'All of Us Strangers' Podcast
Imagine stepping into a world where the boundaries between past and present blur, where emotions run as deep as an ocean's trench. That's the journey we embark on with "All of Us Strangers," a film adaptation of a Japanese ghost story that's nothing short of an emotional odyssey. Join us as we sit down with the film's director Andrew Haigh and a stellar cast including Andrew Scott "His Dark Materials, 1917", Jamie Bell "Rocketman, Billy Elliot" and Claire Foy "The Crown, First Man" to unpack the layers of this intricate drama. Their personal anecdotes and insights into the narrative's depth enrich our appreciation for the story's unique blend of fantasy and romance. A romantic drama told from a gay perspective. All of Us Strangers is a LGBQ film that tells a universal story of love, loss, grief, hope and reconciling the past.
Peek behind the velvet curtain to the meticulously crafted world of "All of Us Strangers," where every detail is a stroke of genius. With an ensemble cast featuring the dynamic duo of Paul Mescal "Aftersun, Normal People" and Andrew Scott, we take a deep dive into the complexities of their characters and the strikingly heartfelt actor-on-actor dialogue they share. The film's creators, including director Andrew Haigh and producers Sarah Harvey and Graham Broadbent, reveal the inner workings of their cinematic creation, from casting choices to the challenges of production, offering an intimate tour of the storytelling artistry at play.
Lastly, our conversation shifts to the universal themes of love, loss, and the yearning for connection that "All of Us Strangers" so beautifully encapsulates. We open up about the narrative's most poignant twist—when a grown man encounters his deceased parents as if they were his contemporaries—through the reflective eyes of our guests Sarah Harvey, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell, and Paul Mescal. This compelling exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the complexities of family dynamic promises to resonate with anyone who's ever wished they could have just one more moment with a lost loved one. So, grab your headphones and settle in for a discussion that might just change the way you see the world—and the people in it.
'All of Us Strangers' Podcast
Imagine stepping into a world where the boundaries between past and present blur, where emotions run as deep as an ocean's trench. That's the journey we embark on with "All of Us Strangers," a film adaptation of a Japanese ghost story that's nothing short of an emotional odyssey. Join us as we sit down with the film's director Andrew Haigh and a stellar cast including Andrew Scott "His Dark Materials, 1917", Jamie Bell "Rocketman, Billy Elliot" and Claire Foy "The Crown, First Man" to unpack the layers of this intricate drama. Their personal anecdotes and insights into the narrative's depth enrich our appreciation for the story's unique blend of fantasy and romance. A romantic drama told from a gay perspective. All of Us Strangers is a LGBQ film that tells a universal story of love, loss, grief, hope and reconciling the past.
Peek behind the velvet curtain to the meticulously crafted world of "All of Us Strangers," where every detail is a stroke of genius. With an ensemble cast featuring the dynamic duo of Paul Mescal "Aftersun, Normal People" and Andrew Scott, we take a deep dive into the complexities of their characters and the strikingly heartfelt actor-on-actor dialogue they share. The film's creators, including director Andrew Haigh and producers Sarah Harvey and Graham Broadbent, reveal the inner workings of their cinematic creation, from casting choices to the challenges of production, offering an intimate tour of the storytelling artistry at play.
Lastly, our conversation shifts to the universal themes of love, loss, and the yearning for connection that "All of Us Strangers" so beautifully encapsulates. We open up about the narrative's most poignant twist—when a grown man encounters his deceased parents as if they were his contemporaries—through the reflective eyes of our guests Sarah Harvey, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell, and Paul Mescal. This compelling exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the complexities of family dynamic promises to resonate with anyone who's ever wished they could have just one more moment with a lost loved one. So, grab your headphones and settle in for a discussion that might just change the way you see the world—and the people in it.
Because we now have the Cinema Judge Music. Hello, hello, hello and welcome to the Cinema Judge. I hope my voice finds you well. To all my regulars out there, welcome back. If you're new to the show, welcome aboard. Now approaching the bench, today we have a drama, fantasy, slash romance film Based on a Japanese book, or, put better, a Japanese ghost story. But this director made it his own and you're going to find out more about that later. But here's the setup to this movie. A screenwriter, drawn back to his childhood home, enters into a relationship with a mysterious neighbor. As he then discovers, his parents appear to be living just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before. Here's a trailer for All of Us Strangers.
Speaker 2:Music Hello. Hi so you're looking at me from the street Music, I'm assuming you're not with anyone. Never see you with anyone Music? Is it Mom and Dad?
Speaker 6:Yeah, they died just before it was 12. I'm trying to write it back down at the moment. How's it going? Strangely hi.
Speaker 7:Hi Music.
Speaker 6:Is this real?
Speaker 7:Does it feel real?
Speaker 8:Our boys back home oh son.
Speaker 7:Look at you. You were just a boy. Now you're not.
Speaker 6:It was a long time ago. Yeah, I don't think that matters.
Speaker 8:Music.
Speaker 2:I've always felt like a stranger to my own family. I'm always scared of something.
Speaker 7:Always running away. Do you remember Music?
Speaker 8:Sorry, I never came in your room when you were crying.
Speaker 6:It's funny, it doesn't take much.
Speaker 7:Music.
Speaker 6:To make you feel the way you felt back there again, music.
Speaker 9:You think he might have been in love with you? Music.
Speaker 6:I've always followed him. This is a new feeling Music.
Speaker 3:You and me together, music Into the world.
Speaker 1:Ah, what do you think of them apples? People sometimes complain that there's not enough originality in Hollywood or any kind of film world. Well, here's something that's original, new and not done every day. That's one of the main reasons I love doing this show. Yes, I love 10 polls. I love big budget movies. They're great.
Speaker 1:But every once in a while comes along movies that I feel don't get enough sunshine shined on them, and this is one of those films, because maybe some of you out there would be like all of us strangers, what's that? And just maybe blow right by it. Well, that's what I like to do here. I like to take a deep dive into movies that you might not normally watch, because I've talked to some people about movies last year and they're like well, I didn't understand it. I'm like well, it's not aimed at you, but you still should watch it if you want to learn about the situation or learn about other things, because not everything's about you.
Speaker 1:There's other stories to be told, and this story is for other people. It's a romance. It's not anything new on that end, but there's sci-fi, tour, fantasy drama, two characters that are broken and they're just trying to find their way. In. His stars, andrew Scott as Adam, paul Mascow as Harry, jamie Bell as Dad and Claire Foy as Mom.
Speaker 1:There's not a lot of characters in here, four primary characters and that's again a very intimate story, and so a lot is being done with just these four characters and it's directed by Andrew Hay and it's, like I said earlier, based on a Japanese ghost story. So coming up next we're gonna hear from the director and he's gonna talk about that briefly, about the book and this. He decided to go take his own way with it. And then we're gonna have Andrew Scott, who's Adam, and he talks about the screenplay and also back-to-back it's to be Jamie Bell in Claire Foy, also talking about the powerful script that they read and how it made them feel. But I want to make one thing abundantly clear when you hear these interviews, you're gonna hear a lot of background noise. That's because they're at a world premiere, so that's what's going on in the background. It's not me just being sloppy, so let it roll.
Speaker 10:Yeah, so I read the original novel kind of five years ago I guess it was, and I loved the original idea that was in that novel about Meeting your parents again, long after they have left you, let's say. And so it was about taking this film to story that was very much a traditional Japanese ghost story and turning it into my own Kind of story. And that's what you'll you'll see tonight.
Speaker 6:Yeah, it was very, very personal read. Even reading, reading it for the first time, it was it's something that just completely Broke me. It was so moving and I think it's extraordinary as the people are now Having the same reaction, having seen the movie, as I did, having first read the script. But, yeah, it's an extraordinary script and an extraordinary role to play.
Speaker 8:I saw an awful lot of Myself in a strange way, or at least I felt that I had to bring myself to the character and, yeah, it was a beautiful, beautiful experience the people involved alone, the power of the screenplay, the effect that it had on everybody that read it. Okay, it's my wife K is it tonight? I shared it with her and she was crying. I was crying. That's usually a good sign, you know, just from a script point of view. So when you, when you know that something so personal to somebody, you understand that it's probably gonna resonate in a different way with people. And I just think that I've had that experience before with, like, personal Pieces and material stuff. So when I read this one, I you just know that there's a sprinkling of something extra that I think people can really connect with and hopefully Resonates with them. And I think it's the case with this film for sure.
Speaker 5:I mean, I was already really intrigued before I read the script, because I love Andrew Hague it's incredible Writer and director and so I was already really excited to read it. And then when I read it, I just thought it was the most beautiful sort of tender, incredible kind of concept. I suppose I really loved the central character. I thought he was beautifully written and I, you know, I'd never been part of something like this and so I was so honored that he wanted me to be in it and and you know, I just, yeah, I went to work every day and just loved being and just got some arm. It was like a real dream.
Speaker 1:As you've heard, obviously this movie has a lot of great actors. So at first we're gonna hear from the director just talking about how lucky was to get such a great cast. And then we're gonna hear from Andrew Scott and he talks about some of the themes of the film. But he's really impressed about the vulnerability of the characters in this film. And if we're wondering Andrew Scott, I know who that is. Well, he was in his dark materials, oslo in the insanely great film in 1917.
Speaker 1:If you've never seen 1917, give it a shot. It's one of those rare films when they shoot it as if it's one shot, except for one little part later on the movie where Something happens, where it's not a straight, straight through shot but it feels like one continuous shot. It's a Miracle in filmmaking, it's just wonderful. So give that a shot one day. And then we're gonna hear from Claire Foy Talking about the cast and just what an honor it is to be surrounded by such talented people. And you might know her from the crown which she nailed. She was brilliant on screen. You couldn't take your eyes off of her. Just Elegant and professional. Just everything she did with that role in the crown was magnificent. It was amazing stuff. And she was also in another incredible film recently women talking. If you haven't seen it, great film. I did a podcast on it a while back when it came out. So if you want to look it up, women talking, incredible film. And also the girl in the spider web, just to name a few.
Speaker 1:And then we go back to Andrew Scott. He talks about just like some of the themes in this movie too is taking chances. And I was just walking that simple path that we all get stuck in, because I'd say the vast majority of us, me including. I'm on the king of the rut. You get your same routine, your same rut, day in and day out. We all live like groundhogs day. Sometimes you're like what day of the week is this? So this movie kind of is like that little nudge to all of us saying, hey, buddy, maybe just Color old sidelines for once. You don't always stay within the boundaries, make up your own rules, take a chance, live a little. And then we're gonna hear from the director and he talks about what he hopes people take away from the film.
Speaker 10:Yeah, they're look at that incredible. I'm so happy that I've got I've got the cast that I've gotten. Andrew Scott was the first person I thought of for this role and Luckily he said yes and he's incredible in the film. And then you build the cast out from there, and Claire came next, then Jamie and then finally Paul. Yeah, I think it's a real actors film.
Speaker 6:You know there's only four speaking parts in the movie, but it's got this sort of epic subject matter and yeah, we were just expertly guided by Andrew was a very personal story for him, very personal story for me too, I guess, and so everybody kind of brought their own kind of vulnerability to it. I think that's the main thing about this movie is that it's so tender and vulnerable. I think that's why it's punching people in the heart, so to speak, but it's it's. It's a beautiful, hopeful film about family and love and and it's just a gentle, compassionate movie.
Speaker 5:The whole cast is like like you can't get better, like really amazing cast, so talented and gifted and and so I Loved that doing that. But also, andrew, hey, just create such a like sense of like everyone being involved in it and no question is Is off limits, and we had so many conversations. It was an honor to be part of and, like, tell a story like this and Represent this community. I just really was a real honor.
Speaker 6:You know, I think the takeaway, the real takeaway from it is that we're not here long, you know, and to try and have the courage to Jump into love wherever you can find it and to have the difficult conversation and to you know, because we think that safety is incredibly important and, living in Purgatory and you know, keeping it within our comfort zone.
Speaker 8:But I think what it's saying is.
Speaker 3:Just try and love. And love with courage.
Speaker 10:Yeah, Look, I'll let the audience take away what messes they want to take. You know, I think in the end it's probably about love and all its forms, and so that was always my intention that the film would feel like it was about that, and so I hope that's kind of what the audience take away.
Speaker 1:Now I'm gonna take a moment to explain something to you guys. I know you're here to hear about the movie, but it allowed me this brief little interlude To give you a little behind the scenes of this show. Often I get the material Interviews, clips, all these kind of things from the studio, and on this one, at first I was like, oh, my goodness, it's not gonna be a very good show at all because I, I don't. I don't have a lot to work with. And as I was putting some of the stuff together, I realized they gave me a incredibly long Feature at longer than most. Usually they're a couple minutes long, which are great. I love every bit of them, but at first I thought it was only two minutes give or take. I'm like, okay, well, what can I do with this? But no, it ended up being like 22 minutes. It's it's. It's so well put together, so that I started weighing my options, like, well, I could do this show traditionally, because, you know, I think they did give me a couple scenes, and then those interviews that you heard from the world premiere. I'm like, okay, I can make that work. But then I'm like, well, you know what, though? I have to be flexible, like, just like they said you you have sometimes go out of the lines and Not do the same old, same old, so I'm gonna Do.
Speaker 1:What I'm gonna do here is this I'm gonna play this feature at, but I'm gonna interrupt every once while in the middle of it just kind of tell you who is speaking, because Right now you've not seen it. But if you want to see this at the end of the show, I'm gonna give you a website when you could sit and watch the people talking, so you don't have to sit there and have me interrupt. I'm not gonna interrupt during every person talks differently, or everyone who comes up. I'm just gonna give you a little list of these are the people you're gonna hear of in this little segment here. So that's what I'm gonna do here, because this is a really well-made feature at really taking a deep dive into this movie. You're gonna hear from producers, the actors, the director, a whole slew of people. So first it's gonna we're gonna hear from Paul Meskile and the stuff that he's been into from the TV show Normal People, fo, that movie Fo, f-o-e and the movie After Sun, just to name a few.
Speaker 1:But in this interview, when you hear both the main characters talking. You hear Andrew Scott and Paul chatting in the video. They're actually sitting, they're interviewing each other, which is really kind of fun when it's actor on actor and they're interviewing each other. So that's what's happening in part of this featurette the actors are talking to each other and then we're gonna hear from the director, then the producer, sarah Harvey, and another producer, graham Broadbent, and it goes on from there. But they'll be spread out in between some of the interviews, clips and things like that from the movie. I know this is a long explanation. You're like get to it, buddy, let's go. But at the end of the show I'll give you that website, if you don't know it already, so you can watch this without any of this guy talking.
Speaker 2:You're often single.
Speaker 6:My office ain't no Responsible, are you?
Speaker 2:Are you? Yeah, but not for one of trying.
Speaker 6:Hello.
Speaker 2:I'm Andrew Scott and I'm Paul Meskile. Our new movie is All of Us Strangers and market.
Speaker 6:Camera set and action Alright, yeah, yeah, yeah, just having fun.
Speaker 2:Hi, paul. Hi, so it was your first response to Andrew Hayes' script.
Speaker 6:My first feeling was that it was the most extraordinarily original script.
Speaker 10:It is about Adam, who is a screenwriter. He lives in a new apartment block in London. I wouldn't say he's depressed, but he's certainly kind of locked himself away from the world. One night he meets Harry.
Speaker 2:I saw you looking at me from the street. I was seeing you bunch of times coming on with your head down. Harry lives in the tower block with Adam. He should be a lot happier than he is. I think their kind of loneliness mirrors each other. Does he moment, dad?
Speaker 6:Yeah, they died just before it was 12. I'm trying to write about them at the moment. How's it going? Strangely.
Speaker 10:He decides to go back to his childhood home and he comes across his parents, who are long dead, and he sees them as they did when they died. So they are now younger than he is and a relationship starts to develop between him and his parents.
Speaker 8:Are our boys back home?
Speaker 10:Everybody can relate to that idea of wanting to go back and to redefine what your relationship with your parents was.
Speaker 6:That sort of starts the story for him, where he starts to open himself up to find love. So it's about his two different forms of love sort of familial love that we all experience when we're children, and then kind of romantic adult love, and how those two things affect each other and how you maybe can't give yourself over to full adult love if you haven't reconciled some stuff in your childhood.
Speaker 2:I'm assuming you're not with anyone. I never see you with anyone.
Speaker 4:Andrew Scott was choice number one, so he was the sort of perfect Adam. So that was pretty much a dream that we got him. There's very few people that could carry off a lot of the sort of internal emotions he has to play in this movie.
Speaker 10:I liked the idea that Adam's life was going in a good direction in the 90s and the 90s and was feeling good, and then it started to get more and more complicated as he's got older. So he has stopped living within the world in any kind of productive way. I've always felt lonely.
Speaker 6:This is a new feeling, like a terror, that I'd always be alone now.
Speaker 2:I feel like all of Andrew Scott's choices and everything that I've ever seen have been nothing but interesting. It's so satisfying to work with somebody that you've admired kind of from afar for so long and you realize, oh, there's nothing. He is just, I think, perfect in this film. Drink, it's Japanese.
Speaker 6:I think that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:How about I come in anyway? If not for a drink, then forever else. You might want Harry, who's in his mid-20s, kind of hides behind being sex positive and sex forward and kind of fun. Do I scare you?
Speaker 6:No.
Speaker 2:We don't have to do anything if I'm not your type.
Speaker 10:Paul's just a great actor. I think he has a really interesting mix of sensitivity and strength.
Speaker 2:You don't need to be shy around me.
Speaker 6:Yes, that's easier said than done. Would you like me to close my?
Speaker 2:eyes.
Speaker 10:There was a spark to Harry and an openness to Harry that Adam doesn't have, and I think you're always drawn to someone that offers something different than what you have.
Speaker 6:I think they're both very vulnerable people. They talk a lot about their experiences as children, and I think it's one of those things where they immediately love each other. Thinking about you all week.
Speaker 2:Today I was thinking about watching crappy TV with Unified at night, watching all the episodes atop of the pops from Four O'Spaw.
Speaker 6:One of the challenges for me and Paul to play was how do you play chemistry without giving away too much biography? I think both of us really like the idea of playing love. That's a very beautiful thing to get to play.
Speaker 2:So when you were thinking about Adam and Harry, how did you first consider approaching that?
Speaker 6:It's funny even talking about it now. I have such a enormous affection for them. They feel like friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, but we don't see any more Because they're not real, they're fictional characters.
Speaker 10:You know, chemistry exists on screen when the actors are good, and they're both very, very good actors. So I was never afraid that there wouldn't be that chemistry.
Speaker 3:They were funny because they came thick as thieves very quickly. You're like, wow, they're just hanging out all the time. They bonded incredibly quickly and found exactly where they could sit with their characters and therefore how their characters might sit with each other in the film.
Speaker 6:I suppose we take it for granted about how easy we found it, because we were sitting on that bed laughing for a lot of it.
Speaker 2:It also didn't feel like. It felt organic and it's only when we're talking about the film now that it's a takeaway that many people have but it felt like the building of a major relationship that I'm going to have for the rest of my life. I'm scared.
Speaker 6:I know, but I'm here with you.
Speaker 1:Now we have another section coming up and I'm trying to break them up into themes the best I can and the next one pretty much deals majority of it deals with the idea of meeting your parents at an age when they died or when they passed 30 years ago. But you aren't that 12 year old kid anymore. So we're gonna hear from a lot of people. First we're gonna hear from the producer, sarah Harvey, and she talks. First thing. She talks what is the book and what it's based on. But then we're gonna hear from the director, claire Foy, jamie Bell, paul mescal, andrew Scott, and you'll hear conversations from all of them talking about the idea of parents and actors in there this the same age or younger. It's just a fun thing to wrap your head around. But I want to make one thing. I Misspoke the Claire Foy's character. It's not mom, it's mum. I always forget that this is more of the British film and I just love that when they say that. But her name is mum, not mom. Here's a little set of interviews. Should we go?
Speaker 6:go where oh.
Speaker 4:Oh, the project was originally based on a book called strangers by a Japanese author, touchy Yamada. I've always wanted to work with Andrew, so it was simpatico that Andrew really responded to the material as well and then really made it his own, I have to say, because it's it's a big departure from the book.
Speaker 10:What I loved about it was this central conceit About someone, an adult, meeting their parents again when essentially they are the same age as him. So I love that idea of basically meeting your parents reparenting again guess what I found later in the park.
Speaker 8:Is it him? Yeah, it's definitely him.
Speaker 7:Yes, it is you, Hi Hi. What I made sense of it as is that they are real for him, and they are real in their own way, and also in the way that Dreams make sense. If you dream of someone who was a loved one who's deceased, it doesn't make it any less Real or important to you when you wake up the way that me and Claire specifically as his mom and dad, who are technically Apparitions is that we are just living in the moment.
Speaker 8:We are not considering that this has a finite time on it. That's what I loved about it when Andrew came to me, is that it's just when your son comes home, you're just so happy that he's there that you just you sink right back into the normalcy.
Speaker 1:It's not bloody lovely see again.
Speaker 10:Why should we ever would? Adams character misses his parents, it's as simple as that. And he has memories of his childhood, obviously has memories with them, but they are fading as time goes on. So there was a certain kind of mixture of memory and nostalgia and desperate need and all of those things within this relationship. So we essentially get to live Adams teenage life again with him as he's reimagining or re-experiencing his past.
Speaker 14:Look at you.
Speaker 7:You were just a boy.
Speaker 6:Now you're not Totally different, but it's still you the big question, people ask was I, was that weird to have people who are younger than you playing people that are elder than you? And yeah, not at all. It wasn't in any way strange. They're both just embraced those characters so brilliantly. I think all four of us really. I don't know, that sounds ridiculous and say, but really enjoy acting.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's not all actors do.
Speaker 2:I agree yeah.
Speaker 6:I felt, just felt like my job and it was to try and access the sort of boyish part of me, the childish part of me, and they just made it so easy for me.
Speaker 8:The age thinker never felt odd. We just treated him like he was our kid, a kid that has all this life experience. Now, all this perspective I'm not sure I have much wisdom to share and I maybe had him being older should be sharing some of us. It's so funny. Andrew Cannon came back behind the cameras a couple times to talk to me and Claire and I think it was on the first day and he was just kind of like just feels so weird, it just kind of feels like you're his parents.
Speaker 7:He made everyone feel so safe and assured and after our first rehearsal very brief rehearsal I just never really questioned it after that we felt like a family really.
Speaker 5:Really, we felt like a family. Yeah, really bizarre.
Speaker 8:Yeah, are you ready? I'm gonna press it. Merry Christmas, merry Christmas, here we go. Merry Christmas, merry Christmas, yay.
Speaker 10:Good, very nice.
Speaker 7:Have you got a girlfriend?
Speaker 6:I'm gay.
Speaker 7:As in homosexual.
Speaker 6:As in that, yeah.
Speaker 7:Really.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 7:Since. When.
Speaker 6:Since a long time. How long?
Speaker 10:Forever. It gets complicated as the film goes on, because his parents never really knew the real Adam Adam, and so he has to try and become known by his parents, and that can be a troubling and difficult thing.
Speaker 7:Aren't people nasty to you?
Speaker 6:No, no no, things are different now.
Speaker 7:What's the aren't nasty.
Speaker 6:Not allowed. Anyway, I really connect to a lot of us personally, being a gay person myself, those experiences of hoping that your family will stay with you when you tell them who you are. I think everybody wants to feel connected to their family.
Speaker 7:They weren't angels, they were real people who if they were living now, would be much older and have certain values and sort of beliefs. So they have to sort of evolve as the film evolves. They say it's a very lonely kind of life.
Speaker 6:They don't actually say that anymore.
Speaker 8:Kids, to a certain degree, are a reflection of what you managed to provide for them.
Speaker 6:You know, I think as a parent, you don't want to make mistakes but you will, you tell me not to cross my legs like a woman over and over and over again. Is that right? Yeah, I still think about it every time I cross my legs.
Speaker 8:And what I like about what Adam has to deal with is that we come to listen to him and come to respect him, and then we kind of come to set him free.
Speaker 6:Sorry, I never gave you any room in your grave. It's okay, I got it. It was so long, it was so long ago. I felt very physically comfortable with them because I think a child would. As he gets to know them better, he actually becomes much more tactile with them and as he's learning a new kind of physicality with Harry, it becomes more physical as the movie moves on and I think that's a really important part of the story. Tony, I love them and I'll think of them as my sexy mom and dad for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:As usual.
Speaker 8:Can I walk now? Yeah, please.
Speaker 1:You just might need a tissue or two when you see this film, but it's cathartic. Everybody needs to rinse out your eyeballs occasionally, and this might be the time for you. Now, this next block of interviews I found incredibly fascinating. The first part they talk about they needed a shooting location. They needed a house that resembled what he grew up in, and then they figured why not shoot it in his actual old house? Now that is just for me that's just really cool. They didn't rebuild it or put on a set. They shot it in the house that he grew up in, in the same bedroom. And then they talk about what they put in there, what they took out of. But then they also.
Speaker 1:Then we start talking to the hair and makeup people and what they wanted to do. They didn't want to go to 80s. They didn't want to take us out of the film, because sometimes when you make stuff from the 80s or whatever decade you're making it in, you throw yourself so deep into it in the two other cliches and tropes that it takes you out of the movie. They didn't want to do that. They didn't want to go hey, flash, bang, 80s. They wanted to be subtle about it but still get the point across, and we're going to have some really good interviews we're going to have. First, we're going to hear from the director talking about shooting in his own house, and then we're going to hear from the producer, graham Broadbent, andrew Scott, jamie Bell, sarah Harvey and then we're going to hear from some people that we don't always get to hear their voices, to hear them talk about a film, because there's so many people involved in making a film we sometimes take it for granted. So we're going to hear from the production designer, sarah Finlay, zoe Claire Brown. She's the one who did the hair and makeup and it's really kind of cool to hear her talk about that. What we just talked about Not overdoing it.
Speaker 1:And another person we don't often hear from is a cinematographer. So we're going to hear from Jerry Ramsey, because when they're shooting this film, they wanted to shoot it to make it feel dark, but shooting it in a real apartment in a high-rise You're going to get a lot of weird reflections and everything like that. So what they did and they'll explain far better Is they did that thing kind of like Disney has done With the Mandalorian and all those Star Wars stuff on Disney Plus. They put these TVs together to make it look like one giant image, and you can't tell that it's not the outside. They're all. They're high quality TVs. So the actor feels like they're actually engrossed. They're actually in the scene looking out the window, but it is just a set. So when they shot it the apartment that was a set. But Holly did it. It was really fascinating. And hearing it from the cinematographer is really like wow, getting behind the scenes on that is really fascinating to me.
Speaker 1:And then we're also going to hear from the composer. When you're a composer, you have so much responsibility in your hands Because you are guiding the audience. You don't want to manipulate people, but you want to add a sense of atmosphere and that's a fine line that some people don't get Some movies. It's forced, it's contrived or it's trying to make you feel a certain way, but that's not what it's really supposed to do. It's just supposed to help guide you and that's that line you got to walk. And we're going to hear from this really talented composer. And first and foremost, I've tried to look up her name, because it's a French name and I do not want to disrespect her at all Emily Farroch. I didn't do that properly. I tried to look it up, but you will hear from her, and it's just fascinating to hear from these people that always don't have a voice. Sit back and enjoy this one, guys. This is really kind of cool.
Speaker 6:Hello, I'm Andrew, Sorry. Hello, I'm Andrew Scosh. Hello, I'm Andrew Scosh and I'm Paul Meskel. Oh no, you're saying that.
Speaker 4:Yeah that's not the line of lines.
Speaker 10:Sweetheart, you came back Of course I came back when I was writing the script. I was imagining a house, and it just happened to be that the house I was imagining was my own childhood house.
Speaker 3:And we got a location manager on. So that process is the one where you go. Fantastic. It says in the script suburban house Sandus dead, can you find one? And the starting point was Andrew Hague's original house he actually grew up in and who knew that we were going to end up filming in exactly the house where he grew up, exactly where he was the age of the story.
Speaker 10:Initially I wasn't going to film in it and then I thought, ok, but I want to set it in the area where I used to live, which is just outside of Croydon. There was a really odd experience being in there, but I do think it helped the film. I think it helped the actors. I think it was fascinating for them to think that they were within the place that I used to be a kid in.
Speaker 6:Typically of Andrew, he didn't really make too much of a big deal out of that. I kept thinking, is this extraordinary for you? And he was like no, no, it's you know, just trying to do a film set, but it's an incredibly brave thing to do.
Speaker 8:It feels like we're given an opportunity to kind of fully immerse into Andrew's old life and get to play these parts that he's written so beautifully for us.
Speaker 10:It was a really unusual experience.
Speaker 8:Not one.
Speaker 10:I'd actually repeat ever again. I don't know everyone would go back there, and the one thing that was really strange was sitting in my old bedroom and then hearing the film crew all around setting up things, talking about the scenes, all that kind of thing, and it was such a strange feeling to think that this is where I was when I was like six, seven years old, and the idea that you'd be back here all that time later. Filming in this house is so insane, completely insane.
Speaker 6:This is real.
Speaker 7:Does it feel real?
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 4:There you go. Then the house was like a sort of capsule to the 80s. I mean, it really was like going back in time. The design team, the costume team, were sort of painstaking in their research.
Speaker 6:When I went into Adam's childhood bedroom there were so many things in there that I had in my own childhood bedroom. I was taking pictures of them and sending them to my siblings going. Oh my God, do you remember this? And they just did that really beautifully.
Speaker 10:It was easy for us all to recapture the 80s. Basically, we've all got photos, so we just looked at old photos from that time and saw how we used to look and what our houses were like and where we used to live.
Speaker 9:You know, obviously, things from Andrew's childhood that he should have the very specific albums that he wanted. You know certain books of dressing just bits and bobs and you know all sorts of games that he'd referenced.
Speaker 13:For the hairstyles and the makeup. Andrew Hague didn't want to go avert the 80s. So when I initially did a mood board for him, I did lots of very 80s style big perms, big hair and he was like no, no, no, let's not go a typical cliched 80s, let's just rein it back in.
Speaker 4:I think everyone really enjoyed it because, you know, quite a few of the crew were around in the 80s growing up, so we were all able to sort of put our own little stamp on it in there. I would say it was a really fun one in terms of that.
Speaker 10:The rest of it was pretty much all shot down. In Sandestead, which is just outside Croydon, we shot in the park. It's always been there. We're going to have some wind blowing and these that will suddenly just like stop and you feel like someone's looking behind you and you turn around and he's kind of standing here. There's a shopping centre in Croydon that I remember going to as a kid a lot. Croydon is a slightly strange out of time feeling about it. It's like a vision of the future that was made in the 60s In London itself. We did a little bit of shooting. It's the edge army. Take two Action.
Speaker 2:We're basically the only ones here. Can you believe it? I mean, they haven't got security guard.
Speaker 3:yet the modern side of the film is in this giant tower block which is in Stratford and East London.
Speaker 4:It's such a key part of the story because it really symbolises the characters feeling very disconnected from the world. So we all had a real vision in mind, and then it was very tricky to find the right thing. So we did have to build it as a set, having scouted about 800 tower blocks.
Speaker 10:I like shooting locations as well as my preference. I much, much prefer it. But it's very hard to shoot in a high-rise apartment because they're a nightmare to light and you need to have lights outside and it's very, very difficult. So I knew we were going to have to probably build a set for that.
Speaker 3:The question you always have is what's going to be outside that apartment, and in the olden days one might have put what's called green screen there, which means you can drop in an outside environment. We had a new technique on this, which was just a myriad of extraordinary TV screens all locked together.
Speaker 10:We shot plates from the apartment block that we were basing our apartment block on and then they became the backdrop that was on this LED wall that surrounded the apartment that we built on the set.
Speaker 14:You're giving the actors context on what they can be experiencing outside. They can use that to plant their performance, just to be able to take a completely black studio, and then you're creating the most intimate of scenes, where anybody who watches would never question what's beyond the walls of the set. There's such a beauty and an honour to that.
Speaker 10:I think that when you live in some of those apartments, it's very easy to feel very isolated from everybody else and feel like there is nobody else For both of the characters. They feel like they've been pushed away from home for various reasons and that leads, I think, to a kind of sense of isolation in your life. I don't go home.
Speaker 2:much that makes you sad. I've always felt like a stranger in my own family.
Speaker 7:I suppose I never did know what was going on in that odd little head of yours. You're always running away, do you remember?
Speaker 10:Yeah, I took a pretty naturalistic approach to how the film is shot. We shot on 35. Nobody ever wants to shoot on film because it's expensive, but for me it was really important it has. Film inherently has a texture and a feeling and this is a film about the past. You know they listen to records and they are looking at photographs and it sort of is a way to access the past. I think if you shoot it in a certain way that doesn't feel like past issue or anything, but just allows you to feel like this is closer to memory.
Speaker 6:It's funny. It doesn't take much to make you feel the way it felt back there again.
Speaker 14:It's game over all. I felt it was important to be able to represent this idea of memory and nostalgia, because that's such a big part of the idea that this is sort of gilding that one puts on a memory that I thought this is also something I wanted to represent in the cinematography. You're dealing with the real world and a very surreal layer on top of this world. That was another element that I really felt I needed to represent in some manner, and I thought perhaps that could be more the way the image felt in terms of lighting and perhaps the lens choice and things like that.
Speaker 10:It's definitely got a kind of tone to it that we've worked on in terms of how we do the sound design Wait it promised me you're not going to go out now.
Speaker 7:I promise.
Speaker 12:You have to be a filmmaker. When you're making film schools, you have to think about what the film is saying and what's the best way to serve that. Coming from the conversation with Andrew about the nature of memory, when you remember something it's never fully clear. It's often also a small element of one day that you're going to remember a specific element and the rest is a little bit blurry, a little bit harder to define, and it felt right that the music had this sense of not being fully real, not being fully anchored with our reality, but really helping the audience to drift off in a sense of a dreamlike quality.
Speaker 11:What was super important editorially was to have this feeling of dislocation. Adam goes down to the park. He sees his father and it's this kind of odd sense of is this happening in real time? Is this, who is this person? You're asking questions about who this person is, but also where you are in time For an audience. If you can get them to be part of that journey, that makes for a very successful film. You're active with the main character. You're feeling their feelings in a sense, and you're discovering all the things that are new in front of them with them.
Speaker 6:Will you come with me?
Speaker 3:Where to? I think that the journey of a man who is essentially isolated and has built a world of isolation due to bereavement of a young age, his journey to love, feels incredibly positive.
Speaker 2:The truth of the film to me is I spent a lot of this film, incredibly happy.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like. The sadness of the film was in the tone and the style of direction. A lot of our stuff together.
Speaker 6:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think we had to consciously play against the sadness of it, but ultimately they're beginning an incredibly healthy relationship.
Speaker 8:The love story is beautiful and great and how we should embrace love and take that risk and gamble on it, because you never know, like, where it can send you, and that's what's so exciting and thrilling about it. Are you in love with him?
Speaker 6:I don't know. I've never been in love before, so I don't know if this is it. Do you think he'd like to be in?
Speaker 4:love with him. Andrew's film is very specific and it's very personal to him the journey. I think that it has really universal themes. I think we've all had people in our lives that perhaps we'd like another chance with, and that's what I think is beautiful about the film.
Speaker 10:It is telling a wider story about relationships and parental relationships and being a kid, and also romantic relationships, and it is about love and in all its forms and how they're interconnected.
Speaker 6:There's no doubt in my mind that I think queer audiences will respond to it because of the subject matter the isolation of being a gay person in a family. But it's also just about families as well.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's a film about human experience probably rooted in the queer experience.
Speaker 6:to me, yes, exactly and that's not as, or is more, much more similar to each other than we allow ourselves to believe. So I hope films like this just really just blow that up.
Speaker 2:I think it would be incredibly disappointing to me if this was a film that simply existed, and I don't think it will exist in the lexicon of queer cinema. It's dealing with way more than just that. It's human condition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's about life and death. It's about life and love and grief. I think there's a very beautiful, extraordinary film here that is unlike anything else, and I'm excited for audiences to see that.
Speaker 10:The films that I like and the films that I want to make lead to more questions. When the film is over, I want people to leave the cinema and think about their own relationships, both as a parent, as a child, as a partner, as a friend whatever that might be and how this film might reflect on their lives like that. That's the kind of thing I love when you, four days later, suddenly remember something in the film and go maybe I should call my mom, or maybe I should be nicer to my boyfriend, or maybe I should do this, or whatever that might be. I want to go out of here.
Speaker 6:You and me together into the world.
Speaker 1:So what do you guys think? Is this the kind of movie you want to see? Did I present it properly? But the point that I want to make here is this like I said earlier, every movie deserves to be presented, to be shown, not just because it's heterosexual, homosexual, whatever it is. We all can understand love. It doesn't make a difference. Who they love or who we love doesn't make a difference. Heterosexuals like us. We've had movies for us forever. Rarely do we get a chance to see one from a point of view from somebody else's, and that's, I think, very important. Because we get so tunnel-visioned, it's all we see. But there's more to life than that, and I think it's very important that more and more of these movies are coming out.
Speaker 1:I think it's just about time. Why not? Going through life is hard enough, but going through life pretending you're something else that I can't even imagine, trying to bear that weight. That that's what sometimes society has done to so many people. They want to just shove them down to meet their ideal ideal. For some reason, when they lay their head down at night, they feel ah, look at me, I oppressed somebody, I pushed somebody down. I'm so proud. And I'd like to ask them do you think your deity would be proud of you by discriminating against people, hating them, causing so much pain? I've read almost every ideology out there. They're not about hating people, it's about loving people. But that's why I think these movies need to be made, because we can't always be villainizing people. That's just, it's not fair, it's not right. Just love people, that's all. It is Just people who love each other, and it's a story about that. Anyway, soapbox over. But if you guys have any questions, comments, concerns, any way to improve this show, please let me know. Cinemajudge at Hotmailcom.
Speaker 1:I'm also on a lot of platforms. I'm on YouTube I really appreciate you guys' input there I'm on TikTok, instagram threads and I'm even on the metaverse sometimes. So if you ever go to the metaverse chick old horizon worlds I'm often there just hanging out people talking about movies and having a good time. A lot of times I'm at a place called Ace of Clubs. It's a laser tag place. It's just a blast. We fly around the room and we just have a blast if we talk movies, tv, whatever it is. If you're ever there in the horizon worlds, say hello, look up CinemaJudge, and I really hope you enjoyed our in-depth look at all of us strangers and I love hearing about how you listen, where you listen. It's so amusing to me that you guys take time out of your life to listen to the show and I'm very grateful.
Speaker 1:Now, if you're a person who listens to the show within the first week or so of an episode dropping, you know I always give you a shout out for the people who listened to the last episode. Well, I had some spare time this week. I had a little time off from work, so I'm dropping this one just a couple days after the last one. So when I name off some of the places that have listened, I'm just gonna give you kind of a abbreviated one, because when I do one later at the normal time, I'll give the proper shout out. But I'll just give you a little snippet of some of the listeners so far From the United States, germany, haiti and South Korea. We have Columbus, ohio, st Paul, minnesota, minneapolis, minnesota, port Prince Department, the I-Quest and Crefffield, north Rhine Westphalia and Qing-Wan, zhai-yin, san Nam-Du. Yeah, I know I butchered that one, but anyway, that's just a little tip of the iceberg just to give you a little flavor before we do a full list in an episode later on this week, but I love hearing from you guys. A lot of times you guys are listening when you're driving to work, sitting at home, doing whatever. You can use it as a nightlight where they play it out all night long. That's great, no matter how you listen. I am grateful and I appreciate that. And this week's bourbon shout out goes out to Bobby, the guy who recently gave me this. He was testing my ears and all that other stuff went for the typical exam. You were so professional, so nice, so informative. I really appreciate all you did for me and I really appreciate your hard work there, bobby Cheers.
Speaker 1:Now, as I mentioned earlier, if you want to watch the TV version of this, you can watch it on demand whenever you want, at least for a couple months, and you'll be able to watch it everything that's dead, without me interrupting at all. You go to bitly slash cinema judge. Bitly slash cinema judge. This and several other shows will be there where you can watch it anytime you want on demand. And, as most of you know, when I'm making the TV version of this, I'm cranking out the tunes. That's my happy place. I'm dealing with movies and music. It's just, it's my happy place. But this week I go.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, this is kind of a heavy subject. I don't want something too heavy but not too light. So I try to find that sweet spot and, as you guys know, I have like a handful of albums that I've go to a lot. You're like man, you don't have much variety at all. Well, the reason to that is this when I'm doing the editing, I don't want to be thinking or paying too much attention to the music. I love the music and I need it, but if I'm listening to something I don't listen to all the time, I get way distracted and I don't get anything done Cause I keep trying to listen to the music. Well, so that's why I had to explain that a little bit.
Speaker 1:So this one I listened to the 35th anniversary of the Carpenter's Greatest Hits, gold, I think it's called gold, carpenter's 30th anniversary gold, I think, yeah, that's what it's called. And again, it's like it's not one of those double albums. It's a long one. You can just sit back and just ride it through. So that's what I was doing this one. I tried to find that sweet spot between light, fun but not too heavy. So that's what I decided on. Well, that is it. My glass awaits. I'm thirsty, so cheers to you and to the movies. So until next time, be well, be good, and I'm gone. I'm Jeff, I'm just listening to the Cinema Judge.