I’m always fascinated about projects that aren’t made for whatever reason and your contemporaries like Quentin Tarantino have many of them, but you don’t really seem to have any.
Yeah, but that’s Quentin shooting his mouth off. He’s got all these fantastic residual ideas from film he’s made, and they’re great ideas. But his only problem is that he starts talking about them when they should be left over there.
Right. But you don’t have abandoned films? You’ve had some really long gaps between films [five years in between “Punch Drunk Love” and “There Will Be Blood” and another five between ‘Blood’ and “The Master”]. Is there a parallel universe where some films almost went another way?
Not exactly like that, but I have a version of that [pause, possibly safeguarding a secret]. Thankfully, I’ve never gone through the process of writing something and then not making it, which is rare. But what I do have are many kind of….embryonic ideas that haven’t been formed yet. But there’s loads and loads of pages of notes and notebooks and things like that, but again, that’s the kind of stuff that there’s not enough to talk about. There was a ton of things that I discovered in the distance between “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master,” those five years in there. There was a lot of reading and a lot of research that I was doing that turned up loads of different, nice little story ideas that didn’t end up factoring into that film. And that’s a couple of great notebooks to go back to, but that thing of “the project that got away,” mercifully [knocks on the wooden table], I don’t really have that. That would be hard for me to live with I suppose.
You’ve been doing a lot of music videos lately. What do you get out that medium? Some filmmakers test out ideas in music videos.
Yeah! I do music videos because the Haim girls are in my life. As long as they’re around, I’ll hopefully be doing music videos for them. That’s one of the best creative relationships I’ve had in a while. I love those girls. I hope to do their whole filmography. I love them. It’s great music, they’re super charismatic to film. Everything we do is like a home movie because it’s a very familial type situation. Music videos are just a great reminder about how to be loose. Radiohead was a great exercise in looseness and speed. We had something like 200 locations in three days for the “Daydreaming” video. It was crazy that premise, walking through door after door after door.
Some of the music videos have had a real musical kind of vibe. Have you ever thought of making one of those?
I’ve always thought of doing a musical, but.. maybe one day. They’re fashionable right now, aren’t they?
Accidentally, yeah.
Yeah, totally. They come and go out of fashion. When there’s a good one they’re fashionable and there was a good one just a couple years ago. A fucking damn good one. As a matter a fact, a pretty fucking great one. “La La Land” was on TV the other day and it’s like “Oh, my, goodness, they got a lot right.” I was so struck by it. And yes, there’s incredible camera work and directing going on, but the two leads, Emma [Stone] and Ryan [Gosling], it’s just the two of them and they’re so fucking good together. They’re so good together.
Oh, wait, I remember something that wasn’t made—you wrote a “Pinocchio” script for Robert Downey Jr., right?
Well….hmmm, no. I am and continue to look for a way to work with Robert Downey Jr. So perhaps one day that might be something. I have always been the world’s greatest Robert Downey Jr. fan. I would battle anyone for the top spot and so hopefully, we’ll find a way to do something together before too long. “Pinocchio” was certainly an idea that was talked about which is a very interesting one. That could still be a possibility and at the same time, I feel like maybe we’ve moved on from that idea, and maybe we’ll find something else.
So, what’s your discovery process? For example, if you were planning on doing something next, how would you come upon what that would be? How do you make that decision?
There’s never some big choice. Implying there’s a decision would mean there’s two things — at least two — rather than one that is happening [laughs]. As I’m doing this [promotion cycle], there’s no real proper writing that can be done. But, I’ll tell you, it’s a great fucking time to daydream, because I always try and avoid that clichéd thing of Greg Brady sitting down at the typewriter staring at the blank paper trying to come up with something. I don’t know whether I’ve done it accidentally or on purpose, but I don’t ever want to sit down and stare at a blank piece of paper, I would go crazy. I only will sit down if there’s enough daydreaming and ammunition ready so something can come out.
Does that account for those long gaps then?
I don’t think so, actually. I think that has to do with the time that it takes… everything moves like molasses even if I would love it to move faster, sometimes it just moves slow. Believe me, I always love to work. I’m always working. I can’t really — I’m good at taking a couple weeks off, but then I’m like, “Right, what’s next?” I can’t afford to not keep working [laughs], emotionally or financially. And even if you can stretch the money out, it’s an emotional thing. I love doing this, and writing usually means reading for me and that time is great.
While I wrap up here, I want to ask you about Netflix and the streaming services, and how they’re changing the industry. Netflix is kind of taking over the world—
Yeah, but Netflix never has the stuff I want to see. If they have the thing I want to watch, I’ll watch It there. I don’t care what [the service is] called as long as they have the shit I’m looking for. But that said, my kids watch it all the time. And my friend [Scott Frank] just made “Godless” which I haven’t seen yet, but I will certainly watch.
It’s great.
I bet it is. He’s amazing and I’ve seen plenty of good stuff, but Netflix is Netflix and it’s not a movie in the movie theater, so it’s just another outfit, right? You can call it the devil if you want, but it’s just another supermarket with shit in it. I don’t need to get mad it [laughs]. I don’t need to shop there if they don’t have what I need, because most of the time I have to go down the street, I have to go to the more specialized shops. Plus, I get all my shopping done at TCM. That’s basically cable where I come from, baby [laughs]. The thing I like about Netflix is I’ve never paid for a day of Netflix in my life, I just have someone else’s account and their password. It’s free! Which is great. Which makes me wonder, how they hell are they paying for all these expensive movies? I’ve never paid them once.
“Phantom Thread” opens in limited release on December 25th.