Episode 670 - Todd Haynes / Sarah Silverman

Alright, let's do this. How are you, what-the-fuckers? What-the-fuck buddies? What-the-fucksters?

Mark Maron, this is WTF. Welcome to the show. Thanks for listening. Very excited about this show today.

Todd Haynes, the director of many great movies, currently the director of Carol, but some of you may know his filmography. He got very famous in some circles with Superstar the Karen Carpenter story, which was actually very difficult to find for years. For years it was hard to find, still hard to find, for very specific reasons that I'll talk to him about, but if you were like me, you somehow managed to procure a VHS of it and cherish it for years. Also, man, holy shit, can I just thank all of you folks for watching Maron on Netflix.

All three seasons are there, but the feedback that we're getting for season three is amazing. I didn't get a lot of feedback when it ran initially on IFC. I don't know why, it doesn't matter, but once it goes on Netflix, it's just a full-on tidal wave of really good feedback, and it's exciting, because sometimes you think you work in a vacuum, and it's just great that you're watching it, that you're digging it, and it gives me a lot of good momentum, sort of happy momentum leading into the new season. We just finished tabling the last of 12 strips.

I have to finish writing the finale, and the stories are great. It's going to be a completely different show this season, really. Those of you who know how season three left off know that Mark needs to, the character of Mark, the character of Maron, needs a little help. So we're going to get in that.

So don't worry. Don't freak out about what happened at the end of season three there. But again, thanks for watching it. I appreciate the feedback.

Oh, what I want to do also is clear up something. It seems that there are many new listeners to the show, and some of you may be baffled by my closing scream, which is Boomer Lives. I got a couple of emails recently from people who were like, I don't know, what is that story? Well, you can listen to all the episodes or I can explain it to you.

Years ago, I had a cat called Boomer, who was an outdoor cat, lived in the back, and I had him a long time, and I love that guy. And right around the first or second day of shooting my first season of Maron, Boomer disappeared and did not return. And I have no real idea what happened to him. I can speculate for better or for worse.

But instead of doing that, I honor him by screaming Boomer Lives at the end. It's become sort of a mythology, a mythological figure. I feel that Boomer watches over me at times. I named my production company Boomer Lives Production.

So that's that story. That's the story of Boomer. Now look, you know sometimes I talk to my comedian friends for short phone conversations, and I wanted to talk to Sarah Silverman. Sarah Silverman is in a film that you can watch called I Smile Back, okay?

It's a serious role. It's a heavy role. It's a dark role, and it was fucking deep, folks. It's available on iTunes and video on demand, and the thing is that Sarah is nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Female Lead Performance, and I wanted to call her up and talk to her about the experience of doing, I'd never seen her in a serious role.

I don't know, I'm not sure, maybe she did one other one, I'm not sure, but this one is, it's heavy, man, and it's weird when you're a comic. Like, I would never consider myself an actor, per se. Like, I can show up, but I gotta bring all of me with me. I don't have a lot of craft in place.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it works better than others. Usually I do okay. But this performance that Sarah did was, like, really emotional and pretty disturbing. And I know for me, when you have to show up emotionally for a role, and you don't have a lot of acting craft, like me as a comic, and you gotta get emotional, you know, it's really you getting emotional.

You don't have any real distance, there's no sort of, like, snapping out of it. I'm gonna talk to her a little bit about that, and about what her plans are in terms of doing these type of roles. But let's talk to her now. I'm gonna call Sarah Silverman.

Hello? Sarah, can you hear me? I've never used my home phone. Very exciting.

I'm glad to be part of this exciting moment with you. You didn't even know you had a home phone? How could you not know? I just have never used it.

And I did know, I've noticed I have, like, a little phone in my kitchen, but it's, the ringer isn't on, and I've never used it. And so I just was like, I guess this phone works. And I looked up my own number on my cell phone, and it was listed. All right, well, look, you know, I love you, first of all.

I got you. And second of all, I watched your movie, because I wanted to talk to you about it, and it's usually really, the movie, I smile back, all right? So it's usually, like, I'll watch movies with people I know, like, you know, our friend Louie or whoever, Todd, and sometimes I don't know if you have this experience where you see, you know, these guys you've known all your life, and you see them trying to do a part, and you're like, oh, that's just Todd doing a part. I get lost in Todd Barry's work.

Are you talking to me, Todd? Well, no, I do, too. I mean, he's great. He's great.

He is so good. But we also know each other as people, you know? But, like, I'm watching you, and I'm like, holy fuck, this is serious. You took some, like, serious fucking emotional risks, and, you know, it was disturbing, and I felt, I had to, you know, check myself to realize that, you know, you were okay, Sarah, and this was a movie.

I mean, did you feel that when you were doing this movie, where, you know, because he held the camera on you a lot, just kind of emoting. Yeah, I, you know what I found is, almost everything I've rolled my eyes at that actors say in interviews have become true for me. You know, like, I couldn't shake it. You know, it felt like a low-grade flu for about three weeks after we finished shooting.

You know what it is, is I'm not experienced enough in this kind of acting to be able to just access my emotions and then put them back in. And I don't have easy access to my emotions. And Lainey is, see, I'm saying my character's name like it's another person. Lainey is, she feels so much, and then she covers it expertly.

So I had to get it all out from their tightly compacted compartments inside me, and then I couldn't just put them back easily. Like, you always hear, like, Tom Hanks can be the life of the party on the set, and then they call action, and he's like Captain Phillips. Right, right. I don't have those skills yet, you know, so I just kind of sat with him on my lap.

It wasn't, you know, I had convinced myself it would still be fun, even though it's bleak, because you know, we'll have inside jokes, and in between shooting, it will be fun, but I'm so glad I didn't know ahead of time that that would not be the case. It wasn't, there was not a lot of fun on the set? Well, everyone was wonderful. I mean, it was something that was, other than fun, that was worthwhile, but I just, I'm a fun slut.

Like, if I knew it wouldn't be fun, ahead of time, I would have weaseled out of it, 100%. You know me, I like, you know, lunch with friends, and we laugh every day, and I'm terrified of the thought that that isn't going to happen, you know, for months. Well, something must have been, like, challenging, because, like, you know, I know I'm not a great actor, but I do try, when I do my show, to access feelings, you know, and I've done some fairly disturbing things, so whether we're good actors or not, and I think you were great. I think you're a beautiful actor.

Oh, you're so sweet, and I thought you were beautiful in this movie, but, like, for you to access those kind of emotions, like, there's several points in this movie, which is, it's bleak, but there's something very real about it. Like, you know, it's a story about, you never, you don't ever really see on screen in this way, where I think you're totally a sympathetic character, sort of lost in a pretty hopeless, you know, the grip of addiction and personal problems, and playing that up against, you know, a nice family. It must have just been sort of heartbreaking, but I assume outside of having a good time on set, you must have been like, you know, you've challenged yourself to go to those places, and it is heartbreaking, it is heartbreaking, but also, she doesn't know she's in a drama, necessarily, you know what I mean? She's just living her life, but her life is pretty heartbreaking, and it was a lot of feelings, you know, I found myself acting out on set, you know, like, I'd be like, how is there no coffee?

It's free, it's water and coffee, and then I'd be like, who is this person? And I realized I was like a toddler who didn't know what to do with her feelings, you know? Well, you play your cards pretty close to your chest feelings-wise, you're always pretty chipper and fun to be around, you know, and I've never seen you lose your shit or cry. Yeah, it's not like me, really.

Now, his wife wrote this thing? Yeah, she wrote it, it was a novel, and she adapted it into a screenplay with her writing partner, Paige Dillon, her name is Amy Cotlman, and yeah, she heard me on stern, and just decided that it was me, like, I just, it was just, I got real lucky. It's weird, because, I mean, you don't, you know, obviously we are among our peers who are childless, and you really had to step up and behave like a mother, but I guess you've got so many nieces and nephews that, you know, that you have that instinct in you. Yeah, and I, you know, I'm 45, and I don't have kids, and, you know, when you're a woman, I'm finding out, it's like, I mean, you get so much pressure.

I got two emails within the span of a week, two weeks ago, from people in my life who I don't necessarily know really well, who just out of nowhere just said, you should really have kids, and I've been thinking about you, and it's such an odd thing to put on someone, and it's a sadness for me, because I love kids, I ache for kids, but I don't, but I love my life more, I just, you can't have it all, you really can't, unless you're like a fun dad, married to a woman who wants to have kids, and understands you're on the road, and then you come home, and everyone's like, dad, and you can give your best self, I could be a fun dad, I feel totally prepared for that, I don't have the lifestyle that is conducive to having kids the way I would want to have kids, and I just made that choice, but it doesn't mean that that choice is like, I have no regrets, or no sadnesses about it, and so, in a way, it was kind of perfect, because I have this sadness and this desperation around children, that I feel like worked well for this part, because she has so much anxiety about loving her kids, and not wanting to fuck them up, and living in anxiety, where she's constantly saying, I'm going to fuck them up, I'm going to ruin them, I'm going to abandon them, there's no room for anything else, and it's energy, and kids feel that, it's real, it's science, it's matter, just like crystals and shit. Yeah, it's also the struggle, I think, of a self-centered parent, and everything you're saying to me about the reasons you have for not wanting kids, which are reasonable, is primarily because, like you said, you're fundamentally like the way it is, so it's smart, I don't have kids either, because I'm a selfish, anxiety-ridden mess. Yeah, and is that selfish, because we're not having the kids? No, no, no, no, I think, I think.

There's plenty of people, like I said, I can't, it blows my mind how easily people make the decision to have kids, I'm totally paralyzed by it. Yeah, me too, me too, but I'm not saying that we're selfish for not having kids, I'm saying that we identify our selfishness, and that we just, you know, we don't want to, we don't necessarily have the emotional time, or the desire completely, to make that choice with our life, but a lot of people who are like that still have the kids, like my parents, for instance. Well, you're glad that they did, I'm glad that they did. Oh, thank you, but I thought that that element of your personality, of being very hard on yourself, you know, because you don't want to be, you don't want to fuck the kids up, and this character is fundamentally selfish, because she's consumed with her own problems.

Well, that's exactly right, there's no room for anything else, she's so, you know, people, you know, and it's funny, because there have been parallels to this part with, like, stuff I've thought about in comedy, and of course, it's so totally different than comedy, but, you know, just the idea that people think that this self-hatred is modesty, and it's the opposite, it's total self-obsession, there's no room for anything else, so she might be consumed with, I'm going to rule my kids, I'm going to what if, what if, what if, like that living in that anxiety state, it is totally self-consumption. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, you're completely self-consumed, because you're not really, like, the character in it maybe, like, is not necessarily capable of nurturing, like, all those parts where you're just looking at your kids, looking at your daughter, and you feel this, like, distance there, but you're completely panicked, but you're sort of unable to reach out properly, I mean, Jesus Christ, Sarah, that scene where, you know, you're fucked up, and you go into your daughter's bedroom, that scene with that teddy bear was crazy. Yeah. I mean, like, I've been on sets before, was that one of those situations where the director's like, all right, can we clear the set, please, can we...

Well, there's nothing really to clear, because the crew was so bare-bones anyway, every day, you know, it's a $400,000 movie, so there wasn't, um, really excess people on the set at any given time. But were they saying, did he say things like, you know, give her space, you need space to sort of figure out and get into this, it's really kind of intense when you're put in a position to have those kind of emotions, you know, on camera, and you're sort of like, all right, action, and it's like, it's really fucking heavy, was it, did you feel that when you were doing some of this stuff? Yeah, I just, um, I think I just got to a place where I was so inside that head, and it just, everything felt, you know, like, you'd think that would be, like, the hardest, like, scene or something, but it wasn't, because it was so exhilarating and challenging, and there was so much energy behind it that, you know, it was kind of, I mean, fun isn't the word, but it was, you know, like, exhilarating. Yeah, because you were in it, you were totally immersed in it.

Yeah, I was immersed in it, and it is true, it was like, I don't have my 10,000 hours in of that kind of stuff to snap out of it or to access it easy and then put it back, so it was just, it was pretty intense. But you were willing, you were willing to go there, and, you know, and you showed up for it emotionally. It's like, you know, I don't know how real, you know, like, people with 10,000 hours of acting or whatever, or years of training, I do know something about comics, though, is we know how to be fucking present, and, you know, when necessary, we can really, you know, be present, and you just sort of, like, you pulled it off, and the supporting cast was great, too, Josh Charles was great, the kids were great. Oh, my God, so delicious.

Right? It was so good. And, like, at the end, like, I emailed you after I saw it, like, I just couldn't, like, at the end of it, you know, I watched it on New Year's Eve, and we had to watch something else after, because we didn't want to fuck up on New Year's Eve with the I can't believe you watched on New Year's Eve. I guess there's no good time to watch it.

I mean, we'll watch it. Well, yeah, I don't think there's no good time to watch it, but it is, like, a very human story, and it's a dark story, and it's not tragic in the sense that, you know, people die or anything, but it's tragic in its struggle, and, like, I wrote you in the email, like, I want to believe that she's going to be okay, you know, like, and that's where it comes from a place where, you know, because I'm a recovery guy, I'm like, she can still, you know, pull it together, that woman. Everything can be all right for her. She just has a really, really low bottom, and we didn't see it yet, but, you know, that's the thing that I love about this movie, is that it's interesting about it, is that it's, there isn't anyone who isn't, or hasn't been on one side of this depression or addiction in their life, and so what you think of her, whether you have empathy or total disdain or you fucking hate her guts or you, you're heartbreaks for her, it has only everything to do with your life experience that you're walking into the theater, you know, into your living room with.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what happens now? I'm very excited that you're, like, you're nominated for a SAG Award for Best of Female Actress. That's fucking amazing.

Isn't that crazy? It's exciting. Do you want to do more of this type of acting, though, Sarah? Um, I don't think I, yes, yes, but I, I don't think I can, I don't, I don't know that I would ever want to do anything this week again, because it really, you know what, I'm so glad I did.

Yeah. No, yes, I, yeah, I mean, I definitely, I'm interested in acting. I always have been. I just got this chance, you know, and I got real lucky, but, um, but also it's funny, and you know this probably, well, unless you have better stamina than me, but when you shoot your show, you're probably not out doing sets at night.

No, just on the weekend. Yeah, it's really hard. I can't believe you can do that. But when I do acting stuff, it takes me away from stand-up.

And so then when I'm done and I can go back to stand-up, I'm like three steps behind where I left off. And it's a kind of sisyphysical thing where I can't, I'm not like, I don't have an hour to headline on the road and actually make a living, you know, because I'm, you know, I make no money in acting. No, no, that makes sense. I'm a little rung, you know, which is fine.

But to make a living, we're comics and also it's who I am, you know, and it's, you know, I'm envious of people like Todd or Tig who, if they have only 15 minutes of new material, they can still go on the road because they can just do crowd work until they have, you know, they're brilliant without material. And I don't like trust myself enough for that. So I, I feel, um, I get so deficient in stand-up and it's, it's kind of the one thing I can count on. So I, you feel kind of free-fally, but I do, I do, you know, I like doing all those things.

I like doing odd jobs. I understand. Have you not done stand-up for a month? No, I can't remember.

It's terrifying. It's horrible because you go back and you're like scared again and it's fucking ridiculous. Yeah, it's just like a gym, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, absolutely.

Because it's your whole life. Exactly. No, but it was great and, uh, and I'm excited for you. And I think that ultimately the, one of the great things is that now that you know you're able to push yourself this far out emotionally, that anything in between, you know, your comedy and this type of emotional work, you know, is, is open game now.

Like it seems like you could probably handle any role, you know, within, you know, the parameters of, of, of who you are, which is great. That's beautiful. Aw, thank you. That's inspiring.

I'm glad I said something inspiring. You always do. Well, I love you and I, and I, and I hope you win the thing and, and I hope I see you soon. Oh, me too.

I love you too. Thanks, Sarah. Bye. So Todd Haynes, I was thrilled to get the opportunity to talk to Todd Haynes.

I've been sort of mildly obsessed with his work for years. As I began to say at the beginning of the show, I had a VHS of the, of Superstar, the Karen Carpenter story. I, I happened upon the film Poison, which actually is three films in one in my recollection. When I was living in San Francisco in the early nineties, it was part of the gay film festival.

I think it was at the Castro. I believe I went to the premiere and I couldn't wrap my brain around what, what Todd was trying to say with this, with this film. He's a real artist, Todd. And I've always been sort of fascinated with him and fascinated with his movies, especially because they confounded me.

I followed his, uh, his career. I went to see safe, safe. Are you kidding me? When that movie came out, I don't even know where I was.

I must've been in New York. I remember going to see it. I saw it with a friend of mine and I walked out just thinking like, I have no fucking idea what that was about, but man, was that compelling. It always struck me that Todd Haynes had a vision.

Like he made movies, especially the movies he wrote and directed where, uh, he had the freedom to do what he wanted to do. And he had a true artistic vision and the movie safe never left me. Like there's very few movies that do that. There's some big movies that, you know, obviously we all know that you can't get out of your head, but safe is a difficult film and it's, it's, it's sort of cryptic, but it never left my mind.

When I think about it, it still has an effect on me. Velvet Goldmine, that was another one about Bowie and Eddie Pop, fictionalized, but that movie was fucking great. What a great period piece. Far From Heaven was amazing.

His riff on a Douglas Sirk film. I just, I just have a lot of, uh, a lot of respect for the guy. He takes chances and he makes real, real art movies. I'm not there.

Are you kidding? The Bob Dylan movie? I don't even know what that was, but I was like, holy shit, I got to reckon with this. And now this new one, Carol, which he directed only, but it, the combination of this script and I guess this story, which is based on a book and his sensibility, his, uh, auteur's vision, it was like a perfect match.

I don't know if you've seen the film, Carol, but to me, it is one of the best love stories I've ever seen. Uh, it was completely moving to me. I've watched it three times and I'm just astounded by, you know, what he was able to do with that camera and also, you know, what he got out of those actors and the story itself. Just spectacular.

So I was a little nervous here, um, you know, talking to Todd because, uh, those of you who've been with me long enough know that, um, if I'm a real fan, I get a little excited, but I was, I was, I was really, it's, it's very exciting to talk to a director whose work that you are very familiar with and, and we had a great conversation. So, so, and also I might want to mention that his new movie, Carol, is in theaters now, it's nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, six Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Director for Todd. So this is my, uh, amazing conversation with Todd Haynes. Before we get into it, I just want to preface this with saying, uh, this is a, this is a little filmy.

This is, this is definitely a film fans conversation. All right. So here's, uh, Todd Haynes and myself talking. So I'm, uh, I'm excited to meet you.

I had no idea what to expect. Some of your movies have, uh, profoundly altered my brain. No way. No, seriously.

That's pretty cool. No, they're like, I've got questions. I've got questions. Well, you might not, but I think you, I think a guy who makes movies like you should have a couple answers.

We'll see. Well, I don't talk to directors too often, but we're, we're about two years apart in age. So I feel like we've had some of the same influences and you probably went to college with some friends of mine. Where'd you grow up though?

I grew up in LA. You grew up in Los Angeles. I grew up in LA. That's, I'm not, that's not disappointing.

That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like where?

That's good. I grew up in the Valley. Really? Yeah.

Were you parents in show business? Not my folks. No. My grandfather worked at Warner Brothers.

As what? Worked up from messenger boy. Yeah. To head up to union organizer.

To head of set construction in 1940. So he was a union sec guy. He was a union sec guy. At Warner.

And got, at Warner's. And got, you know, I don't know what his, how, how much the culture of LA and the people he was around sort of oriented his politics and a sort of progressive streak. But he definitely, yeah. Yeah.

It definitely formed while he was there. And he left when the blacklist culture just became too, you know. Out of disgust? Yeah.

And his friends were getting blacklisted and he felt it. It wasn't him, but it was people he knew and people he admired. Within those departments? Every department?

Well, I think he knew, you know, I think he knew writers and there was a warm fraternity in that place and I think he felt it. Right. There was a small community at the movie making at that time. Yeah.

And did you know him well? Yes. He was a huge part of my life. Did you go to the set?

Oh, no. I didn't know him then. Oh, okay. That was the 30s, 40s.

But he started his own business. He was like a, he gave money for my film Poison. Did he? I mean, he helped me through college.

I called him Bumpy. Uh-huh. And he was an amazing guy. His wife, my grandmother, Mama.

What kind of names are those? Baby names. Oh, okay. That stuck.

That everybody followed, all the grandkids followed suit. Was that your mom's dad or your dad's dad? That was my mom's mom and dad. Uh-huh.

And they were pretty awesome. And they were from here? They were from, they were, they were born, he was born in Portland, Oregon. Oh, yeah.

Moved when he was a kid. I live in Portland, Oregon now. Why? Is there any family connection there?

No, no. It was like my sister sort of rediscovered Portland in the 90s. Uh-huh. Moved there.

It was always like Wendy's town. Uh-huh. And I moved when I, after living in New York for 15 years. Had enough.

Yeah. It had changed a lot. It's where cultured people run, that Portland. It is.

Yeah, it is. I hope it, I hope they know what to do. Yeah, they go to Florida, right? But I mean, they have amazing human resources in Portland.

Yeah. But I never quite got a handle on it. I had some good sandwiches. Some good food there.

There's some really good food there. Yeah. No, I left at a time that I needed to change. Right.

And maybe even more than I knew, you know. Yeah. And I went away to write and get out of the city. And I met a lot of really cool people who were just not fully defining their lives by their careers and their ambitions.

Right. And their, uh. People who just live in life. Kind of live in life.

Artists, writers, you know. And I, and I, uh, and I think I was going through a little bit of a midlife crisis. I started hanging out with people about 10 years younger than me. That'll help.

And yeah. And then they were, at that point, they were still unattached. And there was that sense of fluidity and movement, you know. Right.

And it reflected my life maybe a little more as a filmmaker than people, my peers in New York. And that, and then of course the music stopped. They all coupled up. Now they all have babies.

Now I'm, now they're all. Oh man, now. Exactly. What do we can do with Todd?

Yeah. Oh geezer. He's hanging around again. Wish he had some friends.

So, all right. Well, let's go through it then. So your interest in film started when? Well, my interest in film I think started, you know, when I saw my first movie when I was three years old.

When I saw. What was your first movie? My actual first movie? Yeah.

Do you remember? Well, the one I remember, I remember going to Radio City with my grandmother to see something called The Red Tent. Which was. Like a Disney movie?

No, no. It was this horrible ice survival movie. Like I was, it was disturbing. But we went to Radio City.

I think we were in the city. She goes, I'd like to take you. I don't think you can put my research into it. Yeah.

But I feel like that was one of the first ones I really remember seeing. You remember the show? The Radio City show before? Yeah.

I remember the Rockettes a bit. Yeah. But I just remember a guy that went to die in a hole of ice. Like he, he'd given up.

I just remember. Yeah. Wow. As it was.

You were a kid when you went to see Deliverance. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark, I think that explains a lot. Does it? I think I might. I don't know.

What was yours? I hope it was better. No, mine was, mine was, you know, I guess past the code. It was Mary Poppins.

That was 1964. It had some kind of seismic effect on my brain. It provoked a kind of intense, almost obsessive creative reaction to the movie. Really?

Where I had to reproduce it. Draw pictures of Mary Poppins constantly. Act out scenes from Mary Poppins constantly. I mean, some, some psychosis set in.

You loved it. I loved it. And it touched some crazy nerve. And I'm sure the maternal figure had some part in that, you know, the spectacle of that movie with its animation and its live action and its, you know, the music.

How were things at home, though, generally? They were good. They were stable. Yeah, that was good.

Parents fought. Yeah. But they sort of fought it out, you know? They stayed together.

They did. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's also that escape thing. Because I watched your film today.

I watched Carol, which is like, what a great love story. Well, yeah. That's why I sort of wanted to do it. I mean, it's a real love story in a very deep way.

Yeah. And, like, there were points where I didn't even know why I was experiencing emotion. Right. That's cool.

Well, yeah. Like, I don't know if you're getting it, but I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me. I cry about everything now. I just get weepy as shit.

Did you lose a parent recently? No. No, I didn't lose anybody. I think I'm just watching my life go away.

That's it. I mean, I lost my mom in 2010, and that produces surprising moments of sentimental, you know, affect. Like, whoa, I just walked past a flower patch, and, you know, I'm crumbled. Yeah, mine usually has to do with story.

Yeah. Like, I haven't had the kind of, like, just flowers or anything. Right. Proustian.

No, not quite like that. But, like, you know, it turns in stories and moments and things that are loaded up. The tone of that time. What was that?

The 40s? Early 50s. Early 50s. But you're right.

It wasn't the full-on 50s yet. It really felt like the end of the 40s. 52 into 53. But Eisenhower had not yet taken off.

Right. He had been elected, and you see his inaugural address at the end of the movie. Right. But it really wasn't that Eisenhower gloss.

Because I think I've seen all of your movies except for the shorts. Right. And I did see the Karen Carpenter story. You did?

Yeah, I had it on video tape. I don't know where the hell I got it, but I had it. Wow. And I used to show people it.

I can't watch this anywhere else. I got a copy. Awesome. But that felt like a feature, wasn't it?

That was like 47 minutes. Like a weirdly length. Too long for a short. Too short for a feature.

And I believe I saw the premiere of Poison at the Castro Theater. Oh my god, no way. At the Castro Theater. Did it premiere at the Castro Theater?

It probably premiered. During the Gay Film Fest? Because I was living in basically San Francisco in 92. Yeah.

Would that be about right? That would be exactly right. And I did some pieces of that movie lodged in my head. Mostly the horror part.

The black and white part. The black and white part. Yeah. With the pus coming out of the guy.

It drips into his hot dog. Right. Yeah. While he's eating his food.

Yeah, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Kind of stuff. The psychotronic kind of.

The red tent thing. Black and white. Yeah. Carnival of Souls.

Safe I never recovered from. Because I've never been so enraptured by a movie that I did not fucking understand. It's a long movie I remember. I remember I went with people.

It's like two and a half hours or something. No, it's not that long. It probably feels that long. Okay.

So that was intentional? Well, it has a pace all of its own. It has that whole final chapter in this crazy new age. Right.

I remember being like, is that guy evil? Or is he good? Well, because he's described as an amazing leader with AIDS. Right.

And that was a MacGuffin. That was a misleader on my part. Because I wanted everybody to think, oh, wow. He's got to be a good guy.

He's got AIDS. But he's still one of those guys. But he's one of those guys. And he basically is there to tell you that you're responsible for your own illness.

The way people were telling a lot of people with HIV at the time. Like Louise Hay, the new age guru. Right. Your immoral lifestyle.

Well, not even that. But if you learn how to love yourself, you'll get rid of your HIV. Oh, no. So it comes from a place of love, right?

Right. But that entraps the sufferer. Right. That's like 95.

So people were really dying. Yeah. Absolutely. But I remember I was with people.

And they were like, what? And I'm like, I don't know what. But it meant something. There's something to that thing.

It was very powerful. And I love her. She's amazing. And that was a really crazy role.

That was like an impossible role. But we talked about essentially what it was. Above a Go minus God. Because I love all those guys.

I think we have some similar heroes. Far From Heaven. I loved it. That look at that thing.

But we're going to go backwards. I'm not there. I saw. Found it difficult.

It was difficult. Are you a Dylan fan? Yeah, I'm a big Dylan fan. But once we got to the weird western town with Calexico and those guys.

But Carol, okay. So let's start there. So it's taken from a short story or a novel. It's taken from Patricia Highsmith's second novel.

She wrote Strangers on a Train first. Her first outing. The Hitchcock. That she sold Alfred Hitchcock.

Okay. So this is an early 20s. And I don't know what the date of Strangers on a Train was. But she wrote The Price of Salt, which is what Carol's based on in 50.

It was published in 50. How did you come to that subject matter? This came to me. This is the only film I've made so far that I didn't originate and write and sort of struggle to get into, you know, into being a high actor.

You hired as a director. I was brought in. I mean, basically, I was a high. Meaning, at last, is Elizabeth Carlson, who's a producer, English producer, who I've known for years.

He's an old, old friend. And Kate was attached to play Carol. And Sandy Powell was attached, the costume designer who I'd worked with, this is my third time, with Sandy. So I'd heard about it.

And I think they were moving from director to director or something. And my fall opened up in 2013. And they came to me with the project. And who wrote the script?

Phyllis Nage, this woman who'd been with the project the longest. She'd probably been with Carol for almost 15 years, believe it or not. Because it sort of functions thematically as a companion piece too far from heaven, in a way. People have definitely talked about it in that context.

I mean, they're really different in style and in tone. But yeah, they both deal with homosexuality in the 1950s, secretive lives or lives of people discovering things about. themselves in horrible and desire kind of like pounding its way through uh societal norms and personal uh exactly uh repression but you know but in far from heaven i really wanted to put you in this slightly strange position where you're aligned with the wife who basically has to stand by the family institution while the husband in secret is dealing with his his feelings his homosexuality but you but we're aligned with the wife we don't really have access to what he's doing and where he goes and we get little glimpses of it so we're really on her in her story which is the more passive side of the story but but the like once established that the husband's leading the secret gay life the uh the emotional story is more with her even if it's not exactly because she's got to struggle with her feelings she's got to struggle with her feelings and an outlet for than what she finds with unexpectedly with this the character that dennis hayesburg plays that after the gardener which is loaded on a couple levels totally so you have sort of race and gender and sexuality and this little crazy knot and to frame it in an homage almost like perfectly to douglas surface what was it about those films that that compelled you to use that as a framework as a context i saw that you know i was in i first encountered cirque in college yeah and they're the most fascinating films i mean they're not easy films i think a lot of people encounter them first on late night tv watching written on the wind or right your first reaction like we got color yeah we got color and you know how sexist you know and uh and then there's something about those movies that feel like they cut through to some level of truth almost more powerfully than if they were done in a kind of documentary style there's something about the artificial worlds that that they inhabit you know and these and these impossible interiors that seem to be crowding in on the characters in the movies they're like little dolls in dollhouses that are where the walls are slowly crushing these people dolls come up in this film dolls come up in this film dolls have been sort of trying to make dolls what is it about dolls i don't know what did you study in college i studied film but i studied art but i went to brown right yeah and when i went to brown there was this new program within the english department called semiotics you know it was like the post-throidian post-feminist post-structuralist sure there's a couple guys i knew who were studying a film at bu and i felt uh fascinated with it i couldn't wrap my brain around it right i was in it and i didn't know what it was either i just well yeah i think i think i started to understand exactly what it was about when i went to one of my first semiotics courses and it was about sound theory in movies and talking about the classic hollywood text and they said and this film ends with the obligatory heterosexual closure and i went whoa and you were out and gay and well i was out and gay but i was like you just said the unsayable you just said the thing that we're all supposed to think is natural is unspoken is expected in movies in resolutions of movies and stories and you just outed it right yeah and all of a sudden i was like okay i get what this is it's talking about the language of our society that we don't notice as constructed as intentional and confining and confining and putting everybody in their places even when they don't even know it even when we all salute it sure it's the big ever pervasive cock of patriarchy totally well that's exactly it that was a that was a big word yeah patriarchy too uh but uh no it was that to me was like you know i know i get this but i didn't really know what it was like a parallel language to things i think i was already starting to feel and think and but that's sort of like uh you know so that was almost like the uh the the hermeneutics of american cinema yes so so and all cultural production sort of saying like look there are all these languages that keep people in place that conform us to a sort of set of terms it's why i think the whole idea of identity as something that is somewhat of a straitjacket that most of us like to think of as something natural and innate that we just find right yeah that's who i am without realizing it's a mindfuck it's a mindfuck and it keeps you straitjacketed something or other but like you know some of us might not have the uh the courage in a way to to sort of start yes most people are constructing their sense of self i mean if they were if they were lucky they were they were properly parented on some level right and given the freedom to do that with a certain amount of autonomy autonomy but with some parental guidance right that enable the safe place for them to do that but most people come from chaos and bullshit right so the the struggle for self becomes a struggle for stability or some sense of normal so if you start to fuck with the idea of identity being a construct where you're losing your mind every day except that except movies except or like let's talk you know like in glam rock like all of a sudden these teenage kids who are in a state of constant instability uncertainty have this image of a bisexual space alien up on stage trancing around or iggy pop sure who was also dealing with gender a little lower than space a little lower than space way down at the bottom playing with notions of masculine of masochism status without knowing it i think i think you sure like you know the bowie character was so aware of the of the drama and the theatrics right and like you know he's just like he's like grunting animal you know he was but they knew that they were challenging the kind of victim of the 60s you know what i mean the velvet underground and the stooges and even the doors there was something they were attacking about a kind of holistic idea of peace and love that they wanted to kind of undermine yeah the idea of sex and love was uh was again contextual and limited and started to feel oppressive right started to feel like you know my brother's back at home with his beetles and stones and that's it and and that's and but but you know but all the young dudes are doing something else sure exactly like a new era so when you were sitting in that semiotics class party you realizing you hear this they're saying the unspoken and you're like well i'm gonna just break that up like i'm good that's my challenge yeah or at least like you know the thing is is that what i dig is that those codes of expectation where we expect a movie to resolve a certain way those aren't things to just throw away they're things to actually use you know right like a spectator is a participant and they have expectations and they want to enter a story and they want to move a certain way they want to move back another way and they're anticipating how it moves like that's a powerful thing so it's cool to like use i think it's exciting to see the powers of the imagination of a spectator and stoke them along but then put up little boundaries or little obstacles that's sort of like it so that that's sort of french new wave trick in a way that you just sort of like you know kind of kick them in the head and make them realize that they're watching a movie yeah and that you still provide pleasure sure and desire and excitement you know still use the fact that they're investing themselves but your last two big movies apart from heaven and carol well i'm not there is in the middle but these two movies are are standard structure right really i mean i think you know it's like i think there was a place where the idea that you know a school girl could get a crush on her teacher okay was not outside of our yeah yeah you know i think what's interesting is we always think oh things are way more repressive in the past and we've just moved forward you know as a culture and everything's more permissive today but you forget that there were humans there were humans and there were all kinds of weird accidental you know little places of a potential space or little accidents and glam rock is a big accident that's one reason why i wanted to explore it but like when you see carol take therese out to lunch or the two women check into a motel together in 1953 yeah you realize oh wow if they were a heterosexual unmarried couple it would be scandalous but an older woman and a younger woman no problem right so there are these little places of movement this novel has been distinguished by a lot of lesbian fiction that preceded it for having a non-punishing ending where the lesbians didn't end up in one of them in the sanitarium or the other off is that why you like the project no i didn't really know much about the novel before i came to it it came to me kind of i didn't know about the price of salt and its sort of legacy um my lesbian friends were quick to remind me how how um uninformed i was but they were they quick to remind you during the process like don't fuck this up dude you're the mascot but um but uh but no i wasn't interested in making a things are so much better now movie or a um i really loved how much it reminded me of being in the dark falling in love with somebody for the first time being young in a movie theater or just no in life when i was a kid you know when it consumes you when it consumes you and you were like absolutely sort of shut out of the world and you were reading every sign that they offer you every signal and it all your fate rests in what did that gesture mean what did that word mean what did that look mean where's it going they like me yeah and and how in a way how pathological that is or how you know like what i love about patricia highsmith what she does in the novel is that all her novels are about the criminal mind and you're locked inside that festering mental state and this is about the amorous mind but it's a similarly festering state for both of them particularly the one who's in the more powerless position and i was like so as you look at that script and as you visualize it as a film obviously you know from looking at it you said yourself somehow we have to capture this time uh perfectly yeah yes and in a really different way than far from heaven which was really all filtered through that kind of highly artificial and specific language that comes out we used that old technical didn't you well we didn't that was the one thing we wish we could have done have a real technical but you felt like it saturated pretty good we did it all non-digitally it was all done on film and we didn't we didn't even finish it on a di the way people do now digital intermediate there was no we did all like non-digital color timing and something like that optical and you wanted to have your hands on the cellular and you still could then yeah and there were people who could do all the work and do you think it made a difference i think it really did and i learned so much about the process by doing it makes a difference in your choices i because you know you don't have a million takes no exactly yeah there you go every all the choices are curtailed by in a period are informed by the by the period by the details by what you see in the frame because you only have so much money and you got to be able to afford it right you know that was true for carol as well what struck me about carol though it would have been fine in black and white yeah you know that made sense but you know you were so tight with uh with the period and also with that the sort of muted colors yes that you know outside of like the drive i think you would have lost a lot in black and white but but it felt like a period film well sort of desaturated like the color photography process that we're looking at from the early 50s now is that just impulsive or did you see with your semiotic brain that they had meaning when we when we opened the film on a subway grade did you did you know did you have a plan for that or is that just impulsive well subways and trains were sort of a theme in the film the little train that rooney that was in the script that was in the book and the script it's described very intense intensely in the book from the very beginning you know from the source does it have thematic meaning to you well what's interesting is it's not just an example of therese not following the sort of conventional choices and wanting to loving dolls and she likes boy toys and she works at a department store and she offers carol that maybe your kid would like a toy train your daughter um but the train is described by highsmith as a kind of um almost having a madness of captivity like it's like spinning around on its tracks maybe gonna fall off and that's okay so there you have the great beneath it the madness of captivity and therese is sort of in a state of potential captivity in this job almost paralysis and paralysis and there's a character that is in the figures in the novel that we actually did shoot in the story we ended up cutting out to just trim it down ruby robichek who's a sort of career shop woman who's therese sort of sees as a potential future for where she you know scary idea where she might end up well you kind of got that feeling with the overbearing manager manager that read yeah it's like well that's where you end up exactly right so what it thematically what do you feel as a poet who makes movies was the the the kind of message of this movie the message of the movie i don't know if i have a single message i think i wanted to explore the love story i think i never really i felt like i never really done that power say in a you know before so maybe look at love stories and maybe look at how point of view functions so interestingly love stories where you're on the side of the weaker party and you know like in war it's the object that gets conquered and in love it's the subject that gets conquered so we're on the side of the vulnerable it kind of and it kind of it rocked a little bit there was there was and that changes in the course of the movie it starts where therese is up and by the end and a lot of it all the shots through windows and you know through glass and reflections and all that stuff sort of makes you aware i hoped it would of who's looking at who who's on this side of the lens who's on that side yeah and therese is an aspiring photojournalist herself and is learning how to frame the world her first subject becomes carol but by the end of the movie when things change it's carol who's in the cab seeing therese cross the street assuming her role in the world looking more like carol than she ever has yeah it was a beautiful movie and there was one there was one scene there where they're in the car and you're shooting outside of therese's window and um and she takes a hit off her cigarette it's a sort of tense scene and she coughs and i thought to myself like he must have been like we gotta use a cough one because that was a real cough it's like we had two takes oh that was it something like that i mean it was a tight it was a tight one doesn't look like a tight one all right now let's move back to uh to the dylan movie and and you know you have some explaining to do because like i saw the concede it seemed very high-minded it seemed very art film to me that you're gonna have a movie about dylan that he signed off on which of course he would uh i can't like i've met jeff rosen once and i imagine like he took this like no bob's gonna love this right right pretty much yeah because this is something alan ginsburg once said about dylan he's like a collection of archetypes is that so that was a cluster of that was what jeff said but was that my comment when he heard my concept was that your concept not based on that no but like what was your concept was just simply like you know i got back into dylan at this sort of you know in the end of the 90s right but we missed the beginning really uh the 60s right so i was in high school right and he was a driving voice and energy in my high school years but i sort of i wasn't paying as much attention to his music from the 80s and just for some reason just felt this need for dylan in my life i think it's a sort of symptomatic thing visions of joanna looms large you know like that's how for guys our age you're always going back to dylan and you can go back to whatever period you want exactly exactly like in my mind it's like all the answers are visions of joanna it's all in visions of joanna it's all in that record yeah i mean really that that and i have you know i have you know amazing cuts from from so many periods of life in the film you know the soundtrack is used that fucking movie is a masterpiece yeah you got all those people that fucking covers and then we got all the dylan stuff we got some really rare and unreleased stuff like the song i'm not there that comes from that's a good song it didn't really cool really cool version so okay so the plan was so i just started to read biographies by dylan for the first time when i was getting back into the music and it was around the time the bootleg series stuff was just starting to release and that stuff kind of blew my mind yeah i hadn't heard a lot of that material and it took me back to periods i loved but all the biographies i described the same unbelievable shape-shifting guy during the 60s where literally you'd meet him in you know april of 64 right and he'd be channeling well it would be earlier when it was woody guthrie right you know and he would be talking like woody guthrie and dressed like woody guthrie and rambling yeah completely you know channeling that tradition sure and encompassing it and creating so much work and then people would meet him literally three four months later and he'd be a different guy he'd look different he'd speak different he was doing different music he rejected everything he'd done before and this would keep defining all of those remarkable outputs of music throughout the 60s yeah and culminating in really well-known moments sort of like explosions or when he finds jesus in in the 70s um and not bad records amazing records i mean slow train coming is a fucking beautiful beautiful, perfect record, incredible, beautiful production, beautiful love songs, really gorgeous love songs, but so I just thought, wow, the only way to really describe this guy is in multiple, you know, is to show literally the fact, and because each time a new guy would come into being, there would need to sort of be an assassination of the last one, there was a way in which just to keep creating and keeping a little space where he could keep making stuff, which I think is sort of how he survives, he has to sort of do away with the expectations, the burdens, the pressures of what he did before, which had been so influential and attracted such a following each time, so I think it was a, you know, it was basically a practice for survival, for an intensely creative individual, but it also meant that each of the, you could demarcate these different people in these different moments, and the 60s were so combustive and so, so concentrated. And Blanchett was the 60s.

Blanchett was, Blanchett was 66. Right. Blanchett was, Blanchett was the electric villain. And who was right before?

Ben Whishaw, who was sort of the poet, kind of Art Rambeau-inspired villain, who was sort of being interviewed, all of the, yeah, exactly, when he was starting to, when he had fully given up to sort of folk, you know, and Ginsburg took all of his brain. Yeah, exactly. But he was also starting to speak in code, David Croft. You did, right, you had David Croft, that's right, yeah.

Yeah, he did a pretty amazing job, so great. But yeah, I'm starting to speak, his interviews from that time were so remarkable, and they were like extensions of the lyrics that were starting to depart from a sort of, you know, socially conscious, applicable, you know. Populism. Yeah, people's music.

Exactly. He was, he's out there to disappoint Pete Seeger. Totally, totally. Break the rules.

And, you know, when he was in his high folk moment, he had the answers, just like when he was in his Christian moment, he had the answers. And when he was, when he rejected that, he said there are no answers. Oh, yeah. And that screwed with people's minds and expectations.

So, so that was the spirit of it, but, you know, but I also wanted it to be, I did want it to be fun. I don't know if it was so fun for you. When you trust somebody to be a great artist, you have to reckon with what they're doing. Right.

So if it's not sitting with you, you know, usually it's on me. So, like, I got to decode what the intention is. It's like watching the David O. Russell, I Heart Huckabees.

Like, what is that? Right. It's a farce. It's difficult.

It's like an Inesco play. Yeah. So. You kind of can't look away.

Right. You're compelled. Yeah. And I felt that.

But, like, there were so many different styles that you were moving through because of the timeline you were doing it. Right. So I did not like the movie. Right.

I just, like, there was a couple of questions, like, why Richard Gere at some point? You know, like, and there was part of me that thought, like, I like this Wild West Town thing, you know, with these hippies around. Why can't we have a little more of that? So there was part of me that was like, that seems like a cool place to hang out.

Yeah. And you kept moving. And I don't know. It's almost like it should have been an HBO miniseries with many parts or something like that.

But you couldn't have visualized it like that, right? I mean, that movie is a movie to you. No, it really is a movie to me. And it needed to intercut.

I mean, you know, Harvey Weinstein didn't care for the Western part either. I liked it. I dug it too. The first artist who made a decision to make this film from your own fucking mind and heart was, you know, reckoning with these closures that deal with these obstacles and departures from self.

So this is an identity thing. Exactly. It really was. It was a multiplying of identity and a refusal of fixed identity with the artist who received probably more pressure to keep fulfilling expectations and supplying from the right business, from the audience, from the entire culture that he was inspiring, you know, and that obviously was inspiring him as well.

And you love him for that. Of course. God. I never met him.

You have no idea what he thought of the film? He finally talked about the movie in a Rolling Stone interview that came out after a good year after the film came out. And he praised the film. And he dug, of course, he dug Kate.

He was sort of blown away by Kate. He was like, I should have put Kate in Asset Anonymous. What the hell was I doing in that movie? But there was a moment, I have to say, with Jeff Rosen, who really was our liaison through the whole process.

That's Dylan's personal assistant. His guy. His guy. And the keeper of the gate.

The art of the gate of Dylan. He still got an office in New York over by Irving Walsh. Exactly. As far as I know.

There was a point where we had to extend the rights. I was doing more work on the script and doing more research. And I was like talking to Jeff about it. I said, Jeff, you know, I feel a burden now.

You're giving me the rights to Dylan's life and music for the first time ever to make into a film. I know he loves movies. And I feel I have a responsibility to get it right. And he said, and this is Dylan's manager.

This is Dylan's gatekeeper talking. And he said, Todd, don't worry about that shit. You just have to make your own weird story and your own interpretation of what this is about. That's what you're doing.

And I'm like, Jesus, what? Who gets to do this? You know? I mean, I felt really.

It was almost like the freedom of artistic integrity that Dylan demands. I was being handed. Well, he'd made a couple of forays into weird movies. He actually had.

Ronaldo and Clara. Eat the Document, which is a fantastic film, which Dylan edited the first half hour of. It's the color companion piece that Don't Look Back, that Scorsese used a lot of footage from. But it's all that color stuff from the electric year.

And Dylan cut it together in this crazy experimental documentary. And Robbie Robertson, I think, finished the cut. And so Dylan's never been felt completely. And he was also acting.

He was in, he played Alias and Peckinpah's Billy the Kid. Peckinpah and Billy the Kid. And that was a reference to the Western part. It's why it's Billy the Kid.

And the tone, the color. It's like those hippie Westerns from the late 60s. I love those. You know, Butch Cassidy.

Oh, God, how great is that movie? When was the last time you watched that? Oh, it's so well done. It's so beautifully shot.

I just love the pairing of those guys. I know, right? Oh, my God. You wanted him to win.

But he had a tragic ending, which was also so romantic. What? The freeze frame. The slow zoom out.

And they're just hearing the Spanish firing. And then the slow score, I think, fades up or something. Really awesome. Are you a big Peckinpah fan?

Yeah. Son of that shit's great. Incredible. Straw Dogs.

All Men. And The Wild Bunch. Yeah, those two guys. All Men, too.

Like that movie, it's similar in a weird way to the freedom that you found in Safe. Like, you know, McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a difficult movie. And it has a pace unto itself.

It has a pace unto itself. And you're not really sure what it's about. It really turns out it's about, you know, it's about corporate takeovers. It is.

Exactly. It is. And it's about the building of a town and the compromises that that brings upon the freedoms of this new frontier. And you get this weird, almost comic character just befuddled.

Completely. Under the thumb of the Julie Christie character. But even the way the camera is always searching through those long shots, those long lens shots. Really long.

Where it's really blurry and everything's compressed and the camera's sort of locating the subject through the haze of whatever it is. And you feel like the movie's doing that, you know? And if it's inside, there's just chatter. There's just like chatter everywhere.

All the classic multiple Altman dialogues going on at the same time. Do you have a favorite director that moved you the most? Oh, God, it's really hard. There's no one director.

You know, I mean, I... It's a bad question. It's a hard one. I mean, you know, and it always, you can answer it with some generalities.

But like, I go back to Hitchcock. Really? He just blows me away. See, that's so wild because I know that's true.

And I know that he has, you know what I mean? But like, I don't have patience with thrillers. And I know that he was so on top of it and the control that he executed and the ability to really be aware at all levels of story and cutting and sound and all that. But I have a hard time sitting through these movies.