We talked real cinema with Leonardo DiCaprio and Paul Thomas Anderson
Maybe we’ll go make a sequel where Did you just announce a sequel? [laughter] Very much like George Lucas did with Star Wars. I spit on your grave. Horrified me. Did you see traces of death? No. That was even worse. And I said, “Mr. Parker, you haven’t seen my film.
You You’re leaving without seeing my film.” What else you got? Aviator. Let’s talk about it. Hello, Paul. Nice to meet you. I’m Megan. Hello, Leo. Hello. Nice to meet you. I’m Megan. Thank you so much for being here today. Uh please let’s sit. It’s a huge honor to have an exclusive conversation with the both of you for one battle after another which is a great success.
Congratulations again. Um and talk also about movies that inspire you and are really important to you throughout your careers. And to start I wanted to of course start with Boogie Nights. Mhm. I know someone who made that film. MHM. [laughter] YOU’RE NOT MY BOSS. YOU’RE NOT THE KING OF ME. I AM THE KING OF DIRK.
YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT ME, JACK. That could have been your first collaboration. Mhm. Could have been. Could [laughter] [clears throat] you see yourself on that? I can’t imagine anyone except for Mark Wahberg. He just did an incredible job. It is true. Is a legend. Dirt. It’s it’s always the case that sometimes you have an idea of somebody that should be in a film and if it doesn’t work out there’s a there’s a time when you are heartbroken.
You you can’t see it any other way but it always works out. It works out. The right person ends up playing the part, you know, and it just it the way that it it’s weird that you know sometimes you can’t get something out of your mind. But yeah, I can’t imagine anybody but Mark and cuz that’s he’s Dirk Diggler. Mark, did you feel the same way about Leonardo for one battle after another? Yes, for sure.
And there was no one else in my mind to play Bob but Leo. Are you with me? You with me, You just called me. This is Bob Ferguson. I think the only thing I had to do was because from time to time he he Leo would stop and say like, “But he doesn’t do anything.” Well, I know he doesn’t really, but he does. He does.
He’s doing something all the time. He’s moving forward. He’s moving forward. Hey, thank you, sensei. Thank you, sensei. Thank you. At the core of the film, there is this relationship between a father and a daughter. And moreover, the film is about acceptance of being the child of someone and also a child that rebelist activists um chased by evil and fighting evil more so like Star Wars one of film.
Yeah. Yes. Yes. I grow tired of asking this, so it’ll be the last time. Where is the rebel base? Yeah. When I first read this, you know, Paul had put 15, 20 years worth of work in into this screenplay. I think he said he started it in almost maybe even the late ‘9s.
You said you had the germs of the idea, but I could tell that there was so much complexity and in these worlds, even to the realm, even even the bounty hunters, there was the chosen one. There was the Obi-Wan character, the Darth Vader character. It was like this micro almost like this religious world that had so many different layers to it.
And what I love about any moment in the script, you just feel the backstory of these characters. even if it’s a minute moment and you got a few scenes with them, you feel that their history and the their life experience and and it’s a slice of life and and [clears throat] it’s just kind of masterful the way he put the entire screenplay together much like George Lucas did with [laughter] Star Wars and created his own universe cuz he did he he created a fully formed universe even you know the idea of Profidia I’m he’s the revolutionary in this film that you you know, leaves a
wake of carnage to the rest of the characters. I’m still left picking up the pieces, self-medicating myself. My daughter’s still traumatized by wanting to know her mother is obviously know Lock Jaw’s obsession. We’re all traumatized by her wake and then she sort of disappears and then reappears. I don’t know what character that would be in Star Wars, but there’s just so many.
And Terminator 2 I thought was a very interesting one too with the two dueling, you know, the sort of the the age Terminator and the newer, more technical Terminator that was coming after the chosen child that represented, you know, something innately important. So yeah, it’s a childhood classic as well. So was it important in in your childhood like the the Saga Star Wars? Oh yeah.
I remember going going to see this in the theater with my father’s. I think it was a it was a re later re-release on Hollywood Boulevard and it just absolutely Did you go to the Chinese? I don’t know if it was the Egyptian or the Chinese, but it was on Hollywood. I was very very young cuz this was released when when were 77.
Yeah. I could have been hanged in theaters for for you know years. Maybe it wasn’t Maybe I’m that old and it wasn’t the re-release. [laughter] Well been. Did you watch a lot of films with your parents or did you rather discover films by yourself growing up? I with my parents um and you know initially whether it was films on television or going to the theater but then at a certain point I was so obsessed that they would just drop me off because they didn’t want to see every single movie and I wanted to see
every single movie generally in the morning you know generally for the 10:00 10:00 a.m. show and then come back and get me sometime around dinner. So I would see two or three movies in a day on the weekend, you know, and that was that was great. What I would do there, too, is I would say I was going to see one movie and then, you know, sneak into the R-rated movie.
I mean, I got caught a lot. I tried to get into Animal House many times. Eventually, my uncle took me to see Animal House against my parents wishes. He took me to Westwood to see it. I was I was terrified of it actually was like what is going on? Is there any film that really traumatized you when you were like a child? I had a sort of revival house which is called the Vista Theater which Tarantino actually has bought and our film is playing at with one of the Vista Vision projectors. One of the only Vista Vision
that was my neighborhood theater and it was a revival house. Got to see a lot of old films with my dad there. He would he would take me constantly. King Kong was the first and most the original King Kong from the 30s. But then I liked a lot of horror when I was young. I was really traumatized by The Thing, John Carpenters, The Thing that came out in theaters.
Love films like Creep Show. And then, you know, when I was about 15 six 16 years old, I gave myself like a year-long self education on cinema history because I was venturing into the world of cinema away from the world of television. I was like, “Okay, I never went to college or film school. I got to learn this stuff myself.
” So, I I think I watched four or five movies a day for a year and tried to absorb as much I could of of cinema history. And there was a lot of actors that really influenced me from those those days. We had the benefit of being at the right age and the right time where these video stores would crop up and you walk in, you’re like, “This is better than a candy shop. I can’t believe it.
This is incredible.” There was a film called Faces of Death. Do you remember death? Did you see Traces of Death? No. That was even worse. Well, I watched all the Faces of Death. It was kind of maybe or maybe not. It was put out there as this is where you can see people die, right? A man hired to defend the alligator lost his life to the very creature he was trying to protect.
But I don’t think it was it. I think it’s pretend. No, it was real. Have you seen it? I’ve seen Faces of Death. Well, Faces of Death was talking about different cultures, too, and the ideas of death all around the world. That’s right. And then and then there was I think it was Faces of Death, too.
Then there was a Traces of Death and there were real It was horrible. It was real. Wasn’t there a thing with like eating monkeys or eating monkeys? The hitting the monkey on the head eating. [laughter] That was like the underground passed around VHS tape that everyone got in America. Like do not tell your parents that you have this.
That’s right. That’s right. This is horrifying. I spit on your grave. Horrified me. My brother’s got that. I liked horror movies, but that one was a step too far. And there’s a scene in a bathtub where she a woman gets revenge on a fella in a bathtub. And I’ll leave it at that. It was that rattled me.
Let’s go with the battle of Alers. Mhm. Because Bob is watching Battle of Alers in one battle after another. Why this specific film for Bob? Well, this film was um was very popular with the revolutionary movement in the in the 60s in America. a lot of documentation about weather underground members and other people living by this film, looking at the the the situation down in the al in Algeria and and and loving this film, loving the authent, you know, even though it is a fictional film, it really feels like a
documentary. It’s incredibly incredibly skillfully made. And so it was a rallying cry, you know, for a lot of revolutionaries in America looking at Ponte Cororvo’s film. And so it’s Bob’s comfort watch and it’s it’s probably the thing that from, you know, his armchair he can really still feel like in the fight and he can do the dialogue and he can get stoned and put it on for the 600th time.
Only then we take on our real enemy. It’s like a It’s probably like a blanket to him. It’s like a reminding him of the old days. Reminds him of the past, you know, a past he was never a part of, but it’s kind of sweet. It’s sweet. It’s sad, but it’s it’s sweet. You know, I wanted to ask you, why did you choose the name French 75 for the revolutionaries? You are a political prisoner of the French 75, You’ve been captured by the French 75.
I don’t remember why. I just felt it. It just one of those things that popped into my head that I thought was terrific. Obviously, there’s the artillery and then the drink and there’s a kind of there was a there was there was a ring to it that was quite good. But if I were to name drop, I have to say I be really became aware of French 75 the drink when I was working with Jason Roarts in Magnolia and he told me about making a battle of cable ho with uh Sam Pekkenpaw and they were both real they loved to
drink. And at some point Sam Peekenpaw said, “You know what? We’ve got to make and they were down in Mexico in the middle of nowhere in Mexico.” He says, “I want a French 75.” And Jason Robarts had to figure out how to make a French 75 with what he had. And he just told me this story of them experimenting and taste testing just to get the exact right French 75 in the middle of Mexico.
And so that was always planted in my mind and I got it’s it’s a nice it’s got a nice ring to it. Yeah. And it fits really well for the spirits of the revolutionaries in the film The 75. Let’s go with Midnight Run if you want. Oh, I’m sure we’re completely safe. We talked about the film a lot because we just think it’s one of the greatest comedies ever made.
I mean, Charles Groden and Darren are absolutely brilliant and it’s a film that’s a road film that has an incredible amount of t tension. It’s a two-hander. I remember going to see that film with my father. My dad took me to see Good Fellas. And then I wanted to learn about acting. He said, “You want to learn about acting, watch this movie.
” And he pointed to Dairo and I got to see Groden in it, too. And I was just absolutely mesmerized by the movie. And, you know, it was an adult film for me at the time, but I I got the humor that that these guys were dishing out. It was it was very impactful. ELON MOS FBI, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST. GET THIS DOG OUT OF HERE.
GET THE DOG OUT OF HERE, MA’AM. And I think a big we referenced it a lot for this movie too. That tone, you know. Yeah, there is a lot at stake. You know, you really do feel an emotional connection to Charles Groden that am amidst all the humor and all the car chases and everything else, you’re watching somebody who’s going to spend either the rest of his life in jail or he’s he’s going to get murdered for what he’s done by these mobsters.
So it was, you know, that was a really interesting time when that movie came out because Robert Dairo was obviously this and still is this godlike figure who made very serious films, maybe one a year, came out. It was always an event when he did and suddenly there was this kind of feeling as if he was going to be in an action comedy and it w and it was very peculiar at the time and it had Martin Breast who’s a terrific who made Beverly Hills Cop and Going in Style.
So he’s a very very strong director and Charles Groden added into the mix. We we were all hoping for something good, but we weren’t quite sure what we were going to get. And it obviously it’s a film that exceeded expectations. It was like because normally you couldn’t really have an action film that had a proper story or proper acting with proper chops, you know? It was they were kind of two separate things.
This was like you can not only have great actors doing great performances, you can have your car chases, you can have humor, you can have all of it. I’ve saw that film at least I don’t know maybe five or 10 10 probably 10 times in the theater still watch it at least twice a year. Uh it’s our my family’s favorite film really.
Oh yeah. Midnight Run. It’s like a comfort film for you. Oh yeah, without question. One battle after another is the first film in over 50 years uh that has been both shot with Vista Vision cameras and also screen in Vista Vision. the searchers as well. Um, yeah. Yeah.
Use of the large screen format Vista Vision. How was Vista Vision so important for you? Was it like a statement or a love letter to the way of making films? Sure. I mean, I had obviously, you know, there when you see films and you start to see a pattern of what you like visually, you you put a few pieces together, you say, “Well, hang on, that was Vista Vision.
That was Vista Vision.” And you you understand. and looking into it. I first used the camera in 2019. I made a short film with Tom York and we absolutely fell in love with it and we’re like this we could really we could I think we could make a movie with this if we get these cameras tuned up. We find a few more.
We really practice with it and learn how to use it. It’s so versatile because it’s a large format, but it’s also more compact than an IMAX camera. It’s not as loud. So it could it it could blow up gigantic and big to IMAX and and really fit that format, but it also could fit quite nicely in other formats, right? So it was very versatile for us.
And yeah, to be using some of the same cameras that they would have been using for these, you know, you have to say, well, if it was good enough for them, it was got to be good enough for us. And obviously this is one of my favorite films that I have ever seen and I keep thinking about it. Never is far away from my mind.
I hope to use it again. Vista vision the the important part and the really incredible part for us was being able to project it which we were able to do in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and London. I feel very proud of that that we were able to collect enough old projectors, refurbish them and put them in place and it was yeah magical experience.
Were those projectors? They [clears throat] were all spread out from all over all over in Boston. They were they had some at Boston Light and Sound. They had some already. LA. We sourced them from Warner Brothers had some lying around. Paramount had one and they had to really put them back together. They were in good shape, but they weren’t in great shape.
Not a good enough shape to know to run four shows a day for for four weeks. The other element that we had to figure out was how we were going to play the sound. because normally they would have been an optical track on a separate thing. So there was lots of engineering that went into it with the guys at Warner Brothers.
And so the Vista Vision projectors because the cameras are very rare but the projectors are nearly extinct. So there’s Yeah, there’s LA, London, New York, Boston. Boston. And that’s it. That was it. But it looked great in IMAX the other day. The Vista Vision. We’ve got to get this Vista Vision to Paris at some point.
I swear we’re That would be crazy. We’re We’ll figure We have to figure that out. I mean, a cinema city like this needs to to see it. Does this say The Prisoner of the Desert? Absolutely. Okay. This one? Yeah, this one. Yeah, we were talking about like uh some of my performance, my influences for this performance.
I think this was a big one. NOBODY MOVE. GET OVER THERE. OKAY. All right. Get away from those alarms. We spoke a lot about it watching [clears throat] a bunch of films. Battle of Alers, Lion and Winter, Running on Empty. But for the phone call sequences, you know, watching Al Pacino frantically trying to get back his his lover and his sort of anti-establishment rants and his his Attica moment, you know, I think that was highly influential for the character.
And legend has it supposedly his Attica line, which is his big revolutionary line because of what was going on in the prison system at that time, he was screaming to the to the audience, to the extras to get them really to get them going and energized and they turned the camera around and it’s Adica. [screaming] [cheering] I watched this three or four times before I did the movie because his his frenetic energy and his improvis what seemed like improvisation must have been improvisation on those calls.
It’s amazing connection of two Sydney lame met films that were you know running on empty and dog day afternoon. Mhm. Incredible filmmaker. Did you improvise a lot for one battle after another? A lot of the fundamentals the core of it was was in the script from written by Paul.
I think there were key moments where, you know, improvisation happened or there were branches of expansion on the core of what he wrote, but a lot of that was already in the script. But I had my moments. Have your moments for sure. It’s a mix. It’s always a mix. You can’t you can’t you can’t get good improvisation if you don’t have a little bit of good writing to start with.
Like otherwise, you have to jump off something. You kind of hope for it. you hope for good improvisation, you know? I mean, that’s what I’m looking for it. I don’t I’m not I don’t want everybody to be exactly what’s written. You also usually agree on what the good lines are that you know you want to hit, but you also kind of know there’s there’s room for better.
You maybe I haven’t quite got something yet and you look, you’re like, do you have something? I hope you got something good cuz this is not exactly going to cut it. And then when you get cooking it, good things come from that. Unless you’re Jonah Hill, who will go off into a tangent into the stratosphere, right? And and be talking about some talk about something that has nothing to do with the film for 10 15 minutes and you find your way into it.
Just when you find your way into it, he brings it right back down to the story line. I have never seen anyone improvise like that. Really? One of the best impro improvisational actors in the world. Wow. Can we expect a director’s cut from you for for one battle after another? No. No. I mean, this there were things that were cut.
There’s always things that were cut, but nothing significant or nothing that that we would be proud of. I think probably things that, you know, I I’ve I saw the early cuts and there was great stuff in it, but look, the film is How long is the film? 2 hours and something something. Yeah. And there’s not a moment in that film that, you know, doesn’t galvanize you and have a the tension of moving forward with supremely high stakes.
I think a longer version of it wouldn’t give you that adrenaline rush. Yeah. You know, it wouldn’t have that same feeling of a chase and this impending doom coming towards these characters, you know, especially Willa. It it it wouldn’t wouldn’t be the same. No, because at the end of the film you want to see more, you know, with Profilia like are they going to reunite or But I understand for the tension that there was a thought of that at one point.
There were thoughts of that. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. And over years and years ago writing things that might happen if that were the case and they never really panned out. Um it’s I I I like where it lands. I like where it ends. It’s, you know, maybe we’ll go make a sequel where Chase goes goes on a journey for a sequel.
Ultimus [clears throat] and Did you just announce a sequel? [laughter] Is that official? Be careful. They’re going to be headlines. [laughter] No, no, no. Don’t Don’t take me seriously, you know. Yeah. Okay. Of course. Of course. I’m just joking. But Bugsy Malone. Yeah, sure. What? This is a You know, Bugsy Malone, right? Of course.
This is such a terrific film. Pleased to meet you. I’m Bogsy Malone. Don’t call us. We’ll call on you. Alan Parker was such a hero to me when I seeing his films. Not only this one, but Birdie and Mississippi Burning. The list goes on. I don’t know if I ever told you this story or not, but when I was about 17 years old, I made a short film that would become Boogie Night.
They don’t want to see me mumble some cheap dialogue. They don’t want plot. They don’t want character. They want me, Dirk Diggler. And I entered it into a competition for young filmmakers, for high school filmmakers. And it was very exciting because in part of it was that Alan Parker was going to see and judge your film.
Mhm. And I So I of course got submitted my film, went down to see it play and see if I could win an award or Alan Parker would see the film. Anyway, I don’t remember the details, but I got there and Alan Parker was on his way out and he had already he didn’t have enough time or anything and he wasn’t going to see my film.
Oh, no. I was heartbroken. So, I chased after him with my VHS of the movie and he had a white Mhm. convertible rabbit, Volkswagen rabbit, and I said, “Mr. Parker, you haven’t seen my film. You know, you’re leaving without seeing my film.” chucked it in the back seat, hit the bullseye, and went, “Well, I should I I shot my shot.
You know, we’ll see what happens.” Years later, he had a son who I met, and then I met Alan Parker, and he said, “I loved that video. I watched it a thousand times. My son watched it. We we would watch it all the time, and so they were aware of the film, and they saw Boogie Nights. I can’t believe that kid made it through that VHS in my car.
” Yeah. I did an interview with him when Phantom Thread came out a couple years before he passed away. He’s just a really incredible filmmaker and and and obviously it goes without saying but it bears repeating a very musical director you know everything is so music one of the commitments or Bugsy Malone fame you know Pink Floyd we watched this movie this ran on loop in in in our household this film young Jodie Foster right young Jodie Foster Scott I mean I haven’t seen it in forever I seen it a lot cuz I show it to the
kids we’ve got a print of it and watch it and it’s it’s the music alone is so terrific and really amazing unique film. What else you got? Um I think the aviator talk about the aviator. Let’s talk about the aviator. Let’s talk about it. How’d we do? 352 on the last run. [laughter] She’ll go faster.
I carried this book around for 10 years in my back pocket around New York. Obsessed with Howard Hughes with his obsess obsessive compulsion. I just was I was fascinated by a man that these kind of people that were thought of as aviators were really astronauts, you know, at that time. They were risking their lives. They were people.
They would have ticker tape parades for these people when they arrived from around the world, you know, flights that were in into the hundreds of thousands waiting for these people. New aviation history is written when his locked monoplane returned swiftly and safely. And he was also one of America’s richest men.
And then you know this then descent into madness and his fascination with microscopic germs as he had repeated head trauma from all these crashes and was un undiagnosed with obsessivecompulsive disorder. So I I had this book and I pitched it around. Finally, Michael Man did a script with John Logan, which was fantastic. And and Michael and I almost did it, but he had just finished doing Muhammad Ali and um wasn’t was biopicked out, right? So, I brought it to a couple other directors and finally sent it to Marty and he he opened it up. He told me I
didn’t know anything about boxing and I opened up and read Raging Bull and I didn’t know anything about aviation and I read aviator but I like that character and let’s do something with it. And that was I think I was 30 years old. That was the first time I kind of was a part of making a film like that happening happen from my own free will.
And it was still to this day I think one of the most memorable magical experiences. We got to recreate all of all of Hollywood, all of the man’s Chinese, the Spruce Goose in Canada. We recreated these unbelievable sets, the Coconut Grove, and the three different film strips that he did from the 1920s to the 30s to the 40s with different technicolor process that Marty used as the decades changed.
There was just so much thought and attention to detail put into that film. I’ll never forget it. It was a real turning point in my life. It is a very special film. I will put that up there with Marty’s best for sure. Um, and incredible supporting cast with Kate Blanchett and John Riley and Alec Baldwin and Alan Alda.
God, the list is so long of people in that film and everybody great. It’s so It’s Yeah, it’s called The Aviator, but it could be called, you know, I don’t know what it could be called. It’s it’s it’s about Hollywood as well, you know, just his fascination with Hollywood and there is this sense of community in several of your films and you work with often with the same actors.
Would you consider to work again with Leonardo and really having I would of course that’s an obvious yes for me but there’s a way to experience Paul’s films on a audience level and they’re made for cinema. I mean he the way he shoots them, location scouting, the the way his whole creation of making a movie, but the the sense of community that he has making a movie and the envelopment of every single department, every actor to be included in the film making process and not making it an isolated experience where the director
is, you know, this sort of arch duke in control and alienates you. We had dailies every single day on all these amazing locations that he scouted for over a year. We got to bring the community of of these different locations, these the culture into our film, non-acctors that, you know, actually changed the course of of the way we we we conducted the narrative in the film.
But it’s very rare these days where every single department gets to sort of react almost like a preview to an audience and have that communal experience, that communal energy that people have and you as an actor and director get to see, oh, they like this. Oh, they didn’t laugh at that. They didn’t get that. That maybe went too far. That didn’t land.
that experiment and then it g it gave us more and more insight and courage as the film went on to be bolder with choices you know and defi and it defined our characters I didn’t get to work with Shawn Penn a lot in this movie but I got to see the impending dark forces that were coming to get my daughter and once I saw those military trucks once I saw those helicopters with Johnny Greenwood’s score that was already there feeling the tension of that that it propelled me forward in making this movie like the desperation that my character felt.
Just never thought this would come back for us. I got lazy, man. I wasn’t paying attention. And that’s only because he invited everybody in. And it and it’s a it’s a hearkening back to a an old way of making movies that I think is uh sadly missed nowadays. You know, it’s it’s very rare to have that kind of experience on a set.
We had the benefit of having Johnny’s music that you’re playing it. Everybody really starts to very quickly understand the movie that they’re making. Yeah. Come on. Come on. Because at its worst, you do have so many departments and everybody steps that first day onto set and they all there’s a hundred different movies that they think is going to be made, you know, in their head that they’ve read they’ve read.
But piece by piece, everybody’s starting to see a very close tonal approximation with what Johnny would provide and and that kind of interaction with the dailies. It’s it’s sort of essential to Leo’s point because otherwise you’re searching blindly. Um any kind of relief that you can get is helpful in the in the you know 90day process of making a film.
It’s invaluable. And what a film you’ve made. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time, gentlemen. Could have been long hours talking. I know. We could have gotten to all these DVDs, but I’m trying to see what else you even have here. Oh, thank you. And the big Labowski. The dude. The dude.
