To that end, you talked a lot about how the first one, much of it, was improvised. What the process the same?
Again, so many different ways to do something because actually ‘Part One,’ some of it was improvised, some of it wasn’t. I wrote some scenes as we were going along because sometimes, an actor wanted to see how the shape of the dialogue in the scene beforehand. But then, I would never force them to say the words that I’ve written on the page because I always want the dialogue to feel alive in the moment. So yes, not [improvising] in this one. We did ‘Part One’ one way and ‘Part Two’ another way. ‘Part Two’ is also the same mix-up of process. I don’t have one way of working; it depends on how we’re feeling on the day, what actor I’m working with, what they require, and I’m very sensitive to what an actor needs to make a scene work.
Do you have a line of dialogue that you feel potentially represents either part well? Because for me, that line from Richard Ayoade— I’m paraphrasing a tiny bit, “Did you avoid the temptation to be obvious? Because that’s all you can hope for”—is such a terrific emblematic line for this movie, but also as a just kind of maxim for life. Tell me about that rich line that feels so layered with meaning.
Well, it’s really Richard that should be credited for that because Richard, in playing Patrick, completely morphed into the story in a way I found to be continually amazed by. Not just by Richard, but by Honor, by Tilda, by James, who plays Honor’s father, the way that everyone— all of us, not just in front of the camera, behind the camera as well, get into the zone of the story.
And so anything that comes out—whether it’s a line of dialogue or an idea for a costume or a camera movement— comes from a particular moment in time. And it’s about creating the atmosphere that allows this to happen. Richard threw himself into that character with such a kind of energy. Of course, Richard is a filmmaker himself; one can’t forget that. So he is a director himself, very different from the style of director to Patrick, but it’s all an incredibly creative dance that happens that can’t be planned in a way. I realize, after each film, I do more and more how much that one’s got to create the setting and then allow things to happen within that. It’s the grace of the right environment, the atmosphere, the right collaborators.
Right, you craft that, you curate that space for spontaneity and honesty, but how different was it for everyone, given that most of them had already done it once in the first film?
But both easier and more complex. Easier in the sense that we’re all on the same journey together, and we’re pretty much the same group of collaborators coming together again. Some new people kept it alive, but it was also tricky because what we were trying to do with part two was more ambitious. There were so many films within films that had to be designed and prepared, all without being storyboarded and without a lot of lead time to get everything ready. The first day of shooting was Patrick’s film set, which has pretty elaborate in itself. So, a lot of energy went into these films within films, and then, none more so than Julie’s dream film or film within a film. However, one wants to describe it.
What was particularly challenging was that I didn’t want to script Julie’s dream film, or I didn’t want to decide on it until we were part of the way through Julie’s journey of part two, which meant we couldn’t plan it. And obviously, the production designer, the costume designer, the art director, everyone wanted to know well ahead of time what was going to happen so they could prepare everything. And I felt that we weren’t ready to make it; we weren’t cooking yet. Because I was still discovering where Julie was going to get to the point of that film, that was very difficult for everybody.
Well, that’s super interesting because it mirrors Julie’s experience in the film. Obviously, you’re experienced, and she’s not, but that’s a lot of simpatico uncertainty and ambivalence going on.
Yes, very much so, But for me, it was exciting because—and I knew that I couldn’t, that I had to hold that, even though I had people constantly saying to me, “Well, what’s going to happen in that moment?”And “What’s the backdrop going to be there?” and “What is she going to be wearing?”
Well, this is even more meta than expected because you have the confidence to pull that off. And the irony is that Julie’s character is doing much the same—making it up as she goes along, being one way to put it—but she’s riddled with uncertainty and self-doubt, and all her on-set collaborators are going crazy with her indecision and inability to articulate herself and her vision.
I think that was a discovery in a way because I never saw myself as tenacious, maybe passionate, but not that confident. In making or depicting Judy’s journey, I realized, yes, have; there are aspects of myself that are somewhat like Patrick—with his vast amount of self-confidence and visionary kind of ideas.
But we’re all a mix up of lots of things; there’s one very confident side of me, there’s a super competence, but one’s got these extremes. And I’ve always wrestled with that’s. But yes, seeing how Julie has evolved over the two films, in a way, shed a little bit of light on myself. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending that I don’t know what I’m doing or something.
You say you don’t really use scripts, and making a film these days is challenging and funding and all that thing; how do you pitch a film idea without a script? I know Martin Scorsese was involved as an executive producer. Maybe that helps with this leap of faith?
Thank goodness on him, and yeah, I’m quite surprised myself that it worked out, but it did. You hear a director who wants to make a film without a script, but they write a script for the financers and say, “look, there’s a script.” I didn’t want to spend time doing that. That seems a waste of time. I didn’t do that. So I just was fortunate, and I’m touching wood as I talk to you because things constantly change. I want to carry on doing what I’m doing and the way that I do it. Anyway, luckily I had fantastic collaborators, financiers who are very creative and understood what I was trying to do, had seen my other work and understood how I work, and had took that leap of faith basically.
That’s amazing. Tell me a little bit about this new project that you’re working on because I think it sort of popped out of nowhere in terms of people being aware of it.
Yeah, well, I don’t want to say much about it because I’m still in the middle of editing it. When I go back to the U.K. at the end of the week, I carry on editing and then starting the sound design, but it’s very different from what I’ve made so far from my other films. It’s a ghost story, and it’s, it’s been really fun to do. I started writing in March, the beginning of the pandemic, and it was auspicious to be able to shoot it in November of last year. Things haven’t stopped going since then.
So, you said you “wrote” this one last year, but you say you don’t really write traditional scripts.
Well, it’s the same process I say writing because it is writing. I do write things. It just doesn’t look like a conventional script. So I write the story, maybe, 35 pages or something, and it takes me as long, possibly longer than if I were writing a conventional script. So there is still this writing process that can last months or even years. So, I don’t skip that process; it’s just done in my particular way.
Does this process offer the freedom to shape the films you make in the editing room, or discover it more in the shooting than a traditional script? It sounds like you’re always trying to stay alive to how things are evolving more than some traditionalists trying to capture a script.
Maybe, but I think many directors work in the way I work, but they might start with a slightly different document. I don’t know why [Jean-Luc] Godard has sprung to mind, suddenly. Still, whenever I’ve read about how he’s made a film and certainly how he makes them now, he’s not deciding everything in advance and then doing a blueprint of that he’s working and shaping, creating every day. More spontaneity feels like an alive way of doing it, but I think many filmmakers, maybe particularly in the past, are working that way. I’m sure Rossellini, as well, and many, many more.
“The Souvenir Part II” is in theaters this weekend, Friday, October 29, via A24.