Simon Mayo Interviews Noah Baumbach

I wrapped this last one. I start the Lewis Brothers movie right here on the lots. I'll be around for the summer.

lots. I'll be around for the summer.

>> I'm going to Europe with Rio and Moses and some friends. I told you that.

>> Yeah, I thought that was in July.

>> No, it was always June. I'm leaving on Saturday for Paris and we're making our way over to Tuscanyany.

>> Saturday? I mean, that's Saturday.

That's It's too soon. Wait, I got two weeks off. We won't have had time to hang out.

off. We won't have had time to hang out.

This is your last summer.

>> That's why I want to see my friends.

>> It'll be so lonely here without you.

>> No, it won't. You're never alone.

>> Really? I think I'm always alone.

>> Thanks a lot. You're welcome.

>> And that is a clip from Jay Kelly. I'm

delighted to say I've been joined by its director and coowwriter Noah Bambach.

How are you, Noah? Thank you for joining us.

>> Good. Thanks for having me.

>> Do you enjoy this bit of the uh process once you've come up with the idea, you've written the script, you've done the hard work. Is this fun? [laughter]

Well, I I mean I would say what's the difficult part of it is having to talk about something that's so fresh you've just made. It's always easier to talk

just made. It's always easier to talk about things that you made a while ago than it is to talk about the thing you just made. But, you know, I do my best.

just made. But, you know, I do my best.

>> Is that because you're not quite sure what you think or you're not quite sure what other people think?

>> Well, I think you make the movie in a way to understand what you, you know, think. I mean, it's like you have all

think. I mean, it's like you have all these things obviously it feelings, thoughts, ideas that go into making it, but it the meaning and is is not

something that I'm really conscious of while I'm making it. The meaning kind of reveals itself maybe as the movie is made. So, I mean, I can kind of scratch

made. So, I mean, I can kind of scratch around, try to come up, oh well, I think I meant this, I think I meant that. But

it's really for other people to discover and to get to have their own experience of. So yeah, to have me then butt in and

of. So yeah, to have me then butt in and say, "Well, I thought it was this." And

someone says, "Well, actually, I felt this." And I think, "Well, oh, great.

this." And I think, "Well, oh, great.

You know, what you felt is probably right."

right." >> Okay. So, so tell us about J. Kelly. Who

>> Okay. So, so tell us about J. Kelly. Who

is Jay Kelly? And was that always going to be the title? Two questions in one.

>> Jay Kelly is a a movie actor who is also a famous movie actor. So, I guess we call him a movie star. Uh, and he's played by George Clooney. and he's in

the movie going through a crisis of sorts, a maybe a crisis of an identity crisis of some kind. He and he goes on a journey. The journey both takes him into

journey. The journey both takes him into Europe, but it also takes him into his past. And I think in in terms of the

past. And I think in in terms of the title, I I Yes. I mean, essentially it was the title fairly early on, but uh you know, you never know for sure until you're totally done with it. But yes, it

was it was the only title I've had. I

didn't have an alternate title. And was

it always going to be George Clooney?

>> I think pretty early on. I mean, once Emily and I kind of had the character, like once we knew who Jay Kelly was and what the movie was, then George, we thinking, well, who could do this? Uh,

and George was our ideal.

>> Okay. And the challenging thing I would imagine, never having acted myself, is it's one thing to play yourself maybe in a documentary. It's one thing to play

a documentary. It's one thing to play another character, but to be a lot of yourself and then just move it slightly because there it feels as though there's a lot of George in this character, but

obviously he's not being him. He's being

Jay Kelly. You're asking him, is that quite a difficult role for him to do?

>> No, because that's the illusion, you know. I mean, that's if you have a movie

know. I mean, that's if you have a movie star play a movie star, of course, it invites this point of identification from the audience as it should that this, oh, this is him. he's playing a version of him, but he's really not.

He's playing a character that's quite different from him. So really, it's just he plays the character just as if you were playing a dentist or something.

It's just that there's this built-in sort of mirroring that that that is is there for the audience. So I understand everybody sort of thinking, oh well, oh,

it's sort of George. and and we did things I wrote in, you know, I wrote that he was from Kentucky and things that are where George was from to sort of bring this even closer to his

persona, but that was all because George was playing somebody who was quite different from himself.

>> I mentioned at the beginning you're a co-writer of this and you've mentioned Emily. This is Emily Mortimer who's your

Emily. This is Emily Mortimer who's your coowwriter. Can I ask you how that

coowwriter. Can I ask you how that relationship happened and why you thought that Emily was the right person for this project?

>> Yeah, I it was really a feeling. I I've

admired Emily. I mean, I think she's a wonderful actress and also I loved the show she did called Doll and M for HBO years ago. And uh we got to know each

years ago. And uh we got to know each other because I cast her kids in white noise and we got to know each other better. We'd known each other a little

better. We'd known each other a little bit socially over the years and I had sort of various strands of things for this movie. I mean the I I had this sort

this movie. I mean the I I had this sort of idea of the movie star going on this journey and I had some other things and I had Italy and I it was just a feeling I thought like I sort of brought it to

her and I said what do you make of all of this and she said it's a movie I'd like to see and so I called her the next day and said do you want to write it?

>> I saw a line from you Noah where you said about writing with Emily or about being with Emily you said I liked myself with her.

>> Yes.

>> Which I thought was a very interesting thing to say. She clearly brings something to the relationship which makes you I don't know a good version of No Bambach.

>> Yes, that's true. I mean I think that's true of all the best collaborators that you not only are they bringing whatever brilliance they bring that you're also it triggers you know whatever it's like

you find yourself being kind of more exploratory, more inventive, more inspired, funnier, more profound, smarter.

>> We we were talking about the art of co-writing recently. Daniel D. Lewis was

co-writing recently. Daniel D. Lewis was

on the show and he was talking about working with his son Ronan who's directed this film anemone. And so most people kind of will understand the father-son dynamic. You've written with

father-son dynamic. You've written with your partner Greta obviously famously in Barbie and we get that kind of the partner dynamic, right? Finding someone

else who you can work with every day in a very intense way. That must be quite a difficult I just think that that relationship with someone else must be something worth treasuring. You know,

when you find it, you need to to run with that.

>> I think so too. I think um yeah because it's it's it's kind of impossible unless it is unless it isn't you know and it's like I mean I just liked seeing her

every day and you know and and we would we would argue about stuff we would she was she would really stand up for things that she believed strongly in uh argue

with me I I which was great you know but we really like each other and I think you know we we get a kick out of each other and you know I think we we what what you also want is the freedom to

kind of go off course and be ridiculous or, you know, propose stuff that's out of bounds and and then bring it back.

And and with this movie, too, because we didn't know, it didn't have a like, oh, it has to go this way or there's a form we're fitting it into. We really didn't know where where it would go. So, there

were a lot of strands, journeys that we we took Jay on that we ended up taking out. So it sort of needed that loose

out. So it sort of needed that loose sense of play I think and and you know so we could you know rein it in when we needed to.

>> One of the very entertaining things that you have here is this huge entourage which George has as he well the character Jay Kelly uh has is like an entire ecosystem that moves with a star as they go to Italy and then seeing all

the various people peel off as things sort of start to be increasingly difficult which seems a good time to mention Adam Sandler who plays his manager Ron. They have a very very close

manager Ron. They have a very very close relationship. Uh why did you choose Adam

relationship. Uh why did you choose Adam Sandler for this? Well, Adam Adam and I worked together a few years ago on a movie I made called The Meerwit Stories.

And we had a really wonderful time together and and I love what he did in the movie. And I'd wanted to find

the movie. And I'd wanted to find something since then. And and we also became quite close off of that movie and our families are very close. And so I felt like Ron was a way for me to write

something that was quite close to Adam as a person, you know, some something that honored his warmth and loyalty and generosity and but masked in the manager

role. And you know, if it's appropriate,

role. And you know, if it's appropriate, I'm interested in working with actors in ways that feel quite close to who they are, but in ways that are are hidden to the audience. Um, you know, in

the audience. Um, you know, in characters that would otherwise seem not like them. Uh that was exciting for me,

like them. Uh that was exciting for me, you know, to work with Adam that way.

>> Jay Kelly, as played by George Clooney, has a very difficult relationship with his family, with his daughters, with his friends. And maybe that's part of the

friends. And maybe that's part of the crisis that he faces. But Adam Sandler, his manager, seems to have a very close relationship with his family. And he

when he's on the phone to his daughter, I think he's on the phone, he calls his daughter Poppy. And then later he calls

daughter Poppy. And then later he calls Jay, is it Puppy? I think anyway. Um,

you wrote it so you can uh correct me, but he but he uses the same word for both of them.

>> Mhm.

>> Is that just what he calls people or does that tell us something about his relationship with Jay?

>> Well, I guess it I mean it it's Yeah, it's something he calls people who are endeared to him, I think. But of course, I mean, as you know, Liz says to him, you know, she refers to Jay as their

what used to be their baby, you know, like that there is this sense of parenting that these and he he makes that too. He says we're like parents are

that too. He says we're like parents are imaginary friends. You know that there

imaginary friends. You know that there is this sense of being a parent to this child >> movie star.

>> Is it true that you had the final line of the movie in your head for many years?

>> Yeah, I I did. Uh I I felt like I don't remember how I came to it, but I felt like, oh, if there was a movie about an actor and they said this line at the end, that that would be exciting.

>> Yeah, I find that difficult to talk about the end, but you've mentioned Italy quite a lot. I just think it it feels as though you always knew the destination of this story, that it was only going to finish in one place.

>> I knew it would go to Italy. I didn't

know how we would get there and what would happen when we got there, but I did know that I wanted it to to end up in Italy and Tuscanyany in particular.

>> Can I just ask you as a creator really to use the kind of the broadest term I can possibly come up with, as the co-creator of of the Barbie movie, one of the cultural events in cinematic

history, you know, it'll be in the history books. how that movie landed.

history books. how that movie landed.

Does that impact the way you make films after that? You know, is there always

after that? You know, is there always does it ripple out into the way you make your other films?

>> Not deliberately. I mean, the the wonderful thing about that movie for Greta and me was that we really wrote what we wanted to write. We wrote it no differently than anything else we would

have written. And we wrote it with a a

have written. And we wrote it with a a kind of abandon and playfulness. And it

had joy and anger. And you know it it it was the process was no different than Francis Ha or Mr. Sam or anything else that we had written together. And for it

to then connect and be the thing that it was was wonderful obviously but also it didn't consciously change anything because it was no different than how we've been doing it beforehand.

>> Yeah. But for it to get tagged in with Oppenheimer was of course brilliant marketing and uh an extraordinary coincidence. What are you working on

coincidence. What are you working on next, Noah? What do we see you in? uh

next, Noah? What do we see you in? uh

and involved with um after this particular movie after Jay Kelly >> I mean I'm writing something now and so you know I'm sort of in that place as I mentioned earlier with Jay where it's

like I'm you know I I have sort of the feeling of the movie and I have some things but I I have to you know go on the journey to for to find find itself to figure out what I'm what movie I'm making.

>> And are you writing it yourself on your own? Um, I'm writing it. I mean, uh,

own? Um, I'm writing it. I mean, uh, well, I I'm not going to say yet.

[laughter] >> Okay. All right. Well, we can speculate

>> Okay. All right. Well, we can speculate off the back of that, but for the moment, no Bambach, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us.

>> Yeah, thanks for having me.