this is about half I’ll update the post
It was about trying to start the film with a sense of nostalgia that is familiar to those who have had a sense of kind of, a disappearing kind of connection to something that they know, they have... They have a lot, they're kind of losing grasp of, but it feels very potent to me.
What about what periods and menopause are for women? And I'm just so impressed and delighted with this, because it's something that half of the population goes through, and it is so much more expensive than just hot flashes.
And it's not a joke. Like, I mean, it's funny, obviously, but it's just talking to us about shooting at me. That is a great example of how these actors personalize this material, and we had, we basically approached this film as an experiment, where we committed to six weeks together, where we spent two weeks workshopping the material with our screenwriters, with Rashida Jones, Will McCormack, and we, six, tore into pieces, and infused so much of our own. into the piece, and then shot the film in order, re conceptualizing things as we fell out of the model.
So we're not going to continue between all of us as we went. And that's his example of the Penelope Cruz feeling very passionately about the need to have this conversation with the movie, and she brought so much knowledge. She had both had this real dedication to telling his story, and I was, I learned so much from them. And it was wonderful because I felt their, you know, their passion in everything, but Penelope, in that scene, she just needed to communicate it, and she put it into this character.
And when she picked up those olives... I had no idea. I was in the scene, just said, I'm like, Wow. And then she squeezed me with one that fully exploded into my eye. I was like, just keep going.
And then put that into the film. It was so exciting. And then, as we started filming, so much just kind of revealed itself to us, and we developed this incredible rhythm together. It was like a jazz quartet. It was suddenly, we just found this rhythm that we could just fall into together, and Seth and I had worked together before, and we knew we had this kind of weird ability to harmonize with each other, and like, we like to say that we can talk over each other while, like, listening to each other, and we really enjoy arguing, and it was so fun. How are you?
It's screaming at each other's faces. And, um, he could be a nicer person, so the irony of it is great, but the improvisation came out of a very intense period of working with our screen pregnant. So it was like, we built such a strong kind of gathering together, and there was still so much of great material that they put in there.
There was so different material that was based on the original play, it was then the film. And line is like, we love a contentious environment. That, I heard the original film. And Edward was so passionate about that line, and it went in so perfectly. So it's a real mixture. We were responding to each other.
Penelope coming up with all of that business, she just, like, would bring a purposicality, just interacting with the environment. Penelope makes an American feel real by the way she interacts with it.
It was making the room suddenly feel real, and Edward, I mean, it just was so blown away by them. And, I mean, I wasn't supposed to play any role in the film. It was not, I would never have dared for myself in the movie with those three.
It really came out of, we were the middle of the casting process, and the boys stayed up on me, and they called me and said, we want you to play Angela. And I was terrified because I'm just really intimidated by them. I was like, I can't stand across from Edward, or Penelope.
I think everyone projects their own experience onto it. I love this notion, which is very much Esther Perel, and you can have a new relationship with the same person. But most importantly, is that you are responsible for your own happiness, and your choices are your own, and you cannot believe your misery on your partner.
And the idea that maybe they decide to kind of take responsibility that they're happiness, definitely, and send themselves free. Or is an agreement to start something new with each other, and people will disagree on us in every screening, and I'm very curious how you guys felt. But I am so grateful that I had a producer who embraced that ambiguity because as we all know, you know, I think this film, were a big and large studio system, would have had a very different ending.
me, Adam, New Barbera, our cinematographer, and I watched so many films, you were obviously really inspired by music in Virginia Woolf. I think Mike Nichols is one of my heroes, and then we'll probably really feel that the whole thing is, like, a tip of the hat to, like, nipples. And we, um, I think probably Virginia Woolf, The Graduate and The Birdcage, I think we're all kind of infused into this film, and then goes, like, Bob, Carol, Ted, and Alice.
I love Ruben Ostlund, so I'm in a much more modern era of film, and Force Majeure, uh, is a film that I love so much, it's a juxtaposition, and a seemingly kind of low stage, domestic situation, with incredibly high stakes, emotional trauma, and the way he makes his music, I think, Vivaldi, and that's how you really feel that, and we were very inspired by that.
Dev Hynes, who created this score that I am so in love with, you know, which is entirely on the cello, and that score was our intent to create a kind of high emotional space. Um, I really, I think that, you know, we had all these films and we loved, we really just wanted it to have a look and a feel that would allow you to be comfortable being in this kind of limited space. There are so many great single space movies.
i mean, we watched, like, 12 Angry Men, also, really studying how can you use the camera to make the audience feel intrigued by staying in the same space? We actually, we shot flashbacks that aren't in the film, running down the streets of the mission, near flashbacks have the makeout room
I mean, you really, with the production designer, like Jade Healy who did many films like Marriage Story. And she knows how to make a space feel like a character. And she built this sect in a very short amount of time, on a sound stage, and enjoyed being able to build it on a sound stage, was to control the architectural, you know, the idea of frames within frames was something that we were able to control. And then we knew where we wanted the characters to be separated, and the use of the doorways and the hallways and the ceiling, you know, what a joy to be able to control that.
And, um, hopefully make it feel like a subconscious, um, storytelling device of people and just all different use of mirrors, that is really all Adam and Jade bashing heads together. our costume designer, Marianne Philips, came with the idea that my characters would be wearing a shirt, that would be actually blend into the walls. Because her identity is, she's just, like, created into the house. Yeah.