{"id":648390,"date":"2025-01-08T18:40:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T15:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/ridley-scott-denis-villeneuve-and-the-director-roundtable\/"},"modified":"2025-01-08T18:40:24","modified_gmt":"2025-01-08T15:40:24","slug":"ridley-scott-denis-villeneuve-and-the-director-roundtable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ridley-scott-denis-villeneuve-and-the-director-roundtable\/","title":{"rendered":"#Ridley Scott, Denis Villeneuve and the Director Roundtable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n\tFrom tuning out critics to reading every review, from ridiculed first-day rituals to when it\u2019s OK not<\/em> to collaborate with the crew, the directors of six of this year\u2019s most daring movies<\/a> each have their own strategies for managing their careers and their sets. On a Sunday afternoon in November, Edward Berger (Conclave<\/em>), Brady Corbet (The\u202fBrutalist<\/em>), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance<\/em>), RaMell Ross (Nickel Boys<\/em>), Ridley Scott (Gladiator\u00a0II<\/em>) and Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two<\/em>) convened for The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>\u2019s annual Director Roundtable. The filmmakers chopped it up over their wildly different working styles but agreed on at least one thing about cinema: \u201cTime dilates if you do it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes anybody have a day-one ritual on set, a thing you do when you\u2019re starting out to set the\u00a0mood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBRADY CORBET<\/strong> Have a panic attack.<\/p>\n

\n\tRAMELL ROSS<\/strong> I tested positive for COVID.<\/p>\n

\n\tDENIS VILLENEUVE<\/strong> It\u2019s an embarrassing thing, but I love to listen to Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut\u2019s music of La Nuit Am\u00e9ricaine<\/em>. It\u2019s an old ritual.<\/p>\n

\n\tRIDLEY SCOTT<\/strong> Are you serious? That\u2019s really sweet.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> I know you will laugh at me, Ridley, and I\u2019m really embarrassed. It\u2019s just the fire of cinema. I love that song.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I don\u2019t know it. Is it fast-paced? What\u2019s the rhythm? What\u2019s the vibe of it?<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Hum it. Sing it now. Go on.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> I will not dare.<\/p>\n

\n\tCoralie, how do you begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCORALIE FARGEAT<\/strong> I like to have a little word with everyone starting the journey because I know it\u2019s going to be a tough one. I gather the crew and wish everyone a good shooting.<\/p>\n

\n\tThere\u2019s this idea that a director is always confident and in control. One of the things, Edward, that I like about Conclave<\/em> is it\u2019s about doubt. Is there room for doubt when you\u2019re a director?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Privately. If you show any doubt with an actor, they\u2019ll eat you alive. (Looks at Corbet, who started acting at age 11<\/em>.) Do you agree? If the director looks a little anxious, does that bother you?<\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> It\u2019s hard for me to say. I did it at such a young age, and I was working with extraordinary people: Michael Haneke and Lars von Trier. People always ask me how that informed my own process, and it was very demystifying for me because I saw a lot of people I admired very much who were having real crises. And so when I started to face a lot of my own, I didn\u2019t worry about it too much. I don\u2019t think that much about how people perceive me. I am mostly just trying to get it\u00a0done.<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> But you have to turn up fully prepped here (gestures to his head<\/em>). If you don\u2019t, then you\u2019re going to be truly anxious. The actor will spot it in a heartbeat.<\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> Absolutely.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> But you could have doubt and\u00a0faith.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> If I have doubt, I can allow myself the space to say to everybody, \u201cBack off,\u201d and just space to think and not be freaked out about that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Do you shout?<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> Very rarely. But if I swear, as a French Canadian, they know that they are in trouble.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> (To Scott<\/em>) Do you shout?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> All of this, it gets easier the older you get. Right now I don\u2019t worry about anything. I\u2019m totally relaxed. The film goes like lightning. But you go back 30\u202fyears ago, yeah, I would walk in in the morning, be very worried. Talking to actors last is the last thing I learned how to do. I didn\u2019t go to drama school, didn\u2019t go to film school. I was the [production] designer, and one day at the BBC, they said, \u201cDo you want to do a director\u2019s course?\u201d Three weeks later, I was getting script<\/a>s saying, \u201cThere it is, don\u2019t fuck it up.\u201d I was terrified.<\/p>\n

\n\tEDWARD BERGER <\/strong>[Doubt] is absolutely fine. I can have it because I\u2019m completely prepared. I have a total plan and theoretically know what I\u2019m doing. Then everything changes because actors come in, weather comes in, and you adapt. Like Denis says, it\u2019s about taking space, and I\u2019ve learned that people really respect that. They say, \u201cOh great, he has a weakness. Let\u2019s go away for five minutes.\u201d I feel like people want to help you out in a way. I saw this interview with Tom Hanks once where he said that Steven Spielberg comes in the morning and says, \u201cListen, guys, you\u2019ve got to help me. I don\u2019t know how to do this.\u201d Of course he knows how to do it, but somehow, you bring everyone in and make everyone feel they can do their best work.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRidley Scott<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tCoralie, why was horror the genre you used to tell the story in The Substance<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> I wouldn\u2019t call it horror. I would call it more a genre film, which is to me very wide in scope, from sci-fi to action to everything not grounded in reality. I grew up loving films that allowed me to escape real life, which I hated, felt totally unadapted to and very bored by. [Genre] is where I found my freedom and felt powerful and fully capable to express myself in a way where there are no boundaries. I love to go into the excess and craziness. For the movie, it felt totally relevant to make the audience feel that excess and\u00a0craziness.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Has anybody made a documentary before? There\u2019s something about the documentary genre that predisposes you to truth. When you watch a doc, you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m encountering truth.\u201d The first film I made, [the doc] Hale County This Morning, This Evening<\/em>, I tried to situate a certain type of Black aesthetics, a certain type of open poetic image in this space of truth. Because when someone sees this image that\u2019s strategically ambiguous, you don\u2019t really know what\u2019s happening, you\u2019re forced to complete the image with your imagination. Then you go out into the world and see the world with that same\u00a0ambiguity.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tCoralie Fargeat<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tNickel Boys<\/em> is shot from the point of view of the characters to the point where the actors are actually wearing cameras, right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Maybe 10\u202fpercent of the time, the actors are essentially camera operators. The idea is, how do you make the camera an organ, bring it into your body? It\u2019s based on a true story of the Dozier School for Boys, in which boys were just straight-out murdered in North Florida. It closed in 2011; they started to exhume bodies in 2013. The idea is to give life to those who lost theirs by allowing us to vicariously see from their perspectives.<\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> It must\u2019ve been incredibly challenging to show every single person in the movie the ropes. You are interfacing with a camera in a way that general<\/a>ly you\u2019re specifically told not to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Yeah, but I feel like everyone here would have so much fun doing it, because I\u2019m like, \u201cTreat the camera like a character.\u201d And then they\u2019re just playing a different game<\/a>. They\u2019re actually more free to be on the playground than to be in a place in which the choreography is a little bit more\u00a0traditional.<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> It\u2019s such an assured movie. It\u2019s poetry. In all of your movies, I love feeling as an audience member, \u201cOh, I know that the people who made it, they take me by the hand and direct me.\u201d (To Corbet<\/em>) I love going to the cinema and going, \u201cOh, OK, it\u2019s a different time count. I\u2019m going to settle into Brady\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tNickel Boys<\/em> by RaMell Ross<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tL. Kasimu Harris\/Amazon Content Services LLC.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> (To Corbet<\/em>) You have a couple shots in your film that are un-fucking-believable, especially the opening that goes from the bottom of the ship to the top. And I guess that\u2019s why it\u2019s the opening, but there\u2019s something about the immigrant experience that is expressed through that. That is just the most sweeping emotion \u2026<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> It was so claustrophobic. Until the Statue of Liberty, I was totally disoriented. To be honest, I didn\u2019t understand at first that I was in a boat. I thought I was in some kind of torture chamber. It looked like a camp. When he came out, I felt totally manipulated in a great way.<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> That\u2019s one of my things, perspective, as a director. I\u2019m really in Adrien Brody\u2019s perspective. I\u2019m always with him. (To Villeneuve<\/em>) I\u2019m always with Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet in your movie, seeing it through his eyes.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tEdward Berger<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhen you work in a medium where you\u2019re making art that\u2019s two to three hours long, how do you feel about the fact that people\u2019s attention spans are getting shorter?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Every cut is always too long, and you know that. If you\u2019re going to run for three hours, it had better be worth what I call the \u201cbum ache\u201d factor.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> There\u2019s the physical time and there\u2019s the mental time of a movie. We all, I am sure, have seen a five-minute short film that lasted forever and a three-hour movie that went like that. I think it\u2019s about the emotional impact of the film. If the audience loses track of the emotional path, then you\u2019re fucked.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Time dilates if you do it right.<\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> All the movies around this table are what you\u2019d call long. It\u2019s great to have movies that take the time to present a universe, to present things that are more radical. It\u2019s also great to have things that are out of the regular format. We have so many things that look the same. I\u2019m not so sure about the audience having less attention because I think it really depends on how you make their journey. It\u2019s also OK to sometimes be bored during a film. You don\u2019t have to be excited all the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> I also don\u2019t know about the attention span. Maybe I\u2019m an eternal optimist, but I think it\u2019ll swing the other way. If you tell an audience, there\u2019s this guy Brady Corbet, he made a movie that\u2019s almost four hours long, it\u2019s got an intermission, it\u2019s 70mm \u2014 it somehow becomes, \u201cI\u2019ve got to go see it because it\u2019s a spectacle. I don\u2019t get that on television.\u201d And then if the emotionality is right, it can be two and a half hours or four, it doesn\u2019t really matter. (To Corbet<\/em>) I think part of the selling point of your movie \u2014 getting people to the theater \u2014 will be its\u00a0length.<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> You do not want anyone to be bored in my world. Even though a scene is designed to be long, it better be interesting. You\u2019ve got to go, \u201cWhat\u2019s going to happen next?\u201d That\u2019s the fundamentals of theater and film.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tDenis Villeneuve<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tDenis, we had Zendaya here for our Actress Roundtable, and she described a sequence in Dune: Part Two<\/em> where you could only shoot one hour each day in the desert. Can you tell us about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> I went a bit dogmatic with the light. We shot exclusively in the desert with natural light, and we didn\u2019t want to compromise aesthetically. So it meant that some scenes were shot over a week every night. I was in love with the idea of bringing naturalism to the screen \u2014 as much as possible to feel close to nature. It meant that we had to prep like nothing I\u2019ve done before. The opening scenes, for instance, there\u2019s a battle around a rock. That rock doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s like 12 different locations in Jordan. [Cinematographer] Greig Fraser was scanning the rocks with drones, and then he put that in the computer to know that if he wants the sun behind the actress when she smashes the head of the guy, the sun is going to be there on Nov.\u00a03 at 9:45. It was a puzzle for the actors and for my first AD \u2014 but very rewarding in the\u00a0camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> You guys are doing astronomy!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> A crazy coincidence: The movie opens with an eclipse, and as I was shooting, there was an eclipse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> You didn\u2019t know that was going to happen?<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> No, I cannot say to Legendary [which financed the film], \u201cYou know what? We\u2019re going to shoot in Jordan in the fall of 2022 because there will be an eclipse there.\u201d No, no, it\u2019s a coincidence. But we put the camera on the sun and shot the\u00a0eclipse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tUsually we say to a director as a metaphor that they built the equivalent of the Sistine Chapel or Colosseum in their movies, but we actually have people at this table who did those things. What went into building these enormous sets?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> It\u2019s actually cheaper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> (To Scott<\/em>) Did you shoot in the Colosseum?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> No, I went to the Colosseum with my production designer. We stood in it. We turned to each other and said, \u201cIt\u2019s too small.\u201d My Colosseum is about 10\u202fpercent bigger because when you have a horse going full gallop, you want him to not run into a wall. So we built 50\u202fpercent real and digitally put in the rest. When you build more, there\u2019s less bluescreen. Every time there\u2019s blue, there\u2019s money.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> It\u2019s better for the actors, too.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRaMell Ross<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tBrady, you had the task of showing that your protagonist is a great architect, but you didn\u2019t have a lot of money to do that. So how did you and your crew figure that out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> If the film had been about a more ornamental style of architecture, we would not have been able to do it at this budget level because we built massive facades, real concrete, and then we did very simple digital extensions so that you had real texture, light, shadow, and essentially it\u2019s just a big cube. It\u2019s kind of VFX 101. The film was shot on VistaVision, and VistaVision\u2019s field of view is just immense. So you can be physically close to an object and see from the ground to the sky. It doesn\u2019t warp the object or on the edges. You really feel the impact of the architecture. (To Scott<\/em>) I\u2019ve seen some photos of your set, and it\u2019s insane. That\u2019s one of the greatest sets I think I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Did you tear it down?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> OK, I did a big film called Kingdom of Heaven<\/em> years ago in Ouarzazate, Morocco. And to take it down would\u2019ve cost me $300,000. So I said to the Ouarzazates, \u201cDo you want to buy it? I can sell it to you for $10, but you have to take on all the responsibility of insurance.\u201d So I sold it for $10. Fifteen years later, I wanted to rent it back to do the Numidian sequence [in Gladiator\u00a0II<\/em>]. I had to pay $1\u202fmillion to rent my own set.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> It\u2019s inflation.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrady Corbet<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhotographed by Beau Grealy<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tBeautiful sets are made and then often destroyed. Is there a more environmentally responsible way to make movies?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> Reuse them. The Sistine Chapel set is still in Rome. It\u2019s in storage. People are going to shoot in the Sistine Chapel again.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> And they need to be built with reusability in mind. If you don\u2019t approach it that way, then you\u2019re building shit out of Styrofoam.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> Coralie shot a movie that takes place in L.A. at home [in France]. That\u2019s environmental.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> We built the apartment, which was the most important decision because it\u2019s maybe 70\u202fpercent of the film. Our main question was how we were going to do that view over L.A. I didn\u2019t want to shoot on greenscreen because it was going to be 70 days in front of a greenscreen, which is hell. We researched whether we\u2019re going to do it like the curtains from the old-time movies, or they now have LED screens where you can project a video. We did some tests, and I discussed it with my DP, and he said, \u201cYou know what? I prefer the old-fashioned backdrop because it\u2019s more poetic. The old movies that I watched, they had this backdrop.\u201d When the L.A. backdrop arrived, UPS delivery, we had to unpack it, light everything. I remember I entered the set and I was like, \u201cOh my God.\u201d I felt it was going to work. It was so realistic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Substance <\/em>by Coralie Fargeat<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChristine Tamalet\/MUBI<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> It felt as fake as L.A.! For me, I built as much as I could, and I don\u2019t want anybody to shoot there again. We destroyed everything. They recycled the wood. Is it environmental? I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t want it to be reused. But the vehicles, we kept the vehicles. We kept the costumes.<\/p>\n

\n\tRidley, what\u2019s Denzel Washington like to direct?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Ahhhh \u2026 (Long pause<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> Next question! (Laughter<\/em>.)<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> This is my second film with him. I did American Gangster<\/em> with him, so we kind of got used to each other there, but he\u2019s probably one of the best actors we have today. He just gets it in two seconds. Doesn\u2019t want too much explanation. I say, \u201cYou\u2019ve got four cameras. Do what you want.\u201d The beauty of multicamera is that each scene is like a play. So the actors are completely freed up. It\u2019s one big theatrical scene, and it\u2019s fast. And so at the end of it, every actor is the virtuoso of himself.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tGladiator\u00a0II <\/em>by Ridley Scott<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAidan Monaghan\/Paramount Pictures<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I want to know what you all do with takes. Are you all, like, \u201cI\u2019ll do 30 takes if that\u2019s what it\u00a0takes\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> One.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne?!?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> He\u2019s got four cameras!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> He doesn\u2019t even need a take!<\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> I do a lot of takes. Fifteen.<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> But you have less coverage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> Exactly. One camera.<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> My movie doesn\u2019t work quite that way because I have so much dialogue and so much POV of Ralph Fiennes and so many people that he needs to interact with. If it\u2019s just a shot on Ralph, it\u2019ll be like two, three, four maximum. If it\u2019s a scene that is two minutes, then more, up to 12, 13, 14. I usually ask, \u201cRalph, do you want another one?\u201d And then he goes, \u201cYes, let\u2019s try.\u201d (To Villeneuve<\/em>) Did you have multiple cameras?<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tConclave<\/em> by Edward Berger<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Focus Features<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> Just one. I hate \u2014<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Whoa.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> (To Scott<\/em>) Stop it. (Laughs.<\/em>) I\u2019m a monomaniac; I love to work on one thing at a\u00a0time.<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> But on your movie, where would the second camera go?<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> But you can take it out.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> I hate that.<\/p>\n

\n\tDenis, when you were making Blade Runner 2049<\/em>, did you and Ridley talk? [Scott directed the original Blade Runner<\/em>.]\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> No, I kept right out of his way.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> No, he was very elegant. (Back to previous question<\/em>.) So I don\u2019t do a lot of takes. But some actors want to do it again. Like Javier Bardem, he always wants to play. I give it to him. Have fun.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> So do you rehearse?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> No, I don\u2019t rehearse a lot. I have a lot of conversations prior. On the day, I don\u2019t want to have a question. On the shoot, it\u2019s very visceral. I don\u2019t want to have people talking to me about ideas. But in prep, I\u2019m very open.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> (To Scott<\/em>) I heard The Martian <\/em>was more expensive to make than it was to send a rover to Mars. Is that true?<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> No, I think we cost about $80\u202fmillion. The studio didn\u2019t realize it\u2019s actually a comedy, so it sat on the shelf for two years and then they said, \u201cDo you want to look at this?\u201d And I read it and said, \u201cIt\u2019s really funny.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tDune: Part Two<\/em> by Denis Villeneuve<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWarner Bros.<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWhat have you learned from dealing with studios or financiers? By the way, Brady, this is something your movie engages with a little bit, metaphorically.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCORBET<\/strong> No comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> I am continually amazed that people will give us money to do our dream. They\u2019ve got to be crazy. And so that is real trust. I\u2019m very respectful of that. So Gladiator\u00a0II<\/em> is $10\u202fmillion under budget \u2019cause I move fast.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I went into the entire process deeply hesitant. I have an art practice, and I\u2019m used to doing things on my own terms, and I don\u2019t want to make art and argue, ever. That\u2019s not in my blood. So the idea of working with a studio seemed that it could be constrictive. But I was left with a lot of hope. I worked with Plan B, Anonymous Content, Orion and Louverture Films, and never did anyone question any of the ideas. And I know that they\u2019re fringe. I know that they\u2019re going to have to say yes to things that they may not quite understand. If you\u2019re making a poetic film, you have to be open to the idea that the meaning and the understanding will come after it\u2019s done. That\u2019s pretty hard for a studio to invest in. That I think was the biggest stress, in that if it didn\u2019t work, it seemed like it would close doors because it was such a big risk for them.<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> When you say, \u201cWhen you make a film, if it fails, it\u2019ll close doors,\u201d that\u2019s part of the game. It\u2019ll always be like that. You\u2019re always as good as your last\u00a0film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>

\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Brutalist<\/em> by Brady Corbet<\/span><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of A24<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tRidley, I\u2019ve been to your office, and you have framed on the wall Pauline Kael\u2019s 1984 review of Blade Runner<\/em>, which she panned viciously.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> She wrote this for the very posh New Yorker<\/em>. I read it and I was distressed. Enraged. I wrote to the editor, saying, \u201cIf you hate me that much, just ignore me. Don\u2019t write anything.\u201d I never got a reply. And then Blade Runner <\/em>was discovered at the Santa Monica Film Festival about 10\u202fyears later. There\u2019d been one or two diehards. So they called up Warners for the print, and they\u2019d lost the negative. They went to a drawer, pulled it out, didn\u2019t look at it, sent it to the festival. It was minus the voiceover. And that reignited the whole thing. That\u2019s the craziness of Hollywood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat do you take from that story?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> You\u2019re your own critic. I\u2019ve framed it, so I never read critique ever again. Ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I read everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFARGEAT<\/strong> Me too.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> Every Letterboxd.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> What happens if they hate it?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I try to build language to combat it.<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> Do you reply? \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> No, but I\u2019ve thought about it many times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tVILLENEUVE<\/strong> What you said, Ridley, is very important. If people say you\u2019re a failure or you\u2019re a genius, you need to have your own perspective on your work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBERGER<\/strong> The positive as well as the negative, equally dangerous. Because it\u2019s going to hinder me from making my next one if they hate it.<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> But you don\u2019t make bad things, Edward!\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSCOTT<\/strong> You want to hear a story about Cannes? I did my first movie, it cost $800,000, called The Duellists<\/em>. David Puttnam was my producer, he said they want us to be the English entry at Cannes. I said, \u201cWow, that\u2019s good!\u201d So I\u2019m at Cannes, and I\u2019m approached by a very important gentleman who was on the committee, a very big American director. He\u00a0said, \u201cLove your goddamn movie. The problem is the jury has been given $50,000 as bribery to vote for another film.\u201d He said, \u201cI will create a prize for you.\u201d [Scott won a prize for debut film.] I didn\u2019t get the Palme d\u2019Or. Ironically, the Palme didn\u2019t go to the guy who was paying them off. It went to two brothers who made Padre Padrone<\/em>. They earned it by having a good film. I thought, \u201cFuck this corruption, even at this level.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tROSS<\/strong> I thought you were going to be like, \u201cAnd so I gave him $100,000, and that\u2019s how I got here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story appeared in the Jan. 9 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From tuning out critics to reading every review, from ridiculed first-day rituals to when it\u2019s OK not to collaborate with the crew, the directors of six of this year\u2019s most daring movies each have their own strategies for managing their careers and their sets. On a Sunday afternoon in November, Edward Berger (Conclave), Brady Corbet…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":648391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/THR_RT_DIRECTORS_0736-SPLASH-2025.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[153470,153471,22911,138052,120426,101493,153472,124783,151550,151551,1503,64190,151617,144488],"class_list":["post-648390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-conclave","tag-coralie-fargeat","tag-denis-villeneuve","tag-director-roundtable","tag-dune-part-two","tag-edward-berger","tag-gladiator-ii","tag-international","tag-nickel-boys","tag-ramell-ross","tag-ridley-scott","tag-the-brutalist","tag-the-substance","tag-thr-original-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}