I feel like any work of art,
any creative work is,
exists as an interaction between
the person who created it
and the person who's experiencing it.
I'm Iain Reid,
and I'm the author
of the novel,
I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
I'm Charlie Kaufman
and I wrote the
screenplay
and directed, I'm Thinking of Ending Things.
I remember calling my agent
and saying that I really liked the book
and I wanted to see if it had been optioned yet.
Were you aware that I was gonna call you?
Had you been given a heads up?
Yeah, because I had,
the agent had been sending it around a little bit
and I'd never had any kind of interaction
with film producers at all or anyone in the film world.
So, I was kind of going through it for the first time
and most of the calls had been
with like, multiple producers at a time.
And that kind of felt,
I would say disingenuous, not overly exciting.
She sent an email, one afternoon saying,
"Oh, would you have time next week
to talk to Charlie Kaufman?"
And I actually remember,
I have a little desk calendar
and I remember looking down at it
and it was literally blank.
There wasn't one date in it.
And I was like, "Yeah, no,
I think I could probably manage to do that."
What I remember about it
and liked about it was that,
it was just you and I on the call
and there any wasn't anybody else.
And it was very casual.
We talked, I would say for,
five or ten minutes about the book.
And then we just talked for a while
about a variety of things.
- Yeah, we've had some, - It was really casual.
several conversation, many conversations over the years
that have just been conversations.
And then we met each other in Reykjavik.
Yes exactly, exactly.
You invited me to stay in the guest house there.
And I remember you said you were anxious
about like, "What is it gonna be like to be stuck in this,
place with this person that I don't know?"
And I'm always anxious like that.
- Yeah, and I remember - It was very,
very comfortable I thought.
- We had a nice time - Yeah, I mean, I think,
we had, even just some of the conversations
we've had before meeting in person,
I think to me kind of,
confirmed a little bit that,
we had some similarities as far as our,
probably a little bit in our personalities
and then also things,
some similarities in our interests
and what kind of things we're drawn to,
as far as our own work.
But then that first call even,
I remember I was talking about a variety of different,
film and music and books and that was more,
I think that was more what that conversation was about.
Just kind of casually getting to know each other.
And to me that I think in certain ways,
made me more interested
and excited about the prospect of having this project
because in comparison to all the
three or four or however many other,
conversations I'd had, they felt much more formal.
And as I said, it almost felt to me like
with some of those producers I talked to
that maybe they hadn't even read the book
that it was sort of like,
"Oh, maybe we can take elements of this story
and make a horror movie or something."
But we talked about the book briefly,
I knew that you'd read it,
that there were parts that you had,
that resonated with you.
And then from there we just kind of talked
about a variety of things.
And I remember it was very important to me
that you knew that this might take a while
- before this actually happened. - Yeah.
- If it ever happened. - Well yeah, exactly.
Once I engage like I did with you,
then I start to feel a responsibility, you know,
- to you and whoever it is - Yeah, yeah.
that I don't feel if it's all sort of like vague
and abstract and I'm just thinking of things.
And historically, I think I've found,
I get interested in something
and I call my agent and find out if it's been optioned.
And then I kind of get cold feet
and I move away from it.
And I think that happened even with this,
but I feel like you kind of didn't let it happen.
No, exactly.
And the fact that I knew you at that point,
made it more difficult for me to back away from it.
Yeah, I mean, I know what you mean
to me, it was sort of that same,
I think because I had,
once we had talked to me in my mind, it was like,
there's no one else who now I would want to do this.
And it was never in my mind
that this was gonna be adapted into a film anyway.
It's a very internal kind of literary story.
I didn't think that was a possibility,
but then once you and I had talked,
obviously I liked your work. I was aware of you.
I was a fan of yours.
So that was nice to know that you'd come across the book.
But then also just that again,
I liked you after we talked as a person,
I thought we got along well,
so for me there was,
it seemed like there was no option than anybody else.
So yeah, wanted keep it alive for as long as possible.
And it just kind of to me,
and now again,
I know a little bit more about film
and how impossible it is to get things made.
So it feels kind of miraculous that this ended up happening.
I remember we had a lot of conversations about casting.
Oh yeah, That I do have memories of just like,
lying at home.
We pretty much hired everybody in Hollywood
and outside also from Europe.
Oh , yeah. I remember,
The Canadians.
- That was, I. - There was a,
Sorry go ahead.
Well, I just gonna say,
I can remember just like randomly certain nights
sitting at home eating popcorn
and I get an email from you
with an obscure European actor.
And then I would reply with a couple
that I had come across and, you're right.
I feel like over the course of months,
we must have casted with 30 or 40 or 50,
which again that for me, that's fun.
- Like it was still, - It was fun for me too.
Its definitely one of my favorite things, is casting
or even like imagining casting kind of stuff.
We also did that with music a bit too, I think.
I remember sending lots of music back and forth.
And how even I think in that first call maybe
just again, completely theoretically,
we talked about what kind of music,
I even was thinking about when I wrote it
or what I could think about.
And then from that point on just,
sending each other music that seemed to,
somehow convey the tone
that we were thinking about,
because I think we both knew this wasn't a horror movie,
and 'cause I sort of felt that way about the book
and it's been interesting for me
to see how the book gets marketed,
sometimes as a thriller, sometimes as a horror,
and I've never really thought of it as thriller,
to me it's just a literary novel
and it's unsettling and it's philosophical,
but certain people will take it that,
and for me, I can't really, that's fine.
I can't control that.
And I think you and I both understood,
it's not really at its best
if it's just gonna be a generic horror movie.
That really not what it is.
I feel yeah. That was also something that I,
felt and worked against in making it.
Because there are scary things in it,
but there are also other things in it
that are, they're unsettling,
but they're also, tragic.
- Exactly. - And you can't, it's hard to maintain that
if you move into a genre,
it becomes about that.
And there are conventions that you have to attend to.
I didn't think that was gonna serve the material.
But I think the other thing,
maybe another sort of similarity,
that was, the length of the book being very short.
And that was obviously that became intentional for me
during the editing process to remove as much as possible
to really, and I think one of the reasons
for that was both,
it's obviously a fairly contained story,
but also because I did have in my mind that,
there would be some potential for rereading
and that the second reading of the book would be different.
And I liked that idea and I love rereading books.
I do it often.
And I do feel like the movie has that,
in some ways that was my feeling right away.
I wanted to watch it again.
And it would be a different experience.
Yeah, that was the intention.
And I salute you on the length of your book
because I think you're right. It makes sense.
I mean, I guess with a movie you probably don't,
maybe you don't think about the length quite as much.
That just happens as you write the script or, I mean.
You're required to think about the length
because you can't,
there's a limit to what they'll accept as a length.
Over a certain amount,
you don't have any rights to edit it.
They'll just come in and turn it into whatever they want.
So you wanna control that.
Movies are different in my estimation
than books in that,
you're taking something that can be sort of enigmatic
on the page and you're making it concrete
because now you've got people and actors and your set
and you're saying, "This is what it looks like."
And you have to address that,
I feel like one has to address that difference,
in making a movie.
The other thing to me that,
is, I think really close with the book and the film is that
I've always thought of the book
as just being about questions more than anything,
one or two particular questions,
but in general, questions.
I like questions and not really about,
any kind of particular answers
- and that sort of. - I remember you said that,
you felt it was a philosophical book, not a horror book.
Which is in some ways why there's
that sort of so much dialogue,
especially at the beginning, back and forth,
which to me is I think conducive to questions
and trying to understand something a little bit better,
but not necessarily coming to an answer.
And I think that's also why,
again people talking about the end of the book sometimes,
people have said, "Oh, well, I figured out,
or I anticipated the twist halfway through."
And in my mind, I'm like,
"Well, what do you mean the twist?
Like, I know that's not how I set out to write it."
You know it's funny,
people don't get the ending of your book sometimes.
- No, no. Yeah. - And what's really interesting to me,
they don't understand.
I read, little things online where it's like,
"Well, what happened? I don't understand."
And it's like...
People have sort of been quite emotional
with me about what the ending means to them.
And they wanna know what it means to me.
Sometimes that's not what it means to me.
And they almost want to argue with me
that, well, this is what it has to mean.
And I think, well, it does for you
and that's valid, that's right.
But for me it means something very specific and that's okay.
And I think that probably is the same with the film.
It's not really necessarily about the end
but it's sort of about everything that's happening
and the questions that arise.
Yeah. And for me, when I'm in those kind of conversations,
I just, I don't say what it means.
It doesn't exist without
the experience of the person experiencing it.
And so they bring to it,
what resonates with them
based on their life experiences or whatever.
It completes it somehow, right?
Yeah, it's necessary, I think.
Because it's a process.
And if you spoonfeed stuff to people,
then you don't allow for that process.
And therefore it's a lesser experience.
So when the two people are arguing,
this resonates with you
because this is your life experience.
- And this resonates with you. - That’s right.
This is your life experience and neither of you are wrong.
Yeah. You're both right.
You're both right. Because you can't be wrong.
It's impossible.
It's impossible to be wrong.