- I'm Janina Gavankar
and you are watching Instudio
with The Hollywood Reporter.
(dramatic music)
- Okay. So, let's start with "The Way Back."
which is really seen in theaters today.
- Wow. Okay. (laughs)
That's wild. Yeah.
- Has it been a while?
Have you been waiting for the theatrical release?
- Yeah.
We started shooting this in October of 2018
and we did re-shoots in the middle of this last year.
And,
wants to see how the real thing just,
(laughs)
- Well, this is a very impressive movie.
It's about loss,
it's about grief,
it's about redemption,
it's about basketball,
(laughs) - Yeah. - It's about so many things.
How do you feel about the overall message of the movie?
- I think it's a really important movie
if we did everything that we were supposed to.
And, I gotta say
this whole experience is felt
more like doing an indie movie
than a studio movie ever could.
I mean, I've done a ton of indie projects
and I did not think it was gonna feel the way that it did.
It was a really intimate experience
and that just chalked that up to Gavin.
- Most of your scenes with Ben Affleck,
you play exes.
What I noticed,
first and foremost,
was his character, Jack
was trying to bring your character, Angela
into his grief.
He was trying to bring her down
to his level.
And if he saw that you were coming out of your grief,
he was gonna bring you back down.
And that took, - it's so interesting
that you feel that way.
- Yeah, that was my impression of that.
I felt it so I was
watching the man that I still love
perform okayness
and try to prove that everything was fine
and that he was doing great.
And if anybody knows that that's a lie,
it's the woman that knows him best.
- Yeah.
- I mean, he's also,
I think when you are at your worst you really,
most people have a hard time accepting any help
for their own mental health
and part of that is like a feeling of unworthiness and,
I think all those things are also happening
so that's like the level underneath
really even what she is seeing.
So I love that that is what you felt.
And all of these things are true simultaneously.
- There's a duality to
when somebody is struggling with addiction
especially alcoholism.
The family dynamic can be
that they are pushing you away,
they are you that everything is great
and at the same time
they are trying to manipulate or reach out.
Like there's just so many things happening.
So, you are playing these scenes with Ben
and I noticed you have to kind of physically change,
like diminish yourself in certain places.
There was just like all of the emotions
that you had to show were extremely settled.
But I saw it in your body language.
Was that something that you were thinking about at the time
or is that something that - Yes or no.
I mean that's just sort of training and instinct
at some point.
You know, if you really
just commit yourself to understanding the situation
and every moment that's come before it
this is like theater one on one stuff.
You know, if you just go in with an action
and a motivation
and just are hyper aware of
everything that's come before,
all of those things will happen naturally
if you are in a safe space
with other actors and artists
who are willing to do the same thing.
- Great. And tell me about the space
that you share with Ben Affleck.
- Yeah. Sure. - Because you are,
I read an article in The Hollywood Reporter.
- No, it's fine (laughs)
What is that publication?
Are they in authority in the space?
- I think so.
I think you might know them.
But Peter, wonderful,
- Peter.
- Was talking to you about
you and Ben being able to have discussions
about not only what was happening
in the movie you were currently at
but the movie that you were writing and directing,
"Missing Time" - Yeah.
I was prepping my short film simultaneously
which deals with mental health
and suppressing anxiety
and I told Ben the whole entire thing.
I pitched him the whole story.
I pitched him the tongue sequence
which is a sort of like
a pretty intense moment.
We love magical realism,
like my creative partner and I.
So, but that means that we really have to pitch ideas
to as many people as we can
to make sure that what we're actually trying to do
is not lost behind the gag.
So,
yeah, I pitched the tongue sequence to Ben
and he just twisted up his little face like,
- You got the appropriate reaction?
- I was like, "Yeah. I got him."
(laughs)
Kinda like, "We really got something now. Yeah."
- It's wonderful.
I mean, what is it like,
as a first-time director.
- Yeah. I've directed a bunch of
sort of like other little pieces
and like music videos and these kinds of things
but this is my first narrative short film, yeah.
- So, let's talk a little bit about Stucco.
- Sure.
- Because it is going to be premiering
at the South by Southwest.
- Yeah. It's not a premiere
but we're in competition at South by.
- Okay. Great.
Fantastic.
- But we did just premiere online
at thehollywoodreporter.com. (laughing)
- That's right.
You can see it on The Hollywood Reporter.
- You can. - You can see the entire
short film.
- Yeah, which is really really cool to us.
It means a lot to us to have
the support of a trade.
You know, I've been doing this a long time
and I've been doing a lot of other things
besides acting for a long time.
But most people don't know that
and I don't feel like
just because a tree falls in the forest
and nobody's around that it doesn't make a sound.
Like I feel all the sounds of the trees
that I've made in the pa-
I don't know.
This is now unto the falling part.
But the point is that
this is the first very public offering
especially from Reso and I.
And to have the support
that you guys have given us.
And primarily, it actually means a lot to us.
So, it's true The Hollywood Reporter does write a lot
about female filmmakers
especially in the festival space.
I heard recently about a report
that they've been keeping track of female filmmakers,
producers, cinematographers
and finding a huge leap in a festival representation.
But still major feature films
incrementally women are taking
those jobs, positions. - And sometimes,
moving backwards,
the data shows it's not always a move forward.
- Yeah. So, what can we do about that?
How can we translate the festival representation into jobs?
- Well the things that you're talking
about the studio system.
Right? - Yeah.
- And all of those things are just based on data
but if you have a data-driven top 10 list
of the top 10 whoever the heck,
it's immediately a hidden default.
Because that list will never change.
If the big studios
who have the money to call the shots say,
"Well we're only gonna work with an A-list XYZ",
they're gonna look at that top 10 list
which is based on
everything that's come before it.
It will never change.
So, unless they decide that the metric
that's most important is not
that they're getting somebody from that A-list
and that they're actually changing representation
and that that list matters more,
It's not gonna change.
If you want to exist in any spaces,
it's not just Hollywood,
as a woman,
as a leader,
you have to do it courageously.
And you have to just start calling shots on your own
in the way that men have
for a really long time.
- So you have presented a social thriller to the world
but what would you like to be doing next?
Are you diving into the horror genre,
are you wanting to go in different directions?
- Well, I would say that
all of our projects are pretty left-of-center.
(laughs)
- Keeping it weird?
- Keeping it weird, yeah.
But they span the gamut of Art-house Horror
which works in analogy
and also just like comedy snob level.
Snobbery. (both laughing)
But we have our million dollar indie script
that we're polishing right now
which is this spiritual successor to Stucco.
We don't feel like we need to make the future version.
We've already told the story.
So, yeah.
I mean, we love this genre
because you know, you can really
examine the parts of ourselves
that we're not proud of in horror.
- Okay. So I have one more project
'cause you have many many projects.
- Yeah. I mean, you know when this is like you have
to have 15 going simultaneous.
I was literally negotiating a contract in the car
on the way here
for something that nobody knows about.
Hopefully won't fall apart.
It's literally what it is.
You just have to keep doing it
over and over and over until one thing sticks.
My last question is actually about
you play Aniston in The Morning Show.
- I do. - And we wanna know
more about Aniston.
Well, next time you see research
and you let 'em know
or carry her in this brilliant showrunner.
Yeah.
You know, she's a very interesting person.
Again these are the things
that I discuss with the writers and that
it's just there's not enough real estate on the show
for you to be able to do.
But yeah,
Aniston is not a real name.
(laughs) And,
she is sort of a former pageant girl.
She's not like a pageant queen
but she's just sort of always found ways to win publicly
and I think the way that she's risen above all
of the Mitch, Mark
is that she doesn't care.
She is going to live way past The Morning Show.
This is a line on her resume
and as everybody else vies that I thrown,
she's like, "Go ahead.
"My Instagram following is way more important right now.
"'Cause it's gonna help me get the next thing."
- Wonderful.
(laughs)
Well, we're all looking forward to season two.
- We're shooting it right now also.
- Amazing.
I'm very excited to see what happens with season two.
Have so much fun at South by Southwest.
- Thank you. Are you going?
- No. - Okay.
But have so much fun at South by Southwest
and check out "The way back".
It's in theaters now.
- Yeah.