So I am Emily Blunt. What's your name?
I'm Rose Brown. We're gonna chat.
About our films, I'm here to talk about a 24 films.
On the A 24 podcast. Yes, yes.
Can I just start by saying I wanted to scream directly into
the pillow with you, watching you in this very slow paced
nervous breakdown, which is one of the most painful types of
nervous breakdowns to encounter that it doesn't happen all at
once. It creeps in on you insidiously
and it was just extraordinary. You were so wild, so unhinged,
so broken. And it, it's had such a lasting
effect on me. It spoke to me on so many levels
about maternal pressure and all the symbolism of the cord
representing the umbilical cord and that it was just beautiful.
You were UN gosh freaking real. That is so kind and sweet.
Oh my gosh. I feel like this is going to
turn into a a festival of of loving.
I loved the smashing machine. I thought you guys were
extraordinary. And the movie was so, like, not
what I had expected. It was very intimate.
And it was very quiet in so many ways.
Yeah. And then obviously with the
disperse, with the violence of what he's doing and and then the
violence of the relationship, like the emotional violence of
the relationship. And but it is a kind of
surprising movie. I think people are surprised.
They think it's going to be a fight movie.
And it's so fragile in many ways, you know?
Exactly. It's so delicate and you guys
have extraordinary chemistry, which and I know you have a
working relationship with. With The Rock, we can call him
Dwayne. Does it feel strangely he gets
called DJ? OK, I like to call him Tutz just
to really, really emasculate him are.
You the only person who can call him that or.
Well, my whole team call him that now and I think also
encouraged people on his team to call him that as well.
So it's now just stuck emblazoned.
That I needed to get. This is why we have great
chemistry. Yeah, right.
Yeah. You got to just undercut all
that. The rock.
Wow. That's extraordinary.
And I so, you know, I'm anyway. And I'm such a fan of Benny
Safdie and his, you know, work. And so anyway, I have a million
questions and I'm very OK by the process you guys did.
What should we start? With what should we start with?
I I have one question to ask you, which is, which is like a
question that I thought about when I watched the film, seeing
what you put yourself through in such a high octane sense.
What was your car ride to work like and what was your car ride
back from work like? My adrenaline was super high
doing it. So I was just always on the
brink like a little bit just, and even, it's like maybe only
later did I realize you're in it, you're just, you're just
doing it and you're in it and you are.
I'm not wanting to mess it up. And we had had a good rehearsal
period, which was lucky. So I felt like I had, we'd, we'd
had all the conversations, you know, we had a million
conversations. And so I felt and some car rides
home, I would I'm pretty hard on myself.
I'm like, I didn't do this. I thought I should have done
that. You know, you go through the
reel in your head of and we. Had I do that, like 3 months
after I'm done with something, I'll be driving.
I'll go. That's how you should have
played it. Yeah, it'll hit me.
Yeah. That's OK though.
Maybe it's good to keep investigating what we could have
improved upon. I I visit.
But but do you? Do you torture yourself or are
you like like or is it like real self flagellation?
This one was tough. This one was me constantly.
But you're so exposed in it. I mean, it is literally.
Did you know how much your extraordinary face was the
window into the soul of the movie?
Did you feel it when you were shooting it?
Did it feel like the camera was in your face all the time?
I I did, I did on the first day the camera got closer and closer
and then until it was here and it was there was no zoom lenses.
So the IT literally was that close.
And I could hear that was 35. So I could hear it going, you
know, since that whole thing of being, you know, hyper aware.
And so and I kept I said to Mary, oh, you're going to get
that class. Is that how close you're going
to get? And she was like Mary Bernstein,
the writer director. And and then once I knew you go,
OK. Surrender.
That's what we're doing. And it was just like a technical
just pushing myself to the limit of like at this technical
performance, right? And what we do with the camera
and how what they would need and, and more importantly, like
what they didn't need. You know when it's that close
because often it would just be her eyeball.
But but it was so subtle what you did and like, I mean, truly
the stress I felt watching you was rather unparalleled to
anything I've seen before. And the impact it had on me and,
and it was lasting. It was lasting afterwards.
I'm still thinking about it, about the pressure.
I think Smashing Machine explores pressure as well.
You know, it's sort of an interesting thing to be in a
movie that explores it on such an unrelenting level.
And it's such a window into the inadequacies maybe we all feel
as mothers a lot of the time. And it was painful watching you
go through it because it's such a mirror.
It's such an amplified version of probably what we all feel
like when we're on the last rung on the ladder for keeping it
together. And you have to be calm and the
together one when you're deeply white knuckling it most of the
time. Absolutely.
Did you feel playing her that you related to her?
I felt like my I was sort of intrigued by because you this
situation she's in is so specific, right?
And most mothers or fathers for that matter, won't go through
it, right to have this very specific.
Yeah, horrible illness that she's that's happening.
It's. Such an intense connection and
that they have. You know that it's, you know,
99% of parents won't go through this, but I, I was sort of
obsessed with like, why is she reacting like this?
Everyone's going to react differently in a crisis.
And sure, who? Why is she doing this?
Like what? What is it about this person
that is crumbling under this right now?
And not to say that you wouldn't, I wouldn't crumble or
whoever wouldn't crumble, but like, why is she responding
exactly like this? What happened before?
Who was she before? Because yes, I wondered that
too. I was like, what's the shadow of
her life? And therefore is this that line
between high stress and mental illness?
And it exposes that and explores it.
And it did make me wonder, like, who was she before she had a kid
with this terrible condition and.
Totally, and that was like, that's the question we asked,
right, like what happened to this person before and and it's
the homework and you don't want to see the homework like you
know, you just want it to feel lived in.
But I she was. So lived in like.
It was really, really well.
I felt the same for you guys and I was, so I was intrigued.
Like, did you guys rehearse? Like what's Benny's process?
What's Dwayne's process like? You know what the?
I mean, Benny is so wonderfully collaborative, you know, and
he's known for these, you know, that his movies have this
unrelenting, at times suffocating energy, but based in
being terribly human. And Benny's got such beautiful
humanity to him that he's so interested in people's
brokenness, you know? And we shared our souls with
each other in the few weeks we had leading up and endless
conversations on the phone, voice notes back and forth to
each other. So we were so intertwined by the
time we we started, partly because I think we all felt we
had to do our homework with the real people we were playing and
we all spoke to. They're no longer together, but
they are good and. They share a.
Child they share this beautiful child together and they've done
an amazing job Co parenting him, but that relationship is so
volcanic and so it broke my heart in speaking to them
because I think they really did strive for a happy medium, but
they both struggled with so many demons that they could never
find it and they were addicted to chaos hazard.
Their love language was that kind of passion and and had a
addiction to that codependency. You know, she was codependent,
he was controlling. It was just such a recipe for
disaster when they couldn't live with each other.
Couldn't live. Without each other it did
attempt. It did, and I talked to her
about it. You know, she was nervous to
talk to me at first because there was a documentary that the
movie was based on. And I think the film didn't
really reveal the full spectrum of Dawn's story.
I think it focused on Mark and I think she was villainised a
little bit as the creator of his undoing.
And I think anyone who's had addiction will own it and say
that's not true. And it it is on me.
And so she was so nervous about the movie and, and when I first
started speaking to, I could see that I needed to really advocate
for her in the film. And I said, I know I'm playing
you during this incredibly volatile time in your life.
And I would hate it if someone made a movie about one of the
more tumultuous times in mine. But I said, I'm going to
advocate for you. I will take care of you.
And I said, so if you tell me the full weather system of your
story, I'll make sure it's in the movie.
And she's one of the first things she said was like, I know
that it's not for the faint of heart and it's not everyone's
love story, but it was mine. And it killed me.
I was like, oh, it just moved me and and it, and it is.
And I'd never had this gift before.
I don't know if you've had this experience where you're playing
someone who's alive and you get to absorb them normally you're
building it from this grand. Up and it's your.
Invention of someone. Particularly some yeah, yeah.
But to have like the person where I get to ask her, tell me
about your childhood. Tell me about your relationship
with your mother. What were you marinated in?
Why are you this way? It was unbelievable.
It's such a gift. Have you ever had that?
We've played someone who's still with us.
I did a film that has not come out yet called Toe and I played
a real woman and she was really candid with me and and very open
and it was very, really cool. She it is funny though, because
you do feel like you're interviewing them, but you know
it's totally. It's.
So. Personal and I was like, would
you make up after? Exactly.
She was like we would Make Love. Like I got it.
I don't know how you feel, but like you work and you work and
you do your work prior and then, but once you're there you sort
of have to. You have to kind of like, and I
said that to her as well. I said this, this is my version
of you. I wasn't a family on the wall.
And I'll watch you. I'll learn your mannerisms.
I'll listen to you. And I did like a stalker.
I mean, I watched her every morning as I went to work, just
staring at her. Just what?
I just watched her and watched her and watched her and spoke to
her as much as I could. The boys didn't speak to Dawn.
We all spoke to Mark. But Benny was so collaborative.
Anything she shared with me, I would tell him and he would put
it in. Somehow.
She'd find a way. To.
Funnel it in somehow, even in a. Blink, you know, it's a film
because it's so intimate and it's an insight into how he
relates and and his performance was so interesting.
Isn't it astonishing? It was really obviously he looks
so it's him, but it's not him and that work the prosthetic,
right, he was. Beautiful.
Yeah. It was like 14 little
prosthetics, including the cauliflower ear.
And like it was mainly the brow, the nose, eyebrows, the ear, and
then longer in prosthetics if he was in a fight with swelling,
bruising. I mean he is the most patient
man on earth. Wow.
Yeah. I've never met someone more
patient and someone better at sitting in a prosthetics chair.
Unbelievably, it's. Not for everybody.
It really isn't. And he would just sit there
quiet, quiet as a little mouse and was not very social.
And we're pals. He didn't talk to me in the
makeup trailer. He was in a zone and we were
opposite ends of the trailer. And I feel that DJs, I don't
think DJ knew what his process was until this movie.
Fascinating. I think he had always played
these invincible characters. I mean, I have to say I loved
him in Pain and gain. And I loved him in like these
other movies where you've seen glimpses of like this ranginess
that I think he has. And I remember when I met him on
Jungle Cruise, he was so the antithesis of what I had
imagined. Quiet, contemplative, so wise,
so kind, soft spoken, quite shy. And I was like, Oh my God.
And I said to him one day I was like, I think the rock is the
performance of a lifetime. I'm realizing now I and I said,
how did you make that character the rock?
How did that's a self generated character?
And he said, no one's ever spoken to me about the rock as
an acting performance. I said, but it is, I said.
It's such theatricality to so really right and completely.
It's larger than that. It's the ultimate.
Yeah, so. I kind of thought, well, maybe
he could be an amazing character actor in this kind of enormous
frame. There might be like endless
bonkers characters that he hasn't unearthed.
And so when he walked in for the first time as Mark and he had
the makeup on, the clothes and we did the camera test, it was
he did change the air in the room.
Everyone was like, and I almost cried because he was.
It wasn't just a physical transformation.
This is what was so spooky about it.
It was an entire demeanor shift. Yeah.
Interesting. Like an immersion like I hadn't
really seen before. And he stayed it that way for
the whole film. Well, he was really just sort
of. In it, in it and still so fun.
And we would laugh and you know, we definitely after some of
those scenes, we'd all have a tequila and try to like, you
know, have therapy on the bathroom floor.
Like after the bathroom scene we did just have, we sat for an
hour and a half trying to come down.
That was awful. Really.
And I, I didn't anticipated. So it was very like, yeah,
knuckling when I was watching. You know, that feeling where you
have a fight that just snowballs out of control?
I mean, their version of out of control is probably more than
ours, but I know what. You mean you do feel that tent?
You just feel it. You're like, yeah.
Oh. And like, yeah, when he's like
trimming the, the, the cactus and that kind of weird exchange
and. That awful tension, yeah.
And what was it shot? What was it shot on the film?
It was 35. Because it had such a great.
Graininess and a look to it. Grainy was so beautiful.
It's like, very, yeah. Kind of a nostalgic.
Feel. Yes, exactly.
It felt like. That I felt yours had that too.
That, you know, sometimes when you watch a movie which is so
high def and it's so clean, I don't feel I get held captive by
it as much. I feel it pushes me away.
It's very presentational. The graininess and the full
kidnap of yours was like, I just felt pulled inside your soul.
It was so intimate, like I shouldn't be in your head.
I shouldn't be that close to you.
You scared me deeply uncomfortable.
It was deeply uncomfortable. And, and I'm so curious about
when you watched it for the first time, were you unnerved by
it? Yes, I was.
I was at the offices in a 24 and I had been avoiding seeing it.
Mary Bronstein, the writer, director.
Do you always avoid seeing movies?
This one I did. This one I'm a huge fan of.
I'll watch it and but it's not till sort of years later that I
can watch it. And really, what you don't know?
Yeah, if it isn't not that comfortable with it.
And but this time Mary was like, you ready?
And I'd be like, yes. And then I'd be like, well,
maybe in a few weeks. Are you ready?
Oh, soon. And I was just scared.
But why this one just you felt? So scared because it was just it
was every all of me that you know, it's just like stretched
to the limit with this one and I was.
So naked so. Naked, was terrified, and then I
finally couldn't avoid it any longer.
Yes, and I stomach and knots. Was totally, yeah, very nervous.
Yeah, pound like, yeah, so nervous.
And then I just didn't move. I was like that and almost
forgot I was in it. You know those things where
you're like, I forget you forget you're in it?
Yeah, completely. Like that's a huge deal, which
is. Wild.
That doesn't happen ever, right? That doesn't happen.
And I but the, because of the language she was using with the
camera, the film she was making and all the sort of the, the
feeling she was creating with the movie was sort of beyond my,
I couldn't anticipate it. Yeah, I knew.
I knew what she was doing and I knew there was lots of different
sort of genres and tropes, like the horror tropes and sure
comedic kind of set pieces and stuff.
And the tone is so wild that you don't feel preached to ever.
Yes, yeah, it's. Very because it's so bonkers
that you you you you self examine watching it.
I think, and it's been cool because friends of mine who
don't have children or, you know, have totally responded to
the film in a way that I couldn't anticipate.
That they understand her. Get it?
They get the feeling like you could be a caretaker or you
know. Necessarily have a.
Parent, you know, but or you could be an addict or someone
who's trying to get out of a terrible situation, but that the
feeling she's expressing in it. And so sort of the existential
kind of nausea around the film too.
I think that that she's just running from herself.
Than anything else. And I think it's a wonderful
thing to see, you know, because sometimes my issue with a lot of
female characters in movies is that they're sort of held in
this ideal that they have to be feminine and good and palatable.
I don't know what you're talking about and.
So what do you mean and, or or? They're described as like she's
a badass. And I was like, I don't want to
be a badass either. Badass as I say in my accent.
But because you don't want to have all the answers.
I think I really related to her completely unravelling.
Good, yeah. Completely unravelling and have
it and being stretched so thin, it was so relatable.
Yeah. Oh good.
You know, I think back to all these women in the 40s and 50s
who just went absolutely insane at the ironing board, you know,
having to be the perfect woman and how much anger and rage and,
and misplaced dreams they must have had.
And it made me think of it when I watched your film, like, oh,
this is a very exciting experience as a woman to watch
this. And it's important for men to
watch your movie and understand the pressures, not just watch
it, but feel it. And your film is a film that you
feel. You don't watch it.
You experience something on a cellular level.
The way yours was shot was so in your face.
With Benny's process, we barely saw a camera.
He shot a lot, long lens, kind of prowling, hiding behind
walls. And he said I wanted that spine.
He said, I want it voyeuristic. I want you to feel like, oh God,
I shouldn't be in the kitchen with them.
This is so intimate. I shouldn't be watching this.
And for us, it was so freeing because you didn't feel anything
technical around you, whereas I've done that experience that
you had to remember it. On Girl on the Train, the camera
was directly in my face the whole time, claustrophobically.
But then you, you're right, you get used to it and it doesn't
bother you after a while. But I think Benny felt even with
the fight scenes with the Ring, he wanted to be like 3 rows back
as if you're watching, looking up that you're not in the ring
with them. Yeah, yeah.
So you. Miss stuff in quite an
interesting way. You feel yourself looking around
him to try to get around his back and.
He created that beautifully because I did feel, I felt like
I was spying. I did feel like that.
And I was like, did that. And at one point I was like, did
they know I'm spying on this? Like.
Do you know what I mean? I was like, did they know?
And I'm like how self, you know, it was very particularly in like
the locker room and these sorts of little moments that was like
that. And and I loved the I loved your
look so much, the hair. I was it was just fun and such a
like you're such a chameleon. I was like, wow, you know, I
just love you always inhabit from one to the next in a way
that is really singular. That's wonderful.
No, I loved it. And I was curious about that.
Like, were you just really delving into her kind of archive
looks and like? Heidi and I, Heidi pulled lots
of photographs of her and, and there is so much footage of her.
So it was like 97 to 99 that sort of it.
Was so great the music was. So great, so good and I and I do
need a physical transformation. I feel like helps me.
It's the in with her. It was those extraordinary
nails. You know those I remember the
first time I put those acrylic nails on, I was like, whoa, they
were just so long. And the as much white as there
was beige of the that 90s French tip.
And when you speak to Dawn, she's handsy.
She's like this all the time. And she talks with she talks
with her hands a lot and she's like in his face with them.
And I saw on the documentary she would like touch his face with
these nails. So I just that was quite a big
in and then you get the spray tan and the wig and the wonder
bra and then. The Wonder Bra.
Oh my, no. It was sponsored by Wonder Bra.
They were like 2 heads. By the time Heidi I had Wonder
Bra and Fillets in there. They were like under my chin
now. You could see every man on set
was like that, like not lying. Looking, not looking.
Looking. Yeah, just.
Looking, looking at your hairline, they, they was, it was
so overt and so overly glamorized.
But I loved it that she was so glamorized, but their connection
wasn't, their relationship wasn't.
It was so messy. And yet everything she did about
the way she dressed, looked, all of it, it was intentional.
It was deliberate to draw him to her.
So I even found that quite vulnerable.
She was so freshly blown out and done and it was all to bring him
to her, you know? Right.
And I know, and I felt that was so that, you know, the big final
scene where she's just where she's sort of confessing all
that stuff. And he's like, it was really
just vulnerable and just like heartbreaking.
And I felt like, so I don't know.
I just was. Yeah, so felt so.
I felt so because finally see, you know what she's trying to do
and what she's trying to. Like, and I think she really
desperately was trying to save his life and and be there and be
the center of his universe. And I think it's a very
complicated thing when you're married to a fighter whose life
is on the line in the ring, but his life is on the line in the
rabbit hole of his own addiction.
And she didn't have all the tools given the Givens to save
him and catch him because she was struggling so much herself.
So it was so exciting to play a relationship that wasn't kind of
moviefied. It was sort of very untidy and I
don't know it just like I think it's, again, it's Benny is
unafraid of that, that he wasn't.
And I've never been concerned about being likable in a movie.
It's sort of the worst word on earth because you do just want
to be exposed. I wonder if I wonder.
If like actors get asked that male actors.
Never. Or right yet.
Or if they're like, you played a pretty complicated character.
Oh yeah, like how do you like I? I'm just wondering, I have found
that with Dawn that in my experience, yeah, promoting it
and everything, yeah. Women really understand her.
And it's not to say that every man does.
A lot of men really, really understand her.
And they do see her as the victim, but a lot are really
scared by that. Whereas because she's not always
nice, she doesn't always say the right thing and she's not always
there for him. And yet I think there's such a
free pass for male characters to be unhinged.
I would. I would go further.
I would. Say it is, and then they're
like, but you know, he really came through for his kid at the
end. I was like, yeah, OK, or.
Like, but he's really funny or I don't know or whatever, but he's
like, is it? And it's he goes fascinating
because you know, when you play a character that it's more
polarizing as a woman. I just think the scrutiny is
people are very uncomfortable. Have you found that especially
on this one? Oh, yeah.
I was really curious about what kinds of questions you've had on
this that have been irritating. I mean, that's what I want to
ask. Yeah.
What question has irritated you? You know, it's the, it's a sort
of a quiet sense of deep disapproval that I find in there
that's intrinsic. That is fascinating to me.
From men and women or everyone? From both, I would say, I think
for me, young people have been brilliant because young people
are just, they're so brave. They're much braver.
Like they've asked the best questions and the bravest
questions. And they, they, they're not as
kind of, I don't know, cynical or conditioned or whatever yet.
But I've found that, yeah, that that sort of constant thing of
like, why are you drawn to a character that's so.
And I'm like, what, what, what do you mean?
Why wouldn't I be? Why wouldn't I want to do that?
I mean. That's the beauty of it.
You were so exposed on a human level and those are the people
you want to play. Yeah, yeah, of course.
What you want to gravitate towards, that's what you run to.
It's like. Exactly.
So it's always, it's a straight, it seems.
I don't know how to answer that question when people are asking
like why wouldn't you do it kind of thing.
But I do think there is an inherent is an inherent distrust
of a woman who is misbehaving. Like I agree, you know, that is
kind of it's tough to it's tough to ignore or I don't.
Totally, totally, I'm sure. You've come across that you've
played a lot of. Complicated.
I've played a lot. Of.
And I've played a lot of women who you know, I completely
understand, relate to. I might not always agree with
what they do, but I don't really care if I agree with the woman.
It's not the point. No, it's not the point.
You're yeah, that's not our job is to like, yeah.
It's and it's also not a morality play.
I'm not sort of. I don't want to take a moral
standpoint manding on someone and how they behave.
It's that these people exist. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And there's parts of all of us
in Dawn and there's parts of all of us in Linda like they there
are. We have all done that to a
certain. Thought about doing that you
know and that's the difference is I was intrigued so you
brought this product did you how did this one come together like
because you guys obviously had your relationship from from.
Yeah, so we've been friends for like, well, a few years before
this came up. So DJ had apparently brought the
documentary to Benny in like 2019.
They loved meeting each other. But then COVID happened,
people's schedules happened, and it's sort of just drifted.
And then I was shooting Oppenheimer with Benny and we
were in the make up trailer getting our old people make up
on sitting there for hours getting prosthetics on.
And he said, you're friends with Dwayne, right?
And he said, please tell him I cannot stop thinking about
smashing machine and will you reconnect me?
Can you give him give me his direct number?
So I called DJ and I was like, were you going to work with
Benny? Savde?
You have to do this movie. And then I watched the
documentary that night and I called DJ and I say, you, you
have to do it and you have to do it now.
It's like the full wingspan of what you're capable of.
Like and, and they reconnected and then a few months later, I
mean, deep down when I watched the documentary, I was like, I
would quite like to play Dawn, but like, I didn't want to.
Muscle my wings. You hadn't heard that that.
No, no. So.
So it was initially I felt like I was like a matchmaker, right?
Yeah. And then a few months later,
Benny called me and said I really would love you to be
Dawn. And I was like, OK, because I I
loved in the documentary that relationship.
I was like, God, there's so much to mine there.
And it's never done a relationship like that, never
played a character like that. And I wanted that exploration of
something and somebody and a relationship that was so broken
and precarious. So when Benny called, I was
thrilled. And and I think it was like 6
months later we were making. It wow, that's and I'm so and
you guys are from such different worlds.
Totally. And we're like best friends.
I mean, we are so polarized and we do laugh about that.
We, we, we should be like chalk and cheese, but we're not.
We, we, we are pals. And I just adore him.
And he's become this incredibly wise, profound friendship in my
life. And someone who I have learnt a
lot from, you know, I learn a lot from DJ.
I think he's got an amazing life as well as so much struggle, so
much pain. And yeah, he was always playing
the guy who had all the answers. And I was like, oh, it would be
so cool to see you unravel and be so vulnerable and so fragile.
And I think that this part was, I think, cathartic for him, you
know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Really, really cathartic. And that's partly why I almost
cried when I saw him as Mark for the first time, because it was
like seeing someone seeing relief wash over him.
Oh wow, he came in. He looked so calm.
He must really trust you. I think he does, right?
I think so. To be able to go there and to
he. Thinks so, and he really trusted
Benny as well. So like the three of us were
like the Musketeers. We we're so connected.
We we really shared a lot of our own souls as I'm was wondering
how much of how much you guys talked beforehand.
So Mary Bronstein and I, what she was in, you know, has become
a great friend. And she, this story is, you
know, based on what she went through.
Really. Yeah.
So not entirely. Obviously she doesn't, you know,
do what my character does. But she's spoken about this,
that her daughter was ill and she had to go to California for
treatment. Her husband lives in New York.
I mean, they live in New York. Her husband had to work and she
went for this treatment and was told it would take 8 weeks and
it took eight months and she was in living in this like hotel
room with her daughter, like 2 demented kind of roommates and
that's been. Shamed by the beeping machine.
Exactly. That was like a big character in
her life. And she, you know, her daughter
would go to sleep every night and she would go on into the
bathroom and, you know, eat junk food and wrote, wrote the.
Screenplay and just to be alone as well.
Totally to like finally have that time.
And so it was born of a place of real, you know, experience.
And I think it's reflected in the in the film.
It's like a very, oh, it's so, you know, she really had
something to say and she was really candid with me, Really,
really candid with me. And we had this great rehearsal
period of about 5 weeks where I would just go to her apartment
and we would three days a week and we would just sit there and,
and go over the script for like just, it was like preparing for
a play. It was just every line of
dialogue. Could you work like in that way?
Before. On a film, not only on a play.
Never. Yeah.
I mean, you don't get time. Have you had that experience
before you get? No, the the only longer time is
if I was doing like a musical, like a, like a Mary Poppins or
something, a very long rehearsal.
But you're learning all the dance numbers.
You're learning like, yeah, but that's how Rob Marshall works.
But on smashing we would just talk a lot and I don't remember
the last time I had rehearsals. Yeah, I agree.
No, I, I, I like for TV, you don't get that.
Like if you're doing a series, it's very rare.
So thank God, because we shot the film in 25 days.
Holy shit, Did you really? Yeah, we shot.
It like we run away train. 2 takes maybe three.
Oh my God. So and Mary was hands off.
She like because we talked about it, you know, so we would come
to the set every day, go over everything and then and then we
would just go. We just didn't have time.
So you felt great freedom in it? I did feel, I did feel freedom.
I was, it was a tightrope. It's just a tightrope because
like too much it would fall into being like the trap is.
It's just a screaming, hysterical thing, you know, And
then but too, like sort of comic or I don't know, whatever it
would become not realistic, you know?
Clever injections of bizarre, bonkers comedy.
It all worked because tonally in the way she shot it, it was like
you were having an out of body experience watching something.
It was. It was really captivating in
that way that you know when you watch movies and you feel like
maybe the director or the writer has seen too many movies.
I didn't feel like Mary Bronstein has watched too many
movies. It was such a singular voice,
even though I'm sure she's watched every movie, but she had
this singular mad voice. Yeah, she really.
Yeah, it's, it's she's, she's a force.
She pushed this thing uphill for eight years.
And it's not easy to get a film made as, you know, like a dark
script like this. And she like she fought, you
know, every step of the way to get it made.
But I was so curious. I wanted to ask you how you like
how you choose your projects. Like, that's a good, you know, I
know that's like a annoying question.
It's actually. A great 1 you.
Have such a great extraordinary have worked with extraordinary
directors. You're so funny and you've like,
I feel like you're such a true chameleon And it I, it's, it's
so one like how do you anticipate it or don't you
anticipate it? Like what do you think?
I do anticipate it. I definitely between projects,
I'll sort of yo-yo between John, like if I've done OK.
So I did the full guy before this and then I took a year and
a half off because I just felt like I needed it breather from
being on a film. Set which was so fun so.
Fun and that was just a hoot and it was just like a giant blooper
reel and just so fun in Australia, in Australia.
And I loved it. And then smashing seemed like
the antithesis of that. So I think between projects I
will oscillate, you know, and tone so that I'm, I guess
excited. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, a bit terrified. I think I do want to feel
terror. That's probably one of the
things I look for. If I read something and I think,
oh, I know how to wrap my arms around this, then I probably
won't choose it. Or if I maybe it feels
derivative or to something I've done.
And so I think that's a big thing.
I think lately I look, I love all the genres, but I want a
world builder and I want it in the writing that it's a unique
world and a unique voice and, and what's the director's world
like? What is it?
And that's why your film spoke to me, because you can't pin it
down. It's carved out completely new
space for itself. So I think I do look for that in
the writing, like a freshness that is exciting to me.
Are you good at reading scripts? Yeah, I find them very hard to
read. Yeah, I'm pretty good, but I
it's awful if if I'm not in in 20 pages, then I.
You have a role kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, to try to.
Yeah, it's and it's not fair. You should probably read the
whole thing. But I think it's like if I'm not
really immersed in it and if I don't see an in, whether it's
the tone or whatever it is, like listen, obviously if it's a
smaller part and I come in later, I'll I'll keep going.
Go to the. End just flick through, yada
yada yada, there's me. But I do.
I try not to anticipate the type of thing I'm looking for.
I guess I just wait to be spellbound by something and it
will be a really strange reason as to why I love it and I'll
never be able to really explain it.
But like an intuition? What about you?
I mean, similar. I think that's why I use that
word because I feel like you don't know what's around the
corner. You know what you've corner
you've just come from. So it's a bit like trying to
stay open, trying to not anticipate it.
And, and I mean, I'm just agreeing with everything that
you've said. It's true.
If you go, I can do that too. I've done that.
You know I don't need to. I don't need to do.
That idea. Do I need to do that again?
And and then of course, it's like director like trying to
seek out the people that that are making those worlds that.
Which is quite rare, you know, And I know that the movies we've
been in this year, it's why a 24 is so good at like, you know,
fostering these types of challenging, exciting, rare
material that don't conform. You know, you just, I'm always
looking for movies that don't conform or subscribe to
something, but they are rarer and rarer.
You know, it's like so many numbers are crunched on.
Will this movie deliver? Like we need to have an action
scene within 10 minutes of the movie, otherwise it's going to
tank. And it's like, it's it's just
sad, you know, all of the hoops you have to jump through.
And so to get to do a film like the ones we, the gift of these
movies this year is rare. And I know that.
And I don't want to feel like those opportunities are slipping
through all of our fingers. But I think the earth plates are
moving with our industry and they they're becoming harder to
harvest and so. You have to relish the
opportunities. Relish it.
When you have them because you think because it's it's hotter
and hotter, it's just hotter and hotter and it's just changing so
much what people, how people consume stuff and hopefully
consume and all those sorts of things like.
So I yeah, when these opportunities come, I always
think this may never happen again.
Yeah, you know, like. A run to.
Very well never happen again. So to because all you have is
the experience at the end of the day, you know, it's like that's
all that's ours. That's it, that's it, and you
can't really control anything after that, which I kind of
surrendered 2 years ago and I don't mind that relinquishing.
It's kind of important. Otherwise, the experience of the
film will be curated towards how do we get bums and seats?
How do we do this? And I don't want to work that
way. You know, I wanted to ask you
about Linda. Like what did you, what did you
love about her? What did you feel for?
Well, I was. She's brazen, you know, And she,
she does not. She's anti authority, you know,
she doesn't like being told what to do.
She's the opposite to me. I, I, I don't have those
qualities at all. Like I'll just get in line.
I really don't like she's brazen, she's not that.
And that was challenging in those things that particularly
like with James played by A$AP Rocky, you know, who's this
like, you know, so great, so charming.
Had he? Done, he had.
Done one other job and then after that he did the Spike Lee
movie Highest to Low. Oh my God, he was so good, so
good. I love working with people who
haven't, yes, acted very much. I mean, Dwayne and I were the
only. Non, I was going to say.
The only actors. In it so so they were all non
actors. They were all fighters, like all
from the MMA world, and I think Benny loves working in that way.
What about the girl when you have your scene where you got
such margaritas? So was she.
She she's an actress. She's an actress.
She was OK. I was also, I was like, I was
wondering. If she she was in that world as
well, she was she, she was an actor.
And yeah, but everyone else, like the guy who plays Mark
Coleman, he's a real life MMA heavyweight.
Great. The guy who plays BA, Boss
Rutin, who plays Boss in the movie, who plays his trainer, He
was Marker's trainer. Oh my God.
So that was weird, you know, for him.
Don't come to set no no. She was really nervous.
Did you want? Do you didn't?
Do you want her to? Come to set, we actually didn't
really want. I mean, Mark came to set a
little bit and watched it a couple of times.
But I think it's healthier if you're playing people for them
not to come to set. Yeah, yeah.
Because I think I would be concerned about them watching
and feeling exposed and and it's it was very scary showing them
the movie The 1st. Time.
Oh my God. It was very scary.
She was very scared. We had shown Mark two weeks or a
month prior. It really rocked both of them.
But Dawn has since watched it about four times and she said to
me at the LA premiere it's become very healing, which I
never expected. I I really was scared because I
care about her, that it would unearth so much pain, which I
think it has, but probably on a necessary level, I think it's
been able to heal stuff between her and Mark.
I think he has recognized his accountability through the film
and that's an amazing thing. And none of us expected that.
We didn't know it would be a healing thing for them, so we're
so grateful. Kind of has been.
Would the what you would hope for, but not even consciously,
but you know. We were hoping.
You know that they would. See themselves and go, OK, I'm
seen people get me now. This is my imprint on the world.
And you know, and because it plays that delicate line between
should we only strive to win and succeed and then sort of
eviscerate your own need to be OK.
And I like that about the film that it's sort of the anti
Rocky. It's not the guy with his fist
in the air. It's actually the guy he was OK
losing. Yeah, yeah.
You know. Yeah, which I didn't.
I, yeah, I wasn't sure how it was going to end either.
And I was like, Oh my God, this was it was just again,
surprising. Yeah, it was not, not what I had
anticipated. And.
Conan O'Brien was so good. He wasn't good some he was so
good. He was so not Conan.
I know, you know, so unruly. Unconan like I.
Loved your scenes with. Washing every kind of all of
his, you know, usual person, you know, the the Conan we know and
love. Yeah, he was.
So reserved and submarined. For Linda, completely.
I loved you guys together. Yeah, it was really like the
love story of the film, like the IT really the bitter end of this
like dreadful love story. OK, one more question then.
I know we have to go. When you were hurling yourself
into those waves, at the end I had a panic attack because I'm
absolutely terrified of the ocean.
Was that you doing it? I did about 80%, yeah, my God.
But I'm, I'm Aussie, I'm Australian.
So you grew up just. Hurling yourself into massive.
No, no, no, I'm very I've great respect for that.
I'm always like, I know if there's a RIP, I know I don't to
go in or I know how to do you know So but I was hyper, hyper
aware of the ocean, but it was it was rough.
Yeah, but I felt like she needed that.
The baptism, Yeah, she's the. Baptism.
And then get stuck at the right back.
Oh, you were just magnificent. Oh, you were you.
Brilliant, and I've loved talking to you.
I've loved talking. We didn't get to talk about Kick
Gary. I love him so much.
Kiki. Thinking of it, I was like, Oh
my. God oh I love all gotta.
Give him a shout. He.
Loves you so deeply. Isn't he a great hang?
He galvanized one, did he? Joy, Yeah.
He does. Everyone was completely obsessed
with him on Measure Tomorrow, like he was the glue.
Yeah, he was. The glue.
He's the glue. He's the caramel that keeps us
all together. He'll be stoked.
OK, good. We love you, Cake.