Rehearsal

Between your lips and attached underneath your leg. It's always clear. It was hard to get a take without me, especially, cracking up during it. I think that was, in some ways, the most fun moment of the shoot. There's Lindsay Beamish. This is Severin. Lindsay Beamish, we met later in the rehearsal process in Los Angeles when an actor dropped out

2:16 · jump to transcript →

This is Ray Rivas, who is the most awesome performer playing Shabbos Goy. He's amazing. He's funny as hell. Remember the rehearsal where he got shot the week before? Yeah, he got shot. We're going to talk about that in the deleted scene. But he is a performance artist. He told me that he did a performance in that exact space in Dumba where he was, like, hanging from hooks and...

23:52 · jump to transcript →

We had more time to rehearse with you guys. These guys, Jan and Shanti, really jumped right into the short bus stew. Didn't hold back. In the middle of an orgy. Yeah. It was so funny when you were talking about watching the group sex there. Remember it?

31:00 · jump to transcript →

rubber sword there. Always amusing to... Try to cut around. Yeah. Also, when Freddie gets thrown across the room there, he suddenly becomes giant for a shot. That was his double. If you go back, you look at that sword under the... the old sword under the armpit stab. It's funny, though, with the sound effect, it's really effective. The actors here rehearsed and rehearsed, but on the day Ade nailed...

30:29 · jump to transcript →

Big shots like that, you don't think about, but not only do they have to be lit and we have to rehearse it and get everything ready, but then we have to light all those flambos and light all the torches and wet down the floor. And sometimes by the time you're done, the floor is dried up or the fires have gone out. It's a funny thing about torches. You see all these people use torches in movies and you think, well, they last forever. Those torches, any kind of torch like that, they'll stay lit maybe three or four minutes, max.

37:27 · jump to transcript →

Doc's hand shakes there. He's afraid. This shot, it's funny because this shot is slightly out of focus at the beginning. And we picked it. It was actually just a... They filmed it, but it wasn't actually supposed to be a take. It was a second unit shot because it was a motion control camera that took a full day. This shot right here took a full day to do. And so second unit got it. And we decided the best take was their rehearsal take.

55:23 · jump to transcript →

And then he showed up for rehearsal six weeks later looking like that. He had put on 25 pounds of muscle. Like that? Like that, yeah, no, that, exactly. And there was a gang bang triple play. By the way, is the Andrew Davis name on the cover any sort of, was that just a coincidence? Is there an Andrew Davis name on the cover? Yeah, and the one cover of The Girl, one of the bullets on the front page is a blurb about Andrew Davis. Does he owe us money for that? I don't know. I don't even know if you know him, but I wondered if that was any sort of illusion.

7:06 · jump to transcript →

In the script, they sort of spoke a lot more of their thoughts than you needed to show in the movie. Well, again, there was a series of scenes. You cut back to this diner. I love this lady. She doesn't care less about getting them coffee. And by the way, to any first-time director, whenever you're directing a scene with extras in the background, after the first rehearsal, or during the first rehearsal, don't even watch the actors. Watch the extras.

50:18 · jump to transcript →

I don't, I'm a vegetarian. She ate 75 shrimp. Wow. Because this is one scene that I did cover. I even shot a third angle. Sure, this one. And the poor girl doing take after take after take. And I went up to Taye. I don't know if I should tell this story. I went up to Taye after we rehearsed the scene. And I'm going to clean up the language. And I said, we've got a problem.

54:17 · jump to transcript →

Jonathan Lynn

shoot big and difficult scenes a little later on in the schedule when the actors know each other well enough and when the crew will be working together, but we had no choice. Miraculously, we shot this whole scene within a 12-hour period on the first day. And we had rehearsed it first. The actors were just wonderful, remembered everything we'd rehearsed. Whatever. It seems that our dentist friend here knows where Yimmy is. Oh.

25:41 · jump to transcript →

Jonathan Lynn

when we rehearsed. And then we spent about two hours discussing exactly what had happened so that we could reconstruct it correctly and shoot it. That little moment took a very long time on the day, but it almost invariably gets a round of applause when it's seen with a big audience. The other reason

1:30:56 · jump to transcript →

Jonathan Lynn

we were able to shoot the film fast is because we rehearsed for a couple of weeks with all the cast. And because as a result, I was able to have a complete shot list in my head before we started the movie. We didn't storyboard anything. It wasn't all drawn out. But I think we began the movie on day one with my knowing effectively every shot in the film. And that saves an awful lot of time.

1:31:25 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

And we attached the ropes to it and then got 200 or 300 local Cambodian extras to tug on those ropes. And it was going to be a one-take thing. It took days to put those blocks in. And I was leaving the following day. So we had one chance to pull this thing down. And we rehearsed them and rehearsed them. And I had four or five cameras on it and one Steadicam.

41:53 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

camera in the middle amongst the guys and the idea was that the Steadicam was to run down the middle between the guys just at the moment the blocks were pulled out and fell to the ground and as I said we rehearsed this over and over again to make sure all the extras knew what was going to happen. At the last minute they got overexcited and when we gave the signal to pull they pulled so hard that they all fell backwards and knocked the Steadicam

42:17 · jump to transcript →

Simon West

As I said, I came up with the idea of the swinging log quite late while we were already shooting. And so the set wasn't actually built with the log inside it. And so it was a late addition. And Angelina hadn't had time to rehearse jumping on this log and riding it. And so I had the stunt doubles.

51:12 · jump to transcript →

Ron Howard

Josh Ryan Evans plays the young Grinch. Terrific young actor. And he spent some time with Jim Carrey, who had already begun developing the character, of course, in rehearsals. But it was really fun on these days to see

28:20 · jump to transcript →

Ron Howard

We'd rehearsed it. We knew the material was good. Jim had a great handle on it. But seeing it in character, in the cave, it just became a real highlight in the film.

39:54 · jump to transcript →

Ron Howard

again, didn't exist in the book whatsoever, but they're a real outgrowth of what we've developed through the first half of the story and provided a great performance opportunity for Jim and for Taylor. Look at that walk. Jim is so physical. When we were rehearsing this movie, of course, without the costumes, air-conditioned sets, Jim in a T-shirt and jeans,

41:25 · jump to transcript →

And by the meantime, she's just exactly similar quality of Audrey Hepburn. And she looks so elegant. That's what we need, elegant and sexy, you know, and smart. And then to pair with Tom, it just looked like the golden couple and the very charming couple, you know. So we are very excited about her. And then we did some, a little bit of rehearsal before we start shooting. And we put Tom and Thandie in front of the camera.

15:06 · jump to transcript →

I usually like to give them a lot of creative freedom. And I like them to improvise their dialogue and changing, you know, something. And I respect their ideas, you know. And I try to find a way to work it out, try to find a way to work into the scene. And I like instincts. I like they do everything by their own instinct. And I hate rehearsal. You know, I've never liked to do any rehearsal in advance. On a set, all I need is just a rough,

1:01:13 · jump to transcript →

rehearsal and, you know, walk around on the set and make everybody understand what the scene is about and make everybody feel comfortable on the staging. And then we just shoot it. I like happening. I like something unexpected thing happen. In face-off, even in this movie, I also did the same thing with Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Tom Cruise, and Dougray Scott, and everyone. You know, I have never...

1:01:41 · jump to transcript →

follow the story and feel it emotionally without the use of dialogue and without the use of music, just with behavior. It was a big challenge but a lot of fun. We started moving to a place where during rehearsals we were almost trying to understand the scenes without the dialogue to just sort of finally get to what the behavior of a scene was and how much of the storytelling is really in that and I think

10:02 · jump to transcript →

We are all used to a lot of, especially in American movies, we're used to a lot of words. And it was really exciting to strip them down in rehearsal, in the making, and even in the editing of the movie, just to let the composition, performance, and story architecture sort of shine through. Yeah, but we had to be very, very specific too in the creation of the scenes and the layout and what kind of information emotionally we're sort of doling out. You know, are we doling out the feeling of family?

10:31 · jump to transcript →

This was the Bob Marley virologist philosophy, which is something that we sort of came up with as we were working through sort of character and theme and early version of the screenplay and then in rehearsals. Yeah, and we're all big Bob Marley fans. And I remember, I think, I think Will came up with starting the use of it, just he was looking up Legend, I Am Legend, and came up with, saw Legend on the internet and Bob Marley's album, you know, Bob Marley's album, and brought it up and started thinking about it and

1:16:53 · jump to transcript →

I feel like everybody got along pretty well in this movie, and there wasn't a lot of... There was nobody... I don't think we could have made the movie if there was anybody who wasn't on board for the whole experience. I think it was for everybody, Nick Nolte and... I was never late at the movie. No, you weren't, just today. Just rehearsals, too. You fucked up in a couple of the rehearsals early on. That's true. This was another sequence that felt like we shot it for seven years. LAUGHTER

23:57 · jump to transcript →

This was a tough one. This was a tough one because we had a lot to... You know, every scene, there were a lot of actors in every scene, so we had a lot of coverage we had to get. But we rehearsed it. We went out and rehearsed it. We rehearsed it in the jungle. Yeah, we went out to the location and rehearsed it. Two-hour drive to the jungle. Yeah. And you know what? It worked. We were mentally prepared. Yeah, this was... God bless the 4x4. It's four patties of meat.

24:25 · jump to transcript →

It's a great jam. Brandon T., God bless him, man. He helped us get the balance right. He did. So we didn't have people coming after us. Not that we wasn't sensitive. We have a moral psychology of sorts. No, but it was really important, obviously, to have his point of view. And when we were in rehearsals, we changed that scene around to make that feel right. That's where Jack says he wants to wear the entrails of the cloven-hoofed animal like a leotard. I don't think anyone... I don't know that it's actually a side effect.

54:05 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

The interesting thing here is that I asked, it had been raining for hours and hours when we were shooting, and I had asked my production designers and art director's assistant to go down and ask a farmer for some grass. And you see this area here that they're all walking on. Instead of grass, they put down all horse manure. And while I was rehearsing with the actors, I was trying to figure out what smelled so bad.

22:46 · jump to transcript →

E. Elias Merhige

In other words, all you have to do is, as they say, relax, and the vampire will do all the work. You had me leave rehearsals in Berlin just to do that. Hey, watch it! Now, this is one of my favorite moments where you have Cary, you know, taking his measurements for focus, and you have Willem very vainly and enjoying himself completely.

1:13:54 · jump to transcript →

Wes Anderson

Luke had to take three or four months off to grow the beard. So he was the-- Luke and I were the only ones who actually-- Luke and Seymour Cassel and I rehearsed together. We got a chance to work together because Luke was free. Because he couldn't get any other work with that beard.

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Wes Anderson

Most movies, somebody gets shot or somebody dies, things happen that are very dramatic, more dramatic than real life. In the movies we'd made before, the only time anybody dies is if it happened a few years before the movie starts. And one thing I really wanted to do is to make a movie where it was going to be possible for someone to die. Because in the other movies we'd done, it just didn't seem like it could happen. It was a tonal violation of the movie. I sort of felt like, it was like we wanted to stay on the surface of some stuff. Not that those movies are superficial-- I don't think of them that way. --but that there's a lightness to them that it's hard to break out of. And this one, I think, is probably a lot darker. And, you know, there's somebody who tries to commit suicide, and there's death that really occurs in the movie. There's wounds that are kind of deep and sharp that I don't know if you find so much in the other movies, where they're wounded people, but there's not as much violence to the emotions in a way, maybe. This is a scene where... There's certain scenes where Gene Hackman would show up and we'd do our rehearsal, and he'd have a kind of different approach. Uh, what it usually was was he'd wanna do a scene moving fast. And you'd see him do it, and I'd throw out the whole plan I'd had and have a new way to kind of shoot the scene. That's the best thing that can happen. Somebody comes in, and you say: "Throw out whatever we thought of before. This is better." And his thing was to just bring a real charge into something. Richie!

1:14:24 · jump to transcript →

And we had rehearsed the scene for a couple of years, so. You got it right. You got it right by now. We got it right by now. So we didn't have to do anything digital, which was, I think, really great. And we kind of tried to do that as much as possible in this film to try and stick with as much reality as we possibly can instead of just throwing a green screen up or taking the easy route out. And I like that.

4:31 · jump to transcript →

into one of the hardest places I think a producer can be in, which is where your actor gets hurt. I herniated a disc doing a back handspring on our tenth day of filming. Yes. It was an accident. It wasn't even while we were filming. I was just kind of rehearsing, and my foot slipped, and I landed on my neck. And I think, you know, once we realized what it was, and I realized...

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James Mangold

Meaning that when an actor first comes on board a film in the period where they're first starting to rehearse, the other thing that's happening so that the costumes are ready when the movie begins is that they're being fitted and trying things on. It obviously happens weeks and weeks before the first frames get shot on the film. So what that does and what that means is that those first fittings are incredibly transformative for the actor. They become a chance for them to walk

1:14:19 · jump to transcript →

James Mangold

Well, I did what you said. I read that Bible from cover to cover. Took me three days. She never came back. Now, two things I want to say about this piece of Russell's here. One was when I rehearsed it with him and he was sketching in this book, what I thought was so powerful was the way

1:40:11 · jump to transcript →

Roman Coppola

So this scene is a... Here the conflict is brewing among the brothers, the suspicions and the questioning. And I remember we decided that-- I thought there was something nice about working in the compartment and not having cuts. And sort of-- You know it's a real space, and we'd also get this building kind of tension that's happening here. So anyway, to shoot this, I remember we built a mock-up of this compartment on the... At our art department, which was actually at the-- Which was actually, like, on train tracks. It was some kind of train-- At the train station. Yeah, it was like a train station. We built a train station in it, in fact. And I remember we rehearsed that shot-- It's one of the few times I remember actually rehearsing an entire shot with a dolly and the camera and everything on a completely different location. You know, in a-- You rarely rehearse with a crew present before you start a movie. But that one, we wanted to make sure we'd be able to do it, because the space was so compact, just because it's a real train rolling along.

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Roman Coppola

I really liked this temple. We went many times to this temple in the center of Jodhpur. I think we brought the cows ourselves. Okay. Spray in face. - Spray in face. This was shot much later, as I recall, actually at the location where we had the final convent, if I remember correctly. Yeah. - Yeah, outside of Udaipur. I remember when we were scouting, there was a day when it looked like this. It was all women. And I don't remember what the occasion was, but we recreated what we saw there. We invited back all the people who had been there on this day that we had scouted at the location and this ceremony was happening. This is a scene I remember we rehearsed in the temple itself and really kind of found the scene, the three of us sort of improvising it and acting it out. And we had a little text we were reading from, but sort of, you know, realizing it just the three of us. Yeah. When we were writing the script and we went to India on our reconnaissance mission, it was like a writing session and it ended up being a location session. And we found this temple and went back and shot there many months later. But as Roman said, this is-- We were walking around, we found this, we went in, we took our little micro scripts out, we rehearsed the scene to see if it was working and saw what worked and what didn't. And then we actually became so attached to this place that we went back and shot the real scene there.

23:08 · jump to transcript →

means bath in Swedish. This is one of the most complicated track shots in the film. We had a lot of differences to avoid the reflections in the windows here. We had to rehearse it for like three hours before shooting it. And actually, this is, it's in the movie too, but actually Mr. Avila, the gym teacher here, he's actually the only good adult in the book.

1:42:11 · jump to transcript →

This was, of course, this sequence was very complicated to do, to work underwater. And I think we made this in like two days, this sequence. And it contains a lot of complicated shots and a lot of rehearsals to...

1:43:18 · jump to transcript →

a good idea and we realised it wasn't a good idea when it was shot. We actually had an Uruk-hai attacking Frodo in the water as he was attempting to escape in the boat. Did we actually shoot that? Yes, well, half of it was shot. You were down to rehearsing the fight sequences. No, we shot it. We filmed some of it, but it sort of just didn't really, it wasn't ultimately what this part of the story should be about. So it was reconceived and we travelled back down to Lake Mavora doing pick-ups and we actually shot

3:14:37 · jump to transcript →

people trying to work out what's going on, and then having to do something about it. It might be a measure of me and Danny being a bit sad, I don't know, but there was one rehearsal. Do you remember this? They were rehearsing this scene a couple of months before filming it, I suppose, and we got choked up. That was pathetic in a way, but it happened. I shouldn't say that. Cut that.

1:05:52 · jump to transcript →

Tom Tykwer

And casting those actors, you can imagine, is very strange. You tell them, this is what you have to do, and then you ask them, how would you do it? And then you make a little rehearsal of that scene. But nobody has met each other before at all. So it's a very, very strange and confusing situation where I always wonder, what kind of a job have I got myself into that I have to put people into this weird situation?

1:05:09 · jump to transcript →

It was one of those lucky moments where an actor didn't absolutely stick to their guns and finally she just did it. Now, Hugh, this was... This was a... This is the scene I look forward to more than any. We had some fights over this. Hugh wouldn't rehearse, wanted not to do it. I thought it was funny on paper but un-actable. I don't know. Take a look. Wow. Did you think about doing it in time, or did you think, "No, why?" - I say I did do it in time and you edited it wrong. - We moved the music. Yes. Oh, it's brilliant. - l'm in time there. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah! Oh, no. - This is in time. This is brilliant! Well done. That bit's not, I grant you. And the disaster here was that you mimed, "I'll take you down." So we've had to totally cut a minute and a half out of the song in order to get there. It was a disaster on the day. Oh, God. - Was there supposed to be more? Well, no, we just let the song run, but we then had no choice how long the song had to be. - It's brilliant. This is almost my favorite scene just in terms of how pretty it is.

45:31 · jump to transcript →

He'd come up with the idea of riding along and dragging the sword along the spears. He thought it was almost like something that Theoden does to raise the morale of his troops. It was a really neat idea. It was hard for Bernard to do because he's left-handed, and yet I wanted him to ride towards the camera. So I remember the look on his face because he'd rehearsed it with the horses holding the sword in his left hand. And I said, well, hang on, Bernard. The camera's here. The horses are here. And if you use your left hand, you're going to have to be riding away from us.

2:34:05 · jump to transcript →

That's what my brother calls my bad-gas moment. This one here? Were you harnessed in? Insert sound effect there. - The extended version. You were way up in the tower, right? You were harnessed in? No, because eventually, I didn't. There was some... That's right. That was green screen. - No, it was just somebody else. Oh, okay. You refused. - I didn't. There were some shenanigans going on. Somebody made me feel unstable, and I wouldn't get on it. It is a bit bad-gassy-looking... - It is, isn't it? Now come think of it. We went up there. It ended up being Nicole. That first shot is Nicole. I can't believe she did that, jumped off. She did not. That's a rumour. I totally did it. Oh, I'm sorry. The funny thing is, so many people get fooled by that. That shot that's coming up, they do think it's me. I'm sure it was you. You did it a couple times, she did it once. That's not me. - There's you, in the hoodie. Oh, yeah, I'm brooding in the hoodie. Now, he's a potato farmer, apparently. - Really? He is, from Idaho. - Slash vampire? Yeah, apparently he is. My makeup artist was keen on him for a minute. Lovely strong hands. There he goes. But he didn't speak any English, right? - No. As did, like... Eighty percent of the crew didn't. Right. I mean, you barely spoke English. - I tried. Neither of you speak English. Thank you very much. - Okay. There I go. I really like how she did that. - Good knees on that. They're not my knees. - Those aren't your knees, no. This is where we just drenched you for hours. I was miserable. - The rain machines wouldn't work. I felt like they worked really well. I was soaking wet. All the people running up to you wearing 15 coats... I thought it was still cool that there were rain machines... ...and I was going to get wet. By the end, I was cursing water. I Kept falling there, slipping down. This is like-- Inside the subway was the very first week we did. Yeah, we did that fake set, right? - Yeah. Was that a fake set or a real set? - Wasn't it real? It was real. - No. You were there, weren't you? I was there. It was a subway station, but didn't we build something too? Well, yeah. It was actually... lt was a repair yard for the trains. Then we built that set around the train. - I knew I was on to something. There you go. - Here's love. Immediate love. - Damn it, I have a pimple. Do you? - You don't see that? I see it first. I thought we wiped that out. - No. Oh, my God, it was so tense. lt was so hot in that subway. Yeah, it was brutal. Boiling hot week there was in Budapest before it became arctic. And everybody's in these leather coats. This was the first thing we shot, right? - Yeah. Yeah, this was the second day of filming. The first day of shooting was you in the hospital. Then I came in with those horrible boots and tried to get your approval. Yeah, that's right. I remember I did not want to shoot that scene first. That moment I won't talk about. - No, neither did I. I felt like I'd had absolutely no preparation on firing the guns. They told me, "We're going to do a take." I said, "Oh, my God." Literally almost shook, afterwards. Felt like I'd drunk, like, 20 cups of coffee. I was worried I was gonna get in trouble, because it was a cheap movie. "You have one chance. We don't have money for another pillar." Like, "Oh, great." - You did great, though. No, there was all that stress... ...because we really didn't have a chance to re-squib things. He says, "No pressure, Kate, but we only got pillar with squibs in. The thing's going to be ruined if you mess It up." This sequence is still pretty much the same. Yeah, this stays the same. Here I go, panicking. I remember all this. You did an amazing skid. Did that make it? Yeah, it did. - That was fantastic. But I do grab her crotch, unfortunately. Right. I ass-grab her. - You did that in rehearsal too. She cried afterwards. Is that why? - Probably, it was real claw. She was terrified with this squib. She had never done one before. And she was horrified. - Yeah, she had a real sob after. There she is. I did not mean to. That was unintentional. They're all looking at it now. Remember when we were shooting that scene... ... for you peeking your head out, to get the reaction, I kept firing guns? Yeah. Yeah. I was asking you to do that, yeah. We ended up doing that the entire film. - Here I go. Ass-grab! She was really cute. Everybody was harassing her because of that. Really, everybody was harassing her. - Yeah. But not after my grubby hands got all over her. Oh, my stunt guys. Look. Hank, he's always the one who was, like, pulling. He was my favourite one to pull wires. - Oh, this is where you save me. Thank you for that, by the way. - Kind of a lady-boy.

1:15 · jump to transcript →

When we did the rehearsal and we started to practice, you know, having them record their voice, play a little cassette player, and then be the other character, I mean, themselves, but knowing or not knowing. I knew something was strong and was going to work because hearing the voice of them talking,

1:40:51 · jump to transcript →

Noah Baumbach

So now they're on their way out of Ping Island. Bill Murray's running to the safe, this yellow safe with Ned's inheritance in it. I always wonder if we're clear about things like the issues with Ned's money and all that kind of stuff, but I guess it's all in there. Yeah. I always like what Scott Rudin, the producer, does. Scott said about... I remember when he read the draft of the script, where we had come up with that idea of the hole in the back of the safe, and he said, "Well, he's looking for the money, but he finds Ned." And I always thought, wasn't that a touching idea, you know? I hadn't consciously thought of it. - He had a real way with words. Cody is left behind. I think you came up with the name Cody. Cody was... Well, there's some debate about who came up with the name Cody, but as we alluded to and as, I guess, basically suggested by the fact we're doing this commentary at the restaurant that we wrote it in, Cody's a regular here who we run into, and so... And at one point, I think it was literally like, I said to Noah, "What's your dog's name?" Doing Jeff's dialogue, and Noah thought for a moment and responded, "Cody." Cody. As he stared at Cody through the front window. It was the summer. I feel like I've said enough... What's that stand for over there? That's Esteban. It was working okay until late last night, but now the whole tracking system's gone completely on the fritz. Screw it. We'll sell it for scrap, along with the boat and the submarines. I'm going home. One thing about Willem is, Willem was always on the set. You know, he was there for the whole movie, and he doesn't like to hang around in his trailers. So he weaves himself into scenes, such as this one, where Owen says, "Ho," and Willem is standing in the background there. And you'll see, when they do the Team Zissou "ho" with the hands thing, Willem does it out of focus deep in the background. Did he do it in rehearsal then you included it? I don't remember. You know what? I think he was back there and I may have mentioned one thing to him. Well, it adds this whole other thing. And it's also, we know that Klaus feels left out, so at this point, though, it's almost a little bit of menace in the background, even though he's... This, again, also is something you do a lot, which I like, is this-- But he's also been touched by Ned, including him already. That's true. He hasn't saluted him yet. - He hasn't acknowledged it. I was gonna say, the thing I like that you do a lot, that I mentioned earlier, but this very deliberate cut to an insert of a written note, which it sort of has a... It has a kind of energy. It sort of brings energy to something that would be normally just static and feel like just, you know, information. Well, you know, one thing I always think of is, I remember reading Pauline Kael somewhere, Kael who really brought me into a certain kind of movie watching. You, your parents were well-versed in films and introduced you to all kinds of films, and your mother was a critic, and your father had done some film criticism as well, right? But I kind of got that stuff from reading Pauline Kael, some of the same kind of, you know, somebody's gotta tell you about it. Right. - And I got so many things from her. And I remember, you know, she certainly made me interested in Godard. We seemed to keep talking about him. And she talks about how Godard's movies are filled with... They're literary. They're filled with words. There's titles on the screen and there's letters and there's writing everywhere. And there's people quoting, people just reciting from books. And, you know, this movie here, now we're looking at another letter. It's filled with writing, something... And I like the-- I mean, it's sort of, again, something maybe, you know, he might do, but is... I mean, we see Ned reading a crumpled-up letter that's obviously been around for a long time, but then when we go to the insert, we go to the original letter in a very formal way, with the pencil above it and-- In fact, I think... One of the letters is situated in the environment where Zissou would have written it, and Ned's is situated in this place where Ned would have written it. Like his desk when he was 11 and a half. And it brings-- I mean, it's something that we've talked about, I mean, sort of how you use words and letter writing, and, you know, we were talking about, how in Adele H, when people write letters, they actually speak to the camera and they're often superimposed over other images. We should probably be talking about this scene. Well, actually, that shot of the feet falling was something I had thought of a long time ago, and Roman shot it for me. It was shot a couple of times by different people, and then when Roman got there, we talked about it, and Roman went out and shot it perfectly. And then we do this odd effect of, you know, the red and the thing-- I don't know what I was really thinking of, but something going into silence and, you know, trying to prepare the audience for the fact that we're gonna kill him, which is hard to do, actually. For me, I mean, I feel like I get so attached to these characters, and, you know, we're not really working from something that begins with a plot. It's more like, you know, trying to bring these people together, and I may be, you know what, probably overly sentimental about it, and probably indulgent about it, but it's hard for me to get to separate-- I feel like they're real people to me. So it's hard to kill them. But it was one of the ideas. We talked about people who read the script. Peter Bogdanovich, our friend, he was upset that we killed Ned. I think my brother Nico, who the intern is named after, also felt sort of... Was unsure about it, and I think, you know, it is a choice. That scene where he's in the water was crazy because the sea was rough, and we had this fire in the water, and we're all standing out there, and underwater are all these tubes with gas to make these fires and things, with hunks of cement and wire. But it was fun, and it brought this crazy energy to it.

1:33:50 · jump to transcript →

Andrew Niccol

is something that came out of the rehearsal. I like to rehearse. Some people believe it takes away some spontaneity.

1:28:14 · jump to transcript →