In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo embraces the absurd to discuss the film “Problemista” with director and star Julio Torres (“Los Espookys,” “Saturday Night Live”) and co-star Tilda Swinton (“Doctor Strange,” “Michael Clayton”). In the A24 comedy, out now, Alejandro (Torres) is an aspiring toymaker who loses his job and falls in with an art-world outcast (Swinton) to maintain his work visa. The film also stars Greta Lee, RZA, Isabella Rossellini, and more.
READ MORE: ‘Problemista’ Review: Julio Torres Debuts With A Charming Immigration Fairy Tale [SXSW]
During the interview, Torres discussed the journey to making his real life into the film that would become “Problemista,” and the moment everything seemed to click into place.
“I understood that I had an interesting sort of life chapter that could make an interesting movie, or they could make a movie that people would want to see, but that wasn’t enough for me to be excited to write it,” Torres said. “And it wasn’t really until I realized that I could make it in the same way that I had been making everything else, which was with the use of the fantastical and breaking it a little bit, that I was like, ‘Okay, now I’ve got it.”
And lean into blending reality with the absurd he did. With “Problemista,” Torres paints an eccentric portrait of both the process of maintaining a work visa for immigrants and is able to lampoon the New York art scene with so much precision that some in that world may suspect Tilda Swinton’s Elizabeth is based on them – and they may be right.
“She is an amalgamation of entities,” Torres shared. “Yes. Not to be named. She is enough.” Swinton added. “Although we’ve already worked out that if anybody were to sue because they were to claim that Elizabeth was based on them, it wouldn’t be a very good look. So, I hope that we’re in the clear there. And I also will say that the person I am based on would probably relish that.”
Swinton is known for playing eccentric, experimental stand-out characters in usually low-to-mid budget indies, but, contrary to what some might think, Swinton believes her most experimental roles have been the blockbusters she’s taken part in like Marvel’s “Doctor Strange,” “Constantine,” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”
“I think about five times I have been asked by a big studio to make a film, but primarily by a filmmaker who is on an experimental sort of gig themselves,” Swinton said. “So, for example, ‘Constantine,’ which was the first big movie I was asked to be in, was Francis Lawrence doing something highly experimental. I mean, all those sort of glass shards coming out of the sky in ‘Constantine,’ these were all new computer programmers. And and it was really exciting. And for me, it was not that far from doing a Pet Shop Boys video with Derek [Jarman]; it was all experimental. And, you know, when a filmmaker says you’re going to play the angel Gabriel and massive wings are going to come out of your back— I mean, that’s my world. The fact that this time it was under a studio who had millions of dollars to achieve it was even more exciting.”
“I mean, I’m a nerd, and I was always amazed at the studio system and interested to know how it worked,” she continued. “And to go into the studio system with really experimental minds like Francis Lawrence or David Fincher — when I first worked with Fincher on his ‘Benjamin Button’ film, that was highly experimental. It was the first film when they were making Brad Pitt look 19, and all the rest of it and people would run onto the set at lunchtime, these fabulous geeks with computers saying ‘Look!’ and show something that they just managed to do in the computer to make somebody look younger and it was really, really interesting…And those films feel more like experiments for me than being at home and in the garden with a home movie camera ever did because that was my starting point.”
Speaking of the much beloved “Constantine,” writer Akiva Goldsman discussed working on a sequel in a previous episode of The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast in collaboration with star Keanu Reeves and director Francis Lawrence. Swinton let slip a rumor she heard about the potential sequel through the grapevine.
“I heard a rumor Keanu was playing Gabriel,” Swinton shared.
But it sounds like they’ve yet to contact Swinton for a role in the long-gestating sequel.
“They haven’t rung me up. I’ve still got my wings. I’m available. Yeah, they’re still here.”
“Problemista” is in limited theaters now and will expand nationwide on March 22. You can hear the full interview below:
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