mega budget back at the box office.

50:57So if you're number crunching, I get that you see giving 200 million to these guys might not make sense just from a numbers point of view. But that's not all we're talking about. He's already played Ben Solo, Kylo Ren. He already has established that character. There is interesting material there to explore. Yeah, this isn't Patterson 2. He hasn't gone off and developed that. Oh my God, I would love that. I fucking love Patterson. If you're looking ahead as well, if you're looking at where Star Wars is generationally, it's terrifying to think about. There were people who were 10 when The Force Awakens came out who are now 20.

51:36And in a couple of years by the time this is made are in their mid-20s. And that trilogy was their childhood. And they will come back for Adam Driver. They will come back for Kylo Ren. They will come back whenever they do the Rey stuff. Again, that's the thing. they're developing a race sequel but I guess she didn't die she just took someone else's surname at the end of at the end of that movie without even asking which is a kind of death it's a kind of death isn't it so they're developing that but they they kiboshed this unless Soderbergh went in and went guys I'm gonna shea part one and shea part two this you don't need to give us that much money I'm gonna go disappear into the jungle with Adam Driver for a bit we're gonna wave some lightsabers around I believe you can probably put that in in post and it's gonna be great it's gonna be a little arty and it's gonna be four hours long we know what mainstream Soderbergh is and that's fucking Ocean's Eleven come on anything else should we talk about the LFF because it finished it was a hell of a festival I think this was the busiest LFF I can recall and certainly in terms of A-list stars coming in I can't recall such a volume yeah Adam Sandler was here George Clooney was he?

52:46Richard Linklater as well actually on Saturday, yeah. I'll do the link now. Thank you very much indeed. Maybe somebody spoke to Richard Ling later with Ethan Hawke in person. I spoke to Richard Ling later too. Maybe someone spoke to Adam Sandler. You ever thought of that? Yeah, I did. Fuck! It was me. I wish you well! Anything else? Anyone else who was in? I spoke to lots of everyone. People have just heard. Many, many wonderful people. You spoke to Rian Johnson. I did speak to Rian Johnson and some of the cast of Wake Up Dead Man. I think that's how I started my LFF and I finished it on Saturday morning by talking to Lynn Ramsey and Jennifer Lawrence cool and in between did you speak to Guillermo I spoke to Guillermo yeah I spoke to lots of good people saw lots of good movies as well me too what was your favourite movie you saw the L of F I think it was I saw a lot that I really enjoyed which is not always the case you know sometimes at festivals you can get a bit weighed down by you know quite frankly depressing dramas that may be wonderful and worthy but also are just really depressing to watch en masse.

53:49But this year I felt like I mixed up a bit more. I really, really loved Wake Up Dead Man. I liked Begonia. I thought No Other Choice was fantastic. That's the new Park Chan book. Yes. I liked 100 Nights of Hero. I keep saying days, years, 100. 100 days of nights of hero. 100 time units of hero. Just to be a basic bitch, my film of the festival was Hamlet. I saw other good ones. Hamlet, Hedda, also very good. But Hamnet utterly destroyed me. Really just, I mean, you know, the tears were threatening to drown people. Really? Yeah, the sobs, audible from several streets away. It's pretty strong stuff.

54:32That sounds like a ton of fun. Yeah, hashtag complimentary. No, it is. It's life-affirming and about the power of communication and art to communicate with people our feelings when we can't use the words and say stuff like now. And honestly, it's a wonderful, wonderful film. I love it a lot. Jimbo, what was your favourite film at the LFF? I would say my favourite film at the LFF was the film at the LFF that I saw, which was Wake Up, Dead Man. Definitely the one that I watched and none of the ones that I didn't watch. Yeah. I would say. On balance. It is hard to get to the LFF screenings. Especially when you don't try.

55:13Well, that doesn't help. I don't even live in London and I saw more than you. It's very true. It's very true. On the plus side, I have watched 17 hours or something of blue lights in the past week. So, you know, I've been using my time well. Jesus Christ. Well, I saw Wake Up Dead Man. Wake Up Dead Man. And it was excellent. Aye. And I saw Springsteen delivering me from nowhere. Springsteen delivering me from nowhere. And you will hear soon what I thought about that. Aye. But yours and my good mate, Chris. Aye. Bruce Springsteen was there. Bruce came on stage with all the cast. And then he stayed and watched the film.

55:52He sat in the audience next to, I believe, Bradley Cooper and Bob Geldof and watched the film. And then he left, obviously, at the end of the film. Everybody just stood up and clapped him. Fair play. That was very nice. That's amazing. I forgot Jay Kelly and the two Richard Linklater's, Nouvelle Bag and Blue Moon, both of which I enjoyed. I think you've mentioned Jay Kelly I think you've mentioned it enough though I think you have have I shown you my selfie with Adam Sandler yes I have seen your selfie with Adam Sandler it's very nice I literally took it and I said I'm sorry this is really unprofessional can we get a selfie it will really annoy my co-host that was literally my wording did you explain to him why did you explain to him why yes I said because he's a huge fan of yours and he loves your work even Hubie Halloween I may have said Hubie Halloween season I came very close to saying that but I did not in fact say that Honestly, I would have given you points if you said even Hubie Halloween.

56:48This is an unhappy Gilmore right now. I'm a Billy Satterson. He's a watery boy. Well, I didn't know you could tell. He's a big Saddy.

57:03Well, it's the same thing as what I said. Anyway, it doesn't matter. All right, so that's good. It was a good LFF. We enjoyed it. We enjoyed it. I especially liked the bit where Helen got to interview Adam Sandler. and I wish her well. All right, anything else you want to talk about before we do a very, very quick shameless plug of the new issue of Empire, which is on sale right now on all good and evil news agents? It is. It is. So nothing else you want to talk about? Should we do it then? Yeah, let's go on. Let's plug the hell out of the issue. So it is a very exciting issue. On the cover of This Month's Magazine is a television show of which I have seen not a single minute.

57:36So please, someone else tell me about Stranger Things. do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do it's not remotely how the theme music goes that is how it goes do do do do do do do do do do do do do do you might be well I'm not 100 % sure that's quite inky anyway it's very exciting Stranger Things 5 for its final season fifth and final season it's been a million years I think since season four it does feel that way I've re-watched the entire show in that time oh you have? okay wasn't season four so fucking good though? it was very very good oh you're telling me very excited to see how this all ends out.

58:09How Hawkins survives if Hawkins survives. Hawkins is a town. It is a town. I thought you meant Hawkins from Predator. Predator! Predator! Spoiler, he doesn't surprise Predator. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. But yeah, this is exciting. And we spoke to the Duffer Brothers at the HQ. We spoke to all of the young cast for Noral History about growing up with this show over the course of 10 years. Because they're in their mid-40s now, so it's important to look back. and there's loads of other stuff in the magazine including me talking to Ryan Johnson and Daniel Craig and Glenn Close and Josh Brolin and people about Knives Out Wake Up Deadman the film I saw at the London Film Festival hooray great movie good lord good movie indeed lots of other good stuff inside there as well back to the future we had a 40th anniversary interview with both Michael J.

59:05Fox and Christopher Lloyd together about making that trilogy but also about the friendship that it forged between them and how that's continued over the past four decades. It's a really, really lovely read. Do I dare mention that we also have a Jay Kelly interview where John met both Adam Sandler and George Clooney together. Should I mention that, Helen? I think you should mention it. I think it's important so people know. John met Adam Sandler and also George Clooney and they sat together and talked about Jay Kelly. What the fuck? It's a nice read. Is this some sort of cosmic joke now? John does not appreciate Hubie Halloween.

59:46I know. I've talked with him about the thematics of Hubie Halloween. But it turns out he's a massive Jack and Jill guy. What are the thematics of Hubie Halloween, Chris? Basically, Halloween's awesome. Is that a thematic, do we think? I don't think that's explored in any Bergman films, that hack. whereas in Hubie Halloween that is very much explored and Jack and Jill who isn't who isn't a big fan of Jack and Jill everyone wants my Dunkachinos yeah okay so that's good that's good that everybody else is getting to meet Adam Sandler even though they don't appreciate when they're faced with genius but then again you work with me every week and you don't appreciate that so but that's good that's good I'm glad for John I was very very happy when he went to the Venice Film Festival and interviewed George Clooney and Adam Sandler for half an hour that was brilliant and got his picture taken with him afterwards and he was looking so happy so happy and they were looking happy too they were looking very happy too to be in the presence of such mediocrity so you wish them well is what you're saying I wish I wish John well I wish them well I wish you well of course I wish Sigourney Weaver well she's in the magazine big interview with her in the magazine we have a feature on Pillion brilliant I loved him in Oppenheimer that's another film I loved at the festival although I actually saw it the week before great film brilliant well done everybody so that's on sale right now you can go pick it up there's other stuff as well in my section probably I'm so angry right now I can't remember anything I just see a red haze like the Predator and the Predator that's pretty much how I can see things now I don't see heat you were into the Final Destination movies without me you weren't you were too busy I was elsewhere being hit by a logging truck presumably I don't know what you were doing but sadly sadly we couldn't we couldn't we couldn't wait for you Ben I'm sorry it's just a month where you have to roll with the punches and accept that sometimes the premium gigs are not going to come your way and be okay with it and that's the important thing the other important thing is that it's on sale right now and all good evil and virtual news agents so you can pick that up see if I care right shall we have a second guest absolutely who do you want do you want Jeremy Strong do you want Jeremy Strong brilliant as of Jeremy Strong so Scott Cooper's Springsteen Deliver Me From Nowhere is it's not a biopic of our very very good friend Bruce Springsteen the boss but it is a detailing of the time that he took himself away after achieving megastardom and made in his bedroom in a rental place in New Jersey the seminal album Nebraska the film stars of course Jeremy Allen White aka Carmy from the Bear as Bruce Springsteen but it also stars another Jeremy Jeremy Strong off of Succession as John Landau who was Springsteen's co-producer and manager and interference runner with record companies whenever Bruce would do mad crazy things like make a downbeat solo record in his bedroom when he was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest music stars in the world it is a fascinating film we'll be talking about it in just a few minutes, but here is Jeremy Strong, who I caught up with during the London Film Festival.

1:03:04Here we are having a nice little chat about John Landau, Bruce Springsteen, and all that jazz. Not that film, different film. Enjoy. Jeremy Strong, welcome to the Empire Podcast. How are you, sir? I'm well, how are you? I'm not too bad, not too bad. You've been here, there, and everywhere over the last couple of weeks. Now, you've had a couple of days in London to adjust. Yeah, it's great being here. Yeah. But that sort of mini tour you've been on with Deliver Me From Nowhere. Is that giving you an insight into what life would be like for Bruce Springsteen and John Landau going on tour? Well, it's interesting.

1:03:39I mean, I think the actor's life is a similarly kind of nomadic life. Hotel rooms. You're on the road a lot and you have to kind of make your home there. But I did follow John and Bruce around, you know, playing last summer and the summer before. And, you know, one thing that you take away is just the way his music reaches people everywhere. I mean, really all over the world for 50 years. And it's really staggering to see and feel it. We were talking yesterday and he was saying... You know, when he walks out on that stage at Wembley or San Siro or wherever he is, his aim is to really elevate and change people's lives and change people's lives.

1:04:39It's not just to play a show, it's to put it all on the line. So that's something that really I'll carry with me forever, just taking that from those guys. Well, that's interesting because as an actor, so you walk onto a set or you walk onto a stage, what is your goal? I mean, your goal in one way is obviously to tell the truth as you see it as your character sees it. But do you think about something as profound as that, as profound as what I might do to on this set might change obviously my life might change someone's life on stage might change someone's life I don't think I have a relationship to an audience the way that Bruce has a relationship to his audience I think he has a very profound and kind of sacred relationship to his audience I think as an actor you are so invested in the imaginary circumstances that you're in and what's at stake for the character and in a way you, by necessity, block out even the awareness of an audience or the awareness of a camera.

1:05:46So I feel quite cut off from that. I mean, when you do live theater, you have more of that experience, but it's less about trying to affect the audience than it is about trying to not spare yourself and just to give everything and to be entirely wrung out at the end by the end of it and then you feel like maybe you've offered them something uh uh you know worthy but you know bruce sets the bar so high and um and and as an actor you're kind of granted access to these worlds you get to be an experiential tourist and I've had this kind of amazing, I've been very lucky getting to work on, you know, different movies that take me into different worlds.

1:06:41And this one in particular was just a glorious one to be in. So Scott calls you up. You've worked with Scott before, of course. So he calls you up and says, I want you to play John Landau. Yeah. Which I imagine is how it went down. Those exact words. Yeah. What's the first thing you do? Do you get in touch with, do you try and get in touch with John Landau right away? Or how did you get into? I think you're, you know, you're almost like an investigative reporter. There's a journalistic kind of, I think, interrogation of the subject. And you need to, I think, amass a lot of information and understanding and internalize that before, or for me at least, before I'm ready to meet John or have informed questions to ask him.

1:07:28So there's a lot of work to do first. There's a lot of, you know, luckily now we live in a time where as actors, we have access to a whole kind of toolbox that didn't used to exist, which is a plethora of video, audio, digital archives, and there's so much stuff out there about John. So you study that endlessly, you know, and to the point where you've internalized some of it and read, you know, and I like to read a lot of books just around the world of it. The music industry was a really foreign world to me. But as you can imagine, it was a great pleasure to spend a year just learning about that.

1:08:19And there's some fantastic books. Dave Marsh obviously wrote the great books on Bruce and Bruce's book and John's book of essays. It's too late to stop now. Fred Goodman wrote a book called Mansion on the Hill that had so much gold in there for me to kind of strip mine. And then Time with John. And then you sort of do a version of like asking them the Proust questionnaire, except you formulated the questions yourself. And you get a lot of information from not the words, but from just an exchange. It's sort of when I watched John watching Bruce perform, the first time I went to see them together was in Denmark in a city called Udense.

1:09:16And I watched Landau watching Bruce on stage. And in a way, that could have been everything I need, just to see in his eyes and in his bearing energetically the way he watched Bruce play. And he's seen Bruce play these songs thousands of times but it really was as if he was hearing it and taking it in for the first time well landau in the film is really interesting because he he has bruce's back yeah to such an extent it is really really fascinating he is so committed to bruce and bruce's ideas even though he is you know a producer co-producer of bruce's music and he's someone who's been shut out of the process on Nebraska, but he still embraces it wholeheartedly.

1:10:09I thought that was really, really fascinating. Was that something that was... Did you get that in a way from watching the way that John and Bruce interacted? Well, I don't even know that I feel that he was shut out. I think they have such a shorthand. Yeah. And, you know, they had made some records already. John came in on Born to Run. Yeah. You know, John, obviously, when Jan Wenner started Rolling Stone, he called John and asked him to be the first music critic. And John was the preeminent music critic in America. Lester Bangs and John Landau, they were the authorities on music. And John had written something in the early 70s where he said for him, the criterion for art in rock is the capacity of the musician to create a personal almost private universe and to express it fully so he's somebody coming in already with a shared north star and a shared deep understanding of what the artistic and spiritual project is so he's not someone who's chasing a charting single or chasing uh you know, Platinum Records, John Landau was chasing greatness the way that Bruce was chasing greatness.

1:11:27And that's why they make a Lewis and Clark together. Absolutely. But John wasn't in the room on the recording of Nebraska. That's what I meant by that. No, exactly. But in a way, you know, Bruce was just making sketches. It was meant to just be, these were meant to just be demos that were rough sketches that, like everything else, He would then take into the studio and then they would, through the alchemy with the band, make the album. And that's where John would have been. And that's where John would have had his hand in it and had an incisive hand in it. And instead, and what I love about this film and the story it tells is, you know, the way that Bruce plants his flag on the mountain of authenticity.

1:12:21And, you know, something I thought about while we were filming was something James Baldwin once said about trying to find an honest place to stand. And I think at this moment in 1982, you know, Bruce's life had changed so much. He'd been on the cover of Time and Newsweek. He was this young guy who was world famous, but in a sense felt that he had no life. Yeah. And I think John, you know, John is only a few years older, but John had a different background. John had been in therapy. John had a greater context of art history and literature and, you know, the interior life. And I think at that time introduced Bruce to a lot of these things, Flannery O 'Connor, which the movie kind of touches on.

1:13:16But a vast amount of stuff. So my point being, I think John quickly recalibrated and intuited that this artist was grappling with and wrestling with something much deeper and concerning in these songs. But knew that his job first and foremost is to protect and serve the artist's vision.

1:13:48Sean Penn told me once that your job as an actor is to be a bodyguard for your character. And I've always thought about that. And I believe it's true. And I think John sees his job similarly. To be a bodyguard for Bruce's vision and for his creative impulse. Even if he's not always aligned with that, his imperative, John Landau's imperative, is not a commercial or a market imperative. Bruce said something once that I really love. He said, the pressures of the music business are powerless in the face of what is real. And, you know, that's kind of why Bruce's music affects hundreds of millions or over a billion people in the world, because he has stayed true to what is real.

1:14:46And I think John, with his whole being, protects that and is a bodyguard for that. So that Sean Penn quote is amazing. When did he tell you that? And did that change your approach to acting? It was maybe five or six years ago. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think I already felt that in a way, but it was emboldening. It's emboldening to hear that. I mean, he's one of my heroes and I believe that to be true in the sense that you need to fight for your character, defend your character, understand your character, be the authority on your character and that's your job. Well, I've got to let you go in a second, but the character you're about to be a bodyguard for is Mark Zuckerberg.

1:15:54That's very interesting. Yeah, it will be. Yeah. Have you started prepping out of your, you know, this journalistic investigation? I have extensively and, you know, I'll approach it the same way I approach everything, which is an attempt to understand and defend a point of view, find empathy for that point of view, and to tell the truth as I see it and feel it, and of course serve the film. But yes, I'm deep into it. Amazing. I can't wait to see that. I hope you'll be back here in a couple of years. We can chat about that as well. I hope so too. Brilliant. Jeremy Strong, it's been a pleasure. Great to see you.

1:16:36Thank you. okay that was Jeremy Strong star of Springsteen deliver me from nowhere and now it's time for the review section of the show which we'll dig deep into the films that are out this week either in your multiplex or on your sofaplex should we start with Springsteen deliver me from nowhere one two three four baby you were born to review this film yeah I didn't even know I was doing this podcast today but I had my Springsteen t-shirt on I know that's why I went straight to you synergy obviously I only look at Ben's eyes of course but I did notice tangentially a peripheral vision that he had a Springsteen sure t-shirt on well my t-shirt is of Born in the USA which is the album that came after Nebraska which is the album that Deliver Me From Nowhere is about I thought you were just going to list all his albums in chronological order Greetings from Asbury Park okay it's okay The World of the Inner Street Shuffle Born to Run The River which is important because so Nebraska as you teed up and I'm sure you talked about it in the interview is like a low-key acoustic, sad, intense Springsteen solo album.

1:17:45Oh, in fact, no, we didn't talk about that at all. Okay. It's him with a guitar in a room with a four-track tape recorder, which was like a new thing at the time to be able to get out of that studio environment. And at that point in his career, early 80s, He's released The River, massive double album. It becomes his biggest hit yet. The label is like, great, The River did really well. What have you got next? He has these banger songs. He has Born in the USA. He has other stuff. But he also has poured out this album of sad acoustic songs. And he doesn't quite know what to do with them. He doesn't know where they came from.

1:18:28And the film dramatizes that recording of that album, that period of his life when effectively they don't really spell it out in words but he is depressed he is unsure really of who he is after achieving this level of stardom from the river he's feeling a bit detached from himself he is wrestling with the relationship he has with his dad played by stephen graham in these black and white flashbacks and so the film and in prosthetics in the present day. Right, there is some present day stuff with some additional adornments to Stephen Graham. And so the film is about making that album, about who Bruce was at that time and what he was going through, and about the fact that alongside this small, weird passion project, he is creating these huge hits that we know will go on to make him the biggest thing evs.

1:19:23And the film itself, I actually enjoyed more than I thought I would just because I'm a huge Bruce fan but also I'm not necessarily somebody who loves like two hours of sad, tortured artist movies which is what this is for the most part. I think what's interesting is that you feel the push and pull in this film that a general audience wants a Bruce Springsteen biopic which this sort of is to be a born in the USA to be just big, play the hits, do the bangers. What the filmmakers want to do and what this story is, is the creation of Nebraska. It's the small, the inward-looking, the introspective, the emotional, and you feel that push and pull in the film where it's trying as much as it can to be a Nebraska film whilst also having to give you a little sprinkling of the Born in the USA movie.

1:20:17Bruce Sprinkling. The thing I found most interesting, and maybe this is just because I'm in it with a fan head on, but I could have maybe done with even more of, is a bigger exploration of the album itself. There's a whole portion where he has created, he's recorded the songs on this crappy little demo tape, and he's like, there's something ineffable about what is on the tape, about the quality of that, and I need to just translate that as close as I can onto an actual album and about how obsessed he becomes with not stripping away the soul of it, but it also kind of sounds like shit but they also that's kind of the reason why it's great and I could have done with maybe a little bit even more of that stuff because I found that super interesting that was much more original than almost anything else in the movie to see him like go okay if this is going to be on vinyl it's going to amplify all of the crackly crappy atmosphere of that room that you recorded in how do we keep that feeling without stripping away the soul from the tape there's lots of fun stuff about how obsessed with the tape he is.

1:21:21At the same time, it is just a loose cassette that is being handed around to people with no case. And all of those details feel really true and alive and quite engaging, I thought. Except they keep talking about it has no cassette box. There are millions of cassette boxes. It is so easy to just put it in a box. If you are all commenting on it, just put it in a fucking box. Oh my God, this film did my fucking nut in. Tell us what you really think, Helen. Don't beat around the bush. Look, the music, I agree with you. Music's fucking fantastic. The stuff like that, the minutiae of Nebraska, great.

1:21:59Didn't know that. Interested to learn it. I understand and I appreciate that Bruce Springsteen has not had the kind of struggles with, you know, drink and drugs that like a Ray Charles had or, you know, one of these guys. And good for him. Like, he seems like a relatively sane person despite being a megastar for 50 years at this point. Like, hats off. Fucking love him. But that does make it more difficult to make a compelling drama. And I would argue that they have failed to do so. This is Father Issues, the movie, part 567. Oh, you must have loved it. Especially when he turned up at the end looking like Fat Bastard from the Austin Powers movies.

1:22:40He does, though. Get in my belly! I just, I was just so not appreciating it. I mean, you've even got the record label, like represented by poor old David Krumholtz, doing a lovely job as usual, who is obviously not keen to release, you know, this kind of dirgy, weird sounding, low key album of non-bangers. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Like relative to Born in the USA, Born to Run, et cetera. And instead he basically just goes, yeah okay then that's that's not drama guys Grace Gummer who plays God help her Jeremy Strong's character's wife she literally sits there moisturizing her hands that's her entire character development she has a line that is from an SNL sketch she has a line that is the underwritten wife role sits there moisturizing before bed that's all she does I mean there is an entire scene where she just nods at Jeremy Strong as he says things.

1:23:43But I actually liked the relationship between Bruce and John Landau. John Landau is the guy who is having to be the middleman to say to the label, like, we've kind of got to run with this lo-fi tape album and that we just have to do it. And I thought it gave good time to their friendship and their relationship that they have with each other that ultimately is what helps Bruce get through this difficult period I got that impression that the relationship mattered I will say I thought he was badly portrayed that's all I just my biggest note the last like 15 minutes of this film play like that on fast forward I know every film basically these days could do with 20 minutes cut out this needed an extra 15-20 minutes honestly because the way that it fast forwards through some of the big stuff at the end I was like this feels like the meat of the movie this feels like a really big dramatic moment that you've reached and i'll be honest there is a moment that is a fade out that i was like no no the scene that was about to happen is the thing that we need to see and then there's been a time jump and so that that was my biggest note about this overall you haven't mentioned yet the big elephant in the room and that's bruce himself so in this movie he is played by jeremy allen white and i think it's fair to say the Jeremy Allen White doesn't look like or resemble Bruce Springsteen in any way, shape or form.

1:25:16There were a couple of shots where I was like, oh, he looks like him there. I can see it. And he's wearing dark contacts, which is very weird if you know him from The Bear. There were a couple of moments where I was like, you look a bit like Bruce on the cover of Darkness on the Edge of Town. It comes down to the hair. Sometimes his hair is too calmy, and then sometimes his hair is more Bruce-y. I agree. but at the same time not Bruce Forsyth no it's not a Bruce I liked that they didn't have him do a Bruce impression and I think it did overall lead to I don't necessarily if I think I see you and go oh that's Bruce Springsteen but I can feel you emotionally inhabiting the character of Bruce Springsteen in a dramatization of this part of your life which I kind of would prefer that other than the we've gone down to the, I mean, not that there's an easy Bruce costume, really.

1:26:12He just wears a leather jacket a lot. It's great. Good for him. But I'd rather that than you've gone to Spirit Halloween, got a Bruce Springsteen costume and you're going and doing a big old impression. To actually get into, like, this is the emotional thing that this character is going through and that character is Bruce Springsteen. His performance didn't bug me. I thought it was good. Again, I don't think he looks a huge amount like him, but he's a good actor. I thought but he did a good job with what he was given. Should he have been given it? Maybe not. But anyway. Okay. So what did we give this one?

1:26:45Three stars. Three stars then for Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere. And if you want, I can recommend the album. Who wants to deliver the next review? Hellspells. Hi. What do you want to talk about? The Mastermind? Just do that. The new Kelly Reichardt film with Josh O 'Connor. That is correct. So this is Joshua Connor playing an average kind of guy, failed architect called J.B. Mooney. He's married to Alana Haim, who plays his wife, Terry. His parents are played by Hope Davis and Bill Camp, so he's from an interesting family. But he's the underachiever, right? His dad is a judge, and he's like a failed architect.

1:27:28And he's got two kids to support and a wife who's working, and he's just kind of moseying along. But it's okay, because JB has a plan. He's going to rob his local art museum. He's going to steal four modern art pictures. He's not even in Paris. Okay, that we know of. That we know of. He's going to steal these four pictures and flip them, and that is going to provide the money he needs to support his family. He's figured it all out to a point, and then it turns out he hasn't figured it out quite as well as he thinks. So this film becomes about a heist going right and then everything else going wrong, more or less.

1:28:10It is inspired by a real robbery in 1972, which took place in Massachusetts. So this is also a New England set. And it's a really weird film because Kelly Reichardt has made crime dramas before. Like First Cow is kind of a crime drama. It's just an unconventional one. You know, they're stealing milk there. This is also very unconventional because it kind of is a heist movie for a long time. And then there's a bit where it's an on-the-run movie. And then it just gets kind of bored of being a crime movie and just sort of wanders away from itself. I don't know how else to put it. It just kind of loses interest.

1:28:51Really interesting people kind of come in and out of JB's life. And it's another great Joshua Conner performance. He was in three films, this LFF, Wake Up Dead Man, of course, also History of Sound and this. He's on such a hot streak. He's really tearing up the town. But it's a great performance without anywhere to ultimately go to. So I quite enjoyed just wandering around with this hapless weirdo. But it's not what you're expecting as a crime drama. So it was interesting, but I don't know really what to take from it. But I was interested. And it's, you know, and I've had affection. I was interested in the Empire.

1:29:37When I think back of it in my head, I'm feeling affection for it, which I cannot entirely describe, obviously. Oh, okay. I haven't seen it yet. It's one of the few films I managed not to see at the LFF or indeed have anything to do with interview-wise. But I'm gutted to have missed it, even though your review was not what I would say. Glowing. I thought you were interested. I was interested. I gave it three. because I think it is you know it's a solid movie alright what if Kelly Reichardt yeah and Oscar Isaac kept developing a Poe Dameron film for the last two years in secret yes I would so watch that I mean genuinely if you said to me Adam Driver has been developing a Kylo Ren movie with a big name filmmaker for the last two years in secret you could have given me a hundred guesses before I got the Steven Soderbergh yeah I love the idea of the Steven Soderbergh, who loves commercial cinema as well, obviously, wants to make a Star War.

1:30:38And so I just naturally assume that Kelly Reichardt also wants to make a Star War. That would be, that would just be amazing. Like, just Kylo Ren hanging out. She could call it the Blaster Mind. Probably wouldn't call it that. First Bantha. Now that would be great. I would totally watch. I would totally watch John Macarrow stealing a Bantha. Oh, it's exciting times. Three stars then for the mastermind. Right. So last but not least, Nia DaCosta's Hedda. Yeah, definitely not least. Although Tessa Thompson's Hedda, which is really confusing. Yes. So tell me about that, Hellspells. So this adapts, obviously, as I said, Hedda Gabler by Ibsen.

1:31:19So this time she is a kind of 1950s housewife. Her husband, who is played by Tom Bateman, is up for a big promotion at work. Incredibly, they live in this stately home and we're told that they need his job as a professor to pay for it. Times have changed since the 50s. Anyway, that is a little bit explained during the film, but I really did trip on it, so I'm just warning you that you might as well. But he's up for this role. He's up against a rival for the role he's played by Nina Hoss. That is Eileen Loveborg. That's the character who's been gender swapped from the play and is an ex of Hedda herself.

1:31:59Eileen turns up with her new girlfriend, Thea, who's played by Imogen Poots, who also works with her as a researcher. She's got a key piece of research, a new book that also plays a role in the plot. But basically, this is all about Hedda and it's almost all happening at this one party. There's a few scenes during the day as she gets ready for this party that they're throwing as a sort of, you know housewarming but also as a kind of way of getting all the people who are going to be making the decision about his new job together and hopefully impressing them and winning them over and making sure he gets that important promotion so everything is kind of you know there's high stakes here and the addition of eileen and the proceedings kind of throws everything off for a little bit what's more throwing everything off though is that hedda is so deeply unhappy and so kind of trapped feeling by this kind of conformism and this this you know social all these social niceties that she feels like she has to observe and she just wants to create chaos this is the if the joker were in a very pretty dress right she just wants to watch the world burn uh and she's unhappy so she kind of is just lashing out in every direction and doesn't seem to quite know why she's doing it herself so she is a famously twisty turny character this is why they talk about her being the female hamlet she is hard to put your finger on she's hard to very hard to sympathize with she's pretty much anti-hero rather than hero and she is really prickly and really does damage people with her casual barbs as well as her you know deliberate schemes to harm others so it's a lot like you Thank you, Helen.

1:33:46Thank you. Wow, that's harsh, but okay. I mean, sure, I guess. Heather O 'Hara over here. Yeah, Helen O 'Hara. But it's just, it's a complicated role, you know, and it's a lot going on. And I think the detail and the performance here by Tessa Thompson is very good. I think, you know, she has literally gone through every version of the play that exists on film and watched it and absorbed it and, you know, and then thrown all of that aside and focused in on this script. And so there's a lot, she's clearly put the work in to kind of transform herself into this character. And I think she does a really, really good job.

1:34:22But the thing that maybe I think the film struggles with is the same thing that most versions of this play struggle with. I've only seen it once on stage, but like, it's just really hard to know why the fuck she thinks this is a good idea. Any of it, you know? And she does do horrible things. So you just have to be watching her with fascination, but not too much sympathy. And it is the kind of film where you're really not sure who you're rooting for and who you want to do well. It's just some pretty terrible people being pretty terrible to each other. So you have to support women's rights but also support women's wrongs.

1:35:00Exactly. It's very much one of those moments. But look, it looks beautiful. Costume design, production design, the locations that they've found, all gorgeous. Nia's done some really interesting stuff with some of the music as well just giving it a little bit of a modern spin but not gone full anachronistic all the time and it does kind of stick in your mind more than I thought it would when I first saw it if that makes sense but I do think it's still just a really prickly difficult film to fully pin down and I'm not sure that this one does any more than all of the others that have also I think tried and failed to do this in the past.

1:35:42So, I don't know. I'm not sure I've summed it up, but I feel like it's a complicated film that they've made a very good attempt at. All right. I love your quotes this week. I was interested. Helena Haran Empire. It's a complicated film that they've made a very good attempt at. That sounds more negative than I feel. Oh dear, I'm sorry. I don't think we have an official Empire review yet. No, I believe it's still being written today. by Ibsen? No, not in this case, no. I believe I'm on. Unavailable? Oh, I'm on, okay. Very similar, very, very similar. Very, very similar indeed. All right, so we don't know we've been giving it but it sounds like Helen's somewhere between one and five.

1:36:21Wow, I'm probably a four. I'm between a three and a four. Yeah, I am positive on it. Sounds good to me. So that's Hedda. That is out in cinemas right now and I think it's out in Prime Video in a few weeks' time as well. There was one more film I wanted to talk about this week but it's The House of Dynamite which is the Catherine Bigelow film about the fun shenanigans that might just happen if a single unattributed nuclear missile were fired at the United States of America and the government, including Idris Elba's president, of course, had approximately 18 minutes to figure out how they should respond when they don't know who fired it or why.

1:37:02So that's fun. It's a great film. It came out in the cinemas a couple of weeks ago. it is now on Netflix as of today only I have seen it and I think that this film deserves a bit of a deep dive treatment we may even do a spoiler special on it who knows so we're going to wait until next week to properly review but I think it's absolutely terrific with maybe a couple of slight flaws denying it five star status but I also couldn't quibble if we did give it five stars I think we gave it four but I thought it was absolutely wonderful so once Helen and James and whoever's in the fourth chair next week I'm not sure if it's going to be Ben or not have seen that movie we'll talk about it on next week's show anyway it's almost time to finish this week's show but we have one final guest or should I say guest because it is indeed the director and star of A House of Dynamite Catherine Bigelow who's making her return to movies it's been what eight years since her last movie Detroit and this is very much a movie that is absolutely in her wheelhouse very very politically charged very intense and exercise intention all the good stuff and Rebecca Ferguson, who stars in the film as a White House advisor who has to somehow figure out what to do when this missile appears on the little blimpy map that they have in their big room.

1:38:19Their big red rooms, yes. Their big room of screens. They don't watch The Chase or Pointless on the TV monitors like I've been doing for most of this podcast. They don't do that. They watch a missile tick ever closer to... That's fun. Anyway, so I sat down with him in a London hotel room a couple of weeks ago now and we had a good old chat about the movie and a great many things besides. Here we are, Catherine Bigelow and Rebecca Ferguson. What a pleasure this was. Enjoy. Catherine Bigelow, Rebecca Ferguson, welcome to the Emperor Podcast. Thank you. This is no laughing matter, this movie. Stop laughing.

1:38:56What are you doing? No humour. No. Absolutely not. None of them. This film is incredible. when it was first announced because I went back and double checked it was under a fail of secrecy shall we say I went back and double checked how it was announced whenever you were announced for example Rebecca it said plot details are scarce but we believe it takes place in the White House during a national crisis boy does it ever

1:39:27good introduction but was it important for you to operate under that shroud of secrecy? Catherine, let's start with you first of all. You know, I always have, well, I've had ever since Hurt Locker, I just feel that I suppose keeping it very quiet, keeping the subject very quiet, because otherwise there can be extraneous noise and I don't want to be distracted narratively. And so it's really a choice that I've made early on and it seems to work for me just to keep it very quiet until I'm ready and it's ready. I loved it. I've never worked with someone who actually embraces the fact that we're in a process in that sense and we don't want other people to write about it.

1:40:13They will come out and you will watch it and then you'll have all the opportunity. Yeah, but also sitting and doing interviews, pre-interviews with people who haven't seen the film, it just doesn't feed the narrative of the story. So it cocoons you in a way as an actor? Just keeps it nice and safe until we're done. You watch the film and then we talk about it. Absolutely. Let's do it. Sounds good to me. Why did you want to make this film, first of all, Catherine? Well, I think that it's a very sadly topical and timely subject and worthy of a conversation and how best to stimulate a conversation than perhaps with a film i don't have any other medium i'm not a journalist like you and i'm barely a journalist but thank you but it's really it's a um i think there's a kind of in um intersection between entertainment and journalism yeah that i am very excited about that sort of that place because i think it's great to draw you in with an uh a somewhat entertaining um I suppose, narrative, but at the same time, leave you with information you didn't already know or have.

1:41:29And so, I mean, I grew up at a time when I had to hide under a desk in case of an atomic bomb blast, which of course is ludicrous. But anyway, we thought this would save us. A desk is not going to do anything. Maybe not. I wonder if we should do studies of that. But anyway, so yes, that was kind of a terrifying aspect of the cold war and then now moving forward several decades too many decades but anyway several decades um i feel like the whole nuclear question has become normalized yeah and it's it's quiet we don't it's the unthinkable is never discussed and yet all these people which i found so fascinating as we as no and i were doing research as rebecca so beautifully uh plays these people working tirelessly 24 7 to keep us safe which obviously they've been successful editor we wouldn't be having this conversation but that was um a real eye-opener you know they're just toiling behind the scenes in this thankless capacity and and it's so critical.

1:42:44And perhaps then you ask, why can't we reduce the nuclear stockpile so we don't live in such a combustible environment? Not just that as well, but they only have there's a line in the movie about they only have 50 of the GBIs? I think 49 actually now. Yeah, which is incredible. You would think that it would have numbers equivalent perhaps to the number of warheads in the world. But yet the percentage of success rate is you know yes possibly problematic yes yeah if you're hitting a bullet with a bullet in the film yeah yeah you'd like to have a lot more bullets i would i would think so but then the yeah as the chapter heading states hitting a bullet with a bullet is such a good title it's just decided to be difficult yeah i know we shouldn't be excited about it but it's sort of also what the film is.

1:43:39It's enticing, it's gripping, it's informative. And also, like you said, we don't talk about it, but I also think we live in a generation where a lot of people don't know about it. Yeah, there's generations. Generations don't even know what a nuclear weapon entails, and what it is, and is it too dangerous, and who has the power? I mean, it's a non-discussed subject. Yeah. But it's something that's clearly on a lot of people's minds, and it's on my mind constantly. It's one of my great fears. And it's been on Hollywood's mind for so long. Oppenheimer ends with essentially a warning about where we might be headed.

1:44:14Rebecca, a couple of missions, you know, dallied with this subject as well. So it is something that is on in the general filmmaking consciousness. But will a movie like this get it out to the wider public? And I think also to not compare it to others, I think what so brilliantly it's done in this film and something that Catherine talks about is it's the dissecting of how something, it's like school. To understand a topic, you need to go back to basics. And we need to see how that trajectory is until the person who makes the decision why he makes it and how he makes it. And I think this film depicts that so simple and so horrendously terrifying.

1:44:56You know, sending this information up in command to one man who decides to nuke or not. And he has only a matter of a couple of minutes to make that decision. And it's all of humanity that's at stake. That's it. So, you know. And it's a simple story when you compare it to other things. It gets plotted and big and then this and action. This takes all of that away. And there is nobody. We have no person to point fingers to. It is just what happens. It is extraordinary. It begs the question. I think everyone will be talking about the movie after they come out of it. They'll be talking about a number of things.

1:45:36I don't want to give anything away. But what would you do, I think, is a big topic for discussion in this. Rebecca, what would you do if you were in the president's shoes at that point? I'm going to turn that question around because I seem to be the one. I don't think about what I would do because it's unfathomable. I think I come out going, what the heck is this? Why do we live under this? This roof, this title, the House of Dynamite, how is this a way to maintain peace? You know, this is the question that I sit with. What do we do? How has it got worse? We're talking now 60 years after that one-two punch of Dr.

1:46:18Strangelove and Failsafe, which, again, I think opened up a lot of people's eyes to the possibility. and you know during the cold war people lived with this as a as a eventually daily very real possibility and now we have more nuclear weapons than we've ever had before enough to wipe out every man woman and child on the planet 10 times over it's it's astonishing we've got to this point but yet we are and yet we are at this point yeah yeah like i mean basically the film asks that question it's astonishing that we are at this point how did we get to this point and the film begs an answer you know i think i think it's a you know cry for action and a very serious warning i mean i i feel like this is there's no more critical topic to be discussed but it's a global issue it's not something that can be handled in one country or another country it's a global issue Everybody would need to embrace this as exactly as you mentioned, a warning, a concern.

1:47:23What would the course of action that you would like to see taken? Reducing the nuclear stockpile. Yeah. Like immediately. Significant. Yeah. As well. Really. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be amazing. And that should be the question. Yes. Yes. What would you do? A question of action is uninteresting. And when. Yeah. Yes. Right now. Now. Right now. Before the interview ends. If we could just make that happen, that would be great. Well, you never know who listens to the Empire podcast. So the power we wield is extraordinary. It's absolutely extraordinary. You never know. You never know. I was taken by so much about the movie.

1:48:09I was taken by how good people behave under extreme pressure. Rebecca, your character, Olivia, in this movie, it is so on point throughout. There's one moment where she allows herself to almost be overwhelmed by the humongous nature of what she's faced with. And then immediately the mask comes back on again, It's work, work, work. We've got to get through this. We've trained for this a thousand times. Can you talk about getting into that mindset? I mean, who did you talk to about that sort of thing? I think the script has the tension throughout for these 20 minutes or 25 minutes that we have to depict a character in a stressful situation.

1:48:57But also, it's very much the direction of how Catherine does her film together with Barry, the DP, where they put cameras all over. As we talked about, there are no marks. We need to hit certain notes. There are certain emotional, obviously, trajectories that we need to get to. And you also need to get information. Check the DEF CON, answer the phone, get POTUS on. If someone's having a colonoscopy, who do we need to get? There's so much information. And to get to that point of a character, there was a moment where I think Malachi looked at me, and I felt overwhelmed. And I turned my head because Larry, who is the person who gives me all the information, who is actually Jason Clarke's character in my life.

1:49:38And I think he said, you just never, ever break in the room. If you need to, you walk out and you cry. And you do your thing and you come back. And there's a moment where I just turned my head because I felt something came. But I wasn't aware that Catherine and Barry had a camera. Of course. Literally. Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss that. Literally there, grabbing my eyes. You've got five in this room alone, Catherine. Capturing everything. But it is, and I think this is what makes the film very real, because we build the tension, and whatever happened, I might not have cried at that moment.

1:50:13I mean, she would have got something phenomenal, maybe from Malachi. That was a moment, and they grabbed it, and it wasn't forced. It's such a beautiful moment. It's such an affecting moment. And then the fact that she just snaps back into it immediately, that really, really spoke to me. And then he says, the moment that Malachi says, it's just so, I mean, it's all so moving. he says well they'll wait won't they before they retaliate and she looks at him and a shrug you know who knows I mean that was that just I don't know it's it's it guts me it does I mean I as a director as well I really struck me that there's a a lack of hysterics amongst these people that we're tracking throughout the movie these are professionals they know exactly what but but at same time when you're faced with the unthinkable, you could be forgiven for breaking down.

1:51:06But was that something that you were very much against? I think also that's something, Larry came in, he became the head of the situation after Osama bin Laden was captured. So he came in the aftermath of it, because I wanted to know everything about that moment, because that would resemble the panic. But many of them are so trained, but they never get to experience this situation. So we kind of didn't have a freedom, but he had to get to the most scary point of his own imagination of what would happen and communicate that with us, which was really exciting and scary. It's absolutely incredible.

1:51:44There's a moment where Tracy Letts, I mean, everyone's incredible in this movie, but there's a moment where Tracy Letts is talking about a ball game the night before and then immediately once again the the seriousness of the situation becomes apparent there's it's not even a major shift it's almost imperceptible yeah but the game faces on yeah all of a sudden yeah as as as a filmmaker as a director is that something that you recognize as well is that something that you're you're drawn to that sort of professionalism under extreme duress i I suppose I am, but the script was just meticulous in its plotting of everything, everything working simultaneously.

1:52:23It's like three-dimensional chess. You've got Tracy Litz there, and you've got Jared Harris in another part of the studio doing his line simultaneous. But no, those shifts... The Brady Bunch. The Brady Bunch. Those shifts are just... I mean, they're just magical. You know, they're so intense and, like you say, almost imperceptible, and then he's somebody else. I mean, that's, you know, these are really, really profoundly great actors. But it's also Catherine, what she does. For me, I would come and say, hey, Catherine, I was thinking, should I bring muffins in? Do you remember? Because Larry said, we're quite boring.

1:53:05You know, we bring muffins. We bring, so obviously as an actor, you push limits. I was thinking I'll go and get coffee and then I'll do this. And Catherine was like, no, just come back. Let's just come back. Because if... There's a job to do. Yeah. But if we start doing what we as actors do and offer up too much, you're going to lose the tension. Yeah. If, as a director, to be able to maintain us and collect us like little children and put you there and go, you're free. But this is the tension. We have 18 minutes. Right. Yeah. That's what you have. Yeah. If you start going to the coffee machine, you've lost two minutes.

1:53:39You don't have time to go there. You don't have to go to a coffee machine. No, but all of this, it's a balance. It's not just the script and the good. It's her maintaining the story. Oh, astonishing. So talk me through that 18 minutes then. So you're doing these 18-minute takes as... Sometimes. Okay, with Jared in a different room, with Idris in a different room, live, communicating back and forth. Tracy lets everyone talk to each other. Yeah. That feels like a recipe for chaos, was it? out of the work. It could have been, but I had this extraordinary first AD, Simon Warnock, and he was able to keep everything.

1:54:19It's like a metronome. I mean, it was the precision that he maintained of the script on the set. I mean, it was extraordinary. He had it all graphed out that if you're here and this happens here, then that happens there. like the moment in the basketball, okay, where is she when the president is visiting Angel Reese in the stadium? So it's all graphed out, and we just basically are maintaining that grid, but it's very complex. And the editor, Kurt Baxter, he then would comb through it again and again for any slight deviation and it's really just the precision is it's really impeccable i mean it was it was challenging to say the least and rebecca from your point of view it's like a play yeah everything becomes live and active and you might miss a line but you don't stop you keep going because maybe that's a moment where they grab someone else or it just and it becomes real You know, you're in a set that looks authentic, that is authentic.

1:55:31You're with people in the room who many of them are actual soldiers and snipers. And then you have the linguistic, you know, the writing. And then you have Catherine sitting behind just kind of fine tuning everything, just sensing. It's like it feels different and it feels real. And you ask about those humanity, those moments when the tension arises, you're feeling it, And Jason Clarke coming in and putting the level of sharp accuracy. You know, it's a puzzle that just kind of... Yeah. And you have the countdown clock as well, which must help. The what? The countdown clock. That must help as well.

1:56:11Yeah. Because it's just your eye is constantly daunting. Time to impact. Time to impact. Extraordinary. Fantastic. On that note, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you both, Rebecca and Catherine. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Okay, that was Rebecca Ferguson and Catherine Bigelow. and as I say House of Dynamite is out now on Netflix and we'll review it properly on next week's show and speaking of next week's show that is it for this week's Empire Podcast join us next week for more film related fun we'll be joined by Edward Berger who is the director of Ballad of A Small Player it's exciting yay we'll be joined by the duo from The Hand That Rocks The Cradle Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Micah Munro that's exciting as well and we'll be joined by Asif Kapadia who is the director of a brand new documentary about one of my absolute all-time heroes no not Adam Sandler but Kenny Dalgleish one of the greatest Liverpool FC players and managers indeed of all time an absolute legend and an icon and I'll be talking to him as well

1:57:23wish me well I wish me well oh I totally wish you well yes good on you Chris let me just check this text message I've just got oh it says here that oh they've given that interview to you instead Helen well I'm sure I'll have many many questions for Kathy Dalgoose was it Kathy? I think it was Kathy okay whatever you do just get a picture definitely the interview doesn't matter just get the picture flames flames on the side of my face anyway until then until we meet again until that suspicious occasion it's goodbye from my three colleagues of such lethal cunning goodbye and also hello again James hi Chris you know what the amount of emails I've got through doing this podcast is extraordinary I honestly think it makes me more productive I do it's been great but goodbye and listen to the Byleth TV podcast I have an excellent chat with Stephen Merchant.

1:58:18Yes, James is awake through most of that. Well, I mean, some of it, let's be honest. I was even awake for some of the Stephen Merchant interview. It was a lot of fun, actually. We talked about all kinds of crazy things. Stephen Merchant? Stephen Merchant? Hear him out, Ricky. Hear him out. I did hear him out. It was ostensibly for The Walking Dead, but in reality, it was about a great many other things. Goodbye, Ben Travis. Four, three, two, one. I just cat myself out. That's legitimately a better Bruce Springsteen. No, I don't want to, I'm not going to say that. That's rude. It's just, it's mean.

1:58:51It's not true. And I'm not a mean guy. Goodbye, Helen O 'Hara. Goodbye, Chris. Toodaloo. Toodaloo. And it's goodbye for me. I'm off to practice my diction, just like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. I'm going to see Professor Henry Higgins and ask him to teach me how to say, Predator, Badlands, Predator, Predator, Predator. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye.

1:59:18You