-Congrats on "Roma." Oh, my gosh.
I saw you win two Golden globes the other night.
Congratulations on that. [ Cheers and applause ]
Today you got nominated for a DGA award.
-Yes, today. Very happy about that.
-That's a big deal. That's fantastic.
You brought your daughter to the Globes.
I met her backstage. I love her. -Yeah, yeah, yeah.
-Bu. She's so cute.
Did she have fun at the Golden Globes?
-Yes, of course. She met Timothée Chalamet.
[ Laughter ]
-That's all that people care about.
-The only thing, she was giving grief all the time
because she was comparing dresses.
"See how cool Spike Lee looks, and see how you look."
-Wait -- To you? -Yes, exactly, yes.
Everything was, "You are so dull, all in black and stuff.
And look at these cool guys." -That's the way daughters --
That's what happens when they grow up?
-Yeah. We've been traveling together.
-Yeah. -So, on the plane,
I saw her playing this -- this -- this game.
-Mm-hmm. -And she seem entertained.
So I said, "Can I -- Can I give it a try?"
She says, "you won't be able to do it."
[ Light laughter ] And I saw that she just
was moving the finger in different directions.
And it's a game that has a bunch of numbers
that you have to punch them.
"You're too old for that."
I think it's called 2048 or something.
-Too old for that? Oh, please.
Oh, I know that -- the swiping game.
-And then I took the telephone and I started swiping.
And I beat her. -No, stop it!
-Yes, I beat her.
To this day, I don't know what the game is about.
[ Laughter ]
-How did you win? -Just moving --
-You beat her just by swiping it?
-The whole thing is just go down right, down right,
down right, down right. -You just did that,
and you beat her? -Yeah, I beat her.
But I'm really bad with this technology thing.
-So is she currently not talking to you?
-Uh, she got a bit upset. [ Light laughter ]
-It's like, "Dad, I work hard on this game."
-Yeah. -"You just can't do that."
-No, she has what she calls strategy.
[ Light laughter ]
-No, I know -- I know -- I've played this game.
It's like a Sudoku type of thing.
Are you adding two numbers together and they become...
-How good are you? [ Light laughter ]
-I just swipe up and down. -There you go.
[ Laughter ] There you go.
-I got to say congrats again. And thank you for "Roma."
What a beautiful, beautiful movie.
Every single scene. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Thank you. Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you.
-The attention --
Alfonso, the attention to detail is the key.
It looked like it was so much work.
And it was written by you, right?
Was it Edited by you?
You were the cinematographer, as well?
-Yes. -How did you not go crazy?
I don't understand. -I went crazy.
-You did? Okay, good.
-Well, no, actually, the crew went crazy.
-They did?
-Yeah, they had many Alfonsos around, so...
-Because, well, you didn't, like, tell them
what the scene was going to be or something like that, or what?
-They didn't have the screenplay.
Nobody had the screenplay.
I wrote a very precise screenplay,
but nobody had it. -Wow.
-So it was day-by-day.
And we shot in chronological order.
So everybody was learning day-by-day
what the story what about, what the movie was about.
-So, the girl playing Cleo had no idea
what was going to happen?
-No, she never knew what was going to happen.
[ Light laughter ] -When you see this scene --
oh, my gosh. Wow. Really?
-Yeah. -Did she not know that scene?
I don't want to ruin anything, but wow.
-No, I know, and I mean, without ruining anything,
she doesn't know how to swim. -Yeah, okay, good. Thank you.
That is kind of a spoiler, yeah.
But there's so many shots in there.
There's like -- I got say, there's like 30 things happening
in each area of the thing. I loved it so much.
I really enjoyed myself and was moved.
And it was stunning.
And I thought the military scene, it was all great.
-You should give it a try. -No.
No, I could never do it. Yeah, no, no.
I was exhausted watching him, yeah.
But it's not a traditional story.
I mean, what made you want to do this
and get this out of your head?
-Everything comes out of my memory.
-Yeah. -And the memory of Libo.
Libo is the woman who raised me.
One of the women who raised me.
And then we decided, well -- or I decided --
to shoot in the places where it took place.
And -- Or because a lot of them, they don't exist anymore.
we have to reproduce all of those by the age.
-The lead, who I've never -- Look, here.
Here she is, on the cover of Mexican "Vogue" there.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Yalitza Aparicio.
-Yalitza!
It's a great story about this because she --
she didn't even think
she was going to audition for this movie, correct?
Was she a actor?
-No, she just finished studying to become a teacher.
And she was not really interested.
Her sister made her go to the casting.
-Is that right? -And then, when -- when...
She's from Oaxaca, a southern state in Mexico.
-Whoo! -And when -- Yes, exactly.
There's a Oaxacan over there. [ Light laughter ]
-We allow one person from Oaxaca to be at every show, yeah, yeah.
[ Light laughter ] -Wow. We made it.
-Yeah, exactly. [ Laughter ]
Baby steps. Absolutely, yeah.
-The, um...
So she went to Mexico City to meet with me.
But she didn't know who I was. And she had to Google me.
She said that I looked -- she didn't believe it was me,
because I fatter in the pictures.
[ Laughter ]
-I mean, it couldn't be more perfect.
I think -- She was so natural. -She was amazing.
And when I offered her to do the job,
you know what she said? -No.
-"I don't have anything better to do, so let's do it."
[ Laughter ] -Is that right?
-Yeah. -Isn't that great?
And here she is, on the cover of "Vogue"...
-There you go. -...and getting Oscar buzz.
I just can't even tell you -- it was like
watching a moving painting to me, or, like, a --
every scene was like a beautiful poem.
It's just beautiful. You got that shadow --
that bug going through the dirt.
Do you know what I'm talking about?
-Yes, I remember. [ Laughter ]
-How did you -- I don't even understand.
-I said "Action," and the -- -No, come on, you did not.
It's an acting bug? -Yeah.
-Oh, man, oh, man. Anyway, I want to show a clip.
Here's a scene from Alfonso Cuarón's new film,
"Roma." Take a look.
[ Indistinct conversations ]
[ Wind whistling ]
[ Man shouts indistinctly ]
[ Airplane flying ]
Alfonso Cuarón, everybody. [ Cheers and applause ]
"Roma" is in select theaters and on Netflix.