You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
Episode number one seventy two. Obstacles are what you see when you take
your eyes off the goal. Anonymous broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in
Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof
Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome,
Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
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today on the show we have director Joe Wright. Now. Joe is known
for directing films like Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, one of my favorites,
Hannah, The Soloist starring Jamie Fox and Robert Downey, Junior, The Darkest
Hour starring, of course, Academy Award winner Gary Olman, and his newest
film Sirrao starring Peter dinklic Now, Joe opened up a lot in this conversation
with me about his process about you know, feeling not you know, having
imposter syndrome, which so many amazing artists go through, how he deals with
it, how he deals with problems on set, how he works his whole
process, and it's just a really really interesting conversation. So, without any
further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Joe Wright. I'd like to welcome
to the show, Joe right. How are you doing, Joe? I
am excellent. Thank you, I'm very well. Thank you so much for
coming on this show. I've been a fan of your work for quite some
time, so I'm excited to kind of dive into the weeds with you on
your career. So, first and foremost, how did you and why did
you want to get into this insane business? I don't know. I mean,
I think I'd like to be able to tell you a story that clearly
illustrates a particular moment in my life when I knew I was going to be
a filmmaker. But it was more incremental than that. I knew. I
always knew that I wanted to be in drama. Somehow. My parents were
puppeteers, and they did, you know, puppet shows for adults and kids,
And so I grew up in this kind of fantasy world of fairy tales,
which was no preparation at all for the harsh reality of contemporary life.
I went to a drama club after school where you paid the equivalent of like
ten cents a lesson, and you went and did improvisation workshops with other kids
from the local area. That was an important kind of stepping stone. I
hung around in a pub in Islington in London that was you know a lot
of actors went there and writers and people, and there was a little theater
upstairs where people put on shows. But running parallel to that was a was
a passion for film from you know, the age of six. I remember
asking my mum how films were made. And she happened, weirdly to have
a long strip of cartridge paper and we we drew a picture. She drew
a picture of a prince and a princess and then divided that to another square,
and there was a dragon, and the dragon came and stole the princess
and and told the story of George and the dragon. And then we we
cut a hole in the lid of a shoe box and wound this paper through
this aperture. And she said, that's that's how you make films. It's
a it's storytelling with hi is one after the other. And and I guess
that kind of set my whole imagination on fire. At an early age,
was there a film that there was an idea to be an actor? I
thought I might be an actor. You see and my plan was to be
a very famous actor, obviously, because you're not going to plan to be
a you know, out of work actor. Uh And and then through acting
I was gonna I was going to move into directing. However, I set
around on my ass for you know, a year, waiting for the phone
to ring, and nothing much happened. And then my dad had a stroke
and I thought, okay, I need to do something with my life.
So I went to art school, and at art school, I was,
you know, I gave up acting and I and I just started making short
films. To answer your question, there are many films that that influenced me
along the way. I think David Lean's Great Expectations was one of those,
especially the power of the graveyard scene and when Pitt runs into Magwitch. And
then, you know, when I was about fifteen, in the same summer,
I saw for the first time Taxi Driver and Blue Velvet, and I
thought, you know, I thought Blue Velvet was a comedy. Actually,
I watched and rewatched those films over that summer, and I think they really
had a huge impact on my understanding of what a director does. Actually,
that's amazing, now, how you say you were doing shorts. There's a
short called Crocodile Snap. How did you get that short off the ground,
get the money, get the everything to kind of put that thing together?
Well, I that was after I left college, and I'd made a short
film at college which had won a prize. And the guy who gave out
the prizes for Fujifilm, the guy was his name is Jeremie Howe, and
he wrote to me saying he liked my movie, you know at my short
film and he ran a BBC series called ten by ten, which was ten
short films of ten minutes. And I called his receptionist every day, bugging
her, and I think I bugged her to the extent that in the end
she told me where he was having a meeting that day, and she said,
if you want to talk to him, just go down there and talk
to him. And I turned up and I hung around. It was the
Royal Institute of British Architects, and I hung around this very imposing institution for
three or four hours until he finally came out and I said, Jeremy,
so I need to talk to you about this film and and he said,
well, I'm very late, but you've got between here and Googe Street subway
station to pitch. And so that four or five minutes of that walk really
changed my life because I managed to persuade him to let me do this short
film. And listen, I'm talking about three thousand dollars probably budget, but
to me that was an astronomical amount of money and inconceivable for me to get
hand in my hands off and he he commissioned this short film and then that
got nominated for a Bafter And from there I was kind of on, we'll
be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the
show, the very early stages of some kind of ladder. Now, how
did you make the jump from a three thousand dollars short to directing Pride and
Prejudice, which is a bit more than three thousand dollars if I'm not mistaken,
Yeah, well I was. I was very lucky. I mean I
always tell sort of young filmmakers who are trying to figure out how to how
to get into the business, how to gain experience. I always tell them
to hang around actors and basically to find if there's a if there's a little
fringe theater, if there's an actors workshop. If there's anything that involves actors
putting on shows telling stories, that's your best bet. And as I mentioned
before, there was this pub in Islington called the Old Red Lion, and
drinking in this pub was this incredibly important character called Kathy Burke, who is
an actor and director and writer. She won the Palm door for Gary Oldman's
Nil by Mouth and she was very influential and every time I made a short
film, I'd give her a VHS copy of my short film, and without
telling me, every time I did that, she would pass that on to
this producer friend at the BBC. And so one day I got a call
out of the blue saying will you come in to the BBC to meet Catherine
Wearing who is this producer? And I went along and it was in the
days where you could still smoke in offices and I couldn't see her through the
mist of tobacco smoke, although it did smell a bit odd, and through
the smoke I heard this raspy voice say, so would you like to do
a three part drama for the BBC? And I could have, you know,
my heart jumped out of my mouth and I tried to play it very
cool and said, yeah, well, it depends on the script. Less
us for everyone learning. If you're in the room and they offer you something
like this, you gotta act cool. You can't just lose your ear crap
right there, right there. So it depends on the script. And and
you know, she she sent me the first episode and I was actually bowled
over by it. It was a really beautiful piece of writing called nature Boy,
and I was suddenly directing at the age of twenty six. I was
directing three one hour episodes, so three hours of television a budget of I
think three point four million pounds, So that was a huge steep learning cove.
And then I made about fourteen hours of television. I did about Yeah,
I did three or four TV projects, each one kind of bigger than
the last. And then one day I was asked to go and meet working
title to talk about Pride and Prejudice. So yeah, so it wasn't like,
oh, I just made a three thousand hours movie and they just give
you Pride and prejudice. You had built a career. It was great.
It was great because people say, wow, you're you know this, this
is the first time film director, as if I was somehow you know,
blessed from heaven with this kind of ability to make you know, to know
how to make movies at that level, at that level, at that level,
it was very hard, hard one and I and I didn't tell anyone
that really I was quite you know, reasonably experienced in TV. I let
them believe the myth of of of talent. But but yeah, it was
the teacher that that that improvisation workshop always used to say it's ninety to nine
percent inspira ninety nine percent perspiration and one percent inspiration. And I think that
was that was very, very true. Now you've worked with some remarkable actors
in your career, how do you approach it? Do you have any advice
on directing actors because you've been able to you know, pull or collaborate on
some amazing performances. Yeah, I mean, I think I think I think
the fact that I used to act as a kid, uh means that I
I never I never shrouded the craft in this kind of mystic reverie. Do
you know what I mean? People people think of actors as almost being like
witches or you know, warlock. This strange kind of alchemy happens and somehow
they're able to do this thing, shape shift. It's it's a it's certainly
an art. Acting is certainly an art, but it's also a craft.
And I approach actors as crafts people, as collaborators. I am completely open
with them about the process. I don't I don't expose my fears too much
to them, because they need bolstering. They need to believe that you believe
even when you don't. But I but I share the process. I tell
them exactly what the story is that we're trying to, you know, trying
to tell. I make them a part of it. And I I don't
bullshit them either. Excuse language. I don't, I don't try and kind
of, you know, I think they often get infantilized. And if if
you treat actors like children, they'll behave like children, where you give them
the respect of intelligence, then then they'll reciprocate intelligently. And yeah, and
I think it's it's really it's really just talking straight to them and not not
kind of you know. I remember, I remember, you know, there
are tricks, you know. But I remember talking to Kieran Knightley on on
pride and prejudice and and and saying listen, your head of department. Right,
There's there's the camera department, there's the art department, there's the acting
department, and it's a department like any other department in telling this story.
And you, as the lead actor, the head of department, and therefore,
as head of department, any new department member that comes in on a
day to do a couple of lines, your job is to make them feel
welcome and ask them if they're okay, and support them, you know.
Uh. And that was a trick that really worked because it it grounded her
and it meant that every supporting actor that came in therefore supported her because she
had reached out as a you know, as the head of department. That's
a that's an amazing ture. I've never heard that that technique before. That's
a really great technique to you, Gary Oldman. That But Pira was only
eighteen, so it also. I mean the other thing with actors is that
generally they are all different and you have to figure out what makes them tick
and then you know and then and then and then play to their specific yeah
strengths and stuff. So so do you I always tell act I always tell
filmmakers this is that as a director, you really need to create a safe
space for the actor. If the actor doesn't feel that they're in a safe
space where they can really go on out on a limb, you know,
with their craft, if they feel they have to protect themselves, that's when
the problems start. Is that is that your experience? I think that's a
brilliant piece of advice. Absolutely. I think I think, you know,
we're all exposed, We're all, you know, uh, scared of being
judged. Am I a good director? Am I a good boom operator?
You know? Am I doing okay? But for the actor there in front
of the camera, and that's a whole nother level of vulnerability, And therefore
you have to support them and and and create that safe space, which is
one of the reasons why I do rehearsals. I do a lot of rehearsals
prior to shooting two or three weeks for a movie, and that is partly
about learning each other's rhythms and so on, but it's also about just getting
to know each other and getting to a point where they feel yeah, safe,
looked after, and comfortable and comfortable with each other. Because if there's
going to be any issues I'd rather be in rehearsal. Then. As far
as personality conflicts or techniques, one's method, ones not method. Things like
that, You've got to figure all that stuff out in a much cheaper environment
and much Yeah, your cheapest days of your rehearsal days. But also,
you know, two other things. I think it's really important to like your
actors. So when you're casting, you have to figure out whether you like
this person because you're going to have to talk to them a lot. And
I find it personally, I find it difficult to talk to people I don't
like. One do I like them? And two do I respect their intelligence?
Because there's a there's a kind of myth that goes around the you know,
the Airhead actors. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. The most successful actors I've ever met
are the most intelligent people I've ever met, you know, to be that,
you know, Tom Cruise is incredibly smart. You know, Nicole Kidman
incredibly smart, Gary Oldman incredibly smart. These people are really really smart.
They're not you know, And intelligence, as in you know, as with
music or science or politics, plays an enormous part in the ability to act.
Now, do you storyboard by any chairs, because I mean you paint
on such big canvases. I storyboard when the sequence involves very specific ideas of
montage. When I'm interested in how one image cuts to another, I'll draw
those two pictures and put them next to each other on a piece of paper
and see how they work together. If it's a long developing shot or a
long steady cam shot, then I don't because I don't find it useful.
But I storyboard everything I do, and often also what I'll do is I'll
get plans of the set and then just mark out diagrams of the camera moves,
the direction, the light direction in particular, so that my DP can
pre light confidently knowing that that's the direction I'm going to be looking in.
So I plan very very carefully, but not always storyboarding. Very cool.
Now, there's one film that you made that is one of my favorites,
and when it came out, I saw the trailer and it blew me away.
Hannah. I absolutely loved Hannah, and it was kind of like a
revelation when it came out. It was obviously a big, very big success,
even spawned off a very successful television show at this point. How did
you get involved with Hannah and and how did you bring that that energy that
that movie has. It's so so wonderful. Thank you. Hannah. Happened
because Sasha Ronan cooled me up and said, I want to make this film
Hannah, and I want you to direct it. And I was like,
great, all right, then let's do that. It was it. I
mean, I'd worked obviously with Hannah on Atonement. I mean I'd worked obviously
with with Sirsha on Atonement and she was eleven, yeah, she was a
kid. Yeah, and then she was sixteen when we made Hannah, and
it was something that you know that that Focus Features had sent her, and
I guess she liked working with me and asked me to ask me to do
it. And I read the script and it was interesting actually that that that
process because there was the script I read. There was two credited writers,
one of whom was a guy called Seth Lockhead. And the script was really
uneven. It was really patchy. There were moments of kind of surreal flights
of fantasy that I'd never encountered in a kind of certainly not in an action
movie. This strange almost sort of hallucinatory experience. And then there were the
there are bits that were like purely procedural kind of action spy thriller stuff,
and so I kind of questioned what that was about and discovered that actually the
studio had been scared of Seth Lockhead's original original script, which was the kind
of more hallucinatory thing, and that they'd brought on another writer to write the
more procedural stuff and kind of tame it down. So I I I basically
went back to Seth, and he and I worked on developing his flavor and
his ideas more fully but also kind of practically so that it was actually shootable.
Yeah, and and and and I and I bring you know, I
work very closely with writers. Every film I make is extremely personal and uh,
and so there were elements that I was you know, there was stuff
I was angry at the world at the time. Something had happened to a
friend of mine, a woman who had been Yeah, something bad had happened
to her, and so the film was a kind of m innocent outsider's view
of this crazy world in which she was born into. And I guess those
that horrible thing that happened to your friend in this script at the same time
kind of came together at that moment where that energy and that anger you might
have been perfectly fit that that film. I kind of I don't know.
I don't you know, I'm I think things seemed to if you allow them
to, thinks seem to happen at the right moment. I'm not much,
you know, I'm not. I don't really I'm not. I'm not really
into the idea of an interventionist god. But I do believe that if you
get into the flow of things, things happen as they should. Yeah,
I've been given the advice is like, don't push the river. The river
is going to the river is flowing with little without you. You're trying to
push it, It's only going to make you tired, exactly. It makes
me. Really I've tried it. Oh yeah, I've spent a lot of
my career trying it. Like, can we get this one little project pushed
a little bit more? Can we get just a little bit more money?
Just let it, just let it happen, let it go. Now.
As directors, you know, we always find I'm sorry, as they say
in Frozen, just let it just you read my mind oh oh god,
I think either over that phase, oh my god, Oh my god.
Anyway, anyway, anyway, so as directors, there's always a day that
we have that the world, we feel like the world is coming crashing down
around us on a shoot day or in the middle of a movie and and
oh my god, how are we going to get through this? Whether that
be the camera fell into the lake, we're losing the light, the actor
broke their leg, something happens that you feel like, I don't know how
I'm going to get through this. What was that day for you? And
how did you overcome that day? Is there a day in your in your
career that you can that you can say publicly? Usually usually right, it
usually happens at about four o'clock every day, every day, every day.
You think you're going along fine. You know, you've you've started the morning
with confidence in your plan, and and maybe you've taken a little bit too
long over rehearsals or setting up that shot or this shot, and and you've
got you know, three scenes to get through, and then suddenly you go,
oh god, it's lunchtime, and I've only done you know, half
a scene or one scene. And then everyone's a bit slow coming back from
lunch because they've had the apple pine custard and you're trying to get through.
And then at about four o'clock you go, oh, you know, oh
no, I have you know, two hours left and I've still got to
do this three page scene. How am I gonna ever get through the day?
And you get through it by by economizing. Basically, you get through
it by figuring out what the essentials of that scene are and shooting that and
and off, and those end up being the most interesting scenes because you haven't
had the luxury of of you know, over articulation. So so I think
often you know, and and in a way I'm beginning to try and apply
that overall to the films I make, you know, to to just what
are the essentials, what's important, and and stripping away the kind of the
the the decoration if you like, uh, and and really listening to to
the story. So that's the kind of general answer for you. I mean,
certainly, the day that Mount Etna erupted whilst we were shooting the battle
sequence of Syrno, that was a fairly catastrophic day, you know, that
was the day I would say, We'll be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the show. The only solution that day
was to pick up the camera case and run. The hell with the day,
the hell with your day. Yeah. I have no other advice for
young filmmakers who happened to be facing a volcano erupting other than to say,
run right forget the shot. I mean, if you can get the shot,
maybe let the camera run for five more seconds, but then run.
Yeah, and then run and then run and protect your head as well because
they're projectile stones. Fruit. Well, you were that close, you were
really there? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We shot a sequence and
well, I mean, Jesus I laugh now right, but time I was
literally crying. We had planned to shoot the battle sequence at sixteen thousand feet
near the summit of Mount Etna, and four days prior to shooting there was
an unprecedented snow storm and our set got buried in two meters of snow,
including the one hundred foot techno that we've got up there, and the whole
thing was completely inaccessible. So with only you know, four days notice,
we had to reconceive the whole very complicated sequence anyway down to eight thousand feet
and that was interesting to kind of go, Okay, I've got no set.
I've got you know, a bunch of guys dressed as soldiers. I've
got no set. I've got a camera and a tripod, and that is
literally it. I've got no tricks to hide behind. You know, I
can't even move the camera. I've got no track because I'm working on a
kind of vitigenous volcanic slope. And to really kind of go, all right,
what do I need to tell this story? How can I tell this
story with these very few basic tools at my disposal? And that was that
was fascinating. But yeah, then the then the volcano actually erupted, because
I remember watching that sequence in Sereno and I was it was I mean,
it was beautiful. And I'm thinking to myself because in today's world, you
just don't know how much is visual effects? How much is you know,
did he shoot this all on a green screen? Like how much of it
was real? And I'm like when you said, because I've been at twelve
thousand feet and it's I was having problems walking. I can only imagine trying
to shoot at that level. It was brut It's absolutely brutal. It's like,
it's absolutely brutal. But those scenes that in Sereno specifically, they were
they were beautiful. There would be those war sequence but now knowing the back
story behind it, I'm like, Okay, this makes sense, but that's
but that's the thing is And I feel that as as filmmakers, if you're
given two, if you're if you're if you, if you if I told
you Joe, all you've got is time and money, which would be fun
for a minute, but at a certain point you're just like, I need
limitations in those limitations are what help you chisel down the fat on a scene.
I've done it. I got time and money. I got you know,
they gave me. They gave me one hundred and eighty million dollars to
make pan right. I got, you know, all the tools I could
could possibly want. And it was the biggest disaster of my career. Uh.
Whereas you know, on a film like Atonement, for instance, I
had one day to shoot a montage sequence of the beach at Dunkirk. I
understood that there is no way I was going to be able to complete that
sequence in a single date, given the tide coming in and out. My
only solution therefore, which I thought was a pretty good creative solution was to
shoot the whole thing in a single steadicam shot, and that, for a
while was the was the shot that defined my career, you know. So
so I do strongly, strongly believe in limitations liberating us creatively and and and
and using you know, always having a kind of a positive solution based outlook,
because generally what we're doing andlex you know, is to is to find
solutions. There are a series of problems over the course of a day,
and our job as as directors is to gather these people together and marshall them
through the through the problems by finding solutions collectively. And those are creative solutions
as well as practical solutions. If you're living deeply, deeply in the heart
and head of the film, then those solutions will carry through the story and
the themes that you're trying to express naturally. So, you know, as
when you when you're on set, you know, especially at at the indie
stage, there's a thousand questions, but I can only imagine at these one
hundred and eighty million dollar stages. How do you what advice would you give
filmmakers dealing with that barrage. You know young directors who are being asked every
minute, what do you think of this? What do you want to do
there? How do you do this? How do you move that? Because
I mean, directing is essentially compromise, compromise, compromise. It's never what
you want, but you know what I mean. So as far as answering
and dealing with that kind of hurricane, because you're in the center of a
little mini hurricane on every day as a director, Yeah, how would you
approach? I love that. I love that failing I love be set.
Yes, the two the two very kind of practical suggestions I would make a
Well, I get up two hours before having to leave for set, and
I spend those two hours reading the script and writing a shot list. Every
morning I've done, I've already done, you know, first drafts of a
shot list and or storyboards with my DP earlier. But I spend those two
hours kind of very quietly contemplating what's really necessary and and what the story is
that I'm trying to tell. So that's one thing that grounds me and and
and helps me keep focused. And the other thing is when someone comes to
you with a question. The first or an idea, which can be just
as challenging sometimes, Uh is the first thing that comes out of your mouth
is thank you, and that buys you a window of time to one bring
your bring your panic and your ego down and just buys your little little window
between their question or their suggestion and your answer. It just kind of is
a magic word that breaks things down and then you can approach the question or
the or the suggestion with a kind of clear, clear of ego. Really
that's right, I say so, Nath, But it kind of works.
You should try it. I mean, you can try it. Oh,
no, it definitely, it definitely does be I mean I always, the
best advice I've ever gotten on set is, uh, don't be a dick.
Best advice in the business. Best you can get this, miss,
There'll be a dick. Absolutely absolutely, that's a fundamental piece of advice.
Now, you know, earlier in your career or I'm assuming throughout your career,
you've got to deal with rejection. How do you deal with rejection?
I'm sure there's projects that you wanted to get off the ground that didn't.
You know, a lot of people think that, like, oh, once
you get to a certain level, they just constantly all you got to do
is make a phone call. They give you fifty million dollars or one hundred
million dollars, and you just make whatever you want. And that's not your
truth. You know, after talking to so many filmmakers over the years,
I know that's not the true. But there's that kind of lore in the
of young filmmakers thinking that, you know, people have to have that opportunity
and they don't generally. How do you deal with those rejections? How do
you keep moving forward? Well? I think I think you're absolutely right.
There is no final destination. You don't. You know, there is no
there's no arrival. You don't get somewhere and oh great, I mean it,
I'm here from here and now people are going to let me make my
films. That's certainly not my experience. I think I find I find rejection
really hard, actually, and I haven't and I haven't yet found a very
healthy way of dealing with it. But I you know, this is all
I can do, right, Making movies is all I can do. I
haven't got, you know, wealthy parents to lean back on. I haven't
got any other source of income whatsoever. It's my job it's my vocation,
and it's my life, and it's my heart and it's everything I love.
Uh, it's also a spiritual practice, I believe. But but it's a
job. You know. I got put food on the table, and so
therefore I have to get up, dust myself down, and go back to
work. And that's all it is. You know, it's like, Okay,
that didn't work. Let me try something else. Let me try something
else, let me try something else. You know, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Because
I don't have a choice, you know, I don't have the luxury of
going, well, that didn't work, and I'm really hurt my feelings.
I'm really hurt. So I'm going to just go and take five years off
and sit on my dad's yacht. You know, that isn't an option.
So it's just about picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and keeping on
going. I mean, I had a you know, I had a terrible
crisis of confidence after Pan. I shouldn't talk about it too much, but
you know I had a terrible crisis of confidence after that. I called up
half on Son I said, I'm having a terrible time, and we talked
about it. And he's someone who I thought never experienced crisis of confidence.
You know, he's he's great, he's half He made you know, gravity
in Roma. He said, Oh, man, I'm having exactly the same
problem myself, he said, I'm going through the same thing. I said,
oh, you you know what, You go through that too? He
goes, yes, and man, I go through this too. You know,
it's it's hard. We all go through it, and and we you
know, and and we went and watched a couple of early Italian near realist
movies and felt much better. You know, I think, I think particularly
something you one can do is just go and watch the films that made you
fall in love with filmmaking in the first place. Remind yourself of what you
love about film, which isn't careerst bullshit, it is the art form itself,
and then put that into your work. You know, it's no coincidence
that having had that experience, I went and made Darkest Hour, which was
essentially about this little guy who had a crisis of confidence. You know,
his name was Winston Churchill, But fundamentally, for me, it was about
a guy who had a crisis of confidence, who doubted himself as others doubted
him, and so I was able to put all of that experience directly into
that movie. And you know, I think as artists, we all have
that moment, especially when you're on set. And I've when I've talked to
so many different directors as so many different stages of their career, and it
happens all the time that you have that kind of imposture syndrome. You could
have wanted ask her and you feel like, oh my god, someone's gonna
come in and go, what are you doing here? You don't belong here?
Security escort Joe out off the set. I mean that we all have
that. The only person who doesn't have that is in a Writu Yeah doesn't
have that. I don't think camera. I don't think Cameron has it either.
Maybe not Cameron, okay, but apart from in Aritu and Cameron,
maybe everyone else is imposts They're the only true guests. Is that you know,
what are you gonna do. You're gonna go to the party and go,
oh, I'm not an impostor. I belong here, and then there
lonely because you know, you think you're the only one that belongs. You
know, it's we all share, we all come, and you know,
we're human. Similarities are far greater than our differences, agreed, one hundred
and ten percent. And and and that's why I try to do when I
do these shows, and I speak to people like yourself as I want to
kind of break down the myths of so many because when I was coming up
as a young filmmaker, you know, I looked up on on the on
the mountain Mount Hollywood, where Spielberg and Cameron and Lucas and Copeland Scorsese lived.
It's terrified. Spielberg's terrified. Of course, that's not the man.
He's worried. He worries all the time, you know, and he's Steven
Spielberg and Stephen Spielberg exactly. It's like, I mean, my god.
And in a way, that's what the movie Sarahano is about. Hus see
what I did there. It's about someone who who feels like they're living in
the wrong body. He's an impostor. It's about feeling like you're different from
everyone else. It's what we're you know. It's what I'm trying to talk
about in the movies, is how do I fit in how do I communicate
with other people? Hannah is about a girl trying to go how do I
fit into this world? How do I connect with other human beings? Why
is it so difficult to connect? Why is it so difficult for me to
get past my own feeling of lack of self worth? Why can't I allow
people to see me really for who I am? All of those questions.
That's drama, and that's why I love making drama, you know. And
what I've discovered is that I have to make the movies that I love.
I've tried making, you know, movies, big CG movies. I've tried
making movies that are, you know, twisted, dark thrillers. I've tried
making movies that that aren't really expressive of who I am. But I'm messing
around the genre. I'm trying things. It was interesting, But the films
that work are the films that speak of who I am as an individual,
right and and you could absolutely tell that. And you know, I just
happened. I had the pleasure of watching Sierra No yesterday in fact, so
it's fresh in my mind. I absolutely adored the film. I think it's
wonderful. It's one of the best films of the year, without without question,
the performances are wonderful. How did you how did you bring that story?
What made you want to bring that story back? Because it has been
told obviously a million times before, because of Serra No the Burge rack.
What what made you want to come in and throw your your twist on it?
I would always have wanted to tell that story because I feel it is
I identify with with with Seraho. You know, I I, as we've
talked about, I feel like I don't fit in or unworthy of love,
incapable of connecting with other people. My my my insecurities, my fear of
intimacy are all expressed through that character. The question was that or the problem
was that it had been done before, and so there wasn't, you know,
an opening for me to I couldn't remake the nose version. And then
when I saw Peter Dinkliche play Cirino, and I think often a creatively successful
movie is about the right actor in the right role at the right time,
like you know Gary Oldman in in in Darkest Hour, or Cairo in in
Pride and Prejudice, or indeed Sirscha in Atonement seeing Pete in that role.
Suddenly the emotional weight of the story hit me in a way that I hadn't
experienced before, Because, however strong the suspension of disbelief might be, you're
always aware that gered Dppad is wearing a you know, big prosthetic on the
end of his face and at the end of the night is going to take
that off and go to the bar and get drunk. Whereas with Pete there's
a media authenticity. You know that Pete is is gonna be always be he
is. He's always going to be Pete. He's he's He's lived with that
experience, and he brings the weight of that experience to that performance. And
then to see him opposite Hailey Bennett, who is so extraordinarily womanly and feminine
and feminine, and and you know, she's not one of these kind of
androgynoust girls that kind of completely asexual. She's kind of She's got this extraordinary
femininity and sexuality and intelligence, and and so to see him opposite her seemed
like the perfect, perfect coupling. The casting was phenomenal enough, I mean,
it was absolutely phenomenal. I hope Peter gets nominated because he was.
It's a tour de force. It's an absolute tuti force performance on his part.
Now, I always wanted to ask, because I've never spoken to a
director who's worked on a musical before, So how do you approach directing these
large set pieces and musical sequences, Because it was just I've just I've never
directed a musical sequence. I don't even consider how you would even go at
that level with so many costumes and the locations and everything, frankly, like
you would any other sequence, you know. Uh, And and the choreography
is probably the biggest difference dance, but that is really very much like fight
choreography. You know. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. Uh. It all has to be
very very carefully worked out and rehearsed endlessly for weeks on end. Prior to
shooting all of the We made a choice to have all of the singing happen
live on set, so that there was a level of intimacy and that there
would be a fluidity between the speech and the singing. Cut should you cut
between performances, Like so, if someone's singing here on set and someone saying,
are you cutting those performances or are you laying down like an ad R
track afterwards of them live on set? No, they're they're they're singing live
on set, and that's what we're cutting with. Okay, So they're wearing
earwigs so they can hear the music backing track, and if they're singing in
duet with another performer, we've got a temp recording of that other performer playing
in their ear and then when I go and shoot the other performer, I've
got what we recorded on set from the first performer playing in their area.
And sometimes we had live accompliment because we wanted the kind of you know,
we wanted to be off click as they say, so, so we could
so they could be more kind of they could move the written the melody around
and the rhythm around a little bit more. But but shooting the singing live
like that enabled a much a much more tender, fragile, intimate experience.
We're not seeing we're not hearing them through a glass panel. We're not you
know, we're not having them talking talking, and then suddenly needle drop and
we're into a it's a musical Uh, It's as natural as singing along to
the radio. Whilst you're doing them washing up and and I saw that right
away. I was like, oh, he's he's doing it that way.
I was like, oh, this is nice. And and when you see
Peter just starts singing like you know, in the middle of like he's having
a conversation, then just starts to sing naturally like you it was. It
was wonderfully done. It was really wonderfully executed. Thank you. I mean
that's also massive, uh, you know, massively helped by the band The
National who wrote all the music and lyrics and and their music has a kind
of contemplative emotionality that is yearning and and it's not kind of you know,
it's not I was about to say another film there, It's not. It's
not eighties musicals, got it? Exactly? Fair enough? Fair fair enough?
Now? When is when is here No being released? And where can
people see it? It is being released on It's being released on January twenty
first, in you know, selected theaters and then goes wide on February the
fourth. Okay, And I'm going to ask you a few questions. I
ask all of my guests, what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to
break into the business today. Oh god, I mean I think we've covered
that, haven't we. I think we might have. I mean, you
know, yeah, as I said earlier, find actors go to theater,
go to you know, there's a little room upstairs of a pub, go
and put a show on. What is the lesson that took you the longest
to learn, whether in the film industry or in life. I'm enough,
you know what? That is one of the most common answers out of all
everybody has a lot of people. That's That's a lesson that a lot of
people have learned. It's fascinating that in patience. Yeah, I still haven't
learned it, but that's the lesson I'm continuing to try and learn. It's
always that in patience. Patience is the other big one that a lot of
people have to learn. Still. Yeah, maybe we've all read the same
self help. Yeah. And lastly, three of your favorite films of all
time? Well, I can't even begin to my favorite films into just three,
so I'll just come with three off the top of my head. You
see, I can't even do that. You can do directors too, if
you like. I'm trying to be clever. I shouldn't be clever. I
should just tell you the films that a brief encounter by David Lean Okay,
Felini's Ama Cord and Visconti's The Leopard. Amazing lists are amazing lists. Joe,
Thank you so much for being on the show. It has been an
absolute pleasure talking to you. It was so much fun. Please continue making
movies. You are needed in the cinematic world. So I truly truly appreciate
you, my friend. Bless you. I want to thank Joe for coming
on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs on the show today. Thank you
so much, Joe. If you want to get links to anything we spoke
about in this episode, including how to see his new film sirrah No,
which, by the way, I have seen and it is fantastic. It
is a wonderful retelling of a classic, classic story, head over to the
show notes at Bulletproof, Screenwriting dot tv, forward slash one, and if
you haven't already, please head over to Screenwriting podcast dot com, subscribe and
leave a good review for the show. It truly truly helps us out a
lot. Thank you so much for listening. Guys. As always, keep
on writing no matter what talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the
Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.