- Motherless Brooklyn is about a private eye
who has Tourette's Syndrome
and obsessive compulsive disorder,
and he goes to figure out the murder of his mentor
and only friend, and gets taken deep into a web
of crime and corruption that sort of shaped New York City
in the mid 50s.
- [Interviewer] Perfect, you got that down.
- Wow.
- Remember Robert Evans, the great producer?
He said once, you know,
if you can tell me your movie in three lines, it's a hit.
If you can tell me in one, it's a blockbuster.
(they laugh)
(relaxed music)
I thought there was very timeless themes
and questions in it,
themes of empathy and the idea of, you know,
people's impulse to either care for each other
or amass power and money and things like that,
and I thought that was very timeless.
And I thought that the character that I play,
Lionel, was a very, he's a very compelling character.
Kind of, not to be glib,
but in the vein of, you know, Forrest Gump or Rain Man.
He's an underdog, a very unique underdog.
And because you pull for him,
he pulls you through a complicated story, which I love.
- [Interviewer] For the two of you,
can you tell me sort of one of Edward's strengths
as a director that you really appreciated
while you were on set
and make him feel a little awkward while he's sitting there?
- Well, it's also the fact that he's an actor.
He really understands, from the inside,
what you're dealing with, what your concerns are.
As you can see, he's incredibly articulate.
But he's incredibly good at expressing, you know,
exactly what he wants.
And I think, you know, having that language capacity
to be able to tell you in very few words
or, you know, just that energy of he knows the material
so, so intimately, so well prepared.
And, you know, I think then you really do just trust
that you're in great hands as an actor
because, you know, you have,
you speak the same language, creatively.
- We were flying by the seats of our pants a lot,
but in the best way, because everything was set up.
But the actual realization
always had a little heat turned up on it.
And particularly, if you see the movie,
particularly for our scenes, that was very important.
Because there's always a time restraint.
There's a panic.
- An urgency.
- An urgency, an urgency.
So for me, it was great.
And also the fact that there's something beautiful
about right before a take,
he can pull you aside and say,
you know that line, toss it, or, you know,
making quick adjustments.
Not in character but, you know,
there's a line that's blurred.
The director isn't out there, he's with you in the ring,
you know, and that's exciting.
It makes it much more fluid and immediate.
- Every time you're on that knife's edge of going,
are we gonna pull this off?
You can feel almost fraudulent,
like, you can feel like, we are winging it, you know?
And you have to remember that,
not to shy away form that
but to kinda lean into it, let it feed into the energy
of what you're doing, and become part
of the tissue of the story.
But it's incredible how you never totally get used to that.
Like, you never take that for granted, I think you can ...
- In fact, you get used to being in that place,
where you're a little scared and you're a little uncertain.
But that's a place, ironically, of comfort.
And you can operate from that.
And rather than pushing it away, you say, bring it on.
And that usually puts you to a place
that you can never anticipate going.
You can't control that.
And I always feel like performing
is always a nice, you know, contrast
of control and letting go.
And in this kind of situation,
you're walking that line and usually,
for me in my experience,
that it usually has more good result,
when you find that sweet spot between those two poles.