[ambient music] [film rolling]
- If a good filmmaker makes a movie,
it's like they've burned the pirate ship into the sea.
If they've used every idea they have,
they're completely washed up on the shore,
empty of everything.
I was gonna leave off asking you what led you
to wanna do the genre that you do
with "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,"
but that means that I would know what the genre is
of the movie that you did,
"Everywhere, Everything, All at Once."
- Well, as a genre wonk,
what would you, as an outsider,
what would you call our movie?
- It's a family drama inside the shell of a sci-fi movie,
is how I would
kind of encapsulate it. - Oh, okay.
That sounds about, that's pretty accurate.
- That sounds fine. - Yeah.
What would your answer be?
- Well, I wanna steal an answer from the focus group.
- Oh, okay!
- I got to go to a focus testing that A24 did.
- That sounds really fun.
- I was so nervous that like,
that they would rip it apart.
So I wanted to be in the room so I could be like,
"that kid's an idiot."
And they were so nice.
And one dude was like,
"I think it's like an everything bagel."
And then like, a bunch of people were like,
"it's so original."
I'm like, "have you ever seen an anime?"
Like, I think we just did a live action anime.
- Anime or honestly, like a lot of the Korean films
from the auteurs of the past 20 years,
like they're constantly shifting tones
in a way that like, I hadn't seen before.
I saw like "Old Boy" or you know, "The Host."
And so this film, the intention was always like
it's a family drama that gets interrupted by sci-fi
that then gets co-opted by the internet
swirled in this blender.
[people grunting]
One of the things that really surprised me
with the first "Knives Out"
was how you were able to obviously take all the tropes
of a of a murder mystery and just like you flipped it
like three or four times in that movie, which was so fun.
Like where does that start?
Is that something you find
or is it like outside in, you're kind of looking
like the mastermind puppet, the puppets master?
- Well, I mean, I think for me,
the origin of it is actually like kind of going back
to the source of of why I wanted to do this
in the first place which is my love
of Agatha Christie's books.
And that's like, you don't have to go any further
for inspiration than to go back to the source.
You look at the characters in her books
are cracking jokes about detective cliches all the time.
- What you're saying is you just stole it all.
You haven't come up with anything at all!
- Us too.
- Steal from the best!
[ambient music]
- Do you know the ending before you start writing?
Because your stuff is such a weird engineered machine.
- I have to, not just the ending,
I need to, so I, the first 80, maybe 90% of the process
for me of the real work is just working
in little notebooks outlining.
So I have the whole thing roadmapped out
before I sit down and type a single word.
Otherwise if I start typing too early,
I'll just get lost in the woods.
I just assume, are you guys similar
or do you guys start typing like-
- I think we're still figuring out how to write,
so we feel- - When you figure out,
please let me know!
- we feel unqualified to be here,
but like we throw so much at the Wall.
there's like a chalkboard drawing
of like 20 different timelines
all stacked of every single universe.
I do think that like for us,
the structure is where the thesis of the film emerges.
- Yep, yep, yep.
And so for us, like if it was an essay
our film is trying to say like,
look, the first half is a chosen one,
"The Matrix" style, hero's journey,
and the second half is just completely
a refracting explosion of that story.
You are no one.
You know, it's like we are all no one,
and yet maybe that there's still something
worth holding onto there.
And so from the very beginning,
we knew we wanted our film to,
as you said earlier, like eat itself, right?
It kind of tears itself apart.
Which was a really fun challenge to us,
because we didn't know how we were gonna pull it off.
I don't know how we're gonna do that.
We're not good enough filmmakers to do that yet.
But maybe by the time- - Obviously you are.
- No, no.
But by the time we were finished with it,
maybe we could figure it out.
[ambient music]
- It makes me so happy to you to hear you
talking about structure as a element
of creative and thematic,
a creative and thematic element of it.
And there are writers who fear structure
thinking that it robs the soul
from some kind of inspired journey
or that it's a necessary evil
where it's something where it's just a cold,
kind of hard mass.
- One of those screenwriting rules
that I I love to actually follow
is the fact that like the midway point
is when the film reveals itself to you.
And so like you look at "Psycho,"
I think of "Psycho" as a great example
of using structure for thesis.
The first half of the movie, you're following someone,
second half of the movie, they're dead.
And so you're like, oh, not even you are safe.
If you are the protagonist of your own story,
not even you are safe.
- When you get in the edit,
how much does the writing process continue in the edit
with the movie like yours?
Like is it everything broken again
and then put back together in different ways?
Or do you very much stick to
what you thought it was gonna be
when it was on the page?
- We stuck to it and then we just started diagnosing
problems galore and spent a year
trying to fix those problems
and stress testing like what we'd done.
And there were like, I feel like that was one of
the most humbling things about feature filmmaking
that we learned was just how much
of a unpredictable ripple effect there is.
- It's an organic animal.
It's like diagnosing a cow.
- Right, and you're like, "oh my God
there's something that we changed in the first 10 minutes
that has now ruined the finale?
How did that happen?"
[ambient music]
- One question I wanted to ask
is just like your process on set with your crew,
with your cast.
We worked with Jamie Lee Curtis after she worked with you
on "Knives Out" and she had nothing
but amazing things to say,
specifically about like the way
that when they were shooting
or even when they weren't shooting,
no one actually went to their trailers,
because everyone just wanted to hang out.
- Yeah.
- What's your take
on the director's role in that?
On vibes, you know?
- I mean, I think, well, the vibes like tone,
like you guys talked about tone with writing.
I feel like tone is also a huge part of directing
and it's setting the tone on set,
it's making it feel like
a comforting, warm, inviting, safe environment.
And also communicating.
Making sure everyone's oriented
and knows what we're doing and why.
And do all your prep work before,
so you show up with a plan and so you can be chill
and then those vibes kind of filter out into the set.
And then hopefully everybody's cool.
But yeah, it's that, and then being an audience
for your actors I think is the other just huge element.
I used to, you know, I grew up kind of making shorts
with my friends.
It was all about cool shots and all about like
films cool all about,
"I'm gonna do this Coen Brothers-like shot
and I'm gonna do this and that."
And more and more and more and more,
just realizing I could stick the camera on a tripod,
light it with one light,
and shoot it in front of a brick wall,
and if what the actors are doing is working,
the audience is gonna be completely there.
The only thing that matters is making sure
the actors have what they need
to make those scenes sing, you know?
Yeah.
- I'm excited to get to that phase of my career.
[group laughs]
[ambient music]
As a writer director, are there things
that you're still chasing after now?
'Cause I feel like, you know,
you've been doing this for a while.
Like I don't wanna fanboy out too much,
but I think I watched "Brick" when I was in college
and it was actually probably one of the biggest things
that made me think I could be a filmmaker.
Well, with your first film you figured out tone immediately
and I think tone is like 90% of the director's job.
And so what are you chasing now as a director?
'Cause, yeah, I'm so curious.
- I mean, it is just getting better at the same stuff,
but the thing is that is not, I don't know,
but that's not actually true.
I mean, I guess every single,
I can't imagine mustering the energy
to do a new movie without feeling like
it was something that I had never done before
and never seen done before.
And my God, will this work?
It's like going back to when you were a kid
with your friends making movies and it's just,
"if we tied the camera to a bungee cord
and threw it off the freeway bridge,
what will this look like?"
And play it back.
It's that desire, that kinda mischievous,
like, can we get away with this?
How about you guys?
I mean, because you've so far,
I mean, with "Swiss Army Man"
and now with "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once,"
you guys have gone completely, I don't know,
it feels like especially with this film,
you've done everything it's possible to do in a movie.
What, and I mean,
the thing is though, - I hope not!
- But the thing is, regardless of that,
like that's maybe a stupid way of asking it,
because the reality is no matter,
I feel like no matter what you do it,
if a good filmmaker makes a movie,
it's like they've burned the pirate ship into the sea.
They've used every idea they have.
They're completely washed up on the shore
empty of everything hopefully,
otherwise they probably wasted our time.
So I know that's what you guys have done.
What gets you started in terms of the next one?
Where you start?
- It's such a good metaphor.
Like literally you just give everything.
You're like the giving tree.
- We did put everything into this movie
when we wrote it three years ago.
And so we've actually got like too many ideas.
New ideas.
We've had a lot of time
to like have new- - To live life.
- Live life and have new experiences
and read new books, but-
- [Rian] Have new kids.
- That's a big part of it.
- You also wanna chase that scary thing.
- We're definitely overthinkers
and it's definitely a tool of ours I think.
I think we overthink and that's part of our,
'cause there's two of us.
We're processing constantly.
I feel like a lot of time when you're starting off,
you want to create timeless art,
but that's actually like a terrible trap to chase that.
'Cause the more you chase it,
the less timeless it will become.
And really what you want to do is speak to the moment
and give the people something
to actually chew on and reflect upon.
I mean, I think one thing I will say though,
I mean I think, you know, when we were talking before
about what is the thing that gets you,
that you're chasing, I guess,
the reality is there's always gonna be something new
that we're dealing with.
As long as we have the guts to actually use that
as the fuel to make whatever is next,
it's gonna be something that's new to us.
It's gonna be something new that we're,
you know, creating, I guess.
Whatever you guys end up doing next,
I know it's gonna be mind blowing
and also come from your hearts
and having just gotten a chance
to have a couple conversations with you guys,
I can tell that's where your work comes from
and I can tell you guys are deep waters.
So I'm really excited to see what you guys do next.
- Rian, thank you.
- Cool. - Thank you so much.
- We'll see you here in a couple years.
- Yeah, we'll meet back here.
Right here. [ambient music]
Leave the camera set up
and we'll get back. - Something new and weird.