Writers Roundtable: Taika Waititi, Lorene Scafaria, Destin Daniel Cretton, Kasi Lemmons | Close Up

[Music] [Applause] [Music] hi I'm Steven Galloway and welcome to close up with The Hollywood Reporter writers I'd like to welcome Larina scuff Arya Tycho ytt Casey lemons destin cretton charles randolph and auntie McCartin welcome I would have plunge you into deep end and start with modern school safety said some of the movies now being made particularly the superhero movies a theme park ride they're not cinema agree or disagree [Laughter] I know much work goes into the story breaking stories and yeah for those films and how much before it goes on to you know shooting and and in the post-production and it's all basically it's all based on story at the for that studio and at the end of the day it's whatever's in that rectangle if it's affecting people emotionally or it doesn't matter if it's too colorful because it's too colorful for a bit yeah well the costumes might look I can only imagine he's actually worried about the dominance of that particular type of film and there is an exaggerated proportion of that type of film dominating the multiplexes and that's just a result of the economics of it they're just making a lot of money and the audience's seem to be bottomless for these movies and while they all into the remains for these movies they will continue to be dominant until something else has put out there Bohemian Rhapsody was a movie I was involved with that's kind of people didn't expect that kind of Marvel level box office as a result of that but the good news is that now that's made a case for itself and I can see that there's gonna be a bit of a deluge of that type of movie so I think the challenge you know it starts with us in a way is that we need to come up with stories that make a case an economic case to see there's a massive wall for this and they make people in the who run them all to places the distributors would be only too happy to go he mean Rhapsody was an exception I mean you've done theory of everything you've done darkest hour which were hits but they weren't seven or eight hundred million dollar hits so how do you create character driven films that reach a big audience can you I think so III think it's I think it's often a combination of the actor and the character that bring excitement to an audience so that's what I think Iron Man did it was it was Robert Downey jr. as Iron Man and and I think that that was the perfect blend of star star power and a character and so I think that's what people might turn out for more now is is that you know comic books and graphic novels do you always could have laughed it and young past is not being realized or not being real stories and just simply not true in that you and and with superheroes they're just it's just new mythology so it's you know I'm sure that when you know you know people came up with stories about you know that was you sore about what you know different gods nor Hercules you know thousands of years ago people like this is not real there's not a real story there's a [ __ ] those guys did all this stuff but it's actually just it's just taking those similar things and you know and eventually Ironman will enter into the I think the realm of mythology and people will say oh yeah that and it's just stories it's just all orders at the end of the day for me there's stories are either teaching your lessons or you know will probably experience the human condition in different ways its critique is really about originality right at the end of the day and you know once you have a dedicated group of share and experience amongst these audiences you can start to play with that and maybe we're not that there yet I mean he is he's right to degree that a lot of it it's not very interesting yeah and and you know in the aggregate perhaps you know if you were to do the math it it's in his favor but are you harder to get more character-driven difficult films like Justin both the off the ground I feel like we really lucked out with we're just mercy landed we had executives at Warner Brothers who were huge champions of of telling the story from a characters POV that you typically don't see on screen very much and they they honestly have treated it like they treat their superhero movies when we were sitting in our marketing meeting it was a huge meeting with it was a big campaign of really excited people to just to them right now it's it actually is something different for the studio to do so you know it was inspiring to see that much passion for a movie like this if they're any subjects that use writers would not touch as opposed to say 10 years ago or 15 yeah yeah for sure what you know the model of appropriation for a screenwriter is complicated right because in one hand you want to have a rich variety of characters in your films on the other hand if you're wholly embodying a subject that is alien to your culture and you feel like there are other people who can do it better than you can there are things that I would not do today that I would have done 10 years ago give the film so there's an adaptation of a book about three african-american kids in New York who kidnap a white state attorney that I wrote about a decade ago that some of my favorite scripts it will never get made no they shouldn't get made because it is just not it's just it relies too much on me being in a world that I don't fully understand I think at the end of the day and no amount of research would probably get me there one thing that we have to understand is that is that the language of the dominant culture is one that we all speak but their their specific cultures that we don't you know have to be versed in those languages so you have to do the work to you know figure out what that is and that takes I mean I've seen very good good work outside of culture obviously I think it's if the empathy is there and the investigation and it's you know it's it's done sincerely and you have to have the depth of really understanding and that means digging in digging into the research you know of course of course but you have to be you have to really go the whole distance you know um you can't tote it you know so that's I think when when you towed it I can feel it you know and and when there's deep investigation deep empathy and and really digging into the story and the characters then then no you it's you know it's just a really good lady but we are in a particular era where there's great sensitivity to that is there by contrast a film that you would have loved to write that somebody haven't let you do because they feel you're not right for it but you know I'm on the on the threshold of doing something which is in the but can be accused or may be accused of appropriation which is writing a black female character and row life or not real life yeah who is the character I'd rather not say but with the characters you're free to us and freedom is the operative word here I think fiction means freedom and I think we have to fight for that and I'm sorry god bless you for this you know standing up for the fact that writers must be free to travel we we have to have passports into every territory if we had ever been hold ourselves and say I can only write about being a middle-aged white man Shakespeare never have written about anything outside of England we would have never had merchants of Venice he's not a merchant nibble into Venice you know so you know we have to fight for it and against some strong headwinds because we are get there is opposition to riders who chancer are imaginative a journey into a world they don't know but want to know and a knock-back by people who's saying you're not of that culture get back in your box and I think we really have to fight you know agree you can't you can't quite be like just a tourist though you know what I mean yeah you have to really do some immersive work I can wholeheartedly agree with you yeah you can't flippantly go in right and and do something you know you have to do deep research and get it right but isn't that true for every character you do it is but I mean some are more challenging than others I mean I try and really do investigative the investigative work but I mean I do think that so many so much great work has been written by so many people I mean it as a writer you should be able to be to explore humanity you know and borderless yeah but when you do I want to go back to what you said which is you know fiction is freedom what are the limits of freedom everybody on this table has written a script involving real people what are your responsibilities to the truth like how much does it okay to fictionalize Hitler that vision of Hitler that I wrote she has nothing with the real guy other than that mustache really he is conjured from the mind of a ten-year-old so you can only know what a ten-year-old knows and so there's no and and I had no real interested in writing and nothing to portray a little you know or when I played him and had no interest in actually putting in the effort or put in the reset because I didn't think he deserved it and I don't know I just yeah I'm like give him the satisfaction me actually having to read about them and like study here the nuances of them as being mannerism just like recipe let's go I'm not gonna do that can we all feet to the fire a little bit on that one because it is Hitler I mean we identify him as Hitler and would you not agree that a lot of the jokes and power of the jokes derive from the fact that you're this voice in the air of this boy is Hitler and a lot of humor comes from the fact of the ultimate yeah absolutely but there's only one moment when he when I'd used some of one of his speeches from from one of his rallies and it's mind when he gets very serious and it's really jojo's conscience kind of trying that there's some dark side of his conscience trying desperately to hold on to him in them everything else I tried to write him as you know and his visions of myself in there and you know and and how I used to think when I was a kid and how I have children perceive the world all of that kind of as filtered through that character and he is just essentially yes it's funny because it's like those ideas and those things being said coming out of the mouth of this you know this tyrant but aren't you worried didn't truly fictionalizing him and turning him to a buffoon you may be administering the France no word of all but this look that's what said I does you invert so you make someone who's unserious serious you make a serious unserious and that's how you skewer power that's the nature of satire I think there's also something else because it's it's the point of view of a child you're saying I mean what's scary to me is that yet child's view is cartoonish you know what I mean and there's this cartoon kind of character friend that's this extremely dangerous person but you know in the mind of this child and it really makes you understand the indoctrination of children in a way you know and I appreciate it on at that level how much did you feel that you had to stick to the real characters in Hustlas I didn't get a chance to meet the real women ahead of time which was really hard for me because creatively I would have loved to have heard every detail I think the truth is stranger than fiction but I had the article to work from and so I felt a responsibility to what really happened and the crimes themselves I didn't want to water them down but I felt a little bit of freedom when it came to the characters because we're trying to just tell a story tell tell the movie version of it so the two characters that it they form a friendship and it's kind of a love story between the two of them and in reality they were more like business partners so they had to add a lot to the the characters and and the relationship are you going to strip clubs into sure yeah surprised you thought that well you know there's no job security for these women they're not employees of these clubs they pay house fees they tip everybody out so the difference between a good night and a bad night is a lot it's how much you go home with it's not necessarily did you have a great interaction with someone or a bad interaction I mean certainly there's there's a lot to deal with in that way but you know they work in pairs and then teams it's much more lucrative like them yeah I did like them and I heard so many different experiences I think that's the beautiful part of it is that you can talk to so many different women who are having the time of their lives this job provides incredible freedom they work for a month they go take their band on the road and other girls who you know escaped a bad relationship and you know it's it for some people it's transitional you know and for other people it's it's where they are and so it was incredibly enlightening to to speak to them I loved the class elements and your ability to capture so many of those things it was was that a matter of hanging out with them or did had you had some interaction with people from from that part of the boroughs in Long Island before yeah I mean I grew up in New Jersey so I felt like I grew up with these guys I grew up with these girls I worked in a boiler room when I was like 18 just like doing secretarial work but it was really just a off off Wall Street northern New Jersey a room full of phones that guys are selling bad stocks to old people and my mom worked there for a time a guy said he was gonna hit her in the head with a baseball bat and well the boss has said bottom line can you keep working with him because he's bringing in the money and you're just typing stuff into a computer so yeah it was remarkable but there was another guy who was on a headset for six months talking to nobody he was losing his mind oh wow so it was really like what's the worst jobs you've all had to do along the way because most writers that really make it till they're you know it's certainly their thirties have you all you know some tough jobs and sore hands for them I in Dallas Fort Worth Texas worked in the Pepsi plant shoveling saccharin into the syrup formula and even three weeks after I quit that job I could pull up these luxury okay I bring petsy yeah so so sugaring the Pepsi I worked on the night sword at UPS which is a job where you put the packages in the trucks in order so the drivers can do that from 1:00 to 6:00 in the morning it's you lose a little bit of weight because you're running for 507 okay else I worked in a coal yard bagging coal 80 kilogram bags and then get them into trucks and stuff dirty jobs she was alright can't really be about you I shot wedding videos and so I that's how I paid the bills for a long no that sounds like actually when would he ever fly you from the wedding no it's one of the most rewarding creative jobs I've ever had I also worked at a group home for four teenagers which at the time I didn't realize was going to be the inspiration for my first feature but um I worked there as a as a counselor for for two years was that difficult it was extremely difficult yeah I didn't realize how sheltered I was as a child growing up in Hawaii until I was I took that that gig it was a it was very eye-opening to kind of the the ugliness in the world but simultaneously it also opened my eyes to the beauty of humans and their ability to find life and laughter in the darkest places in what way did it open your eyes to the ugliness what what what particularly I mean you look at everyone here on the floor with 20 kids and every single one of them are struggling because of the effects of some type of abuse or neglect from parents or a lack of parents and it was um you know it was it was very very eye-opening for for dealing with that every single day UKC I would have to go with naked life modeling [Music] to Pope's how much was fictional Ison and how much do you feel you were justified if you did fictional Isis so it's a really tough complex question because you get to the heart of of how much license should you permit yourself when you're doing anything based on a real story and I've taken various takes on this over the last few years I've done cradle to grave stuff which is very very very faithful to historical fact and in this case it's probably the most adventurous use of artistic license that I've had but I would still put my hand into that fire and say that I'm still this is more than perhaps any of the others in the service of the truth and that it's not necessarily literally true that they had these conversations we don't know what they said to each other I know they met three times and they only met three times they've only met three that's extraordinary yeah it's imaginatively speculating on what transpires between two people we have known details but in between those gaps we have to infuse with their own we surmise we try and be as emotionally authentic as we can within the parameters of the people we're dealing with it's hard the two probes is a story of a progressive and a conservative and I hope it speaks to the broader conversation in society at the moment where we have these two camps we're not quite sure which will ensure our futures better than the other and there's so much anger passing back and forth that they've been polarized to move driven further apart the middle seems to have collapsed to paraphrase Yeats the center is not held and I this project was about trying to get these two positions into dialogue with each other in a debate and they're highly competitive at the beginning but they find peace with each other and it's it's bit embedded in the truth there's a lot of research that went into what the stated positions were my area of conviction if you like was that I put those two positions into dialogue with each other and built a dialectic around that it's such an interesting phrase in the service of the truth you know when you're doing a historical representation you know something that is fiction and yet historical you have to invent conversation so you know these two people are friends you know like we know Harriet Tubman went to this place and met with these people but I came to feel that I was in conversation with her so the questions that I had to ask I asked in writing the script and in doing the movie when I had a question I would ask it and I believed that I had the answer what didn't you ask it I would ask her directly Harriet how do you feel about this think are we cool are you am I going too far or did this happen how did it happen and I would and I would wait until I felt that I was getting the answer I've one question which is she's quoted as her last line being I go to prepare a place for you and I thought that that is one of the most beautiful you know I just wonder you know that was the one I didn't quite have the answer did you actually say that where those actually your last words I go to prepare a place for you I mean my god woman you know that's beautiful and I did seven months of pure research on on Harriet and the Underground Railroad but you know in in even the best scholarly books you'll have something that'll say she made her way to Philadelphia it's like okay so you have to you have to build things out and you build things in and to make it dramatic of course but also in the service of the truth which is I know she had this position I know this person was her friend you know I know he worried about her William still you know because I can tell that from letters but I don't know what their what their conversations were you've been knocked a bit for not casting an American an african-american woman in the lead which is paid by Cynthia Arif oh very beautifully how do you feel about that and did you think about it when you cast the part she was on the movie before me um I didn't know that there would be you know conversation about it about Cynthia you just don't get any better she was prepared in every way you could possibly be prepared to play this role she was prepared physically emotionally spiritually to play Harriet Tubman and she was she was wonderful I felt so excited about being a african-american woman being able to tell the story of Harriet Tubman you know so I felt that I was bearing the culture in many ways and um to women producers one of whom was african-american to writers both african-american director african-american woman african-american costume designer african-american production designer african-american composer african-american hair and makeup and I felt that we were bearing the culture of the Harriet Tubman story beautifully Charles you dealt with quite a few real-life people indeed young bombshell yeah did you ever get to meet anything that you meet roger ailes and if you didn't what would you have wanted to ask him did not meet Roger he died but that when I was about halfway through I didn't be quite a few of the others 12 of whom probably or 13 of whom have in da's like we can't really talk about who they were I guess I would say that in the case of Roger I felt like the narrative that the women had told about him was pretty strong and it had a fascinating consistency throughout it particularly trying to arrive at his particular kinks you know his bethought his sexual pathology maybe too strong a word based certainly has sexually loved map for me like it was a strange one right because generally speaking the female characters were so much easier to write than the males because so many women had raised their hand and in great granular detail said this is exactly what happened to me this is how it happened this is the power dynamic behind it so I had all that I could borrow on obviously the guy who's the perpetrator doesn't raise his hand and say yeah I'm the perpetrator so you know so those are those those are much harder stories to tell but fortunately you know Roger had been a subject of a great deal of journalism very good journalism and and that and and had also a kind of quasi sanctioned autobiography that was those available it was a little grafite that didn't reveal I think all the sexual stuff you try gave Sherman's yeah it was you did a pretty good job though they just didn't in terms of some of some of the underlying Rogers desire to sexualize his power when he didn't get to his the actual expressions of that obviously the women that I talk to can I ask you a question in the particular it's it's it's a really interesting thing that I've been wrestling with and trying to make my way through and I'd love to know what your guys opinion about this is when you're writing a character whose views sort of roughly align with your own it's it's much more effortless to work on that character then you have to somehow write a character who's who you have no empathy for and yet the task we kind of have to love our characters equally and it's a bit like to have an even boxing match they have to be in the same way for vision and the question is how do you write empathetically for someone who you don't have you know any instinct for I prefer it and maybe it's a form of self-hatred I don't know but but I prefer to write people who I'd done a great with because I can counter I can turn the scene so many more times because I naturally have an instinct to counter their their their ideas so I much prefer to write conservatives and does it change you there's a change of view of that person I think I think any time you write a human being it it it does some form of normalizing is too strong a word but it does some form of giving you an empathetic relationship to their place in the world and that is that is so helpful even for perpetrators of misdeeds so when you wrote Joe Joe rabbit what was the toughest part of the writing I don't really remember what the toughest part of it was it one of the few times over written script where don't really remember doing it usually I would start at the end and then maybe a bit at the beginning and sort of figure it out all that um that way this one I just sort of went from beginning all the way through in a linear fashion but I'm I like writing characters that are desperate to be liked or desperate this would be accepted or cool and who are just overcompensating so much that they've become acerbic and really kind of move horrible and I like writing horrible people who but they weren't necessarily villains or yeah well there's more that they're just trying so hard to to have an opinion or trying so hard to be cool I find them really I find the refund right what was the genesis of that idea I think it's just from wanting to be liked or myself about the boy and genesis of the spell yeah it's inspired by a book that that I read in 2010 called caging skies and then the book is very much a darker piece and it's about this boy and this girl and so the bones of it yeah of the film that within that which is a boy suddenly youth discovers his mother hiding a girl and they're at it and it's really sort of that was what the only real thing I took from that I think I don't really know ever make a straight drama I'm not sure I could incapable of that I'd to add and things that would make it more interesting to myself and sensibilities a bit specific to how I tell stories which is humor fantastical elements little heightened moments and imaginary character and so none of that were in the book making the more interesting book that's interesting when you write what's the toughest part of the writing for you what you struggle with writing is an exercise in empathy so for me I that's that's always my approach so I tend to prefer characters that I don't necessarily agree with and I like making them convince me a little bit so I don't know what I find the toughest part probably just what act to the middle for words know I jump around two or Hustler's I wrote the scene where the two of them meet first I wrote this scene where Jennifer Lopez's character raps Constance was character and in a fur coat but it's a great thing it's that immediate intimacy especially because you've seen this character she's grappling with loneliness and isolation and and at this new place and doesn't have physical contact with any of these girls and has physical contact with men obviously in strangers and and I think that kind of intimacy that women have immediately who was very exciting to me to show that that mother-daughter relationship that that's sort of us it seems has to be that you're partners with another writer Bo Burnham who is on this roundtable last year yes how have you influenced his work and how is he influenced yours oh I don't know we're pretty separate entities we do like to read each other's and he shows me things he's working on I show him things I'm working on but I don't know I mean we just it's it's nice obviously to have someone that you trust it's that you can did he give you any big note about the script no no I showed him a cut and I would say he gave more notes on like earlier cuts and then on the script itself and do you remember one of those notes oh gosh there was there was more voiceover and beginning and it was it was really people were there's there's an interview that is part of the the framing of this story but you don't arrive at it right away so I had this voiceover that led us there and people were seeing it as two different devices they were seeing the voice-over and this interview and I was like but the voice-over is kind of just yeah pared it down in the beginning and got to the essentials where did you begin with just mercy and you had a very well-known lawyer in that film what was the most difficult part of writing a script I wrote the script we adapted it from from the book just mercy and I wrote it with Andrew Lanham and we definitely stepped into it with a big weight on our shoulders a lot of self-doubt as to whether we are the right people to tell this story and what we had that was unusual was a partnership with Bryan Stevenson from day one I mean having a my first conversation with Bryan and hearing how he connected with the work that I had done and what he thought I could bring to this story was the thing that made me feel like I could do it he's incredibly gracious and not overbearing at all but he was a resource from day one all the way through the process um and those you know I actually find that if you don't take liberties and adapting something you you honor you honestly are going to be further from the truth because you're gonna have just a sloppy you just can't fit something into two hours unless you're you're piecing it together we had Bryan Stevenson who's incredible storytellers I mean he is a lawyer and but his gift is storytelling and his gift is empathy he does it in the courtroom and that's all he does for his clients is he tries to to allow a jury or a judge to understand a person in all of their layers he starts with the stereotype or he starts with the crime or the criminal and then he starts pulling off the layers so you understand the full person and by the end of that understanding you just it's so much more difficult to judge and that's what he was able to do with us throughout throughout the process and he really helped us fill in those blanks what liberties with the truth did you take in the script um we we fortunately did not have to take many liberties it because Brian was really helpful in in helping us fill in the gaps the liberties that we did take word just time we didn't really create any scenes we created the dialogue in the scenes but we didn't didn't have to make up any events but we did you know shift shift things around to happen in the flow of even documentaries I think that varying levels of how you need to be to the truth or the actual events cinema is so different and telling stories is and you know and even comes down to just keeping them engaged - keeping people like actually interested in these people because the actual events sometimes take course over 16 years time compressions are gimme time acrimony you're gonna have to do time compression that's it there's no yeah I created a character though I did yeah because they were obviously the one woman you never hear from in those scenarios is the woman who has a quid pro quo sexual relationship with a boss and you know it would be cruel to out someone in that way but also it's just that's that's a hard narrative to access and and so so it felt important that that person not only be a composite fixed slash fictional but we'd say that you know clearly you don't love the mugger Robbie I am character so in fact was there anybody who came out and said yes I did have a sexual relationship with him under yes how interesting but you didn't go with that character why the most famous relationship happened prior to the framework with the film it was also a relationship that began prior to the starting of Fox and in relationship that carried into Fox and its status as a as a relationship that qualifies under the legal term sexual harassment was problematic because it was pre-existent and so I really wanted to very clear stories that that illustrated the dynamic without getting into the things that were you know I want to emotionally complicated scenarios but not ones that were sort of legally mired yeah did you find anything to like about Roger Ailes yeah yeah he was Rogers not Harvey Roger was a man who was genuinely beloved by a lot of people you know very much so and even by lefties and so he was someone whose capacity for seduction was pretty profound well you could say the same about Hoffy I mean he's the man who when he wants to could be incredibly charming say I never had been threatening your life you know and I've had him you know had both interesting you never had a good experience with him no how many had Minnie at all but but but um yeah I don't know I don't know a lot of people who have real love for Harvey even ten years ago I didn't know well I know people who who said well he leaves me alone I get to make my movies I'm happy about that because he doesn't normally do that for most directors i I've had that conversation but I've never had but but but Roger was capable of a kind of register of paternalism that really appealed to a lot of people and and so he was good at what he did you know perhaps to you know to the chagrin of those of us on the left but he was good at that after you always refused to work for Harvey Weinstein was it easy to say no how much do you have a Liberty to say no to projects especially when you're starting it was a kind of I have what it is is some sort of compass that just said no danger Will Robinson yeah you know it was just there was just myself super self defense mechanism kicked in and I just thought I don't want to become a victim of what I know he's done with other people you know when you hear that someone who's done one film with him then and then insists on a cause in the contract an on screaming contract that have Harvey screams at you you get this amount of no I mean clothes and stuff and I thought life is way too short and you know I want to work with people I you know want to have a beer with if the business an easier place to work today or not I worked with a screamer and a long time you know I mean I know they're out there well yeah when I was your worst experience when I wasn't an actor I worked with on somebody who is I mean I had a lot of love for him but he was um you know just cranky and and you know I remember after takes and he yelled at Sony people after take saying you know what's that okay he said yeah it was fine I would yell do you think that kind of guy you know but um I it certainly wasn't part of the of my approach because I did get to where as an actor work with directors that I you know I could admire and so I knew what I what I liked and so that's what I tried to bring in but I don't know is it a gentler business I feel like it's I like to think that it's easier you know because I think now especially was you know the web and it's so much easier to for people just to say things you know just to speak out where you know before before people react before it was okay to kind of come out and say this guy just did this to me well this isn't just person just like screamed at me it was just you know it's a secondhand user you just hear it through conversation you know the banjo I heard this thing about this you know there's no way to kind of get those stories out there I think now people you know I've never thankfully work with any actors or anyone who you know who've brought so much ego to set what yeah thought there's altitude to sit in which it was pretty common I feel in like the 80s and the 90s based on what I've heard and read because I feel like it's no place for it anymore and people they won't stand for it you know on a business side you know it may be the companies I work with there are women in the room now you know and there weren't you know 10 15 20 years ago right and that that that has changed the underlying of the me to movement noticeably changed things do you think yeah I mean people aren't as blatant yeah how does anymore I mean I was gonna say I wonder if it's changed for us sitting at this table because I mean recently I was not sitting at tables and and it's not easy when you're not in a position of power so I don't know anymore I think once you're in a position of power you might be facing different people who are treating you differently and talking to you too since Hospice have you noticed that people treat you differently yes yeah my agent came over the other day I've been over the floor yeah yeah it changes the media yes [Music] [Applause] what do you guys think about the current war between the Writers Guild and the agencies well we all wanted to be resolved as quickly as possible I I love my agents they do a great job for me when I heard about this conflict it was I was blindsided by it I was very happy with the state of things and then I found about these issues that were profoundly affecting our colleagues so I stand with the Writers Guild sure I do but I want a quick resolution yeah I see Miguel - I mean I haven't never made a TV show so it's a little bit different I think for us than it would be for people to come out of television do you all stand with the writers golden tooth anybody knows now I do know I want a quick resolution - its - I'm too stressed out - after don't think about sauce up like yeah I mean you can't see my legs what they're doing right now mister I mean it's success stressful depends what success I mean having people see your films that that's my sort of filming getting it out there that's actually like there's a relief Doug has one less thing they have to worry about anymore so it's just for me it's just about meeting like whatever deadlines I have and just handing things and finishing something and then getting it out of my life as fast as possible is that's this the stress really having to go to round tables and talk about you you seem very calm do you what most stresses you about working in film the calmer I seem the more stress I mean I I find I actually get very anxious any time I'm leading up to a project it feels like I'm going to die and I tell my wife don't ever let me do this again I actually asked her how many times I've said that she said before every movie that you've ever directed I say that and I'm so serious about it but it is like how my wife describes childbirth as soon as it's over and then I've gone through the process with with such an amazing team and I've built this family it it's the memory of it become so beautiful then I'm like yeah let's do this again what about writing is that therapeutic or is that stressful for me I find it so psychologically damaging and and challenging but why because I have so much room for self-doubt when I'm on set and directing it's just there's there's so many people making it together and you have to move so fast that you don't have time for self-doubt you're just like boom boom boom oh that's working that's not working and writing I can write a scene and be like oh that's that sucks and again and then it's so easy to get in my head what about the rest of you do this is writing stressful is it I find it enjoyable and maybe it's more that it's just second nature to me by now I've been doing it since I was a kid I was writing scripts when I was in like fourth grade I should say scripts and quotes because they were not bad but attempts at screenplays in like fourth grade so for me it's just an all-day everyday thing it's lonely it's definitely lonely and I now that I love being on set I never knew what it meant when singers would say like I feel so at home on stage I was like no you don't but but it's really now it's a way to get back on set because I think that's the for me anyway the pure joy well you do you like right yeah I mean a thing a voice film that lonely but then my favorite thing is actually after people have gone to bed I don't talk to anyone then this was my favorite times just sit there like a couple of ideas the thing really is like the thing I find the hardest now just having so many things that have it's my own fault cuz I said yes to them that um is just standing with the blank page you just I've got a hundred and twenty it's really yeah I mean when I'm but I got a flow going on it's it's amazing yeah and I just won't stop and um it's more just and I I don't tender to try I tried not this in front of a computer I try not to like just sit there and stare and I try as much as I can to kind of get all the beats as my you know figure out a sort of loose shape of the story before us at typing name one writer you all admire or individually I don't have done habit screenwriter certain nobody around this table but it's a one write who's really influenced you and I think I would have to say the late great Toni Morrison just because it she had such a profound effect on my kind of worldview in terms of literature and African American literature and then and the way that I that I approach character I wasn't a writer until I sat in on a on an English literature course at my second year university by accident I was keen on a girl and I followed him into this room set beside her and asked if I could have a look at her attacks since she was the mother of my first child and and with the book that she was studying was the Norton Anthology of American literature post 9 1945 and I took a copy of this home and started reading it and it was real epiphany for me because it said somewhat my working-class kid from Taranaki in New Zealand that you didn't have to be a professor to be a writer you could write about the domestic you could write about that the banal but but you had to do it with passion and you had to provide some insight and the accessibility of post-war American literature changed my view of what I was felt I was capable of doing yet for me it's been different there were phases of different writers you know I've often in association whether with a project will follow up with the name one righteous boy David Foster Wallace had an influence on Big Short currently you know I rely a lot a lot on Anthony a pious work just because of his mmm his worldview is so delightful I think for this time Justin Bradbury was probably aware I've honestly struggled with writing growing growing up I've never considered myself smart enough to write Bradbury is an intellect like like no other but there's something really accessible about his characters and to me my journey as as an artist has been just trying to find a find a place in myself to be myself through what I'm creating and not try to be something other than that and my strengths I I find is that I try to be as vulnerable as I can through the writing that I did and not try to be smarter than a hand cousin I'm you know I'm not that smart but I that's that's where I gravitate I grew up like loving plays so I love Sam Shepard growing up and then I loved Anthony Burgess at different times I loved Tom Robbins is probably who I think of as like my high school like the writer I was yeah yeah exactly thank you there - I usually go back to William Faulkner right when I first was introduced to him I'd never been to the south and everybody had no real idea of their world other than seeing something in films and then just fell into like the way that he wrote in special character and and in in dialogue that which there's something that just yeah resonated with me and I've always loved him and then you know I mean I love short stories more than novels because I just quicker I feel like there are four more poetic for me and intense without him Hemingway's shorts but um Oscar Wilde's probably that man the guy they're always going wow you wouldn't take spit there but I'm trying to see the influence and we don't it's probably a wild story like we have the humor and the wind the and you know I just love he's just so like you know and especially with those short pieces he's just he's cheeky mm-hmm we talked about chains in the industry if you could change one thing in the industry what would it be oh I mean I mean wow you know I would have to kind of be this question of inclusiveness and parity I mean it's just it's so it's so overdue and and other places are doing much better at it than we are France for instance you know film has to kind of be a time capsule you know for for who we are now and what we're interested in and what we're thinking about what we're dreaming about and and and I it doesn't feel that way yet I mean it's beginning to feel that way and so that's exciting but um I think it's a real tragedy you know that for so many years just most of its a predominance of white men you mean I love those you know a lot of the movies and a lot of the voices are so important but it's just it's so out of step with reality I mean to back that up when our movie was was the first movie that Warner Brothers officially did the inclusion writer for and I was able to see as a director firsthand I mean in the same way that the me to movement has empowered people to just kind of start doing what they really believe anyway and allowed us to hire department heads who were african-american female have been doing amazing work for like 30 years and have never been a department head before and we're giving them their first time being that that that to me is the the power of that and I hope that it happens more do you career would you chase something else oh I mean I feel like that's most important I mean I think that's the biggest step but the kinds of movie activate I mean I think the finance years are very specific people I would love to see more diversity in the financière Department I mean it it changed in 2008 really the financial crisis at least it my opinion had such a large effect on even the kinds of movies and we're getting made cynicism took over around that time and so so in a way I almost think these superhero films are a response to that cynicism but money talks everything it is and you have audiences turning out people obviously want to see what they want to see I think we're gonna miss Annapurna for example you know your movie book-smart I mean they developed some remarkable films I know it's kind of interesting how makeup has been attacked in the business when actually she she's putting her own money in something that was it was wonderful you know I wonder if it's the kind of sexism at play there or yes I mean you know she's also young she's also you know coming from money but I think if she was a man I don't know that that would have been the same reaction to I mean last question this one I've been dying to ask you you're on a desert island you've written about Stephen Hawking you've written about Churchill and you've written about the two popes which one of all your characters would you most like to be on an island with Freddie Mercury he'd show me something about living passionately I mean that guy burned too and for a quiet rider that's that's probably the best life lesson for me mmm choice yes Steve Eisman from the Big Short would be probably a pretty fun you know he would he would certainly not stop talking I mean I was going I was going to say Brian Stevenson not not because he is a lawyer but he actually happens to be an incredible jazz musician with an incredible voice and he actually said that if you if I asked him if he wasn't doing this work what would he be doing and it's just his whole family is really musical and he said he'd probably be in a jazz band soon and he's a good storyteller yeah very entertaining I mean I would definitely pick carry it but you know besides being um possibly practically handy on a desert island you know and just an awesome person she was a great storyteller mhm so she knows she told her own stories did this one-woman shows and told her own stories and a singer you know I mean my last movie was about my mother and no offense to her but I don't know that would be healthy so much take part in close up with The Hollywood Reporter writers thank you thank you oh hi there hi I'm Casey lemons and Charles Randolph thanks for watching thanks for watching thank you for watching The Hollywood Reporter round table on YouTube on YouTube [Music]

Channel: The Hollywood Reporter

Views: 327,701

Rating: 4.9194007 out of 5

Keywords: thr, the hollywood reporter, hollywood reporter, entertainment, hollywood, close up, close up with thr, thr roundtable, thr roundtables, interview, taika waititi, lorene scafaria, destin daniel cretton, anthony mccarten, charles randolph, kasi lemmons, jojo rabbit, hustlers, just mercy, the two popes, bombshell, harriet, writers, writersroundtable, roundtables, close up with the hollywood reporter, the hollywood reporter roundtable, film, movie, 2020

Id: QPQo6XLtKa4

Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Fantastic-Cash]

THR Close Up Roundtables are by far my favorite interviews out there for movie/show personnel.

[u/Impressive-Potato]

If only they didn't keep this moderator. He interrupts so many guests just as they are getting to some interesting things they want to say.

[u/Impressive-Potato]

Really likes Taika in this. He bluntly answered what he thought were stupid questions and didn't play into the pompousness of the whole thing.

[u/AlexGzzGa]

Writers are some of the most interesting people in the business and we sadly don't hear their voices enough.