Hello. Hello again.
I saw you in London.
I remember. It's nice to see you again.
Samuel, I wanted to start with you, if I may.
You've been able to go on this amazing.
world tour with this film.
Has there been a moment where you sat in with an audience or you've had a reaction
from somebody that has maybe given you something new that you didn't know about
the story and the film and of your baby that you maybe haven't had before?
Because I guess when you go on these world tours, you've got so many different
audience members that have very different reactions to a story like that.
Yeah, actually, one of my
the one that comes to mind is when we were in Venice and we were doing
I can't remember Brendan,
if you were in this roundtable, if it was just me and Darren Aronofsky,
but there was somebody from Poland who said all of the Polish reviews
talk about how Christian the movie is, and Darren was so thrown.
But but I loved that reaction because I was like, right,
Like the core of Christianity is like grace and redemption.
And, you know, it's it's kind of humanism.
There's kind of like a Christian humanism that I think the story expresses.
And it was just so gratifying to see that translated
to an entirely different country.
It was wonderful in a different language, you know? Yeah.
And Brendan, for you, I mean, obviously sometimes you don't get to do this.
You do movies, sometimes you don't go around the world
or you don't get to go around the world and experience
for you as an actor, that must make it even more special for you.
The fact that you get to share it with so many people around around the world.
I'm pleased by the responses that I've been able to
answer questions
of audiences after the screenings
that we've been holding over the last couple of weeks.
I think the common response is that
there's a great deal of empathy for the man
that people didn't... were taken
by surprise, you know, in a way that reoriented or reconfigured
their their predisposed beliefs before they walked in the doors.
Compared to by story's end.
You both get to work with Darren, who's just an extraordinary filmmaker.
And I read somewhere that people say
he is able to find Beauty in Misery, which I thought was quite lovely.
Let me say it sounds terrible, but I feel like it's a lovely thing.
Sam - for you when he came forward and you are making this together.
It must be great that you've had that partnership
and now people are responding to the film the way they are.
Because Darren is a filmmaker that always takes his time
and is very specific about the projects that he that he wants to make.
That's exactly right. Yeah.
And I think, you know, like my my, my plays and Darren's films
are very different, but I think, you know, but they share something.
And I think that we kind of, you know, this Venn diagram of our work,
we kind of found it right in this story and certainly in Brendan's performance.
So it's it's it's been you know,
I've been talking to him about this project for ten years.
And, you know, we've really gotten to know each other,
especially now traveling around the world together.
And it's just been so gratifying that we've always been on the same page.
I mean, you know, I was on set the entire time, and I don't remember
like a single moment of us really disagreeing about anything.
You know, it was we knew what story we wanted to tell.
And Brendan told it.
Yeah, And Brendan for you.
I mean, you've worked with some amazing filmmakers.
Darren is at the top of his the height of his powers in recent years.
What was the most rewarding thing for you as an actor?
To get to work with someone and to have him
listen to your ideas and you can give ideas
and he would give you ideas and all that kind of stuff.
Well, he is a collaborator in order insofar
as that he brings together
people who are very good at what they do and I mean in all departments
to name them all.
But everyone was at the top of their game to work on this small movie
told in a two bedroom apartment in Somewhere, Idaho.
And the cool thing about Darren
is that as as a collaborator, a lot of directors don't do this.
He instantly gives credit to whatever the sources,
whoever the sources of the good light bulb idea comes from.
He does it right away.
And it's just really one instance of
effective leadership that he shows.
And when I met him, I admit to having some
feelings of creative intimidation is he's renowned for bringing out
performances in actors who you would not otherwise have had expected
to see much of from again or reinvent who they are.
And none of that was lost on me.
I know that his work
always challenges the human condition and never
offers up any easy answers.
You know it does.
It never does. That's what makes it such a brilliant filmmaker.
Lovely to talk to you again, wish you the best of the film, Thank you so much for time.