Hey, and welcome back to the A 24 podcast.
For today's episode, we set up a long distance conversation with
baby girl writer, director Helena Ryan and her friend and
baby girl super fan Pedro Pascal.
You can catch Pedro in two upcoming A 24 movies this year,
Celine songs materialists and Ari Astor's Eddington.
And if you haven't already seen Baby Girl, it's now available to
watch at home and back in select theaters this Valentine's Day.
Hello, I'm Halina Dyne. And I'm Pedro Pascal.
And this is the 824 podcast. I like how you say podcast.
Try to do it in that like way where they get horny with how we
speak into. The what is that?
What is that step when you speak into the it's like, what do you
call it? AASMRASMR broadcast?
What were we supposed to talk about?
We were supposed to say we were supposed to say that how did we
meet? How did we meet?
And everyone you you would assume that we would very.
Well, How I Met. We met in the in the tower.
Right. No, I think we should tell them
the true story. What is the true story?
Oh my. God, you were walking down the
street, a very busy street in New York, and this, this huge
dog got loose and and then suddenly this, this man stepped
in and just like tamed the dog, it almost killed.
And then we met. You say to me.
We are starting this off right. Where are you?
I just arrived in Amsterdam. You're kidding.
Yeah. I just arrived, this is my house
in Amsterdam. I'm here because the Netherlands
decided to give me some award, which I'm of course very
grateful for, but it's also a good reason to fly back and see
my family, so I'm really happy to be here.
Did you really land today? So what time?
Morning. This month.
What time is it but I? Slept I, I napped.
So I arrived at 630 Dutch time this morning, Amsterdam time.
And then I napped for a couple of hours.
So now I'm fully awake, because now I'm kind of I'm still on
American Clock in my mind. Only to insist that this be the
the most boring beginning of any podcast conversation in the
history of podcast conversations.
I I went. What time was your flight?
I'm obsessed with traffic. No no and sleep schedules
people. Find that boring.
I have the same thing. So my flight was at 4:30 New
York time in the afternoon and then and it was a six hour
flight. OK.
So then just to work this out of my system.
And so your flight was at 4:34? 30I arrived at 6:30 in the
morning and then you have a service here that is amazing
where they take you out of the plane in a little car and they,
you know, and they kind of like escort you out and but you.
Slept on the plane. I did not sleep at all.
Oh, so you landed, and now and then you've had a nap in your
own home. Big nap?
Yes, in my home, in my own little bed.
OK, OK, OK. And, and that's how I do it.
So I, I kind of surrender to the fact that I cannot sleep on this
specific flight to Amsterdam. I can never sleep.
I just watch movies. I watch The Social Network which
I actually enjoyed for the 600 time.
Yeah, wow. And it's long too, so it'll take
up a a, a a. That's what I thought.
I always download long movies that I love too.
This one will take take me further than no And then I took
a good nap. But I'm also obsessed.
I think when you get older, you learn more to anticipate on all
your habits and your fears and your your annoyances and your
frustrated and then you can kind of take care of yourself a
little better. So I always plan like when I
arrive, I plan that I have a whole like that I can nap in the
daytime and that I don't see anybody.
It's just and then I feel better now and then hopefully I can
sleep tonight. That will be the question.
Travel definitely highlights our dependencies in a huge way.
Completely for me saying, because I think if you're a
creature of habit, it's just hard to give up control.
And of course in our lives, which you have to travel a lot
and you're almost never home, right?
Yeah, almost never. So you have to be so adaptable.
It's hard. No.
Do you find that hard? I find it, the anticipation of
it. I find it harder and harder.
And then of course, because it's so habitual and the most and the
more familiar thing to my adult life and even circumstantially
my, my, my upbringing, my body is just completely familiar.
No matter what story I created in my mind, in terms of this
change that is coming towards me, I it's far more familiar to
me than staying in one place. You moved a lot, right?
Yeah. We moved a lot, yeah.
And in the instances where we have had to either shelter in
place or our industry was paralyzed by a double strike,
etcetera, I found I wasn't uncomfortable not working.
I get it. I get it.
I am a little. I can be lazy.
Me too, same. But, but I definitely was like,
oh, or I don't know, maybe every time the question of nesting
comes up, I, I, I don't know how to, I don't know how to answer
it. And I, and I get very young, I,
I realize more and more that I'm not comfortable with.
I feel like I have always sort of judged myself as immature
because I am not sort of like nesting in one place and, and,
and and building a habitual environment in one place.
And I just, I learned that I'm not, I'm just not comfortable
with that, which makes perfect sense in terms of what what I'm
used to. What your history is yes, yes,
no, absolutely. And do you then just did you
then at a certain moment sort of started to embrace that and be
like, instead of resisting that and thinking that you have to
lead a certain life, do you not feel comfortable with that, that
that's just a fact? I feel comfortable with it
because when we all had to shelter in place during the
early months of the pandemic, it became so clear to me.
And also, I think just in terms of political temperatures and
what I can tolerate, tolerate and what I can and cannot
tolerate psychologically, I want to be on the move.
Yes. And I want to talk about baby
girl. How are we supposed to pivot?
How are we supposed to pivot to to It isn't it isn't a big pivot
actually, because I remember, you know, getting to see you
very soon after I'd I'd seen the movie and I was such AI was such
a raw nerve when I saw it. I've also been listening to like
conversations because I want to be as polished as I can to talk
to you about it. And I've been really curious
also about the kinds of conversations that you've been
having either with audience members or with other
journalists and with other film makers.
And I was, I was particularly moved by the idea that I think
in North American films, for the most part, there's like such a,
there's like a moral landscape to movies, right?
And that if there are potentially perilous
circumstances, then, you know, people need to be, the
characters need to be punished or, or there's a binary idea of
like what is heroic and what is villainous.
And it creates like a very, very specific kind of structured
catharsis. And I mean, I literally cried to
you because it because because one seeing your movie as an
actor, but also seeing it from a a storytelling point of view.
There was one part, seeing how a writer and director treated
their characters with so much love, frankly, And then the
kinds of performances that that were available to us from Nicole
Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, everyone in
the movie had to come from such a special, like care from their
leader. And I don't know, talk about
that. Yeah.
No, no, no thank you. I didn't want to interrupt you,
but no. So first of all, I want to say
that when you had an emotional reaction that is so meaningful
to me because the movie works on I think for for different people
on different levels. You know, some people just find
it entertaining and halt and and think, oh, it's.
Just, well, it is. I mean it is and.
And hopefully it is and, and, and other people find it funny
and, and hopefully it is and all of that.
That's for me personally, of course, this movie is so
incredibly vulnerable, you know, and so full of shame still, and
so there's so many secrets underneath it also that you
might not see or not not everybody sees them and and they
don't have to at all. You can still very much enjoy it
without unpacking every wound that is underneath the story.
But I felt that you without even speaking when we were just
cuddling, how would you say embracing each other?
I just felt that very strong connection.
I've had that like five times or six times where I really felt
that certain people really saw it's for at its darkest, you
know, like also at the other left.
And it's most. And it's most and it's most
innocent. Yes, that that is something that
you said so well that I thought was really beautiful.
I find I found it to be that it was.
Pure. Yeah, so.
Pure. I found it incredibly hot.
I found it incredibly sort of tense and thrilling and funny.
You could argue if it's a comedy, you could argue if it's
a drama, you can argue if it's a thriller.
And really it's all of those things, which is that's the kind
of variety that life can actually provide.
And yeah, in the end, for me, it was like a healing montage
basically for the for, for, for the characters to kind of like
take these tropes, these taboo subjects, power dynamics or the
the limited ideas that can control relationships between
men and women. Love, growing expectation.
I mean, it's endless, really. And so then to to kind of use
these, as we call them, kind of tropes from from from erotic
film thrillers that we grew up watching that we loved.
Yes, yes, loved. And, and actually use them as
doorways to vulnerability. And I honestly, and I'm there's
a part of me that feels, I get that feels a little frustrated
by how hard it is for people to process something that's so kind
of more whole this is gender swap or this is we're we're
we're we're we're deconstructing the idea of me too or, or, or,
or, you know, these kind of limited, I mean, ultimately
people, everyone is enjoying the shit out of this movie as they
should be. And it's doing very well.
And yeah, it is. And I'm wearing a baby girl
sweatshirt right now. Yes, but but I.
So good on you. Thank you very much.
But I wonder if I wonder what, what that is kind of that that
that people are are kind of challenged by the movie.
Yeah. And I don't, I don't see the
intention to challenge an audience or to provoke an
audience rather than put the characters in challenging
circumstances and experience those challenges in the most
truthful, human way. The yes, absolute and everything
you're saying is exactly what is also on my mind about the movie.
And of course, I mean, I mainly, if I look at where I started
when I started writing and where we are now, of course I'm super
grateful and I'm celebrating and I'm so full of joy.
But I do notice that even though I of course made it from a place
of warmth, like you said, and healing and a place of radical
honesty, but I'm sometimes taken aback.
And that's of course exactly why I want to make the film by how
people are very drawn to it. You know, they, they all want to
sort of see it. And then some people find it
scary in a way that I don't say this is good and that is bad.
And still people really want to be taken by the hand and guided
towards good and evil. And apparently we are still very
much fighting with ourselves in that sense, because we're all
ambiguous beings, right? We're all light and dark, and we
all have an enormous amount of beautiful thoughts and an
enormous amount of extremely dark thoughts in our head and in
our souls. And if we don't come to terms
with that, that's for me where the real danger lies.
And I think art, whatever, that's a crazy pretentious word,
but. I love the word.
I love the word art. Storytelling.
Art, Art, Art, art. Art, art.
But I think us who are in a creative space, whether we are
writers or actors or whatever we are, but I think there is a task
to try to at least address these things and not provide
judgement. Because I think what you, what
we were just talking about, about nesting and about all
these things. I have always felt a lot of pain
in my life that I didn't walk the walk that I was supposed to
walk or you know, like at a certain age should have had a
relationship, I should have had children.
I really wanted all of that. It just didn't happen to me.
And again, these are maybe first world problems, but I think all
of us suffer from this idea. Nicole Kidman says it in the
middle of the movie to her husband, Antonio Andreas.
She says, I want to be normal. I want to be the person that you
like. I want to be what you like.
And I think that's. And it doesn't matter whether we
have children, whether we are nesting, not nesting, whatever.
But we all feel we're aliens and we're imposters and we're
isolated and we want connection. And sometimes what is hard for
me to understand is that I think by being so honest about
complexity, about ambiguity, that we can connect and we can,
a lot of people can in an insanely emotional way with this
movie and and fun way, like a lot of people are watching it,
but there's also a lot of resistance because this wants
clarity. And also from me, they are like,
but what is your, are you a feminist?
Like, like, of course I like you.
Did you see the film? And that's an interesting, it's
just very interesting. And then it's also interesting
what it does to me because then sometimes my ego comes, you
know, I can be this holy creature saying, oh, I made this
as a conversation starter, and I did.
But then there's also a side of me that state, yeah, is, is is
like. But don't you see what I'm
trying to do here, you know? And that's what's, I guess
that's what's so challenging is the kind of like the, the, the
purity of intent, you know, and, and using such impure subject
matter, which is what I think whether that was very purposeful
or not, or whether that kind of came about in an organic way, I
don't know. But it is a silly question for
me to ask. Like what are people feeling
challenged by? It's, it's, it's everyone is
challenged by honesty. None of us are used to be.
I mean, it breaks your heart because it's true.
We, we don't, we're not really taught to be honest with
ourselves, with people, because there's so much because you have
to face your fears. Yes, and that's and it sucks.
Yes, you know it's true. You have to face your fears.
You're right and and the ultimate honesty.
Or is death right and we're all going to die?
And what will die is what we're holding on to, these
dependencies and these stories and how to keep ourselves, these
ideas of how to keep ourselves safe, how to keep a marriage
safe, how to keep a job safe. We, we, we grip them at the
expense of, you know, anything sometimes.
Anything, anything. And and we prefer safety over
freedom. Or some idea of safety?
Yes, yes. And and of course, life is
incredibly unpredictable. We have experienced that the
past weeks in our little micro world of Los Angeles and New
York. But life is chaos and and death
is chaos because it can present itself at any time.
And I think therefore, yeah, it's like you said, we we prefer
to see it as a cartoon soon, you know, we prefer to see it and
and we want movies to present to us a world that might talk about
these kind of subject. But then in the end, we want to
be led by the filmmaker towards what our opinion should be.
And when the filmmaker doesn't do that and says no, that's up
to you. Like, I don't know, of course
she has she had sex with her intern.
That is wrong to begin with, of course, but it's up to you.
I'm not going to punish this woman.
I'm just going to let you decide and see you and use your own
imagination to, to create your own opinion if you want to have
one or just to feel something. I just don't want to be a
moralist. I just refuse it because I, I
feel that anything that does do that for me, when I watch that,
then I feel completely left out. So those sexual thrillers in the
90s, I love them until the the end, you know, until the final
act. Then I always felt, wait, this
is not about me at all. So for me, it, this is the best
way to connect. But for a lot of people, they
shy away from that. And that is also what I feel in,
in daily life, You know, I, even when I turned 35 and I still
didn't have the normal life, I felt that other people
instinctively had an issue with it.
Even if they don't, if, even if they were very smart, even if
it, it just feels like 1 little animal is walking away from the,
from the flock, from the bigger group.
And I think life scales and we just want clarity.
And on the other hand, if you dare to open yourself up to
something like this, it's, it's super exciting.
Arts is not a place to only show characters that make the right
choices. Shakespeare could have never
have, you know, who's Macbeth in that?
Who's Richard the third in that? Like, it makes no sense.
Some people say, you know, but she shouldn't have done that.
And the movie has to make that clear.
The movie does make that clear. But it's still human, you know?
It's still very human. The first instant that I felt
like her loneliness was when Antonio Bandera's character was
talking about Hedda Gabler and he says this is about.
Yeah, he says that suicide actress doesn't understand.
Yeah, that she's, he says my, my actress, who plays Harakara,
doesn't understand. She thinks the play is about
desire, but the play is about suicide.
Yeah, yeah. And I immediately was like,
yeah, no. Yeah.
It's about desire and that was the first ingredient of like her
experience where I started to kind of identify the isolated,
which, and I don't mean to, I don't mean to judge him because
he has such a gorgeous journey that he goes on as well.
And and and I think, you know, understanding had a Gabbler in
in in only one way was sort of the the that's the start of his
journey. Yeah, it is.
Yes, and, and, and his, and he he wants to he what I really
love about how we created that character and also how Antonio
performs it is that he seems to be incredibly warm and open and
he's creative and he doesn't have any issue with her powerful
job. And he kind of feels like the
ideal man. He's strong, he's hot, but they
don't really communicate. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. No, but it's in this very subtle
way, and I think that is so relatable.
And Nicole and Antonio both did such an amazing job creating
that kind of vibe, that kind of dynamic that was incredibly
laughing and warm. But at the same time, the subtle
miscommunication, the subtle isolation of have being in a
very long relationship but not truly daring to be yourself, you
know, and then being more yourself with a complete
stranger, which is of course always so interesting about
intimacy. So much easier.
Yes, to be reborn with someone. You don't know, right?
Yeah. Blank emphas.
Intimacy, I think ultimately, whether people are willing to
admit it or not, is probably the scariest thing for all of us.
Like real intimacy. I I, I, I wouldn't even say I
understand. And as I said, I'm your elder
by. Seconds but.
Yes. I can't say it's something that
I even totally understand, you know, or or feel realized in
and, and everything. So that's I that's why I was so
moved when I when I when I saw you, because one, I love you, I
love you. And so I was really celebrating
a friend and then independent of knowing you, I would have had
this experience with the movie that I, I found in, in simple
terms, very, very entertaining, beautiful looking and gorgeously
performed, but also really therapeutic.
And, and that that moved me. I, I, I, I, I love movies more
than I love anything. And, and, and have since since
since I was a kid. And so the hunger that I can
feel sometimes that at a certain point that I'm, I'm, I'm not
even aware of because I have had such incredible opportunity to,
to be on so many sets for the last several years.
I still return to what my origin story is, which is going to the
movies. That's so great, you know.
What do you remember your first movie or one of the 1st that you
ever saw? There's like a a collage of
firsts. There's like Watership Down,
which I remember was traumatizing because my dad was
taking us to see what he thought was an animated movie about
rabbits. And the whole thing starts with
a field turning into blood and then the rabbits are ripping
each other apart. And, and I, it's so, so violent.
I also remember Xanadu. And that probably was the first
movie where I, I, I started to kind of like, I think
participate like by myself, like in the theater where I started
to kind of speak. I didn't understand.
I was so fascinated by the women coming out of the mural in in
Venice Beach And and and then I I started to, I think, talk to
the movie. I remember Superman, except I
went to the bathroom. Why I I went to I just.
Have to go to the. Bathroom.
Yeah, I went to pee and I didn't know how to read yet, so I
couldn't find my way back to Superman.
And I think I went into an Al Pacino movie that I, I thought
that I went into Kramer versus Kramer.
But I realized now I was like, no, it was definitely Al Pacino.
And he was walking down the steps of City Hall.
So it was this movie called And Justice for All.
And I, I, I just, I just went in there and I was lost.
And then of course, you, you go into some kind, you go into some
sort of like paralyzed mode and, and, and I, I just sat down and
I think in my fear, I, I, I fell asleep and I remember just
waking up with my parents and a custodian of the movie theater
standing over me. And we were leaving and then we
were leaving the theater. So I missed the end of Superman.
And then, and my older sister was, you know, teasing me,
telling me, you know, and then this happened and there was an
earthquake. And then Lois Lane, you know,
and Superman makes the world spin backwards.
And I tell her that it happened in my movie too, that the same,
that the same thing happened in the in the Al Pacino movie.
I was like, yeah, and the same thing happened in mine.
Oh my God, that is so cute. And did you ever go to the
theater as a child or not? I.
Started to go to the theater. I think about the my parents
were so young when they had us and they did such a great job.
They were a mess, but they did such a great job because they as
part of, I guess part of making it sort of like bringing us into
their experience. But once my mother understood as
a kid, I was a swimmer. And then I pivoted to, they let
me get into theater, whatever she could find to Get Me Out of
the house in the summer when I was like starting at the age of
12. And then by the time I was 14, I
was I, I got into a performing arts program for high school
that my mother found. And they got season tickets to
South Coast Repertory because we were living in Orange County at
the time. And I saw this play called
Search and Destroy by Howard Corder, which funnily enough is
a, a, a, a very aggressive take on our industry.
But from the late 80s, getting, getting a movie made by any
means necessary. And this predates like Altman's
The Player and how I felt about Watership Down and Xanadu was
how I felt about this play when I saw it.
It was, it was, it was actually like the world premiere of the
play. And I, I, I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. And did it scare?
You for your future, because you you knew you want to be an actor
at that point. No, it it later in as a child,
it was always the fantasy. I was hearing you.
No, no, I think I read something that you said that you had that
you saw Annie when you were a kid and you felt jealous of the
girl and you were. And that was when you understood
this, like, I want to. I want to, I want to be on
stage. I had the same experience
watching these children in Spielberg movies.
You know, I was like, I'm jealous of Elliot.
I want to meet the alien. 100%. And you know, and I.
Totally. I had the same thing with Drew
Barrymore. With any kid, any child in any
movie, I was, I was like. How did they get there?
Yeah, they're like prodigies there, I said to my parents.
I want to be like a miracle child.
I want to be like a. Like I really wanted to be like
a A. How the hell did?
You have. Yes, me too.
So fucky. Didn't I remember reading the
stories that Steven Spielberg met the Heather O'Rourke who
played Caroline and Poltergeist like in a in a in a park.
And I was like, what park? So.
What part do I I even know God. I was so obsessed with it.
I even I started to I started to lie.
I remember trying to convince somebody that it was that I was
Christian Bale on the poster of Empire of the Sun It.
Was amazing. A genius.
Yeah, that's me. And then I told people that.
I told people all, Speaking of our beloved David Lynch, I told
everyone that I was going to be in Twin, that I was, that I was
going to be in Twin Peaks. Oh.
Before it premiered on I think, I don't know, ABC.
Oh. Wow.
And all those lies, all they all those lies always caught up to
me. By the way, they always caught
up to me. In a bad way.
In a terrible way. In a terrible way.
But The Twin Peaks was such a huge thing back then, right for
our generation, because we lift inside that thing like everyone
was watching because it was still network TV, of course, and
it was all over the world. Everybody was watching it and
it's formed. It shaped our brains and how we
thought about sexuality and everything of romance and
tension. I was so scared to watch it too.
I was so it's. It's borderline horror.
It's borderline, you know, it's so and also because it goes so
deep, it's so scary and kind of like an existential way right
about oh, when I would when I would finish an episode, I would
always be afraid that I would go into a psychosis because I was
so crazy what he was creating and so new at that time also.
So yeah, really, really beautiful work on my.
Mind that show because you have a you have, you have a film
career that hasn't even come close to catching up with your
theater career. Like when did it?
When did it just start in school?
Yeah, it started because we, we grew up really, really extreme.
So we were not allowed to see TV or magazines or anything because
we were. I was going to say, where did
you find Twin Peaks and Stand and stuff?
Well, the thing was that our babysitter was that we did have
because my parents were both very centered and focused on
their art. They were both artists and they
were basically making art all day and we were not allowed to,
you know, really talk to them. And so we had this basic and she
was so bored because we didn't have any toys, only like wooden
blocks because we were supposed to use our imagination.
She took us to see Annie against and I met my parents would have
never allowed it, right? And it did change us.
It did completely change us as they feel.
Your parents were right. They were rights.
But then my dad, he kind of understood that there was no way
that he was going to prevent that.
I wanted to be a child star. And so he thought the best way
to solve that was to build a theater in our garden.
Garden for me so I could just make theater.
So I started to do that, and then I just knew I was.
But I really wanted to be famous too.
Like I didn't want it in the way my parents were doing it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't want to be an artist.
You wanted to be a star. But where do we start?
Yeah, me too. Yeah, right.
Yeah, it really was both. And I wanted to just do it in a
very traditional way. You know, I didn't want my
parents were. So of course, now that I look
back on it, I I applaud them for their courage.
But then I thought it was so like, why would you make art if
nobody is serious? Because they, they were of this
very radical painters and video artists.
And so I then, and then I just became obsessed.
And I started working when I was I think 15 or something.
And then, and my dad died when I was 10.
And when he died, yeah, it suddenly had a lung embolia.
And when he died, my mom turned out to be more normal, you know,
then then she sort of presented as and then we, she, she bought
ATV and then slow and then we could watch it Twin Peaks and
so. She had sort of permission to
kind of like, be who. She, yes, who she really was.
And and and we got a little more influence of the outside world.
And then I yeah. And then when I was 18, I just
went to theater school. And then I, I played Ophelia was
my first role. And then my career took off.
But I always had back in the back of my minds.
And I'm also fascinated because I know that you wrote a play.
Honestly, I thought that the child who played Annie made the
movie. Right.
Of course it's her world. I, I, I, I, I I.
I thought the same thing when I saw the movie.
I never understood that actors didn't make the thing
themselves. Only later did I understand.
Oh, and so I always was interested in all the other
layers of it, you know, and then and then, and I think what my
mistake was in my life, I was so hungry and I acted so much and I
did so much that I it, it just was too much.
I developed a very serious stage fright.
So we were constantly touring the world because Eva von Hoeve,
the director I was working with, was discovered by Scott Rudin
and that made him so popular worldwide to me.
So I would one week be in China playing this and the next week
in another continent playing another role.
And it was all leading roles had a Gabbard.
And whereas Dole's house was Shrew, Morning becomes electric
and all along. And.
It was too much. It was too.
And then I lost. I started.
To you were playing those parts simultaneously.
Yes, simultaneously and. And you're going to call it
stage fright. Yeah, that's true.
Actually. That is true.
It was wild. It was so wild.
And then at a certain moment I did a play with Jude Law,
Obsession directed by. He came to join the company,
which was amazing. And we did a play with him and
he was the one to kind of be like this is.
This is this. Is what you're doing.
Right, right, right. And he really gave me the
confidence. This is not like mentally
sustainable. No, and it takes an outsider, of
course, because when you're in it, it's it is also amazing,
right, because you see all these different cultures and you're
bringing art to places where that is unimaginable that you
like bring the kind of theater that we were making.
And then, but it took an outsider for me to tell me that
I could also be on my own and be creative.
And that's when I started to write Instinct, my first movie
in the wings and started to think, oh, maybe I should be a
little more my own motor and and create my own.
Stories, right? So what you're fucking telling
me, basically is that you were playing all of the greatest
female characters in theater history all around the world,
and in the midst of that, you wrote a fucking movie.
I have wasted my life. I I could have the things I
could have been doing sitting in my trailer on the fourth Law and
Order production. So I did write that with other
people. I didn't write that on my own.
It was my escape, you know, It was funny if I look back.
It was almost like you're taking care of yourself.
You're sort of like feeding the thing that your mind, your
heart, your soul needed. That instead of serving
something you were serving, you started to serve yourself.
Yes, exactly. And I think for us as actors,
because I still consider myself an actor even though I don't act
anymore, but you have to be so aware of boundaries.
And I'm not talking about physical and intimacy
boundaries. I'm talking about spiritual
boundaries. Because of course we are kind of
to stay with your career, but we are kind of gladiators.
We go into the ring and. We're and.
There's a lion and there's. You give total?
Yeah, completely. You give everything, you're an
open wound. You give your body, literally
you give your body and then everything that your body
brings, which is your fucking mind and your heart and your
thoughts and your fears and, and your ambitions and your, your
everything. And there are so many different
types of actors, you realize, and that doesn't mean in terms
of process, but in terms of the way their minds work.
There are writers that are, there are actors that are
writers, even if they haven't written, you know, yes, it's
very true. And they're they're real entry
way is is from a writers point of view.
And they write in in in the moment.
I'm trying to kind of like I'm still, you know, in my identity
crisis because I've never belt. I've never felt that comfortable
speaking from like the character's point of view.
Like I've never been comfortable with limiting the way I'm
understanding a job from the point of view of a character,
which is always, I've always judged as a failure on my part
as an actor in a way. And now that I'm getting older
and these kinds of things that that that we build shame around
just aren't good for our cortisol levels like basically.
It's true. You know what I mean?
It's kind of the nice thing about aging is where you're just
like that kind of stress doesn't it's not good for me and it's
making my face puffy, you know what I mean?
So I'm going to start letting this shit go.
I'm become I'm more honest with myself where I I do, I think
more producorially. I'm not thinking about the
budget, so maybe more in a in maybe like kind of understanding
what the director is after and not what the.
Whole film is and not what? The whole picture is I need to,
I think, I think both need to be serviced.
I, I, I, I, I love to still face the challenge of servicing like
the point of view of of a character.
But I know that what happens more naturally to my mind is the
big picture. Yes.
And how to place myself and how to place myself in it.
Which makes me a very frustrated actor because I'm like, I don't
know, great. Yeah, it is.
I think as actors, it's to find the sort of balance between
speaking up and and speaking your mind and surrendering.
Is is is a very interesting balancing act.
And of course, I stayed with one director for hundreds of years
because I trusted him. And I, yeah, I couldn't function
very well. Of course, I did movies to make
money, to be honest with you. But I had a hard time because I
felt I'm giving so much when I asked.
Like I just felt I'm just literally giving.
I'm a Scorpio. I'm a total control freak.
So to give over, to say, OK, here, Pedro, you can have my
heart here. Do do it.
Throw it around. As for me, because I'm a kind of
actress, I just have to really trust you.
Like I'm not holding back, you know, I just go and give you
everything. And so I could only really do
that with EFO because I knew I trusted what he was making in
the actual, like you said, I trusted the the bigger picture.
I trusted his message. I trusted I thought it was true
art. And because he was very prepared
and he created clarity and within that clarity, I could
completely let go. And that is something that I do
for my actors. I tried to do as well, you know,
where I I created an incredibly thought true prepared construct,
and within that construct I create hopefully a space in
which they can be dangerous and electrifying with each other
without being unsafe. Safety and trust.
Yeah, Safety and trust. Safety and trust.
Of course, intelligent actors, you know, they crave more than
just to hear what, you know, to get an assignment.
They also need to know, what are we doing?
What is this? What is the goal of this?
What are we saying with this? What is the tone?
What is it? How can I help author that?
How can I help? How can I?
How can I help author the potential potential of what
we're doing here? You know, of course, of course.
But you're made to build so many different muscles just to kind
of like serve an assignment in a different way because sometimes
it's just not you. You, you also have to in some
instances you just adjust to every single, every single
experience is different. But I can I can completely
understand. I have not had that experience
of being able to kind of work with one person that I've had
the amazing experience of different people providing
different experiences for sure. But to be somebody's sort of, I
guess, I don't know, to kind of like have a muse relationship, I
suppose with someone. And then to break out into into
your own authorship of storytelling, which had to have
been there from the beginning. And your your journey from
wanting to be a star to working with like the highest form of
theater art as we understand it in our generation to telling
your own stories. It's it's like in a crazy way,
but not to use the the tragedy of losing your father so young,
but what are the doorways that kind of open so that you get to
step into the person that you've always been?
Yeah, beautifully sad, you know? Yeah, Yeah.
No, totally. And I think that losing my
father, I definitely think that that made me the kind of ideal
muse because I was craving. We're looking for a father, of
course. And I had no issue also with
having that position there. Of course, you know, it felt
very incredible to me. Because that needed to be fed.
To have of course, that kind of safety and someone who is so
clear as Evo was for me, you know, that was amazing.
But then to become your own father, right, You have to
become a father of yourself and to yourself and to.
And as a director, a writer, director, you a parent.
You're the parent. You're like you're you're you're
all roles, ultimately the parent of an entire a cast and a crew.
That was an interesting transition, especially because
my acting career was, look, you can also be an actor that
creates their own theatre group or especially in Europe, there's
all sorts of forms of acting. But my acting was incredibly
like traditional, right? I was really part of a huge
company that travelled the world.
You, you were told what to do. You heard this is you're gonna
do this, this, this, this and I wanted I cultivated that very,
very much so to go from that to then having tell other people
what to do on the set was felt like a big leap.
But I think what I for me, what my drive also is, is that I want
to be the director in movies that I never had and I really
want to just createspace for the talent of others.
You know that when I write, I'm of course just writing also the
most juicy parts for the actors that I would want to play.
You know, like it's. All about my my movie you could
also almost see in some ways as a therapeutic exercise, right?
That's how I, I mean, for me, that's literally what I'm trying
to do to create these safe spaces with these characters in
which they almost do therapy with each other, but they're
also actors exercises because they go, there's all these ships
where they go in and out of their performance.
The whole movie is of course, about the idea that humans have,
especially women, but that they have to perform different roles
in life to be perfect, to be loved.
And so we, we took that and, and directly created a tone out of
that, which is that they constantly go in and out of
their roles. They go like, get on your knees.
Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that.
You know, like they constantly show that they're acting, break
it through the 4th wall. And that is so much fun for
actors because then they can tap into their full range and, and
it says something about life because we are performing and we
do. What is it to be your authentic
self? What does that even mean?
Does that even exist? It's such an interesting
existential question. Well, it's helping me understand
so deeply why I reacted the way I did when I saw the movie.
So I feel so much less crazy. I mean, I wrote you, I said I
feel torn open, you know, and it's helpful to understand
because I think that the kind of environment that you're saying
that you all of the intention that you put into it, just as a
writer, as a director and as a leader of a group and an
environment, I felt all of that in seeing it.
And so nothing. I'm just glad I'm not going
through some sort of, you know, that it's not a continuing
extension of my midlife, of my midlife crisis where like, I see
a friend make something beautiful and I can't get over
it for days and days and days, No.
For me, that was the most beautiful reaction I can get.
Can I just give a shout out to everyone in your movie, to
Nicole, to Antonio, to Harris and how much I have been
cramping His style is, as us Gen.
Xers like to say, by, by, by, by by trying to do his dance and
just just just fanboying over his performance.
Because I think that it is something that without him, it's
almost like it relied on him being as good as he was for the
entire thing to work in a way. I mean, look, all of that does
not take away. You can't take you can't take
nothing takes a fraction away from anyone, anything in that
movie. Because Nicole, whom I have
seen, I saw a dead OK, when I mentioned South Coast Repertory
before. So that was the very first
acting class I took in my life when I was 12 years old.
It was like a kids workshop, play theater, a day theater camp
kind of thing. Right across the street was an
Edwards movie theater in Costa Mesa, Costa Mesa, CA.
And sometimes my mother couldn't pick me up in time for when the
class was over. And, and the gift was I would
get to go across the street and watch a movie and then she would
come get me. And they didn't care what I saw.
And I saw Dead Calm. Wow.
It was not rated R, it was PG13 if I remember correctly, because
I got the ticket myself and I wasn't thirteen years old.
But they didn't, I don't know, they didn't give a shit or my
mother got it for me when before she dropped me off at the class
so that I had the ticket for the later showing and then she would
come and pick me up the whole, you know thing.
Anyway, so that's that's all to say it's a very long way of
telling you where I started with Nicole Kidman.
Yes, you know, and. How young you started?
And how young I started and as a kid being like, who the fuck is
that? You know, her and baby girl is
just, we can go into a whole other a whole hour of what it
means. I think for a woman of her
talent and and and career to, to to step into a role with so much
vulnerability. But what's interesting is that
it isn't new. It's not like, whoa, Nicole
Kidman did this. No, that's what she's always
been doing. Like, you know, it said.
The projects haven't been the same, but she's always been
like, let's call it game, right? Always open, open.
And an athlete as an artist, like, like, like.
Yeah, yeah. Yes, absolutely.
So to see even, I don't know, to to kind of see her in a
circumstance as an artist, as an actor, to not be negotiating any
limitations. It's an event, you know, And
then for Antonio to kind of like be just as virile as he's ever
been in terms of a presence, like it just comes onto the
screen and it's on, you know, and you're just like, yes, you
know, he's so enrapturing to look at, to listen to and then
as an actor so grounded and then so, so vulnerable is a is a wild
card in and of itself. And then between the two is
Harris, who's the young hot guy that ultimately none of it with
these perfect circumstances, it still might not have worked had
Harris not been as kind of like convincing and complex and all
and and and similarly of of vulnerable.
Yes, and technically insanely talented.
You know, someone who you can actually ask, like what we were
talking about as far as acting in style and tone and going in
and out of your role and, and going from dominant to extremely
vulnerable and also bringing yourself into it.
You know, it's instead of thinking I'm crawling into the
skin of this other person. I of course love for actors to
bring radical honesty to the performance and bring them to
their own hearts and soul. And he does that and yeah, that
is phenomenal. I agree with you.
Because he, it is such a young man.
You know, the character is so young and has to dominate her
with his mind. Not, I'm not talking physically,
but. It's a mind.
Game, you have to be able, you have to bring that to the and
it's it's intimidating. To to be the first person in the
movie, The first character that understands it as a safe space
and confused when actually you're insisting that that that
that these are real threats when really this is the only
opportunity that we have to explore ourselves in safety.
And, and he is the messenger of that to.
Me. And that's very unexpected.
He's so perplexed by like, he's like, I, I can't remember.
But he says something like, why would you think I would do that?
Like you keep on thinking you think I'm going to ruin your
marriage. It's like that.
I would do that to you. I wouldn't do that to you.
I'm threatening to do that to you, but I'm not going to do
that to you unless I'm remembering the movie
incorrectly. No, no, but no.
But what he does so well is also that of course the character is
created like you say, like almost like an Angel kind of
figure, a fairy, like how he's introduced is pure fairy tale.
What we just talked about with the dog, you know, and how, and
he is, of course, everything he's he has a dark side, he has
a light side, he's sensitive, he takes his time.
He he is the therapist, if you will, you know.
So it is kind of like it's, it's a mythological character and to
play that on such a human level. To ground that, yeah.
To ground that, to anchor that is incredible, is incredible,
and to make it so funny because that is of course something so
darkly so funny. I saw it with a friend and I'm
not going to call her out, but I saw it with AI.
You know, I saw it with a friend and when the the the first
instant that he said shut the door, she literally yelped,
slash squealed slash, some sort of human sound that came out of
her and let's end it on that. Let's end it on that you would
saw that came out of her and also your dance.
Can I just say thank you publicly?
Well, not only everybody, all my male friends, some of my exes
have called me and asked me how, how, how, how does he dance like
that? Not about Harris.
What about you? I well, you, I was.
That was performance art. Helena, when do you come back
from Amsterdam? I so I tend to stay a week and
then I go to New York and then I come to LA.
When February, Where will you be?
I will be here waiting for you. As you should.
Yes, exactly as. You should exactly thank you
Pedro, I love you so much. Love you a lot.
Bye, bye. Thanks for listening.
The A 24 podcast is produced by us A 24.
Special thanks to our editor Tom Wyatt and Robot Repair, who
composed our theme.