Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a chat I had with Mr. Rian Johnson, writer/director of BRICK and the coming-to-a-theater-near-you THE BROTHERS BLOOM. This was done a long while ago, actually, when BLOOM was one of Harry’s sneaky secret screenings at Fantastic Fest. Biases up front, I met Rian doing press for BRICK and we struck up a fast friendship. Over the last few years I have found Rian to not only be an extremely talented filmmaker, but a movie geek of the highest caliber. We speak a common nerd language and have spent much time geeking out about cinema new and old. This isn’t an act for him, a public face. He’s truly someone living the dream. I conducted this interview outside of Chuy’s, one of my favorite Austin restaurants (and one of the reasons why I will never, ever be skinny) after a rather large meal. As you’ll see below, the chat is very informal and we jump around on tangents, mini-diversions that I personally love reading in interviews and feel really gives someone reading a true and honest look at the interviewee. You know the scene, you know the players. Now let’s get on with the chat.
Quint: Let’s talk about the screening first and how you felt it went at FANTASTIC FEST.
Rian Johnson: Well I had been reading about it on the site for a while and along with BUTT-NUMB-A-THON, it’s kind of… I don’t know. Not to completely pull out your member and go down on it right here in front of this restaurant, but I feel…
Quint: That might break some laws.
Rian Johnson: A couple. Not as many as you think though.
Quint: Well, it’s Austin.
Rian Johnson: That’s true! As a movie fan you know, or at least I know, you find Ain’t It Cool News and that’s the first website I found. So it’s almost like coming to Fantastic Fest and going to the Drafthouse for the first time that I have read about for years, it’s like stuff that I’m a fan of (already). That’s kind of a thrill for me and then the screening was just awesome.
Quint: Was it the best screening so far?
Rian Johnson: Yeah, and the one in Toronto was great reaction wise and the one in Toronto was fantastic, but there was something about the vibe with this one. There was something about just the fact that it felt like it was all with film fans.
Quint: We are saying how in Toronto you had like a fourteen hundred seater…
Rian Johnson: It was huge. This was more intimate and also it’s the first time I ever ate fried pickles, which I think I can still taste actually even 24 hours later. It was a pretty special screening. It’s only the second time really showing the movie to a real audience, so I’m still tender. (laughs)
Quint: Did you sit in on the Toronto screening as well?
Rian Johnson: I did, yeah, and honestly though, as good as the screening was this time, I don’t know if this was something that happens to everybody, but I’m in pain during the screening because you are so tuned into what the audience is thinking and how they’re reacting and at least I always assume the worst, so it was like “Oh they’re not into this…”
Quint: What part did you think last night that you were the happiest with the audience reactions? Was there a single moment, where it’s like “Oh great it played!”
Rian Johnson: Well, the laughs all hit in the right spots, but more than that, towards the end of it, I liked looking at the audience and seeing how still everybody’s head is. I think that’s a good indicator of when it gets into the more serious parts of it, yeah, where everyone is quiet and kind of still, but I’m still actually learning how, because you make the thing in a vacuum and then you kind of… first of all you learn how audiences react to it by showing it to them. This only the second time seeing it with an audience, so I don’t really know what’s par for the course. And also seeing it multiple times, I can just speak from my experience with BRICK, going around to a ton of festivals and seeing it a bunch of times with different crowds, every crowd has it’s own personality and every crowd is like showing it to a different person. They are going to be grieving with certain stuff in it and not with others and every crowd has a distinct personality, which is also why the whole idea of test screening, I think, is totally fucked.
Quint: I can compile an audience for the best movie in the world and they hate it.
Rian Johnson: Absolutely, yeah.
Quint: It seems unfortunately they use test screenings to see what those kind of people think. They want to see the people who wouldn’t be inclined to see it anyways and then they assume that that’s what everybody would like.
Rian Johnson: Have you read Mamet’s book, BAMBI VS GODZILLA?
Quint: No, but I have heard about it.
Rian Johnson: It’s great and it’s got a great thing about test screenings. I actually read that while going through the process and that kind of helped fortify me a little bit.
Quint: I heard the testing process on BLOOM was actually really good.
Rian Johnson: It was, yeah. We did surprisingly well and I think I was kind of expecting the worst, because it was so awful with BRICK. The way they score it, like if you are 80 or above, that’s like an Adam Sandler movie, that’s like great and fantastic. With BLOOM, I think we got on the high seventies with both of our things. BRICK, I think we were under thirty. And like people were laughing and jeering… It was just an absolutely horrible experience.
Quint: Like sitting there with the razorblades going “Oh no…”
Rian Johnson: We were coming out of Sundance, Focus had bought the movie and I’m sitting there with the guys at Focus and getting this reaction, I’m like “I’ll give you the money back.”
Quint: Well, with BRICK you have to accept the world pretty immediately or else the whole thing would just become tedious. As an audience member you have to accept the world and that’s true with both movies. Except I think BLOOM is so much more accessible, just because it’s a different genre. It’s harder for the hardboiled crime stuff, but a lot of people are not as familiar with that cinematic language as they used to be. But with a romantic comedy I think it’s an easier in and they can buy a stranger world.
Rian Johnson: That’s true, although I have found a couple of things where it’s strikingly similar to people who don’t like BRICK in terms of the reaction, where it’s definitely like an almost allergic reaction to it. It’s the same thing where you are deflected off of the world by it’s style or by whatever and it just doesn’t connect with you at all. I think you are right, it is a little broader with BLOOM, but I’m actually encouraged that we are still getting those reactions with BLOOM, though. To me that’s a good sign, it’s a sign that you are making something with a strong personality.
Quint: And you are also making something original, something that hasn’t been adapted or remade. It’s really hard finding original stuff in theaters these days and it seems people don’t like to make original work… Well, not people, but the studios.
Rian Johnson: Yeah, it’s hard to get original stuff made, absolutely.
Quint: I think that’s what they react to too, because they don’t have… It’s a whole new story. THE BROTHERS BLOOM is a whole new story.
Rian Johnson: Everybody wants something different, until they see something different.
Quint: I think that’s where your fanbase is thought, you find the people that want that stuff and if you make something as charming as BLOOM, it might have the overall broader reach to bring in the people who wouldn’t be predisposed to jump into something that’s not a Kate Hudson and Mathew McConaughey movie.
Rian Johnson: Yeah. I could go off on the whole Kate Hudson/Mathew McConaughey fan base…
Quint: I just alienated a large demographic for you now.
Rian Johnson: Are you kidding? Fantastic! (laughs)
Quint: “FOOL’S GOLD was genius!”
[Both Laugh]
Rian Johnson: They are kind of the Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn a little bit of our generation. That’s blasphemous, but in that mode, you know?
Quint: I was going to say I don’t know if it’s nostalgia, but I loved OVERBOARD.
Rian Johnson: Yeah… it’s nostalgia. (laughs)
Quint: Maybe FOOL’S GOLD or whatever it’s called is this generation’s OVERBOARD and I’m just too old to appreciate it.
Rian Johnson: That should be on the poster, “This generation’s OVERBOARD.”
Quint: If they need to run it on TBS four times a day for three months…
Rian Johnson: I want to make this generation’s CAPTAIN RON.
Quint: Who would be Captain Ron?
Rian Johnson: Well… Kurt Russell, just bring him back!
Quint: Kurt Russell in CAPTAIN RON: PART 2.
Rian Johnson: Exactly, you can’t have anyone else. It’s like Mickey Rourke and THE WRESTLER, you can’t have anyone else in that role, because it won’t work.
Quint: CAPTAIN RON always weirded me out because of the eye patch.
Rian Johnson: Just because of the of the eye patch, it weirded you out?
Quint: I was like “So, he’s got the Snake Plissken going on, but he’s in a completely different world.”
Rian Johnson: “That’s not the Snake I… I am so confused! Mother!”
Quint: “Snake doesn’t drive a boat and wear his shirt open!”
Rian Johnson: Wow, that movie made me so uncomfortable for some reason.
Quint: So let’s talk about your cast, which we have talked about at length already. This film was one of the rare occasions where I read the script before anybody was attached and I got to see your actors fall into place one by one. Rachel [Weiz] is absolutely perfect as Penelope. I think she is what a lot of people are grabbing on to. That’s what Harry grabbed on to and that’s what I told you after you showed me the movie that you have made a Rachel Weiz fetish movie.
Rian Johnson: This whole time I thought I was making a Maximilian Schell fetish movie. I guess my sensibilities are off.
Quint: He needs a little bit more screen time or maybe you should have shown his ass.
Rian Johnson: I should have. Hey! Tight as a bone is his ass… I’m kidding.
Quint: “Like a twelve year old boy!”
Rian Johnson: Literally. It’s funny, though, because I guess that’s true having read the script first, you got kind of a glimpse at it, because the casting process is so weird. It’s like obviously you have got certain images in your head, not images, but you’ve got notions for the character and I actually think it’s really healthy that you never end up getting the first people you were thinking of. The casting process for BLOOM took like a year. We were in that process for like a year, because it’s so crazy trying to get actors who A) are going to have the name value to get your movie funded and B) are going to be the right people for the part and then C) and sometimes most importantly are available. You are dealing with schedules and everybody in town wants the same fifteen people in their movie. You look at lists of actors, of stars and you realize just how few there actually are, so you have to take some joy in the process of allowing your expectations be overturned. Like Ruffalo for instance. I first met with him and we were meeting about (the character of) Bloom actually, which from the work I had seen him do in YOU CAN COUNT ON ME and ZODIAC, he seems like a much darker… But yeah I met with him and all of a sudden that expectation flipped around, because in person he’s a lot more like his character in this movie. He’s a big warm funny guy.
Quint: He was very personable on set. He was very much like the character.
Rian Johnson: Yeah and he wasn’t just in character, that’s how he was when I first met him. That’s just his personality and so all of a sudden it flipped around and I thought, okay. On the page, his character is much more like a George Clooney, like an impenetrably cool kind of totally in control guy and putting Mark in that role kind of brings this slight vulnerability to it and kind of a lopsidedness, because Mark isn’t that guy. So seeing Mark be that guy, there’s also something else operating there. Anyway, but that’s something you have to not just accept, but I think you really have to take joy in, just tossing everything up in the air and trying to catch it on it’s way down and see how it fits in a different way than you thought it would.
Quint: One of the best examples for me personally, just from what I loved, not getting your first pick is you look at JAWS and you hear all of the stories about how originally Spielberg wanted Lee Marvin as Quint and you think about that now with Robert Shaw owning the role. It’s like he made it iconic. Lee Marvin is fucking amazing, but it’s like I can’t see that now.
Rian Johnson: There are a thousand stories like that. Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones… Chris Walken as Han Solo…
Quint: I love Harrison Ford, but man that would have made a fascinating STAR WARS.
Rian Johnson: It would have been something. It’s hard to even imagine, but yeah.
Quint: The casting, especially with a movie like this, it’s so crucial, because it works on the page and works as a story, but without the charisma, the whole thing deflates like a cake, you know?
Rian Jonhson: The terrifying thing is… on BRICK we had like three months of rehearsal, because we were all in LA. There was obviously no money involved, so we would all just get together for dinner over at my place and the actors would come over and for a period of three months we would just get together a few times a week. When you are dealing with bigger names, like for this, everybody meets each other a week before we start shooting, if you are lucky, so you have a week of rehearsal, which we did. That’s really kind of scary for me, because it is kind of like… It’s casting all of these parts separate from each other and just kind of hoping that they all gel together, but you won’t really know until it’s too late and you just kind of hold your breath and hope that they click, I guess.
Quint: You can curtail that a little bit, especially when you look at Penelope, like if you cant make the audience fall in love with her, then the movie doesn’t work. That’s why you are definitely stacking the deck in your favor when you cast somebody like Rachel, who has that… It’s almost an immediate thing, because she is so sweet and she’s so strong, but she’s also vulnerable. For a romantic comedy of any sort to work, for me there has to be that moment where me as an audience member I want to get up out of my seat and reverse PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO IT and jump in the screen and hug that person, like “It’s OK, it’ll be alright.” That’s why I love GARDEN STATE, because I felt that way with Natalie Portman’s character.
Rian Johnson: Shirley MacClane in THE APARTMENT is the big one for me. I banged my head into the screen trying to get in.
Quint: You even look at the wacky comedies, like BRINGING UP BABY and stuff like that, you have to have that connection with it or else it doesn’t work.
Rian Johnson: Yeah, there’s always that…
Quint: It’s not even a lust thing, but just like you have to empathize. You have to open your heart to somebody.
Rian Johnson: It is a strange way of falling in love, but it has to happen and with Rachel, she has the charm, but the unknown factor going into it, at least for me, was… well not an unknown. The instant I talked to her, I knew it’d be okay, I knew it would work, but the dangerous part with that role is that there is a lot of eccentricity to that role and finding… Rachel actually worked really, really hard. She did a lot of work to make that character feel real on the screen. That was something that we were constantly keeping our eye on and constantly working at and a lot of the creative choices she made and then I made in the editing was all about when you look at that character and there’s all of that wacky stuff going on, but it was all about grounding and all about making it feel like a genuine person. The credit for that goes straight to Rachel and that’s a really hard thing to do as an actor. When you are juggling chainsaws on a unicycle, when you can do that and still no have the audience disconnect and say “Okay, this person is just a nut!”
Quint: Or a cartoon.
Rian Johnson: Exactly, then you have done your job.
Quint: Are you wanting to talk about LOOPER? It’s all over the trades and stuff.
Rian Johnson: I know it. It freaks me out a little bit, because I have never had something that I am writing be written about in that way. It’s very strange for me. It’s very odd. My first instinct is to start talking about it and be really open, but I don’t know. There was just something I found when I was reading stuff on the internet I kind of caught myself a little bit, like maybe I should be a little more guarded with the details.
Quint: Right, except for here of course.
Rian Johnson: Except for with you… So, it’s a story of this group of baby geniuses and they…
Quint: Is Christopher Lloyd coming back?
Rian Johnson: Oh lord.
[Both Laugh]
Rian Johnson: I only wish. It’s a sci-fi thing. It’s very different than BRICK or BLOOM. It has a time travel element to it. It’s like the first Terminator in that time travel is used as a conceit as opposed to an active thing, basically. It’s not like they are hopping all over time or something. The way that it is similar to BLOOM, I think, is that at it’s heart, and I think this is true of all good sci-fi, the fact that it is sci-fi is almost just a way to talk about something else. It’s really about the characters and the thing that it actually addresses is… issues that don’t have anything to do with time travel. It’s a very character based movie I guess is what I’m saying. At least in my mind it is.
Quint: What kind of scale is it going to be?
Rian Johnson: It’s not big.
Quint: BROTHERS BLOOMish?
Rian Johnson: I don’t know. I still have to finish writing it, but in my mind it’s a much smaller movie actually. It’s a much more intimate. It’s not guys in rooms talking for two hours. There’s a lot of stuff that happens in it, but… It’s set in Kansas actually. A big chunk of it takes place on a farm, actually. In my mind, it’s actually a pretty intimate film, which excites me too with the genre and in terms of the world, I’m still kind of working it out, but I love…. I think CHILDREN OF MEN, which Jim Clay who did the production design for BLOOM did the production design for CHILDREN OF MEN and I think it’s brilliant that they create a world where technology isn’t the first thing your eye is drawn to. Everything is so well integrated into the world and it just feels oddly familiar. Anyway, I’m having fun with it.
And that was our chat. Yes, we went on a bunch of tangents… but that’s what I find fun in interviews. I hope it translates, but at the very least I can guarantee that this is the only interview with Rian hitting this week that covers CAPTAIN RON.
I know this comes across a little as me shilling for a friend, but in all honesty and sincerity I feel that Johnson delivered a fantastic, heartfelt and fun film. I’ve tracked it from the earliest days and have seen it take a shape that is even better than the one I imagined it would.
The film comes out in limited release in New York and LA this weekend and then wider on May 29th.
Also, if you didn’t get a chance to read my set reports, check them out below. They are some of my favorite things I’ve ever done. Coming off of my MIST series, I was able to take a lot of candid photos and see a wide selection of moments during three days onset in Belgrade.
Day 1 of my visit
Day 2
And my final day
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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