Deadline Hollywood - AwardsLine - Oscar Preview/Actors - 01/10/24

J A N UA RY 1 0 , 2 0 2 4 OSCAR PREVIEW

MAD ABOUT The champion of Barbie reshapes Hollywood

Also Starring... JAMIE BELL Fantasia Barrino DANIELLE BROOKS Nicolas Cage WILLEM DAFOE COLMAN DOMINGO Rupert Everett CHARLES MELTON Cillian Murphy PETER SARSGAARD Jeffrey Wright

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C R I T IC S

C HO IC E AWA R D INCLUDING

N OM I NAT ION S

BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR

BEST DIRECTOR ALEXANDER PAYNE • BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY DAVID HEMINGSON BEST ACTOR PAUL GIAMATTI • BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS =: OBG> CHR K:G=HEIA

WINNER BEST PICTURE BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

WINNER BEST PICTURE DALLAS-FT. WORTH FILM CRITICS ASSOC.

WINNER NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

WINNER NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

WINNER

BEST ACTOR

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

PAUL GIAMATTI

DA’VINE JOY RANDOLPH

NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

DAVID HEMINGSON

WINNER

BOSTON SOCIETY OF FILM CRITICS

BEST ACTOR

PAUL GIAMATTI

“A Winner. A Stellar Ensemble Cast.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Performance is Magnetic.”

The Boston Herald

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First Take 4 JAMIE BELL: Playing dad in All of Us Strangers.

8 QUICK SHOTS: Chewing the scenery in Wonka and shooting the stars of Asteroid City.

10 THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING: How the Academy’s documentary chapter is broadening the scope of the Oscars.

14 OUT OF AFRICA: Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano, plus the rest of this year’s International hopefuls.

Cover Stories 18 BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: Margot Robbie on life before and after Barbie.

Dialogue: Actors 28 JEFFREY WRIGHT 32 NICOLAS CAGE 36 COLMAN DOMINGO 40 RUPERT EVERETT 44 CILLIAN MURPHY 48 WILLEM DAFOE 52 CHARLES MELTON 56 PETER SARSGAARD

Craft Services 60 GEAR AND CLOTHING IN LOS ALAMOS: Dressing the stars of Oppenheimer, Chevalier and Maestro.

The Partnership 66 A TALE OF TWO SISTERS: Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks share their memories of making The Color Purple..

ON THE COVER: Margot Robbie photographed exclusively for Deadline by Josh Telles.

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M I CH A E L BU C K N E R FO R D E A D L IN E

On The Cover

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CRITICS CHOICE AWA R D N O M I N AT I O N S

BEST PICTURE

BEST DIRECTOR Bradley Cooper BEST ACTOR Bradley Cooper BEST ACTRESS Carey Mulligan BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Bradley Cooper & Josh Singer BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Matthew Libatique BEST EDITING Michelle Tesoro BEST HAIR AND MAKEUP

MAKE-UP ARTISTS & HAIR STYLISTS GUILD AWARD N O M I N AT I O N S

BEST PERIOD AND/OR CHARACTER MAKE-UP BEST SPECIAL MAKE-UP EFFECTS BEST PERIOD HAIR STYLING AND/OR CHARACTER HAIR STYLING

“THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR. Maestro is the closest thing to perfection I’ve seen on the screen in a very long time.”

Rex Reed,

“+++++

ONE OF THE MOST SEARING AND INTIMATE PORTRAITS OF A MARRIAGE IN AMERICAN FILM. It takes place across a huge canvas, and in addition to two powerhouse performances from Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, the film shows fluidity and imagination both in the cinematography and in the scene conception. Yet somehow ‘Maestro’ stays realistic and never loses touch with the ground.”

Mick LaSalle,

WINNER

A F I AWA R D S HONOREE

ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST PICTURES

WINNER NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST PICTURES ICON AWARD BRADLEY COOPER

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Q U I C K S H OT S 8 | D O C U M E N TA RY F E AT U R E S 1 0 | I N T E R N AT I O N A L F E AT U R E S 1 4

A ghostly father figure strikes a chord for Jamie Bell in All of Us Strangers

By Joe Utichi

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C H R I S H A R R I S/ SE A R C H LI GH T P IC T UR ES / EV E R ET T C O LLEC T IO N P H OTO C R ED I T

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CONSIDER THIS

“ THE BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR .”

AFI AWARDS

O N E O F THE YEAR’S BEST PICTURES

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INDIEWIRE HONORS VISIONARY AWARD

BEST SCREENPLAY

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE • CHICAGO FILM CRITICS

“NATALIE PORTMAN GIVES A TOUR DE FORCE PERFORMANCE.” “JULIANNE MOORE IS SENSATIONAL,

balancing Gracie on the knife’s edge between childlike fragility and matriarchal savageness.”

“MASTERFUL. A FEAST OF POWERHOUSE ACTING.”

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR CHARLES MELTON

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE • GOTHAM AWARDS • CHICAGO FILM CRITICS WASHINGTON D.C. FILM CRITICS • BOSTON ONLINE FILM CRITICS ASSOCIATION FLORIDA FILM CRITICS CIRCLE • ONLINE ASSOCIATION OF FEMALE FILM CRITICS

“CHARLES MELTON GIVES THE PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR.”

SCAN TO IMMERSE YOURSELF IN DIRECTOR TODD HAYNES’ RAPTUROUS PROCESS

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Spare a moment for the degree of difficulty encountered by Jamie Bell as he grappled with the character director Andrew Haigh had written for him on the pages of All of Us Strangers. How does a 37-year-old actor, best known to audiences for his role as a preteen ballet prodigy, wrap his head around playing a father to the 47-year-old Andrew Scott, resurrected from an era before Bell was born? And how does he navigate not only paternal responsibility, but also the complication of being, impossibly, a generation younger than his own son?

“I’ve been doing this for so long now,” says Bell, referring to the profession that found its way to him. “But I still have no fucking idea what I’m doing.”

This is who Jamie Bell is, determined to pass any sense of accomplishment onto others. Claire Foy was in the same boat as him, he notes, playing Scott’s younger mother, and both actors helped him get there, along with Haigh. “When you go to work with such brilliant actors who do know what they’re doing, and they have a measure of control, technique and ability to fall back on, which you don’t have, they help you figure it out.”

Bell is, obviously, being too humble, and few who have seen the finished film could doubt his achievement. Haigh chose Bell for the role—the only actor he considered—for two reasons. One was that subverting the image of a man best known to us as a boy, the star of Billy Elliot, appealed to him.

The other was that there are few actors with so much insight into the vagaries of fatherhood. “Fathers and sons is a theme that has been integral to my work,” Bell notes. “The sense of parental disunity is something I’m always going through subconsciously, because I was raised without a father.”

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There’s a scene in the film where ‘Dad’, as Bell’s character is simply known, tells Scott’s Adam that he’s sorry. “That’s the conversation I’m always waiting for,” says Bell. “It’s the thing you’re always subconsciously endeavoring to get. So, if you get to do it in your job, of course you’re going to bring all of this shit you’ve been thinking about for 20 years. It’s always kind of there.”

Bell also became a father when he was 27—he has three children now—and recalls a scene in the film that reminded him of his own parenthood. “When I tell Adam it’s time to go now, Andrew reaches out and puts his hand on my mouth to stop me from speaking. My four-year-old does that. She thinks, if you don’t speak it, it won’t happen.” It’s a moment that wasn’t in the script. “That was just Andrew being brilliant. And you immediately go, ‘OK, I’m going to hold his hand now, because that hand is precious to me.’ It fuels you, and that’s what’s wonderful about working with great actors.”

This stuff affects Bell; he can’t help it. He still signs texts to Scott, “Love, Dad,” because the scenes got under his skin. On the film’s set last year, in a strange London diner, I watched Bell, Scott and Foy author the scene that would be their final encounter. With Haigh’s encouragement, they played through each take in full, iterating on it each time, lifting it from the page into such a real, emotional crescendo that even members of the typically stoic British film crew were fighting back tears. “It was so meta for me,” Bell says now. “So profound and impactful.”

And material like this just seems to find him. “I feel like it’s the universe,” he says. “I don’t look for it. I don’t want to be dealing with my daddy issues in my career. But it’s just the best part of me because it’s

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the most honest. It’s the rawest and the most revealing, and it’s eternal.

The story that you’re trying to move on from is the one that you keep coming back to.”

The good news is he finds catharsis in it. That scene in the diner was also the last scene he and Foy shot for the film. “We said goodbye to Andrew in that diner, and then we left,” he says. “Me and Claire just disappeared. There was closure to it, both in the moment and in the story. But there was closure for me too. Of course, you always carry those memories to some degree, but the work does help. I think about this movie all the time when I think about being a parent. I think about something Andrew [Scott] says, which I’m going to steal, when he talks about the ‘accidental cruelty of families’. It’s such a brilliant way of putting it, because it’s not intentional but it is so defining when it comes to how we perceive ourselves. Even helping can be distancing.”

Bell found his vocation at 13 when Stephen Daldry picked him, from a field of more than 2,000 boys, for the role of Billy Elliot. He grew up in a working-class part of England with his mother and sister, and had picked up ballet when his sister brought him along to her after-school classes.

Opportunities like Billy Elliot weren’t meant to come to kids like him, but he seized it when it did. His performance won him a BAFTA for Leading Actor—he joked in his speech that he was asked by Russell Crowe, nominated alongside him for Gladiator, to thank him if he won.

“There are so many kids who never got that phone call [for Billy Elliot],” he says. “Kids who were just as talented, maybe even better dancers, maybe even better actors. I think about those kids all the time, and how fortunate I was to be the one that the decision fell on. That’s really what it comes down to; just luck. What you do with it after is obviously up to you.”

For Bell, this meant persevering. In the near quarter century since Billy Elliot, Bell has forged an acting career most would envy, having worked with directors like Thomas Vinterberg, Peter Jackson, Clint Eastwood and Bong Joon-ho. He is motivated by how the work makes him feel, not what it will do for him. On the day we meet, the Independent Spirit Award nominations have recognized All of Us Strangers in several categories, but the person least interested in Bell’s own omission from that list is Bell himself. “It’s just brilliant that the film has been recognized,” he insists, and he means it.

“All I really hope is that I’ve used the opportunity I was given 20 years ago in the best way, and that I’ve done some interesting work and worked with some interesting people,” Bell says. “For me, it was always about learning, constantly learning. Learning what this artform is and what this medium can do. It’s an unbelievable privilege to be any part of it. It means a lot to me. It’s not life or death, but it kind of is.”

Bell has dabbled with music sporadically since, dancing sweetly with Annette Bening in Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, and most notably singing in Dexter Fletcher’s Rocketman, but he’s hopeful that he’ll soon return to that original passion. He’s attached to produce and star as Fred Astaire in a

biopic of the iconic dancer’s relationship with Ginger Rogers (curiously, Tom Holland, whose first role was as Billy Elliot in the stage musical adaptation of the film, has a competing Fred Astaire project on his docket).

“I’m so passionate about Fred Astaire and his work,” Bell says. “We’re close to moving forward on it, and I’m just so excited to be putting on the shoes and going for it. It’ll be a massive challenge that’s going to require me to break my body apart and put it back together, but I really feel like I’m up to the task.”

And after that, he thinks, acting might take a backseat. When he made Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, he met Bening’s partner, Warren Beatty. After a long discussion—a conversation Bell still talks about in reverential tones—Beatty told Bell: “Start directing.”

“I took it as a compliment because he clearly understood that there was something in me that wanted that. I think that ambition has been growing in my mind, subconsciously, for many years. He told me, ‘As an actor, you’ll only be allowed to do so much. It’s clear you’ve got these other desires and interests, and you must start working on that right now. Just start.’”

So, he has been writing, “And writing is incredibly complex, and complicated, and lonely and isolating and horrific… but I love the puzzle. I love it when things click into place, and you start surprising yourself.” If he can survive the rigors of playing Fred Astaire, he says, he’ll know the time is right to step behind the camera. “I might fall flat on my face with it. But I’m just now ready to start speaking it: I want to direct.”

But Bell has never fallen flat on his face as a performer; why would directing be any different? “Yeah, maybe,” he says. “I’ve got to start trusting myself a bit more. It’s time to start backing myself, I think.” A

Eve Hewson as Flora.

Jamie Bell in Billy Elliot.

From left: Bell and Claire Foy in All of Us Strangers.

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Dreamy Sweets How Wonka production designer Nathan Crowley created a rotating chocolate shop with edible elements

Timothée Chalamet in Wonka.

make a lot of it for real so you could pick it up and eat it.”

The design of the shop was based on flashbacks to Willy Wonka’s childhood, where his mother made chocolate for him in a canal boat. “You get the feeling that they lived in this idyllic enchanted garden that had a big willow tree.”

This led to the creation of the

City Lights

large weeping willow tree as the centerpiece of the shop, surrounded by a moving candy canal and boat.

“The reason we made it circular is so we could spin the river and the canal boat, and then spin the tree,” he says. “There’s a steel frame in there because it all has to move, and then we managed

to make the outside look like chocolate, which was lots of work with sculptors.” Crowley and the team of sculptors examined how carving chocolate created ribbons and flakes, which resulted in a realistic chocolate look to the large tree. “Everything had to look like you could eat it,” he says. —Ryan Fleming

Asteroid City cinematographer Robert Yeoman on lighting two distinct worlds

From left: Jason Schwartzman and Jake Ryan in Asteroid City.

Asteroid City takes place in two worlds, which gave cinematographer Robert Yeoman the challenge of creating two distinct looks for the film. The first was Asteroid City itself, where director Wes Anderson wanted everything to be naturally lit.

“It was going to be in color and on anamorphic lenses,”

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says Yeoman. “It was a bit of a challenge for me not using movie lights, particularly in the interior of the diner or the gas station.” To solve the lack of lighting inside, Yeoman requested skylights for all of the buildings, covered with a “soft diffusion material”, which allowed the sun to light the interiors as well. If

light needed to be added to highlight an actor, the team would use white cards underneath them to reflect the sunlight onto their faces.

The second world was the stage, which is shot in black and white and used lighting that emulated a stage production.

“I come from a motion picture background,” says Yeoman. “My

lighting style is different, so that was a challenge.” Inspired by ’50s talk shows, the stage setting used hard lighting overhead and the aspect ratio shifted to a 1.37 format. “We brought in a theatrical lighting designer, and he helped us to light it more like a theatrical production than a movie.”

—Ryan Fleming

WA R N E R B R O S./ FO C US FEAT UR E S/ E V ER ET T C O LL EC TI O N/ R O B ERT Y EO M A N

When he started his work on Wonka, production designer Nathan Crowley knew he wanted to build as many physical sets as possible. “If you hire me, you’re going to do some building, because I believe strongly that you build as much as you can,” he says.

That approach was put to the test when designing the Wonka chocolate shop, complete with edible elements for the cast to eat. “A lot of it’s fake, but a lot of it’s real. We had a lot of extras there, so we had to

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A WIDE-ANGLE LENS The Academy explores new territories as international documentaries stake their claims

country, and Olfa’s two eldest daughters became swept up the fanatical religious movement, eventually joining ISIS in Libya. Ben Hania uses actresses to portray the missing siblings, and Hind Sabri, a star of Arab cinema, to play Olfa.

Ben Hania says it took her a long time to decide to incorporate actors into her film. “When you think about the past in general, in classical documentary, you think about reenactment, and I hate reenactment.

So, I told myself, it’s such a cliché, I will hack it,” she says. “I’ll use reenactment, but as I want it, and to serve the story.”

Ugandan-born filmmakers Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp teamed up for the shortlisted Bobi Wine: The People’s President, from National Geographic Documentary Films. It’s the story of the titular Ugandan pop star, who gave up a comfortable career as a musician to enter politics. He put his life at risk by daring to run for president against Uganda’s ruthless dictator, Gen. Yoweri Museveni.

Chilean filmmaker Maite Alberdi, one of the international-based directors invited to join the documentary branch during Roger Ross Williams’ tenure as governor, earned a place on the shortlist with The Eternal Memory. It tells the love story of Paulina Urrutia and Augusto Góngora, two prominent figures in the arts and media in Chile, who remained deeply bonded with each other even after Góngora was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 62. Alberdi recalls Urrutia telling her, “Memory isn’t constructed alone, it’s constructed collectively. So, even if Augusto is losing his memory, I am his memory, like, we are a memory together.”

To Kill a Tiger

Oscar documentary branch voters can’t be accused of parochialism. They ventured far and wide to select their shortlist of feature documentaries for 2023, tapping films from countries as varied as a U.N. roll call: Ukraine, Uganda, Poland, Denmark, Tunisia, Canada and the United States.

To Kill a Tiger, one of the 15 finalists, unfolds in a village in the Indian state of Jharkhand. Nisha Pahuja, who was born in India and raised in Canada, directed the film about a humble couple who fight for justice after their 13-year-old daughter is sexually assaulted by three men. Before the shortlist was announced, Pahuja wondered whether doc branch members would embrace her documentary. “It’s a Canadian film, but it’s an Indian story,” she said, “and it’s subtitled.”

Pahuja needn’t have worried. Neither subtitles nor remote settings deter today’s documentary branch, whose membership is far less insular than it used to be. Beginning around 2017, the branch added hundreds of filmmakers, many from abroad, under an initiative spearheaded by Roger Ross Williams, then on the Academy’s board of governors representing the nonfiction wing. “We invited an unprecedented number of international members,” Williams recalls. “And now we’re the most international branch of the Academy.”

Along with To Kill a Tiger, shortlisted films with an international dimension include two focusing on the war in Ukraine: 20 Days in Mariupol, directed by Ukrainian journalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, documents Russia’s brutal assault on civilians in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol in the early days of its invasion; In the Rearview, from Polish filmmaker Maciek Hamela, consists of scenes shot inside a minivan transporting Ukrainian civilians to safety across the border into Poland.

Hamela wasn’t confident his film would make the shortlist because it hadn’t been distributed in the U.S., but the doc branch had his back. “I’m thrilled at this distinction,” he says. “And I’m grateful for the honesty and bravery of all those who shared their stories with us during the evacuations. The power of their testimony speaks for itself.”

Shortlisted Apolonia, Apolonia, directed by Denmark’s Lea Glob, also hasn’t been seen in the U.S. outside of a few film festivals, but the documentary branch didn’t pass it over. The film revolves around gifted French artist Apolonia Sokol, whose emerging talent makes her a mark for less than scrupulous powerbrokers in the art world.

Four Daughters, from Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a working-class woman who raised four girls in Tunisia. The Arab Spring unleashed a wave of Islamist fervor in the

Apolonia, Apolonia

The Eternal Memory

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Ranjit’s daughter in a field.

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American Symphony

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A Still Small Voice

Williams adapted Stamped from the bestselling nonfiction work by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, an opus that has been banned from schools in several states.

The director sees the shortlist recognition, and the film’s success on Netflix, as signs that nonfiction films don’t have to foreground celebrities to find an audience.

“That’s contrary to all what people are saying, that it’s hard to get a documentary that is serious and deals with an important social issue like racism—it’s hard to get that documentary made and seen,” Williams says.

“But when that happens, people watch it, and people pay attention and people realize how important it is.

And maybe in certain states you can’t read Kendi’s book, but you can’t ban Netflix.”

HBO’s Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project also takes on structural racism by probing the work of poet Nikki Giovanni, a vital voice in American life for more than 50 years now. Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson directed the documentary, which won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

“In the ’70s [Giovanni] was on Black radio. She was doing music to poetry before hip hop,” Stephenson notes. “I grew up in Canada. But after… going to college with specific classes that I was taking, I became familiar with her and Ntozake Shange and I’ve been in love with her work ever since.”

Brewster, who grew up in Los Angeles, became aware of Giovanni’s incisive commentary on American culture going way back. “There was an emotional connection with her,” he says, “because she was saying things I had never heard.”

When the roll call of Oscar nominations is announced later this month, expect a balance in the documentary feature category between U.S. and international films. But as far as the ultimate winner goes, the edge goes to American hopefuls: Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie and American Symphony. A

N ET FLI X / A B R A M O R A M A / E VE R E TT C O LLEC T IO N

International documentaries not only have populated the Oscar shortlist in recent years, but they’ve gone on to secure nominations, including Honeyland (North Macedonia), Collective (Romania), All That Breathes and Writing with Fire (both from India), A House Made of Splinters and Flee (both from Denmark), The Cave and Of Fathers and Sons (both directed by Syrian filmmakers). Chile’s Alberdi earned an Oscar nomination for her previous documentary, The Mole Agent.

It tends to be American films, however, that go on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. And there are plenty of U.S.-made contenders among the 2023 finalists, including American Symphony, the Netflix film directed by Matthew Heineman that’s under the banner of the Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground.

Heineman’s documentary explores the rise of musician Jon Batiste, former bandleader of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Batiste’s relationship with his wife, Suleika Jaouad. One of the most exciting days of the multi-instrumentalist’s career—when he learned he was nominated for 11 Grammys—became simultaneously one of the most challenging for him and Jaouad as she began chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer.

“At first, Suleika didn’t want to be part of the film, and she didn’t want to be the ‘sick antidote’ to Jon’s success, which I totally understood,” Heineman says. “It took a lot of conversations and dialogue to make her feel comfortable with both my intentions and the practical realities of what filming might look like. So more than any other film that I’ve made, we were all sort of constantly in dialogue about where we’re at, how we’re feeling, is this OK to keep going.”

American Symphony must be considered a strong favorite to earn an Oscar nomination, along with Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, directed by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim. The feature from Apple Original Films premiered at Sundance last year, with Fox in person to see the film that traces the arc of his exceptional career and his fight with Parkinson’s disease. “[When] Davis Guggenheim would like to do a documentary about you— whether you’re in the business or not—you’re going to want to do that, work with someone of that quality, and I certainly did,” Fox recalls. “He understood the writing I’d done and the feeling behind it. It was not a ‘Oh, what terrible things happened to you with Parkinson’s’ story, it was a story about what great things happen to you when you’re alive.”

The American contenders on the shortlist continue with Beyond Utopia, Madeleine Gavin’s award-winning film that exposes the brutal reality of life in North Korea; A Still Small Voice, directed by Luke Lorentzen, and the innovative sonic documentary 32 Sounds from director Sam Green. The latter film is described as a “profound sensory experience… a meditation on the power of sound to bend time, cross borders, and profoundly shape our perception of the world around us.”

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy earned posthumous recognition for Nancy Buirski, a beloved and respected documentarian who died unexpectedly in August.

Roger Ross Williams, the American filmmaker who has done so much to boost international directors in the doc branch, also saw his latest documentary, Stamped From the Beginning, make the shortlist. His film, a Netflix title, documents the impact of anti-Black ideology from the origins of the trans-Atlantic slave trade through the present day.

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INCREDIBLE JOURNEYS Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitanio is just one of 15 films making the perilous passage to Oscar International finalists

By Damon Wise

The Monk and the Gun

Tótem

Fallen Leaves

(Finland); Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days ( Japan); Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things (France); and Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest (U.K.); the latter of which may benefit voters faced with an already busy ballot for Best Picture.

Spain’s Society of the Snow, helmed by J.A. Bayona, could make the cut too, if the real-life subject matter—a brutal survival story set in the aftermath of a plane crash— doesn’t prove too upsetting, or possibly Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land, if the appeal of Mads Mikkelsen outweighs the dryness of its historical Danish content.

Of the six remaining, it’s an open field, although Armenia’s Amerikatsi, a dark comedy about an Armenian American who returns to find his birth country under Stalin’s brutal rule, might be a little too offbeat in tone.

Likewise, Pawo Choyning Dorji may struggle to return to the ceremony after Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom with his more satirical follow-up, The Monk and the Gun, a comedy inspired by the establishment of democracy in his native Bhutan. More serious challengers come from Germany, with Ilker Çatak’s psychological drama The Teachers’ Lounge; Iceland, with Hlynur Pálmason’s religious odyssey Godland, and Mexico, with Lila Avilés’ rites-of-passage story Tótem.

One entry that could make it, however, is a film that tells the story of a journey made against the odds. Starring two Senegalese unknowns, Seydou Sarr and Moustapha Fall, Italy’s Io Capitano, directed by Matteo Garrone, is that rare film that looks behind the headlines and ends where most immigrant dramas start. It’s a surprising move for Garrone, who perhaps remains best known internationally for his hard-hitting 2008 gangster movie Gomorrah, which IFC released in the U.S. with Martin Scorsese’s support.

For Garrone, however, Io Capitano isn’t a change of direction but a return. “My first movie, Terra di mezzo, was about an immigrant,” he says. “That was 27 years ago,

M UB I / R OA D S ID E ATT R AC TI O N S/ J A N U S FI LM S .E V ER ET T C O LL EC TI O N

The release of the international shortlist came with very few surprises this year, but perhaps chief among them was an unexpected snub for the Palestinian entry Bye Bye Tiberias by Lina Soulem. One might see this a rejection of politics, given the situation in the Middle East, but the list also saw Ukraine make the cut for the very first time, with a film that couldn’t be any more specific to the country’s ongoing war with Russia. Directed by Ukrainian photojournalist and filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, 20 Days in Mariupol, which premiered at Sundance last year, is a harrowing first-hand documentary account of a Russian attack on a major city and its shocking disregard for civilian life.

Perhaps reflecting the now frequent overlap between fiction and non-fiction, docs have begun edging into the International category ever more, as evidenced by the inclusion of The Mother of All Lies, from Morocco, and Four Daughters, from Tunisia. Both films stray far from the traditional talking-heads format; in Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters the director not only uses actors to tell the story of a mother who lost her daughters to ISIS, but has them interact with the film’s real-life subjects.

Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies, meanwhile, uses figurines and dioramas to open up the director’s grandmother and find out why she refused to allow her family to photograph their lives.

The list makes clear that at least four titles look safe to go through to next round, all of them Cannes favorites: Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves

Ranjit’s daughter in a field.

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so it’s like I’ve come full circle. But the idea this time came from a desire to show what’s behind the journey, what’s behind the image that we’ve been used to seeing, for years, on the news. We always see [statistics]—the numbers of people that arrive, either alive or dead—and we forget that behind these numbers there are people. I wanted to give a visual form to the part of the journey that we do not see, so the film came from a desire to do a kind of reverse shot of what we’re used to seeing. I wanted to put the camera on the other side, to a give a voice to people that usually don’t have one, and to give to the audience the chance to live this experience through the eyes of an immigrant.”

The film tracks a very specific route, from Dakar through Libya, and up to Italy via a perilous sea crossing. There is danger at every turn, something Garrone says came from his extensive research into the subject. “All the immigrants Io Capitano that I spoke to came via that route,” he says.

“But I don’t think it’s important [exactly] which route they come through. I just wanted to show an epic journey, an epic adventure. These kids aren’t escaping from a war, they are trying to follow their dreams—they want to write songs—and it’s something that everybody should be able to relate to. They want to move, they want to travel, they want to follow their dreams, they want to live their life. It’s about that: the fact that there are some human beings that can move around freely and others that can’t. They have to pass through hell to follow their dreams.”

The idea of the ‘romantic migrant’ is the backbone of the film, something that comes to the fore in the film’s surprising moments of surreal beauty, notably in the desert, where a dying woman is shown levitating. Garrone is trying to make the point that young people are coming to Africa for the same reason as young Europeans.

“When we see a boat of people arriving in Italy, we assume they are always escaping from war,” he explains. “But I know that is not always the case, because I listen to them. I know that 70% of the population in Africa are young, and a lot of them use social media, they have a window on our world, and what they see from their point of view of our world is something very bright, something full of light, something that makes a lot of promises to them. They don’t see the reality, they only see the surface. So, it’s understandable, it’s only human, that they want to come here. Then, when they arrive, maybe they will discover that it’s not like they think. But they won’t know that until they get here. They just want to come here because they are young, and they don’t understand why other guys the same age can come here on holiday and they can’t.”

The success of the film primarily comes down to the two young boys, how well they sync together, and how frantic the film becomes when circumstances tear them apart. “We did a casting in Senegal, and we saw many young actors, and also non-actors,” Garrone says. “Finally, we found Moustapha, who was studying theater in Dakar, and Seydou who comes from a family of actors. He actually wants to be a soccer player, but he was pushed by the mother and the sister to go to the casting. And I think the strongest part of the movie is the intensity of his performance.

The humanity he gives to the character.”

Something Garrone hadn’t quite factored in, however, was the language barrier. “For me, it was really difficult, because I don’t speak Wolof, so I didn’t know what they were going to say. When they were acting, I had an interpreter, and so I usually used to ask the interpreter if they were saying something close to the script or not. But we trusted each other. It helped that [the boys] had their own dreams about moving from Senegal to Europe like the characters, so there was a sort of a wedding between the person and the character. But I didn’t want them to know if their

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20 Days in Mariupol

characters would succeed [in getting there] or not until the end. So, we shot chronologically, and we only used to give them the pages of the script that they needed, day by day.”

It’s a testament to Garrone’s shooting style that the finished film looks a lot more dangerous than it actually was, notably in the Libya stretch, where the boys come up against a vicious band of terroristsslash-pirates. Happily, all that stuff is the magic of the movies. “We never went to Libya, we recreated it in Casablanca,” he says. “We filmed the desert scenes in Morocco. We recreated the boat journey.

We worked very, very hard on the research, using real videos, real photos, and we recreated this world with the help of people [who made that journey], because all the extras in the movie are people that, for real, made it. They helped us to work on the details, and also helped the actors to become their characters. It was just an incredible privilege for us all to work together. And also, for them, it was very, very important. They wanted to show the world this experience, what they went through, because very often they are not believed.”

Nevertheless, it was by no means a walk in the park. “It was really tough. But when you make a movie like this, all the things that make the shoot difficult become the soul of the project, so it’s fine.

I mean when you make a movie like this, you have to accept that it will be tough, and that every difficulty will bring life to the movie. I like that kind of risk.” A

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LIFE IN

10 years on from her explosive breakthrough in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Margot Robbie has had the moment of her career with the release of Barbie, a project she shepherded to the screen as a producer long before she ever claimed the lead role.

After more than a billion dollars at the box office, Barbie has entered the zeitgeist, and Robbie is ready to take a victorious breath, finds Joe Utichi.

Photographed By

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uccess takes many forms, but few movie stars can ever claim to find themselves where Margot Robbie has set up camp at the start of 2024. In the wake of the enormous triumph of Barbie, she has achieved the kind of household recognition that has proved elusive for so many actors of her generation. And while the film that brought her here is based upon one of the most storied intellectual properties on the planet, there are few who could argue that its outsized success relies solely on brand recognition alone.

Barbie, after all, didn’t just bring a familiar plastic doll to the big screen. In the hands of director Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote with her partner Noah Baumbach, it sought to skate a knife’s edge between warm-hearted fan service and tongue-in-cheek corporate satire. It could have collapsed into itself, so delicate was that balance, and yet it managed to appeal as much to our nostalgia for the pink innocence of Barbieland as it did to our world-weary cynicism about everything we claim this conglomerated merchandise represents about our society.

The fact that the project began with Margot Robbie has earned her a right to a victory lap. Through her LuckyChap Productions banner, established nearly a decade ago, Robbie had been tracking the IP, waiting to see who might take a leap on a big-budget adaptation of it. When nobody did, she charged in to produce, alongside her partner Tom Ackerley (Robbie Brenner and David Heyman also produce).

Robbie envisioned Gal Gadot as the ultimate personification of the doll, and knew instantly, she claims, that Gerwig would the perfect custodian for it as director. One might imagine there are no mirrors at the Robbie residence, though, because she didn’t consider herself the right candidate to play the title role until Gadot passed and Gerwig insisted she wanted to write the script for Robbie. But if Gerwig felt like a leftfield choice to co-write and direct, the movie’s eventual casting of Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken seemed like the most fated of choices. In the wake of its success, any other players are hard to envision.

Margot Robbie begins 2024 as one of the industry’s MVPs, a bankable movie star who has established a production company in LuckyChap that seeks not to create star vehicles for its principal, but rather to tell compelling stories. Among other successes, LuckyChap has produced both of Emerald Fennell’s features to date, including this year’s Saltburn, and more of its productions don’t star Robbie than do. The goal, she says, is to keep the company at the top of filmmakers’ call lists for any projects with female protagonists, or from women creators.

Indeed, after the zeitgeist impact of Barbie, Robbie’s last priority is to shepherd more projects that might bring her image back to theater lobbies and billboards anytime soon.

“Everyone’s probably sick of the sight of me for now,” she laughs.

Ryan Gosling as Ken and Margot Robbie as Barbie.

You’ve had a charmed year with the release of Barbie, after many years developing it as a producer and then the star. December 25th marked the 10th anniversary of the release of The Wolf of Wall Street. Could you have predicted what this decade would bring?

Wow. I hadn’t thought of that, and I’d been thinking about giving it another watch. I really want to rewatch it, so maybe I’ll do a little 10-year reunion watch.

So much has happened in the past decade.

People say, “Oh, it feels like just yesterday,” but it’s like, no, it feels like 10 years ago because so many things have happened. Next year will be 10 years since we started the production company, and there’ll be a bunch more 10-year milestones.

I feel there was a seismic shift in my life 10 years ago with The Wolf of Wall Street, and now, after everything with Barbie this year, it feels like this past decade has been wild, far beyond anything I could ever have dreamed for myself.

Barbie has grossed more than $1.4 billion at the box office, but beyond the financials, it touched a real nerve and became the sort of zeitgeist, cultural success many speculated wasn’t possible anymore. Could you have foreseen that as you were developing it? Did the success come with a sense of relief for having got it across the line?

It was the best-case scenario for how a film could turn out. But 90% of you has to be certain it’s going to work. That’s how I approach everything.

When it comes to Promising Young Woman, for example—or really anything we work on—I think, “I believe in this so much that I know I’m right about it. I know I am, and I don’t understand why people are questioning that. Why can’t anyone else see it? Why is everyone looking so worried?”

Still, there’s that 10% of you on the opposite end thinking, “Oh my god, this is going to be a disaster. Everyone’s right, this is a terrible idea. It’s going to go badly wrong.”

The success is the moment where it’s extremely validating. That 10% of you disappears and you go, “I knew I was right about this. I knew it was something people wanted.” But there’s always that slice of you naysaying; that voice in your head that is listening to all those voices of reason around you telling you it’s too crazy, and it won’t work.

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out there that everyone needed this movie at the time it came out.

It came out on the same day as Oppenheimer, a film about the end of the world. That film didn’t make quite as much at the box office, but it, too, was a huge hit; people went to see both movies to scratch different itches. With Barbie, it’s hard to recall the last time we had such a warm-hearted comedy at this level.

I’d really been missing silly comedy. Silly, smart comedy. I always thought of the tone along the lines of Austin Powers, and when I read the script, that was the tone that rang out. A lot of physical comedy, a lot of silly but smart jokes, something very referential. That kind of comedy had all but disappeared from mainstream cinema for a number of years. Honestly, probably Austin Powers is the last time I felt it. Everything became very specific; comedy for this kind of audience, or that kind of audience. We were missing the silly, smart comedy that could be a hit for everybody. I was really excited we could do that; that it didn’t

On the set of Barbie with Greta Gerwig and cast; with Simu Liu and Ryan Gosling; Ken and Barbie.

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feel like a movie made for a specific group of people. No, this was for everyone.

At the same time, there was also a lot of specificity to the humor that Greta and Noah put in there. There are definitely jokes that some people are going to find funny that will go over other peoples’ heads. The fact that they were able to have both notes playing at the same time made the film a really beautiful orchestral piece; you’ve got these big, broad bits that are going to hit with the masses, and then these grace notes that will hit with specific people. I mean, there’s a joke about Proust in there [laughs]. Some things will go over some people’s heads. That’s why it’s been such a joy to watch with different audiences, to see which pockets of the cinema burst into laughter at which jokes.

It’s because people are really specific, and people are really weird. Things just tickle you for some reason, and other things don’t, and everyone has different things. What was so clever was that Greta and Noah were able to layer in so many different brands of humor that the movie worked for everybody but also felt like it was made just for you. That’s really special. The magic of the movie is how personal it feels, even though it’s extremely big. And it really was a personal movie; we put a lot of ourselves into it.

This journey starts with you identifying Barbie as the right material—the right corporate IP, you might say—to bring this approach to.

Given you couldn’t have known what you’d be able to get away with when you took those first steps—and most remarkably, that you didn’t even initially see this as a project for you to star in—why was Barbie the one?

One of the main reasons was that the name ‘Barbie’ is just so globally recognizable. It’s like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. You can’t compare it even to something like The Little Mermaid; it’s so much bigger than that. It’s comparable to the biggest conglomerate brand names. So, that’s an immediate recognition of the potential outreach.

But more important than that was knowing that people had such strong feelings about Barbie, good or bad.

There was something I realized after the fact when we made I, Tonya, which was that when we were putting the movie out there, everybody we were showing it to had already decided how they felt about Tonya Harding; before they ever watched the movie. It was something I hadn’t taken into account as we made it, because I didn’t know Tonya Harding when I read that script. The first time I read it, I thought the story was fictional. So, I totally overlooked the element that audiences would have a built-in perspective of our protagonist before they sat down and watched it.

That’s a really interesting place to start to share an experience with an audience. People came

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It’s always too something. Too much of this, too much of that. I don’t just mean for Barbie.

For a lot of these movies that we’ve taken big swings on, that’s been the case. Maybe every film.

Thankfully, in more cases than not, it has worked out, but you’re scared every time because no matter how much that 90% of you believes in it, there are no guarantees in this industry. There is always a big, big chance that it’s not going to hit.

And I do believe we could have made the exact same movie and just released it at a different time, and it might not have hit the culture in the way it did. Timing is a huge part of it, too.

A brilliant movie is a brilliant movie, whether it comes out now or in 20 years. You can watch The Wolf of Wall Street a decade later and hopefully it still holds up. I watch movies from a hundred years ago and they’re still brilliant.

But especially in the case of Barbie, I think the moment was what allowed it to hit in the exact way that it did. The temperature in the world just really wanted the big injection of joy that the movie represents. I think there was a feeling

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“I just don’t know what the point is in making a movie if you’re not trying to dig deep and explore something. I just don’t understand how you muster the energy to start the journey by aiming for mediocrity.”

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Robbie with Will Ferrell as the Mattel CEO.

with a feeling already associated to Tonya, again, good or bad, and the movie then had to take them on a journey to question that feeling. With Barbie, I really felt like we could do something similar but on a much grander scale.

So, yes, it was a piece of IP that was floating around, and I could recognize that somebody was going to do something with it, so we were keeping tabs on it. But the bigger thing was having that I, Tonya thing again but on a bigger scale, where everyone had strong feelings about it, a nostalgic connection, and a time capsule of feelings they might have had when they were kids.

Over the years, Barbie has elicited very strong responses from people. People have made signs to protest Barbie. They’ve been writing thinkpieces about Barbie for years. People have boycotted the toys, people have collected the

toys, people play with the toys, people preserve the toys and never touch them. So many different feelings.

With Tonya Harding, it’s fair to say that most people had a negative association with her for what she did. The movie’s opportunity was to subvert that, to show who she was and where she came from. The inherent challenge of how you describe Barbie, then, is how do you reach all those different groups? How do you appeal to those that hate Barbie and think it’s hideous corporate IP that is projecting troubling beauty standards on young women while not alienating those who unapologetically love Barbie and see the dolls as a key part of their identity? On paper it feels like the two shouldn’t be compatible.

We really didn’t want to avoid or appease anyone in particular. I feel that whenever characters or movies hit and feel successful, they’re holding up a mirror to the audience.

Art is a way for us to understand ourselves: “By analyzing this character and their behavior, and the circumstances they’re in, I’m now able to make sense of something in my life.” That’s what I think every movie should strive to do, because you have to make it feel personal for the audience. You’ve got to make it resonate with them.

That’s not to say we all sat down trying to figure out the puzzle as you describe it. All I knew going into it was that there was an opportunity here to do that thing. It took a really smart person like Greta Gerwig to find the story, and figure out how to unpack all those things. I knew she wouldn’t be glossing over the spiky bits, which was important in our writer/director. I knew she wouldn’t be interested in doing that. She always wanted to explore both the good and the bad, because you don’t get a fully-formed experience without looking at both.

But at the same time, and most important of all, it was about finding a person—and I always knew it should be Greta—who would be able to do it without mocking anything. Overall, it was important that it not be mean-spirited. It always had to come from a place of love. And I think it was about making it feel hopeful. It felt like we could hold the spiky bits and the warmth in the same hands.

At the end of the day, the movie is kind of

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With LuckyChap, you’ve embraced that sense of holding the good and the bad in the same hands. Not just with I, Tonya and Barbie. It’s there in the work of Emerald Fennell—with Promising Young Woman and Saltburn—and it’s there in Birds of Prey. It feels baked into the DNA. Did it feel like a radical approach when you set out with the company?

Honestly, I just don’t know what the point is in making a movie if you’re not trying to dig deep and explore something like that. And maybe it’s because I love old movies so much. I rewatch movies voraciously. Some people never see a movie twice, but I’m a serial rewatcher, and I think, if I’m not going to try and make something that’s better than the films I already love, I’d rather use the time rewatching them. I have no problem watching The Philadelphia Story for the 50th time. I have no problem watching Bridesmaids for the 100th time. So, unless I’m striving to make a movie that’s as good as those movies, I’m just going to rewatch them.

Also, it costs so much to make a movie. Sometimes you’ll read a script and think, “Why is this being made? There’s nothing new or interesting. Nothing better than what has already been done a million times before. Why would anyone want to spend millions of dollars—sometimes tens or hundreds of millions of dollars—on something we’ve already seen?” That is just crazy to me. It’s a horrible waste of money, and a horrible waste of people’s time. It takes years to make a movie, and it takes so much money to make a movie, so if you’re not really trying to do something, I just don’t know why you’d bother at all.

Maybe studios have quotas to fill and release dates to hit, but as producers, we don’t. There’s no tally we have to hit, like, “By the time I’m 50 I have to have made 30 movies.” It’s like, no, just make the great ones. I just don’t understand how you muster the energy to start the journey by aiming for mediocrity.

None of this sounds like anything that should need to be pointed out, except in this industry, it really does. So many careers are thrown away by business decisions that boil down to, “Play it safe. Don’t rock the boat. Follow the precedent. Rinse and repeat.” The kind of advice that fills bad representatives’ bank accounts, but never really contributes anything to the artform.

It’s autopilot, and a lot of it comes from a place of fear. People make the safe choice because everything feels scary. I get that, too. Trust me, like I said, I’ve got 10% of that in me. I just happen to have that 90% of me that’s more optimistic, so the 10% that’s operating from a place of fear can only ever make me aware of the scary potential outcomes. It really can’t sway my decisions.

And look, it isn’t the ’90s anymore. The landscape has changed. It is changing every day.

People constantly tell you nobody is going to the movies anymore, and I feel comfortable going, “Well, actually…” They’ll say, “There aren’t the movies anymore,” and it’s like, “No, more movies are being made than ever before.” You acknowledge all those voices you hear, but you have to stop and fact-check them a little bit, and then give yourself a reality check: is that the case?

When it’s not my money being put up, that’s easier for me to say. If I were putting up all the money, I might be operating from a place of more fear. But if you act on that impulse every time, you’re going to play things way too safe, and I don’t believe you can really make great art when you’re playing things safe.

There’s a difference between being responsible and playing it safe, absolutely. A big, big difference. We are always being responsible.

We’re responsible producers and filmmakers.

But I definitely can’t stand the idea of playing things safe.

Perhaps that 10% is essential, then. Because success breeds confidence, and if that confidence becomes absolute, you risk the loss of responsibility. How many great artists lost their power when they started operating from a place of absolutely no fear? Martin Scorsese never did—every project for him is a swing for the fences he’s reasonably, but not absolutely, confident is worth the swing—but some wind up swinging wildly, and their later work struggles to connect.

Yeah. You’ve got to be careful with that confidence, because it might not be confidence in yourself. It might be confidence in the way that you did it before that worked out, but it’s not necessarily going to work out again for you because of the way the world is changing. Like I said, there are no guarantees in this industry.

You just have to listen to all the different voices in your head.

You’re a serial rewatcher. Metering what you described comes from understanding the history of the artform in all its forms. Didn’t you establish a regular screening program on the set of Barbie?

Yeah, we did a Movie Church every Sunday morning. All the cast and crew were invited to the Notting Hill Electric, and we’d play a movie that was somehow a reference for Barbie. Greta would reference The Red Shoes when we were talking about the exact kind of color LUT that we wanted. Or she’d reference His Girl Friday when she’d say, “I want all the Barbies to talk at this pace.” Or the more obvious direct references like 2001: A Space Odyssey. There are so many Kubrick references for a Barbie movie [laughs]. There’s even a Shining reference in there.

He would probably have approved.

Yeah, I think he would have [laughs].

But because Barbie was created in 1959, Greta was most inspired by the ’50s soundstage musicals, and particularly those dreamscape moments. That was what was so magical about stepping onto our set, because of how everything was painted, everything was artificial. We came up with the term ‘authentically artificial’—I’d been calling it ‘really fake’, but ‘authentically artificial’ sounds better. We were striving for in-camera trickery.

The painted backdrops were probably the most exciting thing to watch evolve. We’d have 15 minutes after a production meeting, before we had to gather for the next one, and so I’d run over to the soundstages just to watch them paint the mountains.

Watching artistry on a movie of the scale of Barbie is just mind-blowing. It kind of encom-

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not really about Barbie. Greta’s the genius that looked at it and went, “Aren’t humans so strange? They made a doll, then they got mad at the doll. That’s just insane.” And it’s true; we created Barbie and then we got mad at Barbie, because then we didn’t have to get mad at ourselves. We could shout at her; we could project onto her all of the perceived failings in the world, and we could direct the blame at her.

It’s an inanimate object [laughs]. Isn’t that just so crazy?

I can’t claim any of these thoughts were fully fleshed out when I went after the rights for Barbie. But I knew someone would have those thoughts, and I recognized the opportunity and the kind of playground that someone smart like a Greta Gerwig could have fun in.

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“On Neighbours, I wanted to know what everyone was doing, and how they were doing it.

It was absolutely fascinating.

I loved it. I loved it so much.

I walked off that set with an education, and I knew that it would by far be the hardest set I ever worked on.”

From far left: Margaret Qualley in Maid; Robbie in Neighbours; in The Wolf of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio.

around so many different personalities. It’s a valuable thing.

passed the whole experience of the movie, because there’s nothing like getting to witness that artistry practiced on the biggest scale. That’s where you find the magic, like all those classics from the ’50s. You feel it when you know that someone is there painstakingly orchestrating it for you. It isn’t just the infinite possibilities of a computer program. It’s handmade and it’s happening in real time purely for your enjoyment.

There’s something special about that.

That resonates because it might explain the enormous success the movie has enjoyed. It’s very easy to be cynical about mainstream cinema; that it’s moviemaking by committee, that it’s all about bombast and blue screens, that it’s just the exploitation of corporate IP. And plenty of movies are exactly that. But there’s no experience in the world like stepping onto a set built with the resources of a budget north of $100

million. Something that’s there, that you can touch and interact with. The greatest artists of cinema practicing their art at the highest levels, from dozens of different disciplines. And you feel that in the finished movie.

I completely agree with you. I love being on set.

There are people that don’t, and I’ll never get it.

But you can tell the people who are lifers; who want to spend every day of the rest of their lives on a film set. It’s this huge array of personalities and people from every walk of life, and you’re all together for several months, and you become really close. That’s a thing that happens less and less these days, in all aspects of life. Even online, people get pushed into groups of people who are just like them. Something I appreciate so much about a film set is spending time with people who do completely different things to me, but we’ve all still got a common goal; making that movie.

As an actor, that’s just crucial, spending time

Do you remember the first moment you stepped onto a set and felt that magic?

It was probably Neighbours, because the stuff I did before that was so small, so low-budget, it would be hard to describe them as real film sets.

It was just like you, the director, and a camera in a tiny room. On Neighbours, it was a proper studio. There was a whole machine working to make this show come together. It was multi-cam, so you had three cameras moving, and a switchboard cutting things together as we acted. It was my first experience of the mechanisms of filmmaking, and I think people often don’t talk about soap operas in that way, but they really should.

The pace is insane.

I feel like people don’t truly appreciate when someone makes a great film at a big budget.

That’s a skillset that many filmmakers—maybe most filmmakers—can’t pull off. A giant scale movie flexes a whole different set of muscles, and very few people can do it. But it’s often dismissed, like you said, as, “Oh, it’s popcorn.” Mate, it’s the big leagues, is what it is.

Soaps work at such a pace that it’s its own amazing skillset. Everyone has to work well together or it can’t function. So, walking onto that set, and seeing all those departments working in unison and working so fast, was fascinating for me. I couldn’t have enough eyes. I wanted to know what everyone was doing, and how they were doing it. It was absolutely fascinating. I loved it. I loved it so much. And I was on it

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Did you know the show beforehand?

I had watched it, of course. You can’t really avoid it being an Australian; it’s like Neighbours and Home and Away are always on. It’s kind of omnipresent, like Vegemite.

You mention wanting to know what every department was doing; was that the start of your ambitions to produce?

Yes. It hadn’t been articulated in my mind at that point as wanting to become a producer, but I was very aware that I was fascinated by the whole mechanism of the set. I didn’t know how that would evolve with my career, but it makes sense that it has become producing.

I’ve never had tunnel vision on set. Some actors do, and there’s a part of me that envies the tunnel vision that some actors have where they’re solely focused on their character and the job they’re there to do. Part of me wishes I were that kind of actor because I wonder if I might be a better actor in that case. But I can’t help it. I love all of it.

I remember when I was on PanAm, I would just pepper the DP with a million questions. On Neighbours, there was never any time for that because we moved at a crazy pace. Suddenly, I was on a television show where we had the luxury of time. We shot one episode a month on PanAm. Still fast by movie standards, but I came from doing one episode a day. Now it was one a month, so, in my mind, that was all the time in the world.

Setups would take 45 minutes sometimes, so I’d just be asking the director questions, or bothering the DP. So, one day the DP came and gave me this book, The Five C’s of Cinematography, that I still have to this day. He said, “Just read this. You’re asking so many questions, just read this book.”

He’d probably had enough of me. But I loved this book, I learned so much. I didn’t go to film school or anything, and I would have loved to because I found how much I love learning about this stuff.

You mentioned LUTs earlier. Very few people outside the camera department know what LUTs are.

Yeah, I love the color science. Coming up with a color table. I obviously don’t come up with the color table, but the scientists that do—and they really are scientists—are amazing to me. Watching Rodrigo [Prieto] on Barbie was so much fun.

I’d worked with him on The Wolf of Wall Street, so it was a reunion. Every second on set, he’s adjusting the color table. Whenever I wasn’t in a take I would run to his tent and watch him, because

some DPs set the shot and then sit back while everyone else does their thing, but not Rodrigo.

He’s constantly adjusting it. I was like, “Is this a continuity issue?” And he said, “It would be more of a continuity issue if I weren’t adjusting it. I’m leveling it all the time because it’s changing all the time.”

Many actors establish production companies to find material for them to star in. With Barbie, you set out seeing Gal Gadot in the lead role, and only wound up playing the part when she wasn’t available. It feels like LuckyChap was established in the mould of, say, a Plan B, where it’s more about making great material regardless of whether there’s a role for you.

Plan B was always the north star for us. Just in terms of the quality of the movies they’re producing, and as an example of a production company that’s known for the movies it makes as opposed to the talent behind it. I have actor friends who tell me they want to establish a production company, and I’m always like, “Tell me exactly why, because I might be urging you not to do it.”

Because actually, if it’s not about making films for other people, you kind of put yourself in a bad position to negotiate for yourself if you take this approach. Once you’re a producer on something, you’ve got no leverage, you’ve got no negotiating power. So, yes, you might have creative control, but you’re going to get paid like shit, so be careful what you wish for. It’s also such a lot of work that

“I really do want to direct. I’ve felt like I wanted to direct for about the last seven years. But I’ve always seen it as a privilege, not a right.”

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for three years, so I walked off that set with an education, and I knew that it would by far be the hardest set I ever worked on. I knew everything would be easier after that, because nothing else on earth shoots at that kind of pace.

Left to right: Emerald Fennell and cast on the Saltburn set; I, Tonya; Promising Young Woman.

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sometimes just starring in something else is a better thing to do if that’s your goal.

You’ve managed to get quite a lot of movies across the line in your first decade.

Yeah. I mean, I haven’t worked anywhere else, so it’s hard to know if what we’re doing is different from what other people are doing.

If we’re any more successful at it or whatever. Producing is such a nebulous job, and everyone has different priorities. I have some producer friends who just want to get things going because for them it’s all about collect the fees, collect the fees, collect the fees. I suppose it depends what the setup is for success, really.

For us, it’s definitely quality over quantity, and making sure we maintain a level of quality in anything we do.

That’s something that gets easier. We’re going to be 10 years old next year, and it’s definitely easier for us to do that now. At the beginning, it was about getting what you could get.

If someone’s going to let you produce their movie, you’re like, OK, let’s go. It’s hard to be idealistic about the kind of films you want to make when you’re just lucky to get anything at all. The lucky thing for us was the big success we had with I, Tonya, which meant we could immediately pivot into maintaining certain standards. The ethos of the company was always there, and our mantra was always there, but we could be afforded to be strict with ourselves and stick to that mantra once we had a little success.

You’ve established a brand at this point.

I hope so. And we don’t want brand identity as an ego thing. It’s so that people can think of us, really, because the brand is about making good things. If that’s not the goal then you’re not at the top of anyone’s call list. But if you’re like, “OK, we do female stories and female storytellers,” suddenly it’s like, “Oh, well here’s a script with a female protagonist, I know I want to speak to LuckyChap.” That was always the plan, to funnel material and filmmakers our way, because the brand identity kind of shines a light on the stuff we’re interested in.

You’ve just made a second film with Emerald Fennell, Saltburn. How has it felt to you to watch her develop as a filmmaker?

We are so lucky to have built this relationship with Emerald. It started a long time ago, and it could easily have not been a thing, but we read a half-hour network pilot she wrote, and it was so different in tone from Promising Young Woman and Saltburn for sure. It was a pretty broad comedy. But it was undeniable that she was a unique voice, and that was why we wanted to meet her.

As soon as we did, it was like, “You’re brilliant, we’ll do anything you want.”

We didn’t get the pilot off the ground, but she came back and pitched the cold open for Promising Young Woman, and it was an easy yes for us.

It’s been amazing, and she’s such a talent, and whether we’d had that meeting or not, she’d have become who she is regardless. I’m just glad it was us. I know the things we loved most were the spiky bits that someone else might have wanted to have shaved off.

Is there a plan to make something with her that you will star in?

I would love to. It’s a real act of self-control not to snatch up all the roles with her scripts, because all of them are so delicious. I’m trying to be really unselfish, because as truly tempting as they all are, we really didn’t start this company to make star vehicles. I also definitely never want to hold up a production. When Emerald has got a script ready to go, it’s ready to go. It’s not development. It’s not like, “Oh, in a year and a half we’ll start piecing this together.” So, unless that lines up perfectly, I’m not going to be the person that holds it up.

And it also ends up being an exciting way to work with other actresses we love. We’ve got our wishlist of actresses we love, and as soon as Emerald hands you a script, you’re like, “Oh, we could get them now.”

So, what is next on your agenda? Is it the Ocean’s Eleven prequel?

Well, that’s still in development. Word got out about that; we didn’t release anything because it’s way too soon, to be honest. Whether it winds

up being the next thing, I don’t know. I don’t think so. It’s a pretty big project to put together and there are certain logistical things that we have to time it around.

For us a company, we have a film with Olivia Wilde [Naughty], which is moving quite quickly, so that could be the next thing we shoot. I’m not acting in it, just producing. A couple of TV things should go this year too. And for me as an actor, I love acting in things that I’m not a producer on, so I’m looking at a couple of things but there’s nothing concrete yet.

Time for a break?

Everyone says that. Everyone’s like, “Are you having a break?” And I’m like, “You do know I’m a producer, right? We don’t get a break [laughs].”

That’s why people ask, out of concern.

[Laughs] True. No, the producing is 24/7, but on the acting side, this is the longest I haven’t acted on a set, because we finished Barbie in October of 2022. So, it’s already been more than a year since I was on set as an actor, and other than Covid, that’s the first time that’s ever happened.

I also think everyone’s probably sick of the sight of me for now. I should probably disappear from screens for a while. Honestly, if I did another movie too soon, people would say, “Her again?

We just did a whole summer with her. We’re over it.” I don’t know what I’ll do next, but I hope it’s a little while away.

You’ve revealed yourself to be a cinematography nerd in this interview. Are we going to see you direct eventually?

I really do want to direct. I’ve felt like I wanted to direct for about the last seven years. But I’ve always seen it as a privilege, not a right. I’ve been slowly working towards the feeling that I’ve earned the right to direct, and I feel I’m getting close to that feeling now.

It’s hard, too, because I’ve been so fortunate to work with so many amazing directors, and to learn from them. Often, when something comes to me, it’s like, “Wouldn’t it be great to act in that so I can watch them direct?” It’s funny how many directors ask me about the people I’ve worked with. They say, “Oh, does Scorsese pre-light and then rehearse?” Or, “Does Damien Chazelle plan the music before the scene?” You realize that directors never get to see how other directors work. I get to see exactly how Greta does rehearsals and how Marty blocks, or doesn’t.

It’s such a gift to learn from all these directors firsthand. But I would really like to direct. I’m not in any rush, because I feel that there’ll never be enough time to learn all the things I want to learn before I take that plunge, but I definitely have that itch, and it’s growing too strong. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold off. ★

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Jeffrey

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The American Fiction star on the birth of his acting dream and learning respect on set with Harrison Ford

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Jeffrey Wright, star of Cord Jefferson’s provocative debut feature American Fiction, says he felt a personal affinity with his character Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison in the film, in part because of the challenges Monk experiences with regard to family issues. Monk is an author and a professor of English literature who discovers he may have to lower his standards to attain some kind of glory in the phony world of publishing. We follow him as he takes an enforced leave of absence to care for his ailing mother, a situation that the actor himself is painfully familiar with—Wright’s mother died a year before he received Jefferson’s script.

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You were born and raised in Wash-

side of your character and how they

And woe betide anyone who says,

two of them is a really genuine and

ington, D.C. and American Fiction is

connected to Monk in a visceral way.

actually this is shit.

useful thesis.

based on a novel set in D.C. Did

You’ve heard this, right?

Yes, yes. Well, this is what I think Monk

anything in the script make you think

I’ve never really experienced this level

is trying to represent, maybe not

When you and Cord were discussing

of your own upbringing?

of support for a project that I’ve been

actively, but implicitly, freedom, a new

playing the character, how did you

Yeah. Cord Jefferson, who wrote and

a part of, or been so central to, never

level of freedom, a creative freedom,

talk about it, because at times you’re

adapted this from Percival Everett’s

in my career. And so it’s not unappre-

an intellectual freedom, whereby I am

almost portraying three people.

novel Erasure, really made it his own.

ciated. But people have said that they

not making choices based on the ex-

There’s the Monk we see teaching

We shot in Boston. Cord wanted to

connected with his being a caretaker

pectation, or I’m not making choices

the students at university; there’s the

shoot in New York, so he wanted to

to his mother in a way that was very

that are reactive to the situation. I’m

Monk with his mother and his family,

take it out of D.C. I don’t think he has

personal for them. I guess we have

doing what the hell I want to do, and

and then there’s a third character

had necessarily a familiarity with D.C.

the opportunity, and ideally it’s a

I’m not at least creatively concerned

when you create this fictitious author.

I think D.C. probably doesn’t have

healthy thing to try to make sense

about what needs to be shown or

How did you work all that out?

the tax incentives either to make it

of our experiences. And perhaps if

written. I want to write what I want

You know, Cord’s script was so de-

feasible, at least now. So that was one

we do, at least for a moment, there’s

to write. And so yes, I think at times,

scriptive and informative that it was in

adjustment that he made.

validation for others who have shared

and this is one of the criticisms that

some ways a co-director for him. So

He also adjusted a lot of the

those experiences when watching,

he makes, is that we’re still shackled

when we got on set, there wasn’t a lot

catalyzing moments in the novel. He

and that’s healthy, I guess. I guess it’s

in some ways metaphorically, and our

of, what do you mean by this? I think

reshaped them to suit the cinema

a healthy side of this peculiar work

choices are hued because of that. I

that’s true for all of us. We got it.

in a way that made the novel less

that we find ourselves in, yeah.

think my perspective on these things

And it was more about, OK, how

does not entirely align with Monk’s but

do you want to tell this? And so I was

I think there’s truth in that.

pretty clear on the various iterations

C L AI R E FO LG E R / M G M/ EV ER ET T C O L LEC TI O N

informative for this. So I focused on the script. I also read in some ways

The film’s other theme explodes

the book of my life because there

right at the top of the movie, when

are many similarities to some of the

you write the N-word on a board and

So what is your perspective?

it, and Cord as well. The things that

challenges, particularly around family

that white girl objects to it. And I

Oh, I mean, that’s a long conversation.

we did talk about a lot were ensuring

that Monk is facing.

laugh, because oftentimes the white

of this man. And we just went after

that the story wasn’t a celebration

folk are the first to take offence.

We have a bit of time.

of the ‘Talented Tenth’, the kind of

Such as?

Without a fluency in the understand-

I think the scene between Monk and

the Black bourgeois in America—we

Such as, well, my mother passed away

ing or in the language required. Well,

Issa Rae’s character, Sintara Golden,

didn’t want it to be classist in that

about a little over a year before I got

I wanted to play that scene so badly.

is the thesis of the film and my per-

way. So again, we wanted to make

this script. Raised by my mother and

I wanted to have that conversation,

spective, maybe somewhere inside

sure that imperfections of Monk were

my aunt, and my aunt came to live

because it’s one that I have at least in-

a synthesis of those two perspec-

clear. And as well, that’s why I found

with us. She’s 94 years old now and

side my head all the time. And it’s one

tives maybe. And what I love about

that scene with Issa Rae so critical.

doing very well, but a pretty challeng-

that we, particularly of late, are seeing,

that scene is that we don’t know at

And also, when we’re in this kind of

ing time for me, by which I mean the

and there’s just an absence of fluency,

the end who is right or if there is a

confrontation, which is not in the

most challenging time of my life, if I’m

particularly in America and elsewhere.

right side. And Monk is challenged

book. In the book, they never meet.

honest. And so I understood where

Cord and Percival Everett are fluent

certainly, and he’s kind of undone in

Cord wanted them to meet in this film.

he was, and I was sensitive to the

in these things. And so I was like, yes,

some ways, and I think that’s proper.

And also, we talked as well about the

sacrifices that exist for an individual

let’s do that. And frankly, it’s not solely

He is flawed and he is maybe a bit

relationship to Lorraine [the family’s

faced with those responsibilities on

a certain demographic that at times

overly arrogant. And so I love the

Black housekeeper]. There was a re-

the professional side, personal side,

lacks fluency. Sometimes there are

ambiguity that’s born of that scene. I

ally delicate balance that we needed

and creative side in many respects.

those among us who we think should

think that somewhere in between the

in this caretaker, because it’s like this

So, that is what pulled me in deep

be more fluent who are not. There

kind of intra-family class schism or

into the emotional center of the story.

are some Black folks too, who, for

dynamic. This class difference that we

And it really as well, I think, compelled

whatever reasons, have either been

wanted to make sure was done with a

me to want to play this story. I don’t

damaged by the trauma or the inter-

level of Lorraine being played by a top

know why. I don’t know. Sometimes

nalization of the history in ways that

actor. Those were conversations that

we are drawn, or things come to us, or

have been damaging. But there’s not a

we had often throughout the process.

we are drawn to stories that overlap

universal clarity among Black folks on

with the realities that we’re facing. In

such matters. Sometimes if you’re too

Because she was calling you sir,

art [it’s] that art-life, chicken-egg thing.

close to it, you can’t see it objectively.

wasn’t she?

But yeah, this was certainly close to

Mr. Monk, and all of that. And that’s

me. There wasn’t a lot of hoop jump-

No, that’s true. The film also dares

that moment I said there were things

ing that I needed to do in order to find

to raise questions about whether lit-

like that they would throw in to say,

this character.

erature by certain acclaimed Black

but yeah, that’s what it is. But at the

authors is any good, or not. Same

same time, we wanted to make sure

At festival screenings people have

goes in the theater.

that the equality of humanity was

talked about that deeply caring

Yes.

Jeffrey Wright in American Fiction.

made clear. That was very important.

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Easy on the bowing and scraping?

from Amherst College, which I do. And

Right, right, yes, yes. And Myra Lucre-

so I got that gig, and it was two weeks

tia Taylor who plays Lorraine is such a

rehearsing and on set. It was a really

wonderful actor. And in fact, the first

wonderful introduction to a film set.

family scene that we filmed was the

And working with Harrison and watch-

first scene that we see in the film with

ing him work with Alan Pakula and the

family, where we come back home

level of respect between the two of

and the first sound out of her mouth—

them and for the process, it was really

because that’s not an easy role to play

so informative.

necessarily, there’s a history of that

At one point, Alan Pakula calls out

role in cinema, in American cinema—

to Harrison. In between takes, he calls

but the first sound out of her mouth

out “Harrison” and Harrison answered, “Sir.” And I said, oh, there’s a level of

From left: Wright and Sterling K. Brown.

loving. And I just said to myself, this

decorum here and there’s a level of

is it. She just imbued it with a kind of

I think that had something to do

It was 1996, was that your first film?

respect here that maybe I wasn’t quite

humanity that made everything from

with his classical training.

Well, I started in fits and starts be-

aware of, that this wasn’t just fun and

that moment on, for me, make sense

Of course.

cause mainly I was doing theater. The

games, and this wasn’t bad boys act-

first film I ever did, actually, I can’t find

ing out and all of that stuff. But it was

And you’re classically trained also?

any seeming existence of this film.

something maybe even a bit more

bunch of auditions, he saw a bunch

Well yeah, for the most part in my

It was some weird historical quasi-

honorable about this stuff and it was

of people auditioning and he cast her.

own way. I left grad school after

documentary about the history of the

cool. And again, this was the biggest

And some great directors have said

two months, but I learned it the old

White House. And I played a freeman

movie star in the world at that time,

that’s 90% of directing. He assembled

apprentice way, just working on the

who was a carpet painter, and we

and it was informative.

a brilliant circle of actors.

stage. But [O’Toole’s performance]

filmed it in the White House.

and work.

Cord cast her. He went through a

also came from a history of work on Myra shaped her career on the stage. Do you have plans to ever

the stage.

He came to see Top Dog/

I was just out of school. I was like

Before that moment, what had you

21 years old or something like that,

thought the motion picture industry

because I’d gone back home to Wash-

was then?

return to the theater?

Underdog [the play by Suzan-Lori

ington, D.C., and I got this little film

I just didn’t expect that I would go

Oh yeah, yeah. Certainly at some point

Parks transferred to Broadway in

and it was going to be no speaking

back to boys school. I didn’t expect

I will get back on the stage. Got to

2002]. Which was maybe, I guess

role, just this thing. And the next thing

that I would go back to where that

make space for it.

five or six years after I’d seen that. He

I did was a film called Jumpin’ at the

was, what was expected of us in my

didn’t come backstage, but he wrote a

Boneyard, an independent film with

prep school. And so I was prepared for

Are there any classic roles you want

letter and that was to Yasiin [Bey], for-

Tim Roth and Sam Jackson and the

it, but I was like, oh, OK. Of course, of

to do or new work?

merly known as Mos [Def]. He wrote

late Alexis Arquette. And Sam, at the

course, it made sense to me. But yeah,

If there’s a new play that comes my

to Mos and me, and it said, in essence:

time, I remember, had finished Jungle

when I thought of movie making, it’s

way that is interesting? Yeah, that

wonderful play. I loved it but damn it, I

Fever and they were editing it, and

not the first thing that came to mind.

could be possible. Actually, I think

couldn’t see a thing. He said the light-

there was this buzz around what he

And how would I know? I’d never been

there may be something that is com-

ing was too dark. But I have that letter

had done in that.

on a film set before.

ing down the pipe that’s an American

somewhere. I need to frame it, yeah.

classic, but it could be anything. Could

But oh man, that was the first piece of

Spike Lee took that to Cannes.

I know your Felix Leiter died in Bond

be a bit of Willie Shakespeare. There’s

theater that I saw in London. It was a

That’s right. But that was when Sam

[No Time to Die], but if they resur-

some stuff out there. But I’m in no

great start.

was just the guy we saw in every

rected you, would you ever go back?

movie that was shot in New York, and

Oh, I think I’ve had a nice run of it.

rush necessarily.

One of the best performances

I remember seeing you early on in

he was doing theater as well. And then

Yeah. Leave that to someone else. It

that I’ve ever seen on stage, was by

your career in some stage roles in

after that, or maybe before around

was a great run. And so many of the

an artist of similar age: Peter O’Toole

New York including your breakout

the same time, I did a film called Pre-

crew have worked on all of them or

in Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell. I saw that

in Angels in America, but we actu-

sumed Innocent. The legendary Alan

many of them. It’s a family business at

my first trip to London in ’99. And I

ally met at the Cannes Film Festival

Pakula directed. Sadly, the late Alan

the end of the day. It’s massive, but it

said, wow. It was just him up there [on

when you starred in Basquiat and

Pakula, with Harrison Ford. And if you

is a nice feeling on set.

the stage].

I questioned its director Julian

can find me in that movie, I’ll give you

Schnabel, admittedly somewhat

a tuppence.

In your opinion should there, or will

Phenomenal performance.

provocatively, as to why he, a white

He just barely moved. His feet barely

man, was directing the movie about

What’s your role in that?

I mean, it’s feasible. They’re out there

shuffled from here and there, and the

a Black man.

I play a young district attorney. I got

now. Those guys are out there now at

whole story just came from out of his

Of course I remember. In fact, I ap-

the job because on my resume it said

the underbelly of all of this, yeah. So

breath. And I said, oh wow.

preciated it, the question...

that I had a political science degree

why not, if you find the right actor. A

30

there be, a Black Bond?

M G M / EV E R E TT C O L LEC T I O N

was so deliciously authentic and

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Nicolas

CAGE

The man of many memes invades your dreams in the year’s most surreal and thoughtful comedy

BY DAMON WISE

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A

A

A

A

So, we’re talking about Dream

But I had really hoped to try and do a

those shorts. He had a kind of an al-

that I could play Paul’s dreamification

Scenario. How did that project come

motion picture with Ari, and I wasn’t

most Adaptation-style of film perfor-

authentically as a result of that.

to you?

quite ready to go into television.

mance. I asked him about that when I

I’d been communicating via email

At that time, at least. And then he

met with him, and he said, yeah, that

It’s a very rich metaphor. It’s also

with Ari Aster, and he had heard

suggested that I take a look at this

was one of his favorite movies. So, we

a reflection of the way pop culture

that I’d wanted to work with him as

script called Dream Scenario—which

hit it off right away. But perhaps more

absorbs and dispenses with people.

a result of seeing Hereditary and

he was going to produce but wasn’t

importantly, I really thought the script

How a movie star can be huge one

Midsommar. He suggested I look

going to direct—and two short films

was perfect. I didn’t think I’d want to

minute and then forgotten the next,

at an episodic television show he

that Kristoffer Borgli had directed.

change a word of it. It was the perfect

and how people in music and the

was working on, which was certainly

One was called Eer, and I flipped

place for me to kind of express some

arts have their ‘phases’.

unique. It was about a television star

out. I thought, not only were they cre-

of the feelings I’d had. I’ve spoken a lot

Yes, and I think that’s speeding up,

from the 1970s, and you can imagine

ative and inventive, but I also thought

about my ‘memeification’ in the past,

too, as a result of the internet and as a

the fun that could be had with that.

[Borgli] was terrific as an actor in

and that was also on my mind: I knew

result of memeification. There was an

32

J AN THI J S / A 24

Even by Nicolas Cage’s standards, Dream Scenario is a strange movie—but mostly in that there is nothing at all unusual about the character he plays. A mediocre biologist whose research is routinely stolen by other scientists, Paul Matthews becomes famous overnight when he starts appearing in other people’s dreams. How and why is never explained, but Kristoffer Borgli’s surreal satire has a lot to say about today’s social media-driven society. Speaking from his home in Las Vegas— “The more romantic way of saying it is: I’m in the Mojave Desert,”—the actor explains how he saw himself in this most unlikely premise.

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F

O

R I

Y N

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L

O

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C T

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G

O O

N R

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D I

I R W I N W I N K L E R , p.g.a.

R YA N C O O G L E R , p.g.a.

M I C H A E L B . J O R D A N , p.g.a.

E L I Z A B E T H R A P O S O , p.g.a.

N

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S C R E E N P L AY B Y

KEENAN COOGLER & ZACH BAYLIN STORY BY

R YA N C O O G L E R A N D KEENAN COOGLER & Z A CH B AYL I N MI CHAEL B. JORDAN JORDAN, AS DIRECTOR, DELIVERS A CAPTIVATING BLEND OF EXPLOSIVE ENERGY AND MELODRAMATIC INTENSITY. − THE NEW YORKER, RICHARD BRODY

A THRILLER WITH AN URGENT CONSCIENCE. − VARIETY, OWEN GLEIBERMAN

© 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CREED is a trademark of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Untitled-41 1

1/3/24 2:14 PM

interesting article in the New Yorker

like Birdy and Leaving Las Vegas, and

by Isaac Butler, and he was saying that

it became kind of a dead end for me,

the internet had kind of reduced mov-

and I wanted to try something else.

ie stars to punchlines, and I certainly

I wanted to look at, what can I do

know what he means. I’ve felt like that

with different styles in acting? And

at times, with the way the internet

so Moonstruck and Vampire’s Kiss,

has reduced the complete two-hour

those are two examples of me trying

narrative of a character to one image

to see if I could bring back a kind of

[with the caption], “You don’t say?” or

choreographed acting and insert it

a freakout scene from Vampire’s Kiss

into a modern style of filmmaking. If

or Ghost Rider.

you commit to it, and back it up with

So, it is something that was on my

genuine emotional content, can you

mind, and it’s speeding up almost

bring that style back to life?

exponentially now, to a point where

Even in Face/Off, I was looking back at old James Cagney movies like

Cher and Nicolas Cage in Moonstruck.

especially with the amount I like to

White Heat—“Top of the world, ma.”

work—to not wear out your welcome.

But it was important to me to change

cause what he’s going through is not

I mean, James Cagney, to me, was an

And so that’s why I’m thinking about

my voice too, because I do have a

really unlike that: People start dream-

actor who, by today’s standard, some

other formats. I never would’ve

kind of Mojave drawl that I’ve become

ing about him overnight and then they

people would say was over the top,

considered television five years ago,

more recognized by almost than

start talking about their dreams and it

but, to me, no matter how big he got,

but now I’m thinking about it. Because

anything else. Kristoffer and I met at a

goes viral. And I thought, I can make it

he was always truthful. Some people

of the speed at which the internet is

little place in downtown LA, a private

real for myself and real within the per-

say it’s not real, but you can’t say it isn’t

moving things along, it might not be a

suite in the Doubletree Inn, which is a

formance because of my memeifica-

truthful. There’s an emotion behind it

bad option.

little hotel in Little Tokyo, and we just

tion. I don’t say this with any complaint

that I believe.

went through all the various looks,

anymore or with any ill will. I’ve made

I look at all the old Howard Hawks

How did you come up with the look

and I started experimenting with the

friends with it, subsequently, and I’ve

movies, Billy Wilder movies, like Double

of the character? You obviously

sound of the voice. It happened very

decided that, if anything, it’s kept me

Indemnity. Those guys have so much

didn’t have much time to work on

quickly. We hit it off really quickly and

in the conversation. And it’s also given

energy: Edward G. Robinson, Fred

this, working as quickly as you do.

found the character together.

people a kind of id release. I mean,

MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, they

when they see these meltdowns, I

have so much energy and pop and

Well, that’s a good question, because it was important to Kristoffer that this

There’s also the political dimension

think there’s some vicarious enjoy-

buzz and electricity to them. I look at

Paul Matthews looked nothing like

of cancel culture. It’s a bit of a cliché

ment to be able to kind of play out

movies today and I’m like, “You guys,

me. And he had sent me a series of

now, but is that something you

those fantasies that we can’t really

it just feels flat. It’s like it’s been done.

photographs of actual evolutionary

wanted to bring out in the story?

do, because we all want to behave in

Look at Billy Wilder’s style—look at the

biologists and actual professors like

Not so much. That part of it wasn’t

society, you know?

buzz on that stuff.”

Robert Sapolsky, and he sent a few

really on my mind, although I think

pictures about guys who had a sort

the movie works on many different

Has your attitude to acting changed

I think I’ve done pretty much everything

of Benjamin Franklin horseshoe look,

levels. It’s a bit like peeling an onion, it

at all over the years since you first

I’ve wanted to do with cinema. But I

where the hair is removed at the front,

has different layers. On my mind was

started? Do you want something

do think that now more than ever, it’s

but there’s a little horseshoe rim of

more of my own memeification and

different from your work now, or do

becoming more personal. So, in movies

hair in the back of the head. And I said,

how I was trying to process waking

you think you have always wanted

like Pig, in particular, I’m processing my

“Why do some men like to wear their

up in 2009 and foolishly Googling my

the same thing?

grief that I went through with my dad

hair like that?” And he said, “Well, I

name and seeing those ‘Cage Loses

Yeah, it’s been almost 45 years, if you

passing on, and in movies like Dream

think it gives them a kind of academic

His Shit’ memes, and thinking, well,

can believe that. I think that, yeah,

Scenario, I’m processing my memeifi-

seriousness,” and I think that’s true.

I signed up to be a film actor. I didn’t

the needs do change. At one point,

cation. It’s a very personal experience,

It’s a very professorial look. So, we im-

sign up to be an internet meme. I

early on, I felt that naturalism—that

both, for me. So, I think the movies are

mediately went with that, and then he

don’t know what this is. I had no ref-

infinite obsession with the 1970s style

becoming more like, for me, hopefully,

wanted me to change the shape of my

erence point for it. I found it frustrat-

of acting that came out of Midnight

some folk songs that we may both

nose to just slightly alter it. So, you’re

ing, but I also found it stimulating. I

Cowboy and Taxi Driver and The

admire, where it’s like I listened to the

not thinking of Nicolas Cage, you’re

thought it was confusing, but I had

Godfather, which suddenly became

personal stories that you hear in some

thinking of Paul Matthews.

nowhere to put it.

the arbiter of what everyone consid-

of these old folk or country western

So, am I looking for different things?

We also added some weight to the

So, when Dream Scenario came

ered to be good acting, and it is good

songs, like Johnny Cash or even John

character, and the clothes we selected

along, I quickly thought I might have, in

acting—had run its course. I felt that I

Lennon—his soul music is so profoundly

very carefully, like that Eskimo jacket

some strange little way, the life experi-

had done that, or something like that,

personal. It’s hard not to feel like you

I’m always wearing, that winter jacket.

ence to play Paul’s dreamification, be-

or tried to approach that, with movies

know the guy, you know? A

34

TO U C H S TO N E P IC T U R ES / EV E R ET T C O LL EC TI ON

it’s becoming increasingly difficult—

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Colman

D OMINGO

After spending 30-plus years honing his craft, Colman Domingo is more than ready for his close-up

BY DESTINY JACKSON

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With five films under your belt this

a craftsman. I didn’t go to graduate

I had liberty to create. I was also

and television, directing, producing

year alone, it feels like it’s been the

school for acting. I learned everything

surrounded by my friends, who were

and singing. I’ve been doing that for

year of Colman Domingo. But you’ve

by being in rooms and watching

also these multi-hyphenates, like my

years. But now it’s with brighter lights

been creative in front of and behind

rehearsals I wasn’t even called for

friend Sean San José, who runs the

around it. But I still feel like it’s the

the camera as a writer, director,

because I was learning. I was watching

Magic Theatre in San Francisco, or

origin of me being a curious artist

actor and producer for more than

relationships between directors, ac-

Margo Hall, an actor-director who

in San Francisco many years ago on

three decades.

tors, playwrights and producers, you

runs Lorraine Hansberry Theatre.

these very small stages, feeling the

I started in this industry as a multi-hy-

name it. And I think that’s been my

These are my comrades, so we grew

liberty to just create.

phenate, just trying to create work in

strength as I look back at my career, it

up together in a way, in the theater

San Francisco many years ago in the

was my conservatory.

and film and television. We’re feeling

In Rustin, there’s the powerful line,

early ’90s. I took some classes, stud-

Going to San Francisco to be

like we just do what we need to do,

“On the day I was born Black, I was

ied, and started getting cast in things,

an actor turned me into this multi-

what our skills lend for whatever

also born homosexual.” Tying this into

and my whole career was just about

hyphenate artist, where I then

production that is. That’s why my

what you’ve personally addressed

learning while I was in the rooms as

started creating because I felt like

career is so varied in theater, film

in the media regarding your own

36

DAV I D L EE / N E TFL IX

Considering Colman Domingo’s versatile resume, which includes memorable performances in Selma, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fear the Walking Dead, his Emmy-winning role on Euphoria and a handful of Tony nominations, it’s bewildering that his recent portrayal of the funny and lively gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, in Netflix’s Rustin, marks his first leading role and Golden Globe nomination. Right now, Domingo features in another highly acclaimed film, The Color Purple, where he plays the dastardly Mister. Here, the actor reflects on his career and playing Black icons.

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experience playing both straight and

I would have these great conversations

to examine that, and I needed to find

and husky and filled with tobacco be-

gay roles as an openly gay Black man,

about the potency of this experience of

out how he lived in me. And I think as I

cause he had a tobacco farm.

what has been your experience like

Rustin and what it requires.

was exploring him, he lived in a unique

navigating this space? Have you ever

It’s such an extraordinary opportu-

way that Oprah even looked at me and

What color or symbol would you say

said, “Oh, Mister is sexy.”

represents your spirit at this time in

experienced pushback?

nity, and I don’t want to use the phrase

I think from the very beginning, I’ve

‘Trying to get it right’, but you just want

But I thought of him as being a

always been open in my career, but it

to be able to lend everything that you

virile human being who wanted to

If anyone’s noticed, I’ve worn a lot of

wasn’t as if I was letting the fact that I

could to craft a very complex human

be a blues singer and play the banjo.

white on red carpets because I feel like

was openly gay dictate the roles that

being who had so much spirit and so

So that’s the way he was leading and

I wanted to be the light in the room. I

I was doing. I’m just not that person.

much drive and so much intelligence

the way he was sneaking through the

feel like we’re living in dark times, and

I feel like, yeah, I’m a dude who’s got

and purpose and was committed to

world. He was trying to be his own

I think I know what I represent as an

ideas and thoughts and dreams and

changing America. It’s not an oppor-

man, even with his style and how he

artist and a human being. And I’m very

aspirations like anybody else, and

tunity given every day, especially for

presented himself. I thought even just

conscious of that, of what my intention

you have a heteronormative male

me as an actor. How many people get

taking the fact that he called himself

is, what my purpose is. And so, I wear

[role to fill]. And I feel like I never

the opportunity to play one of their

Mister and wanted everyone else to

a lot of white because I feel like that’s

put limitations on myself, but I don’t

heroes? It doesn’t happen often. So,

call him Mister, which says a lot about

something we need, and that’s why

walk into the room bringing in all my

I knew I wanted to give everything I

character. His name is Albert, but he’s

I wear white, and it’s tailored and fit

relationships and personal life.

could, so I prepped for five months for

like, “Call me Mister. I’m demanding my

and pink things that people are like... It

As an actor, I want the person to

this work. I prepped on my own and

own reverence,” which I thought was

makes people feel like the light, too. So,

see me as someone who can play

went to the Smithsonian for African

fascinating. So, I put that into his body

I think that’s dope. I’m having such an

myriad things. And I think if there was

American History and the Civil Rights

and how he moves through spaces.

extraordinary time in my career, and I

ever any pushback, if anyone knew

museums in Memphis and Atlanta,

He’s a bit more of a challenge

do know that it’s a moment. We don’t

something about me and thought, well,

the one that George Wolfe curated.

because I know people who’ve been in

know if we ever get these moments,

I don’t know if he can really go to those

I wanted to give the role everything

horrific abusive relationships and the

but I know I can recognize it.

places, I didn’t know. But I felt like I

that I could.

question of why people stay in them [is

I’m not unaware of it. Because I

your career?

liberated myself from that sort of criti-

I feel like this is one of those films

ever present], even when you get to the

walk into rooms and there’s light in

cism or power or anything early on in

that, if I do nothing else, I want to give

base level of why, and some say, “Well,

people’s eyes for me, and people who

my career. For an actor to play Bayard

everything in my soul to lead this film

I was attracted to them.” So, I wanted

want for me, people who are happy

Rustin and Mister in The Color Purple

to bring humanity and complexity

to make that challenge of why Celie

that I populate these spaces, and

simultaneously shows what I always

to this American hero. This is the

doesn’t cut his throat sooner stronger.

I don’t want to let them down. You

believed my career could be. I don’t

opportunity, 32 years in the making,

There’s something seductive, something

know what I mean? I want to come

think I’ve had any pushback. If I have,

so you want to leave it all on the floor,

interesting. He’s got charm. So, I put that

with as much love, grace, joy and

I wasn’t aware of it because I’ve been

leave nothing behind.

all into his body and even made vocal

a sense of play as I did when I first

changes so that it’s challenging for the

started in San Francisco many years

too busy creating my own work and creating my own lane in many ways,

As for Mister in The Color Purple,

audience. Because I come from theater,

ago. And I still want to have that sense

which is why I go between being a

was there a key physicality that

I build a character from the ground up.

of play and joy even in this incredible

playwright, screenwriter, singer, dancer

helped you unlock your portrayal

Mister had a higher-pitched voice that

storm of goodness and accolades and

and actor. I always have somewhere to

that differed from the Broadway and

had more light and joy, but by the time

mentions. I still want to feel like I’m

go and create.

Danny Glover versions?

he’s in his darkest spaces, it’s gravelly

just starting out. A

myself from any idea of Mister that

different roles you’ve played this

I’d seen or experienced. I’ve watched

year. First, Rustin. How did you work

the [1985] film probably 100 times

with George C. Wolfe and writers

in my life. I’ve seen both versions of

Dustin Lance Black and Julian Breece

the Broadway musical. So, I basically

to bring this Civil Rights icon to life?

picked up the book and had to go to

We worked in concert in a very

the source material, and then when

extraordinary way—deep conversations

I’m reading, find how Mister lives

between George and I. Once the script

in my imagination, how he moves

was delivered from Julian and Dustin,

through spaces. And then also to

they let us wrestle with it and take it

take in the script that Marcus Gardley

over, which was great. So, it was more

gave us, which is to look at the arc of

between me and George, and we had

that script because he made some

rehearsals every single day for two

adjustments to the character to build

weeks leading up to filming. George and

an arc for Mister’s redemption. I had

38

Colman Domingo as Mister in The Color Purple.

WAR N E R B R O S . / EV E R E TT C OL L EC TI O N

The first thing I had to do was divorce Exactly. Let’s get into these two very

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Rupert

EVERETT

The veteran British actor takes a break from writing to fill the boots of Napoleon’s nemesis

BY DAMON WISE

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How did you get involved with the

know, a war, or a hospital, or some-

One scene I was doing, I had Covid, so

What made you want to become

Napoleon project?

thing. It was huge. It all happens very

I did [the lines] from my bed and then

an actor?

It just came up out of the blue. I love

fast because he shoots every single

did my part on a green screen later,

I don’t know. I went to drama school.

Ridley Scott, so I was thrilled to take

angle of the scene all in one, so that

when we were in Malta.

I always wanted to be an actor and

part, really. I’m a fan of the Duke of

keeps you on your toes.

Wellington too, so it was exciting.

that was the first thing I really wanted Ridley’s always threatening long

to do. It’s always been something

You were playing Napoleon’s nem-

versions of his films, and, apparently,

that’s so fascinates me. I still enjoy it; I

What was your take on Wellington?

esis. Did you have any interactions

there’s a four-hour cut of this movie.

actually enjoy it more now than I used

Well, he’s a tough, salty old Duke. ‘The

with Joaquin?

Is there more of the Duke of Wel-

to enjoy it. So really, when I was a kid, I

Iron Duke’, they called him. Tough, wry,

Not really, no. Only the day we did our

lington that we haven’t seen?

wanted to be an actor.

and just a good character, really. He’s

scene together.

I don’t think there is. No. Unless we go

kind of humorous. There was a certain

into re-shoots.

Was there any particular actor that

amount of that in the script, but we did a

Was that because Ridley wanted to

certain amount of improvisation as well.

keep you apart? But he’s not really

Is it true that you have an interest in

Oh, lots. Yeah, all of them. When I was

I think he’s essentially a funny character.

that kind of director, is he?

British history?

a kid people had a background in cin-

No, he’s not really, no, it’s just the way

Well, yeah. Yes, I love history. I think

ema that people don’t have so much

What kind of shoot was it?

the cookie crumbled. We only met for

it’s part and parcel of being an actor,

now. I mean, we knew films from the

It was huge. The production was

the scene we were in. I never really

really, being interested in history, I

1920s right through to the time we

gigantic and like being part of… I don’t

got to know anyone, to be honest.

would’ve thought.

were in drama school, in the ’80s.

40

impressed you or influenced you?

S O N Y P I C TU R E S E N TERTAI N M EN T / EV E R E TT C OL L EC TI O N

After strategically withholding Napoleon from the festival circuit, Ridley Scott went guerilla instead, launching his controversial military epic into cinemas like a carefully-thrown hand grenade. The tactic worked, overriding critical reviews that tore apart its history, its script and even its star, Joaquin Phoenix, to give Scott a $200 million worldwide gross. Overlooked in the fallout was a terrific performance by Rupert Everett as the Duke of Wellington, the stiff-upper-lip Brit who proves to be Napoleon’s nemesis at the Battle of Waterloo. Here, the laconic British actor reflects on the influences that fed into his portrayal of the Iron Duke.

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So, I was very well-versed in cinema

for. You stumble through things, really,

history anyway, as a young kid. Lots of

on the whole, in a career in showbusi-

favorite actors. I like very much Claude

ness. I think. At least in my career,

Rains, for example. Alastair Sim, lots

everything’s happened by chance,

of actors.

really. You go where the work is.

That shows in the performance,

You’ve also had a nice sideline in

because, for Napoleon, it needs a

memoirs. How does that work? Is

strong character to stand up to him,

that a dangerous thing to do—has

because otherwise he’s just maraud-

that harmed your career at all?

ing through Europe…

I don’t think so. I think it’s great having

It’s a great role. I think he’s always

as many strings to your bows as you

going to be a good role because, in

possibly can, I suppose. I think writing

Napoleon’s story, he is, like you said,

for me has been a great thing to have

the nemesis. So that’s always a good

worked on in the last 15 years. I’ve

starting point.

done quite a lot of writing, and I’m thrilled to have had that extra kind of

Are you drawn to genre films?

thing to do, really.

From left: Rupert Everett and Joaquin Phoenix in Napoleon.

to get cast how you get cast, and

How many novels have you pub-

what do you tend to enjoy from the

Are you still based over in the U.K.,

you make the most of it. I’ve done

lished now?

surrounding circumstances?

or are you in LA now?

a lot of period films, but that’s the

Two and I’m publishing a book of

Well, just to be able to get a good grip

No. I live here [in the U.K.], in the

nature of being an English actor in

stories now next year. A new book

on a character and make the charac-

West Country.

a certain period. That’s kind of half

of stories.

ter lively and real and hopefully funny,

No, not particularly. I think you tend

with depth and as much research as

Why there?

that, actually. That’s really how I

What can we look forward to? What

it takes to have a good take on the

That’s where I live.

started being interested in history,

kind of stories will they be?

character that you’ve got. I think [the

because of researching characters

They’re all the stories of the ideas

trick is] to try and do as good a job as

People would probably imagine you

and epochs and periods and stuff

that I’ve pitched and been rejected

you can, really.

living somewhere very urban, or

like that. That’s really how I got

for over the years as films, all my

interested in it. But no, I’m interested

various pitches.

in all genres. I think an actor can’t

urbane, rather.

How does theater fit into your

Well, I live in London as well, but

plans? Does it still?

mostly I live in the West Country now.

really afford to only like particular

Can you give an example?

Well, same way. It’s just that there’s

I live in the country; I have a dog. I

types of stuff.

Well, no, I’m going to wait until you see

another thing you can do, isn’t there?

spend most of my time here.

the book!

Theater. That’s another great thing to

Which of your films has been most

have to do. [Pause] I don’t know how

Do you have a writing regime or

satisfying for you in that respect?

What are you looking for in movies

to answer your questions. It’s what

do you only write when the mood

I don’t know. It’s difficult. I don’t really

these days?

I do. It’s what everyone does. I’m an

strikes you?

think about any of them anymore.

Anything really, just good work, good

actor—I act when I can in movies, and

Well, it depends. You get deals to

The adventure of all work, I think, is

people. The best you can make of it.

I act when I can in the theater. I try

write, so I normally have a deadline

exciting. Going away, starting a new

Keeping going, keeping doing things.

and have ideas for things, and that’s

of some sort. You know what that’s

life somewhere and doing something.

I really like working, so I’m happy just

really it.

like. I’m not writing anything at the

I’ve found the adventure of almost

doing whatever I can really.

everything I’ve done really quite

moment. I’ve just finished editing my What’s next for you?

book. I just really only handed it in this

exciting. Even the things I haven’t en-

Are there any particular directors

Well, Napoleon was last year, and I

last week to my publisher.

joyed, looking back on, they’ve been

that you have a particular

don’t even know what I’m doing next

pretty exciting, really. If you can get a

chemistry with?

month. I’ve just finished another job

Are you the sort of person that has a

job, it’s a great existence working in

Right. I love working with a lot of

playing a witch, and I’m just waiting to

bucket list of things you want to do?

the movies.

directors. I like working with P.J. Hogan

see what happens next year, really. It’s

No. It’s not that easy to keep going,

a lot. I love working for Ridley. I’ve

called Land of Legend and it’s a kind

particularly in the world nowadays.

Do you feel you had an easy time of

enjoyed everything really, recently,

of medieval witchy story.

It’s quite tough on older people.

it, or did you have to fight for what

that I’ve done.

you wanted?

I think every day that you manage Who directed that?

to keep going is a kind of victory. So

I think it’s difficult to have quite the

Are you a very technical actor?

A guy called Niall Johnson. We just

survival, I think, is really what I’d like

kind of overview that you are hoping

What do you like from a set and

finished it and it’s nice.

to achieve. A

42

AI DA N M O N AG H AN / S O N Y P I C TU R ES EN TE RTA IN M E NT / E V ER ET T C O L LEC TI O N

what I did, and I’ve really enjoyed

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Cillian

MURPHY

How the Oppenheimer star fused the physicist’s contradictions and complexity with a little bit of Bowie B Y A N T O N I A B LY T H

A

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Obviously, there are 20 years of

finished it, he had the book beside

images of a young Davie Bowie too,

arts as well as being a genius scientist.

trust between you and Christopher

him and he looked at the picture of

for that shape and elegance he and

He was polymathic in his interests and

Nolan—this is your sixth film togeth-

Oppenheimer, and thought, “OK, I

Oppenheimer shared.

Bowie was the same.

er. When he asked you to play this

think I know the guy who can do this.”

Exactly. And I also think definitely

Now again, these are things that

huge lead role, did he reveal exactly

To me, that’s a true gift, because

sartorially, he was an inspiration, but

just kind of hover in the background.

why he thought of you for it?

there were no limitations on what

also in terms of the way he self-

They’re never in the front of your

This is another example of his kind of

he expected from me, or what I ex-

anthologized very consciously and

mind, but it’s all very, very useful for

brilliance, but when he writes parts,

pected I could bring to the part. And

created personas for himself—the

me to take inspiration from many

he never thinks of actors because

that’s exactly what you want from

way Bowie did, like Oppenheimer also

different areas. But I think it was

he thinks that if he did that it would

any role, really.

did, it was very deliberate. Everything

particularly useful for me and [cos-

was deliberate with him. The pipe, the

tume designer] Ellen [Mirojnick] for

limit how he’d write the character. He wants to write in a way that would not

So, he’s saying on the one hand,

hat, the tailoring, even the cars that

the tailoring of the suits. Bowie was

be limited by what he thinks I could

there’s the physicality he knew you

he drove, the way he spoke, the way

incredibly slim and Oppenheimer was

or couldn’t do. So, he said, when he

could work with. He gave you some

he was interested in all aspects of the

very, very self-conscious about his

44

U N I VE R S AL P I C TU R E S / EV E R E TT C OL L EC TI O N

For Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy plunged deep into the mind and physicality of an iconic scientist that irrevocably changed our world. At once complex, conflicting, stylish and brilliant, Oppenheimer’s life and work is not an immediately obvious choice for an epic blockbuster subject. And yet, Christopher Nolan’s decision to ask his longtime collaborator Murphy to step into the physicist’s shoes resulted in a cinematic experience that would outstrip every superhero movie at the box office last year. Here, Murphy describes inhabiting the man behind the atom bomb and why he always delights in working with Nolan.

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F O R

YO U R

C O N S I D E R AT I O N

I N

A L L

CAT E G O R I E S

I N C LU D I N G

‘‘

‘‘

bright, beautiful, bold, and creative .’’

‘BARBIE’ is lovingly crafted .’’

THE GLOBE AND MAIL

INDIEWIRE

‘‘A deeply hopeful film – something much-needed in the world right now – and

.

‘‘

.

‘BARBIE’ is the most subversive blockbuster of the 21st century .’’

’’

OBSERVER

ROLLING STONE

‘‘ Greta Gerwig’s bold and

‘‘

inventive ‘BARBIE’

...

‘BARBIE’ feels like a new dimension in modern cinema .’’

’’ .

BBC CULTURE

THE NEW YORKER

C R I T I C S C H O I C E AWA R D N O M I N AT I O N S IN CL UD IN G

David Heyman, p.g.a. Margot Robbie, p.g.a.

Tom Ackerley, p.g.a. Robbie Brenner, p.g.a.

For screenings and special content please visit www.wbawards.com

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Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig & Noah Baumbach

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1/4/24 11:13 AM

physique. He was so frail physically,

time, just trying to pick and choose

you make of his attempt to poison

going to go. We don’t know who else is

but so formidable intellectually, and

what we thought would be useful

his college lecturer with an apple?

going to walk into that room. We don’t

then he began to use his frailty, I think,

and not useful. But we were never

He acted in a fairly sociopathic way

know what information they’re going to

in terms of his silhouette, he used it to

going to do an impression. We always

then, but later he battles with his

give us. So, for me, in acting, it’s not an

its strength with the tailoring and stuff.

were very clear that we were making

conscience in other ways. How did

intellectual exercise, it’s an instinctual

Those huge pants that I think are so

a feature film, and it was a piece of

you reconcile those two things?

one. Now, I do all of the intellectual

flattering on men, the high-waisted—I

entertainment, but yet we had to be

That to me is just exactly what you

work and graft beforehand, but then

love a trouser like that.

true to the iconography and to how he

want in a character, fictional or not.

when we get into the room, I kind of

presented himself.

That contradiction and complexity

shake it all off and it’s just about the

is just amazing to play. And I think

humanity of the character.

from there? You had Nolan’s very

Like the examples that Oppen-

even in his early days, he was so

comprehensive, detailed script, but

heimer walked on the balls of his

complex, and he was very fragile, I

Did it help you at all that you’d

what else were you looking at?

feet and he had a verbal tic. Those

think, emotionally and mentally as a

played a physicist before in the

There’s so much out there. There’s so

were the kinds of things you didn’t

young man. Maybe as a result of being

2007 film Sunshine?

much text, there’s so many books, and

choose to include because they’re a

a preternatural genius and walking

It did, actually, because I did an awful

I just dove in. It was a pleasure to read,

little on the nose? Like you say, you

around looking at the world in far

lot of research for that role as well.

and firsthand accounts of him were

don’t want to do an impression, you

more dimensions than the average

And I spent an awful lot of time with Dr.

really, really useful to me. People that

want to evoke.

person. But then I also think that as he

Brian Cox, the professor, and we had

knew him, had spent time with him.

Yeah, there were a lot of firsthand

got older, he began to form himself as

actually gone to CERN. We used to go

I even spoke to Kip Thorne, who

accounts of him having a terrible

much, much clearer.

for dinner and hang out with the most

was the science advisor on this movie

hacking smokers’ cough all the time.

and who worked on Interstellar with

But if you put that into a character, it’s

come down on one side or the

really interesting how rationality meets

Chris—he was lectured by Oppen-

just immediately signaling that some-

other with a character. I never ever go,

sentimentality, or how reason meets

heimer when he was a young man. So

one’s going to die soon. So, first off,

“Right, this is the character and this is

love, and all of these things.

there were first-hand accounts of Kip

you just leave that out. And again, this

how I’m going to play it, and I’m going

telling me how Oppenheimer would

points to Chris’ genius. Oppenheimer

to apply my moral framework to this

What was your takeaway from those

move on the lectern and how he

is the only character in the film that

character.” I never judge them. I think

brilliant people?

would carry his pipe.

smokes. He’s the only character in the

that’s up to the audience.

That I don’t think it’s necessarily a gift.

The truth is, for me, I never, ever

brilliant people in the world. And it was

And then there are all these images

film that has a hat. So, you’re immedi-

of how he sat in very peculiar ways. He

ately, again, subliminally directing the

Right, if you did that, how would you

would sit on a desk with one leg kind

audience towards this character and

play them? Because they wouldn’t

Have your teenage sons seen Op-

of tucked up underneath the other,

his behaviors as opposed to making it

do that to themselves. That’s not

penheimer? Did it spark an interest-

and we put that into the movie. And

historically accurate, where every-

how people are.

ing moral debate with them?

there are pictures of him like that.

body would’ve smoked, and everyone

Exactly. It’s really reductive and not

Yeah, we had lots of great chats. My

And so, you’re all the time building,

would’ve worn a hat. I really do find all

useful. So, I don’t ever do that. And

boys, they’re pretty smart kids and

building, and building, and building, like

that stuff so rewarding and exciting in

even when I play a scene, I never ever

they love movies, not just because

the way he always liked to stand with

the prep period.

know how I’m going to play the scene

that’s what I do, but they just love

until we actually go to play it. Because

them. And we watch a lot of movies

his hand on his hip. There were lots of

I think it might be a burden.

pictures of him standing like that I just

Clearly Oppenheimer was very

again, like you and I, we don’t know

together and we have great discus-

stole. And then you work it into the

ambitious as a scientist, but he also

when we walk into a room how we’re

sions. But the crazy thing about this

physicality.

seems to have teetered on the edge

going to interact with the person. We

one was that there were lots of young

of insanity in some ways. What did

don’t know how the conversation’s

people going to see this film repeat-

The thing about the footage of him was it was mostly footage of him

edly. There were people dressing up

giving lectures, which naturally lends

as Oppenheimer and going to the

itself to a performative way of talking

cinema to watch the movie. None of

and not a sort of a candid [way]. So,

us could have expected that a three-

I have to extrapolate back from that

hour R-rated biopic about a physicist

to go, “Right, so if that’s what he’s like

would have this kind of cultural reach

when he’s talking or being inter-

and this connection, and not just with

viewed, what would he be like if he’s

what you would assume would be the

just having a chat like this or with his

demographic and people that would

family or whatever?”

be history buffs or would know about

It was fascinating and really rich,

this, but with young people. It’s so

and there was so much of it. I worked really, really closely with Chris all the

46

heartening and it’s such a fantastic From left: Emily Blunt, Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy on set.

result for cinema, I think. A

U N I VE R S AL P I C TU R E S / EV E R E TT C OL L EC TI O N

How did you build the character

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Willem

DAFOE

Poor Things’ mad scientist dissects the appeal of the year’s most surreal and goofily sexy comedy

BY DAMON WISE

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It was only a matter of time before Willem Dafoe worked with Yorgos Lanthimos, and the result is everything you might expect and more. In Poor Things, the actor plays Dr. Godwin Baxter, a Scottish scientist given to sewing dog’s heads onto chickens, and we meet him after completing the most important experiment of his life: by transplanting an infant’s brain into the skull of its dead mother, he creates the anarchic and wholly unpredictable Bella (Emma Stone). It may sound creepy, most likely because it really is, but Dafoe brings a surprising sadness to the role. Here, he reflects on the film’s strange, unique world.

Yorgos Lanthimos seems like a good

As simple as that?

about people being afraid of him,

grew up around medicine, because I

fit for you. Did you lobby to work

It really was. It really was.

and the fact that he doesn’t like to go

come from a medical family. When I

outside. He’s a brilliant scientist, but

was a kid, my parents worked together,

with him?

I follow his stuff, but, no. For this, one

Was it your choice to play Dr. Godwin

he’s in London, and he ain’t English. So

so when I’d finished school, sometimes

day someone called me up and said,

Baxter with a Scottish accent?

that was important to distinguish him

I’d go and sit in a spare examination

“Yorgos Lanthimos wants to talk to

No, it was written like that. I think it’s

from the others and put him a little

room, doing my homework. And

you.” And then Emma and Yorgos

important to show that he’s an outsider

outside of that society.

then when I got older, when I was a

called me, told me the rough story,

in every way. Of course, his face makes

said where it came from, what the role

him an outsider, and that becomes

Did you look into the science of it?

So… Needles, blood, urine, all that

would be, and I said, “Great! When?”

established very clearly when he talks

I had that up my sleeve. I mean, I really

stuff—every night I’m dealing with it

48

teenager, I was a janitor at the clinic.

ATS U S H I N IS H I J IM A/ S EA R C H LI G HT P I C TU R E S / EV E R E TT C O LL EC TI O N

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because I’m the garbage man. And my

There’s been a lot of debate around

father used to take me on his rounds.

the film and the sexual frankness of

I guess something about it is titillating

it all—will it scare the Academy?

to me, whether it’s putting on scrubs or

To be honest, I don’t get it. Obviously,

being in an operating theater, lecturing

my view is colored, although that’s not

in front of a cadaver. I’ve seen my

my part of the movie.

father operate. I’ve seen my brother

There’s not that much sex in it, and

operate. I’ve been there for operations,

it’s not erotic, necessarily. Yes, it’s

and I’ve been around cadavers and

odd to see a top-drawer movie star

things like that.

get naked in a Hollywood production.

Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone in Poor Things.

Did Yorgos know that?

That is slightly unusual, but most of it is comic and kind of frenetic, and it’s

there [in the world of the film], which is

study in New York when I received

beautiful. The best thing a director can

the call [from Yorgos and Emma]. I’m

creature, Bella.

not really erotic. I think why people

The studio cut a trailer and they

talk about the sex is because some

do is make a really complete world,

cut out the reanimation part of it, be-

the attitudes towards sex in the film

sitting there, and they’re talking, and

one that’s so complete that you can

cause they didn’t want people to think

are surprising. It’s not the actual sex

as they’re describing the movie to me,

enter it and you don’t feel the stress

it was a horror movie. And I thought

scenes themselves. I mean, it’s fun

I’m looking around the room. Now, I’ve

of having to invent things. It’s all there,

the trailer made no sense without it,

to talk about, and it’s what people

got a huge portrait of my father be-

and your work is really to be able to

because it looked like she was just a

gravitate toward, because every-

hind me, and they’re talking about this

receive it and let something happen. I

sassy gal. Whereas the idea that she’s

body’s either concerned or confused

character being a big father figure, the

think that’s the actor’s work.

got this brain that learns quickly—

or depressed about sex. So, it’s a hot

that’s totally open, and that’s not

topic, but that’s not what the movie’s

creator, and I see this huge portrait of my father. Not because I’m hung up

How do you work with prosthetics?

conditioned by social convention—in

about. The movie’s about liberation

on my father, but I did a movie once

Do they have to make sense to you?

a body that’s ready to do whatever it

and being free of a certain kind of

where they made portraits of three

I think if they didn’t, yeah, I’d be ask-

wants, is fantastic to me.

conformity and a certain kind of dead-

generations of my family, and they

ing questions. But the prosthetics in

were really good. When the movie fin-

this are beautiful. I mean, it tells you

What did you think when you saw

of that, but I think the idea is scarier

ished, they said, “Do you want these?”

volumes, and it identifies who he is

the finished film?

to people. It’s like men are threatened

And I said, “Yeah, I’ll take ’em!” So, my

very quickly. It’s sort of beautiful that

Well, there are a lot of sequences that I

by it, and women are cheering it. Basi-

father’s portrait is on one side, and

he’s the creator and he’s also the

wasn’t involved in. I’d seen some of the

cally, it gets to the idea that women

then over on the other is a big photo

monster. And I like so much the idea

sets, so I had an idea, and, of course, I’d

are sturdier characters when it comes

of Marina Abramović. She’s standing

that he’s not a crybaby. He is had this

read the script, but it was still fun to see.

to sex than men, and that’s pointed

over a cadaver with the organs all out,

horrible life, and he’s trying to figure

As always, it’s a little difficult, because

out in the relationship with [Mark Ruf-

in a kind of Jesus pose. So, I thought,

out what motivated all that. So, he

you have a strong association with the

falo’s character] Duncan.

“Hmm, something’s in the air.”

takes the higher road and decides that

shooting of the movie, but there were

Also, the fact that she’s game. She’s

ening conditioning. And sex is a part

it was all for science, because science

many elements that I wasn’t privy to,

game, and we’re not used to that, be-

How was the character’s facial

is important. That’s a very Victorian

like the music, which is beautiful. It’s

cause, at the center of some people’s

makeup described to you?

idea, as I understand it, the idea of

really ingenious, and it’s rich.

moral conditioning is how frightening it

In the script? I can’t remember. But

self-improvement: “We’ve had the

they described it to me. They told

industrial revolution, now we’re going

Emma’s performance is very surpris-

chooses them freely. We have names

me he was disfigured, and they said

to get society sorted.”

ing. She’s certainly game…

for that, and we put them in a little box.

She’s fantastic. I always get uncomfort-

All that’s in the air. So that’s why it feels hot and feels like sex.

is if a woman chooses her partners and

there was going to be some makeup

So, he’s very much a product of

involved, and there was going to be

that, even though serious damage

able when I talk about other actors,

some prosthetic body parts. Once I

has been done. He can’t have sex. He

because, what else are you going to

But I think the reality of it is, it’s

said yes, and we started working, Yor-

goes out on the street and people are

say? But truly she is. She’s not a diva.

about something deeper. But I have

gos would send me mock-ups of what

repelled by him. He’s got problems

She’s obviously got lots of skill, but

noticed that sex sells, and people are

they were designing, and I would give

with his digestion. [Laughs] I love the

she’s very easy. If she suffers or she

interested in sex. There is sex, but

him some feedback. I mean, his team

idea that when he finds a body and

struggles, she doesn’t wear it. She

it’s kind of goofy sex, and it’s more

had strong ideas, but we were there

there’s a baby inside, he’s like, “Oh,

keeps it private. She’s good humored,

about the attitude towards sex, this

for the development of them.

this is such a gift. There’s only one

and she’s funny. We tease each other a

kind of freeing thing. And we must be

thing to do. This is so clear. I have no

lot. Teasing, taking the piss out of each

reminded that, while we cheer her on

there was a lot of tweaking. To be

choice. I must put the baby’s brain in

other, was the order of the day. Yorgos

as she goes on her journey, this movie

part of that process gives you more

this woman’s body!” [Laughs]. And

too. The way he would direct me is he’d

is not telling every young girl to go to

history for the character and takes

of course, that’s the brilliance of

say, “Oh, you did a Willem.” [Laughs]. I’d

Paris and become a prostitute to learn

you away from yourself. It puts you

the setup, because it produces this

be like, “Fuck you!”

about who she is… A

There were lots of fittings because

50

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I don’t think so. It’s funny, I was in my

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Charles

MELTON

The breakout star of May December on Cannes, Glee, and the secret of good kimchi

BY DAMON WISE

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Charles Melton has had a good year; although saying farewell to Riverdale hit him hard, he went head-to-head with Natasha Lyonne for an episode of Poker Face and earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Todd Haynes’ May December.

Sandwiched between Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, the U.S.-born actor with Korean roots handled himself impeccably, playing the husband of Gracie (Moore), an older woman once sent to prison for molesting him as a minor. Melton brings a diffident grace to the part, which is crucial to the film’s unfolding when actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman) turns up.

Were you up in time for the Golden

then I got another one, and it was

process. I was constantly discovering

After a second viewing, it becomes

Globes announcement?

another six hours. The next thing I

new things about Joe, even during the

clearer that this is really Joe’s story…

No, I got a phone call from my team.

know, I’m flying to New York to meet

filming process.

Joe is sandwiched in between these

My sister, who’s my assistant, was on

Todd and Julie to do a chemistry

the phone call and she was laugh-

read. That six-month process really

What kind of things?

Elizabeth, women that are both telling

ing because I was just like, [woozily],

informed the way I wanted to work.

Certain mannerisms would kind of

themselves a story. Julie and Natalie

“Hello…? Yeah…? Yeah!?”

After I got the call from Todd, I went

come to me innately, understanding

talk about identity, and I think what’s

to Savannah, Georgia, a couple of

his emotional makeup and what I

emblematic of the many powerful

When did this journey start for you?

weeks before filming, and we filmed

could do with that. Understanding his

scenes that they have together is the

Last summer [2022] my team sent

this independent feature in 23 days.

repression, how it lives in his body, and

mirror scene, where Gracie is putting

how that would translate into his voice,

her face onto Elizabeth. It’s such a

me the script, and it was a self-tape process that lasted for about six

Obviously, it’s inspired by a real

like he’s scared to speak. There’s kind

deep, complex scene. They’re telling

weeks. And I really felt this innate

story. Did you know about that?

of a pre-verbal sense of not being able

each other their narratives, their

connection with Joe, who this man

I didn’t, but there was so much source

to quite articulate what he’s thinking.

motives. Gracie is kind of immersed

was, and what he represented. The

material from Samy [Burch] and her

His body moves and thinks before he

in her delusion, her naivety, and

first time I taped, it was for six hours,

script. It really was a fun, explorative

can actually think for himself.

then you have Elizabeth, seeking

52

FR AN Ç O I S D U H AM EL / N ET FL IX

very extreme characters in Gracie and

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whatever truth she’s looking for and

by them and their presence, and just

And when did you make the move

What was your big breakthrough?

disregarding how it may affect the

empowered by them. I felt so safe to

into the arts?

Oh, gosh. I did this web series that

outside world.

tell Joe’s story.

I think I attempted to move into the

didn’t get picked up, as a pilot, but

arts in the industry when I was 20. I

my first guest-star role was on Glee,

doesn’t know how to tell his story,

And then you have Joe, who You were in Cannes for the world

left school playing American football

Season 5, the New New York episode.

but he lives in his story, which is his

premiere, weren’t you?

to pursue acting, and I only had $500

I’m 43 minutes in, or something, for

body, and he doesn’t know how to

Yes, I was. It was my first Cannes. It

saved up. And my mom packed me a

42 seconds. So don’t blink your eyes

quite articulate that. If you went up

was so surreal. There’s not a better

bunch of ramen noodles, a bunch of

or take a bathroom break, you might

to Joe and said, “Hey, why are you

place to do it. I mean, I was with

tuna, and when I was 20, I drove out

miss me. That was my first thing. It

always hunched over?” He wouldn’t

Todd, Natalie, Julie, all our producers.

to Los Angeles from Kansas. From the

was so exciting.

be able to articulate it. He’s just living

Our cinematographer was there,

middle of the East to the West.

in his story. That’s why I believe Joe,

our production designer, my sister,

in the story, represents purity and

everyone. The carpet was so vast. It

That must’ve been quite a culture

Yeah. I’d say I have many people that

innocence, and it slowly rises through

was very magical.

shock for you.

I love and hold dear in my life—I can

Definitely a culture shock. I mean, I grew

count them on my two hands plus

the layers and rises to the surface

Did you have a mentor?

with all these questions that are

What’s your most abiding memory?

up as a military kid, so every two to

one—that always just really guided me

being asked of him from Natalie’s

Maybe calling my parents on the way

four years I was moving with my mom

and spoke truth to me and loved me.

character, Elizabeth.

to the Palais. We had, like, 200 feet

and my two younger sisters. I lived in

to drive, but I was in the car for 20

Germany for four years, Korea for five

Do you speak other languages, from

minutes on the way.

years, Texas for two years. I spent the

your travels?

majority of my life up until the age of 18

I speak Korean, but not as well as I

overseas, in Germany and Korea.

would like to. I love Korean cinema. I

Did you expect it to be so funny, albeit in a very dark way?

I did not. It wasn’t my perception

What did you say to them?

because I was so into it. It was hard to

[Laughs]. “Hey, Mom, hey, Dad, I love

separate because it wasn’t comedic

you. I wish you were here!”

while we filmed it at all. It’s a very

steal so much from Korean cinema How did you support yourself in

and the performances that I see that

those early days?

I’m so moved by.

heartbreaking story. I always find that

Did they always support you being

I was lucky enough to do a few model-

as an audience member, when you’re

an actor?

ing jobs, but, really, walking dogs was

Which actors have you stolen from?

watching something and there’s some

I think my parents have just always

my bread and butter. I was walking

I can’t tell you my secrets!

sort of discomfort, maybe it’s easier to

supported me. I could do anything.

dogs, working Chinese takeout and

laugh than to cry.

They just always support me and

eating the same thing every day. It

And so where are you at now? Did

love me.

was like Groundhog Day with my

the strike complicate matters?

Were you intimidated to work with

meals for two years straight: chicken,

Well, in my free time during the strike,

those two women?

What was your first job? I read that

quinoa and vegetables. Then I’d have

I was making a lot of kimchi with my

Oh, I think anybody would be intimi-

you were a dog walker.

eggs for breakfast and chicken again

mom. And I just finished up six years

dated. Natalie and Julie, the masters

Oh, yeah. I was a dog walker, and prior

for dinner!

on Riverdale, which was such a bless-

of the craft that they are. And, gosh,

to being a dog walker, I worked at

even better human beings. We had so

Wendy’s for a year and a half when I

So how did you get scouted for mod-

I learned so much, and I wouldn’t be

much fun in between scenes and we

was 17. I worked at Arby’s when I was

eling? Were you spotted?

here talking with you now if it wasn’t

hung out when we were in Savannah

16. I was a paperboy at one time. I’ve

Not really. I went to a little talent

for that show. And it ended, so I was

when we had time. I felt so invigorated

had many different jobs.

convention thing. I was on my way

able to focus on seeing family and

to American football practice, and

making kimchi.

ing. I formed lifelong relationships and

I heard a voice on the radio saying, “Do you want to be an actor?” I was

Did any offers come in during the

like, “Yeah!” It went on. “Do you want

strike or are they starting to come

to be a singer, a songwriter?” I was

in now?

like, “No, not really, but I do want to

No, I’m just getting a lot of requests

be an actor.” So, I called in, did this

from my friends and family about the

audition, and I went to this little talent

kimchi that I’m making.

convention. There was such positive feedback that it just encouraged me, I

What is the secret of good kimchi?

was like, “What do I need to do?” And

Lime juice.

Julianne Moore and Charles Melton in May December.

54

Kansas. You need to be in LA or New

That’s it? That’s the secret ingredient?

York.” So, I just packed up my bags

No! There are many secret ingredients

and went to LA.

[laughs]. I just gave you one. A

N E TFL IX

they were like, “Well, you can’t do it in

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Peter

SARSGAARD

The Memory actor explains how a trip to his old NYC haunts helped him find his character B Y RYA N F L E M I N G

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How did you get involved with

I had read the script a few times,

neighborhood. And it was kind of new

person and not the disease, but I did

making Memory?

which I do before a meeting for a proj-

for me too because the neighborhood

my due diligence. My uncle had early

The usual way. My agents called me

ect that seems like something I might

has changed so much since I lived on

onset dementia and he was a big

and said that there was this project

want to do, and we took a walk for

Rivington in the ’90s.

influence in my life, and I definitely

they thought I’d be interested in,

several hours. I showed him around

I really felt like I could add a

which is how they preface anything

the Lower East Side and he was very

lot to the character on the page.

thought about his disease, just how

that they think I should do. I heard who

interested in New York City. This was

Michel doesn’t perfectly define the

much life was in him every day and

was involved even before I’d read it,

going to be one of the real characters

characters on the page, so there’s a

how much joy and joviality.

and obviously I was already thinking

in the movie and he’d been spend-

lot of room for how you might play it,

that it was quite possible I would do it.

ing a lot of time in New York trying to

and I thought I had a very strong tack

What was your research process for

I’m a huge fan of Michel Franco’s and

feel the city. I’m not a New Yorker, but

on who this guy was, one of which

playing a character with dementia?

a big fan of Jessica [Chastain]’s, and it

I’ve been here since 1993 and I used

was that I really put dementia in the

Well, if you’re playing someone who

was shooting in my backyard. I took a

to live on the Lower East Side, so I

back seat. I really wanted to spend

has dementia it is kind of weird to

meeting with Michel.

just took him on a walk around that

most of my time thinking about the

go meet people and hang out with

56

thought about him more than I

K E TC H U P EN T ERTAI N M EN T/ EV E R E TT C OL L EC TI O N

The prospect of working with Jessica Chastain under the direction of Michel Franco was enough to pique Peter Sarsgaard’s interest in Memory, but what really sealed the deal was how Franco had written his character, Saul. Since Franco rarely defines the character on the page, Sarsgaard was given the freedom to create a personal portrait of a man just beginning to struggle with a debilitating illness. Here, he explains how was influenced by a family member with early onset dementia, and why he chose to focus on the joy and humor in the character’s life, rather than the disease.

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SHIGERU MIYAMOTO Directed By

AARON HORVATH MICHAEL JELENIC univ un iv ver ersa salp sa lpic lp ictu ic ttu ure resa s wa w rd ds..co com m

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I’m listening to the clicks to try to

that everybody starts crying. And I

figure out what’s going on with her.

pushed up against scenes like that.

And I think I’m playing a very intuitive

Sometimes I’d be like, “Don’t tell me

guy even though I’ve written down

what to do.” It says I cry. He is like,

her trauma. It’s not like I’m reading

“You don’t have to cry. I’m just saying

my book every day and yet I treat

something like that.”

her as someone who needs to be approached carefully and slowly be-

The whole romantic element of

cause I’m an intuitive person. I know it

the story is very different. At the

even if I don’t literally know it.

beginning when Saul follows Sylvia home, it’s not really the typical

And what was it like to work along-

meet cute situation.

side Jessica Chastain for this?

Yeah, that’s the hardest part of the

them studying their affliction. So, I

Someone in my family had Al-

We really barely communicated. I’m

film for me. The rest is quite easy

wanted it to feel sort of anonymous

zheimer’s, so I’ve seen someone go

going to say 98% of the words we

in the way that being in the flow of

for anyone that I was talking to. Dr.

through it and there were a lot of

spoke to each other are the ones that

something is easy. Once you get into

Peter J. Whitehouse [co-author of

little things that I recognized, like

are in the movie. And the movie was

the river of doing it, it’s like you can’t

American Dementia] was a godsend

the constant smiling and…

basically shot in order, except we have

make a mistake. But the beginning

for me, he really gave me the freedom

The nodding. That’s something I really

one day of subway stuff at the end

of that movie, yeah, you’re meant

to see that there’s as much difference

notice that I did in the movie, but I

and some other little stuff like that,

to be scared of me and I have to

with how this affects people as there

literally didn’t know I was doing that in

but that last scene of the film was one

honor the story at that moment, but

are individuals. And I told him I was

the movie. I watched the movie and I’m

of the last things we shot. We didn’t

I also have to find a way to honor

really interested in the beginnings of

like, I’m always nodding in agreement

really know what it would be until we

my character and not play two

dementia, that sort of period where

with everyone. And calling someone

came up onto it. I had lots of opinions

different people, one that is scary

people around them may uncon-

your friend. “This is my friend.” And

about what it could be, but the only

and one that is not. When we started

sciously know, but nobody’s put the

just always using indefinite articles

way it’s successful to work in that

working, that’s a lot of what I talked

name on it yet. And you’re kind of ir-

and pronouns and things, because

way with another actor is if they are

to Michel about.

ritated with these people and they put

everyone wants to be normal. You want

as focused and present as Jessica

We didn’t really rehearse. Jessica

you out and you have to help them,

to normalize it. You want to have life

is. There are not many actors that I

had just finished another project the

and you’re thinking, what the hell’s

go on in whatever way it can. You don’t

can imagine doing no coverage, very

week before we started and she came

going on? This guy’s losing it.

want every single moment to be about

few takes, shooting in order like this.

straight into this one. She just won

what’s going on with you.

I mean, there’s almost no coverage in

the Academy Award [for The Eyes of

the movie.

Tammy Faye]. I think the most amount

The film starts right after he’d been diagnosed, I would say a year after he’s been diagnosed, that we’re with

I think what you brought to the char-

this character in the movie. So, I really

acter is very interesting, where he

You generally hear about people

her was after she won the Academy

wanted to meet people that were at

knows what’s going on with himself

meeting to do chemistry reads or how

Award. My wife [Maggie Gyllenhaal]

that moment and not living with it

but is still very much trying to live

they connected on set, but it makes

and I were at the Academy Awards

for years. There were two different

life and find humor about every-

sense for this film that there was re-

that year because of Lost Daughter,

guys that I talked to on the phone and

thing. It’s not something you would

ally no outside connection.

and I saw her at a party and she was

it was remarkable how much they

normally see.

Yeah, because in the movie there

just sitting there and I started talking

remembered about the beginning

Oh, it was the only way. For me, it was

aren’t intense heart-to-hearts. We

to her about the movie. And I’d been

of the conversation and how they

the only way I would’ve ever played it.

don’t talk. Many movies develop

hanging out with Michel a lot at that

remembered that I was the guy who

I am a lot less interested in the movie

a relationship by people revealing

point, and I was talking about him and

calls. Sometimes I’ve thought about

that starts at the end of this one, and

things about themselves, sharing,

at that party is probably the most we

that, because I thought I would have

what was interesting too is I had such

being asked to hold that idea. For

actually talked about it beforehand,

to introduce myself and explain it

an enormous obstacle to this rela-

us, it’s really animal. It’s really just

and then we went straight into doing it.

every time. I was really inspired by this

tionship. I mean, Jessica and I barely

intuitive. It was scripted that she was

group called Reimagining Dementia

communicated on set. Not in a way

watching a movie and started crying,

What’s next for you? Are you

out of New York, and they literally help

that was any animosity, it was just that

which made me wake up and then

working on anything currently?

people do that. It is just as much for

she’s playing someone who doesn’t

I start crying. So that’s the way that

I’m going to do a movie with

the people around the person who

want to connect with other people

Michel Franco would write a moment

Maggie in March which is about to

has dementia as it is for the person

really and is quite self-contained.

of breaking through to the next level

be announced. It’s a really, really

who has dementia, these ideas and

I really felt like I was robbing a

of a relationship. Other people, that

exciting film, and I’m not just saying

how we treat people who have an af-

bank or I was a locksmith all the time.

scene would have dialogue in it and

this because it’s my wife. It’s the

fliction of some kind.

I’d have a nail file in my mouth while

they wouldn’t necessarily specify

best thing I’ve ever read. Period. A

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of talking about the movie I’d done with

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Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Chastain in Memory.

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CRAFT SERVICES

Clothes Maketh The Man Costume Design

Costume designers Ellen Mirojnick, Oliver Garcia and Mark Bridges on designing to honor historical figures

By Ryan Fleming

Clockwise from above: Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Joseph Bologne in Chevalier; Cillian Murphy (left) in Oppenheimer; Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro.

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S E AR C HLI G HT P I C TU R E S / N E TF LI X / U N I V ER S A L P I C T UR E S / E V ER ET T C O L LEC TI O N

When creating a biographical drama of a historic figure, there’s a delicate balance between striving for historical accuracy and focusing on crafting a compelling, human story.

This awards season has seen its fair share of biopics, testing their costume designers in different ways.

Oppenheimer uses timeless wardrobe pieces to sketch its self-consciously stylish hero. With few recorded images to draw on, Chevalier takes some informed liberties to tell the story of 18th-century musician Joseph Bologne. Maestro, meanwhile, draws on style trends and snapshots from a storied life to dress famed composer Leonard Bernstein.

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Oppenheimer

From top: Murphy as Oppenheimer walking through Los Alamos; Oppenheimer with Edward Teller (Benny Safdie); Oppenheimer on horseback.

For Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick says the focus was not on creating a biopic, but a portrait of a man who changed the world. “Chris was very clear,” she says. “We are not making a documentary. We are not looking for exactness nor preciousness, or anything that is stylized and put there just because it’s the correct period.”

This meant finding “timeless” pieces for the costumes, rather than clothing that just fit the time period.

With that in mind, Mirojnick instead focused on a few iconic things that became the foundation of her designs, most important of which is his silhouette. “What we found in the research immediately was his silhouette stayed the same from the beginning to the end of his life,” she says. “It was very elegant, very fine tailored and there was a simplicity to the style.” The silhouette became the main focus of her designs, as it accounted for how the jacket hangs on Oppenheimer’s frame, how the fabric bunches around his legs and, of course, there’s the iconic hat.

Mirojnick worked closely with Cillian Murphy in the design process of the Los Alamos silhouette, as each piece of clothing had to be sculpted to his form. “Cillian was the absolute perfect embodiment of Oppenheimer,” she says. “He was frail and he knew how to exact the stance, but he didn’t have the walk yet. That was going to be dependent on how the clothes draped, how they felt around him and the trousers being voluminous, which allowed him a stance with a hand on a hip that looked odd to us, but was ever so much Oppenheimer.”

The real-life Oppenheimer cut a distinctive, stylish figure, which Mirojnick thinks was no accident—if his brain was chaotic, Oppenheimer carefully crafted his look and controlled how he wanted to present himself to the world. “First and foremost,” she says, “the character of Oppenheimer is such a conflicted, complicated character. He was obsessed with physics, with the unknown… it filled him. That being said, he was very conflicted and contradictory because there was great in­security, frailty and unknowingness about his physical being.”

“There’s great responsibility in working with a historical figure,” she says.

“I think it is a responsibility not only in telling the story and representing the person, but bringing a truth to that human being that will hopefully help the audience relate to that character.”

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CRAFT SERVICES Costume Design

Chevalier Designing clothing for Chevalier presented a challenge and an opportunity for costume designer Oliver Garcia. Although Joseph Bologne, known as Chevalier de Saint Georges, was a celebrated composer in his life, much of his work was destroyed by Napoleon after the French Revolution. “You go diving into history books and try to find paintings, illustrations, whatever artwork there is that represents the characters in the script,” Garcia says. “There’s not many paintings that exist for a lot of the characters in the film. Most of them have been forgotten to history.” For Chevalier himself, Garcia says there are only two or three paintings of him that still exist. “There was a lot that we had to imagine and recreate.”

This presented an opportunity for Garcia to connect the costumes with how the story was being told. The first connection Garcia made was choosing the color blue for his outfits. “The color was chosen because it had a connection to Marie Antoinette. It is historically recorded that she was very fond of the color blue, so to us it made a storytelling sense to depict him wearing that color.” After being given the title of Chevalier from the queen, he became close with her and used that connection to further his career in a society that was not very accepting of him.

“We wanted to say he was a very smart person living in a very prejudiced society,” he says. “He understood the power of dressing and how you can influence people around you by the way that you dress.”

Later in the movie, when Chevalier has a falling out with Marie Antoinette, his clothing changes to create a distinction from the aristocratic circles he once traveled. “He’s been cast out from this society, and he starts finding himself and connecting with the African community that his mother introduces him to,” says Garcia. The iconic light blue jacket is gone, as he begins to wear less aristocratic clothing and darker colors. This part of the film takes place nine months after he’s been cast out, so the changes may seem subtle but are significant as he’s finally accepting his African roots more than the French culture that was forced upon him. “He’s been exposed to a whole different type of people that wear different types of clothing, so we wanted to say that he moved on from his past.”

S EA R C H LI G HT P I C TU R E S

From top: Harrison Jr. as Bologne playing after falling out with Marie Antoinette; Bologne ready to play for a crowd; Bologne walking with his lover Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving) and friend Philippe (Alex Fitzalan).

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Maestro

From top: Cooper as a young Bernstein conducting; an older Bernstein speaking with his daughter Jamie (Maya Hawke); Bernstein being interviewed with his wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan).

N ET FL IX

The story of Maestro takes place over more than 40 years of Leonard Bernstein’s life, so costume designer Mark Bridges needed to be thorough in his research. “I have a big print library, old-fashioned books with photo essays in them, and a lot of vintage magazines as well,” he says. “Because we just had Lenny’s hundredth anniversary birthday in 2018, there were other publications of photos of him, compilations and things.”

Although there were many documented images of Bernstein, Bridges says he was never pressured to create exact replicas of outfits. “You pick and choose what you research, and you make things up with calculated research. There’s a beautiful photograph of Lenny conducting with a beard, and he has the blue and white striped shirt on with a kerchief.” Bernstein only had a beard for about six months in 1976, so Bridges decided that replicating this outfit would give an accurate representation of that time. “Sometimes you make things up, and sometimes you pick from reality because it’s so good.”

Most of Bridges’ designs focused more on style trends during that period of Bernstein’s life. “I always try to be very specific to time and place,” he says. “Carnegie Hall’s a little more wintery, and Tanglewood takes place in the summertime of 1989, so it’s a summer palette.” With this basis, Bridges says it’s important to “touch the real clothes” of the time. “A lot of it has to do with putting my hands on real clothes and being inspired by actual garments. What are the shapes and the fabric details, or the lapel widths from 1943, or the casualness of 1989 where everything was striped and lovely pastels… it’s fun to revisit all of those periods.”

Without creating replicas of famous outfits, Bridges says the most important part of his job was to honor a “very well-documented” life. “We’re doing a compilation of different events, so there’s no one thing to look at, but you get a sense of who they were and you’re able to make decisions based on that.” Creating motivations for each costuming decision was essential, like having a double-breasted suit for Bernstein’s debut, because he would most likely only have one good suit for an emergency, or choosing a watch that looks like a graduation present because he couldn’t afford anything fancy at the time. “Even at the end of Lenny’s life, without Felicia guiding him there, he made a few missteps, like it’s a little too young and a little too flashy, but that’s part of telling the story of a life.” ★

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NOMINATED

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The sisterhood

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between Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks began on Broadway. That is, the sisterhood of the order of The Color Purple. Both women starred on stage in the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer-prize winning novel. Barrino spent 10 months in 2007 playing Celie, the poor country girl who survives an abusive step-father and husband and realizes her worth.

Brooks spent a year in the 2015 revival as the defiant Sofia, opposite Cynthia Erivo as Celie. Now filmmaker Blitz Bazawule places them in the exact same parts in his blockbuster musical movie version, starring Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins, with Oprah Winfrey—who was Oscar-nominated for her Sofia in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film version—producing. Barrino and Brooks tell Baz Bamigboye the story of how they came to their roles and what the journey has meant to them both.

You’ve both dug so deep into your roles and there’s something about your performances that wholly anchors the film. How did you both do that?

DANIELLE BROOKS: For me, I truly called on ancestors, and I called the work that I feel I had to do, blood work. It’s really spirit work. It’s taking time and really listening to these Black women who want to come to you and talk to you from the past and share their stories. I really felt that way.

I would have pictures of Black women that I felt like were Sofias in my dressing room, like Fannie Lou Hamer. And I would read stories about Black women who were home, like Eliza Woods during that time, and just really sit with them to see what they needed from me. And I feel like what they needed was for people to understand the humanity of who they are, that they aren’t angry Black women, the Sofias of the world, they are survivors. They are women trying to make it, trying to break generational curses.

They are trying to make sure that the women or little girls that come behind them aren’t subjected to the same thing that they were. And that’s what I tried to embody. And at the same

time, Alice Walker, the words that she wrote, I carried, and still to this day in this hotel room, whether it’s weird or not, I carry The Color Purple with me, the book, because there’s just so much in there when they talk about...

Even her name, Sofia, meaning wisdom, and reading about when she calls her an Amazon woman, what that means. And when Celie in the book says, “Harper don’t want a wife, he want a dog.” What does that mean? I just love dissecting her words and finding ways to infuse that into the work. But also, at the end of the day, you can’t act by yourself, so having incredible scene partners like Fantasia, when we are in that jail scene... I could try to do that by myself, but it’s really what she gave me through that monologue, and the way she delivered, and speaking about her children and telling her about what Harpo’s doing and bringing her the food and bringing her the sweater.

Those are the things that add to my character and what I bring to it. So yeah, the phenomenal cast that is Fantasia and Corey [Hawkins], and our Mister, Colman [Domingo], and Taraji [P. Henson] as well, that’s what enhances this too.

Yeah, very much so. And what about you, Fantasia? Because you dug deep too.

FANTASIA BARRINO: I was able to live with Celie.

I did not get to read the book, but I would always watch the movie. And being honest, for me, the movie was, I would always want to hear Shug Avery [played by Margaret Avery in the 1985 Steven Spielberg movie] sing “God Is Trying To Tell You Something.” And just knowing that Celie was so much like myself, this is why I didn’t want to go back to playing Celie again after Broadway, I went back to talk to the young Fantasia. And to be honest with you, I had just started doing therapy.

And what I was doing is what we call traumatic therapy. And I had to stop my therapist. I had to stop my sessions and she would text me and say, “Are you sure?” And I said, “I’m positive. I can’t do them right now, just because I need her, Celie to have more conversations than I have with you.”

I also pulled from my grandmother who’s gone home to be with the Lord. She was our living Celie. I also pulled from situations that I saw my mother go through with my father. Those were things that I had suppressed, and my therapist was trying to dig down and help me

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Fantasia Barrino & Danielle Brooks

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My family’s from Nigeria, and I have, or had, many, many aunts. And I had one aunt very much like Celie, and another very much like Sofia. I think it’s because Alice Walker did a lot of research in West Africa. The women of West Africa, Ghana and Nigeria, they have a sort of inner strength. And I think both of you have kind of picked that vibe up, somehow.

BROOKS: Because we’re all connected, you know how we got over here? It’s a part of who we are.

It’s a part of our culture, even across seas, that has never left us, that part, Africa, our people. It’s who we are. And so, I’m so glad that you say that you see your people, Nigerian folk, in these African American women. And I hope that’s the case for other people as well. I pray that white people can see themselves in this. Because I’m sure they got some Sofias and Celies.

Oh, yes.

BROOKS: So I’m hoping that they can find themselves in these stories too, because we all at the end of the day, are dealing with trauma, and hurt, and pain, and that’s the only way you’re going to get through life. Can’t nobody walk through life just happy, jolly and OK. So being that that’s the core of our story here, I feel anyone who has a heartbeat will understand and see themselves in somebody.

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Do you have that African vibe in you?

BROOKS: Oh, it’s in me. It is. I just finally did ancestry work with Henry Louis Gates a few months ago, and that won’t air until mid-February. But I did find out that I am Nigerian, which is very exciting.

Welcome. Welcome to the tribe.

BROOKS: Thank you so much. I’m very excited to learn more. Unfortunately, because it hasn’t aired yet, I’m not able to talk too much in detail about the tribe and all of that. But I’m excited about learning more about who I am, more in depth. And yeah, Nigerian people are so special. I feel like they just don’t take no for an answer, and some of the most hardest working people I’ve ever seen [laughs]. And I think about Cynthia [Erivo] and Uzo Aduba [her co-star in Orange Is the New Black] and a few of my other friends, what’s my girl’s name? Yvonne Orji.

Danielle Brooks

They worked super hard. And so it makes sense that I would be Nigerian. I work and work.

And do you know very much about your ancestry, Fantasia?

BARRINO: I do. And I’m learning a lot. My father, my last name is Barrino, but they would say it “Battarino.” They were Sicilian. And my grandmother was biracial, her father was white on my mother’s side. So I have a little bit of everything going on in me right now, and we’re still digging even deeper. And I share with my family that I don’t want us all to grow and not know who we truly are. I’m the first one to step out and start finding out information, and not allowing my uncles and aunties who have been here forever and haven’t done any research, I’m the one that’s breaking that thing and letting them know like, “Hey, do you know who you

truly are, and what lies within you?” We are Sicilian, Black, got a little bit of Indian, a little bit of everything inside of us.

And please give me a sense of what growing up in those small Southern towns taught you?

Because I see you as people with strength and purpose, and I’m just curious to know what those towns instilled in you both.

BARRINO: For me, I’m going to say it’s that humbleness of when you’re in a small town, everybody knows everybody. Everybody takes care of everybody, and everybody just keeps it real. And so for me, that is something that I have chosen to make sure I don’t lose in an industry that’s moving so fast and everybody’s chasing after something. I’ve decided that when I was in High Point and I was just a young little girl singing.

I’ve been singing before I was getting paid for it.

I was singing before they gave me any accolades, I would sing for free. So that mentality for me is I want to keep that. I do it because God gave me a gift. This is my ministry, and I just love it. And there was a time in my life when I didn’t love it anymore. And this is my very first movie, so I can only go on the music.

It’s been 20 years for me in that area. And there was a time when I didn’t love it anymore, because I saw myself beginning to chase something that did not look like me or did not look like the small town that I came from. So I had to fall back, go back. I still live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am there for a reason, because after I get away from all of this, and all the lights, and all the glitz and all the glamor, I’m able to go home and say, “But this is me and this is who I am.” So this time around, I’m not going to let that go. I’m from High Point, North Carolina. I talk like this, I walk like this, and I ain’t going to change it.

BROOKS: I love what she says too. It’s true. I think she hit the nail on the head. I mean, it is about humbleness, and that is what I take as well from my community. Also, where we’re both from, I believe, if I can speak on your behalf, to Fantasia, our communities in our small towns are surrounded by so many churches. And what that gave me was a foundation of faith and service. That’s why I love what Fantasia is saying about we never really got into this for the fame, we did it because we loved it. And I think that’s what our communities really taught us. It is about service. It’s about sharing your gift with somebody else so that they can find their purpose or feel like they can move forward in life.

And to add to that, my community, yes, it was a small town, but it also had so many arts educational programs, which to me just blows my mind, because it’s not like a New York or LA where you’re just expecting that. But I don’t

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bring back up, because it’s very important not to suppress them, but actually heal and be free from them. So through playing Celie this time, I keep saying I was healed. And I think people want to know like, well, wait, we thought you were married, you look happy, you look good.

But to dig deeper, that is what I’m talking about.

I had to go back and talk to young Fantasia.

I had to remember things about my grandmother, which was heavy because my grandmother was my number one fan. When the world had turned against me and everything about Fantasia was bad press, bad this, bad that.

“She’s illiterate, she won’t be this. She broke, she’s da, da, da,” my grandmother was the one that was always investing in me. And so to lose that and still be here, and not having that phone call or being able to... So I have to keep her so dear. And to go back and think about things that my mom dealt with that I was very angry with her about. These are conversations I would have with her when I would come off set. My mother came with me, my whole entire family came with me. I couldn’t have done it without them.

Everybody moved to Atlanta. And so when Blitz says Fantasia keeps saying through the movie, she was healed, that’s what I’m talking about.

Yes, I’m married and I’m happy now, but traumatic therapy is going back and dealing with the things that you didn’t even know you had pushed down. And so through Celie, I stopped therapy, and she was my therapy.

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with Randy, Paula and Simon, then you go to LA and there’s still about 15 more auditions before you make it to top 12. So for me, I’m not even going to necessarily say it was a point to prove, I just wanted to represent all those who are from small towns, or all those who feel like, I got a gift, but can I stand up against certain people?

I always tell people I don’t read music. I come from a family of singers. So when I do award shows and I speak to the [music director]. They call me and say, “What key you want in?” I sing it. And I always say, “I’m sorry, I don’t read music.” And they said, “Stop saying you’re sorry and realize that you got a gift and he gave it. You can hear it.”

For me, we didn’t have the schools like Dani [Brooks] had. I didn’t have the ability to do that because it was four of us, and my parents were trying to keep food on the table and a roof

Fantasia, watching the video of your first audition for American Idol, I was struck by how you stood there and sang unaccompanied in front of those three judges without seeming nervous. You just sang acapella. And I thought, ‘Oh my Jesus Christ. Where did she get that from?’

BARRINO: [Laughs]. Oh, I was nervous.

You hid it well.

BARRINO: You know what it was, since we have started off by speaking on Danielle and I being from the Carolinas, you don’t see a lot of people from the Carolinas out here [in Hollywood]. I think me and Danielle, there was something, and you tell me if I’m wrong, D, I think there was something inside of us that said, yes, I’m a Carolina girl. Yes, I’m in the big city and I belong here, and I’m going to sing for all those girls and all those boys that are sitting back in our towns wondering, can I do this? Can it happen? I’m going to stand for them. And when I opened my mouth, I knew that was my only chance.

And you have to understand, on Idol there were so many auditions, you don’t just make it to Simon [Cowell], Paula [Abdul] and Randy [ Jackson], on the first one. There were several.

That first audition, I almost didn’t make it in.

When we got there, they had closed the doors.

And there was a man that I always speak about that I feel like was an angel. He took a liking to me and my brother the day before the auditions and was talking to us. He was the man that got me back in the building, so I made it to that audition. That was like, come on. I wasn’t supposed to even be in the room. I was the last person to audition, and there were thousands of people there that could sang.

Then you go back, you have to audition in front of somebody else. The third time you go

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over our head, and shoes on our feet. So it was almost like a fight for me to say, “I’m here. I may not have the clothes, I may not have the education, and I may not have certain things that you have. And I want people to know that either way you can do it.” I had a point to prove. I was scared, I was terrified, but I felt like I made it here, I made it through that first audition when they locked the doors, so girl, you better open up your mouth and you better sing like you never sang before. And that’s what I try to do.

And Danielle, I saw a video of when you went for callback at Julliard, and there were 40 of you and you were the only one, when you introduced yourself, who stood up, because you felt they needed to know who you are. Talk to me about that a little.

BROOKS: That’s amazing. You did do your research on that. Yeah, to be honest, I think

you or I subconsciously take in moments like what Fantasia had experienced in watching her on Idol. When I saw her as a teenage girl before auditioning for Julliard, those are moments where you’re like, “I can do it too, she did it. She’s from the Carolinas, I can make it as well.” It gave me so much hope when that confetti fell down on Ms. Fantasia and she’s saying, “I believe.” I believed that was my moment to believe.

And so when I did audition for Julliard, they sat a few of us down. It was a final 40 callback. They only invited 40 out of the world, this was their final 40, they were choosing 18. And I was like, I have to make myself known. I am here. And they go around, ask you your name, where you from, and I stood up and I actually said to really make them see me, I said, “Hey, y’all,” because I’m first out. “Hey y’all, my name is Peaches.” Because I wanted them to remember me.

And I guess it was also my way of showing them like, “Hey, I’m funny. I’m humorous.

Got you. I’m a good actor here.” I don’t know [sighing]. And so I did that and made it through the next call back, after showing them more of what I got, and then got accepted. But the funny part of this story is when I got into the school in the first year, I made such an impression that everyone, the students kept calling me Peaches, until I finally had to tell them my name is Danielle. That was a joke.

BARRINO: If you can give me a moment, because I think me and Danielle are going to have a lot of these moments just because we are Carolina girls, we have a lot in common. I want to say to you, Dani, every time you speak [about] Julliard and everything that I seen you in before I met you, I could see that fight in you. And as a Black, beautiful, dimpled, full-figure, curvy, beautiful girl, I’m honored to be able to stand with you. It’s almost like both of our walks are similar, but just a smidge different, but the fact that I made it on Idol and you made it at Julliard, girl from South Carolina, girl from North Carolina, and we had to fight for it.

Me and you had stories. I don’t know if you remember when we were doing our first dance rehearsal [for the movie] with a team and all the that. We all sat on the floor and we all had some dope conversations. But it was that one conversation that you and I had where we were like, “Yo, man, it’s how to fight.” And it felt like a fight. It felt like a fight. So to see me and you both here right now, I want to salute you.

BROOKS: Thank you, sis. And the same. I’m telling you, you’re part of my journey too. Getting to see you in that moment when, and to be a reflection of the same skin tone, that meant something to me. And I tried to audition for American Idol, but I think I was too young, so I didn’t make it. But yeah, I wanted to.

BARRINO: Wow. I love you, mama.

BROOKS: You too.

E LI A DE /WAR N ER B ROS. / E VE R E T T COL L ECT I ON

know, I just got blessed to live in a town that had those programs, and that really helped me to find out more about this art form.

I ended up going to a high school where I lived on campus that was structured like a miniJulliard, and you had to audition to get in, and all of these things. And so that helped me to get to the big city and get to what my heart really loved before knowing that there was a possibility for me in TV and film, was theater. That is all I wanted to do, was act in theater. So I really do credit and thank my hometown, my church community, for being that foundation to sustain me in such a crazy industry where everybody is so focused on the climb and the money, and the being seen of it all.

There was one other thing I wanted to add to that. Also like Fantasia, I went back home to the South after living in New York for over 16 years.

I now live in Georgia. And that is also the same thing, it is that reminder to not lose yourself and to know what’s important in life, which is family.

D E A D L I N E .C O M /AWA R D S L I N E

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F O R YO U R C O N S I D E R AT I O N

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

“The Fire Inside” FROM THE MOTION PICTURE

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just having to surrender, because at the end of the day, I knew I didn’t want to let this go. And my heart was telling me it was for me. And so I went through the process, and then two days later, that’s when Ms. O Zoomed me and told me that I had gotten the role. And it was worth the whole six months. All of the ups and downs, the valleys, the mountains, the confusion, not understanding why, it was worth all of it.

BARRINO: My story is just like Danny’s, but at first I didn’t look to take the part.

And then I saw you, Danielle, a decade or so later, when you were playing opposite Cynthia Erivo. When you both heard about the movie...

How did it come about, the roles? Because I know you both had to fight for them. I know that much.

Why not?

BROOKS: I had been hearing about it a few BARRINO: When I played Celie on Broadway, it years before they started to audition people. was not the easiest, because at the time my life And so you’re just kind of floating it to your was in shambles. And so I always say I was caragents and your friends. And I even texted Scott rying my cross and Celie’s cross, and that didn’t Sanders [producer] being like, “Hey, I hear you feel well. I would ask some of my castmates that all are making a movie.” And I just was getting were on stage with me, I would go around and crickets, really not getting much at all. And then say... And I was young. Jesus, how old was I? my agents hit me up and said, Hey, Blitz, the director wants to have a meeting with you. And You were 19. that’s exciting for me. I’m always like, you get BARRINO: This was my first Broadway play. So me in the room to have a meeting, I’m going to get the job. It’s going to happen, but you get me going through this audition process, maybe not so much.

It’s really hard to do auditions, especially over Zoom.

So I was feeling really good about this hour and a half meeting I had with Blitz. And then a few months later I heard they wanted me to go on tape to sing “Hell No”. That was the beginning stages of me checking my ego, because I was confused. I had worked From left: Barrino and Taraji P. Henson on The Color Purple set. with the same producers, Oprah and Scott Sanders on now I’m on stage with them, and I did not know this, garnered a Tony nomination and won how to come out of character. No one sat me a Grammy for this, and now you want me to down and taught me how to come out of it, so sing? I didn’t get in a car accident or get surI carried her home. There were no fingernails, gery on my lymph nodes or whatever. I’m like, lashes, makeup, beautiful hair every day. It was what is going on? Nothing has changed. But I just Celie, Celie, Celie, Celie. And that was very truly had to push my ego to the side, and I put taxing for me then. my stuff on tape, and then didn’t hear anything I remember walking away, and I said in for another few months. interviews, I said it on radio stations, I said it evAnd so I ended up writing Blitz a letter erywhere. I said, “I played her, but I don’t think just expressing to him how much I love this I’ll play her again.” And I’m normally a woman character. But also that was kind of my way of that’s pretty true to my word, so when Scott surrendering to it, to say, whatever happens, called me, I was like, “Scott, didn’t you hear I will let it be, but also, I wish this project the what I said? Because I said I would never go best. And didn’t hear anything until September. back.” And like Danielle said, it would’ve been At this point, it had been six months. crazy for me not to allow my fears to step in.

That’s when Blitz asked me to do a chemistry Of course, I was much older, I was in a read with Corey Hawkins who plays Harpo, different place, thank God to my therapist who which also was another swallow your pride was so dope, and I’m married now. And I just moment because me and Corey went to Julliard didn’t want to go back and step into her shoes together in the same class of that chosen 18. and cheat her. And so Blitz called, Blitz showed And pretty much if you do your research on me his sketches that have voices and what he was us, you know we’re very tight friends. So I was

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doing. He said, “I’m giving Celie an imagination.”

And that’s when I was like, boom, I’m in. I felt like on Broadway, she did not have any imagination. And so all you know was Celie went through, and Celie being told she was ugly, and it gave you a Celie that was very slumped over and sad, and a poor thing. But I’m like, nah, when we’re going through stuff from where I was then to where I am now, hell, I had an imagination.

I imagined myself here and I’m here. I planted that seed. So yeah, I’ll do it so that now Celie can show these girls, plant the seed, baby. I don’t care what you’re going through. You can imagine yourself in different places.

I knew it was going to be hard. Yes, it was taxing again, but I knew how to step out and I had castmates to help me and guide me... I said, one day I’m going to keep watching them and I’m going to be that, become that kind of actress where I can step into the character but not take her home, and not feel like I got to carry it that way. And so I’m there, Danielle’s going to teach me, she don’t know it yet, but…

BROOKS: She’s had a long, luscious career in acting, and I cannot wait to see what she does. And I told her, I hope we get to do a project together again. Because I think I know my sister does not give herself enough credit. Baz, you already know, doing Broadway is not easy. Eight shows a week. Whether you’ve done all eight or not, it’s tough. A year of it, which we both did, is tough. That is and was her training. And not only that, Baz, excuse me, she did it twice. She did it twice, and After Midnight. She has skills. You know what I mean? She has learned so much. The learning doesn’t have to come from an educational place and an institution. And a lot of the learning, especially what I got, was learned outside of school.

I’m really, really excited about whatever movie she does next. Hopefully I’ll be right beside her.

BARRINO: And we’re going to plant that seed now, Sis. How did you both work on your characters for the screen with Blitz?

BROOKS: I think that’s the beauty of—which I don’t enjoy—but Blitz having auditioned us for so long, when he finally made his decision on his cast, he was able to fully trust us to do our thing. Because I feel like Blitz really just allowed me to fly, and not get in the way of my process too much. He trusted that I would be able to find that balance with Sofia. ★

LY N S E Y W IT HE RS PO O N/ WAR N E R B ROS. / E V E R E T T COLL ECT IO N

You both appeared in different Broadway productions of The Color Purple. So you Fantasia, replaced LaChanze as Celie…

BARRINO: Yes. And that was hard because she was so amazing at it.

D E A D L I N E .C O M /AWA R D S L I N E

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