0:02

Intro Music This

0:15

week after last week's famine of

0:17

guests, a feritable feast of guests

0:20

this week as we talk to

0:22

Jesse Plemons and Jorkus Lanthimos of

0:24

kinds of kindness, Michael

0:27

Sarnosky, director of A Quiet Place

0:29

Day One and we have

0:31

a little bit of spoiler goodness with Bad

0:33

Boys, Ride or Die directors Adil and Bilal.

0:35

Not bad eh? A hat-trick. That's the sort

0:38

of thing that the England football team could

0:40

be doing with right now. Anyway, all that

0:42

plus usual news and nonsense on movie podcast

0:44

that wanted a British summer.

0:47

But come on guys, this is

0:49

ridiculous. Alright sunshine, you've had your

0:52

fun, now fuck off behind a

0:54

cloud. That's what I say. Hello

0:56

Pod, I'm Chris Hewitt, I'm Cladon Shorts,

0:58

welcome to the Empire podcast this

1:01

week. We'll record this a day early. Why

1:03

we record this a day early James Dyer, my what

1:06

are you? Great big fucking nerve. Yes. Whatever you

1:08

like. Whatever you want. Whatever

1:11

you want me to be Chris. That is what

1:13

I will be. Why we recording this on Wednesday?

1:15

We're recording this on Wednesday because it's inconvenient for

1:17

me to record it on Thursday. Oh that's right.

1:20

We're bending ourselves to your will. That's right, you

1:22

are. It doesn't matter what I think was convenient

1:24

for me. Actually this is much more convenient. It's

1:27

inconvenient for Helen to do it at all. Helen

1:30

O'Hara is away in Glastonbury right

1:32

now. She is trippy major ball

1:35

sacks. She's

1:37

seen 15 Cape Blanchets. No, she's doing

1:39

loads of Q&A's in the film tent.

1:41

All the Q&A's. Sniffing them and smoking

1:43

them. Well actually she's doing the Q's,

1:45

other people are doing the A's. Otherwise

1:48

it'd be a very weird avant-garde kind of journalism.

1:50

What do you think of hot fuzz Helen? Well

1:52

Helen I'm glad you asked. Just moving from each

1:54

side of shit. That's not the same as some

1:56

of the podcasts we've recorded. That's very true. That

1:59

takes no time. navel gazing to an entirely new

2:01

level. Anyway,

2:03

in Helen's absence, we have

2:05

filled the third chair with Sophie Butcher.

2:07

Hello, Sophie. Hello, Chris. Would you rather

2:10

being Glastonbury doing Q's and A's? No,

2:13

not in this heat. Have you been to

2:15

Glastonbury? No, I haven't actually. Never. Very sad

2:17

about that. Are you sad about that? Yeah.

2:19

I'm not sure I could cope with it

2:22

now. Yeah. So for the opposite of the

2:24

Predator, this year, it grows hot. I've always

2:26

thought that about myself. Sophie stays inside. Oh,

2:29

yeah. I avoid the heat. Yeah. This

2:32

heat's too much for me. You're also rocking a

2:34

pair of shorts today, Soph? Yeah, it's a pasty

2:36

leg season. It's a pasty leg season, yeah. Got

2:38

them out. Are you wearing shorts, Chris? I am

2:40

wearing shorts, yeah. See, I, being the consummate professional

2:43

that I am, refuse to wear shorts to the

2:45

workplace on general principle to maintain at least an

2:47

air of general profession. You can't be a professional.

2:49

How dare you? Yeah. OK.

2:54

That's good to know. That's good to know. Jimbo,

2:56

would you like to be a Glastonbury? Glastonstow, you

2:58

would Glastonstow ahead? It's my idea of hell. Like,

3:00

what? No, just like mud

3:02

and festival toilets and just general. Could

3:04

not do it. You know what? People

3:06

were to carry me around Glastonbury in

3:08

some kind of sedan chair. Or

3:12

like maybe have a sort of a

3:14

demented type motorcycle chariot. 100%,

3:16

something like that. And then people to fan

3:19

me if I got hot and to bring

3:21

me snacks and drinks. That would be fine.

3:23

But to the best of my knowledge, that's

3:25

not on offer. Have you been to a

3:27

festival before, like a camping festival? I have.

3:29

In your youth. Never been to a festival.

3:31

Never? In my life. What? Jim. Because any

3:33

time I was asked, my response was something

3:35

along the lines of, fuck no. Absolutely

3:38

not. Comic-con's a kind of

3:40

festival. It's not, though, is

3:42

it? It is. It's not because we went back

3:44

to the Marriott Bayfront. Oh, yeah. Unless you've been

3:46

in a tent drinking warm strongball at 9 AM

3:48

in the morning, you haven't been to a festival.

3:50

No. It's just that I haven't been to a

3:52

festival. It's just not my fucking tempo. I've

3:55

been to festivals. I went to Leeds

3:57

Festival quite a lot when I was younger. been

4:00

for a while. Can't do

4:02

tents, can't do public toilets.

4:05

There are various things. I'd

4:08

be like, no, no, thank you. It's

4:10

far too weird and the smell

4:12

will be terrible. No, couldn't do

4:14

that. And also the lineup this year, I'm very

4:16

old and I think this is the worst lineup

4:18

Glassbury's ever had. How did they have, how did

4:20

they not have Taylor Swift doing one of their...

4:22

I don't know if you noticed, she's busy. I

4:24

know, but she could do one of

4:26

these as part of her tour. I don't know that

4:28

she needs to. She's got this whole thing. So bearing

4:31

in mind, that's the closest I'm going to get to

4:33

a festival is standing up for like seven hours at

4:35

the era's tour. So that will be my festival experience.

4:37

I will not be in a tent. All

4:40

right. Here's a question. This

4:42

comes from mneil on

4:46

Twitter. See what you guys think about this, because

4:48

I have just started watching Taskmaster,

4:52

the very popular and long-term TV

4:54

show that's been on for what

4:56

now nine years? Something

4:58

like that. Greg Davies and little Alex

5:00

Horn and every week,

5:02

every series, they have the same five

5:04

comedians all doing a series of tasks.

5:07

I've seen it all multiple times. Do

5:09

we find out how Greg Davies joins

5:11

the Thunderbolts? Is that how this works?

5:14

Honestly, he would be great in

5:16

the MCU. I honestly, I'm a

5:19

big fan of Ralph Inerson, but Greg

5:21

Davies could have been Galactus and they wouldn't

5:23

have needed to make him stand on a

5:26

plinth. No, he's huge. He

5:28

is huge. He is seven foot 12,

5:31

which is actually eight feet. That's

5:33

what all he is. Yeah.

5:36

So anyway, I've been watching Taskmaster

5:40

and it's very, very good, but I'm only on season

5:42

one. So no spoilers. I'm not looking this

5:44

one up on the internet to try and spoil for me. I

5:47

did accidentally because I wanted to see when it began and

5:50

I clicked on it on Wikipedia and I

5:52

know who wins the first season. Taskmaster year

5:54

one. Taskmaster year one before

5:56

all Kokiri Linko even becomes involved.

5:58

And that fact... leads me neatly

6:00

on to the question which is

6:02

from Emneal. With you

6:04

having just started watching Taskmaster,

6:07

what would be your dream MCU

6:09

Taskmaster lineup? Okay,

6:13

you will need to first of all explain to

6:15

me what Taskmaster is. I literally just did. Yeah,

6:17

but properly so that I fully understand it. So

6:19

there's a group of five like comedians or

6:22

comic actors and each week they do like

6:24

these silly little tasks. Or

6:27

podcast hosts, I'm just throwing it out there. I'm

6:29

just throwing it out there. What do you say

6:31

is silly little tasks? Yeah, what sort of task

6:33

is silly? So there's different types of

6:35

tasks. It might be like an imaginative creative

6:37

task where it's like create

6:40

your own album cover for a fictional album or

6:42

create a short film using these vegetables

6:45

or something like that. Or it

6:48

can be like a scavenger hunt type thing or

6:50

it could be like a physical task like get

6:53

this thing in this other thing the fastest but

6:55

there's like obstacles in the way and it's always

6:57

very kind of silly and funny

6:59

and it like. It's not parlor games. Honestly,

7:03

it's really really good. Honestly, it's not. It's so good

7:05

because it lets you like it puts these comedians in this

7:08

situation that you never normally see them in and

7:10

it gets them to do these tasks that are

7:12

like not real life tasks but it's like everyone

7:14

approaches it differently and the joy is in seeing

7:16

how like. They use a comedian brain. They come

7:18

at it from a different angle and they're all

7:20

ultra competitive. So I'm only a few episodes in

7:22

but for example there's one. The one I just

7:25

watched on the tube on the

7:27

way here. They had to they had a

7:30

bunch of tea bags and they

7:32

had to throw tea bags into a cup

7:35

into a mug and the person who

7:37

threw it the longest distance won

7:40

the five points and

7:42

so it's all about how they came at

7:44

it. So Tim Key decided to get

7:46

one of those dog ball thrower

7:49

things and tape the

7:51

tea bag to the ball and

7:53

then he created this massive sheet

7:55

of tarpaulin that funneled the ball

7:58

in towards the mug. And

8:00

therefore, who won? You gotta think outside the box,

8:02

Jimbo. Because it'll give you a task on a

8:04

piece of paper, but like, it's an Alex Horn

8:06

always says, all the information's on the task, but

8:09

sometimes you can think outside the box and approach

8:11

the task in a different way. And Ben Dools.

8:13

And Greg Davies is the host. He's the task

8:15

master. He gives points out. And Alex Horn, who

8:17

defies the show, is his sidekick in a sort

8:20

of Richmond Osmany kind of way. Defies the show,

8:22

gets to co-host a show. Yeah. You're

8:24

looking at me and see if I have just

8:26

spoken nothing but gobbledygook. I don't understand why this

8:28

is something that you feel you've needed to go

8:30

back to the first season and watch from the

8:32

beginning so you understand the overarching storyboard. No, but

8:34

it's not about a story. I just want to

8:36

watch every episode. It's so fun. It's so, so

8:38

fun. But the good thing about the lineup is

8:41

they always have a really good mix. They'll have

8:43

like one who's kind of like a

8:45

bit of a legend. So in the most recent series,

8:47

that was like Steve Pemberton. Oh, spoilers. Fucking hell. That's

8:50

just the person who's in it. That doesn't spoil anything.

8:52

I don't want to say he dies at the end.

8:54

Oh, no. Like what's inside the number nine? Yeah.

8:58

Killed by flying teabag. And

9:00

they'll have like, you know, a couple of younger,

9:02

like they'll be like a newer comedian that might

9:05

not be a household name, but that's the taskmaster

9:07

as well. Kind of like it boosts them. It

9:09

gives them a kick. Yeah,

9:11

it gives them, you know, listen, frankly, I'm looking

9:13

for a way out list this dump. So again,

9:16

if you are the casting director

9:19

for Taskmaster, I would be

9:21

very good on Taskmaster. Would you? I think

9:23

you're good at completing simple tasks. That's

9:26

the whole point. Yeah, I'm good

9:28

at thinking outside the box, man. Right. I

9:31

think you're not thinking fourth dimensionally. What if

9:33

the task is to get inside the box?

9:36

Well, where is the box? What,

9:39

metaphysically? Or I'm in one right

9:41

now. It's like a tesseract. You're

9:43

my box. Can't escape

9:46

you. I don't know. Wherever you are. Anyway,

9:48

what was the question? So you want five

9:50

heroes that would approach. Doesn't have to be

9:52

heroes. Five MCU characters that

9:54

we think would make a good Taskmaster

9:56

lineup. I love this question. It's a

9:59

very, very good question. James's battlement is

10:01

really making me pursue it even

10:03

more. You only need

10:05

one and it's Thanos with all of the stones.

10:07

Job done. That was the

10:09

ultimate task. He did do it. He

10:12

really did. He follows through. Well,

10:14

I'm not so sure he does. I

10:16

really hope he doesn't actually. He does change his outfit at

10:19

some point in Endgame. Oh no. Because

10:23

it's got to expel a lot of energy. Well, you got to

10:25

strain quite hard. When he clicks

10:28

his fingers. Anyway. Okay,

10:31

you could have Thanos as one.

10:33

Thick, swole Thanos. Following through

10:35

on the task. He is, yeah, absolutely

10:37

right. Tony Stark's a

10:40

task master as well, right? He was in a

10:42

cave. It's true.

10:45

He built this with a box of scraps.

10:47

Yeah, that's good indication. He could have gone

10:49

into the cave and there was a little task

10:51

master envelope. And it'll envelope. And

10:54

he opened it and it was... Use this

10:56

box of scraps to build yourself an arch reactor. And

10:59

a powered suit that would get you out of this cave. So

11:01

I think that's where we have to approach it. We

11:04

don't necessarily think about which characters

11:06

we would like to see. We'd like to

11:08

see, for example, could you throw Trevor Slattery in there, for example. But

11:10

he would be appalling at it. He

11:13

would be terrible at any task that you gave him.

11:15

Because he just can't focus for more than five seconds.

11:17

No, but he also has the dog with no face.

11:19

So he would be able to get that to help.

11:21

Morris. I'm

11:23

going to say Ant-Man because... Ant-Man. Which

11:25

one? Paul

11:28

Rudd. Paul Rudd, yep, good. Well,

11:31

technically Michael Douglas is also an ant. That's

11:34

why I asked. I'm really one

11:36

man. I bet that's an advantage

11:38

in some tasks. What, to be small? Yeah. All

11:41

big? All big. He could

11:43

have shrunk down to the size of an

11:46

ant, picked up the teabag, and then jumped

11:48

35 feet into the teabag. Or

11:51

if you're allowed to do that, he could have just picked up the

11:53

teabag and put it in the thing. It

11:55

was really, really big. He could be stood miles away, but

11:57

just put the teabag. Yeah, and then look up the Greg

11:59

Davies. Yeah. No

12:02

matter how big I get, you motherfucker,

12:04

you're always one foot ahead of me.

12:06

Yeah. All right. So

12:09

you just said Ant-Man? I'm saying Ant-Man. What?

12:11

Okay. Not because he thinks laterally. He

12:14

doesn't, you know, he can... I'm just thinking powers. He can tackle

12:16

tasks. He just has the power set that you think will

12:18

work well with Thanos and Tony Stark. Maybe.

12:20

He's also, he's good at like heists, etc.,

12:22

right? So he's good at thinking... He's quite

12:25

heisty. He's good at thinking about his way

12:27

into things. He will heist. He

12:29

will heist. Okay. All right. Jimbo?

12:33

I mean, obviously I would select Taskmaster and

12:35

not just because I would enjoy the battle

12:37

of trademarks, but Taskmaster has a skill set

12:39

that I think would be genuinely useful in

12:41

the, that she can absorb like however other

12:43

people would do it. And it's, and she

12:45

steal their approaches. They're like, cribbing

12:47

it. Here's the thing about Taskmaster. Most of

12:49

these tasks are performed alone. So

12:51

she wouldn't get to see what Tony

12:54

and Thanos and Scott

12:56

Lang would be doing in their

12:58

particular tasks. So this

13:01

is a great thing about it, James. They all film

13:03

their tasks like months ago and then they come into

13:05

the studio and they all watch each other do it.

13:07

So then no one knows what each other did. So

13:09

they're not doing it together. No, there's some team tasks

13:11

and there's a live studio task at the end of every show,

13:13

but they don't know what each other did. So some of them

13:15

could be coming out of a task thinking, I smashed that one.

13:18

And then you can watch someone else who like did the task

13:20

really well and be like, I didn't smash it.

13:23

Like that wasn't the way to do it. It went

13:25

very badly. Yeah. Yeah. I

13:27

think he'd like it. I would. We

13:29

have no trouble with this kind of stuff on the pilot TV podcast. I got

13:31

to be honest with you. Yes. I bet

13:33

Boyd likes to do it. He's actually, if he

13:36

and Kay bang on about all the time, that

13:38

is a two thirds majority. So we do have

13:40

a truck that is on the pilot TV podcast.

13:42

I have been undone by my own democratic petard.

13:45

I don't know. Something. Hoist

13:47

by your democratic petard. Yeah. You can't

13:50

be undone by a petard. Oh, you probably can be. A

13:52

petard can be explosive. So you could probably be undone by

13:54

one. Who would be a good

13:56

up and coming MCU hero? Taskmaster.

14:00

And up and coming MCU here. Yeah,

14:03

like a recent one. Well, Dr. Strange is not up and

14:05

coming, but he's like magic and shit. He

14:08

is magic and shit. That would be helpful. So, you

14:10

know, the answer to every task, how you gonna do it, Magic? Just

14:12

Magic. I've looked at four billion ways to do this task.

14:15

This is the one, the quickest one. He's seen

14:17

every single possible permutation of successfully completing the task

14:19

and chosen the best one. So he'd just win.

14:21

That would be no good. He'd win all the

14:23

time. He'll just look at the camera,

14:25

just hold out one finger and then finish it. And that'd be

14:27

it. And you'd be like, you swat. Fucking five

14:30

points to Dr. Strange again. Yes, Dr. Strange wins

14:32

again. Although

14:34

in fairness, he's not manipulating the

14:36

events in Endgame. He's just

14:38

observing. He's a passive observer of the truth. Well,

14:41

no. And so he doesn't, you know,

14:43

he's not like, he's not, it's like a

14:45

Rube Goldberg thing where he's making this thing happen

14:47

so it affects this thing. I disagree. I think

14:49

that's exactly what he's doing. He's crossing his fingers

14:51

and hoping. No, no, no. He is ushering the

14:53

timeline to ensure that it goes down the only

14:55

path that leads to victory. He can't do well.

14:57

What point does he? When he gives

14:59

him the stone. When he gives him the

15:02

stone. No, no, no, no. He assures that time

15:04

is going down that route and he does everything

15:06

that he needs to do in Endgame

15:08

to ensure that things happen. So

15:10

for example, when he holds up the water, all of

15:12

that stuff is he has seen that this is what

15:14

he has to do. So he does what he needs

15:16

to do to make, I mean, you can't guarantee it

15:19

because others should go wrong. Yeah, because there's like millions,

15:21

billions. But he is doing his part to try and

15:23

ensure that it is the outcome that he's looking for.

15:25

Millions. Yes,

15:27

yes. But he's not when he

15:29

arrives back after

15:32

the portals. We should talk

15:34

about portals after the portals saying he's

15:36

not like, oh, Tony's in

15:38

danger. I'm going to float him out of there and save

15:40

him because I got to keep Tony alive. It's not necessarily

15:43

that he knows that he's that's not what he's supposed to

15:45

do because he has seen the future and he knows exactly

15:47

how this is going to. He's got to he's got to

15:49

take a watching brief. Or

15:52

if that's what the if that's what the future

15:54

required of him and if their future required him

15:56

to intervene, he would intervene. But he is also

15:58

one of the future doesn't require him to win

16:00

Taskmaster. Well then he probably wouldn't play. Fun discussion

16:02

that they could be having. With

16:06

every task. Well actually, you knew what to

16:08

do. Because you'd seen the future. Should

16:11

we disqualify the powers? I wonder if we should disqualify the

16:13

powers. Then it's just like five blokes. Or

16:15

women. Or women. Or sexists. Sorry. Sorry,

16:18

but you know. Fucking hell. Hey,

16:20

it's not my fault, it's Marvel's, let's be honest. Black

16:22

Widow's in no state to complete Taskmaster. Oh

16:26

my god. It worked! Cruel. You

16:28

know, unless it's, how do

16:30

you get Black Widow into a cup? You

16:36

know, I'm saying she'd have to record this. From

16:42

the furthest distance. Splatasha Romanov.

16:44

That was high up. It was very high. It

16:46

was high up, yeah. She does win five points.

16:48

Unfortunately, she's not available for the rest of the

16:50

show. Thanos was actually playing Taskmaster and he had

16:52

to, you know, hit the thing at the bottom.

16:54

That's what we didn't realise. That's it. Five points.

16:56

Spoilers for Avengers Endgame there, by the way. And

17:00

obviously this would be pre-Tony's death. So, and Thanos

17:02

is for that point. Thanos

17:04

is death. Yeah, that's true. He dies

17:06

twice in Avengers Endgame. That's pretty, that's

17:08

pretty. That's like, it's not quite

17:10

Tom Cruise in Age of Tomorrow, but you know, that's not

17:12

bad. Alright, so, well,

17:15

okay, so... Ant-Man.

17:19

Doctor Strange. Tony Stark. Thanos.

17:23

Fifth one has to be a lady. Need a

17:25

lady. But also, have we, have we, have we

17:27

like ticked all the Taskmaster boxes? So

17:29

we have a legend. Tony

17:31

Stark. Don't you fucking start with your Thanos nonsense. Yeah,

17:33

you've got a villain. We got a villain. Who's the

17:35

villain usually? Ant-Man. Well, there's not really a

17:38

villain. The man has a criminal record.

17:40

And then we have some established people, right?

17:42

Yeah, you've got some, and then you need

17:44

a youngster. A plucky up and comer. Yelena.

17:47

Yelena Belova. Oh,

17:49

well, she's just watched her sister fall into a cup.

17:52

Kate Bishop. Kate Bishop. Would

17:56

you go for Kate Bishop or Kamala Khan?

18:00

Oh, maybe Kamala

18:02

Khan. Okay. Sure you're working out.

18:04

I'm just saying names. Yeah. I mean, Kate

18:06

Bishop, if it is getting things into cups,

18:08

Kate Bishop's gonna win that, right? I

18:13

asked you for an example, you can be one example.

18:15

Chris gave you one example. My understanding of this entire

18:17

show, it's all about getting tea bags into cups. That's

18:19

what this show is about. It's not a tea bagging

18:22

show. That's a very, very different

18:24

show. It's not available on Netflix. And actually it's the

18:26

sort of thing channel four would show. After

18:29

watershed. After the watershed. So

18:32

it's not just about that. Another thing

18:34

that they did once was that they, let me just try

18:36

to remember some of the tasks in my head. They've

18:38

all just vanished from my head now. They went

18:40

to a shopping center and they had

18:42

to high five a 55 year old. Right?

18:45

So they had to go around

18:47

and get to that very

18:49

British thing of like, do I ask this person's age? Because

18:51

I need to high five a 55 year old and there's

18:53

a time limit and various things like that. So would,

18:56

I think, I think someone like Kamala Kam would be really, really good

18:59

at that because she has got no filter and she would just go

19:01

up to someone and go, how old are you? Are you 55? And

19:03

yes, I am. And then high five. Also

19:05

crucially, she could make her hand so big as to high five

19:07

everyone at once. She could. Oh, 55 one

19:09

year olds. She

19:11

could. Yeah. And just in basic condition. Just go

19:13

to a nursery or a crash

19:15

and then just go, boom, there you go. Done.

19:19

Thanos doesn't have the stones, by the way. He's

19:23

just a guy. He's just a big purple

19:25

guy. If he high fived anyone, they'd be

19:28

flatter than Black Widow. So, you know, that's

19:30

not ideal. Are

19:33

we happy with this lineup? Yeah. Sure.

19:37

Tony Stark. Thanos,

19:39

the ever living. Brother

19:42

of Harry Styles. Fucking hell. I want to see that reunion.

19:45

But we never will. Because as we all know, the eternal has

19:47

died on their way back to their home planet. Dr.

19:50

Strange, Scott Lang. I'm

19:52

not, I'm not a hundred percent sold on Scott

19:55

Lang, but I'll allow it. Also, he's funny. He'll

19:57

add the, you know, the humor factor. Maybe he'll come

19:59

out. funny way. He will. And

20:01

Paul Rudd looks young enough that he could be

20:03

the young up and coming. Yeah. Yeah. Who's this

20:05

12 year old comedian? Who's here all of a

20:07

sudden? And then last but not least,

20:09

are we going for Kate Bishop

20:11

or are we going for Kamala Khan or

20:13

Yelena? Let's go Kamala Khan. Kamala

20:15

Khan. All right. Done.

20:18

Done it. Complete it. Sold. Shuri? No.

20:25

I feel her solution to everything would just be science.

20:27

Yeah. I just don't think that's going

20:30

to work for me. Televisually. Televisually.

20:32

Yeah. What's good about Taskmaster

20:34

is some people approach you very logically. Some

20:36

people. She would. She would. But she'd approach

20:39

it, I think in a similar way to Stark with a very different

20:41

sort of attitude, but ultimately

20:43

it would be because science. Tony would be done

20:46

in like 10 seconds. He'd be like done. There

20:48

you go. Genius. And then she'd roll her eyes

20:50

and do it in a far more efficient way

20:52

in four seconds. That would be Shuri's whole thing.

20:56

All right. Okie dokie. I think that's good. I think

20:58

that's solid. I think we've answered

21:00

that question to pretty but nobody's satisfaction,

21:02

but nevertheless. I was really just happy

21:04

to talk about Taskmaster. It was

21:07

fun, wasn't it? It's really good. It's on Netflix

21:10

and I think Channel

21:12

four and various other places as well. All those shows

21:14

are Netflix, but it's a channel four show. It was

21:16

a Dave show. Have you seen what

21:18

Dave have changed her name to? You Dave. No,

21:21

no. You and

21:23

Dave. That's what it's called. Which

21:26

you everything. It's you. Yeah. The channel is now

21:28

called you and Dave, which is monumentally

21:30

stupid. Someone, someone in a consultancy

21:33

agency has made a lot of

21:35

money coming up that little gem.

21:37

Yeah. Putting the you in.

21:40

God, I'm in the wrong job. You get TV. Anyway,

21:42

should we have a guest? Should

21:44

we have a guest? Who do we have?

21:46

We have Jesse Plimmons and Jorgos Lanthimos. I

21:48

hope hasn't happened yet. May not happen. Or

21:51

we have Michael Sarnowski,

21:53

director of A Quiet Place, day one. Michael

21:57

Sarnowski. Wow. Michael Sarnowski. Okay.

22:00

So Michael Sarnowski is the director of Pig

22:03

and he is hitting the mainstream, you

22:05

could say, with the big budget prequel,

22:07

A Quiet Place, Day One, which is

22:10

a prequel to, you'll never guess, A

22:12

Quiet Place and A Quiet Place Part

22:14

Two. And a little bit

22:16

like Quiet Place Part Two, this

22:18

shows the first day that the

22:20

aliens who prey on people

22:22

who make noise arrived on Earth, as

22:24

far as the Peter Nyong'o, Joseph Quinn

22:27

and Chyman Honsu. This is your MCU

22:29

hat trick, folks. And

22:31

it's set in New York City, making it

22:33

very, very different from the previous John Kratinski-directed

22:35

films. So here we go. This is an

22:37

interview that Ben Travis did with Michael Sarnowski

22:40

last week. So do please enjoy.

22:45

But very quietly, obviously. It's

22:47

a delight to welcome to The

22:49

Empire Podcast, the writer-director of A

22:51

Quiet Place, Day One, Michael Sarnowski.

22:53

How are you? I

22:55

am doing great. How are you doing, Ben? I'm

22:57

doing very well. And I've

23:00

seen A Quiet Place, Day One. I had a

23:02

fantastic time with it. And

23:05

yeah, these films are really special

23:07

to see in the cinema. Everybody

23:10

remembers where they were when they saw

23:12

A Quiet Place because people haven't had

23:14

a film like that in a long

23:17

time that completely binds the audience in

23:19

a shared experience of everybody shut up,

23:21

stop eating your popcorn, everybody be quiet.

23:24

So what was your experience of

23:26

first seeing A Quiet Place? I

23:29

remember I saw both of the Quiet Place movies in

23:32

theaters. The first

23:34

time I saw, I think both time I saw them in

23:36

L.A. and yeah, the first time

23:38

was kind of that experience that everyone talks

23:40

about where you, I mean, going

23:42

to a movie theater is always kind of this

23:44

wonderful communal experience and you're sharing in the excitement

23:46

and the emotional stuff. And yeah,

23:49

this was one of those ones where you really

23:51

felt that, like you felt like you were in

23:53

this room with a big audience and you were

23:55

all kind of in it together, which is

23:57

such a great feeling to have with an audience. So

23:59

yeah. Here's

26:01

what we've been thinking for this prequel. And

26:03

he gave me kind of the general, we wanna do

26:05

a New York City day one movie. Is

26:09

there something in there that would interest you to play with? And

26:12

he gave me like the week to think about it and we

26:14

touched base on a Monday. And I

26:16

gave him like a very general, hey, here's

26:18

kind of what I would do. I

26:20

wanna avoid some of the tropes that we're used to

26:22

with New York invasion movies. I feel like we've seen

26:24

that a lot. And I'd

26:27

love to focus on this particular character story.

26:29

I was fully prepared for him to say,

26:31

well, it was great chatting with you, have

26:33

a nice one. But he said, yeah,

26:35

heck yeah, let's do this. So

26:38

yeah, I think it was just something about Pig spoke to him.

26:40

He liked the idea of bringing sort of a new

26:43

voice into the universe and giving it the freedom

26:45

to explore and play in that sandbox.

26:48

And yeah, it was kind of a

26:51

dream situation there. So

26:55

when John Krasinski says, yeah, bring

26:57

a bit of that Pig touch to the A

26:59

Quiet Place universe, what does that mean to you?

27:01

Did you have a while of going, okay, what

27:03

is that? What happens when you take something

27:06

with that sensibility and mash it

27:08

up with ostensibly a monster movie?

27:11

I mean, I think one of my roles as

27:13

a writer and director is to think really hard

27:15

about some things and then try not to think

27:17

too hard about other things. So when someone says,

27:19

bring that Pig touch, I

27:22

kind of can't try to dissect that too much. I

27:24

mean, I can have my ideas on what he means

27:26

by that. Like I think there's sort of a unexpected

27:29

quiet side to Pig that sort of

27:31

goes places you don't think it'll go.

27:33

And it ends up being a very

27:36

like intimate kind of character driven story,

27:39

which is something I definitely tried to

27:41

do with this, not in a sense of, oh, I have

27:43

to bring that Pig touch, but in the sense of that's

27:45

what I enjoy doing. I like

27:48

exploring very intimate character pieces that kind

27:50

of tread in territory that you're

27:52

not fully expecting. So

27:54

I think step one was forget about that comment

27:57

and just try and think about what interests me

27:59

about the material. And that really

28:01

kind of was what interested me about the first two

28:03

movies was, you know, you have this

28:05

great kind of primal, essential

28:08

horror setup with these creatures that

28:10

hump by sound. Like it takes

28:12

something so fundamental away from us when we

28:14

can't communicate with sound. But

28:16

then that really just opens up

28:18

to allow for a really interesting kind of family

28:21

drama to play out. And

28:23

you know, that's how I approached it was, oh,

28:25

these are movies that have a great classic horror

28:27

setup, but that allows you to dive into these

28:30

characters in a really deep way. And

28:33

so then it was just a question of what character do I want

28:35

to dive into and what would be interesting to me in this

28:38

world. And

28:40

then sort of Sam Lupita's character kind of came

28:42

came to mind through that. And then

28:44

it was then it's just a question of what what journey does

28:46

this character need to go on and what do I want to

28:48

see them have to deal with? Yeah,

28:51

I want to come back to Sam

28:53

and Eric, that's Lupita Nyong'o's character and

28:55

Joseph Quinn's character in this

28:57

film. I'll come back to them in a minute.

28:59

But as you say, this is set on day

29:02

one, which is an idea briefly explored in A

29:04

Quiet Place part two. But you're

29:06

doing this in New York City in like

29:08

the loudest place on Earth, which is a

29:10

fantastic setup for in A Quiet

29:12

Place movie. What were the parameters already

29:15

in place when you're brought onto this? Because you

29:17

are the writer of this film. But clearly, John

29:20

Krasinski had some ideas in mind of what this

29:22

might be, what was already in place and what

29:25

were the freedoms that you had within

29:27

that? I mean, really, the

29:29

initial parameters were just New York

29:32

City day one. And then, you know, I

29:34

studied the first two movies to see what

29:36

sort of logical consistencies I

29:38

had to keep and things like that. But, you know,

29:40

they didn't say you need this scene or that scene.

29:42

As you kind of go farther down the process, you

29:45

get into that stuff where they're like, oh, well, we

29:47

think we could have, you know, a scarier

29:49

scene here and maybe we can bring this thing

29:51

out. You start talking with the producers in the

29:54

studio about that sort of stuff. But initially, it

29:56

was very much. I mean,

29:59

I kind of. setting

32:00

mean that you're kind of moving out of

32:02

the timeline that we've initially been in in

32:04

those first two films, but we're moving away

32:06

from the Abbott family who are so central

32:09

to those films. So here you

32:11

have Lupita Nyong'o's Sam, and she is

32:13

incredible in this film, and she's

32:15

so fantastic for horror films. Like seeing

32:18

her in Jordan Peele's Us was

32:20

such a revelation of what she can

32:22

do with her face and how

32:24

she can embody these horror characters. Was

32:26

she an easy choice for you?

32:28

Did you have her in mind for

32:31

this already? I

32:33

never really write things with actors in mind,

32:35

but once her name was floated, she was

32:37

a very easy choice. I mean, when it

32:39

was like, hey, can we go out to

32:41

Lupita? Absolutely. I mean, that was, that

32:44

was, I mean, you kind of, you

32:47

write something just generally, and then you sort

32:49

of think about who could bring something fun

32:51

to this. And Lupita was just top of

32:54

that list. And it was

32:56

kind of a let's

32:58

go out to her and I'm sure

33:00

she'll turn us down kind of thing.

33:02

Like, you know, she's done horror before,

33:04

like, but she just responded so much

33:06

to the character and the story, and

33:08

then just brought it so

33:10

beautifully. I mean, it's it, the

33:12

role asks all the roles in this, but especially hers

33:14

asks a ton of her. I mean, she's, she

33:17

has to be doing, you know, big

33:19

actiony set pieces and running around and

33:21

hiding and all that stuff. But at

33:23

the same time, she's dealing with some

33:26

very tense kind of intimate

33:28

emotional things. And she has to

33:30

be juggling both of those things, which

33:32

is a near impossible task that she

33:35

pulls off perfectly. And

33:37

then on the other side of this, you've

33:39

got Joseph Quinn as Eric, it feels like

33:41

you got him just the right time. Obviously,

33:43

he was really sort of popping off in

33:46

Stranger Things season four was a huge breakout

33:48

from that. Now he's on to Gladiator and

33:50

Fantastic Four. What was it about Joseph Quinn

33:52

who stood out to you? I

33:56

think so initially, he did an audition

33:58

for it that was incredible. And I

34:00

talked to him, I mean,

34:02

just that he nailed the character,

34:04

he nailed the kind of vulnerability that

34:06

the character needed to have. And

34:09

then he's just an incredibly smart, kind,

34:12

easy person to work with. Like I just,

34:14

it was really easy to talk to him

34:16

about this character. And he also

34:18

had to, you know, he was soaking wet

34:20

half the time and dealing with all these

34:22

kind of like external things. And

34:24

the whole time had to be maintaining a really

34:26

kind of felt through line for

34:29

the character who didn't have the

34:31

opportunity to explain much or

34:33

talk much. So you have to like feel a

34:35

lot for his character without really knowing that much

34:37

about him for a long time. And

34:41

that was, you know, that's really hard to

34:43

pull off. And he pulled it off so

34:45

well and it's so magnetic. And then he

34:47

and Lupita just have this kind of beautiful

34:50

chemistry together. It's an interesting

34:52

dynamic that they form, but

34:54

it was just really sweet to watch. And it

34:56

really existed in real life. But they had, there

34:59

was something really charged about them and just so

35:01

much fun to watch. So I

35:03

don't know, he was an easy choice. And

35:05

I'm so happy we made it because he's

35:07

incredible. Yeah. What

35:10

were some of your touch points here, both on

35:12

the human drama side and especially on the monster

35:14

movie side as well? What monster movies do you

35:16

love? Well,

35:19

I mean, the one reference

35:21

that the cinematographer Pat Scola and I

35:23

talked about a lot was Children of

35:25

Men, which isn't really a monster movie,

35:27

but it is sort of

35:30

a semi apocalypse movie that I

35:33

think what we really responded to in that was this

35:35

sense of the sort of boots on the ground nature

35:37

of your there's all this crazy stuff happening around your

35:39

characters, but you're really with them. It's

35:42

very sort of like voyeuristic and like you're

35:44

you're experiencing this, you're

35:46

experiencing this kind of with

35:49

your characters in an intimate way. And

35:51

that was that was really

35:53

helpful for us because, you know, it's

35:55

a huge story that we're trying to tell of New York

35:58

getting attacked. of

38:00

like, I want to have something that's sort of all my

38:02

own to be kind of like working on as

38:05

I'm working on this bigger project. And

38:08

it was one of those like, I

38:10

wanted to write it, but I

38:13

assumed part of me was like, I'm probably not gonna make a

38:15

Robin Hood movie. There have been so many of these. So like,

38:17

I got to write it to kind of get it out of

38:19

my system. And then I'll be able to tell myself what a

38:21

silly idea it is. But then you write it and it's like,

38:24

oh, this is exactly what I want it to be.

38:26

And this is so different from the other projects that

38:28

I've seen about him. And yeah,

38:30

I would say it's without giving too much

38:32

away, it is kind of in

38:35

some ways like truer to the classic original

38:37

ballads of Robin Hood, like there's something very

38:40

kind of gritty and

38:42

unpleasant about some of those stories. And the idea

38:45

of this sort of medieval bandit and what that

38:47

life really would have been like was a jumping

38:49

off point for me. But it

38:51

definitely kind of is a

38:53

reimagining of those very

38:56

early imagining the Robin Hood before

38:59

all the steal from the rich and give to the poor stuff kind

39:01

of got put on him. And

39:03

yeah, I think Hugh Jackman is going to be

39:05

incredible in it. Jody Comer is going to be

39:08

amazing in it. But I'd say

39:10

it's a grittier but also like

39:12

much more emotional and emotionally grounded

39:14

telling of the Robin Hood story. And

39:17

a version of it that I don't yeah, I don't

39:19

think people will have seen

39:22

or thought about before but that I really adore. ALICE

39:25

And do you have a plan for

39:27

the Nottingham accent, which is like largely

39:29

unpinned downable, but it is there, it

39:31

does exist, it's not quite Yorkshire, it's

39:33

not quite Southern. It's so

39:35

particular that I think Russell Crowe tried

39:38

things in the Ridley Scott movie that didn't come

39:40

off and he got asked about it in an

39:42

interview and got really huffy about it. So do

39:44

you have a plan? Jody Comer, queen of accents.

39:46

ALICE Well now my plan is to just talk

39:49

to you about it, what the heck I need

39:51

to do for that. I'm sure there will be

39:53

a lot of like accent work to be done.

39:55

I mean, the other thing I have to kind

39:57

of talk to some experts about is, you know,

39:59

this takes place. in the 1300s, this is sort

40:01

of supposed to take place, or the

40:03

1200s, the 13th century, it's supposed

40:05

to take place kind of when theoretically

40:07

like Robin Hood properly sort

40:09

of would have lived if he were

40:12

real. And I don't know

40:14

what the Nottingham accent sounded like back then.

40:16

So I think there would be a deep

40:18

dive into some linguistic stuff to figure out

40:20

what that sort of vibe would have been. But

40:24

yeah, I think I have a lot

40:26

to learn about that because I clearly

40:30

have a very boring Midwestern accent. Mason

40:33

Well, yeah, you got to go medieval with this thing.

40:35

I can't wait to see that

40:37

when you've shot it. And congratulations on A

40:39

Quiet Place day one. It's a fantastic film.

40:42

Paul Thank you so much. Angus Okay,

40:44

that was Michael Osmanowski, and we will be

40:47

reviewing A Quiet Place day one later on

40:50

in the show. But now it's time to delve deep

40:52

into this week's movie news. There's only really one place

40:54

to start and it is the very, very sad news

40:56

that broke last week, just after we had finished recording

40:59

last week's podcast that we lost an

41:01

absolute legend and icon, a giant, a

41:03

colossus of acting, the great Donald Sutherland,

41:06

who passed away at the age of

41:08

88. I mean, where do you

41:11

even begin?

41:13

This is a man whose career stretched

41:15

across six specific decades. He was one

41:17

of the hardest working actors in show

41:19

business. He had over 200 credits,

41:22

I think, to his name across

41:24

film and TV. Started

41:27

out in the 1960s, was

41:30

briefly in Billion Dollar Brain,

41:33

then was part of the Dirty Dozen, one

41:36

of my favorite films of all time, The Dirty Dozen. Then

41:38

he carved out a bit of a niche for himself in

41:41

sort of iconoclastic, counter-cultural war movies,

41:43

the likes of M.A.S.H.

41:45

and Kelly's Heroes. Both of

41:47

those came along in 1970. And the 70s was

41:49

his decade, you know, because he had this incredible

41:52

face and shock of hair

41:54

as well. And, you know, these very mournful,

41:56

sad eyes, which could be used in all

41:59

kinds of... different situations.

42:01

You know, he could be

42:03

menacing and soulful and innocent

42:05

and heartbroken and

42:07

sinister and playful. He was

42:10

absolutely incredible. What

42:12

did he make in the 1970s? The likes of

42:14

Don't Look Now and Invasion of the Body Snatchers

42:16

as well. Ordinary

42:19

people for Robert Renford in 1980. The

42:22

80s was perhaps not the

42:24

best period for him as well, but he was very

42:26

much reinvented himself as a wonderful

42:29

character actor and, of course, father of Kiefer

42:31

as well. I mean, it's an

42:33

incredible legacy and like it spans so many different

42:35

genres. I mean, I have not seen

42:37

as many of his films as I would like, especially

42:40

Don't Look Now, something I've been meaning to watch

42:42

for a long time. I've

42:45

mostly come across him in the Hunger

42:47

Games franchise, which is kind of random,

42:49

but sort of he's a great villain

42:51

in those films. He plays President Snaw

42:54

and he's like a perfect antagonist to

42:56

Jennifer Lawrence's Katniss in those films. Really,

42:59

you know, he takes what could be quite

43:02

a cartoonistic villain and makes him so interesting

43:04

and menacing and all of

43:06

that stuff. So yeah, just an incredible

43:09

actor, incredible face, incredible presence.

43:12

Huge shame. There's a lovely post

43:14

that Kiefer shared with like a

43:16

photo of them when

43:18

Kiefer was a baby and Donald's only young. To

43:22

announce it, which was, yeah, it's really, really

43:24

touching. I think they only worked together once.

43:26

It was a film called The Forsaken

43:28

that came out in about 2017, something like that,

43:30

so Western. I might be completely wrong

43:32

about that, but as far as I know, they only worked together once.

43:34

And he worked, weirdly enough, out

43:36

of all the cast of Young Guns,

43:39

like Donald Sondland worked loads with Charlie

43:42

Sheen over the years, but very fairly

43:44

with his own son. But

43:46

he was just tremendous. He's one of my favourite actors,

43:48

I think. And there was

43:51

just something about him. I was thinking about

43:53

his contribution to

43:56

movies over the years. And I

43:58

think there's a legitimate argument to be made. And

44:01

he is certainly top five death

44:05

scenes of all time. I'm not going to say the movie. Top

44:08

five sex scenes of all time. I'm not going to say

44:10

the movie, but it's the same movie. Top

44:13

five endings of all time. Top five final

44:15

shots of all time. I'm not going to

44:17

say the movie. It's not the same movie.

44:20

And top five monologues of all time

44:22

for his monologue in JFK,

44:25

where he appears as Mr. Rex, and he

44:27

just lays out the whole alleged conspiracy to

44:30

kill JFK to

44:32

Kevin Costner. And it's

44:34

just this extraordinary delivery

44:37

of this just reams

44:40

and reams and reams of exposition that

44:43

somehow he makes palatable, entertaining.

44:45

You lean in, you want to,

44:47

you retain a lot of the

44:49

information that he says. It's

44:52

quite incredible. What's also quite incredible is that

44:54

he was, he actually was

44:56

never nominated for an Oscar, which is wild

44:58

because you look at that performance, that

45:01

for me is, you know,

45:04

when you look at JFK and it's got

45:06

this extraordinary all-star cast, that is the standout

45:08

performance. That is the standout sequence. Tommy

45:11

Jones got nominated for an Oscar for that

45:13

movie, but come on, it's not on Sutherland.

45:15

But he did win an honoree or he

45:17

was awarded an honoree Oscar in 2017. So

45:22

at least he got one of the little gold guys. He

45:24

may not be nominated for a performance, but he did get something

45:26

better, which has got to come into our office and do a

45:28

web chat. He did. Do you

45:30

remember what it was for? Was it a

45:32

Hunger Games? Was it a Hunger Games?

45:34

I don't think so. It was like 2012, 2013. I

45:37

don't remember. I remember him coming to the office and

45:39

I remember us all trying to act super cool. We

45:42

were all trying to seem really kind of nonchalant and unbothered while

45:44

we were all going, I'm not going to stand on Sutherland! What

45:47

year was that? What year did he come in? What year?

45:49

Who was the president? I genuinely

45:51

have no idea. It was when we were back on

45:54

the office of Oxford Street, so we were about there,

45:56

but I couldn't tell you what year it

45:58

was. What year? there. So

46:00

it was a while ago. Are you sure? I thought this endeavor

46:02

house. I have memory of

46:04

him. It was in fact endeavor house. When we

46:06

were on just revenue. Yeah. I'm completely wrong. It

46:08

was the other office. That's all right. That's okay.

46:11

Uh, let me see. So that would probably place

46:13

it around 2012, 2013. I think it was a,

46:15

could have been a hunger game.

46:19

I think I'm maybe a bit hungry. It could have been. Forsaken with 2015

46:21

by the way. You know,

46:23

we could probably look, is this on the

46:25

internet still? It certainly wasn't. It probably is.

46:27

We could probably Google it and find out

46:29

quite a bit. Yeah. But no, this is

46:31

much more fun. Yeah. But he did a

46:33

web chat. He did a web chat. Oh,

46:35

readers questions. Yes. Whilst Helen typed. Yeah. While

46:37

sitting in my chair, Donald's in my chair.

46:39

Oh my word. Why

46:41

you weren't in it or while you were not in

46:44

it. I was not sitting in it. That was your

46:46

task. Yeah. I was asked to move. Yeah. I think

46:48

it was, I think it was a hunger game. Okay.

46:50

It was a hunger game. I think it was. Anyway,

46:52

he was amazing. Uh, loved him. And very, very sad

46:54

indeed that he has passed away. He was also by

46:56

the way, the voice of the

47:00

fault in the world of

47:02

Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia. Really? Yeah. When I

47:04

went there in 2013

47:08

to visit the set of Anchorman two,

47:11

uh, I had a morning

47:13

off and so I went to the world of

47:16

Coca-Cola, you know, being a big drinker of

47:18

Coca-Cola. Now, of course I am no longer

47:20

a drinker of Coca-Cola. I'm three weeks, three

47:22

weeks. Got my three big passes. And, uh,

47:27

yeah, I was walking through it and there's

47:29

a presentation and I was like, I know

47:31

that voice. What is that voice? That's Donald's

47:33

voice. Cause he had also one of the

47:35

great voices. So there you go. One

47:38

of many other actors can conceivably

47:40

be in contention for best sex

47:43

scene, best death, best ending, and

47:45

best monologue. Maybe thinking

47:47

that for next week, folks. Maybe think on

47:49

that. Anyway, the great Donald Sutherland

47:52

who passed away at the age of

47:54

88. What else

47:57

happened in the world of moving news

47:59

folks? There was a trailer

48:01

for Robert Eggers Nosferatu. There

48:03

was. That wasn't intense at all. Me

48:07

saying it just then or the same? No, no, no. You were

48:09

reasonably intense. It was a good way to say it. I was

48:11

really trying. I was thinking more of the trailer was quite intense.

48:13

What did you make of it? Yeah, really, really

48:16

good. I like that it didn't

48:18

show you Nosferatu really. Tiny

48:21

glimpses. But they're keeping that quite

48:23

secretive, which I think is really cool. I

48:26

hope they show them in the film. Yeah, we'll get the

48:28

whole audience in the film. They just cut away

48:30

to someone else. Oh, it's horrible. So this is

48:32

the second remake of Nosferatu. Does that make it

48:34

Shrek the third? Oh my

48:37

God. That's a good joke. Oh, that's a good joke.

48:39

You've done two belters this week. I don't get it.

48:41

Because Max Shrek was the original Nosferatu. Except this would

48:43

be Shrek the third. We'll get on to Shrek the

48:45

fifth a little bit later in news. But Shrek

48:48

the fifth? Shrek the fifth because her fifth Shrek film has

48:50

been announced as well as a donkey spin-off. No, that's a

48:52

separate news story. Are you just making news up? Yeah, I

48:54

just made it up. Is this when you went to the

48:56

toilet? No, this is absolutely true. Did you announce the

48:58

fifth Shrek film? No, no. Earlier this

49:00

week they announced a fifth Shrek film. I should

49:02

say they, Eddie Murphy, announced a fifth Shrek film

49:05

and the fact that he's working on a donkey

49:07

spin-off. Did you find an envelope out there going

49:09

just make up the most nonsense movie news you

49:11

could possibly think of? This is my task. Yeah.

49:13

And then I've got to throw a teabag in

49:15

a bucket. It's

49:17

a bucket now. That would be much easier. That

49:20

would be very easy. But anyway, in

49:22

terms of size, let's move back to

49:24

Nosferatu. Very good trailer, a

49:26

very creepy trailer, very dark. So

49:30

a bit more of Lily Rose Depp, so starring

49:32

as Ellen Hunter. But Nicholas

49:35

Houlton there, you've got Emma Corrin,

49:37

you've got Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Willem Dafoe,

49:39

obviously Robert Eggers, Fav. And

49:41

who's playing Nosferatu, the vampire, the vamp-u?

49:44

Bill Skarsgård. Bill Skarsgård. Pennywise,

49:47

the dancing vampire. Vampire. Dancing

49:50

vampire clown. Okay,

49:53

so obviously first made by F.W. Murnau

49:56

back in the days when everything was in black and white. Then remade

49:58

by Werner Höd. talk with

50:01

Klaus Kinski. Klaus

50:03

Kinski. That's a very

50:05

specific type of libation. Yes. Klaus Kinski is

50:07

a man who might have actually been thinking

50:09

about it, taking part in

50:11

the best sex scene, best

50:14

death, best final shot and

50:16

best monologue, but they were all in real life. What?

50:20

You read his autobiography? Fucking hell. And

50:23

that's what it's called. Klaus

50:25

Kinski. Fucking hell. Yeah.

50:29

Wow. Jesus. Anyway. Anyway.

50:31

It was remade in the 70s. And

50:34

yeah. Yeah. I mean, Eggers has wanted to make

50:36

this for a really long time and obviously his

50:38

sensibilities are very well matched with it.

50:41

It's out on Christmas day. Merry Christmas. Wow.

50:43

Merry Christmas everyone. He was a really bleak,

50:45

interesting, but beautiful looking vampire. Yeah. Gothic as

50:47

hell. That sounds festive cheer, quite like going

50:50

for the drug, you know. Yes, indeed. And

50:52

of course it is heavily based on Dracula.

50:54

I discovered this, I read this this week.

50:56

I'm not, don't think it's quite the same

50:58

thing. Reading something on Twitter is

51:00

not necessarily discovering it because we don't know that

51:02

it has been well sourced. But

51:05

apparently when the first

51:07

Nosferatu, Shrek the first, came out

51:09

and thank God it was silent

51:11

because he kept going, I'm going

51:13

to eat you. Get

51:16

him up, Bella. I'm going to

51:18

drink your blood. Oh,

51:22

vampires have layers. That

51:24

was a terrible accent.

51:29

Anyway, when it came out, apparently the Bram

51:31

Stoker estate, cause Bram Stoker had long shuffled off

51:33

that mortal coil by the time it was 1912.

51:35

I think it was the first

51:38

Nosferatu. Nosferatu one hadn't been made

51:40

at that point. And 1922, it was a two, it was a

51:42

12 or a two or something like that. I'm

51:47

not made of IMDb for fuck's sake.

51:49

Anyway, so Bram

51:52

Stoker, because he had long shuffled

51:54

off the mortal coil, right? So

51:56

his estate sued. Why did they

51:58

sue? Because Nosferatu is basically draculier,

52:01

but ripped off draculier. Yeah,

52:03

it's funny because obviously the copyright on Dracula has

52:06

long since expired. So it feels at this point,

52:08

you're unnecessarily remaking a ripoff of something that you

52:10

could just make. But sure, do what you like.

52:12

I like it. I like it. It's just on

52:14

style. Yeah, it's just on thing, isn't it? Monster,

52:17

monster. Nosfera 3. Nosfera 3. Nosfera

52:20

2. All right, looks

52:22

good. What else? Well, if

52:25

we're going to talk about directors, we

52:27

should talk about the most important director

52:30

of all, director Krennic before Ben Mendelsohn

52:32

is returning. The villain of Rogue One will

52:37

be returning for Andor season two. And I'm

52:39

quite excited. First of all, because seeing Mendo

52:42

in anything is cause for celebration, but also

52:44

I like director Krennic. So

52:46

yeah, he's going to be back. I can't remember director

52:48

Krennic. Sophie gives no fucks. I have seen Rogue One

52:50

and I like Rogue One. It's one of the star

52:53

wars that I do like. It's triumphant, don't you know?

52:55

Yes. I know that. It

52:57

says it on the box. What's

52:59

your name on it? It does. Wow. At

53:03

least I have no proof of the attack on

53:05

the clone squad. That's true. Mine's literally emblazoned on

53:07

the DVD box, but only in America. So no

53:09

one in the UK knows. Okay. But,

53:11

yeah. Any Andor news is good

53:13

news. That's right. The Freaky

53:16

Friday sequel has officially started shooting. Oh my

53:18

god, yeah. I think we're great on the

53:20

curve here. We're going downward. Listen, for a

53:22

play, because this was, this was mooted

53:24

on the podcast a few months ago and I

53:26

was basically like hell we'll freeze over before they

53:28

make a Freaky Friday 2 with Jamie Lee Curtis

53:30

and Lindsay Lohan. But they are making a Freaky

53:33

Friday 2 with Jamie Lee Curtis

53:35

and Lindsay Lohan and

53:37

Mark Harmon. Mark Harmon is

53:39

back from Freaky Friday. It's

53:42

exciting, but also he's been spending the

53:44

last 20 years tittying around with NCIS

53:46

and now he's shed that skin and

53:49

he's like getting back in the movies. So we

53:51

might be on for the Presidio too. That's all I'm saying. Could

53:55

happen. It could happen. If it does happen, I'll beat you

53:57

up with my little finger. But

54:01

yeah, Freaky Friday 2. Are you excited about this, Soph? It's

54:04

a good bit of nostalgia. Ben

54:06

was very excited. He messaged me on teams

54:08

being like, is this real? I was like,

54:10

yeah. Ben is

54:12

so enthusiastic. He

54:15

could be being sliced open by a fampir

54:17

and he'd be like, this is incredible. I've

54:19

never been sliced open by a fampir before.

54:22

Yeah, I think it'll... I don't know. I'm not super...

54:25

It'll be fun. I might watch

54:27

it. Wow. That's

54:29

quite the endorsement. Every day is Christmas Eve. Yeah.

54:33

Sophie might watch it. Yeah, that's all they need to know. I could put

54:35

that in the DVD box. But this might be the Christmas Eve before you

54:37

go see Nosferatu, is all I'm saying. What a double bill. What

54:40

a double bill, yes. What a double bill.

54:43

I'm not wildly

54:46

optimistic about this one, shall we say. But

54:48

it might be

54:50

good. It might be good. Stranger things have

54:52

happened. But if we're speaking

54:54

about sequels... I knew what you were going

54:56

to say. Nobody. Oh,

54:59

yes. Somebody. Specifically Bob

55:01

Odenkirk. Oh, Bob

55:03

Odenkirk. Death came at him and he gave

55:05

Death a good old swift punch to the

55:08

jaw. And Death went, all right, now I'll

55:10

get you in this round. And

55:13

now Bob Odenkirk is going to make Nobody

55:15

2. I loved Nobody. I thought it was fantastic.

55:17

Yes. But it is not going to be directed

55:19

by Ilya Neyshuler, the Russian director who made the

55:23

first one. It's going to be directed

55:25

by the Indonesian director, Timo Tachanto. And

55:27

I am sure I've absolutely butchered that

55:29

pronunciation. Apologies to Timo if indeed I

55:31

have. Very, very

55:33

good action director and also

55:36

has his foot firmly in

55:38

the horror cap. He made a film called The

55:40

Night Comes for Us. It came out a few years ago. It can

55:42

be found on Netflix, I believe. Some

55:44

really, really great action sequences in that.

55:46

And there's going to be lots

55:48

of action in this because, of course, Bob Odenkirk played

55:50

who we thought was just an ordinary Joe, but

55:53

he turned out to be a sort of Liam Neeson-y type,

55:55

CIA trained, super

55:58

assassin. And it was such fun. And

56:00

it's such great inventive action scenes, courtesy

56:03

of Ilya and Nei Schuler and the team from

56:05

87 North. So,

56:08

fingers crossed for this one. Very, very, very glad. Great

56:10

film. Very excited. It's

56:12

a different director, but Derek Colstad, the writer,

56:14

is back. Yes. He's

56:17

writing the sequel, so there is some overlap. That's

56:20

good. That's good. Two more trailers, one of which

56:22

I've seen, one of which I haven't. Can

56:25

you guys have seen them? What have you seen?

56:27

What have you not? Heretic. Tell

56:29

me about this. Hugh Grant, A24 Horror. Yeah. Who

56:32

would have put that together? Yeah.

56:35

Yeah, so this is by Beck and Woods.

56:37

Yes, the original writers of... The original world

56:39

of Quiet Place. Yeah. The

56:41

Quiet Place. The Quiet Place. It's like the Suicide Squad,

56:43

it's the next film. Yeah, so

56:46

it's from them and it stars Sophie

56:48

Thatcher from Yellow Jackets and Koye East,

56:50

who you've seen in The Fablemans. And

56:53

they are missionaries knocking on doors and then they

56:55

knock on Hugh Grant's door and then have a

56:57

bad time. Yes. If I

57:00

look at it. Hugh Grant is going full Phoenix Buchanan in

57:02

this one again. He's a bad

57:04

guy and he seems to be challenging

57:06

their faith in some way. So

57:09

it's like religious jigsaw, as

57:11

far as I can tell. Looks like that. Yeah,

57:13

jigsaw for Jesusly people. So,

57:16

looks good. Yeah, looks interesting.

57:19

Yeah, from the directors of 65. And

57:22

if that hasn't sold you, then

57:24

I don't know what will. And then

57:27

there was Red One, let anyone see the trailer for Red One? No,

57:29

that just dropped, didn't it? I haven't seen that.

57:32

It did just drop. Chris Evans, J.K. Simmons, the

57:34

big Christmas movie, which

57:37

Santa gets kidnapped in The Rock. I

57:39

believe Chris Evans. I thought I'd be astonished

57:41

if Chris Evans wasn't the bad guy. Teamed

57:44

up to find Santa and get him into

57:47

that sack for, you know, Nosferatu. It's Nosferatu

57:49

Day, Santa. Come on, wake up. Get the

57:51

cinema. Oh God, Santa's gone cold. Oh no,

57:53

Santa's dead. That's my original ending for that

57:56

movie. Yeah. So I haven't seen the

57:58

movie. I'll see you next time. Have you

58:00

seen it? No. Sophie hasn't

58:02

seen it. James? No. Okay,

58:05

but it exists. It exists. I

58:07

didn't want to see it because my wife was watching the trailer and she

58:09

said that, no, you can see the movie now. So

58:11

this seems to be one of those trailers. Yeah, yeah,

58:14

yeah. Like it gives away everything. Except potentially the fact

58:16

that Chris Evans is the bad guy. Just my guess.

58:19

Just my guess might be completely wrong about that.

58:21

But yeah. I think that's it. It's

58:23

pretty much all the movie news, right? This fit to print. Yes,

58:26

James, is any wild movie news he's

58:28

just made up that he wants to show up for you?

58:32

Let's say 28 years later, part two

58:35

is going to be called the bone

58:37

temple. Is

58:39

it? Apparently yes. Can't

58:41

tell. Part two. Part

58:43

two, yes. What are there two? 28

58:45

years later, part two, the bone temple.

58:47

What are there two 28, can't even

58:50

say it? 28 years

58:52

later. Yeah, why it's not called 29 years later, I really don't know.

58:54

But there you go. Is what it is. Separate

58:56

to the one that's got Jordy Cormor in it. So

58:59

these are all good questions. What, where, I mean, so

59:01

Kelly and Murphy is obviously going to be in 28

59:03

years later. Is he going to be in the second

59:05

one? I don't know. Is he going to survive it?

59:07

Who knows? But yes, such

59:09

is the way. So this is, yeah. I

59:12

would suspect that some members of

59:14

the All-Star cast are not going to make it.

59:16

That would be a safe bet, I would say.

59:18

To the end of that film. Yeah. All right.

59:20

A lot of stuff. A lot of stuff going

59:22

on. But that is definitely it for the movie

59:24

news section. We have some final

59:26

guests now. Kinds of Kindness is the

59:29

latest movie from the wonderful Greek

59:31

director, Jorgis Lanthimos, following

59:34

hot on the heels of his Oscar

59:36

winning success with Poor Things. This one

59:38

also stars Emma Stone and

59:40

an All-Star cast as well, including

59:42

Jesse Plemons in three short

59:45

but quite long stories. It's

59:48

an anthology movie that explores

59:50

different types of power and

59:52

control. And it's

59:54

pretty boundary pushing. So there

59:56

are other people in this, as well as Emma

59:58

Stone and Jesse Plemons, there's Mama Di Ahti. There

1:00:01

is Marker Qualley, there is Willem Dafoe, but this

1:00:03

is very much the Jesse Plemons show in many

1:00:05

ways, and he is a towering

1:00:08

colossus, a bit like Greg Davies in

1:00:10

this one. I

1:00:12

think he's in production right now with York of the Slantamos

1:00:14

on their next movie. They've

1:00:16

taken a little break from it to talk to us, which

1:00:19

hasn't happened yet. I actually don't know who's doing this. There's a

1:00:21

chance I'm going to be doing this, but it's also a chance

1:00:23

that someone else is going to be doing this. So

1:00:26

here it is. Here's an interview that someone did

1:00:28

on our behalf with York of

1:00:30

the Slantamos and Jesse Plemons. Do

1:00:32

please enjoy. Well,

1:00:35

after all that, there was Sophie who did the

1:00:37

interview with York of the Slantamos and Jesse Plemons.

1:00:39

So here it is. It's

1:00:41

Sophie. We're delighted to welcome

1:00:43

to the Empire Podcast the star and director

1:00:45

of Kinds of Kindness, York of the Slantamos

1:00:47

and Jesse Plemons. How are you doing today,

1:00:49

guys? Wow.

1:00:52

Lovely. Are

1:00:55

you in London at the moment or are you away? Okay.

1:00:57

So you're experiencing the heat wave

1:00:59

that we've had this week. I was going to say it's so

1:01:01

funny to hear all the people talking about the heat wave here when

1:01:04

I'm from Greece and it's 45 degrees Celsius

1:01:06

there. Here's

1:01:09

the heat wave having 25 or something. We

1:01:13

don't cope with it very well over here. Me included. I

1:01:15

had a fan with me just before we started

1:01:17

this interview. I saw this film and spoke to you

1:01:20

from the magazine, Jorgos, back in Cannes, where you

1:01:22

won the Best Actor Award, Jesse. How was that experience?

1:01:24

Was it surreal? How

1:01:27

did it feel? Yes, that's the word. It

1:01:29

was that. You

1:01:38

know, sure, everyone always says

1:01:40

this, but truly, completely unexpected. I

1:01:42

was just that was the first

1:01:44

time I'd seen the film. I was just that was

1:01:46

the first time I'd seen the film. So I was

1:01:50

the the award for me was that

1:01:52

I, you know, I I

1:01:54

generally don't love watching things that I'm

1:01:56

in and I

1:01:58

was able to watch it and just. kind of go on the

1:02:00

ride and not think

1:02:03

too much at all about my performance, but

1:02:06

just really enjoy the

1:02:08

movie and everyone's performances

1:02:10

and all the work that everyone put

1:02:12

in. So that was so

1:02:15

exciting. And then, you

1:02:18

know, I was working,

1:02:21

doing night shoots on this miniseries in

1:02:24

New York. And I got

1:02:26

on a plane that morning to finally go back

1:02:29

home to LA to see my family,

1:02:32

my kids that I hadn't seen in

1:02:34

forever. So I landed to that news

1:02:36

and then got to

1:02:38

go celebrate with my family. So it

1:02:41

was kind of wonderful. Amazing.

1:02:44

What a great moment. It'd be great, Jesse,

1:02:46

if you could just talk a little bit

1:02:48

how you first came onto this film. What

1:02:50

was your relationship with Yogguss's work beforehand? I

1:02:54

had been an enormous fan since

1:02:58

my buddy told me he got

1:03:00

to watch Doctor and

1:03:03

had seen almost all

1:03:05

of his work, except for

1:03:07

Alps and Your First. Kineta.

1:03:15

But yeah, aside

1:03:17

from that, I just devoured

1:03:20

everything that he'd made

1:03:24

and there was some talk

1:03:27

a few years earlier. My agent

1:03:29

said there's potentially some part in

1:03:32

Four Things and then I never

1:03:34

heard, which I took as like,

1:03:36

I guess he changed his mind, but I think and

1:03:42

so I was so excited that it came

1:03:44

back around and and

1:03:47

yeah, I got the

1:03:49

script the same way you get any script.

1:03:51

It just kind of falls from the sky

1:03:54

and read it and loved

1:03:56

it and then

1:03:59

we spoke. and that

1:04:01

was kind of the

1:04:03

beginning, yeah. Rest

1:04:06

was history. I'd love to

1:04:08

sort of dig into the world of this film

1:04:11

a bit. I just saw a clip of Willem

1:04:13

Dafoe talking about how the

1:04:15

look and feel of the world and its

1:04:17

design is kind of stripped back in a

1:04:19

way. And he said that it doesn't remind

1:04:22

you of anything. So it demands a

1:04:24

certain kind of attention, which I thought was such a

1:04:26

great way of articulating how the film feels and how

1:04:28

it sort of draws you in. Jorgos,

1:04:30

could you talk a little bit about that?

1:04:33

I mean, how intentional it was, how you

1:04:35

figured out what this film would look and

1:04:37

feel like and was setting it in the

1:04:39

modern day part of that after you've done

1:04:41

a couple of period films as well? I

1:04:43

mean, though our ideas

1:04:45

were kind of set in the modern

1:04:47

day, that's how it started anyway. So

1:04:49

that was not ever part of a

1:04:52

conversation, I guess. The

1:04:55

other thing is that, especially

1:04:57

when we write with a film is just because

1:04:59

of the nature, I guess, of our work. A

1:05:03

lot of it could take place anywhere.

1:05:06

So we don't necessarily write with a

1:05:08

place in mind. And I like to

1:05:10

kind of do that work afterwards. Like

1:05:13

when I feel confident about the story

1:05:15

and the characters and the script, if

1:05:19

it doesn't demand the story itself, like

1:05:21

a very particular place, I like to

1:05:23

do that on the second

1:05:25

part of the process, secondary.

1:05:31

So it felt quickly that it

1:05:34

was an American film or

1:05:36

some of these things, maybe

1:05:39

for some more than

1:05:42

others. So that was a

1:05:44

decision. And

1:05:46

then generally speaking,

1:05:49

how we structure the films and how we try

1:05:51

to put them together in

1:05:54

a way that they don't give

1:05:56

too much information about

1:05:58

the characters or the story. and you

1:06:01

know you do need to kind of

1:06:04

well both pay attention but

1:06:06

also kind of relax

1:06:10

about it and not

1:06:13

expect to be fed everything

1:06:16

so if you if you

1:06:18

are not too eager

1:06:20

about understanding immediately

1:06:22

what's going on I think that

1:06:25

helps and then you know you go

1:06:27

into this journey and you start discovering

1:06:29

things and then you can project your

1:06:31

own things on

1:06:34

it which I find always interesting when

1:06:36

you're watching and interacting with something I

1:06:39

mean it is the way to interact

1:06:41

with you know work to project stuff

1:06:44

if it's all like thrown out

1:06:46

there and given to you I think it

1:06:48

becomes less interesting and you know boring to

1:06:50

me so that's why we

1:06:52

structure the films that way so it is

1:06:55

very intentional the fact that you know it's

1:06:58

it's structures and

1:07:01

stories that you need to kind of

1:07:04

both pay

1:07:07

attention and engage but

1:07:10

also like be okay to

1:07:12

not know everything immediately about

1:07:14

it or to not have answers

1:07:16

about everything I'm coming to it

1:07:19

as an actor Jesse did it feel like acting

1:07:21

in this world that doesn't necessarily have a lot

1:07:23

of signifiers for time and place did it make

1:07:25

it feel more open for you as an actor

1:07:27

or like you got to bring more to it

1:07:29

from your perspective well

1:07:33

made me feel many

1:07:36

things I think in

1:07:38

the beginning you know

1:07:40

you always want to do a good job the best

1:07:42

you can do and and there

1:07:45

is a certain element

1:07:47

of that especially you know

1:07:49

in the work I've

1:07:51

done previously where you need some sort

1:07:53

of some sort

1:07:55

of understanding you need some way in

1:07:57

you need it to

1:08:00

resonate on a

1:08:02

personal level, which

1:08:05

sometimes comes out of what

1:08:08

you've understood on an

1:08:10

intellectual level and sometimes

1:08:13

on just a purely instinctual

1:08:15

emotional level. And

1:08:18

so I think in the beginning

1:08:20

there was some kind of human

1:08:22

instinct to understand

1:08:27

what does it all mean. But

1:08:30

I eventually I think

1:08:34

and also some instinct to

1:08:36

to like find a point

1:08:39

of reference which

1:08:41

became impossible, which

1:08:44

was scary and then became exciting. So it's

1:08:46

like you kind of have to I kind

1:08:48

of had to move through these human

1:08:52

instincts to categorize or place

1:08:54

into some sort of spot

1:08:57

in my head where it was

1:08:59

like clear and clean. And

1:09:02

then getting there, meeting

1:09:04

your ghost, meeting the cast and the crew

1:09:07

and sort of giving into this way of

1:09:11

working in the atmosphere, you

1:09:13

slowly start to realize that

1:09:16

that's not necessarily the way

1:09:18

the most

1:09:20

productive or interesting way into

1:09:22

any of this stuff. And

1:09:24

so not that all the work

1:09:27

I did beforehand

1:09:29

wasn't helpful, but

1:09:32

something like this, even more so than

1:09:34

other types of films,

1:09:38

demanded that you really don't

1:09:40

tie yourself to anything. And

1:09:42

that's what becomes so much

1:09:44

fun in

1:09:47

the same way of watching the

1:09:49

movie, depending on where you're at

1:09:51

when you encounter certain scenes or

1:09:54

whatever. There are an infinite number

1:09:56

of ways it could make you feel. To dig

1:09:59

into a specific about the look and

1:10:01

feel, I'd love to talk about the

1:10:03

costumes, specifically Emma's look in the third

1:10:05

section with the brown suit and the

1:10:07

flip flops and the dark lipstick. It

1:10:09

feels kind of off or odd to

1:10:11

me in such a specific and brilliant

1:10:13

way that really suits that character. Jorgos,

1:10:15

can you talk about deciding on that

1:10:17

look specifically because it's something that's

1:10:19

just really stuck with me? Well,

1:10:21

a lot of that is Jennifer

1:10:24

Johnson, a costume designer working with

1:10:26

Emily and Jesse and discussing the characters

1:10:28

and how they're different to the other

1:10:31

ones and what the world is. I

1:10:34

think early on we were discussing these

1:10:37

two like

1:10:39

agents from X-Files or something. So

1:10:43

they have this kind of uniform, this

1:10:45

kind of suit, but at

1:10:47

the same time there was this

1:10:49

particular atmosphere of this group

1:10:52

living together by a lake and

1:10:55

water being an important part of

1:10:57

it. It felt that

1:10:59

it needed to be slightly off

1:11:01

and not something that we've seen

1:11:04

before and their version of what

1:11:06

those uniforms are. So

1:11:09

yeah, and then Jennifer is

1:11:12

very sensitive to colors, materials,

1:11:14

to look at the world,

1:11:17

try out different things, bring

1:11:19

in her wild cards as she likes to

1:11:22

say, the logic

1:11:25

part of it and this is how it

1:11:27

should be or it would be these characters,

1:11:29

and then she brings out a wild card.

1:11:32

So it's a very fun and

1:11:34

interesting process and Jesse probably can

1:11:36

tell you more about it because

1:11:38

they kind of went through the

1:11:40

same with all

1:11:43

of his wardrobe, but especially I think in

1:11:45

the last story it's kind of fun those

1:11:50

choices that they made. One

1:11:52

of the conversations I remember having that

1:11:56

I know Jennifer had with Emily as

1:11:58

well was this idea of,

1:12:00

you know, we have our,

1:12:03

our, our home, comfy clothes,

1:12:05

true clothes, um,

1:12:08

which are, you know, I mean,

1:12:11

Jennifer was grabbing, um, little

1:12:14

bits of clothing from each character's rack.

1:12:16

It's like, it was all getting mixed

1:12:18

together. I mean, I was trying on

1:12:20

Akka's stuff from Akka's

1:12:22

rack. And so there

1:12:25

was that there was when we were home

1:12:28

with Omi and Akka, what,

1:12:30

what do they wear? Then when

1:12:32

they're out in the world, this

1:12:34

idea of like blending in was

1:12:39

really funny to me that they, they

1:12:41

thought they were blending in. I mean,

1:12:43

if you see these two people in

1:12:45

the world, like

1:12:47

who are they? Um,

1:12:50

so they were unsuccessful in their attempt

1:12:52

to blend in. And that was really

1:12:54

funny to me. Yeah. I guess humor

1:12:57

is important. And like, you know, choosing

1:12:59

even colors or whatever it's like, that's

1:13:02

how the car came about, for example,

1:13:05

like I saw that purple Dodge while

1:13:07

I was scouting in New Orleans and

1:13:09

I, that wasn't the script at all. I

1:13:12

went like, this should be, you know, the

1:13:14

car that they're driving, like not discreet at

1:13:16

all and such like a maniac. And, um,

1:13:19

you know, I never, the colors kind

1:13:22

of, you know, then of

1:13:24

the costumes kind of play off of

1:13:26

that. It's just like a very fun

1:13:28

creative process. Absolutely.

1:13:30

And it keeps surprising you. And that's what, that's

1:13:33

what I loved about it. I mean, you talked

1:13:35

a little bit about it there, Jesse, but the

1:13:37

costume and all that sort of thing, did that

1:13:39

help you kind of when you're approaching these three

1:13:41

characters, are you approaching it like

1:13:43

three entirely separate projects or

1:13:45

are you sort of aware of keeping

1:13:48

a thread running through them on, I'm guessing the

1:13:50

big changes in costume and shaving your head and

1:13:52

everything helps with that. I mean,

1:13:54

there, there were, there were conversations with

1:13:57

your goes about finding this.

1:14:00

balance this line between

1:14:05

differentiating the three characters

1:14:08

while not drifting too

1:14:10

far into, you

1:14:14

know, turning it into some

1:14:16

actor show where it's like, look how

1:14:18

different I can be. And

1:14:22

so there was that thought. But

1:14:24

then I think, yeah,

1:14:27

I trusted that in

1:14:29

the material, in

1:14:32

the dialogue, that there was

1:14:36

enough of a thread there. I

1:14:39

felt in the tone and the themes that

1:14:42

I didn't think too much about

1:14:44

trying to add more in the

1:14:49

way of connecting them. But

1:14:52

yeah, I really did approach

1:14:54

them like three separate stories

1:14:56

and knew, you know, we've

1:14:59

got all the same people working on

1:15:01

the three. So there will be

1:15:03

a thread. And

1:15:06

then, yeah, like I said, just finding that

1:15:08

balance of making them distinct without

1:15:11

going overboard and taking away from

1:15:13

these themes. Thank

1:15:16

you very much, guys. Enjoy the rest of your day

1:15:18

and good luck shooting your next film, which I'm very

1:15:20

excited to see. Hope we're all going

1:15:22

well on that one. Thank you very much. Thank you.

1:15:24

Okay. That was Jorgas Anthemos and

1:15:26

Jesse Plemons. And now it's time to talk about the movies

1:15:28

that are going to be in the multiplex this week. And

1:15:31

we're going to start off with kinds of kindness. Sophie. Hello.

1:15:34

Hello. How are you? I'm

1:15:37

good. Thank you. Good.

1:15:39

Excellent. Yes.

1:15:42

So as you mentioned before, this is a triptych of

1:15:44

different stories, three different stories, but all using the same

1:15:47

cast in different roles. So

1:15:49

yeah, you've got Emma Stone, you've got Jesse Plemons,

1:15:51

you've got Mama Du'Athee, Margaret Kweli, Joe Olwyn, Willem

1:15:54

Dufour, Hunter Schafer, really, really great

1:15:56

cast. And basically, these are

1:15:59

the first films that I've ever seen. three separate

1:16:01

stories, all set in New Orleans, with

1:16:04

one single running thread, which you kind of figure

1:16:06

out as you watch it, which is kind of

1:16:08

in the title of each section. This is split

1:16:10

into three distinct sections. And

1:16:12

it sort of explores different

1:16:15

things. The first one is

1:16:19

about a guy who is kind of being told how

1:16:21

to live his life. So about Jesse Plemmons is being

1:16:23

told how to live his life by what I'm before.

1:16:26

And that sort of spirals

1:16:29

out of control a little bit. The second

1:16:31

one is Emma Stone plays a woman who

1:16:33

went missing and then comes home. And her

1:16:35

husband, Jesse Plemmons, isn't sure that

1:16:37

she's who she says she is. And

1:16:40

then the third one features

1:16:42

Emma Stone and Jesse Plemmons as members

1:16:44

of a kind of weird cult, a

1:16:46

weird sexual cult, and they're kind of

1:16:48

searching for someone. And they won't give

1:16:51

any more details away because it's fun

1:16:53

to sort of see them unravel. I

1:16:55

say fun. That's not

1:16:58

really a word I would use to describe this film in a lot

1:17:00

of ways. This is, if you're

1:17:02

kind of thinking, oh, Jorgos and Emma, like,

1:17:04

oh, and you know, the whimsy of poor

1:17:06

things and the favourite, that's not, that's not

1:17:08

what you're in for here. This

1:17:10

is very much Jorgos going back to his kind

1:17:13

of dog tooth, kind of a sacred deer vibe.

1:17:15

And it's a pretty bleak,

1:17:19

but endlessly

1:17:21

interesting look at these

1:17:23

themes of control and

1:17:25

power and domination and

1:17:29

sort of who people say

1:17:32

they are, who they're not. And like, it's just

1:17:34

a brilliant exploration of how like people can

1:17:37

be horrible to each other in various different

1:17:39

ways. It's got a very, there's

1:17:41

a lot of kind of violence in it that

1:17:43

can be quite shocking, but it's also got a

1:17:45

thread of like dark humour throughout it, which is

1:17:47

really sort of Lanthimos'

1:17:50

kind of, it'll be

1:17:52

familiar with that. Stocking trade.

1:17:54

Yeah. Yeah. And it's

1:17:57

one of these films that is very long. It's

1:17:59

over three hours on Needle. three hours. It's quite

1:18:01

long. And when I first watched

1:18:03

it, I was kind of overwhelmed

1:18:06

by its brutality and bleakness in

1:18:08

a way. And I kind of came out thinking, I

1:18:10

don't know what Jorgos wants me to do with that.

1:18:13

Really. I'm not sure what he wants from me,

1:18:15

but I genuinely have not stopped thinking about it

1:18:18

since I'm dying to see it again. It's not,

1:18:22

it's, it's one

1:18:24

that I highly recommend, but it's something that

1:18:26

like, it's kind of an experience. It's not

1:18:28

necessarily like a fun time, and you know,

1:18:30

but you will be entertained and you will

1:18:32

be intrigued. And seeing these, I mean, the

1:18:34

cast is great and they're all brilliant in

1:18:37

all their different roles. They're sort of different

1:18:39

in prominence in each section, but Emma Stone

1:18:42

is just, she's just in her

1:18:44

weird era and I'm just loving it. She just is totally

1:18:46

on the same wavelength as Lanthamos you can tell. And she

1:18:48

just really commits to it. It's brilliant. The design of it,

1:18:50

the look of it, how it's shot. The

1:18:53

soundtrack is really great. It's

1:18:58

something that will divide people, I think. And it's

1:19:00

not, it's not an easy watch, but it's one

1:19:02

that I keep thinking about and will return to

1:19:04

for sure. Fantastic. Sounds

1:19:07

great. Four stars then. Four

1:19:10

stars for kinds of kindness. If

1:19:12

we're talking about trilogies, that moves us

1:19:15

on to A Quiet Place, Day

1:19:18

One. Jimbo. Now

1:19:20

sadly, I was way laid by the London Transport.

1:19:22

You were. And you missed the screening yesterday. I

1:19:24

did. I did. This

1:19:27

is not at all what A, I

1:19:30

expected it to be, or B, what

1:19:32

it is marketed as. No. This

1:19:35

absolutely blew my mind. And

1:19:38

let's think about why. So on the one hand,

1:19:41

it's because, so it's the Quiet Place movie, like

1:19:43

it's the third, although a prequel in this horror

1:19:45

series. But on the other

1:19:47

hand, it's a weird, almost indie

1:19:49

character piece, but it's also

1:19:51

got the same plot as the first Harold

1:19:53

and Kumar movie. And there's so much about

1:19:55

this that makes no sense. The plot of this

1:19:58

film is one woman wants to be a woman. to

1:20:00

get pizza. That is genuinely the plot of the

1:20:02

film is one woman's quest for the last slice

1:20:04

of pizza in New York. That is this film.

1:20:06

It just so happens that while going for her

1:20:09

deep dish, she's being pursued by very acutely hearing...

1:20:11

Deep dish from New York, what are you all

1:20:13

about? Hey,

1:20:15

look, fine. Her thin and crispy pizza,

1:20:18

whatever. Then she's being

1:20:20

pursued by aliens. It's absolutely nuts.

1:20:22

So to give you a little bit of context,

1:20:24

so this is Lupita Nyong'o and she plays Sam

1:20:26

and she is a woman who frankly has given

1:20:29

up on life. Like she's terminally ill, she has

1:20:31

cancer, she's in a hospice and

1:20:33

they go on a field trip to see what looks like the worst

1:20:35

marionette show in New York. And

1:20:37

that is when the invasion, the inciting

1:20:40

event of the Quiet Plates movies happens.

1:20:42

And while everyone else is running for their lives, she

1:20:44

has a very distinct perspective, which is why this film

1:20:47

is such genius because you have

1:20:49

a character who has no real investment

1:20:51

in surviving because she's dead anyway. So

1:20:53

she's not really... I mean, she's afraid

1:20:55

because of course she's afraid because aliens,

1:20:57

teeth, all that stuff. But she's

1:20:59

quite fatalistic about it. She's a bit like, okay,

1:21:02

fine. And she has this thing where she's gone to New

1:21:04

York to see the show, but the main reason she's gone

1:21:06

is she really desperately wants a slice in New York pizza.

1:21:09

And I think, look, we can all identify with that motivation.

1:21:11

And she's not going to let something like the

1:21:13

end of the world get in the way of that. She's like,

1:21:16

no, fuck you. I'm going to my favorite pizzeria. I'm getting a

1:21:18

slice and that is all there is to it. And I

1:21:20

will not be stopped. And that is the

1:21:22

plot of this film. And along the way, she meets

1:21:24

Eric, played by Joseph

1:21:26

Quinn, and he becomes sort of her companion.

1:21:28

And she's also accompanied by her cat, her

1:21:30

emotional support cat, Frodo, which is an excellent

1:21:33

name for an emotional support cat. Yeah, definitely

1:21:35

Frodo rocks this film. And look,

1:21:37

yes, there are some great set pieces and there are some, they

1:21:40

do some really interesting things with the aliens. The aliens, I would

1:21:42

say at this point are not hugely scary. We've seen a lot

1:21:44

of them. Yes, they all look like pumpkin head. And

1:21:47

a lot of these sort of

1:21:49

scenarios we've been through before they

1:21:51

do do some interesting new things. There's

1:21:53

a particularly effective sequence with a large

1:21:55

crowd of people all walking quote unquote

1:21:57

quietly until you realize is not possible

1:21:59

for a large crowd of people to

1:22:01

walk quietly. And I like the idea

1:22:04

that, because they

1:22:06

deal with this obviously in the first film, that

1:22:08

you can hide within sound. And they mentioned that

1:22:10

the ambient noise of New York is like 90

1:22:12

decibels, like it's equivalent to a continuous scream. So

1:22:14

there's a lot of sound going on in the

1:22:16

background anyway. And they're able to use that kind

1:22:18

of the masking of sound to mask what they're

1:22:20

doing. And there's a bit where the two characters

1:22:22

together, because that's what this is. This is about

1:22:25

these two characters. It's not a love story. It

1:22:27

is, I would say, it's about a very

1:22:29

intimate, very personal friendship, two people who come

1:22:31

together. And it's about a woman who was

1:22:33

given up on life, learning to

1:22:36

live again at the end of the world.

1:22:38

And that's really what this is. It's her

1:22:40

emotional journey. It's not about survival. It's not

1:22:42

about aliens. It's about her internal emotional state.

1:22:44

And Joseph Quinn becomes this kind of catalyst

1:22:46

for this. But there are just grace notes

1:22:48

in this. There's a silent magic show. There's

1:22:51

a discussion of music and piano. And

1:22:54

all these little things you'd expect to be in like

1:22:56

a Linklater movie. And yet this is a big horror

1:22:59

thing set in New York with aliens and

1:23:01

stuff going on. It's fucking wild. Like genuinely,

1:23:03

I came out of this. I don't

1:23:05

know what I just saw, but I kind of love it.

1:23:08

It's kind of magical and wonderful,

1:23:10

but not at all what I think most

1:23:13

people who saw the poster, crucially, will

1:23:15

be buying tickets for. I thought it was people who saw

1:23:18

the poster and found this will be buying tickets. So they'll

1:23:20

be buying tickets to a Photoshop class so they can redo

1:23:22

the poster. It's one of the worst

1:23:24

posters ever unleashed for a major release. And it's a

1:23:26

largely silent film as well. Like bear that in mind

1:23:28

because it also spends large parts of its alone. So

1:23:30

even I would say more than the other two, it

1:23:33

feels more like a silent movie at times. But

1:23:36

yeah, it's a really lovely little character

1:23:39

piece and there are aliens. It's

1:23:41

kind of mad, isn't it? That's kind

1:23:43

of why they brought Michael Sarnowski on to

1:23:45

do it. Because if anyone's seen Pig, it's

1:23:48

this kind of really emotional, beautiful little film

1:23:50

about one man who's grieving his wife and

1:23:52

goes to find his pig. Instead of after

1:23:54

a pig, they're after a pizza. Yeah, yeah.

1:23:56

It was Jeff Nichols. So Jeff Nichols had

1:23:58

been announced. and he was going to be

1:24:01

directedness and then I think. He was.

1:24:03

And then basically,

1:24:06

I think after he left, they were

1:24:08

sort of then looked at Michael Sarnosky and

1:24:10

he pitched this whole story. So they knew that they

1:24:12

wanted the producers knew they wanted it set in New

1:24:14

York and they wanted it to be day one, but

1:24:16

he pitched the whole story, the characters, everything. And

1:24:19

that's what they wanted to go for. Did he write it with

1:24:21

Krasinski or is... No, no. He wrote

1:24:23

the screenplay. The story is by Krasinski because

1:24:25

it's coming from the previous films. Yeah, he gets

1:24:28

the story credit. John Krasinski. Yes. Yeah. But

1:24:30

no, it's his screenplay, his characters,

1:24:32

all that stuff. And you really

1:24:34

feel about sensibility in this and...

1:24:36

Amazing. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't

1:24:38

hold back on that. I think... This is the

1:24:40

second... I mean, you guys and Ben saw

1:24:42

it as well. And he has actually already

1:24:44

interviewed Michael Sarnosky for a supporter special, which

1:24:46

we will be doing for

1:24:48

this. And all three of you came out

1:24:51

raving about this. So my question is, why

1:24:53

does it seem like they've buried this movie?

1:24:55

Because I have. I think they... I

1:24:59

think it's because it's not what people

1:25:01

maybe want. Or like, yeah,

1:25:03

they're finding it hard to sell. They're leaning

1:25:05

on the quiet place element of it all,

1:25:07

which is a big part of it. But for me, it felt

1:25:10

a little bit too much like they were

1:25:12

two separate films in a

1:25:14

way. There's indie drama and this horror creature.

1:25:17

I mean, the

1:25:19

alien invasion and the themes of sort

1:25:21

of mortality and death, that all feeds

1:25:23

very much into what Lupita's character is

1:25:25

going through. And that is all like

1:25:27

very resonant. But it kind of, it

1:25:29

didn't need to be the quiet place monsters in a way.

1:25:31

Like, is it... And the difference

1:25:33

between this one and the first one is the character

1:25:35

drama with the first one with the family and the

1:25:37

mum and the dad and the deaf daughter with

1:25:40

these monsters that rely on sound was

1:25:42

so intertwined that it meant that those

1:25:45

elements perfectly worked together. They felt merged

1:25:47

as one. Whereas here, it feels like

1:25:50

the character elements and the monster elements are slightly

1:25:52

separate. And all the kind of

1:25:55

moments between those two, Sam and

1:25:58

Eric, that was what I wanted. And I wanted more. of

1:26:00

it. I felt like I was just, I loved

1:26:02

their interactions. I kind of wanted a little bit

1:26:04

more of that. I liked the

1:26:06

set pieces. I think they got a little

1:26:08

bit repetitive. I think there's a limit to

1:26:11

how much we can see these aliens at

1:26:13

this point. Yeah. Because they're not visually impressive,

1:26:15

let's be honest. No,

1:26:17

not necessarily. And I just, yeah, I kind

1:26:19

of found myself wanting the alien bit to

1:26:22

be over to get back to those guys.

1:26:24

And so that's definitely the stronger element of

1:26:26

the film for me. But

1:26:29

I did really like it. I

1:26:31

think it's adding something interesting. And I like

1:26:33

that it felt like he directed it and

1:26:35

it felt like he was coming through. Hey

1:26:37

folks, it's Chris here. Just jumping in real

1:26:39

quick to let you know that we forgot

1:26:41

to give A Quiet Place Day One a

1:26:43

star rating. When we were recording the podcast

1:26:45

in true quiet place tradition, we left that

1:26:47

bit silent. So here I am to tell

1:26:49

you that we gave it four

1:26:51

stars, four stars in for

1:26:53

a quiet place day one. And now back

1:26:55

to the show. All

1:26:58

right. Next up last to be discussed

1:27:00

this week is the film that Kevin

1:27:02

Costner told me himself. He has

1:27:05

sunk $58 million

1:27:07

of his own money

1:27:09

into the last counting.

1:27:11

It is

1:27:14

Horizon, an American saga, chapter

1:27:17

one. Yeah. Because this

1:27:19

is the first of four

1:27:21

proposed movies set in

1:27:23

the American West, written

1:27:26

by directed by starring by

1:27:28

starring by starring by catering

1:27:35

by Kevin Costner, Jimbo.

1:27:38

Yeah. Kevin Costner returning to Western's

1:27:40

as a director for the first time in

1:27:42

a long, long time. He is indeed. And

1:27:44

this is the first of an incredibly long

1:27:46

story. Bear in mind that this first, this

1:27:48

first quarter is three hours long. At

1:27:51

the end of watching this, I thought to myself, I

1:27:53

do not know how I'm going to

1:27:55

pray, see the story of this film succinctly, but Helen luckily

1:27:57

who reviewed this voice did it very, very. very nicely so

1:27:59

I'm going to read out her plot synopsis. Just read out

1:28:01

her review and then we're done. I'll read out her review.

1:28:03

She's not here. Fuck it. She won't know. No,

1:28:05

I have things to say about this. Go on. Her

1:28:07

plot synopsis is just, it's the

1:28:09

1860s and the US Civil War

1:28:11

rages back east. A loose assemblage

1:28:13

of characters, very

1:28:16

loose, head west for a settlement called

1:28:18

Horizon, running into conflict with the Apaches

1:28:20

who already live on the land. And

1:28:22

that kind of sums it up because

1:28:24

there's an inciting incident for this film,

1:28:27

which is, I mean, there's a couple

1:28:29

of them, but principally there is an

1:28:31

Apache attack on a settlement at

1:28:33

a by a river, which is broadly called

1:28:35

Horizon. So they've encouraged settlers to come down

1:28:37

here in the 1860s and settle

1:28:39

in this particular place. The Apaches who have owned

1:28:41

the land and live there first, a group of

1:28:43

them go out and they kill a lot of

1:28:46

the people there. And that is an inciting incident

1:28:48

for all of these disparate subplots. There are about

1:28:50

five or six separate narratives in this film. They,

1:28:53

some of them have loose connective tissue, but

1:28:55

they are broadly speaking all independent. The inciting incidents

1:28:57

kind of touch on all of them, but

1:28:59

you've essentially got a small group of survivors

1:29:01

of the massacre, plus some hired guns who go

1:29:03

out to get revenge on the Apaches. That's

1:29:05

one story. You've got Kevin Costner who plays

1:29:07

a guy called Hayes and

1:29:10

a prostitute called Marigold. And bear in mind,

1:29:12

Kevin Costner, who turns up an hour into

1:29:14

this film and they are kind of on

1:29:16

the run. And that

1:29:18

intertwines with a story about a pair of

1:29:20

brothers who are on the hunt for Jenna

1:29:22

Malone. There's a wagon train where Luke Wilson

1:29:24

is trying to get a bunch of settlers

1:29:26

to Horizon, essentially. There's

1:29:29

Sienna Miller, who is another survivor of the massacre,

1:29:31

who's kind of courting Sam Worthington, who's an army

1:29:33

lieutenant and it's life on the fort with the

1:29:36

kind of a union army there. And then

1:29:39

there's lots and lots and lots

1:29:41

of shots of horses and cattle

1:29:43

and scenery and planes. And it

1:29:45

is absolutely beautiful, this film.

1:29:47

It is stunning. It is gorgeous. It

1:29:49

is wonderful. It's not what

1:29:51

I would describe as plotty because there's

1:29:54

not a lot in the way

1:29:56

of story, which you could argue is weird given

1:29:58

that they have three hours to get in. into

1:30:00

it, but this entire three hour film is set

1:30:02

up. And what kind

1:30:05

of blows my mind and Chris having spoken

1:30:07

to Costner, you probably know better than I

1:30:09

do, but I don't understand in some ways

1:30:11

why this is a film I do because

1:30:13

it's so cinematic, you do want to see

1:30:15

it on a cinema screen. But structurally, this

1:30:17

isn't a movie structurally, this is the first

1:30:20

episode of an incredibly expansive miniseries so much

1:30:22

so that the last five minutes of

1:30:24

this film is quite

1:30:26

literally this season on

1:30:28

the horizon. And

1:30:30

it is a five minute sizzle reel of what is

1:30:32

coming up in the upcoming movies, presumably principally in the

1:30:34

second one, which is out in August. And,

1:30:36

but they don't, they don't, so they don't signpost what

1:30:38

this is, it just goes

1:30:42

down. There are a few time jumps in this

1:30:44

film. So initially, you're just like,

1:30:46

well, this is a bold new

1:30:48

stylistic choice where they're just playing music and having

1:30:50

it largely dialogue free and we're flipping through years

1:30:53

and scenes. And they don't really know what's going

1:30:55

on. And this doesn't make a lot of sense.

1:30:57

And I've been watching it now for two minutes.

1:30:59

And who is this character? Oh, Giovanni Robisi's in

1:31:01

this haven't seen him so far. And then you're

1:31:03

like, Oh, I see what this is. It's a

1:31:05

trailer for the second film. But

1:31:08

the reason you don't think it's a trailer is a

1:31:10

number of reasons. One is unannounced, but also because this

1:31:12

film just ends doesn't have an ending. It just stops.

1:31:14

It stops in the middle of a scene. And

1:31:16

so it's not a film. It's not a film that

1:31:18

even it's not a film that even pretends to have

1:31:20

an ending. It's not like Fellowship of the Ring where

1:31:22

it's a it's part of a larger whole, but it's

1:31:25

a narrative in and so right. This is just set

1:31:27

up. It is the first chapter of a four chapter

1:31:29

story. So it's quite uniquely frustrating,

1:31:31

especially when you sat through three hours of

1:31:33

it. So I kind of think you'll you

1:31:35

might enjoy a lot more if you know

1:31:37

that going if you know what you're you're

1:31:39

getting yourself in for if you know what

1:31:42

this is, because it is like a series

1:31:44

of vignettes. And I think, you

1:31:47

know, I'm bearing in mind when I say it's all

1:31:49

set up, there really isn't a lot of story here.

1:31:51

I think it is about it is about and I

1:31:53

think what Costas trying to do here. He's trying to

1:31:55

immerse you in a very specific time in a very

1:31:57

specific place and make you feel like you're eating and

1:31:59

sleeping and breathing. sweeping

1:34:00

patriotic Western that kind of I've

1:34:02

got quite little time for. And

1:34:06

I felt like it didn't challenge any of

1:34:08

that kind of dialogue very well. And

1:34:10

I just found it all very frustrating and

1:34:13

the trailer thing made me want to punch

1:34:15

things at the end. And I

1:34:17

never want to watch any of this ever again. Wow.

1:34:19

Okay, that's harsh. But I get where you're coming from.

1:34:21

And honestly, I don't think you're own. I think a

1:34:23

lot of people will have that reaction. I'm actually, I

1:34:26

sound bad to say, I came

1:34:28

out of that slightly irritated. But by the

1:34:30

end of the day, because I saw this

1:34:32

yesterday, and now I'm

1:34:34

really looking forward to seeing part two.

1:34:37

Oh, that's madness. Because

1:34:39

I know, I know what you're saying, because it's not

1:34:41

like, oh, I need to see how the story ends

1:34:43

because there's not a lot of story to begin with.

1:34:45

But I just, I found myself, I think he succeeded

1:34:47

in transporting me to that

1:34:49

time and that place and seeing the frontier.

1:34:52

And by giving it room to breathe, I

1:34:54

felt immersed in it all my it's felt

1:34:56

like a VR experience. I felt like I

1:34:59

was immersed in this, this world. And I

1:35:01

think the characters while they don't drive story,

1:35:03

they embed

1:35:05

you in the place and the

1:35:07

time. And that worked for me.

1:35:09

So now I'm interested to see where

1:35:12

it goes. And if if fingers crossed, some

1:35:15

kind of story develops. Anything happens. Because today

1:35:17

that hasn't really happened. I think it you

1:35:20

love Long Farm Storytelling, right? I do love

1:35:22

Long Farm Storytelling. I think this really feeds

1:35:24

into your enjoyment of that kind of that

1:35:27

kind of movie or TV show. I

1:35:29

felt like I couldn't get embedded. I

1:35:31

couldn't feel like I was immersed because

1:35:33

I was just so frustrated by

1:35:36

the film and what it was giving me

1:35:38

and not giving me. Like I was

1:35:40

just felt, I just felt frustrated by

1:35:42

that, like continually. And I was waiting

1:35:44

for something interesting to happen or some

1:35:46

interrogation to happen. And I

1:35:48

felt like it never came. And so if

1:35:50

you, if you adore Westerns and you just

1:35:53

want to sort of be in that world,

1:35:55

you're probably going to like this. All right.

1:35:57

There we go. Three stars then for Horizon

1:35:59

and America. in Saga Chapter 1.

1:36:01

There we go. And speaking of sagas, we're

1:36:03

almost at the end of this saga, this

1:36:05

week's Empire Podcast. Just one final thing, we

1:36:07

do this every now and again where we

1:36:09

bring you a little taster,

1:36:11

a little teaser of an

1:36:14

excerpt from one of our spoiler special podcasts.

1:36:17

What you're about to hear now is the first 15 minutes or

1:36:19

so of a very lengthy

1:36:21

and very, very fun chat that I

1:36:23

had with Adil and Balal. Adil El-Arbi

1:36:25

and Balal the directors of Bad

1:36:28

Boys Ride or Die or Bad Boys Ride

1:36:30

or Die, a spoiler special is up right

1:36:32

now. And you can listen

1:36:34

to that if you subscribe along with

1:36:36

our weekly Acolyte supporter specials and numerous

1:36:38

other podcasts that have gone

1:36:40

up this month. And of course the back

1:36:43

catalogue of nearly 400 now, spoiler specials. And

1:36:45

if you don't subscribe, now it's a perfect

1:36:47

time to do so. Empire.supportingcast.fm is just a

1:36:49

couple of quid a month really. What's it?

1:36:51

349 now? 349. And something a year if

1:36:53

you want to subscribe annually. There you go.

1:36:58

I have all the facts at my fingertips. But

1:37:01

it's worth it. It is worth it. It is. Because

1:37:03

we're worth it. Yeah. Yes. It

1:37:05

cost me $58 million to make

1:37:07

this podcast. Chris's own money. My

1:37:09

own money. Can

1:37:13

you imagine? Can you imagine? Give me $58 million. Perhaps

1:37:16

after my success, we're on a taskmaster. People

1:37:18

throwing money at me. Anyway, anyway, here it

1:37:20

is. Adil and Bilal, 15 minutes or so.

1:37:22

And then the rest is for spoiler

1:37:25

special subscribers. Do please enjoy.

1:37:28

We are delighted to be joined on this

1:37:30

bad boys ride or die spoiler special by

1:37:32

the film's directors, Adil and Bilal. How are

1:37:34

you guys? Very good. Top of

1:37:36

the world. Excellent. Top of the way. Of course

1:37:38

you are. Of course you are Bilal because this

1:37:40

movie has been kicking ass and taking names at

1:37:43

the box office. So congrats first of

1:37:45

all on that. How does it feel? It's

1:37:48

amazing. Yeah. I'm

1:37:50

letting all, I'll let it sink in.

1:37:55

It's too much to handle.

1:37:57

It's doing great. It's doing.

1:38:00

over our expectations.

1:38:03

And we've been stressing a lot. You're

1:38:06

always like, oh, are people going to the theaters?

1:38:09

And yeah, it's doing so well around the

1:38:11

world that it's just mind blowing.

1:38:14

Yeah, absolutely. And we should say for

1:38:16

people at home listening to this, Adil

1:38:18

is in Brussels at the moment. And

1:38:20

Bilal, you are in Miami still. Are

1:38:23

you involved in a freeway chase at

1:38:25

the moment? Or what's happening? Yeah,

1:38:28

yeah, yeah. You

1:38:30

know, I fell off the truck.

1:38:34

Because I love the fact that this

1:38:36

movie actually starts with a big shot of

1:38:38

Miami, which is this beautiful Bad Boys tradition.

1:38:41

But I can't remember. I think it

1:38:43

might have been Will Smith was telling me when I interviewed

1:38:45

him for the magazine that Michael

1:38:48

Bay had caused such mayhem shooting that

1:38:50

freeway chase on Bad Boys 2 that

1:38:53

Miami kind of had shut down for

1:38:55

a bit. And then you guys

1:38:57

were allowed back in again for Bad Boys Ride

1:39:00

or Die. Is that the case? Yeah,

1:39:03

a little bit. It was total mayhem. I

1:39:06

think that if you look at the chase sequence of Bad

1:39:08

Boys 2, there had never been

1:39:10

a chase sequence on that level ever before

1:39:12

in the history of cinema. I think that

1:39:15

all the fast and furious movies and sequences,

1:39:17

they come after that crazy sequence in Bad

1:39:19

Boys 2. So that's why they

1:39:21

were like, never again. And we

1:39:23

were allowed to come back to Miami.

1:39:27

But we were not allowed to

1:39:29

do crazy destruction like what

1:39:31

he did. So that's why you

1:39:33

have to be careful. OK. So that's why

1:39:35

the action sequences are, there's a

1:39:38

Reggie sequence, which I want to talk about. So you've

1:39:40

got a big sequence in a helicopter. You've got an

1:39:42

end. And of course, the end

1:39:44

is at an abandoned theme park.

1:39:46

But there's not action

1:39:49

in Miami. There's not a lot of that. Yeah,

1:39:52

we could not destroy Miami like Michael Bay

1:39:54

did this time. Maybe the next movie, who

1:39:56

knows? Well, there's

1:39:58

a lot of stuff to get into with this movie. And

1:40:00

for these spoiler specials, I always like to

1:40:03

really start off with the big question. The

1:40:06

question that everybody is talking about after having seen

1:40:08

the movie, which is, is

1:40:11

that Martin Lawrence's real ass that

1:40:14

we see on top of the hospital roof? No,

1:40:18

it's not. No,

1:40:20

come on. Sorry.

1:40:25

We all had to like approve the ass.

1:40:27

So you have to prove that it's his

1:40:29

ass. So

1:40:33

that's something. That's

1:40:36

amazing. So you had to audition

1:40:38

some Martin Lawrence ass

1:40:40

doubles, so to speak. Yeah,

1:40:42

basically, mostly Martin had

1:40:44

to approve. So he

1:40:47

was doing his own casting for this

1:40:49

one. Oh my God. I've

1:40:52

seen the movie twice now and not

1:40:55

just because of Martin's ass, but

1:40:59

that scene on the hospital roof gives me the

1:41:01

jitters every time I have such a fear of

1:41:03

heights. How close were

1:41:06

Martin and Will ever in danger

1:41:08

or was this all just movie

1:41:10

magic, baby? No, it

1:41:12

was a big of both.

1:41:14

I mean, we had a lot of

1:41:17

movie magic, obviously, but we were really

1:41:19

on a high building and we had

1:41:21

like a cable restraining him because

1:41:23

even though he's not on top of

1:41:25

really on the edge, he's still on

1:41:28

some kind of edge, which still could

1:41:30

be dangerous. But it was a combination

1:41:32

of a little bit of a rig

1:41:34

and a nice plate of something that

1:41:37

we shot on top of a real

1:41:39

building. We really didn't want

1:41:41

to do it on green screens. So that's

1:41:43

why we did it on for real on

1:41:45

a high building. Yeah. How

1:41:47

much green screen work did you do in

1:41:49

this movie? Because it all looks pretty much

1:41:51

like you're shooting on location for the most

1:41:54

part. Yeah, we tried to avoid as much

1:41:56

as possible, but unfortunately, sometimes you're forced to

1:41:58

do it. We

1:42:02

tried initially to plan, well, we're going to do

1:42:04

all the car scenes in real situation in Miami,

1:42:06

but then we didn't have enough shooting time to

1:42:08

do it. So we had to block shoot everything.

1:42:10

Everything that is in a vehicle is pretty much

1:42:12

with the blue screen, green screen. And

1:42:16

some of them are sometimes like in situation, but it's

1:42:18

mostly there. And the Chinook, we did

1:42:20

everything in the studio. So the exteriors of the Chinook

1:42:22

that you see, that is also a

1:42:24

blue screen. Besides that, everything, most

1:42:26

of it is pretty much the

1:42:29

real deal, enhanced here and there with VFX.

1:42:33

Fantastic. So the last time we

1:42:35

spoke was for Empire Magazine just before the

1:42:38

film came out. And you

1:42:40

were telling me about, you know, one of the reasons

1:42:42

you came back was that with these

1:42:44

movies, you actually like to do something which

1:42:46

is unusual for blockbusters, which is to kind

1:42:48

of talk about stuff, talk

1:42:51

about life and guilt

1:42:53

and spirituality and all that. And

1:42:56

in the last movie, you

1:42:59

know, Mike gets shot very early on

1:43:01

and he has his brush with mortality.

1:43:03

And there's that whole thread that runs

1:43:05

through that movie where he is

1:43:07

no longer invincible. He's no longer bulletproof.

1:43:11

And there were little hints that there might

1:43:13

be something like that in this for for

1:43:15

Marcus, for Martin's character. And

1:43:18

you go into it pretty much straight away. You

1:43:21

know, he has a heart attack straight away and

1:43:23

effectively dies. Can

1:43:25

you talk about that? You put Mike through

1:43:27

the wringer last time and this time around,

1:43:29

it's Marcus, but in a very

1:43:31

different way. Where did that idea come from? Yeah,

1:43:34

I think, you

1:43:37

know, it's, you know, it's action comedy,

1:43:39

blockbuster movie, but we really wanted to

1:43:41

do something that, you know, tell us

1:43:44

something about life or, you know, tell

1:43:47

something. And we'll

1:43:49

really, really felt

1:43:51

that we had to go through this

1:43:53

near dead experience that Marcus has. So

1:43:56

like going to that spiritual world and

1:43:59

from there on. from the moment that

1:44:01

he was telling that idea, because

1:44:03

the idea really came from him, all

1:44:06

the comedy came out of that. When

1:44:08

Marcus says like, in

1:44:11

our past life, he was a donkey or, so,

1:44:15

yeah, we're soulmates, all these

1:44:17

things, all the comedy comes

1:44:19

out from that

1:44:22

spiritual awakening that Marcus has,

1:44:24

like trust the universe. And

1:44:26

at the same time, you have Mike, who's going through

1:44:28

this, the

1:44:31

opposite of what Marcus is experiencing is

1:44:33

like, he's getting married, he has fear,

1:44:35

he starts to have these panic attacks.

1:44:39

And that is the thing that really was

1:44:41

important to tell while

1:44:43

you have fun during an action

1:44:45

comment. Yeah, I wanna dig

1:44:47

into Mike's side of the story as

1:44:50

well in just a few minutes. But with

1:44:52

Marcus, this really interesting, this

1:44:55

thread about spirituality that he sees, Captain

1:44:58

Howard, he has a vision of the future

1:45:01

somehow as well. And that runs

1:45:05

through the movie quite a lot. There's

1:45:07

the sequence on the helicopter, which really

1:45:09

interests me, because he unbuckles

1:45:11

his seatbelt and seems to sense

1:45:14

that there's danger on the helicopter

1:45:16

before we even know. Now,

1:45:19

is that something that comes from

1:45:21

that spiritual side? Does he have a

1:45:23

thick sense in a way? Yeah,

1:45:26

it's a bit the thing that we wanted

1:45:28

to play with with when he says there's

1:45:30

a storm coming, there's this imagery of that

1:45:32

storm that he has in his vision and

1:45:34

also the line that he says to Will,

1:45:36

to Mike, on

1:45:39

the rooftop. And we use

1:45:41

that as a late motif, when the storm

1:45:43

is really happening on that shit. Okay, it

1:45:45

reminds him of the vision he has, where

1:45:48

he feels something is about to

1:45:50

happen, something's coming. And then you see that also

1:45:52

when you say, we welcome the storm, motherfucker. And

1:45:58

then things come out of... control.

1:46:00

So it's a nice thing to

1:46:03

play with that setup in the beginning,

1:46:05

that spiritual setup and use that as

1:46:07

a through line throughout the whole movie

1:46:09

for whether it's for action moments or

1:46:11

even for comedy where I think it

1:46:13

pays off the most towards the end.

1:46:15

Did you have anything else in the

1:46:18

movie like that that maybe you cut

1:46:20

for time or didn't go

1:46:22

down that route? Well, we had

1:46:24

actually a comedy sequence of, we

1:46:27

call that a Freaky Friday sequence.

1:46:30

Yeah, it was a Freaky Friday montage

1:46:32

basically where we had like this split

1:46:34

screen and it was like splitting Marcus

1:46:36

and Mike and you see

1:46:38

that like Mike, you

1:46:41

know, being the family man is becoming the

1:46:43

family man is, you know, he's at home

1:46:45

and he's getting cozy and he's

1:46:47

like prepping the crib and, you know, being

1:46:49

a real family man like Marcus and Marcus

1:46:52

is becoming this guy who was like, you

1:46:54

know, getting dressed like Mike and, you

1:46:56

know, all that was really funny. It was

1:46:58

really the Freaky Friday. But

1:47:03

then, yeah, we wanted to make this movie

1:47:05

flowmatic and very short and very, you know,

1:47:07

to the points. So we had to

1:47:09

cut it. It

1:47:12

will be on the, you know, how do you say DVD?

1:47:14

No. Yeah. Yeah. Or on YouTube, you know,

1:47:19

they probably will post that. So there

1:47:21

were a lot of things that were

1:47:23

enhancing that story that they created places

1:47:25

that were really fun to shoot, but

1:47:28

eventually we had to cut down. Guys,

1:47:30

you know, it's probably on YouTube already. Someone's got

1:47:32

that footage and put it on YouTube. It's

1:47:35

great. It's

1:47:37

there right now. So you have

1:47:40

a lot of fun. That's really interesting that you

1:47:42

that was in there as well. But you have

1:47:44

a lot of fun with, you

1:47:46

know, Marcus feeling and vulnerable, you know,

1:47:48

walking backwards into traffic, you know, on

1:47:51

the roof of the hospital, giving me the

1:47:54

jitters. But probably

1:47:56

the funniest thing in the movie, apart

1:47:58

from him yelling, shitty bang bang motherfucker

1:48:02

is is the alligator,

1:48:04

Duke, the alligator. When

1:48:06

did you know when did you know

1:48:08

the Juki was going to be in the movie? And

1:48:11

when did you know that he was going to literally attack

1:48:14

and bite nearly eight markets? I

1:48:16

mean, that's pretty hardcore. Well,

1:48:19

you know, it's it's it all started organically because

1:48:21

in the first I don't think that in the

1:48:23