Superman’ director James Gunn talks ‘cheesy’ tunes

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0:30It's The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. The last time our guest James Gunn was here was 2014. We were talking about loneliness and, more importantly, envy in Guardians of the Galaxy and his oeuvre up-to-date. It's been playing a really big part in the movie Superman, which you may have heard of. I'm sure he's still playing it at the theater near you. But we're more importantly here to talk about a new season of Peacemaker on HBO Max. First of all, James, it's a pleasure to have you back. Thanks so much for doing this again. Elvis, good to hear from you again, too. We were talking about Envy and how it had run through so much of your work up until that point, and that seemed to surprise you.

1:09So it shocked me to see how big a part Envy played in the Superman movie. Yeah, I mean, I think it really is, you know, the fact that Lex Luthor, who is really my favorite supervillain when portrayed correctly, what I think of as correctly, is he thinks of his jealousy or his envy almost as a spiritual quest, as a God-given, you know, desire so that he can rid the earth of Superman. And I like that. I don't, I mean, I don't like that part of him as a human being, but I like that part of him as a character. A lot of these things you've been doing that I think touch on loneliness, it really been sort of like post-COVID.

1:46And I'm wondering how much of that stuff has kind of affected your own writing and your own thinking about the world. I think COVID combined with sort of the disintegration of American cohesion over the past 10 years has definitely contributed to maybe my sense of loneliness, maybe a loss of hope with so many people that I think it's hard to avoid that those things have an effect on what I create. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting just because there's so much about these two seasons of Peacemaker that have been almost about kind of a claustrophobic loneliness. And what's been interesting, too, is watching how much better John Senna has become as an actor since Suicide Squad.

2:37Oh, there's no doubt. I mean, that was the thing. When I when I did Suicide Squad, I really could see the potential in John. But John is a wonderful actor, a wonderful person to work with because he has no ego. And he knew he was just starting out as an actor, really, around that time. And since that time, he's just committed himself to actually becoming an actor. And I think he's he's just fantastic in this season of Peacemaker. I think it's interesting. I wonder if you sort of clicked on this and watching him early on is even when he was really trying to find himself as an actor, he had a real ability to play hurt.

3:17Yeah. Well, I think, you know, some actors have an ability for you to look in their eyes and see something and some actors do not. And I think John has always had that multi-layered, that ability for us to see him thinking. And when you can see someone thinking, you can see someone being heard. And that was a part of the reason I created Peacemaker, the TV show in the first place was seeing that in John. I mean, I know exactly when it came about back when there was a scene in The Suicide Squad where he is about to kill Ratcatcher 2, this young, innocent girl. And he's doing it because he thinks it's the right thing to do, even though it's probably not.

3:58But he thinks of it as the right thing to do, and he also doesn't want to do it. But you can see this struggle in him and this sadness and this loneliness and this extreme close-up I had on his eyes. and I'm like, wow, that's really the seeds of something, of a character that has a lot to him. And that's where I came up with the idea for the show, really. It's a treat. We're talking to the man who's brought the Charlton cinematic universe to the small screen. Yeah, that's right. In addition to the DC cinematic universe, that's why you see Judo Master back in the second season of Peacemaker, which is on HBO Max.

4:34I guess, of course, it's James Gunn. But I think what's interesting about that character and you're really playing up sort of the kind of tragic aspect of it. Is this character whose motto is kind of laughable and tragic, you know, a man who wants peace so much he will kill for it? Yeah, it's funny because the line is almost like a joke. But in our case, you know, really coming to find out who this guy is who believes this, you know, which he doesn't really believe in the second season. I don't think he's changed. But I think, you know, getting to the bottom of where that belief system came from is a big part of, you know, who Peacemaker is, who Christopher Smith is, really.

5:16There echoes in kind of the first episodes of the first and second season where he's kind of flung into something and he has to sort of reevaluate who and what he is. And in the first season, his impulse was to react with violence. And this season, it's not. I mean, it's really, I want to talk to you about the way you sort of played this out in the season. I've only seen the first five episodes, but we're seeing somebody and it's kind of asks, I think, both the comedy and the pathos that his first instant, first reaction isn't to swing on somebody here. Yeah, no, I mean, I think that, you know, the TV shows that I've loved the best are the TV shows where the characters change, you know, and evolve from season to season or devolve either way.

6:01And I thought that was important that John, you know, Christopher Smith took those lessons that he learned about himself in the first season. And now the second season, he's trying to at times unsuccessfully apply those lessons. You know, he discovered his demons in the first season. And the second season is about him trying to actively deal with those demons with various degrees of success, you know, trying to find who he is and where he belongs. and that struggle is the story of the entire second season. Conceptually, he's the most, until this season, between the Suicide Squad and the first season of the show, his character was the most like a teenager, including running around in his tighty-whities a great deal.

6:43You actually sort of forcing him to grow up, or not forcing him, but allowing him to grow up somewhat in this. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think so. And I think it's important, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, it's an ensemble show, and we see all the characters changing, And at the center of this season is also a sort of love story, I will say, you know, off kilter love story between him and Harcourt. And I think in the first season, we see where each of those characters are. Harcourt, you think, is kind of together. She's kind of cool. He's a blustery mess. And in the second season, I think he's gotten much.

7:22And I don't think that you could have really, you know, his love for her seemed impossible. It seemed like a crush that could never be fulfilled because she thought he was a clown. And then the second season, you see where their friendship has grown and that she has, we learn a lot more about her and we see what a complete and utter mess her life is and how his life has in some very small, specific, but incredibly powerful ways has become better. And, you know, it is water seeking its own level at a certain point. You just mentioned ensemble. This is an ensemble. But I think of everything you've done as being an ensemble.

8:01I think of Super as being an ensemble and Slither as being an ensemble. Certainly Guardian series as being an ensemble and Suicide Squad. I think that's what you do. Even Superman is an ensemble piece. And as much as it feels like there's kind of a central character, that character isn't the sole protagonist. And that character is all their emotional growth is often sort of linked to a secondary character. Yeah, I mean, I think the stories are all about humans striving for connection. Like everything is that. And in Peacemaker, he's a character who's totally and utterly alone. And he's trying to find connections.

8:40And he starts to, in some small ways, find connections to these these four other people. Superman is an alien who feels alone, and it is about him striving to feel human or be accepted as human. Guardians of the Galaxy, to me, at the end of the day, is about a character, Rocket Raccoon, who's totally alone and is, over the course of three movies, starts to become connected not only to human beings, but sort of a sense of empathy for everyone and everything. So, yeah, I think all the stories are that. I don't know if I quite think of Super or Superman as ensembles because I do think there are central characters in that, that in a way that even Peacemaker is not because Peacemaker is eight episodes.

9:25And certainly Harcourt and Adebayo and Economos are incredibly important characters and Vigilante. I would say how thrilled I was to sort of see Vigilante and Judo Master being given so much screen time in this show. I mean, listen, I don't know if we ever would have expected Judo Master to be such a big role in this season. We always, you know, Vigilante was always a regular. He was number three on the call sheet since the beginning. But I think that Judo Master just kind of come in and won our hearts with his delightful jerkiness. So that's, he's, Nuh is just perfect in that character. and he's not at all like what I originally imagined him being like, but Nuz completely owned that role.

10:16I want to go back to something, because you've been sort of getting at something here. And I think it's key also, too, in the way that envy is, people wanting to be admired, looking for admiration. I mean, Star-Lord is certainly the center of Super. There's part of that, I think, in Slither. And it's happening a lot here. And in Superman, too, what misplaced admiration. I mean, for me, that kind of hunger for admiration and envy are linked in these things that you do. Yeah, there's no doubt. And it is what drives Lex Luthor's, you know, his whole life. I think that peacemaker, you know, he he too has had a very, very rough upbringing, much rougher than vigilantes in certain ways.

10:56And he doesn't feel legitimate. And so I think the way he's tried to become legitimate is by garnering, you know, the love of being a vigilante, a superhero. And it's not really working very well. He's not considered that great at it. He's like the struggling, you know, rock star in a small town who can't really make ends meet and has a few groupies here and there. And that's what he really gets. So I think he's looking for that legitimacy. And then we see that legitimacy at the beginning of season one being completely denied. He goes to the Justice Gang. He wants to be a member of their team.

11:43He thinks now that he's saved the world, he's going to be legitimized. And they just make they just mock him and make fun of him like he's a loser. He's angry about that. He goes to Harcourt, who he's in love with. And there again, he's denied that feeling with her. And so he sort of goes on to the wrong path a bit at that moment. But there's so many sort of echoes of that, because I was thinking about the way Gardner inhabits the Justice Gang in the movie. And then the relationship between Superman and Mr. Terrific, where there's actual admiration. And this even goes back to me with the way Star-Lord tries to sort of proclaim himself in the first Guardians movie.

12:23And that terrific performance for Rainn Wilson's in Super, which is also by seeking admiration. Yeah, I think it's admiration, but also isn't admiration really just a way that we're trying to be feel love? And if you don't feel fulfilled being loved by your family and friends, the people around you, then oftentimes you go out looking for it in other ways. And I think that's what a lot of these people are doing. And, you know, that's what a lot of people who are in show business are doing. So it's familiar to me. Well, we're going to take down the psychiatry five cents only sign for just a minute.

13:00We're going to take a little bit. I guess it's James Gunn. It's good to have him back. His newest project on HBO Max is the series Peacemaker. Now in its second season, it's The Treatment. There's more to come. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's The Treatment. You're not hearing Cheap Trick of Budokan when you're watching Peacemaker, although the soundtrack certainly brings to mind kind of the Rust Belt rock and roll that many of us have loved. the man responsible for choosing so much of that music and for creating the show is James Gunn. It's in its second season now on HBO Max. You were talking about sort of Chris Smith as kind of like a sort of like a small town rock and roller.

13:39And a lot of the music is in the show is the kind of music that he would literally or figuratively playing in his head, isn't it? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's all that I think that the the rock and roll in the show is in the rock and roll in Christopher Smith's life has been his life. It's been the way he's, you know, trying to rebel. You know, I think Christopher Smith wishes he could look like those guys, but he's had a father who's kind of kept him under his thumb for so many years that he's become very stifled in that respect. But internally, I think he rebels or experiences this other life through this, for lack of a better term what we call sleaze rock and uh and that's that's the music that sort of fills him with life and i think it's a really positive force in the in the show i think these are really that's a really good thing for christopher smith i mean it's funny because i just find myself thinking and you know i went and i pulled out a music i have that stuff about how important like the drums the drum kit is and especially like the cymbal and the hi-hat is and that stuff and that sort of clanging and banging is really almost kind of like trying to beat all these ideas of insecurity out of your head and give yourself a bit of a swagger.

14:53Yeah, I think it's that. I also think that a lot of the music that we put on the show, I mean, I love the soundtrack. I especially love the soundtrack of season two. I think it's probably my favorite soundtrack ever. And there are just so many wonderful songs. And a lot of this type of music is a type of music which people started to think of as early as, you know, 1990 when Nirvana was coming around as cheesy. And I think that is sort of what Christopher Smith is. He is a little cheesy in some ways. He's a little bit, you think of him as a numbskull, but what is there really below the surface?

15:29I think there's something really beautiful about Christopher Smith, something unique. And I think that's, that's true about a lot of the music as well. But I just find myself thinking again, the way you, Since you last hit the show, the way you've used music going from opening up Guardians with Redbound to using the echoes of the John Williams theme over the beginning of the Superman movie, how you're using music to create an emotional sense of place for the characters. Yeah, I think I and I often use music as a way to sort of ground people in something familiar when things are out of control.

16:06So, you know, Guardians were in that movie and it was, you know, nobody knew what was coming with that film. And it was this crazy space opera in outer space. Nothing really of Earth after the first few, you know, two or three minutes. And so I felt like the 70s AM pop was a way to ground people in something very familiar and almost mundane that contrasted in a fun way with the exoticness of this, you know, outer space fantasy stuff. And I don't think it's so much different with Peacemaker, although there is a fun sense of uncovering both the beauty of all these songs that we've pushed aside as being trifles and uncovering the beauty of Peacemaker and the 11th Street kids who seem like just a bunch of goofballs.

17:04It's interesting, too, because I think this other thing that kind of runs through a lot of your work is the way people deal with their own awkwardness. Certainly the music in certain situations does that. But, I mean, you talked about mundane. There are often these sort of mundane conversations in the middle of something really weird that's going on. And that becomes a way for people to deal with how awkward they are in their own lives, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And I love doing that. And one of my favorite things about creating a TV show and why Peacemaker is really my favorite thing to work on in so many ways is because it really is about the characters.

17:39You know, at the end of the day, a movie is about, you know, you've got to have that plot that moves forward from one scene to the next. And you only have so much time to laze around getting to know the characters. And TV is just not like that. TV is plots important, but it's really led by characters. and it allows us to get to know these people in a way that we don't have time for in a film because, you know, time is of the essence. Yeah, I just sort of think about all this stuff with Chris's family, and I don't want to get too much that way, especially for people who haven't had a chance to see any of the second season yet.

18:12But a lot of that, there's so much about what isn't said because the conversation is, we get the stats of it just fairly mundane sort of stuff, but there's a lot of what you're talking about, that sort of subtext when he sees his family. I don't think it's a spoiler because it's in all the trailers and everything else and if somebody's listening to this podcast, but the whole season revolves around Peacemaker discovering this alternate reality, this alternate world that is the way he perceives it, just like his world, but better. You know, all the people that he wanted to love him, love him, the people he wants to be alive are alive And he kind of starts to feel like he's stuck in the wrong reality and that he was he's faced with all the things he's lost that he's never had.

19:05And that is the center of the whole season and what, you know, Christopher Smith has to come to terms with. And it's not, you know, I think people hear, oh, multiverse, it's like Deadpool or Spider-Man with three Spider-Mans and it's all crazy and funny in this. But it really isn't that. It's really more metafictional and literary. And it's like Philip Ross's Encounter Life, just with, you know, sex and gore and, you know, crude jokes. But it is this it's more meditative than those things. It's more about this this person's life and coming to terms with that. It's the treatment. I'm not the one spoiling the show.

19:44That's James Gunn. He created it. The show is second season. in his HBO Max. I found myself thinking that it was more like Don DeLillo to me as I was watching. Yes, sure. And I was thinking if Don DeLillo had done It's a Wonderful Life, this is what it would be. That's good. I like that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, listen, I started as a novelist and those are the kinds of stories I love. Even, you know, there's a science fiction novel called Replay, which I really loved a lot. Yeah, you remember that? where it's about a guy is 50 years old. He's riding his bike. Everybody should go read this book.

20:21He's riding his bike. He falls over. He gets knocked out and he wakes up and things are black and he's in his dorm room and he's 18 years old and he gets the chance to relive his life again. And I've always loved those kinds of stories where it's, you know, I think we all, I mean, I do. I have a part of myself where I go, oh, the greatest fantasy would be going back and reliving life from the time you're 15 years old and making different choices, you know. And I think that that's that's a part of all of us. I mean, it's it's about regret. And I think Christopher Smith's his mind, it's also it's a sort of, you know, underlying existential resentment against this terrible life that he's been handed against his will.

21:09He's sort of a pure, creative, sweet guy who's just been destroyed by this, you know, a white supremacist father and his brother dying when he was young, the only person that loved him. And he's really, you know, he's resentful towards the world, towards God, towards everything for what they put on this earth for him. He thinks he's getting the dregs of society. there's a kind of a knockabout quality in replay that, you know, if you read it fast, it feels almost like it's kind of metaphysical comedy, but it's really not. I mean, and, and that same sort of speed, even though you're taking your time here in the show is the kind of thing that initially, especially when you watch the first season again, it seems less like comedy than it does the first time you watch it.

22:00And especially when the way you replay, when they flagged death in the first couple of episodes, it becomes a much more two-sided thing. And I guess one of the things I wanted to ask you is, at that moment where, and that's not a spoiler, in the suicide plot where he does kill Rick Flagg Jr., if that's when you thought, there's more to this. It's not just this one side that we're seeing now, because that to me really feels like the moment of incitement that led you to go off and do this show. Yeah, I mean, I think that's true. I mean, I think that the moment of excitement was really working with John Cena because we just really bonded over Peacemaker.

22:38And also, I think the character of Peacemaker is just unique in a way that a lot of the others. I love so many of these other superheroes, but I can't really think who is the parallel of Peacemaker. He's just this, you know, pretty right wing, blustery, toxically masculine guy. but who is a completely other side to him. He's a bisexual. He's a complicated human being. And dealing with that over long form seemed exciting to me, especially because I got to work with John. But I do think that he has these driving forces in his life that we uncover in season two that are that he killed his brother when he was young and that he killed Rick Flagg.

23:24And then of course, you know, kills his father in season one. So he has this feeling that like death is following him, is chasing him everywhere. And he's the hands of death. And I think that's him trying to come to terms with that during the season. But a lot of people have said to me exactly what you just said. I mean, I think that the reviews, the main thing that people have pointed out is that this season's a lot more, I guess, dramatic or emotional than the first season. And I don't think that is like intentional, like, oh, the first season was so funny. Let's make this season less goofy.

24:03I think it's a matter of the character changing. And Peacemaker in the first season was just always trying to prove how cool and great he was. And oftentimes by bullying people, he did that. In season two, he's different and he's just more vulnerable. It happens to match, you know, and John and I talked about this when we were shooting the very first episode. Our personal journeys have been one of being less blustery and more in touch with who we are in the moment. And I think that the season Peacemaker's journey matches my journey and John Cena's journey. Also, there's speed in the first season.

24:45And this season is much more. That's why DeLillo came to mind for me, because this season is much more meditative than the first one was. Yeah, it's just it has a different vibe from the very beginning. But again, I think that's all normal because of where Peacemaker is in his life of what he's dealing with. He's like emotionally a raw nerve end at the beginning of the season. His whole life has been sort of carved away, as have the lives of most of the characters. you know and they all have different ways of dealing with that so it's hard not to be you know i don't know if it's slower more in the moment um when that stuff is happening but also i mean it's interesting because what what he thinks of as being kind of a moment of sacrifice is really yeah him absenting himself from other people's lives and we also get to see the effect that he's had on other people's lives too and in his way he's kind of brought them together in ways that nobody expected.

25:44Well, I think that's sort of the truth. I think that he's very self-diminishing, right? Because the other 11th Street kids do love him. They prove that repeatedly. He does enrich their lives. He does make something important in their lives. I mean, the whole first season to me was about at the core of it. The core of this one is really about the relationship between Peacemaker and Harcourt. In the first season, it was about the relationship between Peacemaker and Adebayo. And it was not a one-sided relationship. She taught him that, you know, you can be who you are, that you're okay as you are, that people like you.

26:23She thinks he's funny when no one else does. She gets his warmth. She gets his everything about him. And she gives him that love. But in return, he shows her that an eagle can love a human. He turns her on to the magic that exists within this world. And she discovers that part of herself that she's been denying in the same way he discovers the part of himself that he's been denying. And in a lot of ways, Adebayo, although her life is probably at the worst place at the beginning of season two, she's also by far the happiest. And that is because of where she is in her life and what she's gotten from Peacemaker.

27:04But I would also say, too, it's just deepened in this season that she's always eager for a kind of experience. And I think in some ways that's sort of, he sort of picked up on that too from her. There's so much drive in him, physical drive, and what she's kind of given him, and we get to see it by, especially the midpoint in the second season, she's given him kind of an emotional ambition that he didn't have before, just by proximity. There's no doubt that she's opened him up to his emotional life in general, that I don't think he really had any real, even awareness of before Adebayo. Well, I mean, I guess we should thank James Gunn for being here and asking when he's going to turn to an emotional deepening of Swing with Scooter and some of the other DC titles.

27:49Always a pleasure to talk to you. It should be more than every 10 years, but thank you. Thanks again for doing this. Thanks, Elvis.