- One of these "Avengers" movies, you, like, take off your shirt, I think. You were in really good shape. And the director was like, "We got it." You're like, "Ugh, can I please stop dieting and working out now?" - (laughs) Exactly. - There is no one I've ever come across who is actually more
anxious to not be vain past the point where it is necessary to achieve an end for their work. - Is that a compliment?
- It's a huge compliment. (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Robert Downey Jr. and I met in 1995. - Yep. - And I was dating an old
friend of his, Sunrise Coigney. - Correct, who was close with
my previous administration, Deborah Falconer. - And we were over at, I think, well, it was that beautiful kind
of Spanish style in the hills that had that-
- On Grace Avenue. - That's right. Grace Avenue. And Sunny brought me over to meet Debbie. And you came by, and I was like, "Holy shit, that's Robert Downey!" So I was like, "Hey, Robert." - Yeah. Don't flatter me too much. We were already hearing
about this Mark Ruffalo guy who was making a splash and
was gonna be on the come up. - Ah.
- Yeah. You didn't buy that. Do you
want me to try another take? - (laughs) No, no. I was just bartending at that time, and that's what you heard about me. but Sunny did see something in me. - Yeah. Really, I would say, we knew
each other, ancillary reasons, but we really met when
Fincher cast us in "Zodiac." And I remember, Mark is doing
a scene in a phone booth, about Take 218, and I'm visiting San Francisco
'cause I'm about to start. - That's right. - And I could just see the
character that you had built, and I was like, "Oh my
god, I better find one." - That's great. You are amazing. Didn't we do a table read, too? - Yes. - Yeah, we did that table read. That movie was, what a wild ride that was. - Yeah, I called Fincher recently, because in retrospect, everything changes. It's like, 15 years later, you have such a different
perspective on stuff, you know? And then, for me, even
after working with Nolan, I developed a new respect for Fincher. But I remember, that
was maybe the first time we really had our feet put to the fire with an exacting
director, a real director, who does things a certain way. I mean, the result was,
you know, people still say, "That scene with you and
Ruffalo in the parking lot," or those scenes and blah, blah,
blah. And I kind of go like, I've just had a vague memory of it all. - Yeah. Me too. But that is on the top level
of so many people's favorites. - I have a story to tell. - Okay, okay. - We are shooting a
scene in the mail room, and we've done it about 60 times. - 60, yeah. - And Mark's been working
a bunch of days in a row. I'm feeling a bit mischievous. And he's like, "We got it, right? And I was like, "Yeah,
this is ridiculous." And then Fincher says,
"Well, do we got it?" He goes, "Downey, come here. I want the scene to start like this. I want it to work out-" "You want it to work as a
oner? No, we don't have it." And he goes, "Downey
says, we don't have it. So Mark, you can go to lunch. We'll scrap all those takes
and we'll start over again." And you just looked at me.
- Exactly! He invented the delete button. There was no delete button
ever in digital cinema. And he specifically had it
invented so that he could say, "We're gonna delete takes 1 through 45." Bzzt! And you're just
like, "No, no, no, no! 38 was my baby! - (laughs) But isn't it
because some part of this just wants to be off
the hot seat and done? And we also know that
there's always that thing. A, you wanna make Mom or Dad happy. B, you kind of just, it's
not that you want to be done, it's that you want to feel that there's progress that's being made because you're helping. - Yes, and you just want someone to say, "That was good enough. Let's move on." Do you feel like, after all this time, that you still have that kind of, that sort of push and pull with it? - Of course. Yeah, everything is... It's a constant battle between
either seeking approval or seeking my own subjective, kind of like, being able to maintain
interest over time, you know. And then we had this on this whole decade-and-a-half Marvel run, where we were just looking
at each other like, "God, we're really lucky. What are we doing? Who's a wizard? Who's coming from outer space?" Which I think was another great challenge. - Yeah. Oh, from where we came from. - Yeah. - I mean, I'll never
forget, you know, you... We don't have to go
down this road, but you- - Let's go down it. - To see this great character indie actor who is always doing this
great character work so alive, so relatable, so human, to take that step into a studio world, which was totally different
back then than it is now. You and I know what that is.
It was such a different world. They didn't really cast people like us. Just to see you transform that whole concept of
what a studio picture was, and to elevate sort of this character work within that big tent pole system, which appealed so massively
to so many different people, and made the space for
other people like us. You know, I'll never forget. I was like, "I don't know
if I'm right for this." And you're like, "Come
on, Ruffalo. We got this." - Yeah, how's that new brownstone
on the Upper West Side? - Thank you.
- Yeah. Oh, please, dude. I mean, I don't know who thanks who. It really is odd for
those watching at home. It is a surreal experience
to be sitting here with you all these years later, and now to both be here
on behalf of projects that I think we're so proud of, and are done by such gifted filmmakers. You know, you kind of wonder, right, like, "Didn't I already have my Act Two? Isn't this the slow decline?
Have they foamed the runway?" So back to your first question. Of course. It's nowhere to live, though, right? It's nowhere to live
thinking your best days or your best creative
moments are behind you. A, it's not true, and B,
it's just debilitating. - Yeah. Which is why I
even brought this up. - (laughs) Okay. - Because, you know, you've done it all. I mean, you have it all. You don't have to prove
anything to anybody. - Dad. Oh, no, go ahead. - Well, Dad, even, to some degree, you got that at the end, you know? - Sure.
- In the most beautiful way. And then you come and you do
this part in "Oppenheimer." - Dr. Oppenheimer. An honor. - Mr. Strauss. - It's pronounced "straws." - It's just another level, you know? It's just, you break it all down. You put yourself out in a
way that you didn't have to. We see a total character, a
physical change, a vocal change, a different kind of guy. None of the mannerisms of anything that we'd ever seen before that you had perfected and had become so second nature to you. And to have that kind discipline and that kind of reach, you know, for that next thing is, like, really admirable, and why I
have always looked up to you, and why I continue to look up to you. And that thing still, I
mean, talk about that. What was that? Why is that still alive? - I mean, look, and then we will move on to a
far more interesting subject, which is you in "Poor Things." Alls I know is I got a call. Chris Nolan. I knew kind of what it was.
I went over to his house. It was black type on red paper, you know, and they send it like
that so you can't copy it. - Yes. It was like sudoku to
get through 180 pages. And I left there just
knowing I was gonna do it. And everybody, you know,
Susan and everyone, was like, "You need a challenge like this." And I go, "I don't like
it when everyone else is telling me what I need." And the truth be told
is it all wound up to, I've tried everything else; how about trying to really focus on doing as little as possible just once? And correspondingly, I have... I've known you a long time. I know what you're like when you're feeling froggy and you're
kind of having a good time and you're loose. I know what you're like
when you're pensive. I know what you're like
when you're concerned about the state of the world. I know what you're like
when you're comfortable with the homeostasis. But I did not know that this character existed inside of you. - You are in my sun. - What? - I remember how apprehensive
you were about doing this too, just as I had all this approaching anxiety.
- Yes, did you have that apprehension, too? - For Lewis Straus? Of course. - Because you always wonder,
someone else believes in you. You know that person is formidable. You've seen their other work. You go, "Wow, this is,
like, an opportune moment." And yet it's natural to have that doubt. - And I'm interested to know, for Duncan, how you got past that approach anxiety. Because you're just, you're
such a thoughtful guy, and you're one of the
people that I always say has such a strong and
formidable moral psychology, and you really don't
make decisions lightly. So knowing what an absolute archetype cad, misogynist, self-centered, shaming, blaming guy, but you redeemed it with this
spark that was so delightful. I can't tell you what a joy
it was watching you in this, and seeing the whole arc,
the way you constructed it. But I wanna know what it was
like before, during, and after. - It did scare the shit out of me. (Robert laughing) And I did say, "Well, you know, this isn't the kind of guy I play." You know, I had all that,
I'm embarrassed to say. And Sunny, my wife Sunrise, was
like, "You have to do this." And everyone was like,
"You have to do it." Just like you. "You have to do it." But you really have to get
outside of your comfort zone. And you also start to doubt yourself. Like you were saying, you hit 55, and you are kinda like, "Maybe
it's as good as I'll get. Maybe I am on the downward
slide of this thing." I also at that time was, like, really kind of tired of my brand, you know? Whatever people, you put
on yourself, you know? - And isn't it funny when
our wives will flat out say, "Don't worry, everyone
else is tired of it, too. That's why you need to do this." But with Yorgos and McNamara, I think you obviously had
just two amazing partners in knowing how it would be executed and what was in the text. And I've gotten to speak at
least to McNamara recently. So what was that process like
for you, just a little bit? And at what point in the
shoot did you feel like, "Oh, okay, I'm cooking
with gas now. I get it." I don't even know what
scene you shot first. I would love to just know that. - Well, we had this
amazing rehearsal period, which we've never had. And it was literally 10
days of just theater games. Dancing, singing, movements, playing with each
other's faces and bodies, and then playing together as a group. We probably spent maybe only
20% on the actual script. And when we did read the
script, we were telling people, "You have to raise your voice!" Anytime you lifted your hand, that person would have
to raise their voice when they were doing the line. You had to touch someone's face
when you were doing a line, and in the middle of a line say, "This is the most beautiful part of you." And its so just, like, it obliterated your ideas of what you think it should be. And the script is still
there living in you, so as you're playing the character, the story still kind of
like surfacing its way up through the subconscious a little bit. And you just get really free, and you could go broad, or you could go small,
and no one's judging. Everyone's laughing, or
they'll nod, and there's no... You can't do anything wrong. You can't do anything right, really. And then you have those great words. The script is really telling you a lot. I mean, who gets to say, you
know, some of the stuff I say? The first day, though, it was a screen test that
turned into our first day. Yorgos Lanthimos had
billed it as a screen test. But we're in full costume, full set, full everybody, everyone's there. And it's a scene between me and Willem. - Okay, yeah.
- Willem Dafoe. It's the only scene we
really had together. And I'm sweating bullets. I am shitting my pants. I'm like, "What in the
hell am I doing here?" - I like that Willem
is in full SFX makeup, and you're sweating. - And he's sitting there like this. (Robert laughing) - "Really?" And Yorgos comes up to me, he's like, "Oh, what are you doing?" And I said, "I don't know." "He said, "You already
did this in rehearsal. (Robert whistles) You know what you're doing." And then he walked away. - So wait, break that down. What did that mean, and why did it help? - You know, you get in
front of the camera, and then you're just, "I gotta be." - You gotta do something.
- I have to do something. - God, man, we're
literally on the same page. - Right?
- It's crazy. - I have to do something. And he was like, "You don't
have to do anything. You did it. You are it. Don't do anything. Don't do the look. You don't have to tell
us what's going on here. Trust what we did." And he scrapped that first day. (laughs) I had to reshoot the first day. - Great. It wasn't the first day.
It was a screen test, Mark. You said so.
- It was a screen test. - Wow. I wish every first
day it was a screen test. - I know. Isn't it genius? - Yeah.
- I have to say, I also stole from you in this. - Great. - Some of Sherlock
Holmes, Charlie Chaplin. I mean, you more than any other actor, you have this kind of physical mischief. You know the cad very well. - It's the gift that keeps on giving, isn't it?
- It's beautiful. - Well, thanks for that. We're all always drawing
from myriad influences, conscious and otherwise, you know. But again, it's so funny how... 'Cause I remember seeing
you on screen first. And I know, right when I was starting off, I seemed to have this ability
to say, "Be subtle. Do less. Let the emotion come to the forefront." Sometimes I watch stuff
I did when I was younger, and I just go, "Well,
that's how you should do it. What the hell am I doing nowadays?" And obviously we fall
into ruts and patterns. You know, with Nolan, very much unlike Yorgos,
but also effective, we were doing screen tests on IMAX, which is crazy. So you know that you're being captured in like a David Lean sort of format. And some part of you is going,
"What's this gonna be like?" You're just trusting the
director, and Hoyte van Hoytema, who obviously, this is what they do. And when they go, "This
was good, it was good," you're kind of like, "All
right, so I'm off the hook," and you would go back and
sit in your set chair. No you wouldn't, 'cause
there were no set chairs. So it was very spartan and very like 100 people making a watch every day. And I've had experiences
like you discussed, and I love that feeling like
I'm going back to basics, and a sense of play, and
melding with the cast. I think because of the
nature and the scope of what Chris was doing, there honestly just wasn't time for that, or money, or energy, or whatever. And the schedule actually
became even more truncated for reasons as we approached shooting. So then it felt like every
day we were just doing something that he knew what he was after. He had written it. He was directing it. And it was a very small
amount of people on set. And I liked that, too, 'cause that reminds me of
being a kid with my dad. And it's him and his
cameraman and the editor, and some college dropouts, gaffers. It's just kind of like, let's
try something, you know? - I had no idea there was
that kind of intimacy. When I think of his films, I'm just seeing this, like, mass scale. That makes a lot of sense, because there are some
really intimate performances in that film. And I was wondering, how were they able to settle down with such a big production around them? - Because it's all he cares about, and he demands and requires
this almost monastic energy. You know, there are beyond no frills, which, as we know, having been
very well taken taken care of in certain situations, you kind of feel like you're
being stripped of your armor, which he does intentionally, but he also does it
just so there's this... It just creates a different vibe. And then you're moving at
such a clip that you realize, if you're not getting
and staying in the zone, and not checking your phone, and not hanging out at craft service, oh, there is no craft service, that you're going to miss
the pace of what he's doing. But at the same time, I've
never, ever in my career worked with a less judgmental director. I've been in situations
that were exacting, and it seemed like if I would
just do it correctly one time, we wouldn't have to still be here, whereas that was the exact opposite. He said, "We do all these things to give you the time you need, and see what kind of time you
might need or I might want," and all that stuff. I felt that there was
both in "Poor Things." And I FaceTimed Emma, and really wanted to
reach out to everyone. But it was this thing where
you all seemed to have this very concise execution, but you feel all the sense of play in it, and you feel the... It was really a high-wire act. Was it fun? It must've been fun. - Oh, it was the time of my life, I mean, once I got to
play that guy with no sense of self-consciousness, or, you know, no sense
of morality, really, no sense of any bounds whatsoever
that hold us, you know. - But you redeemed him because
there's something so lonely, and it's almost like he wants to wake up, but there's something that's
happening, or happened. But also, I have never
seen you play someone who is hopelessly hung up on
something he can't control. And I think it was genius casting, because it was this thing that I could... There's a version of you where, if Sunny had rejected your advances, you may have pined after her for a decade. - Totally lost. I'd still be living in the
garage that she found me in. - Oh, brother. - It's beautiful. Yeah, it was a blast. It was such a gift. You know, that moment where you're like, "I don't know which way to go anymore. I don't even know how I
feel about this anymore." - I know you, dude. Even that senior on the bench, and you're yelling the C word, and I'm just like, "This
is not my brother here." Like, it's just not in your wheelhouse to think, to act, or behave that way. So were you ever feeling like, if not self-conscious about
it, a little bit, like, "I don't even know if this is something I wanna do as an exercise, because I would not want to
ever normalize this on screen." So I'm wondering. - Well... And we're also living
in this just incredibly oppressive feeling time. - Yeah. There's not a lot of room to be a human being
anymore, it feels like. And that goes from art to society to... I mean, it's just, it just feels incredibly oppressive. And something about that movie, it's just like, you know,
fighting out against it. And it's walking like a... There is a disastrous self-destructive quality about it, you know,
that felt so antithetical to this oppressive time
that we're living in. Even though the character is
so dark, and so fucked up, and so selfish, and all the things that
we're not supposed to be- - It's almost like you're
behaviorally modeling the world that you're wondering about. - And blowing it open. - Yeah. - You know, all the eyes are on us. Everyone's eyes are on us all the time, and we have to be a certain way, and we have to look a certain way, and we have to sound a certain way, and our cabinets have got to be stocked with a certain kind of product, you know? - This sounds very mid-century to me. - And it's just like, you know, we're getting squashed into these boxes that don't let us express ourselves the way that we're made
to express ourselves. - Your behavior is
unconscionable. Will you behave? - The food was hacking my
throat, the baby annoying. - That was my experience of
getting to say the C word at the top of my lungs, getting to be a cad, because underneath all
that is still humanity. All of that behavior, there's still a humanity
underneath that, right? - That was the thing, the fact that I'm feeling
bad for you in those moments. And again, it's so
masterfully constructed, because of course it's a fable, but it's really underselling
it to call it a fable. And the fact that, with all
of the indulgences that occur, it doesn't feel exploitative,
of the artists, of the medium. It feels very much like a reverse empowerment story, that you have to tell it
in almost this kind of fantastic way to be able
to get all the information that's being downloaded. There's just so much wisdom in there. - That's such a great
way of expressing it. - But hats off to you, dude. - Hats off to you, man. Seriously, Robert. You're of those fine artists who is constantly growing as they move through their career. That's rare, and you are that, and I love you for it. And you have everything, Robert, you know. You don't need to do that. - What a terrible place to be. - What do you mean? - To, quote, unquote, if it's true, to be said about any of
us who have everything. Is that that sense of completion? And also convincing myself,
"I should be perfectly happy, as I have everything." And yet you go like, "We know where the work
is that's left to be done. I know those little corners
that I sweep the dust into, that I spend a lot of time
making sure nobody sees. I know, if not the defects, I know the things that I
haven't really looked at. And again, you know, the
crazy thing for me is, I've been obsessed for the
last five to seven years, before Chris called me, probably longer, with the culture of the Cold War, because I felt it was so back upon us. And so by the time Chris called, I actually knew a fair
amount about Lewis Strauss, 'cause I had done a lot of deep dives into all the characters around this time, because I think it informed and
then led to the Vietnam era, which is the era that I/we, I'm older than you, were born in, and was everything I was seeing on TV that wasn't a Nabisco commercial or a Charlie Brown cartoon, was this dark mistrust of our misplacing of our
forefathers' highest wishes, and that kind of dark
corruption and all that stuff. So that has to be born
out of this Cold War, that is born out of looking
for answers to, you know, the conflict of World War II. - And you were already down
that road when this came along? - Yeah, and you know, I have to credit my deceased grandfather, Captain Robert Elias, who I never met. I had this fascination
with the grandfather that I had never met. And I looked at pictures of
him, and it reminded me of Dad. And my dad told me about him. he was deployed in
Sicily and North Africa. He was, yeah, around. But then he became a glass manufacturer, and his big claim to
fame was that his family had done the glass for
the Chrysler building. - My family painted the Chrysler building. They're construction painters. - So you see the touch points? That's how close we
are to all this, right? - Yeah. - And so that's, you know,
light blue collar stuff to do. And pleased as punch about that, I think, his marriage to my grandmother, who wound up being kinda
like a "Vogue" model, and a bit of an absentee parent to my dad. No wonder. He just kept going back overseas, 'cause he didn't wanna deal with a marriage that wasn't working. So anyway, always been into it, but I had been
doing this deep dive. So then I felt like I had an idea of someone who might've
been back in that time. And then Lewis Strauss was the
president of Temple Emanu-El, which we've walked by in New York a bunch. And I just did my little
Lewis Strauss tour. - He's a kind of a
Salieri kind of, you know. - That's what Chris said.
- Well, I'm here to tell you that I know J. Robert Oppenheimer, if he could do it all over,
he'd do it all the same. - What did you relate to in that? - Bro, come on. I mean, whether you're
here or in New York, we will never forget, and I think still are
imbued with the sense of being on the outside looking in. And when will it ever happen for us? And so-and-so's doing it.
And so-and-so's doing it. And I'm going to be left behind. And why even bother to dream? But the truth be told is, he's both, 'cause he's a self-made guy who was a lifelong civil servant. But how refreshing it was to
not be playing the genius, the gifted one, all that stuff. All the characters and the
audience and the script imbues you with this status
that you don't really possess, but you presume it. And I know what it's
like to wish someone else hadn't embarrassed me in the street, wished that I'd gotten
past that velvet rope to go into that club, wished that I'd gotten a
callback for that part, wished that I'd gotten a
second date with that girl. Wished, wished, wished, wished. Unlike Strauss, I wasn't
doing the right things while I was wondering why my life wasn't going the right way. This is someone who, you know, from working for President Wilson, to the getting the Jewish
refugees the notice they needed to be given support when that
wasn't even popular in the US, to this, to that, to this. Every single step of his life, of course, was consciously looking
toward a political payoff, but he really just
wanted to be acknowledged by the people that he admired. And so Chris constructed
this story to what happens when people don't listen to each other and don't make space for each other. Or, in this case, of someone
who can't even relate to people because he's got the weight
of the world on his shoulders. But that still doesn't
mean they don't feel like, "Hey, you know what? If I get a chance to
stick it to you, I will, because you embarrassed me three times. Three times! At my birthday party that you attended, when you blow off me
introducing my daughter, when you, you know, give
me crap in the Senate, and when I don't understand
this conversation we're having." So anyway, mid-century insanity. - And we're still living with it today. That's such a great performance, man. (suspenseful music) (foghorn bellows) - Why do people not just
do this all the time? - Hmm. - If we wanna talk about
courage under fire, the fact that 11 seconds
into this performance, you are buck naked and going for it in a way that, again, wasn't
gratuitous, but it was very... - Raw?
- How was that? And is that really how you get down? (both laughing) - I don't know, Robert. - That to me is the ultimate risk. - It was the one part
of the thing I was like, "Do I have to? What are
we gonna do with this?" And all I can hear is like, "Nobody wants to see your old ass anymore. Maybe you shouldn't be doing
movies like that anymore." I mean, it's my least favorite
part of it, but you know. I also saw it as very comedic, and also like an extension
of the physical comedy that we're already sort of finding. So it was just another
way to tell the story. - I just wanna say this too,
because knowing you forever, on one of these "Avengers" movies, you, like, take off your shirt or thing. You were in really good shape. And the director was,
I don't know if it was- - Whedon?
- It might've been Joss. It might've been the Russos. But anyway, he was like, "We got it." You're like, "Ugh, oh, can I please stop dieting and working out now?" - (laughs) Exactly. - There is No one I've ever come across who is actually more
anxious to not be vain past the point where it is necessary to achieve an end for their work. - Is that a compliment?
- It's a huge compliment. But I gotta say, A, you
look pretty bangable to me, in case you were wondering.
- Thank you. thanks, man. - Because the guy, I mean- - I mean, yeah. - Yeah. It was pretty good.
- He is who he is. - And by the way, the costumes. I don't even wanna-
- The costumes! - If we start going down
the road of just, like, all of the delights of
the department heads. It was shot in- - Budapest.
- In Budapest, right? So you get all those artisans,
and they're all there, and just, you're getting so much value, but it's still this kind
of fantastical backgrounds. But then everything you're
physically seeing is just so- - Fine. - Fine down to the detail. I mean, dude, I'm literally
looking at the back of some of your jackets, going,
"God, I've never been able to wear a jacket with
a cool cut like that." - Do you know I had an ass pad in? My legs were like four inches
bigger. My calf was four. I mean, he really wanted the silhouette. So I was wearing a corset
with, like, shoulder pads. So I was so squeezed in.
- It's beautiful. - And you know, that whole... That was the corset.
That was the high collar. It was the whole thing. - Are you wearing a corset
in one of the scenes? - Yes, I wearing a corset
when I take off the thing. - It's genius. - Duncan wears a corset. Yeah, I mean, that stuff was... It was even more extreme. He wanted me to look like a bird. I had this whole built-out
chest piece that I was wearing. It never made it, 'cause it
was just, it was too much. But the big ass pads, the
leg pads, the thigh pads, the calf pads, those were all playing. So when you look at that, and you're like, "Wow, he looks great," now you know, I was just
wearing what the Avengers wear, but underneath my clothes. - Honestly, I didn't expect that there
was any augmentation going on. So it was done really well. Yeah, but the bird chest
would've been too much. But I think I know what he was going for, particularly with all the hybrids that are occurring in the movie, and the nature of it. - It's just to tweak it. - But I love it when a
director has an instinct, that they go, "I have this instinct. I'm sticking to it, I'm
sticking to it. I'm wrong." And they dump it. That's when I begin to
really trust someone. They are changeable,
and they're not fixed. They're not obsessive.
They're actually exploring. - And Yorgos, we explored all the time. It was all an exploration. - I just wanna say, before
we run out on this card, so many of your scenes
are with Emma Stone, and I am pretty obsessed with her now. I've always thought she was great, but this is just such a defining moment as an actor for her, watching her. And you have the joy, and
also, you know, the ability, it seems like you guys just had this, you had great chemistry.
- Thanks. - What was that whole arc like,
and supporting her in this? - Well, I mean, I think
she's one of the greats, and still, like, developing
into how great she's gonna be. You know, I'm insecure,
and she gets that about me, and at the same time
is so nurturing to me. We were kind of playing
that part with each other, 'cause you know, in a lot of ways, this could've been disastrous. We're right on a razor's edge. You could easily fall over, you know? And so we both had a lot of fear and insecurity about it. And so we just found ourselves really taking care of each other. But then also all that play. Like, Emma laughs. Her laugh travels the world, you know. When she laughs, it comes up to your feet, and bubbles up through your body, and next thing you know,
you're just lit up with that. And to have that... You know, every time, every take, we're both sort of laughing and playing and seeing how far we could push it, and turning into these... There's just a lot of space to just... It was just very safe between us. And so to turn into these two people, to come back like Mark and Emma, and then all of a sudden, you
know, become Bella and Duncan. - It's great, man, there's such amazing just physical choreography
between the two of you that it seemed like
some of it was managed, but a lot of it was discovered. But you can tell when you
have a good dance partner, because it just seemed like
you guys really knew how to do, to share the stage. - And that came a lot from our rehearsal, because we were doing all
this movement stuff together. And so we were moving. As a troupe, we were moving as one, and then as individuals
within that troupe, we were sort of... A lot of it was getting into sync, was listening to somebody's body. So you'd have a exercise where
every movement that I made, you had to move your arm like that. So it'd just be like,
and then turn around, and so someone else is
conducting you, you know? And that really, like,
that kind of connection, it plays. You pick that up, and
then you take it with you. - Particularly on the boat, in the dining hall, that whole sequence, which to me in and of itself
is like a little one act play. It's showing about how
you want to be perceived, and how she's not playing along. And then, by the time
you're just smack down on, you know, all these guys,
I was like, "Oh my god!" How much of that really was the stunts, or all that stuff was choreographed? 'Cause some of it felt
just like safe chaos. - It was safe chaos. - Okay. - We would try to choreograph
it with a stunt man, and Yorgos would be like, "No, this is... No, no, no." And he is like, "You come in, you. What do you do?" And he would ask me, and I'd
be like, "Oh, I think this." And he's like, "Okay, I like that. And what if he gets on you here?" And we just sort of made it up. And in the end there's that
kind of tug-of-war war thing. That was just background people. He said, "You come in and grab him, and you help him, and you fight, and whatever happens,
we're gonna shoot it." That's why it was a wide shot, you know? All we knew is that me and her, that Duncan and Bella would
be doing this tug-of-war, and these guys would try
to be pulling us apart, and I'd be fighting them
off and then coming back. And it just, it was chaos. But we learned how to
be safe with each other. And we had the dance,
which was choreographed, but he didn't want it
to feel choreographed. - Every director always says that, and then they wind up choreographing it. - And they end up choreographing it. He was just adamantly throwing that out. - Wow. (bright music) - We have our decade of Marvel, which is its own style, right? You have Iron Man, Tony Stark, who is its own style, and it's so different than Strauss. And how do you make that transition? Yeah, how do you go about that? Because it takes... I mean, when I see your
work in that, I'm like, "That is such a disciplined, thoughtful, unique expression of what Robert does, and so different than what he
had done up until that point." - You know, I've always wondered
why you didn't involve him in the Manhattan Project. Greatest scientific mind of our time. - I'm gonna build on
something you've been saying of going back to that kind
of like theater camp play, but also knowing the
discipline of theater. You know, sometimes you're
doing theater so long that by the time you're
doing film, you're too big. Sometimes you're doing film so long that by the time you're doing
theater, you're too small. You know what I mean? You're always kind of
like trying to calibrate just to keep yourself interested. I just remember going,
"This is a lot of words, and they're really specific,
and they're really important." So I just went back to,
like, the first time I had to do a one act play, or when I was doing Geva
Theatre in Rochester, and I was like, "Just get off book." And I obsessively went into a mode where I was,
name, rank, and serial number, if you woke me up in
the middle of the night, I would know it. The last time I really, really did that was for the "Iron Man" screen test, when there were these three scenes. I could've been off book in two days, but I just went crazy on
them for 2 1/2 months. This time, I needed three to five months. So again, like theater,
I started with the words, and I knew that I wanted to do enough physically to be different. I knew that, in black and white, getting the right shape would be good, and losing the right amount of weight, and moving a certain way. Again, like, I know this kind of person. I know the political animal. And then it's just watching
what else is going on. Like, watching Cillian.
Like, okay, that's Mozart. So that's what he's doing, and I have to be this other thing. So it was also great, because
I got a lot of perspective on, you know, people through the years, coming in to play, "Oh,
the great Tony Stark." You know, we're all kind
of doing the same thing. I hate it when people poo-poo a genre, because they're all hard, and they're all high art
when they're done well. But I just remember that it was the text. it was really thinking about, he didn't want voices,
he didn't want accents, he didn't want makeup,
he didn't want anything. He wanted the very least
amount of interaction with the department heads as possible. But even by the time
you were going on set, and they were like
filling in my earring hole with stuff just so that you couldn't see in an extreme closeup, because he wouldn't have one, I was like, "God, they're really paying
attention to detail here, so why don't I?" And it was really freeing,
because you know me. I'm very ectomorphic. I
don't like to be constrained. - I know.
- And it's all Chris wanted. So I thought, "Well, this
is gonna be hard, but easy." - But you... Back to that discipline.
It's transformative. I didn't see Robert Downey Jr. in there. And you know, I didn't see
that, and it was so exciting. And it's so interesting because
it was that containment. You have the comedy, the movement. I remember, every time we worked together, you have props set, you have this, you're moving from
there to there to there. It's pop, badaboom, badaboom. And it's electrifying. But just for you to just, whoom, and be that still. And I love what you say about
learning those lines like that because that's, man, what a great plan. - Well, I mean also, in the Marvel days, it's like everything might change, or we're talking to a tennis ball. I mean, you and I, the science bros, we would have these long passages about absolute gobbledygook.
- This is bullshit. - But still, it's important to us, 'cause we know it's
important to the characters. - We didn't know what that was. - Yeah, it'd be a little hard to dig in. I mean, we would just drive
each other insane on set, going like, "Why can't I retain this?" But again, we know when it's time to tighten things up a little bit. Anyway, I found great joy in it. And it was this 50-year circle of going back to Santa Fe
where I was with my dad when he shot this film
called "Greaser's Palace." I stayed right 50 steps from the place that I remember the crew
meeting up to, you know, hang out when we weren't shooting, and going and seeing Los Alamos. They didn't actually
have any scenes there, but shooting in the
Bataan Memorial Building and just going into all these places. You know, it was all
done very practically. I've said this before,
but it was this moment where we were shooting
something in Pasadena, and Nolan just put this
mag of a 70-millimeter... - I didn't hear that. - They were changing out mags,
and he was like, "Hold this." And he just put it on my lap,
and I was just like, "Ah!" Because, you know- - Film.
- Yeah. I will continue to love, and am happy to eventually in some way reengage with sci-fi fantasy. It's got its own upside. But anything that over time takes you further and further
away from the experience of just the hardware of what it is we do, which is these machines, these souls, that sensitive metal, which is why it was all so beautiful just to be shooting on film, not digital. I got used to digital after "Zodiac," 'cause I knew if Fincher's
doing it, it's not going away. And is it more efficient? Yes. But you lose those natural
rhythms of changing out the mag. It was just those little,
those little times, and everyone kind of socialized.
- Had to stop. - You know, even the
clapper loader knew, like, he was kind of like
hitting the break bell, or if not the break bell, it was like running a metronome on the rhythms of this mode of working. So it was all that stuff, you know. - You know, we have this... We have the Marvel universe. We have all of this product that is either already part of something, or a brand. And then you have Oppenheimer come out, which is completely original
kind of source material, and it explodes in a time where
people are really wondering, well, what is cinema now? After Marvel, after
franchises, you know, after IP, what is cinema now? What did you feel and think about that? It's kind of exceptional. - Looking back now, I think about Robert Pattinson being in
"Tenet," which I thought, "Wow, this is another great
Christopher Nolan movie." It happened at the worst possible time. There was the fracturing with
the studio, all this stuff. And Pattinson gives him on
wrap Oppenheimer's letters. These moments in life where
you realize the inception of something occurred
in the most organic way. And also, Pattinson in "Tenet" was an incredible departure for him. So this incredible departure
from one of our younger peers turns into him making a personal gift to arguably one of the greatest
directors of his generation, turns into him deciding
that it's sticking with him. And then, I always wonder if something about the organic nature of how something starts
and how pure it is, and the confidence of the
people who bring it forward, is in a great contributor. And then there's just that thing. Zeitgeist. Whatever you wanna call it. Honestly, I would be every bit as proud if it hadn't broken even
or just done pretty good. But I think the great thing
is it speaks to our taste, the audience's taste for
novelty and for craftsmanship. Which is again, why I'm telling you, I mean, "Poor Things" is
already making a splash as it's on the horizon of coming
out, and whether this airs. But it'll be after people
have already seen this. I mean, you're next, buddy. That's all I gotta say.
- We'll see. We'll see. - It's so fantastic. - Thank you, man.
- Yeah. Some people say, "I don't know
if it'll be for everyone." I'll go, "Then maybe you
don't know everyone." (both laughing) (laid-back music) (laid-back music continues)
