Rian Johnson Breaks Down ‘Knives Out’ in 55-Minute Q&A

so you've been actually on the promotional bandwagon where have you been in the last like week I was in I just came from San Francisco is up at Skywalker Ranch should we screen it for some folks there which is fun and San Francisco right before that I was in Paris it's a rough life [Laughter] Philly Denver Chicago Toronto Austin we've been turning around and and showing the movie it's been really really fun before we go any further I just want to give a huge thank you to everyone for coming out tonight to see the movie early thank you guys so much for being here a huge thank you to Lionsgate for letting us screen the movie early a huge thank you to our Clyde cinemas for being an awesome partner and I just want to make sure that if anyone is going to be yeah you know every movie you could use the the support so if you're actually gonna push it on social tonight on Twitter or Instagram or anything if you could tag it with knives out and Collider screenings and Arclight cinemas that would be awesome now let's jump into why we get to be here dad the last year I'm just trying to get the good good word out so I have a bunch of questions about the movie but I have a few what I'm gonna term fun questions oh boy to throw out some some curve guess what TV show would you love to guest write and direct you know what I've been watching this might be cheating cuz it's a bygone TV show I've been watching a ton of old Columbo recently and oh my god that would be that would have been but the people who like I mean obviously Spielberg did early episode of that but then Ben Gazzara director an episode of it Jonathan Demi directed an episode of it I'm on time careful machine what what movie do you think you've seen the most it's a toss-up between Treasure of the Sierra Madre topsy-turvy by Michael E oddly it's a comfort food movie for me and what is maybe the third one Miller's Crossing probably is there anything that you collect no I'm not a big collector you know I do collect this is this will shock to you this is nerdy the I collect infocomm games I know if you guys know is text adventures infocomm games like Zork and that kind of stuff I was really into that when I was a teenager I lost all of my old games and I've read like just a few years ago went on eBay and just kind of started collecting the old like boxes that they came in everything that's it yeah I'm sorry no I think everyone has actually done something like that gone on eBay and bought something that they had when they were a kid yeah yeah what is the last TV what does last thing you've injured watched oh god the land besides Columbo you mean chase oh my god god I can't remember it's been so piecemeal in terms of whether I just what I've watched I just started watching Watchmen I think it's fantastic I just watched the first episode wash man how about that I'm excited to binge watch that so for that first step is so good man is closing down then it the dawn essence is occurring what is the team have you seen have you ever watched a TV show all the way through more than once yes Deadwood which is a masterpiece yeah yeah it's Deadwood is uh it's hard to oversee and it was nice because I watched your first years ago and then I rewatched it recently with my wife who I didn't expect to be into it and she was so into it it made me as happy it's just it's the writing in that show is just godlike it's amazing my last quote-unquote fun question do you remember your first movie or TV show rush yeah I'm sure I do let me think back how far back - should we go here you know I had a big crush this is a TV show it's not my first cuz this would have been like when I was I don't know how old I was absolutely fabulous the TV show the British one I had a huge crush on Julia Sawalha who played like the nerdy daughter plays Saffy and I just thought she it was like that's that's the kind of girl I want to end up with someday Saffy is jumping into I get to talk to you tonight and why everyone's here I had the idea for this about 10 years ago I had just kind of like the very basic like what if this happened then this happened would be interesting to do in a murder mystery where this was kind of the structure of it I had that about 10 years ago so I guess it's been about 10 years since I've been kind of chewing on this but I only sat down to write the script last year it happened it all happened actually really fast when I sat down to write it when you were writing it did you have the cast in mind or was it no I've learned not to do that because that's that's a path to heartbreak because inevitably they're not available even if they're your friends and evitable is something will come up and it won't happen so I just write just I would just write the characters and then we sit down and I sit down with my casting director at Mary ver new and we start going through it and seeing who's available everyone saw the movie tonight you put together this murderers row of actors and what a lot of people don't realize is scheduling is next to impossible so how the f did you do this well I'll tell you how I did it is cast Daniel Craig Craig was the first one to sign on so he's the reason that and so timeline-wise with this I'm a started writing last January January of 2018 and we had wrapped the movie by Christmas so I spent about six months writing and then what happened was Daniel wasn't available and then he suddenly was because bond pushed a few months so it's like he had a couple of months of a window and we jumped on it and that also meant though from when he said yes we had six weeks until we had to start filming so that actually I mean it was I I guess I can I can say you know it was quite nice that we couldn't get precious my poor producers standing over there I'm sure it was not nice for him but one of the ways I think it actually helped us casting wise well you're asking about you know if you if you go to famous actors and you say do I do this thing we're doing it's fall of next year I think everyone's kind of doing the math in their head like oh what if you know a Marvel movie or something comes up I want to kind of keep my options open with this it was literally are you available right now can you come to Boston and Daniel Craig's in it and it just started kind of like and then Michael Shannon was the next one to sign up and then the question is even better it's can you come to Boston right now Daniel Craig and Michael Shannon are in it and it just got better and better with each actor and it's snowballs I guess true or false that Chris Evans worked for Dunkin Donuts well that makes so much sense cuz he's from Boston he was a local hire he was he could draw he drove to work in the morning donkeys hey we did have done that sunset or that I would be shocked if he didn't work at Dunkin Donuts oh they put it that way yeah yeah I mean I everyone from Boston I'm from Boston lives in our Brooklyn it's like in the blood so talk a little bit of though what surprised you about the cast because each person each actor works a little differently some might like more take some might like less how what is it like when you have a cast like this trying to sort of corral at all I was really nervous as I had never worked with a cast this big before and all these big names and everything kind of as the cast list grew I could read grew more and more terrified and then the truth is I showed up on set and it's again I keep apologize it's the boring thing everyone says we did actually all get along never good it was actually there was no like movie star egos or anything nobody was difficult it was actually just it felt a bit like summer camp the shoot we were at this big mansion in the middle of New England's in-between takes the cast they wouldn't go back to their trailers and get on the phone with their agents or whatever they would all go down in the basement wreck of this mansion and I'll just hang around like telling each other war stories and like hanging around a pool table and so it was just I don't know but in terms of yeah and I think maybe because you know because this is that it is an ensemble and because it's a murder mystery where as an audience you can know what you're sitting down for and I think as cast members they kind of were like okay we get what this is so it wasn't like there was a ton of heavy digging to get to the heart of it everyone showed up and clicked in pretty easy and yeah it all went pretty smooth what did you learn did you guys you guys mustard on a table read no we didn't do a table read no yeah I don't I don't find table reads that useful we did one for brick and it was so disastrous we almost didn't make the movie like now that's not true we bet it was what we was horrible as disastrous Joe and I were just like sitting in the car together after the table read looking each other I was like if you want to leave I understand I don't know table reads I guess for something that's like very food like TV I get it for comedy stuff I think I get it for something like this especially with a cinematic language of all the cutting with the flashbacks is so intricate to it I don't I don't know yeah maybe I just haven't found what's useful about them yet well I'm curious so you get the cast together and obviously you have a script are really happy with does the script get altered by the casting and the voices that you're now hearing on these characters it doesn't get altered in that way it's not like we have this actor they could you know we have to write it to their skills or whatever mostly because all these actors are so skilled I feel like they can do whatever you throw at them what does happen is I mean obviously it's the nature of the script is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle so it's not like you can get on set and just start you know around or something you have to kind of stick to the stick to the plan but you know because there was fit this way like that when their scenes where there was a lot of exposition to be given by characters or we had to explain something or the characters had to do something if the actor couldn't track exactly what was happening in that moment and I knew the audience probably wouldn't be able to either and so if an actor came up to me and said I don't quite understand why doing this I wouldn't try and just talk them into it I would always say okay let's see if we can simplify it then and so there was quite a bit of adjusting Chris Evans was terrific at that I think because he's done all the Marvel movies that have so much check so much exposition in them I think he was used to kind of you know he had a very good kind of you know detector in terms of does this actually track it makes sense on a on a dramatic level on the scene how much when you're writing the script you said you wrote it for six months how much did it change along the way like I'm curious so on day one you're sitting down to write this thing how much do you know the entire arc how much are you can you sort of talk about because it's it's all about figuring out where to give information and there's so many little things Deborah then and with this one in particular I write really structuralist I have to start I really I spend I spend this the first big chunk of time just working in little notebooks and all I do is I draw like arcs and split them out into like sequences I need to basically be able to see the whole plot in my head before I can sit down and actually start writing or I'll get lost in the weeds so I plan and plan and plan and plan and this was like that only more so this was even more crucial for me to have the whole thing mapped out but then you actually get into it and as you guys are writers you know you get into it and no matter how much you plan you know it's it's like you you plan out your map through the forest looking at like the map and in your cozy living room and then you get in there and you're actually hacking through the forest and you figure out stuff doesn't work and figure out new paths and so yeah it's kind of a mixture I guess we don't want to get into spoilers but I am curious was the ending in this film always the ending or did you have multiple ideas now I rarely have multiple ideas and lucky if I have one yeah no this is because well no actually the real answer is like because I approach it in that structural way I started with a very zoomed back concept the basic first idea wasn't oh what if this person is the killer and kills the person this way and they figure out this way it wasn't even that it the idea of taking whodunits and putting the engine of a Hitchcock thriller in the middle so you know Hitchcock like famously hated whodunits because he thought there were one big a lot of build-up for one big surprise at the end which to him was like the cheapest coin possible and to him suspense is is where it's all that in terms of narrative so the idea I love whodunits but I also kind of see where he's coming from so I thought well what if we kind of can take the engine of like an empathy based suspense movie put that in the middle of a whodunit but then still have the bookends of a great whodunit and still get all the stuff I love about their whodunit in there so the idea of how that wouldn't work and I'll talk her I won't go into it because of spoilers but that but that was as it was that broad actually wasn't even thinking about characters or place or time or what happens even it was just this kind of wonky genre exercise to begin with I'm fascinated by the editing process because it's the final rewrite talk a little bit about what did you learn in the editing room when you finally started watching all the footage this is why I worked with my editors Bob do say and we've done their last two movies together and he's really he's incredible and I started out editing my own stuff I said the brick I cut just like on my computer in my bedroom like I've always used to having my hands on it and working with Bob has really taught me kind of the value of a collaborative relationship with an editor and with this one it's interesting because it's so intricate and yet it kind of popped together pretty quick and we ended up doing the least amount of kind of big picture shuffling of any of any of the movies we've done together and it wasn't yeah it kind of I mean we did a lot of work to it it took a lot of refining and a lot of the devil was in the details of what we reveal when and and what we linger on and whose perspective were in but the thing as a whole actually like it came together as a film really really quick and kind of stayed that way did you do a lot of friends and family screenings any test screenings what did you learn from those we did a bunch of friends and family screenings and that's just like you know eight to ten people in a little room and they're all your friends and if they're you know if they negative you guys know how it is with friends and I mean if you just show stuff that you make to friends of yours if they you know if they don't like it you feel like the world is over and if they do like it you think they're lying to you so but within this case it did it was very very useful because be just because of the what did you understand when who did you suspect when and even just getting information that oh this tipped off for people that this was coming too early or too strongly in that way it helped a lot and then we tested it three times he tested it once in Orange County like a proper like screening a theater like this a crowd like this but like randomly recruited with cards and all that stuff in testa in Orange County and then twice out in Texas and the benefit of that for me was really at that point we had the whole thing pretty dialed in it was it was really just encouraging just to hear an audience react to it for the first time and to die no it was it was yeah it was the only time I would attach the word fun to a test screening but it was actually fun hearing it like a big crowd react to react to the humor in the movie for the first time when you do test screenings I've heard from some filmmakers that they'll go in the bathroom and fitness as you'll hear actual honest feedback that's terrifying oh my god that's a really good idea though I'm gonna I might I might use the stall to vomit a couple of times but that's like that's a very good idea I'm gonna steal that idea yeah first cut how long was it compared to the finished film we well the we were I was terrified because the first the the shooting draft ROM do you remember how long the shooting draft was one hundred and twenty five hundred and thirty pages about my even hundred and thirty I was bracing myself for like Ahad we're gonna have a two hour and 45 minute first cut and our first assembly like the editors assembly it was like two hours and twenty minutes it was actually I think because it cut on the screen much faster than having to describe everything on the page this wasn't a movie where we were like oh my god how are we gonna cut this down there are a couple of really great scenes that we did that ended up on the cutting room floor for pacing but the movie was never outrageously long which was a it was a real relief how many how many did you how many scenes do you have that were cut out of the film there's really there's there's two really good ones there's a great one with Toni Collette and Daniel Ted unfortunately we had to lose but we'll get and they're in the home video release not in the movie but we'll have it as an extra and then there's another really good one with Riki Lindhome who's a fantastic comedian and actress who she's half of a comedy duo called Garfunkel & Oates and she plays Michael Shannon's wife like they're really nervous you know he's blond and there's a great scene where we learn why Michael Shannon is wearing a cast on his leg that I really love but it's just one of those things where it had nothing to do with the scene just pacing wise we end up slicing it up when you make when you remove scenes like that do you actually call the cast and say oh good you want me to hang out in the bathroom and hear about what people hate it you want me to call the cast and tell the guy you're just this is just a torture agents man yeah and you know if I'll tell you if someone's going to get cut out of the movie then you cut you died you make a call and you do like a courtesy call but if somebody's in the movie and it still is a great performance in the movie and there's like one scene that got cut out then yeah I mean depend of gauge it depending but I mean all actors I mean it's it's every you know that it's so so so common actors are so used to it it's not like a big heart you know maybe there's a big heart breaker I don't know yeah but yeah it goes with the job what was the last thing you cut out before picture locking meaning like that last little bit yeah there was no like very last yeah right before it went out the door or something there was nothing dramatic like that I think there was if anything we were like sliding stuff back in at the very last minute the baby driver reference I don't know if that was a good or good I did good there bad idea but Weezy I was like yeah alright okay good thank you very last minute I was like been the last thing so you're welcome that group are there any other Easter eggs or things you would like people to look out for well I mean seeing the movie the second time there's a lot of fun stuff in terms of stuff we hid in the background with you know what actually is happening kind of when you're not aware they're even supposed to be looking for it but that would be telling there's oh you know this is fun the I don't know if you guys are that so one of the big references I gave David crank our production designer for the inside of the house is one of my favorite films in 1970s version of sleuth with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier yes give every sleuth and that along with death trap were kind of big references for the house but sleuth more so and we actually those who know the movie sleuth there's like a findt there's like a kind of a statue of a drunken sailor jolly Jack the sailor and we didn't get these statue but we got a drunken sailor statue and the lion kind of foyer of the house in reference to sleuth it's obviously we all know the title was it almost called something else no it was always called time so I find that and I don't know if you guys find with your stuff is like it's you I find anything you do you either have the title really early or it's a torturous like you can never find it and you're finally just like our we'll call it that okay but this it was once I heard the Radiohead song I just kind of filed it away as that's a really cool turn of phrase be a good murder mystery title are you the type of person that has a lot of unproduced scripts God now I wish I really wish no I'm no I don't I I finished something and then I kind of sit down and figure out what I want to do next and then and then and then work on that which I guess is maybe I don't know maybe that's good because it means whatever I'm doing is the thing I'm it's fresh in terms of its genuinely the thing that you know most excited about saying down doing next I guess I don't know but God that that would be nice drawer full of scripts the cast is so incredible in the movie I'm curious maybe what surprised you specifically about like a Chris Evans or a Christopher or a Michael or if you could name some of the people that you worked with and maybe you know what I mean I think so yeah I mean you know if every one of them is so so different but none that I mean there were no like big surprises with ever anyone I mean Jamie Lee Curtis is just the coolest person in the world but that will surprise no one she's like she is jamie is like the she's got like a very like alpha nerd energy in the coolest way possible she was like the first one this set everyday and and she would just hang out kind of unset and like she's in scenes in the movie she wasn't supposed to be in because she was just there and I was just like Oh Jamie Lee Curtis is here I guess she must be in the scene she must know what she's doing and I would stick her in so and yeah what else I mean you know who is who is really funny as Michael Shannon Michael Shannon is hilarious he's and he's like stealth funny he's funnier because you don't expect him to be as funny as he is because he's so intense he's not really as early a fun guy but he's like yeah he's but he is he's really intense and he's hilarious that he had a couple there's a line in there races like I'm not eating one iota of and like stuff like that he would just he would chuck out and you would just be like did that just come out of Michael Shannon's mouth that's amazing yeah yeah yeah and yeah who else everybody else was like cake Allen who plays a great Nana who is actually 10 years younger than Christopher Plummer [Applause] there's a lot of a lot of age makeup and it gives it takes a lot to give like a performance that's that nonverbal and that good I think she did a really good job I'm always curious how many how many takes do you typically like to do when you're on set just kind of as many as it takes with this one it was not many takes because the the cast was so dialed in everyone clicked in very quickly to what the thing was and I don't know I felt there was a benefit to kind of moving briskly and not like getting bogged down it wasn't like we were you know digging heavy-duty into any kind of method stuff with it this was there the cast kind of knew exactly what they were going for and generally it was two three takes and then moving on but it but I've also I've done many more than that if scenes call for it you know and in this one it just happened to kind of breeze by really quick this is the moment we're gonna I'm going to attempt to get you to throw someone under the bus who ruined the most takes and why there was let me think yeah and that when Ana de Armas who I haven't I haven't gushed about yet Ana is I'm before I say why she ruin takes I'm gonna say how amazing incredible she is she's you ask me like who surprised me the most I think because you know all the other actors in this cast I like you know I did you know their body at work they're all movie stars and I had seen her in Blade Runner I had watched some other stuff of hers but really I just cast her from just meeting her and just you know having her read for the part and she really has to you know for her to step into the middle of this cast like this big-name cast and kind of giving all these big performances for her to step into the center of that and kind of effectively carried the movie that like that that with that amount of confidence she has I think I just think she's extraordinary but when she gets giggly when she gets the giggles and it hurt mostly her and Chris they would like get giggles and it was just be over you'd have to just kind of step away for like 10 minutes you know I mean getting giggles like something they just started to take and they just start laughing it's a thing that happens it's like an infectious giggle thing and and the King sometimes gathered no no I'm sorry anybody yeah you guys know okay yeah yeah okay you've worked with your cinematographer Steve on I think all your films talk a little bit about the collaboration you guys have and what is it like you know how much are you guys setting up the shot you're gonna get before you get on set how much can you sort of talk about that collaboration yeah I mean Steve and I we've we've met when you know he was still a senior in high school and I was a freshman in college we met honest Jenna and film said we've been making movies ever since I hope to keep making them with them the rest of my life and yeah we it's if you hold on to those you know relationships when they get them Steve's amazing he so I I bored out my movies just even roughly I will I will just do a first pass where I just kind of like sketch out visually I'm just because it helps me to show up with the plan but then when we get on set especially the more movies I make I tend to just kind of let it I have that as kind of in the back of my head but then you have to feel out the rehearsal you have to feel out the space and then I you start getting into it and very often it becomes a collaboration with Steve in terms of figuring out how to cover a given scene and the lighting I don't have a head for lighting so I can describe to Steve how I want it to feel I can describe where I want light sources but meaning like the lights really coming in the window and the rest of its darker I can give him references but Steve is the one who really translates that into how it's going to work in the space I mean I think our biggest kind of existential crisis on this movie was this is the first film we've shot entirely digital and i'm a big big film guy and that was a real crisis of faith for me that was like a big discussion and steve is a real tech head who you know he is a color science guy and Steve's argument which look he's right it's art it's hard to argue with is basically you can if you as an artist take control over the post process and you can make that image look however you want it to make however you want to look and seating control over the eventual look by saying that what you shoot on is what delivers the look is untrue and turns you from an artist into a consumer basically saying the brand I choose is what makes it look the way it looks the truth is with imaging technology because everything goes through a digital post chain at this point even with film you're scanning it and doing digital color correction you know you have to if you own that process you can make it look the way you want I wanted to look like film there were a lot of benefits of shooting digital and there's exactly one thirty five millimeter shot in the movie there's one shot of Daniel in that last sequence that's shot on thirty five film from my birthday because Steve knew I was heartbroken he I walked onto set and there he had gotten Panavision to ship out like an old 70s blimped camera like the type they shot like jaws and stand and Godfather on and and we shot one shot on it and it really pisses me off that I see the shot coming I see you had the shot on either side of it and damned if I can you know if I can tell the difference it looks like the movie are you done shooting on film then I don't know man I can't say those words that's too heartbreaking but it's just it's just the entirely you know it's almost like a religious thing it's almost just like I understand it's an entirely emotional thing because the truth is I can't argue with the results I think the movie looks beautiful and I think I've had diehard film people watch it and just say oh I'm so happy you shot on film like I think it does when Steve does his thing I think it's a it looks great and the flip side of that is you know there were movies shot on film every year that looked like they were shot on digital it's all about how you handle it in post basically what cameras is gonna get nerdy I'm so sorry what camera so now it's going to get to use and what lenses because a lot of times people talk about how they'll shoot on digital but then they'll use these Vince winces or certain lenses yeah I mean we you know we shot with the with the Alexa not with like the 65 or anything crazy just the regular Alexa and you know we mostly use prime lenses I think which ones we use the Primo's for this we use very clean lenses they were not like funky old like Krasnogorsk amber like lenses or something from like that we got on eBay or something we use just like in a really good glass from from Panavision and in mostly primes actually and this is actually I mean more interesting than the camera and the net stuff this is the first movie since brick that I've shot 185 as opposed to widescreen ratio and that was really interesting adjusting back to that framing I found it really fun actually going back to kind of that slightly taller framing for for groups of people it was interesting I'm about to open it up to the audience I just want to be clear before I open it up that we're trying to stay spoiler free because people are maybe filming and we're trying to you know keep the spoilers in the room thank you but I am curious every time you speak to a filmmaker they talk about in the editing room that they'll repeatedly go back to like one scene like one scene is the thorn in their in their side what was as long as we were things to spoiler-free was there a scene that you repeatedly went back to there wasn't one that was like god it well you know there was one scene that was like why can't we get this working I don't know if I should tell you guys though because now every time you see the scene you'll be like oh yeah that isn't great it's a it's done though it's a really quick scene it's a scene where rant where ransom and Martha are kind of figuring out what to do with the ransom note before they go to the before they go to the burning building it's kind of it feels like a nothing scene but originally it wasn't originally it was much longer I guess and it wasn't working and we kind of figured that those scenes usually the approaches you can't strip them down so you find exactly what they need to be usually if a scene isn't working it's because it's overridden and so you and the cutting room is kind of figuring out you know getting it down to kind of this the most aerodynamic version of it let's I will tell you that this light makes it actually okay now wait I can finally say I'm blind yes does the audience have microphones are we just gonna sort of scream it we can scream it let's do it so I see a hand right there I see some strong lungs and the audience tonight thank you thank you I love you and also I don't think anyone who doesn't like the last year there's a if anyone's filming this I don't think that everyone has different opinions about movies and so it I mean what-what felt really good coming into this was honestly like this the speed of how fast we did it last Jedi I had the best experience of my life I'm sure I'll be on my deathbed and be thinking that'll be kind of you know I don't know I won't be able to die angry about anything because I will have gotten when I've worked and I've gotten to work in the Star Wars world but it was four years to make one movie and so it felt really good to come and just like hit this really quick and just do something that we didn't get too precious about and I don't know in terms of like you know the the Jake Jacob character the Nazi child masturbating in the bathroom that's I mean that's not like a you know it's I don't know it's I don't know if you guys will believe me it's not an actual specific thing against anything Star Wars to me that's just the whole thing the whole thing with this movie was okay let's take a whodunit and plug it in to 2019 let's make it modern day and that means to me not just giving you know Colonel Mustard a cellphone that means the characters in it are gonna be character types who you can only exist in 2019 for better or very worse and if you're on the internet in any capacity you it's this is not a phenomenon that's unique to Star Wars there are just there are trolls who do this kind of gamified version of trolling which you know is ultimately at the end the day kind of silly and boring and I thought it would be fun to have a laugh at it oh yeah I mean was I scared showing up with all these guys yeah I was my pants I was really terrified but but they're all fantastic actors and at the end of the day that makes your job easy I guess you know because what you're doing fine tuning and you're not like oh my god can we get it you're showing up and kind of actually doing the work of fine tuning and I also I mean you know big as much as I get through Christie books we're a big inspiration for this I grew up watching like my favorite Agatha Christie's are the ones where Peter Ustinov plays Poirot so it's death on the Nile evil Under the Sun and those movies I guess Murder on the Orient Express kind of started out they're big they're very pointedly all star casts that's one of the pleasures we're putting on a big show this is a spectacle and when we sat down and make this movie I really consciously wanted to do this I think I said to Rahm I said you know we want an all-star cast with this it's one of the things every person who shows up you should say oh it's that person you know you had that reaction so yeah and I think I should get a piece man piece of that action call it call Barbara broccoli get on the phone no no I don't I mean I don't know I did they they worked what really well together in Daniel you know they I'm sure that something I do it but also I know she had she had she told me she had met before knives out she had met Carrie before and she had met barber before and so I think they had a relationship but yeah I'm sure Daniel liked having a good time working with her on this didn't didn't hurt I'm so excited to see her and it's gonna be fun and I'm excited this year she just played Marilyn Monroe is she has finished shooting in Andrew Dominic's new movie which is gonna be insane it's gonna be amazing she was like showing me like camera tests she was doing while we were unsaid so I'd be like directing her all day as Marta and then she'd show me her done up as Marilyn Monroe and I'd be like who are you also anything that Andrew does should be a you know when those films come out it's a national top of the list completely man that guy's a beast yeah yeah yeah no a hundred percent let's go to the left Wow I see you right there sure no no it actually would my family I'm a really big family I'm really close to them and they're nothing like the family in this movie they're really lovely amazing people mom I'm looking right in the camera but but I did grow up in a really big family and you know the anyone who did you know the family politics the family dynamic I national pastime and our family is having a good argument so and all the tensions in the family and the politics of just being in the big family so there's nothing specific and this is from my family but generally I think you know just growing up in that kind of loving environment that's also the game of Thrones a little bit in the most loving way definitely informed it yeah he started training as the instant we hired him and he worked really intensely with a dialect coach and I gave him the reference of the historian Shelby Foote to listen to this deep Mississippi accent but Daniel is like a very trained actor he's done a lot of theater I knew that he could click into that accent money when you needed to yeah yeah good yeah I did I mean I did one thing that I wanted to put a lot of humor into it I wanted to be really fun and but then also I was really I had to be really clear when we started making it that it was you know because I think people's reference for these things tends to be clue or murder by death which I love those movies but I had to be really clear hopefully there's a lot of humor in that this is not a parody this is it was a very fine line in terms of we're doing a murder mystery here we're not doing a parody of murder mysteries thanks man appreciate ya Mike yeah because of Nathan I we talked about sharp strings I mean yeah so I hadn't listened to a lot of Greek and a lot of classical references this is Nathan's first orchestral score I think he I'm so proud of it man yeah [Applause] thank you yeah yeah yes you have to go quick yeah thank you first of all the big that for me the big lesson in this movie was blocking large groups of actors and because there were scenes in this they had like eight or ten people in them and the more and more that like I think that when I was like I've been so fat like I think you start out thinking of camera angles in terms of directing and thinking of cool camera angles and camera moves and everything more and more recently I start thinking I think about blocking and staging what we would call staging there's been some really great videos recently about how like Spielberg is a master of staging his actors where they're standing in relation to each other when they move and then where the camera is in relation to them and that me watch Michael Curtiz movies he's a master of staging and so yes staging large groups of people was kind of the the thing that I felt like I got the most practice with him this one thanks [Applause] oh yeah the donut reference I'm not remember when in the back of your through a story behind the the drawn-out drawn-out donut reference yeah I had wanted just that I feel like in mysteries it's kind of a fun trope that the detective always has some kind of nonsense elaborate kind of metaphor for how his process works with the case or something that doesn't really make sense and so I wanted to get Benoit one of those and I wrote it I almost cut it in the script that's almost like as it's doing that thing I don't know it's kind of silly and Daniel was like let me try something with and then he went at that donut speech with like the fervor of like a Pentecostal preacher or something like just fire in his eyes I are watching it being like I'm really glad I didn't cut the doing this yeah Lionsgate has been terrific in terms of involving me and ROM in in all the trailers and we don't like cut them or something like they they cut them and then they take feedback from us especially regarding spoilers and there's it's tough it's a really really fine line it's really hard because you know you do have to kind of sell the movie and but you have to be really I'm very conscious I've been probably a little oversensitive in terms of what we give away now that you guys have seen it I'll be curious if you watch the trailer to see kind of like I don't know whether you think it tips anything I think out of context from knowing the movie it we did we do okay with it but it's always a fine line yeah going from first to finally you mean like during that process of rewriting yeah yeah yeah I got I got a couple of like trusted friends that I'd show it to every time my producer is someone I show it to and then just write her friends really you know people that you can like get that will really be honest with you because you want brutality in that fig you don't want brutality but you need brutality in that phase you know and then it's just working it over and over and over again and just trying to you know just simplify simplify and just but you know it sounds like you're ready you know it's it's like it the tough balance is always you get notes from people and you realize trying to parse out with a very small sample size what what notes you want to what notes you need to you need to get in there and do changes for and what notes are you know either personal preferences or quirks or how the person was feeling that that's the part that like I feel like you never quite figure out you always kind of just gotta do your best you know yeah yeah I mean I think the in terms of prepping it was I think we focused the most on we didn't we got a little bit of rehearsal time with the actors but not much we got to we got to rehearse Anna and Christopher Plummer in a really that really crucial scene with them and we got to do a little bit of her sing with Daniel and Anna but mostly it was it was largely the design it was the house it was the deck the set deck in the house it was the build a couple builds we had to do and it was scouting locations and finding locations because it was so fast we kind of just had to do that the essentials of it and then and then a lot of work was Steve on like pre lighting and stuff I say 17 or 18 times it is a movie that's designed to be watched multiple times I'll be excited to hear from you how it stacks up yeah right right there yeah yeah so that chair so the chair is not attached to the big nice thing the knife thing is kind of like a big industrial barbecue great with all these knives on it and I've had it ran in the script as like a religious icon made of knives and then we got on set and I lined up my first shot I said oh that looks great I put the chair in front of it and put the person in the chair and I said it's Game of Thrones it's okay so I'd like Game of Thrones she picked it she picked that song I was like flipping through with my like you know with my like that what I thought she a dancer and she's sidles up and she goes just put this on and I was like okay so she picked it and then we had to pay them clear it no but if anyone reads about someone who has that condition let me know because it wasn't me that maybe wanted to meet them ya know it just gave me a storytelling thing and just making life as hard as possible for that character take away the one thing well the one tool they have to get out of their situation and do it kind of in the biggest splashes way possible I guess oh bring your families opening weekend good now seriously if this movie I mean I'd we'll see how this one does you know but um Daniel and I had so much fun doing if I could get together with them and do a new Benoit Blanc every few years I would that would love it we almost got really cheeky and put like at the end of the scroll Benoit Blanc will return there we decided not to tempt the fates and yeah so Frank and I we became like you know it became good friends working on last Jedi and he's just a sweetest man in the world and I you know I grew up like watch seeing him pop up in little roles and like the Blues Brothers and I was like you think he'd come down and then do it and he was I think he he at least claimed he hated he hates being on camera like just being on camera and I couldn't tell if he was just claiming that he actually loves it but I don't think so I think he actually hates it so I meant it meant so much to me he was so incredibly kind to come down and do it I think it just makes me so happy to see him in their favorite scene to shoot that's a tough one they're so different I really love the ones with the whole families together just because the energy unsaid when you have all those actors yelling at each other even though it was kind of laborious with all the coverage the energy in the room it's just yeah yeah it's pretty cool yeah I told them give him the apology saying when there was a window XP computer give him the shittiest laptop you can find it's good I give them they give you the laptop that my grandfather would have basically right now so yeah [Music] yeah so the the idea that she was an immigrant and the idea of that tying in thematically to like the shape of the whole thing that I had actually had for a while that actually predated like the election even that had been something that had been an integral part of it but then of course with the last few years you know that really juiced it all and made it just feel even more you know I don't know even motivated me even more to just be more and more explicit and of course the stuff it's very explicit about it we can do that because because we because it all happened so fast you know and even then while I was writing I that was you know God that would it would have been lovely if some of those specific stuff had been dated and we had to cut it out but unfortunately you know that was Don Johnson yeah yeah the way he just it he did it in one take and right after we called cut everyone is just like looking like did you just do that that's amazing and we actually we had two cameras rolling one interesting little editing thing at one point we because we have like a more frontal shot of it where you see her take it and we cut to that and then we realized at some point it was it was much funny if we said we're on kinda weird side angle yeah it's almost incidental to the shot and humor wise it was one of those strange things in the Edit room we found it worked much better if we didn't draw attention to it yeah yeah well thank you I'm glad that you liked it I wanted to hold off the point where he enters the conversation so I wanted to just to kind of like hold him back as this mysterious figure and I thought okay well maybe there's a logic to it like he's worked out this code with detective Elliot where like when he hits the piano key he's supposed to ask a certain question and they have this thing going on mostly though I just wanted it to be kind of weird I wanted us be leaning forward and saying wait who is that guy so that when he finally enters you're you've been kind of leaning forward like okay we finally get to meet this guy oh god it's been great hear from movies god I mean you know parasite is hard to beat I loved uncut gems the lighthouse I loved there you know there's a little movie that came and went really quickly but the last black man in San Francisco and now if anyone got to see that I thought it was gorgeous the Irishman I can't get married Stuart yeah I'm gavel sighs so no I'm gonna have a hard time making it even my top ten at the end of this year yeah I've uh I've actually I want to interject real quick and say I've been doing this for a long time and this year has been on we're in a good year guys yeah so could uh get out there and see some movies yeah oh my god feeling this crowd seeing most of them yeah yeah also this movie called knives out yeah yeah just Sojo more than Levitt he's he is detective hardrock you guys catch where he he's the voice on the iPad and the cop thing at the beginning he's like we have the nanny cam footage that's Joe doing his best doing his best David Caruso and but I it's been a couple movies now where I've had because I need Joe and every movie I do and and it's been a couple of movies now where I've had to get man as a voice and I'm I'm sick of it I want them in front of the camera so hopefully hopefully next time it'll work out yeah on that note I'm just gonna say and I mean this sincerely a huge thank you to Ryan Johnson I just want to remind everybody that you know every movie no matter how good it is can always use the love on social because social is really important so if you enjoyed the movie please talk about it hash tag knives out or is it knives out movie I think it's just now I'm so and if you're hanging on Thanksgiving and you're sick of your terrible family drag them to see this terrible family because at least they're funny yeah and and again if any of you guys are tweeting about this tonight if you hashtag Collider screening or Collider screenings plural sorry Dorian Collider screenings and I will retweet and embed and all that stuff but huge thank you to Lionsgate and Arclight and everybody for being here so thank you guys so much [Applause]

Channel: Collider Interviews

Views: 25,534

Rating: 4.6888332 out of 5

Keywords: collider, celebrity interview, collider interview, interview, movie stars, Rian Johnson, Knives Out, Video Interview, ArcLight, ArcLight Cinemas, Screening, Q&A

Id: h7uR0cJYBZI

Length: 54min 25sec (3265 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019