WEBVTT - Marielle Heller / "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:17.479 M m m m. You're listening to Playback, a Variety 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.840 I Heart Radio podcast. I'm your host, Variety Awards editor 0:00:20.920 --> 0:00:24.480 Chris Tapley. This week, I'm talking to director Mariel Heller. 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:26.400 Her new film, Can You Ever Forgive Me? As in 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.960 theaters now with a fantastic leading performance from Melissa McCarthy. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.159 It's one of the best films of the year. We 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.519 talked about what Heller was looking for after her debut 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:37.839 feature Diary of a Teenage Girl and a whole lot 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:59.960 more so, sit tight. This is playback good. Yeah, yeah, 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:01.640 we get a lot of people are just talking like 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:11.360 this way off to the side. Yeah, he does this 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:15.720 so he can shoot it really fast, but they fully 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.240 side with really odd. They're so sensitive that like keys 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:25.960 are really sensensitive, so they don't want to interesting. That's cool. 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:35.400 When was that last week? It's pretty exacting awesome, all right, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:44.760 So you're good there, Dan's gonna get out of your hair. Well, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:46.800 I'm here today with Marie L. Heller, the director of 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.760 Can You Ever Forgive Me? Uh, And we were just 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:52.600 talking about Tell You Ride briefly. I'm always curious this 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.240 was your first tell Your Right experience, right, so you 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:57.000 know what did you think of the festival this year? 0:01:57.120 --> 0:01:59.680 I thought it was amazing. I felt like it was 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:04.840 this magical wonderland of cowboys and movies. Um, it's just 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:07.440 so beautiful there. You can't believe how beautiful you are. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.320 The places I've been to Sundance a lot of times. 0:02:10.320 --> 0:02:14.520 Sundance is my creative festival home in many ways, so 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:16.560 I don't know, tell you right, felt like maybe what 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.560 Sundance was when it first started. It feels like a 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.639 small town. I brought my family, my kid and my son, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.519 and it was just a really neat festival. Yeah, it's 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.720 great because it's not like a paparazzi va. You know, 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:31.080 you go to Toronto a week later and it's completely different, 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.920 totally different. Yeah, I know, you kind of can't imagine 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.679 what it was like. I couldn't picture what it was 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:38.000 going to be like until I got there and I 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:39.880 was like, Oh, I understand why so many people say 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.600 this is their favorite festival. It's so cool. Were able 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:44.160 to see movies while you were there? I only saw 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:46.160 a few. I got to see my friend David Lowry's 0:02:46.200 --> 0:02:50.280 Old Man and again, um, I was mostly going around 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:51.880 and doing Q and as. That's a hard thing about 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:53.960 going to a festival with your own movie. It's it's 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.920 hard to see other people's movies. Yeah, absolute, Um, I 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.040 would have loved to see more. Well this movie and 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:02.639 you ever forgive me? We were joking earlier another long title. 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.080 Well it works and I love the movie that was. 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:11.280 That was my first time seeing at the premiere there 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:13.600 and I saw it again last night. Um. You got 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:14.840 a lot of stuff I want to ask you about 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:16.840 the aesthetic and stuff as well. But first of all, 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.600 I'm curious about coming off of Diary of a Teenage Girl. 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.799 What were you looking for? It was really hard. I 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.000 mean I think there's a lot of pressure when you've 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.359 made a movie that was. You know, for Diary, I'd 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.200 been working on it for eight years. It was my 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.119 total passion project. It was something I had been fighting 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.560 and scraping by trying to make for so so long. 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:38.560 And it's sort of and I was so proud of it. 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:41.600 And how do you follow up something that's been that 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.840 kind of project for you? Um, And there's sort of 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.320 the sophomore slump a lot of people talk about, and 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.240 particularly for women filmmakers, the statistics show women take a 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.280 lot longer to make their second movie. So I was 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:55.120 really aware of the fact that I didn't want to 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:59.040 fall into that trap of taking too long to make 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.800 something that I think it's just the systemic sexism of 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.240 our business that women can make a really great first 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.960 movie and have less opportunities come their way for their 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:14.120 second movie. Um and so, but yeah, I feel like 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.280 the average I'm gonna I don't know if these stats 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.000 are still true, but the average for a man who 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.880 has made a first feature was like three to four years, 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:23.159 and for a woman it was like seven to eight 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.159 years for their second features. So I was aware of 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.520 the fact that I was getting really great opportunities and 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.120 offers coming my way, and I really wanted to make 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:34.440 sure I made something. I loved making my first movie 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.000 and I realized I really like directing. So but I 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:40.760 knew I didn't want to make another teenage movie. I 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:42.600 was getting sent a lot of stuff that was all 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.520 about teenagers they want to try to put you into yeah, yeah, 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.400 and um. So that was a tricky thing of like, okay, 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.240 but what is what do I want to say about 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:54.880 sort of the movies I want to make from here 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.400 on out and figuring out what I wanted to make Second, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.240 I felt like a lot of pressure of like you're 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:02.040 setting off on sort of a path of who you're 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.880 going to be as an artist. Um and and Carry, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.800 who was one of my producers from Diary, sent me 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:10.800 the script for Can You Ever Forgive Me? And she's 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.800 somebody I love and respect a lot. And I knew 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.880 Nicole Hall of Center and love and respect her a lot. 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.400 And then Melissa was at the time maybe interested in 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.039 the script. So it was the opportunity to work with 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.120 all of these smart, interesting women who want to make 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:31.240 cool movies. And so immediately I was intrigued. And then 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.719 when I read the script, I was so taken by 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.360 Lee as a character. I just loved her. I found 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.280 her to be such an asshole, if I can say 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.719 that on here in a way that like, we tend 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.320 to see male characters who are assholes like that, and 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.600 we don't get a lot of women characters like that. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:49.720 And I found her refreshing. Everything about her was so 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:53.920 she says everything that comes into her mind and cares 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.600 so much more about her intellect than her looks. And 0:05:56.720 --> 0:05:59.840 I just found her to be a character we don't focus. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.359 He's on a woman over fifty lesbian who is a 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.640 cat lady basically, and who you know. She's not very glamorous, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:10.080 she's never had kids, she doesn't fit into sort of 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.479 what the industry norm is for women at the time, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.719 and I just found her fascinating, so I immediately got 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.320 excited about it. That's an interesting point about you know, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.360 what seems to be acceptable of leading ladies. I mean 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:27.200 there's a couple of examples this year, like Carrie Mulligan 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:29.480 and Wildlife is a good example. It's a messy character. 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:33.000 It's not something you would, you know, expect, I guess 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.360 based on what seems to be accepted. But there's that. 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.159 There's like Nicole Kidman and Destroyer as well. So we're 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.640 finally starting to show a wider range of women characters 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:45.480 in a way that we've always had this wide range 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:47.719 of male characters. It's almost like, if you get female 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.720 filmmakers making the movies, you'll get that isn't that interesting? 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.719 What uh did you relate to Lee Israel at all? 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.760 Like writer to write the struggle? Like definitely, I think 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.679 big pet peeve of mine as writers in movies, because 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.960 I feel like there's always there's always this trope, which 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.320 is oh, you're struggling to write, and then all of 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:12.640 the sudden inspiration hits and it just pours out of you. 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:16.960 And it's this like cosmic um divine moment when the 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:19.560 truth of the matter is writing is struggling and writing 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.720 is painful. And I always love it when people are 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.480 more honest about just how hard and horrible writing can be. 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.320 Even though I love writing, it is soul crushing as 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.400 an experience and as a lifestyle. And so to have 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:38.840 a character who was actually expressing the sort of soul 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.200 devastation that happens when you're in a place in your 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:42.880 life where your writing is not going the way that 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.400 you wanted to be going, I totally related to and 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:47.520 I found to be really honest and was something that 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.840 I tried to really highlight in the movie too, in 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:51.680 an honest way, what it really feels like to be 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:56.480 a and especially to be a writer who um identifies 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.280 so much with her writing that like she views herself 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.000 through her writing and wants other people to view her 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:06.640 through her writing. So it's it's not just it's her identity, 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:09.160 it's an extension of it's an extension of her. So 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:11.760 to be in a place where that's not being recognized 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.040 and where people are sort of shooting on what she 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.680 wants to write or what she finds interesting. It's it's 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:22.120 such a devastation. I I related to that and felt 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.160 like that was important to be honest about. So I've 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:26.760 got to be a hard thing to figure out how 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.600 to visualize to the visual medium like this and carry 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.840 that across, right, Yeah. Yeah, And there's only so many 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:35.959 times you can cut to a like a p o 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:39.400 V shot of the blank page of a typewriter. Um. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.480 We did a lot of kind of subtle things with 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:45.120 sound design to around the typewriter because well we had 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.040 all of these old electric typewriters and non electric typewriters, 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.040 but her typewriter that was her typewriter had this sort 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.480 of hum, which the moment we turned it on, the 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:59.360 actual prop on, we all commented on this hum, and 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:03.280 we really sort of used that hum as this sort 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.520 of pressure cooker, like when she's staring at it and 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:09.960 the hum is sort of subtly rising in tone to 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.200 kind of just show how much pressure she feels in 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:15.439 that moment. Whenever you first see the typewriter. Actually, I 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:17.400 feel like it's that shot stands out to me every time. 0:09:18.000 --> 0:09:22.240 It does seem like this contraption of note Yeah. Yeah, 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.240 the typewriters are sort of their own character in the 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.320 movie because we have so many. We have all for 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:31.880 every every different literary person that she forges from, Dorothy Parker, 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:34.960 town Old Coward, Edna Ferber, Louise Brooks. They each have 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.920 their own typewriter and with like a little note card 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.319 with their name on it based on sort of historically 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.800 what they would have been writing on. And slowly over 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:44.480 the course of the movie she gets like twenty five 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.440 typewriters littering her apartment with all these different ones. But 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.760 that was really fun getting to sort of figure out 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.960 who would be with which typewriter. What diligence on her part, 0:09:54.800 --> 0:10:00.720 rightly is she was meticulous about it all. She also 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.200 kept copies of all of her forgeries, which she really 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:08.360 shouldn't have done. That doesn't help the case yet, did 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.960 you were you aware of much of this? No, Like 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.360 most people, I didn't know anything about Lee. I think 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.440 that's part of what's so interesting about her too, is 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.600 she in her time was pretty overlooked. Even you know, 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:23.600 a lot of people who I would bring her up 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:27.280 to would say, oh, I remember her obituary. She remember 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.400 hearing about her forgeries in her New York Times obituary. 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:32.839 I wish is a sad state of kind of her 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:34.960 career and the fact that she didn't get the recognition 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.320 she really deserved. But um, I didn't know much about 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.000 her until I read the script, and then I just 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.440 got so excited. And we had we had access to 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:45.280 a lot of research and a lot of her personal 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:50.199 papers and and Carrie new Lee, so she had gotten 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:52.679 a lot of stuff before she died, and I was 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.920 able to go through all of her personal notes and 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.040 get to know her in a different kind of way. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.200 I want to talk about the loop of the film. 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:01.640 I love the lie in the movie. It's such a 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:05.079 it's a cozy movie. Yeah, you know, like it winter. Yeah, 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:07.079 and and you know, I feel like you were bouncing 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:09.040 around my old neighborhood. Was there Upper east Side stuff 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.280 going ever east Side, Upper West mostly and then some 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.000 downtown where Julius is, which is the oldest gay bar 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.760 in New York. Yeah. We we talked a lot about 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:20.599 the lighting before we started filming. Brandon Trost, who's my cinematographer, 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:22.920 and I and that we wanted it to feel like 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.120 we were filming in all these old bookstores. We wanted 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:27.480 it to feel like there windows had been painted shut 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.240 twenty years ago. There was twenty years of dust floating 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.840 around the air, but that warm feeling of being in 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:37.960 a bookstore when it's snowing outside and there's that specific 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.000 winter light coming through the windows with dust, keep expecting 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.559 like a like coffee steam to waft end of the frame. Totally, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.520 it's all a little bit coffee steam. The whole movie 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:51.800 kind of has a bit of a coffee stained feel 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.400 to it. All these old you can kind of smell 0:11:55.200 --> 0:11:57.360 the books, I feel like when you watched the movie, 0:11:57.400 --> 0:11:59.280 like you can, I feel like you can smell our 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:03.080 apartment too. Yes, I'm sorry for that a kid, I know, 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:07.640 even though I'm yeah, not no spoilers, But even though 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.080 I know that that's Plato, it's still yet to like, 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:11.840 I feel like I can smell it too when I 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:13.960 watched it. The sound when it is the trash candidates 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.160 to it too. Yeah. Did you have any like references 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.800 visually speaking, like anything that anything you were looking to 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.720 emulate at all, like that filmically, filmically, anything really artwork, photographs. 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:29.600 I mean, we definitely looked at a lot of lesbian 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.680 writers from the seventies and eighties to kind of establish 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:37.120 Lee's look. There weren't a ton of photographs of Lee 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.800 in her natural habitat, Like the only photos we could 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:41.840 find of her were like when she got dressed up 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.840 for a book jacket photo shoot or whatever. So it 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:47.080 didn't feel like a real indication of her style, and 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.160 we kind of wanted to. We wanted to root her 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:55.200 in this very New York literary world. Um. We gave 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.760 her sort of a lot of masculine clothes and it 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.760 was really character based, trying to figure out how she 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.640 held herself in the world and how she kind of 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.200 pushed her way through the world and what what that 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.080 would feel like. UM. And I don't know, I'm terrible 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.120 whenever anyone asked me, like, what movies did you watch 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:17.480 as inspiration for this, because obviously, like you see a 0:13:17.480 --> 0:13:20.880 New York movie and everyone thinks of like early Days 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.000 Woody Allen, It's hard not to it's hard not to 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.440 think about Manhattan and other movies like that. Um. But 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.559 we were also just looking at movies from the early 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.200 nineties and trying to make sure we were making something 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.600 period wise that actually felt tuned into the filmic world 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.439 back then too. In many ways, we felt like we 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:39.160 were making an old movie, like it was more of 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.920 a movie from the seventies or eighties, because it's so 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.520 character based and not really in the style that we 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.760 make movies right now. Yeah, it has its own look 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.200 as a New York movie very much, I think. And 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:53.800 also regarding just rooting it in the time as the 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.640 Paul Simon song that's from right, so it's right around 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.600 the same time. That's kind of cool. I can't run, 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.200 but I love it. I love that song and I 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:04.480 love that I don't know if this is a coincidence 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:06.280 or not, but I picked that song because it's a 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:10.599 song I've always really loved. And since we put it 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.280 in the movie and he agreed to let us put 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:13.880 it in the movie, which was such a big deal, 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.160 he's been like playing that song again. And my friend 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.720 went to his concert in Pittsburgh and he played it, 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:21.560 and then he played it on s and l I 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.720 was like, Oh, I think this song is having a resurgence. 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:29.400 Maybe in the small part you can take credit. It's 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.080 a great song because it's such a great like about 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.600 town kind of song. Yeah, it's got a movement to 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:36.760 it. It It feels almost like score when it starts, and 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.280 it has these like ma lettas that kind of play 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.000 at the beginning, and instrumentation that we had been using 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.160 in our score too, so that when it when we 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:46.000 slipped it in, it kind of actually felt like it 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.080 was already part of our world, exactly what you always 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:52.040 hope to have happened. Yeah, let's talk about Melissa McCarthy. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.400 She's outstanding. I think it's her best performance to date. 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.960 I guess what kind of quality was of the most 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.680 importance and an actress for this role. It's so interesting 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.040 because I think it was all about her being able 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:11.680 to approach this character without judgment, to find the ways 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:17.720 in and to um be willing to be vulnerable. I 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.520 say vulnerable, but Lee is not vulnerable in the way 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.760 she presents in the world. She's a very guarded person, 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:31.680 very different energy from Melissa. Melissa's like this light, bubbly, 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:35.880 glowing human like. She has the opposite qualities when she 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:37.920 walks in a room to what Lee has. Because Lee 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.240 is like this, she has the weight of the world. 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:44.200 She like walks through the world like a boulder or something. 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.280 She kind of she walks like she has a rain 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.120 cloud on top of her head a bit and kind 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.920 of make sure you know about it too. Yeah, she does. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.400 And so it was really about whether Melissa could kind 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:04.320 of get into that skin lovely and feel what it 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:06.680 is to be walking through the world like that and 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.000 yet still feel connected to her heart, because we had 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.040 to be able to feel why she was so guarded 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.680 and what was causing her to walk through the world 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:20.320 with that level of armor on. And Um, she immediately 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:23.080 understood Lee in a really nice way. I think we 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.040 both agreed about who she was and we enjoyed her 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.400 as a character in the same kind of way. Um. 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:32.120 And she didn't seem scared of her, she didn't seem 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.560 to judge her. Um. It was very similar to when 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.240 I first met with Alexander scars Gard to talk about 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:41.520 his his part in My first movie Diary. It was 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.360 so important that he wouldn't judge the character and could 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.800 find the humanity in a character that could otherwise seem 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.920 judged by the world. And I just find it really 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.320 important when we're telling stories that we're not trying to 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:57.960 we're not trying to editorialize, We're really just trying to 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:00.560 present somebody's truth and their heart and let them be 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.560 and let show their behavior in a way that makes 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.639 us more connected to them without kind of telling the 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:10.480 audience how to feel about them. So Melissa just blew 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:14.160 me away. I mean every day she came so prepared. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.080 She was word perfect, Like every word of the script 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:23.120 exactly has written, no improvisation, no improvisation unless we kind 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.800 of had talked about it ahead of time, like oh, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:27.560 this little thing, we could add on a few lines 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:29.640 here and there, but in general, it was like we 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:32.640 were on the script, and she was so in love 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.760 with Lee's voice and the way that she talked that 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.679 she didn't want to change it by kind of bringing 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:41.280 in her own. You know, Melissa is m So it 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.040 was really about like honoring who Lee was and the 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:47.600 way she would have walked through the world. She's got 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.040 some great line deliveries, though, oh my god, she's still 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.880 so funny. It's just it's a very specific, dry sense 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.080 of humor. I mean, the one that comes to my mind. 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.119 I just burst out laughing at it last night, it 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:08.120 was that's batshit Marjorie. Marjorie, right, Marjorie, because that's badget Marjorie. Yeah, 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.080 I know, and there's when she even when she says 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.240 to Jack when he goes, it's very hard to find 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.520 a boyfriend at my age, I'm losing my hair, and 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.960 she goes, I don't think that's the reason. In this way, 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:26.720 that's like kills me every time. She's awesome. Well, the 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.879 same question kind of for Richard D. Grant, Um, like, 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.960 what was the utmost importance? What quality did you need 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:35.920 that I'm actor playing Jack? And obviously chemistry is a 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:38.359 huge part of yes, and they have amazing chemistry. They 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:42.480 have amazing off camera. Absolutely, they are such a delight together. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:44.439 I love them. I love that this movie has sparked 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.720 I think a real friendship that will last. Um. You know, 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.679 Richard has just this effervescent quality to him. It's the 0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:58.119 opposite of Lee. Jack needed to be like so filled 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.080 to the brim with life, and Lee like lives in 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:06.000 the past. She's so caught in her ah what could 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:10.280 have been and the pain of her situation and Jack's 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:13.560 situation is in many ways more dire, but he's totally 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:15.960 happy and content and not thinking about anything but the 0:19:16.000 --> 0:19:19.280 present moment. And I had been a fan of Richard 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:21.679 since with Nail and I and just find him to 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.399 be infectious, like he is just an infectious person. You 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.119 want to stare at him, and he's so I don't know, 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.480 he's just willing to go to these places that are 0:19:31.600 --> 0:19:36.600 so wonderfully silly and full of life. And he's got 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:41.160 no self consciousness. I feel like he's just really present 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:46.240 and raw and puts it out there. And I mean 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:48.159 when he shows up in the movie, some one of 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:49.640 my friends put it to me. She was like, God, 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:54.000 he sparkles. It's true. He comes on screen and sparkles. 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.160 And um, so I made the character British. He hadn't. 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.359 The real Jack Hawk wasn't British, but I knew I 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:05.119 wanted it to be Richard and um and and I 0:20:05.160 --> 0:20:07.399 really kind of it actually was important to me to 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:09.960 sort of flesh out his character even more than it 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.359 had been in the previous drafts. But um giving him 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:20.159 both this effervescent, loving life quality, but also that he 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:22.439 was said in the context of the AIDS crisis that 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.280 he's a gay man in New York. That stuff was 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:27.800 lacking in the original Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't a 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.280 storyline that was was in the in the script. When 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.639 I came on board, but it was something that I 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.480 had read the book and knew that the real Jack 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.480 Hawk had died of AIDS. And it felt really important 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:41.040 to me that if we're making a movie about a 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.679 lesbian and a gay man in New York, that we 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:48.080 don't ignore the fact that it's in AIDS. You know, 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:49.800 that they're in the midst of the AIDS crisis, and 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:53.080 that in many ways, those two communities had been so separate, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.439 and we're coming together in that moment of pain. A 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:58.440 lot of lesbians were taking care of gay men who 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.320 were dying. These commune and these were sort of leaning 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.400 on each other in a new found kind of way. Um. 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.480 And in so many ways, I loved that these were 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:11.760 two people who, for very different reasons, had nobody left 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.440 in their life. You know that Lee had pushed everyone away. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:17.399 And I think the first line I added to the 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.280 script was Richard's line where he says, I have no 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.480 one to tell all my friends are dead. Um. And 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:28.879 he says it really lightheartedly, but just that slight that 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:35.960 dichotomy for his character between this, you know, lightheartedness and 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.280 the context with which he's surviving, which is everyone he 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.600 knows is dead. There's a reason they both need each other, 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:45.760