Episode Transcript

PTA: You're listening to the A24 podcast.

Josh: Yes, you’re listening...

[Laughter]

Josh: Benny, you got the nice mic.

Benny: Yeah, I don’t know if this is the nice one.

Josh: Okay, we did this, we did this job once where it was like a PSA for turtles.

Benny: Yeah.

Josh: And we were shooting with some people and they were wearing wire mics. Radio mics.

Benny: I was mixing, and I was running boom and all that, but I heard the wire mics and there was this whole side conversation between the two of them, about the turtle. And the intricate kind of bend and sway of the turtle's neck, and it got very…

PTA: Sexual.

Josh: Yes.

Benny: Yeah.

Josh: And then one of them reminded the other like, “We are wearing microphones…

[Laughter]

Benny: And they just looked over, right at me, and I was like... this dead stare. Like I didn’t hear a thing.

Josh: It’s probably better in that scenario to actually confront and be like, “Yeah, I heard everything you said.”

Benny: No. It just went away. It disappeared, and he brings it up.

PTA: Did you get anybody, knowing, in the sort of situations that you had, across the street, mixing with real people–how many times a day did somebody know that that was Sandler?

Josh: Weirdly enough, I feel like what we would do, we’d have sort of extras and PAs walk out through the streets, and when they saw someone who did recognize him, they were instructed to go up and say “Hey where’s the 6 train?” and stuff like that, so that you have that in the background.

But there’s one take, I remember, I think... did we show that part to you? Maybe early on. That scene between him and Julia when they’re fighting outside the nightclub.

PTA: Yes! Yes.

Josh: And there’s a guy standing there, maybe ten feet away from them when they’re having this epic argument. He is doing his best to just be a pedestrian. And he’s averting his eyes, but he’s in the movie. And he didn’t recognize it was Sandler. I wonder, I wonder, I never paid attention to it.

Benny: Well people, people would notice him. And he would just do this thing where he’d be like, “Oh yeah hey hey, just give me a second, but as Howard.”

PTA: Right.

Benny: Even though, you know, even though they don’t realize that he’s still being a nice guy, he’ll be like, “Just give me one second I’ll get you after this.” And then he’ll go right into the role.

Josh: Well what about in your film? In Punch-Drunk Love. When you’re in Hawaii, in the parade scene. That’s a real parade I imagine, right?

PTA: That’s a real parade but he’s at least shielded.

Josh: By that phone-

PTA: By that phone booth. But we had done other stuff in terms of...

Josh: I’m curious, were those extras around him? Or those were…?

PTA: No. Hah.

Josh: Those were real people.

PTA: There’s a parade going on, but honestly he just swooped in, but that’s not to say we didn’t have our own fair share of that. It was before 9/11 so we were running through an airport. I mean we were running, like wild through an airport. And we were going so fast that there was this one moment where someone yelled out, “Hey that’s Ben Stiller!”

[Laughter]

Josh: That’s the benefit of having a Jewish comedian-

PTA: Somebody was just like, “It’s the funny guy from TV!”

Josh: That’s crazy, ‘cause the movie came out after 9/11 but you shot it before obviously.

PTA: Yeah, so we were running through metal detectors and airport security and no-one was saying boo, that was yeah, a different time.

Josh: You just, you just brought the camera in they were-

Benny: It doesn’t look like that at all.

Josh: Yeah, well that’s what’s amazing.

PTA: Yeah ‘cause we cut that shit out... that didn’t look…

Benny: No, but you know what I mean? It doesn’t have the feeling like it seems like you had total control over everything.

PTA: Right, and well sometimes you go, like that parade scene you were talking about, that’s like, talking of Sandler like, this chaos is going on, he’s getting the take, he’s pretty good, but he’s gotta go to like 10, and the takes that’s in the film is like, it would happen where all these sweet things would go on during the parade like sweet kindergarten hula classes-

Josh: That you wanted and shit.

PTA: ... and shit like that and it was like, okay and he’s not there so the take that’s in the film where he goes absolutely ballistic this tribal sorta drum thing, and you feel like he hears that and it gets inside him, and the next thing you know his eyes are bulging out of his head. Like that’s the beauty of shooting in a real scenario.

Josh: Exactly. Fate comes into play. But that’s like, Sandler’s like that. We were just talking about that with him earlier today. He’s like the oldest soul in the world and the youngest soul in the world at the same time. And I see that in your movie and I also see that in mine where he's almost like a newborn.

But he’s also like this ancient person that’s trying to manifest his own destiny all the time and in that I mean I was telling him this morning, I was like, I told him we were gonna see you later and I said it's the little things, it's almost like the old soul is getting frustrated with the young soul in the movie.

Like when they’re having dinner on that first date and he’s telling her about the pudding thing and then she brings up the hammer story… and he does that little hand thing. He throws his hand with just this pure frustration and it’s the old soul being angry with the young soul and it's just, ah man... and that movie is very cosmic, but also kind of like a cartoon.

PTA: Yeah.

Benny: His cadence in it is so fragile, and so beautiful. And it captures what makes his comedy so awesome too. Which I loved.

Josh: You’re a Big Daddy fan right?

PTA: Big Big Daddy fan.

Josh: Is that the one that you saw, where you were like...

PTA: That, I had seen Happy Gilmore, and I loved that, right and that was really the beginning, but I also knew SNL, right. So I knew SNL, and then Happy Gilmore.

Don’t tell Adam, I liked The Waterboy, but I didn’t love The Waterboy like I loved Happy Gilmore, but Big Daddy just was something else entirely. In particular the scene where he’s screaming at his dad on the telephone. The late great Joe Bologna and then I got backtracked and was like, Wait now I need to see every single thing over and over again.

Josh: The only thing I haven’t seen of his is Going Overboard.

PTA: I don’t know Going Overboard.

Josh: The cover I know very very well. Well the cover they put Sandler’s face-

PTA: Oh yes, I do know this one yes, of course of course yeah...

Benny: I've seen actually the trailer online is pretty amazing, you know he’s talking right to the camera-

PTA: Mhm.

Josh: Yeah, yeah I’ve never seen that one. But you were on the set of Little Nicky?

PTA: Yeah, that's when I first met him. I was down the street from here having dinner with Mike De Luca and he was like, “Well what so you wanna do next?” I said, “You know, well I know you know Adam Sandler. I wanna work with Adam Sandler.”

Josh: Haha. Amazing.

PTA: And he was like, “Well he’s down the street at Paramount shooting, you should go visit him.” And he called him up. So I went to visit. I hate visiting sets, I feel like...

Josh: Right, you feel like a nuisance right?

PTA: Oh it's the worst. It’s like, this is horrible.

Josh: Does it remind you how horrible it is making a movie?

PTA: Yes it does. And-

Benny: It’s like, This is what I’m doing?

PTA: Yeah its like, does it look like... Do I look like that fucking douche-y?

[Laughter]

PTA: And then Quentin came over to me ‘cause Quentin was shooting, and he’s like, “What are you doing here?” And I could see in his head he’s like, Well what’s going on?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

PTA: Because at the time he had been writing Inglourious Basterds.

Josh: For Bear Jew, yeah.

PTA: And he had this idea, and was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Josh: And he could see what you were doing and he’s like, “Well I’m in Little Nicky right now, what-”

PTA: What are you doing?

Josh: I love that.

PTA: I was like, “See ya sucker!”... so that was my first intro to Sandler. And we kinda became friends, and that was around the time Magnolia had just come out, and he sees it, after a day of shooting Little Nicky, on his way home…

That is very Sandler, now that you know him very well. He’s like driving to the movies after a long day of work, like by himself. Like park the car, go up, and get a ticket. Watches a three and a half hour fucking thing, and calls me and is like “Buddy, buddy, that’s not what we’re planning on doing right?”

Benny: There is an amazing story. So I was sitting at home and there was like the channel 35 in New York, and it was like the sex channel at nighttime. So I’m sitting at home and I’m watching it, and I’m watching the commercials-

Josh: Why were you watching it Benny?

Benny: ‘Cause I was just... I was enjoying myself.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah.

Benny: Um.

Josh: Literally.

Benny: And so I’m watching it, and all the sudden I’m like, What is going on right now? I see Tom Cruise, doing an ad for this sex thing and I’m like, what the fuck. I’m like literally, like my head exploded, ‘cause this is late night, New York, nobody is there. And this is like months before anything was even out there.

Josh: It was... that was cool. That was cool marketing.

Benny: But I-

Josh: That was your idea?

PTA: Yeah.

Benny: I clocked the number. I remembered the number and I was like, alright, when we got to a movie theater... I went into the payphone ‘cause I wasn’t gonna call from the home phone.

PTA: Right.

Benny: So I called from the pay phone, and I was like, “Josh listen, listen.” And it was him doing the recording and I was like, This is insane!

Josh: That's amazing.

PTA: I wish I still had it, ‘cause we would just listen to the messages all day long and some guy would be like, “Yo man, Tom Cruise, that’s fucked up that you’re doing these ads, man. You were cool before.”

Josh: You met Tom on the set of Eyes Wide Shut?

PTA: Yeah.

Josh: Whew.

Benny: Oh man.

PTA: That’s better than Little Nicky. A little bit. I met him, and then I met Kubrick, and then Nicole Kidman. And you know it was, that’s… I’ll take that one home with me.

Benny: Yeah.

Josh: There’s a story that I read somewhere that after something like a couple of takes you said something to Kubrick. Something like, you only need to do three or something like that. Or...

PTA: Now we talked about the size of his crew.

Josh: Okay.

PTA: Cause he had like 6 people. And I go, “Wow you know you have a small crew,” and he’s like, “Well how many do you use?”

[Laughter]

PTA: You know it was one of those moments where you really have to assess like, “Like a fucking hundred,” and that’s too many. And he made a very good point.

Josh: How many were on Phantom Thread? It seems like you pared that one down a little.

PTA: That one was small, thank God. ‘Cause we were in a very small space.

Benny: It’s the location really, like shooting on location helps a lot.

PTA: It does. I mean, it must be the same for you?

Josh: This was a big one, like this was a big crew for us.

PTA: What’s big for you? Forty?

Josh: Good Time was probably in the forty to fifty range.

PTA: Really?

Josh: And then... but you know we’re shooting a lot of stuff, you know, with a very splintered crew at times.

Benny: It's a matter of where the main crew is.

Josh: Gems was major, we had like crew requirements or minimum crew requirements or something like that.

Benny: Where there were probably close to 100 at times.

PTA: It’s crazy. I mean sometimes you just feel like you’re trying to outrun where the base camp is.

Josh: Yes.

PTA: “You all stay here, and we’ll be right back.”

Josh: You know that story about They All Laughed? That Bogdanovich story where he… he told the call time in the day and it was like Midtown or something like that. And then he took Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn down to South Street Seaport in a cab. And he’s like, “We’re just gonna shoot,” and took the camera guy. And in that scene you’ll see people looking like, what?

Benny: That was a live shoe store.

Josh: And they said “Wait there…”

Benny: ‘Cause they all wanted to take pictures with Audrey, and She’s like, “Just give me a second I’m just gonna go do something,” and she ran outside and did it.

Josh: And there’s some scenes where we took Sandler outside to the street.

Benny: We never closed down the street though.

Josh: No. No.

Benny: We never did. If someone walks through they walk through. But it's also like, in New York, if someone closes down that street, they get so angry. Like I’m guilty of that too, and I try to be nice when a person is like “Hey we’re just filming something” and I’m like okay I gotta put the karma out there. But after five minutes I’m like, Okay let me through.

Josh: I wanna go back for a second to something that just came into my mind because it's important and I have to tell you.

First of all, just that, the fact that you made the film with Adam, for me personally, I think it came at a time–I was 18 when the movie came out, and I think it came at a time where I was playing catch up with a lot of movies, so I wasn’t seeing new stuff. I was just seeing a lot of old shit, so like, I’m a fan of your movies so I have to go. And Sandler was just like a hero of mine from the comedy stuff and the comedy records and the movies, and then when I saw–when the two worlds combined it was kind of groundbreaking to me, and I gotta thank you man... ‘cause that was, I mean it’s like Popeye, you know what I mean? It is like–you used that Nilsson track.

But he is! He’s like this superhero and you made an Adam Sandler movie, but you did that! And anyway I just had to get that off my chest. I’m listening to Benny talk about us not closing down streets and I just, you know, I had to get that off my chest. I’m sorry for the non sequitur.

PTA: Well no. It's not a non sequitur ‘cause we’re talking about Sandler. And you guys with this movie, it’s, I mean, is he in every single scene?

Josh: Well there's stuff with Julia, but she’s the only other person we run off with.

PTA: Right, the stuff when she’s in Atlantic City.

Josh: Mohegan Sun, yeah.

PTA: Right but, like… he’s in every scene.

Josh: Right. No, but his vibe is in every scene. Well we start off, when we go off in Africa, but even that, we even made a joke when we were shooting down in Africa. There was this long shoot attached to it that was actually pretty scary, and we made this joke we were like–‘cause everyone who showed up to be in this movie thought Adam Sandler would be there ‘cause we were shooting an Adam Sandler movie. And they were like, “Is Adam gonna be here?” And we were like, “No, no this actually takes place before we meet his character.” And then Ronnie Bronstein who wrote the movie with us...

PTA: Even in fucking Africa, everyone is excited to see Adam Sandler.

Josh: Which is crazy! And Ronnie Bronstein who was there, he says to me, “Well lets just tell them what’s going to happen in the scene.” And I see him telling people he’s like, “So Sandler is gonna come, Howard's character is gonna come belaying down this long chimney mine and say, ‘You got my gem?’”

We were trying to think of the most ridiculous, almost Zohan thing we could, right, and they were like, Oh yeah. Like they could imagine that. You know what I mean? That wouldn’t be weird for him. To be like a jeweler from 47th street belaying down...

Benny: In a weird way you can say anything and imagine it with him. Like you can say anything and it would make sense, which is what makes him incredible. Like you can explain him in any situation and totally buy that he would be there caring about it, and it’s insane.

PTA: Yeah. They call that star power.

Josh: It’s a real thing.

PTA: It's a very real thing.

Benny: He showed up. He showed up on the set one day and I go, “Whoa Sandler you look really good,” and he goes, “Hey, that’s why some of us are movie stars.”

[Laughter]

Josh: He also would do this thing where he would have these grapes. And they were deli grapes, you know? They were grapes you’d get at the deli but they got, in his hand, you know in the plastic bowl, they got to be cold by sitting around in the fridge all day and he would be like, “You want one?” And everyone would be like, Whoa I get to have an Adam Sandler grape and you take them and you’re like, “Wow these are really good grapes.” And he goes, “Movie star grapes. Only a couple guys get these grapes.”

PTA: But you know, if you were telling me this story and it’d be Brad Pitt I’d go, yeah that makes sense. Leo DiCaprio, that’s a movie star. Alright. But when you see Sandler from a distance you’re like, Not a movie star, not a movie star, but as he gets closer and closer you’re like… Movie star?

[Laughter]

PTA: Movie star! It’s a movie star.

Josh: Totally, totally. You see him taken out of that normal context in your movie, it sort of magnified him a bit. Just seeing this guy with a little coffee mug in his hand. And he’s such a small man, Barry Egan, and well you made him, he’s also so big. He’s so big. And you made him, well it's not a nude scene, but it might as well be, that first phone call… was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen Adam Sandler.

PTA: Did you guys get... like how early on, did it take a couple days? ‘Cause you guys were also filming around a lot beforehand, did you hit the ground running? Or did you... did it take a second for him to follow?

Benny: Right. Actually that first couple, like right after that first rehearsal we did kind of hit the ground running. It was kind of like...

Josh: The rehearsal or the camera test? Or the character test.

Benny: Well, the character test.

Josh: He said the only other movie he had done that on was your movie.

PTA: Right. That’s why I was asking ‘cause, like, it took a second. But once that happened it was...

Benny: It was weird though cause he was... it wasn’t all there, but it was pretty close. And it was kind of exciting that all of a sudden he just put on these clothes and he put on the teeth, and this was something really special.

Josh: We did a crazy thing. I mean as a performer I would have been petrified. I mean we did three things first. We presented the whole thing which was what it actually was, ‘cause the function of it was like a screen test for Julia Fox.

PTA: Right. Right.

Josh: And we told him that. But we also were thinking, This is the first time we’re seeing Howard.

Benny: What’s that gonna be like?

Josh: ‘Cause like, we wrote him pretty specifically on the page. But how is Sandler going to breathe him? Howard was so much fun to write. And we actually had to write some voicemails for him to leave for this pop-up A24 is doing. And it was so much fun just writing. And we were in Boston and Sandler was in front of me and it was like, I still got it. I could just write this guy's voice so easily.

And the thing with Sandler is he has this vulnerability and this rage at the same time obviously. And he was able to kind of flip it on and off which was funny. And he gave us the humor that we wanted for the character. And we left there and we went to this karaoke spot, we rented this karaoke room.

Benny: Did a wardrobe change.

Josh: We did a wardrobe change. And the scenario was that Howard shows up late ‘cause he couldn’t get out of something with his family. And Julia’s already there with the other jewelers and actually the bouncer told this guy, told Liam Payne from One Direction that Adam Sandler was going to be there, and you should come through. And they ended up singing the Bee Gees’ “How Deep is Your Love.” And I mean, Saturday Night Fever is one of my favorite movies of all time. And I’m sitting there watching one of my heroes... and I don’t know the music of One Direction but the guy’s a professional singer. And they’re both singing.

Benny: But he went to see Adam Sandler, and Adam just showed up as Howard, and he’s acting like a peer of this other jeweler. Like no breaking character, and no facade.

PTA: Right.

Josh: But the scary thing that we did with him was... the next day we had Julia come back ‘cause it went so well. And we had this viewing room at a sports bar and we filled it with some degenerate gamblers and some real life bookies who we were actually trying to convince to be in the movie still.

And the game was on and it was Celtics game and we had the script and that was it, and all these people showed up to meet Adam Sandler but he showed up as Howard and he’s trying to give them enough Sandler so that they’re okay with it, but he’s really trying to get them to open up their personality so that he can feast on them in a weird way.

Benny: The thing was crazy ‘cause we had two cameras filming it just in case like, Maybe we could edit it together?

Josh: We never tried ‘cause it was impossible.

Benny: But that was in a weird way, and I’m kind of just realizing it, but that was kind of like a test in how we would first film the scenes in the movie. Which is, he’s in a way not going to be able to understand what we’re shooting, we’re gonna be shooting something, so he’s got to be Howard the whole time for it to be able to really work. And then it’s just, that night. To see him in that leather coat, and he had gel in his hair....

Josh: We had this moment on set too, where the script ended with him–it’s in the movie where he asks Kevin Garnett, “Does your coach know you’re here?” and he goes, “No,” and we had Demany say “crazy ass jew.” On set, in the moment, we were all in the back room and he was just kind of coming in and out with the earrings.

And we just sort of didn’t want it to stop, ‘cause Sandler was like, “Just come and look at this.” Like a dog, like, What do you want me to do now? And we would be like, “Jeremy Lin.” And he would come up to KG and be like, “What do you think of this Jeremy Lin kid?” And then Kevin was funny and he’d come back and we’d be like, “Ask him about the herb in the league.” And he’d be like, “What’s up with the herb in the league? A lot of guys are smoking now, what do you think about that? Good or bad?” And it became this kind of constant in and out.

It was unbelievable because you got to see the comedian, the sort of fiery… I’m wondering did you do any moments, or were there any moments in your film, where you would just kind of let him go?

PTA: There were bits here and there, but they didn’t-

Josh: Supermarket, maybe?

PTA: Maybe a little bit? You know, but they were smaller bursts. There was less pressure like the situations you guys had. It was a different character too. It’s not like someone who’s going to be able to sort of snap talk like Howard you know?

So we’d have glimpses of it, and it would be exciting, but like that's the power of Adam is like, he’s Barry still. You know, right? But how do you find that line? I would assume people would see this film and think that there is absolutely no script, everyone is making up every single word as they say, and that balance between doing a test where you’re like we didn't even bother to cut it together. Because I know that feeling where you’re sitting there and you’re like, this is so far out in improv land that it's kind of wonderful but it's useless.

Josh: Well it's a good means. Not an end, improv.

Benny: It’s a tool to cover up the tracks in a way, so someone can kind of add a bit here and there over the general rhythm and the lines, and then it just disappears.

Josh: You know when we’re writing with Ronnie, whom you’ve met... the script is so scary to me. The page. ‘Cause it’s so dead. It’s just a piece of paper.

And we spent ten years writing this thing. So we just keep revisiting it, and hearing it out loud, and then once we started we probably read it out loud with Sandler, I don’t know, maybe four or five times, as a group. And each time we would do it, I would have the final draft document open and changing it as I’m hearing him say his instincts.

So it was a constant… the goal was to make it seem like it was unspooling in front of you. Like there’s no script at all because that adds also to the tension, because it adds to the plausibility, like, No this is actually happening in front of me, and I can’t believe it.

Benny: Yeah, and then on top… you add that with actors allowing to cut each other off. At any moment. There’s that freedom like, I’m gonna stop you and say my line now. Stop. And that doesn’t happen at the same point on each other's takes...

PTA: Right.

Benny: And we have a shot reverse shot with no actual cross coverage, and then again you’re thinking, wait a second. That shouldn’t be possible to have an AB on that because it just happened. And then you’re just thinking everything is real, and then you think there’s no way that they just kind of-

PTA: So are you always one camera?

Benny: We had multiple cameras but never for the editing.

PTA: Never helping the edit, right. Well, and let me… and does that have to do with his royal highness? The greatest cinematographer.

Josh: Darius.

Benny: It actually, it did.

PTA: Darius. Who we should actually talk in depth about…

PTA: 'Cause I know we all love him and have worked with him.

Josh: I love him. I loved what you guys did together.

PTA: He’s the greatest. But when I heard that he was doing this with you–I hope Darius hears this because we’ll say some nice things about him–but I was nervous. Because Darius is such a master. And the work that he has done previously looks like it’s taken three months to paint every shot right.

Josh: Yeah. A twelve set up a day type of guy.

PTA: Right. But in working with him, and now in hearing your experience was good with him, what’s so brilliant about him is that he adapted. And I said... my compliment to him is that it looks like there’s not one fucking light on.

Benny: I know, it's insane.

PTA: And that’s, that...

Josh: He lit the hell out of the movie too.

PTA: Oh, absolutely.

Benny: I was looking at a video, and I wish I had it. Because there’s a video when Julia opened the door... and the amount, there’s just these lights popping through this one point and we’re reflecting back and forth on various muslin cloths, back and forth...

Josh: Then negative, on negative…

Benny: And then negatives. And it all just started landing on the perfect–because he looks at it like real things. He’s like... I call him a necromancer in a weird way. Because he literally, he talks like light, like it's alive and he has to bring it back.

PTA: Did he shoot that test that you guys did?

Josh: He didn’t actually. He was working on, I forgot what he was working on. But he was working on a TV show he was doing out here. So he didn’t. But we did do a music video for Jay-Z with him, and that was the most chaotic shoot I’ve ever been a part of in my life. Because I was up in a helicopter operating the camera from up there, ‘cause he wouldn’t do the helicopter stuff because of an accident he had with maybe The Interpreter I think, I don’t remember which film. So we tried that out and he was this poetic zen center.

PTA: Mhm.

Josh: And I’m not kidding, it was such a hectic shoot. It was such a hectic shoot. And two days, and it was tough nights. It was cold, and everyone was pretending it was summer. If we can do that together, we’d be fine in an actual structured production.

PTA: Right.

Josh: But he said very early on, I wanna make your movie. I don’t want you to make my movie.

PTA: Yeah. I mean, for somebody of that caliber. I think the expectation would be like, You’re fucking lucky to have me.

Benny: Yes.

Josh: You’re right.

PTA: But he’s very much the opposite, and I think, I remember he told me he wrote in a notebook before he came to work with you guys, like, “This is not my movie.” You know? It was so Darius.

Josh: Well he’s very...

PTA: So generous.

Josh: He’s ageless in the sense that he’s like, he feels like an eight year old cousin of mine, when I was eight. He had so much energy on set it was incredible. And he said, “You frame the film, Josh. You frame it.” I drew all the storyboards and we talked a lot about it. And he said, “You’re gonna frame the film. I can only just give you my opinion.”

And, as you know, he is of a certain ilk of a person who looks at lenses like science fiction pieces of machinery. Like these things that capture humanity in a very unique way. And even in Punch-Drunk Love, those flare moments evoke the cosmos in a strange way. He was the first person to say, “We gotta do anamorphic,” ‘cause he was looking at our casting and he was like, “These faces are unbelievable.” And normally the human face is 4:3 you’d think, but he was like, “No it has to be anamorphic.” 4-perf anamorphic. So that you can feel like these faces are in 3D.

Benny: He got so, he made us get so detailed. And we’d go off on our references with him, we would get so deep into the discussion of the shots and of the moments, that it became this kind of insane story outside of everything.

Josh: The idea of long lenses… movement but on a long lens.

PTA: Was exciting...

Josh: Well, at first no.

[Laughter]

Josh: At first he was like, No. This is not okay. Why would you move the camera on a long lens? Like, what’s the effect?

Benny: On a 400, or no a 425.

PTA: Right.

Josh: And often Sandler would hear us being like, “You know I think we should go with the 150 macro.” And he’d be like, “Let’s try this, let’s put the 75 on.” And I was like, “I think the 150.” And he put the 75 on, and we’re looking at it and we’re like, “Oh yeah it’s nice. It’s nice.” And he goes, “Okay fine let's put the 150.” And then he looks, and he goes, “You were right. It's the 150.”

Benny: It was…

Josh: And he started to see the movie through our lens, which was very cool.

Benny: He did it…

Josh: I remember at one point, he started to, he showed us this one movie called The Moment of Truth, you ever see this movie? The Francesco Rosi movie?

PTA: I haven’t.

Josh: It’s about a bullfighter, Miguelín.

Benny: A real bullfighter in a fictional film.

Josh: Yeah. It’s an awesome movie. Actually, they set up a screening for us at Criterion because they did the mastering. And we watched it together, and he did research and he found out they used this 360 C-lens. This 360 millimeter C lens, and like he searched, and he searched, and he found it.

PTA: Uh huh.

Josh: And he showed up with this red box and it was like, when he brought it to us it was like finding an alien carcass. He’s like “I got it,” and then we,every once in a while he would be like, “Should we try the 360?” And 360 is a long lens. You know what I mean?

PTA: Yeah.

Benny: And it’s prime. So you can’t, you know... you’re locked. You’re stuck.

Josh: Yeah, so he was, he got to be very on pace with the film. Even though, like our main reference for the whole movie was this architect named Michael Graves. Literally, Darius to this day texts me and he’s like, “Please I never wanna hear the name Michael Graves ever again.” He’s like a super postmodern architect.

Benny: Garish but beautiful.

Josh: Right. Yeah so that was our concept. And we would send him these images of this guy's buildings. Or like this Dustbuster that he just designed, and he would be like, “Please, stop. Just send me a Saul Leiter photograph once. Please.” And like, we’re not making Carol, you know what I mean? But like, Saul Leiter is a genius. But that’s not what we’re doing.

Benny: He spent all this time with all these lights bouncing off, and it was for a very specific shot.

PTA: Uh huh.

Benny: And we don’t block. So we let the actors go and then we fix and change to them. And Darius comes up and says, “Okay Benny why don’t you just tell them to stand three feet to the left? In the spot, because it's perfect for the lighting.” And I said, “Well Darius they chose to stand there. So we're gonna have them stand there.”

And he’s like, “It’s two feet. Just stand right there.” And I’m like, “I can’t do it.” I was like, “That’s where they chose, that’s where they gotta be.” And he had to totally open up. And he’s like, “360 lighting? I’ve never done that before. Just have the camera be able to shoot anywhere?”

PTA: But it’s such a measure of him, as an artist and a man because I mean, I think that there are… I don’t want to name any names, but let's just say like the top. The pros. Maybe like a Gordon Willis type, or somebody that would’ve said “Either we’re not fucking shooting, or they move.” You know what I mean?

Josh: No. I was a little, the reason why that thought never even entered my head was because of the actual interpersonal relationship I have with him.

PTA: Yeah. Totally.

Josh: And he’s like, it’s amazing. He was sending me stills from your short together, and he’s like, “Look at this division.” And it's great that he’s still, after all these years he’s still so...

Benny: Excited.

PTA: Excited, yeah.

Josh: But like, genuinely excited. And he was, I remember when he was... when you guys were looking at the test and he was like, “No, Josh you don’t understand what this looks like.” And I love that. And then he would tell Benny when we were coloring... that’s when a lot of the battles happened. Coloring is when it got heated actually.

Benny: You were actually doing color while we were-

PTA: Mercifully he was in New York. And it was a little bit like, “Sorry Darius it's a bad connection!”