-Our next guest is an artist, actor,
writer and filmmaker.
Her movie "Kajillionaire" is in select theaters now.
Let's take a look.
-This is where the big one starts.
But the noise, it just keeps building
and building and building.
This one's not building.
The big one will be loud.
I mean, if you're lucky, you'll get crushed.
And then you'll -- you just die right then and there.
Immediately.
A never-ending void.
-Wow. So, YOLO.
-Please welcome to the show Miranda July.
Hello, Miranda.
-Hi there, Seth.
-I am so excited you're here.
We've been trying to have you on for a while.
-Yeah. I don't know if you remember.
We've actually met once before.
-I didn't think that you would remember.
-[ Laughs ]
No, I do, I do.
You were -- So, you were coming out of an elevator
and I was going in, and you turned.
Do you remember what you said to me?
-Not -- -[ Laughs ]
You said, "I love you."
And then the doors shut.
Which a lot of people might have taken the wrong way, right?
Like, people might have thought you meant "I love your work"
or "you're so cool," but I knew hat you meant "I love you."
-I do.
[ Laughter ]
-I know.
-So, uh, can we talk about your movie "Kajillionaire"?
I thought it was fantastic.
-Thank you. -[ Laughs ]
It's a movie about, like, low --
I would say a lower-tier family of con men.
Is that an accurate way of describing it?
-Right, right, not very good at their job.
-Not particularly good and, you know, I know your work
over the years and as we have established, I'm a fan of it.
It's often autobiographical to some degree.
Is there any of you in this family?
Any of you in these characters?
-Do you mean am I a low-level con artist?
-Well, yeah, I mean, I guess that's what I'm getting at.
[ Laughter ]
-Well, I will say in the, like,
embarrassingly entitled punk youth that I had,
there was sort of a culture of stealing and I did --
I stopped and I don't condone that.
I remember, like, a turning point for me was
I was, like, a guest artist, visiting artist.
I was 23.
I probably should have been in college,
not being a guest artist,
but I remember kind of scoping out the room,
as was my habit, for what I could take on the way out.
Like, maybe a box of chalk
or that video projector or something.
And then, I caught myself and I suddenly realized,
"Oh, you can either be this sort of respected artist person
or you can have the box of chalk."
-[ Laughs ]
-And I guess I made a choice there.
-Yeah, those were your two paths.
And we're certainly happy with the one you picked.
I've read that you got this idea sort of half asleep,
the idea for this film, and usually,
I would say most writers would tell you the ideas they get
when you're half asleep, you wake up in the morning,
and you realize it was not a particularly good idea.
How quickly did you know that there was something here?
-Not very quickly.
I just want to say that for all the writers out there.
I had to withhold judgment.
You know, it seemed for the better part of a year,
like, kind of a silly idea.
You know, these cons and what does this all mean?
Why waste my life on this?
And then I got to the end and read it back,
and it kind of punched me in the gut.
And I guess at that moment,
I was like, "Oh, maybe that is the movie.
Maybe that's the ride."
Like, you're laughing, you're laughing,
you're laughing, you're crying.
-And this is a film that -- I mean,
anxiety is a real theme of this film,
not just the idea of an earthquake, but also financial,
economic, and family anxiety,
and it must be so strange to have it come out at a time --
obviously, you made it before all this happened --
in this hot bed of anxiety now.
-Yeah.
I know. It's so strange.
That anxiety was really personal to me, and a lot of the themes,
like the sensitivity to touch and just the strangeness
of this lead character --
Old Dolio is her name, played by Evan Rachel Wood.
And now, suddenly those subtle themes
are, like, front and center.
Like, those are not my weird thing.
That's, like, the world's weird thing now.
We're all Old Dolio.
-I also want to congratulate you on this monograph.
This is a book about you
that you had other people basically contribute.
I think it's like 80 people that basically talk about you.
Was that terrifying to turn over, sort of give the keys
to families and friends to tell your story?
-Yeah, I think I thought I would like that.
You know how you secretly fear that you're a narcissist?
You know, like, you maybe take the narcissist test online
and you're like, "Am I?"
And I found out real quick, like, actually,
it turns out I'm not.
Like, I hit my threshold immediately and just had to
disassociate for most of the experience of making that book
and pretend that everyone was talking about somebody else
and I was just maybe working for that person,
making her book for her.
-It must be so strange too because obviously people are
giving you materials, and then, you have to --
because part of it is you take yourself out of it, right,
and then you get this incredible reflection of somebody.
Because I think sometimes with autobiographies, you know,
you're obviously getting one person's perspective.
It's so multi-layered to have a bunch of people,
but at the same time, you're the gatekeeper.
Was that a weird responsibility to have?
-I think I thought it would be more accurate that way.
Like, I was actually assigned to write about myself,
and everything I started to write didn't --
it didn't seem true.
Everything was true, but it didn't add up to the truth.
You know what I mean?
And so, even if some of my friends'
or collaborators' stories are, like, a little off
or it's, like, just their version,
somehow collectively, it's more a life.
-It's really wonderful, and one of my favorite --
before you go, I should say that of the many things you've done,
one of my favorite things you ever did was
an interview with Rihanna, I believe,
in "The New York Times" back in 2015.
You know, I have long been enamored with Rihanna.
But that interview was the first time
I realized truly how fun she was.
Was that as much fun to basically spend that time
with her as it was to read?
-Yes, I mean, we both are drunk with Rihanna.
-Yeah. -[ Laughs ]
Although, she was drunk with you,
whereas I think I was the only one who would, like,
nervously drunk in myself.
I mean, I -- Yeah, I mean, she's just so lovely.
Right? -Yeah.
-I'm so jealous that you really hung out with her like that.
-Yeah, I mean, I'm just so sad it's over.
And it's been over for like over a year.
-[ Laughs ] I know.
-I'm still just, like, working through
that it's probably not going to happen again.
-I remember her assistant -- like, I had to do
some last-minute fact checking or something,
and her assistant signed off, saying something like, you know,
"See you around" or something.
And for the whole, like, next week, I was, like, ready.
Like, they were going to call me to hang out.
-[ Laughs ] -And I was like,
telling everyone, like, "I don't know.
We have pl-- you know, she said, 'See you around.'
So that's -- you know, it's probably in the next few days."
And then, someone pointed out, like, that's just what people --
that's like, "Bye." -Yeah, 'cause that was 2015.
I feel like those plans would have probably firmed up by now.
-I mean, I guess -- Yeah, yeah, no, you're right.
-Miranda, it has been so lovely to have you here.
The film is great.
Congratulations on the book as well,
and I would like to close the way we began,
by saying I love you.
-Thank you. -[ Laughs ]