Speaker 1: You were listening to playback a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards Editor Chris Tapley. What's playing at the Museum
Speaker 1: of Modern Art in New York City from now until
Speaker 1: January twelve? It's a Contenders two thousand seventeen, MoMA's annual
Speaker 1: series of the year's most influential and innovative films bound
Speaker 1: for awards glory or destined to become a cult classic.
Speaker 1: These are the ones you really have to see on
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Speaker 1: the other awesome films that are playing at MoMA dot org.
Speaker 1: Slash film. Uh, oh, it's actually right there, Chris. I'm
Speaker 1: good man tired? Where are you coming? All right? Were wrong?
Speaker 1: He's kind of That was gonna be our next question.
Speaker 1: How old your kid? Screaming and running around? Congratulations? Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. I have seen. Yeah, he screams and runs around.
Speaker 1: That's a good sign if they're screaming and running around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what my barber said. I was telling about it.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, he's screaming all the time and
Speaker 1: I can't figure it out. He says, Oh, that's because
Speaker 1: that means he's healthy. Yeah, exactly, true. That's true. I
Speaker 1: guess Oh my god, that coffee is so good that
Speaker 1: I'm good, Thank you m It doesn't work on the cleans.
Speaker 1: I'm afraid. How are you doing that clans? Oh no,
Speaker 1: let's not talk about We thought about doing that. Crane
Speaker 1: and I we were. She actually got these soup cleans.
Speaker 1: She got in we ordered it and showed up and
Speaker 1: it landed right in the middle of when I started
Speaker 1: traveling to do as it's been sitting waiting on you.
Speaker 1: You know who turned me on this one was Gama
Speaker 1: to Toro. Really was what it's called clean? Is this
Speaker 1: the one? Because Edgar right is doing one too. It's
Speaker 1: is it? What is it? What's the deal? Is it?
Speaker 1: Where you eat lunch? But it's like Shakespeare dinner and
Speaker 1: shape for breakfast. And I think that's might be the
Speaker 1: one that Edgar Yeah, yeah, it Paltrow approved. It's approved.
Speaker 1: How long have you been on this day? Eight? Oh
Speaker 1: my god? How you feeling? I feel good? Man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel great, jumping my step. You know, all right,
Speaker 1: maybe I gotta tread what I needed at the end
Speaker 1: of the year. I think a prey leaguer, I'll give
Speaker 1: it a shot. So we're here with Ryan Johnson, director
Speaker 1: of Star Wars The Last Jedi, also director of Looper, which,
Speaker 1: as he knows, is one of my favorite movies. Chris,
Speaker 1: that movie Blew Me Away. Thanks. That was in New
Speaker 1: York that year. Actually that was the year we lived
Speaker 1: in New York. Yeah, I saw it at the Sony
Speaker 1: Room there downtown. I love that movie. So as soon
Speaker 1: as I knew you were tapped for Star Wars, I
Speaker 1: was like, this is perfect. They tapped me. I got apt.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming on. We're gonna talk about as much
Speaker 1: as we can. These movies are shrouded in secrecy. That
Speaker 1: difficult to anything you want to know, Matt, Come on,
Speaker 1: let's just see what's doing. Let's see what happened when When?
Speaker 1: When is Darth Plague is showing up Darth Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's weird. It's like a double edged
Speaker 1: sword because, um, I've been traveling around starting to do
Speaker 1: press the last couple of weeks, but nobody's nobody's seen
Speaker 1: the movie yet. I can't talk about anything. So on
Speaker 1: the man, the one hand, it's it's it is u
Speaker 1: this little dance you have to do. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's slowly, it's become the norm over the past few weeks,
Speaker 1: so I'm kind of used to it. So now I'm
Speaker 1: getting nervous about after people actually see the movie and
Speaker 1: I'll have to actually talk about I have to explain myself.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting way to go about it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't imagine how exhausting this kind of thing has been
Speaker 1: the last weeks. Have been traveling around the world and
Speaker 1: meets real work. That's true, That's what I like to say,
Speaker 1: beats working. Uh, but how is it comparing to what
Speaker 1: you may be expected? I mean, you had to have
Speaker 1: expected a certain level of exhaustion coming into a big
Speaker 1: piece of machinery like this. But how was it? How
Speaker 1: was the whole thing different than what you I guess say, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I didn't know what to expect because
Speaker 1: it was, you know, it's my first time doing any
Speaker 1: doing a studio movie full stop, you know, and it's
Speaker 1: obviously it's like, you know, just scale wise, there's nothing
Speaker 1: quite like it. So there's nothing I had done that
Speaker 1: was even close to it. Obviously, So I really didn't
Speaker 1: know what to expect. I gotta say, Um, I mean
Speaker 1: in terms of just process. Uh, the biggest surprise was
Speaker 1: how similar it was to my previous movies that I've made,
Speaker 1: How it really wasn't It sounds so strange to say
Speaker 1: it really wasn't that different, you know, I mean because
Speaker 1: I think the machine is so old tuned. It's a
Speaker 1: big machine, but it's it's such a well crafted, an
Speaker 1: oiled machine. And by that I mean the people who
Speaker 1: the heads of department and all the people, they're so
Speaker 1: good at their jobs. The analogy I keep making is
Speaker 1: it's not like chaplain in modern times, kind of stuck
Speaker 1: in this cog and this big machine. It's more like
Speaker 1: Pacific rim where you get in the body suit, in
Speaker 1: the brain and this massive machine perfectly follows your movements
Speaker 1: and can get you what you want. And that's how
Speaker 1: the whole thing felt to me. So Um, the truth is,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a long shooting schedule. It was
Speaker 1: like a ten days so there is just like the
Speaker 1: marathon element of it. But um, I don't know. You're
Speaker 1: exhausted whether you do that or a twenty days shoot.
Speaker 1: Maybe more exhausted after a twenty days shoot. Um. And
Speaker 1: now right now and I don't feel tired, I feel
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel energized. Maybe it'll hit you
Speaker 1: in February, I think it will, or maybe or maybe
Speaker 1: December fifteenth, I'll just collapse. Uh, you started shooting this
Speaker 1: just in the immediate wake of Force Awakens and the
Speaker 1: impact that it made massive box office around the world.
Speaker 1: It's hugely successful. Did that just talk about whether that
Speaker 1: felt like it elevated the stakes for you at all? Well,
Speaker 1: there's I mean, when Force Awakens came out, we were
Speaker 1: in prep and there was definitely kind of a little
Speaker 1: gasp and a little you know, the spotlight kind of
Speaker 1: turned on us briefly, and we went and like did
Speaker 1: like a quick like Okay, let's make sure the script
Speaker 1: is as tight as it can be, and we went
Speaker 1: back into a little polished to it and um, but
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I think for me, the big
Speaker 1: thing that I'm thankful for looking back is that I
Speaker 1: wrote the script before the movie came, before Force Awakens
Speaker 1: was even really made. They were shooting it while I
Speaker 1: was making the script, so I got the best of
Speaker 1: both worlds. I got to just personally react to the
Speaker 1: story and the script and what I was seeing the
Speaker 1: actors bringing to the parts and the dailies, and I
Speaker 1: got to put that personal action into it without having
Speaker 1: to even try to filter all the world's reaction to it. Um.
Speaker 1: And so then once we had the script, I mean,
Speaker 1: the truth is, that's kind of the movie that we made,
Speaker 1: was that script. And so once you've got that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you can feel the pressure of it. It's
Speaker 1: not going to really, it's not like it's going to
Speaker 1: change really what you're what you're doing. I guess. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting you say that the script that you wrote
Speaker 1: is the movie you made, because you know, a handful
Speaker 1: of filmmakers have struggled a little bit within the lucasfilm system,
Speaker 1: and you seem to have just been able to hit
Speaker 1: the ground running and really just crank out of the
Speaker 1: exact vision that you intended to. And I'm just what
Speaker 1: do you think that it's Well, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's I mean, first of all, just say,
Speaker 1: you know, other other people's sets or movies are like
Speaker 1: other people's marriages. You know, you've got to be very
Speaker 1: if you if you're judging them from the outside and
Speaker 1: you think you have an idea of what's happening in them,
Speaker 1: you're you're probably wrong. So it's and I was not
Speaker 1: in any of those processes, so I can't speak to
Speaker 1: them at all, you know, but uh, just speaking to
Speaker 1: what I the process I went through, I don't know
Speaker 1: we we uh you know, I say that I was.
Speaker 1: I was. I had an incredibly good time with Kathy
Speaker 1: Kennedy and Lucasfilm and also with Disney, UM, Bob Iger,
Speaker 1: Alan Horne, Allen Bergman, They've been just terrific collaborators who
Speaker 1: have just given me I've felt not only just creative freedom,
Speaker 1: but really protected to kind of pursue what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do with this story. Um. So, I mean that's
Speaker 1: the whole reason we're doing this new trilogy actually is
Speaker 1: just because we had such a good time working with
Speaker 1: these folks. My producer Rom and I were like, we
Speaker 1: should keep this going. This is a really good thing.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, I know that we we all
Speaker 1: got on the same page from the very start. The
Speaker 1: script that we delivered, Um, you know, everyone was into it,
Speaker 1: and I think we all had conversations and I was
Speaker 1: communicated what it was that I really wanted to make
Speaker 1: and they were on board with that. So I think
Speaker 1: we all started pointing in the right direction. And I
Speaker 1: think UM and also just you know, we we all
Speaker 1: had kind of a bond of trust coming into it.
Speaker 1: Everyone felt really good about each other, and we just
Speaker 1: got off on the right foot. And I think that
Speaker 1: where you start, I think just is really what informs
Speaker 1: the entire process. Um. And yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: also just and I've always you know, there's I think
Speaker 1: that there's kind of the perception sometimes I know I
Speaker 1: had this from the outside before I worked on a
Speaker 1: studio film like this, that um that it is a
Speaker 1: big kind of controlling machine. And maybe in some cases
Speaker 1: it is, but uh, but not in this case. And
Speaker 1: the truth is, even with independent film, I mean everywhere,
Speaker 1: anyone who has made an indie film and has a
Speaker 1: financer who financed it, or has a producer who's pretty
Speaker 1: or something knows that, you know, it's not like with
Speaker 1: an indie film you get to just really do whatever
Speaker 1: you want without any conversations or negotiations if anything. On
Speaker 1: some of the you know, on the smaller films that
Speaker 1: I've made, there have been more difficult waters to navigate
Speaker 1: than on this one. Um, you always have to come
Speaker 1: into it. And just part of the skill of making
Speaker 1: a movie is not just how to navigate the waters
Speaker 1: of all the people you're working with, but how to
Speaker 1: how to set the relationships from the start so that
Speaker 1: it's not antagonistic, but so that it's um you always
Speaker 1: frame everything, which because it's the truth of we're all
Speaker 1: on the same team. We're trying to make a great
Speaker 1: movie and the truth I mean, obviously that's only possible
Speaker 1: if the people you're working with are good folks who
Speaker 1: want that to happen. But if that is possible, that's
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do at the start. You know,
Speaker 1: when you did come in and you said, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the movie I want to make. Just in
Speaker 1: the broadest terms, I guess what was like the big
Speaker 1: idea that you wanted to introduce to this universe. Well,
Speaker 1: the you know, my pitch to Cathy was basically, you know,
Speaker 1: if the first movie was introduction, this movie is training.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean like, you know, necessarily Yoda style
Speaker 1: training or a training montage. To me, what that means
Speaker 1: is it's the movie where we test each one of
Speaker 1: the characters and we find the hardest possible thing they
Speaker 1: could come up against, and we throw it at them,
Speaker 1: just like the second act of any movie. It's where
Speaker 1: the complications come in and everyone gets stumbling blocks thrown
Speaker 1: in their way. And you know, that's how you define characters,
Speaker 1: how characters react, what they do when they hit the
Speaker 1: toughest thing that's coming at them. So um, in my mind,
Speaker 1: taking these characters who I think it's a small miracle
Speaker 1: with j J. And you know, Larry and Michael were
Speaker 1: able to create with that first movie. The fact that
Speaker 1: they create these characters who came to life so vividly
Speaker 1: and who stuck every single one of them, you know,
Speaker 1: so well up on the screen. Um. And you can
Speaker 1: see it reflected in in the culture. How those new
Speaker 1: characters hit. It's it's amazing. There's a reason for it,
Speaker 1: the really good introductions to these characters. Um. So I
Speaker 1: think someone put it to me like the sandboxes back, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: That's how it felt. Well that's a tunnel thing. Also,
Speaker 1: I think that j J really pulled off, which I
Speaker 1: is something I really consciously wanted to carry forward, you know, um,
Speaker 1: the the and especially knowing that it was going to
Speaker 1: be um, you know, because it's the middle chapter and
Speaker 1: we've got to do this challenging of everyone. It was
Speaker 1: going to go to some more intense places. I was
Speaker 1: really conscious that I wanted to. I loved the tone
Speaker 1: from The Force Awakens. I thought captured the original movies
Speaker 1: in this great way. And I was really conscious I
Speaker 1: wanted to be fun and funny and um, you know
Speaker 1: all the things of Star Wars movies should be. I
Speaker 1: didn't want it to descend into heavy aosity. Um. In
Speaker 1: many ways, Star Wars is its own aesthetic, right. But
Speaker 1: were you interested all and introducing new visual concepts, new
Speaker 1: visual language? Uh? Were there reference points? Was there anything
Speaker 1: in art or photography that you want that you kind
Speaker 1: of the ultimate question being what did you want your
Speaker 1: Star Wars movie to look like? I guess yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's uh. I mean you don't come into
Speaker 1: it thinking how do I shake this up? You come
Speaker 1: into it just thinking like how do I make this
Speaker 1: feel like Star Wars? But once you get into it,
Speaker 1: I mean there are a lot of things that that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things to factor into it
Speaker 1: being a balance of those two things you talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of conversations with I LM. We
Speaker 1: had a couple of key designers and I m um.
Speaker 1: Kevin Jenkins was one of them. James Klein was another
Speaker 1: who we worked with on a lot of the concepts
Speaker 1: for some of the bigger design pieces. And you you
Speaker 1: find folks um pretty quickly who just kind of have
Speaker 1: a innate sense of of something that feels Star Wars
Speaker 1: e And it's tough to really like nail it down
Speaker 1: and put in words, but there is just a feel
Speaker 1: um that you can because it's not futurism. That's that's
Speaker 1: the That's kind of the trap is anytime a new
Speaker 1: designer would come in and they would they would want
Speaker 1: to push it forward. The problem is when you you know,
Speaker 1: pushing it forward nine times out of ten meant it
Speaker 1: started looking like um, not to denigrate this, because it's
Speaker 1: beautiful design that started looking like Marvel movie spaceships where
Speaker 1: it's enough lots of holograms and glowing surfaces, or it
Speaker 1: started looking like an Apple store, you know, Um, and
Speaker 1: it's futurism. It's like pushing forward into like what feels
Speaker 1: modern now. And Star Wars is not that it's a
Speaker 1: it's a period film, you know, in the period is
Speaker 1: this world that we loved when we were watching the
Speaker 1: movie as as kids. Anyway, Um, so there's you find
Speaker 1: designers who are good at just kind of capturing that.
Speaker 1: But and I think this is a healthy thing. You know.
Speaker 1: When I came in, a lot of the designers I
Speaker 1: was working with had just had worked on Force Awake Ends.
Speaker 1: A lot of them had also done work on Rogue One.
Speaker 1: They have been working, they have been just doing nothing
Speaker 1: but Star Wars for the past few years. And so
Speaker 1: it's almost like, you know, um, you know, get wanting
Speaker 1: to give you know, give everyone like fresh water, you
Speaker 1: know it. It feels you just to keep them creatively
Speaker 1: engaged and invigorated. It does feel good to come up
Speaker 1: with challenges of Okay, here's something we've never seen a
Speaker 1: Star Wars movie before. What's the Star Wars version of this?
Speaker 1: You know? Um, and it's you know, you can't just
Speaker 1: tag old bases because mainly because that's boring for the
Speaker 1: team that's making the movie. Yeah, and it's interesting too.
Speaker 1: I mean, like David Tattersall is the only DP that
Speaker 1: shot more than one Star Wars movie. Every movie has
Speaker 1: had its own kind of visual author in a way.
Speaker 1: Dan Mendel Brick Fraser and Steve Vidlin for you on
Speaker 1: your on on the new films. Uh, and I've all.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always been fascinating to me how the
Speaker 1: there's a definitive shift in the visual language of Empire
Speaker 1: versus Star Wars with was it Peter Shitsky came in
Speaker 1: to to shoot that one, and you know that That's
Speaker 1: kind of what I'm curious about, is just yeah, finding
Speaker 1: that different flourish. Yeah, you know, well, and and just
Speaker 1: just talked a little bit about this in the run up,
Speaker 1: but like the color read for instance. Yeah, well just generally,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, Steve and I and we have
Speaker 1: you know, my Simaitarirapher Steve Yadlin. We've been best friends
Speaker 1: since we were seventeen years old. We met, you know,
Speaker 1: I was a freshman in film school. He was still
Speaker 1: a senior in high school. And we met as like
Speaker 1: pas on a student film said at USC. So, um,
Speaker 1: so we've never been doing you know, each other a
Speaker 1: long time. We looked at Empire as our main visual reference,
Speaker 1: um in terms of the Star Wars movies. Um, just
Speaker 1: because it's the closest to our taste in terms of
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the most just playing flat out beautiful
Speaker 1: of all the films, I think, and the lighting and it, um,
Speaker 1: the the way that the lightning was genuinely daring, the
Speaker 1: way they let faces go dark, the way they let
Speaker 1: you know, places be shadowy, the way that they didn't compromise. Um.
Speaker 1: I think it's gorgeous. Um. But then also, you know,
Speaker 1: we also at the beginning of it, and this was
Speaker 1: something I give some thought to, you know, face both
Speaker 1: with lightning and also but mainly with camera. The question
Speaker 1: of do I look at the the older films and
Speaker 1: try and somehow mimic the visual style, which was not
Speaker 1: a ton of camera movement kind of locked down a
Speaker 1: more formal sort of approach, and I, you know, I
Speaker 1: quickly decided, no, I can't do that, Like it's this movie.
Speaker 1: You know, those movies were shot that way because that
Speaker 1: felt right to the people who were making them, and
Speaker 1: that felt and for me, I I gotta shoot it
Speaker 1: in a way that's going to feel like the gears
Speaker 1: are going to catch on in my head for this movie.
Speaker 1: How to get me excited what we're doing visually on
Speaker 1: set every day and saying with you if you gotta
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta make a movie that feels exciting
Speaker 1: to you. They're also a product of their era in
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, absolutely, you want your movie to necessarily
Speaker 1: feel like everything else this in theaters, but there's kind
Speaker 1: of like this. Yeah. I mean they're a product of
Speaker 1: the filmmakers who are a product of their Uh. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Carrie Fisher. Um. You know, we've often heard
Speaker 1: about her talents as a script doctor. So my curiosity
Speaker 1: for you is what kind of invaluable input did she
Speaker 1: bring to uh the project for you? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: that's how we connected with as right now. She was
Speaker 1: a writer first and foremost. I think that she um,
Speaker 1: you know, she in my experience with her, you know,
Speaker 1: performing was was on camera was you know, the thing
Speaker 1: she was least comfortable with. She was more she loved
Speaker 1: writing and she loved words, and she um uh. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, I you know, I after I wrote
Speaker 1: the script, I would come over to her house or
Speaker 1: did this a few times. I would just sit with
Speaker 1: her for hours, go over every scene. And not that
Speaker 1: we would like totally rewrite the scenes or anything, but
Speaker 1: she what she loved. She loved jokes, she loved puns,
Speaker 1: she loved word play. She loved and so she at
Speaker 1: every single line, she would just throw out three thousand
Speaker 1: possible jokes or puns. That could happen, and you know,
Speaker 1: in nine times out of ten, two thousand and of
Speaker 1: them were unusable. And then there will be that one
Speaker 1: that was just like, oh my god, that's pretty cool,
Speaker 1: let's do that. Uh. And then but then there were
Speaker 1: you know, there was um one scene in particular that
Speaker 1: was you know that involved Laura Dern's character where the
Speaker 1: three of us got together and kind of did rework
Speaker 1: the scene from the ground up, and that was that
Speaker 1: was pretty amazing geting Gang to actually work with Carrie
Speaker 1: on a on a scene and and finding the emotional
Speaker 1: beats of it. And it's I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the scenes in the movie that I just yeah that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that teams. That's it's really special. Um, And
Speaker 1: what do you think you learned from her? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean it's not like you know, it's it's not
Speaker 1: like here are some lessons that I learned from her
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I think she I I learned.
Speaker 1: I mean she she just had this sense of she
Speaker 1: just had a playfulness and she had a m I
Speaker 1: guess you know, it's it's just a reminder that the
Speaker 1: the only sin in writing really is being boring. And
Speaker 1: Carrie was incapable of being boring. And you know, aside
Speaker 1: from taking lessons from the way that she lived her
Speaker 1: life openly and honestly and was just you know, um
Speaker 1: constantly just living in living in that mode and without shame.
Speaker 1: I think that's something you can a lesson from in
Speaker 1: terms of writing. I mean, just the there's a less
Speaker 1: a lesson is less a lesson. It was more just
Speaker 1: drawing inspiration from how amped up she was about making
Speaker 1: words saying you know, I mean, she just it just
Speaker 1: you could see her eyes start to glow when she
Speaker 1: hit like but she found a new phrase and she
Speaker 1: was just you know, saying it and you could see
Speaker 1: like this that was like food to her. Yeah, that's inspiring. Man. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, in the first film, we didn't get a
Speaker 1: whole lot of her, So you know, what did she
Speaker 1: bring ideas to like fully more fully flesh out who
Speaker 1: this character has been for her? Like, I'm just curious
Speaker 1: what she brought to the table in terms of these
Speaker 1: are the ideas I have, Yeah about this character that's
Speaker 1: meant you know, plenty to her in her career and
Speaker 1: that she's now tackling again later in life and she
Speaker 1: have like did she come forth with ideas for that well,
Speaker 1: I mean she one thing that she was really conscious
Speaker 1: of was what lay meant two girls. She was really
Speaker 1: really held that precious and I think that comes from
Speaker 1: years of going to the conventions and doing like autograph
Speaker 1: signings and stuff and just seeing and talking to all
Speaker 1: these fans in general, but specifically she was aware of
Speaker 1: the women who, especially with the original films, you know,
Speaker 1: where Leo was the only female hero like that in
Speaker 1: these movies, UM, and what that meant um, And so
Speaker 1: she was always conscious of that. I mean she you know,
Speaker 1: I I don't want to um because I can feel
Speaker 1: her her middle finger descending from the heavens. So I
Speaker 1: don't want to uh works on too much, wa sound
Speaker 1: too much? And I I also I wrote this. I
Speaker 1: wrote the character as it needed to be written in
Speaker 1: the script, and so UM, not because I want to
Speaker 1: take credit for it, but the opposite, because I don't
Speaker 1: want to offend carry by implying that it's exactly what
Speaker 1: she would have wanted. I think, you know, uh she
Speaker 1: So it's not like we sat down at the beginning
Speaker 1: and she said this is what Leo should be and
Speaker 1: I wrote that, you know, Um, But once we started
Speaker 1: getting into it and knocking our heads together. She I mean,
Speaker 1: it's impossible not to get her into that character. You know,
Speaker 1: when's the last time you saw her? I saw her
Speaker 1: the sixtieth birthday, so that was just yeah, a few
Speaker 1: months before she passed us. You mentioned this new trilogy
Speaker 1: that you guys are working on. Um, do you worry
Speaker 1: at all about spending too much time within this universe?
Speaker 1: Not that you know you're you're in danger of it,
Speaker 1: but just you know, not that you feel this way
Speaker 1: about Peter Jackson's involvement in the Middle Earth movies, But
Speaker 1: I think maybe there's some sense in some quarters that
Speaker 1: he overstayed the welcome there and there could be a danger,
Speaker 1: I guess, of just wallowing and something that you love
Speaker 1: a little too much for too long. Do What do
Speaker 1: you think about that at all? Or No? I think
Speaker 1: the only danger is if you if you make You know,
Speaker 1: if I made a boring movie, that would be that
Speaker 1: would be bad. Right now, I know I I can't
Speaker 1: relate to that fear at all, because right now I
Speaker 1: feel nothing but just giddy excitement at the possibilities. And
Speaker 1: to me, right now, it doesn't you know, intellectually, I
Speaker 1: can understand what you're talking about, Like in terms of
Speaker 1: a weight of oh my god, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in Star Wars for the the next ten that I inside
Speaker 1: I can't get. There's zero of that. It's just feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the possibilities of a the possibilities of
Speaker 1: a story on this kind of canvas with this kind
Speaker 1: of potential, and something that will um, something that will
Speaker 1: make the Gears engage in the way that I feel
Speaker 1: from a good Star Wars movie, you know, the emotion
Speaker 1: of it and the impact of it and the fun
Speaker 1: of it and all the different ingredients that can go
Speaker 1: into it and using that to tell one story that
Speaker 1: can really have an impact. Um, I'm you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's everything I ever wanted to make movies
Speaker 1: to do. You know. Yeah, I was sort of over
Speaker 1: the moon when I saw that announcement because of just
Speaker 1: the notion of doing all new material because these movies,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this galaxy, right, and understandably you have
Speaker 1: to kind of whip things back into perspective. This is
Speaker 1: this is the world. Here's the characters that we knew,
Speaker 1: here's the the settings that we're aware of. But it's
Speaker 1: sort of it could feel like treading water. And it's
Speaker 1: like there's this whole galaxy to do, and so this
Speaker 1: idea of doing like all new stories is fantastic and
Speaker 1: it's it's good to know that things are going to
Speaker 1: push in those directions. I mean, I mean, I'm excited
Speaker 1: about it. I think that I will say that, you know,
Speaker 1: like for instance, with the Last Jedi, like it's not like, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I feel like with any story hopefully,
Speaker 1: if you're actually like putting your foot on the gas
Speaker 1: and doing and doing what you gotta do with it,
Speaker 1: I don't know it yet. Like I and I say
Speaker 1: this having made the really conscious choice of let's set
Speaker 1: this someplace else, in someplace new. So obviously there's something
Speaker 1: that appeals to me about that. But um, working with
Speaker 1: these established characters so we've seen before, it hasn't. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's felt like turning the monkey grinder wheel
Speaker 1: or like it's felt like a yoke on my shold
Speaker 1: on my shoulders. If because anytime you come into any story,
Speaker 1: whether it's pre existing characters stuff we're familiar with or not,
Speaker 1: you're taking them to new places. You're engaging with them new,
Speaker 1: you're getting inside their head, they're in a different place. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think any story that works as a
Speaker 1: story that works, you know, Um, I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: speaking as a fan. I mean when it's yeah, I
Speaker 1: gets solo movie movie, now it's like, but there's this
Speaker 1: whole other So this is exciting, you know. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: excited excited about Uh, you know, you've you've already kind
Speaker 1: of shut down the notion that this is like the
Speaker 1: Knights of the Old Republic. People got excited that maybe
Speaker 1: that was it. Is there nevertheless, anything in that pre
Speaker 1: existing cannon that you're interested in exploring. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much cool stuff and all of it. I'm I
Speaker 1: mean honestly, and I totally get you know, especially people
Speaker 1: who are hardcore fans of that, I understand. I totally
Speaker 1: get like feeling the potential of all that stuff and
Speaker 1: thinking and and also that your mind immediately goes to
Speaker 1: I want to see more of what I've already seen.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just something that I get that as
Speaker 1: as a fan. Um, But I mean for me, honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm I don't know, I'm I'm I'm what gets me
Speaker 1: excited is um, what gets me excited? This story, I guess,
Speaker 1: and and that has a lot less to do with
Speaker 1: where it's set and what elements it uses than it
Speaker 1: does what it's about and what the main journey it's
Speaker 1: about is. Um that's what for me has me really excited,
Speaker 1: so as to where it's going to be, when it's
Speaker 1: going to be still figuring that out in a way,
Speaker 1: that feels like the least important aspect of it to me,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, so it's more about what it's going
Speaker 1: to be. I think did you consume a lot of
Speaker 1: that earlier? I've played the nights of the older public
Speaker 1: games and was really really into them. I completed the games,
Speaker 1: and uh so that's a lot about I know. I
Speaker 1: watched the YouTube cut scenes that was like six hours.
Speaker 1: It's a whole long thing and it's but it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: and it came at a time where it was really
Speaker 1: a meaningful engagement with Star Wars. For me, it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really cool and um and also the fact
Speaker 1: that it was the first thing, or one of the
Speaker 1: first things where your choice is actually influenced the path
Speaker 1: of your character was going to take, and that was
Speaker 1: groundbreaking at the time. It was really something, Um, I never.
Speaker 1: I'm less familiar with the extended universe stuff. I was never,
Speaker 1: never really consumed all the books. I've since gotten enough
Speaker 1: to speed somewhat on it. But again, for me, it's,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. For me, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: about it's about the story. So it's about coming up
Speaker 1: with a news story and just out of curiosity. Was
Speaker 1: was one of the things. You eventually read the Darth
Speaker 1: Baine trilogy, Now I haven't. That's my favorite thing is awesome.
Speaker 1: I know he's a fan favorite. Check it out. So
Speaker 1: what are you eager to do once you kind of
Speaker 1: pivot away from the galaxy? You know, what's what feels
Speaker 1: like you mean twenty years from now when they finally
Speaker 1: release you No, I didn't have. I mean, the thing
Speaker 1: is it's that's the other thing with these next three
Speaker 1: movies is figuring out timing wise how it's going to work,
Speaker 1: which we don't know yet. I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: smaller films that I've just had, I've got the thing
Speaker 1: I was working on before this. I've got a few
Speaker 1: other things that I would love to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to make, you know, not ten years from now. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so we'll see. But I've I've definitely outside
Speaker 1: of Star Wars, got a couple of other things that
Speaker 1: I'm I would love to do. Um. Have you had
Speaker 1: any time to work on developing that stuff? Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: we actually had because we you know, we finished the
Speaker 1: movie the we finished Last Jedi a couple of months ago.
Speaker 1: So I've had this very odd lull and that's only
Speaker 1: in the past few weeks hasn't been hacked. And I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's uh, it's Disney. Yeah, they got
Speaker 1: locked down. Yeah, way every day though, I was holding
Speaker 1: my breath and believe me, I was holding my breath
Speaker 1: every day, whether you know, a big leak was gonna
Speaker 1: add the whole script was gonna go online or something
Speaker 1: like that. But we've been very, very lucky in that regard.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, so I've had a couple of months
Speaker 1: now to just kind of get my head in the
Speaker 1: space of you know, okay, can I can I get
Speaker 1: a couple other little things kind of good thought of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then last thing you've been from their usc Alum.
Speaker 1: I went there for grad school actually, so flight on
Speaker 1: um being able to premiere this movie at the Shrine
Speaker 1: it has to be. It's a trip, man. I remember. God,
Speaker 1: I can remember as a film student going across to
Speaker 1: the Shrine to one of the conventions there, and we
Speaker 1: saw Sam Raimi give a little presentation for Quick and
Speaker 1: the Dead, and he's, you know, was one of my
Speaker 1: favorite filmmakers. I was just obsessed with Sam Raimi and
Speaker 1: at that point I still am, and he's, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I remember all of us trooping over there.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have anything to do with Star Wars at
Speaker 1: the Edges, but I just gonna have frendling in the
Speaker 1: memory of Ramie making dad jokes when he introduced his
Speaker 1: he literally is wearing a tie and he put on
Speaker 1: his glasses and so that his tie wins like back
Speaker 1: in all his glasses, and then he waved his arms
Speaker 1: in the air and said, oh, who turned out the lights?
Speaker 1: She was so good, And we're all just like, oh,
Speaker 1: we love this man so much, so great. It's it's
Speaker 1: gonna I don't know, man, that right now. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: this is going to be literally the first time in
Speaker 1: audience is the movie. You know, Because of the way
Speaker 1: these things are, we don't test screen them. I've never
Speaker 1: shown it to a group bigger than ten or fifteen friends.
Speaker 1: Um so I'm less. I'm thinking a lot less about
Speaker 1: the venue right now, and a lot more about Oh
Speaker 1: my god, are the jokes gonna play? Get your dead
Speaker 1: jokes ready? Yeah? Exactly, I got them. Well. The movie
Speaker 1: is called Star Wars The Last Jedi. It opens December.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you'll you'll be hearing about it. So
Speaker 1: the platform released. I think it's the angelic and I
Speaker 1: think we've gotta build awareness for you, so make sure
Speaker 1: you check it out. Ryan Johnson really appreciate you coming
Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you, sir. Thanks. We're about you roll,
Speaker 1: untamed power and beyond that something truly special. M m m.
Speaker 1: Something inside me has always been there. Then I was
Speaker 1: awake and I need help. I've seen this roster only
Speaker 1: once before. It didn't scare me about them. It doesn't know,
Speaker 1: but the parents started. M h kill it. If you
Speaker 1: have feeling, I feel nobody could come. You met the Bak.
Speaker 1: We have to spark. That'll light the fire that both
Speaker 1: for starting down. This is not going to go. Will
Speaker 1: you think foul film? Yeah, that's I need someone to
Speaker 1: show me a place and all this