I'm Ari Aster. And I'm Bill Hater. And this is the A24 podcast. Yeah, we did recreate the Steven Soderberg uh Limb Doss limey commentary. We get in a fight where Lim Dobs like I never liked him. Just airs all of his grievances, right? Where just that is the best commentary. I think it might be the best commentary because you're watching it and enjoying the movie and then in the middle of it. Yeah. there. I think it's it's it starts because Peter Fonda has a picture of Terrence Stamp's daughter like in his house, right? And Soderberg is like that's Yeah, that that covers it. Lamb Dove is like, "Yeah, instead of her entire backstory that I spent years writing, we just put a photo of her." It's like every photo, he goes, "He would never have that photo in his house. If he was somewhat responsible for her death, why the would he have a picture of her in her house?" And then I remember watching it kind of laughing like it felt really intimate where you're like at a dinner and you're like, "Oh, these are two friends kind of ribbing each other." And then you realize like, "Oh no." Yeah. By the end, they kind of have to clean it up a little bit. Like they have to patch it up before it's over. But but it is it is like every every screenwriter's fantasy, right, is to finally get the director in the room and just air their grievances one by one as the film plays. Um and and Soderberg is just like, "Yeah, well, I I like it." Yeah, he handles it really well. I mean, he handles it incredible. He's pretty graceful. He's like, "Okay, all right. Well, he's probably gotten these conversations with Lim Dobs before, you know, like or he's familiar with Oh, no. You feel like it's definitely like a fraught a fraught relationship." Well, also, didn't he It was Kofka, too, that he wrote. Oh, yeah. And Kofka was like just a reviled Yeah. Right. film. Yeah, I like Kofka. I like Kofka actually. I think Jeremy Irons is incredibly good in that that movie. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's a gorgeous movie. I remember when that movie came out and knowing about Sex Lies and Videotape and they and seeing the trailer beforehand, it was like from the director of Sex Lives and Videotape and I was like, "Wow, that's a cool left turn." You know, it was just like to be your followup to Sex Lies I thought was cool. And then doing King of the Hill I thought was cool. King of the Hill was so good. Yeah. I just thought those those early things were so interesting that he swerved like that. And then and then Skizopoulos. And then Skizopoulos. I was like I was obsessed with that film. Skizopoulos is amazing. That's also got a great commentary track. Oh yeah. He's interviewing himself. I forgot about that. Soderberg is great. Sodberg is really He's very funny in that movie. He's so funny in that film. And that and that film is there there's a there's a book he put out with um Richard Lester with Richard Lester that's just incredible at that time. Yeah. So good. Yeah. Actually, when I moved to LA, the sex lives and videotape his journal the there was like a forward the making of it. And there was a forward in that which was basically just about him like moving from Louisiana to LA and like just trying to get work and and everything that was like so inspiring to me. And every time I would get really down, like 25 years ago when I moved to LA, I would break that out and read it and go like, "All right, I just have to like work harder, make connections, you know, and just do all that." That was a bit of a tradition. There were a lot of those. There's uh Spike Lee Oh, yeah. did one of those for the I'm a Diary for pre-production and production for for Do the Right Thing. And then and then Emma Thompson did one for for Sense and Sensibility. Sensibility. That's true. I forgot about that. Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, they should bring that back. Why don't you do them? I don't know. I really It just seems like such a waste of time. I could I could be working on the movie. I could be working on the movie instead of reminiscing about what just happened. Yeah. Yeah. I don't even think I want to relive it cuz I would be writing the diary entry and then realize how I up the day's work, you know, and be like, "Oh, wait a No, I want to read somebody else's, but I don't want to memorialize anything. Yeah. Yeah. But the the the Sex Lives and Video Tape one's really good. The Richard Lester one is really great. Really great. Remember he's like starring He's like Richard Lester as the man who knew more than he was asked. Yeah, I thought was very funny. I tried showing my kids the new Mission Impossible and they weren't they were not having it. I haven't seen the new one yet, but I I do think the first one is incredible. Oh, the Brian Deal one. It's amazing. I love that movie. So great. I love that film. They like that one. Wasn't that script written? It was like written by like Steve Zylian like Robert Town. Yeah. Yeah. Like Ben Hec Manowitz. Mangoitz. It's like it's like every great like William I'm not I think William Goldman might have been on it. It was just like so I think it was William Goldman. It was it was like every great writer like historical writer wrote on the first Mission Impossible movie and then to Palma. It's so good. It's really good. It is really good and it's funny. Yeah. And there's like And there's no there's no action. It's all like intrigue. Yeah. It's all until the end and then the and then you have and then you have the the bullet train which is Yeah. with John Voit on a bullet train and masks. But that sequence where he's he's uh being lowered into the room is like it's incredible. Yeah, it's masterfully done. I mean, that that is one of the best. I remember seeing that in the theater and people just losing their minds. Like it just it works so well. I got to talk to you about your movie a little bit. So, you sent me the script for it a while ago. I remember us actually sitting outside at an Italian restaurant and you telling me the story and I and you're like I'm doing a COVID western that's kind of Jim Thompsony and I want Oh, okay. Wow, that sounds You thought it was a bad idea. I thought it was a bad idea. Yeah. Like, all right. Well, that's interesting. No, but then when I read it, I was like, this is awesome. But then we just but you can never really fully understand and like you're such a an actual like like a real filmmaker like when you read the scripts of actual filmmakers they just they read where you could see the movie in a way that's not written for like executives you know like I as an actor I would read a lot of scripts that I was like oh this is to sell you know right but your scripts are so full and interesting because I'm like oh this is the guy who's seen the movie and they read really well and exciting, but then seeing the movie, which I just saw a couple weeks ago and I called you after there's no hyperball. I I think it's a masterpiece. I really do. I can't stop thinking about it. My girlfriend Ally, we are still talking about it constantly and anybody we talk to were just like, "You have to see Edington when it comes out. You have to see it." and um Alec Berg, the co-creator of Barry was there, Jason Walner, and all of us. Gearald Door was there, and we've all been texting each other going like, "What did we just see? That was phenomenal." And I think that the thing that the the word that I that I relate to is Ally said that was very refreshing that somebody came out and made a movie that just kind of just stated the problem. You know, it's that like sorry to be pretentious, but that check off thing of like you present the problem, not the solution, you know, and so many things today I see are trying to be the solution or at least some if we just did this this, you know, and that never really works. But someone going like, well, here's how I feel about a lot of things. Um, I don't want to ruin I don't want to give anything away, but I was just really truly as like I the feeling I had. We got in the car and I told go I can't believe I'm friends with a guy who made that. That thing's unbelievable. So, it really I'm I it really is like um I don't know what else to say. I just I thought it was a complete I do think it's a masterpiece. Oh, thanks, man. I know. It's Thank you. Yeah, I know. It's I really appreciate that. I'm not look I don't want money or anything. I'm not asking for money. I'm not about to hit you up. I'll give it I'll give you money. It's okay. We'll do it after the thing. But uh but how in the when you're writing something like that, is it just like I know you're going to be talking a lot about how did you come up with the idea and all these things, but I'm always interested just like in process stuff because I I'm still insecure about my own process, which is like very like not very disciplined at all and kind of like I would say kind of lazy and then suddenly I just get like a ton of work done and then I'm lazy and I a ton of work done. But with you with this idea, was it a thing that okay, every day I'm just going to like work on this thing or was it a burst of you know? It was kind of a burst. Well, it was uh I don't have much of a process either. I I think mostly it's intuitive thing but also like an impulsive thing where I I just if if something's there I I write it down and I tend to try to not uh censor myself or edit anything until it's down and then once it's down it becomes a process of like just stealing yourself and not and not taking out the things that you know should probably not be there. Yeah. Um, well, I mean that that that maybe need to be there for like the integrity of the thing, but that for your own peace of mind, you know, would be better taken out, and this film has a lot of those. Yeah. Yeah. There were a couple things that I I'm actually happy I took out. I took out. Um well, but when you look at that first, like you kind of get the like that inspired draft out and then like do you take a period and then look at it and go, "Oh, okay. What was I thinking?" Or, "Oh, I like this." Or in this case, I had been wanting to write something about the atmosphere, about like just the environment Yeah. we were living in. And that of course just includes the internet. like the like what what does it feel like to actually just be living in the internet? Yeah. Um and I didn't have like a uh I I didn't have an idea beyond that. And then I realized that I had this script called Edington that I tried to get made uh like eight years before I made Hereditary and and it didn't happen. Oh wow. I didn't know that. It was just sort of like this, you know, contemporary western that I lost interest in because it needed something else. Like it it was missing something. And then I I realized, oh, I could take the basic structure and world of that script and then use that as a thing to hang all these other ideas. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So, that kind of allowed me to write something in about three weeks. Oh wow. And then I left it alone because B is Afraid was the thing. And then and then in editing B I kind of started to polish it and and return to it and revise it and and then I I went to New Mexico, which is where I'm from, and uh kind of drove around the state going to different small towns and PBLO and and interviewing sheriffs, police chiefs, public officials, like you know, mayors. um and uh and just started getting as full a picture as I could of of the the the states politics. Yeah. And that that really like once I had done that and I and I met certain people that felt like really great models for different characters, it started to get away from me in a good way and then it started to stop being kind of me playing with little like army men, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Some people don't like let that happen. You can see the movies people make where like, oh, they're playing with their army men. Yeah. You know what I mean? But I like that you don't talk about those after. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk about those off camera. But uh but though that's what I like about your stuff is that it feels so personal. I remember seeing Hereditary for the first time and shooting it too and I went with some of the people when we were making that movie and I remember going well that's not only a great horror movie. I mean the last 20 minutes of it really breathtaking I thought and uh and funny. I don't think anybody Hero Your Eye was the first person I met that we found um Tony Colette's head falling the sound effect of her head falling laugh like funny. Well, it's satisfying. It's very satisfying when you hear a headphone. I remember laughing cuz I was like that's funny that this guy included that cuz you don't you don't need it but but it's there like most movies a horror movie would have taken that out but it's so funny that you hear it and I was telling Hero and he goes oh my god I laugh so hard when the head you hear the head fall and maybe that's just like a filmmaker thing that it's like we found it very funny but I was also like this is an amazing filmmaker I was like Jesus Christ, this is like cuz it was so um uh personal. I could feel all the it just felt incredibly personal and for me that's the best and we've talked about this you know um you see something like Rosemary's Baby or something like that and you go wow this feels like a very personal story you know on some level you know and um was that details feel the detail feel very personally yes with Palansky it always does but was that a thing that that again is just instinctual or was that something AFI they're like all right you need to put more of yourself you know what I mean was one of those things no I think David Lynch too does that too I would actually say David Lynch you know when he passed away I think we were texting but I like watched all his movies again when I grabbed you passed away and yeah me too and that was the thing that knocked me out about I was like god these are so personal these feel so almost like embarrassingly personal well the yeah just like the vision is so complete and singular and like and just idiosyncratic and his like picture of like America. It's like always including the things he loves. Yeah. And the things that scare him and these motifs that he's kind of drawn to, you know, that he's that he he also he's like a fetishist. Um yeah. No, he that his death really hit me hard uh in a way that kind of surprised me. Part of that has to do with him being something of like a spiritual teacher for a lot of people. I think so too. I think he also just was a person that show I remember seeing a racer head and watching it again this time and and just thinking like oh this is about a guy who is terrified of having a family and terrified of all this responsibility and having a child and but that it came out of him in this way the in-laws. Oh yeah, Bill. on look at my knee. And and I mean that whole scene with the family is just uh amazing. And it's still I could that movie is also kind of timeless too. Like you watch it and you think it was made during the 70s, but it could have been made any time. I just can't I couldn't imagine seeing that in the 70s and just going like, well, someone found a new language, you know? I mean, it really is. And it just was all in instinctual and um I feel that in your stuff, though. It's like it's a similar like midsummer. I remember I think that's how you and I started talking was I was supposed to do a Q&A or moderate something or something. And then I was like, well, can I just say hi to him? It was during pandemic and I think I called you and I was like, I just was like four. Yeah, we talked for like four hours during COVID. Yeah. during lockdown and then I was just like this is amazing. What a this is like one of the greatest breakup movies of all time, you know. But uh yeah, what is that a thing that's like you tend to be drawn to? Is this just an instinctual thing in your writing and the personal the personal aspect of it? Um, well, I yeah, I would say that for me, I I kind of I think I use genre in some ways as like a a shield or like a it's it's it's a it's a way of like obfuscating. Yeah. So, in some ways it's like cowardice, right? It's that it's that I need to veil just how personal the stories are. Mhm. Um, and so yeah, I think it I think if anything I'm like I'm I'm I'm sometimes a little embarrassed by just how like, you know, it it it verges on like solopsism, you know, sometimes. But I know that just writing is is hard and I can only ever really do it when I'm in some some kind of crisis or if I'm if I'm really stuck. When we first became friends, you sent me a script for a feature that you haven't made yet that is I won't talk about it, but except to say that it's incredibly personal and and has a lot of things from your life and and I I found it to be just like so real and like really beautifully observed and thanks. Uh it's like it's just it's a movie that was so vivid on the page that I feel like I've already seen it. It doesn't exist yet, but I really really want it to. So I I know just as far as that project is concerned that you operate in a similar way. It it it really made me I mean you mentioned Czechov and it it really brought Czechov to mine in its unscentimentality. its lack of sentimentality and then also just the way that it it sets up kind of a familiar problem but the innovation is that it ends the way life does not the way a story does why it's so hard to get it has it been a little bit yeah you know but not not like in a huge way but yeah in a in a bit in a bit of a way yeah it's so but that's the thing I always like you know when we talk about and I think I mentioned this to you after I saw Eddington was I had written a horror movie right after Barry wrapped and I didn't really take a break after Barry. I kind of went right into writing this feature and I was like, I'm going to make this feature. And I had a meeting with a big producer who's actually very smart, lovely guy, but it wasn't for him. And if you've seen his other movies, I won't say it was, but great guy, but it's just not for him. But his response to it was so bad. He went, "This is this is this is so mean-spirited and horrible and everything." I was like, "Yeah, it's a horror movie." And it's like, "But it's so just it's just so disturbing and just so cynical and this and I was like, "Did you not see my TV show?" You know, but it was this interesting thing that happened that it did kind of not it did kind of and I think it was just because I was very vulnerable after finishing Barry and this kind of pressure of like what are you going to do next or whatever that was all self-imposed. No one was asking me that. It was just my own neurosis that I I I really lost my confidence. And so I kind of set it aside for a bit and we'll go back to it. I know. But when I saw Edington, I think I told you I was seeing that I was like, "Yes, okay. I'm going to go back to that project cuz he did it." You know, I go, he had the balls to do the thing that I kind of was like talked out of. You know what I mean? And let's see how Edington does. It might it might not have. No, but for me it's for me it's fantast but I think it's fantastic. I don't I don't you know some of this you just can't control you know but I do think it's a film that will last forever and and uh Oh man. And it but it is a thing that we you know it uh I haven't had an experience like that in a while where we were all in the parking lot afterwards kind of looking at each other going what the did we just that that was that was that that was amazing and like Jason Walner who's like such a lovely guy was just like and Alec Berg and it was just like that was phenomenal and I know GMO talked to you afterwards and he was texting me just like that was amazing It is a masterpiece, you know, the balls. Ariestra's got big balls, man. Like he just loved it, you know, and so that's, you know, it's very, but that gave me this, that's the best thing you could say about a piece of art is it inspires you to like, you know, go for it, go for the risk. And but with you, it almost seems like it doesn't even occur to you that it might be an issue, but maybe it does. lake, you go, "Okay, this might be an issue, but I got to keep moving." You know, like, yeah, I I think I just really I the minute I start thinking strategically, like I just lose steam. I just like th those thoughts like just don't go very far because I I can't get the I can't get the energy to do that that kind of thing. But I I yeah this was there there were a lot of nerves in making this where I was like what like am I gonna do this like why why I told uh filmmaker friend I told him like you know the idea and he was like you're just going to walk into that meat grinder you're gonna and I don't know but um thanks man I I'm I I I I'm so glad that you liked it. Oh yeah, loved it. And then I was happy too. People have asked me what's it like working with him because I was in Bose is Afraid. And it's always fun when people tell me they saw Bose a I've had this happen now four times where people are like, "Oh, I love Bo's Afraid. I really like that scene where he's on the phone with the UPS guy and everything." And I'm like, "Uh-huh. You know that's me, right?" And they go, "No, it's not." I'm like, "Yeah, that's me." And I've that's happened to me three times where people don't believe me. And I'm like, "No, that's me on the phone. the guy crying about finding his dead mom and everything. That's me. And it's like, "Shut the up." I'm like, "I'm in the movie." You're amazing in that scene. That's my That's probably my favorite scene in the film. Well, it was very funny cuz my my poor It hinges on the Sorry, I was just going to say the humor of that scene hinges on you just being that guy absolutely in hell. like just it's not like I remember just recording that in my house and my poor assistant Alyssa Donovan was just in the other room and she would just peek her head in like cuz cuz I would do a couple of takes and then my the memory I have is you you I would do it with Keen and then you would come in and go, "Hey, Bill, that was great." And then you went, "I have a question. Are you really crying?" I go, "I'm not crying." Uh and you go, "I think I think you should really cry. And so I really got worked up alone just alone really crying and got really sad. And then I did this thing and I felt man I really poured my heart on that one. I'm like wiping tears in my eyes and then you come on and you're dying laughing. You go oh Bill we're cracking up over here at the monitor. It's really great. So I didn't know what what I didn't have a monitor in front of you or anything. So, I'm just going off of what was on this other end of the phone. So, it wasn't until I saw the movie that I saw the shot and the slow pushing on him and everything and I was like, "Oh, that's what they were looking at." And then I thought it was incredibly funny when I saw it. But over the phone, it it I just was like I just Yeah, I was just trying to play the reality of the moment. You're so great in it. It we we did like 35 takes of that or something. It was a lot but it because it was one shot. Yeah. It was very funny. Yeah. And Wen was just in it the whole time. People were like, "Does there any sort of like small talk?" And I was like, "No, no, he's just fully in it, you know." Do you know do you know Blue Jam by Chris Morris? Oh yeah. He ended up doing it as it's a radio show by Chris Morris that he ended up doing as a TV show called Jam. Yeah. And those sketches are so f funny to me because there's they're no jokes. It's just the most hellish. Yeah. Uh nightmare situations. Like a a woman whose baby just died and she calls over like a plumber to like fix the baby because he fixed her boiler last week and and she's she's just manic and and it she's it's it's a woman whose baby just died. like clearly it was in like like denial. Um and it's so funny because it's so morbid and it's just so real. Like if if the minute it would have become kind of arch or camp like it it would stop being funny. He never does that. Chris Morris. Yeah, he's he's my he's like my favorite. I love that so much. When I was at SNL the the uh pedophile episode of Brass Eye. Yeah. Pedageddon. We would we would all sit in an office and watch it and kind of just marvel at the that they were making that they were finding genuinely great jokes about this. And then when I w pedophile dressed as a school with the little the hardest I've laughed I think at anything. One of the hardest times I ever laughed was the uh the prison vessel. No, the the the uh what is that? the the thing where the it's like they shot the world's worst pedophile into outer space in the oneman prison vessel, but a little boy accidentally somehow an 8-year-old boy got on board and he goes, "Said NASA, this was the one thing we didn't want to have happen and I fell out of my seat laughing. I but I remember going to South Park and that they would quote Chris Morris constantly and just I think he's just somebody that of course those guys love him though they love him and I think they're probably I think Matt's friends with him but uh but yeah he was that that stuff was something that you just we we were kind of like could you imagine they're getting away with this stuff and I remember meeting Simon Peg and he was like oh sh I go no no no the the the guy in the stocks who's like won't doesn't find, you know, Chris Morris is like, "Don't you want to have sex with my son?" He's like, "No, I don't fancy him." And he's like, "What do you mean you don't fancy him? Look at him. He's beautiful." It was like, I cannot believe they're making these jokes. Yeah. But somehow it was more of a It was amazing. But it was all all of Brassai is phenomenal. Cake, animals episode. Yeah. Cake. The drugs. The drugs. Yeah. Is a non-existent but real sounding or whatever it was. And before that was on the hour and the day today. Day today was amazing. which he did with which is just Kugan. Yeah. Kugan as um as Alan Partridge as Alan Partridge. And remember Kugan did a very funny thing where he was the guy that saw a bank robbery. Do you remember that? And they go, "What did you see? Do you remember this? Did you not like this?" No, no, no, no, no. I I've seen them all. I He says, "A bank robbery." He's like, "Well, the guy came out and he was like and he gets gets hit in the head." And what's the uh the bomb dogs? The dogs that are being used as bombs. Yeah, there's so many. There's the uh the priest. The priest was being bullied by the other priests. I mean, that was stuff that, you know, I mean, yeah, that and then when he did Four Lions and everything, I just Four Lions is incredible. It's unbelievable. Which he did with I think he wrote that with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bane who did pee show, you know. Yeah. So Jesse Armstrong obviously did one on Succession. Succession the greatest thing and and the thick of it Yeah. Thick of it was unbelievable. But uh but but Four Lions was so Yeah. Just uh like the Three Stooges as uh as jihadist. Yeah. Where he's like, "How did you keep where did you get all the was it manure or something for the bomb? They just kept going back to the same store." And he goes, "I went as a disguise." He goes, "What's your disguise?" and he just he just put covering his beard just hand he just put his hands over his face to cover his beard and he talked in a woman's voice I need to watch that movie again but I just remember seeing it but that was another thing it's like you see that in the theater I remember and I would say 20% of us were howling and then there was 80% of the audience was just like this is not funny at all this is like really in poor taste and everything and and I don't know I really admired bad. Well, for me doing Barry too, it was like a thing where you go, "Oh, this doesn't look like a comedy. It It look like when those guys blow up, it's very realistic, but also funny." Like the tone is very, you know, a specific way. Well, Barry has this amazing trajectory of beginning in its first season. It's it's there's something familiar about it. I I really I really really like its first season, but then two, three, and four for me, it goes to four, right? Yeah. Two, sorry. But two, three, and four for me, it just becomes incrementally more like fascinating and strange and sad and bleak and it it becomes kind of like experimental. I don't know. I I I really love h how Barry evolved. It it it it really became something totally unique. Oh, thank you. And and some of those I mean just just as as a director as well like you you're you're so distinct and I uh there are action scenes I mean Ronnie and Lily right was the first that was the Yeah. the karate girl one in season two that that was cuz I just love like a sustained like like prolonged um action sequence that kind of just that that goes beyond the breaking point like but that one went so far beyond it. And then uh in season 3 there's the uh the motorcycle chase which is one of the most like cinematic vividly realized things I've ever seen and not just on TV. Um, I just I I I watched that a couple times. What you're doing with the sound, uh, it felt like a shame that I was watching it on my TV. It's like I want to see this in a theater. It's so That was the coolest thing was we did that was like the Emmy episode. So, and I think we chose as the Emmy episode just cuz they would screen it at for your consideration events and we could see it in the theater with proper sound and everything. But no, I really appreciate it. No, that but that that you know how it like that's another one where you're just like you're following your instincts and then I don't know if you have this too. We've kind of talked about this where you're like hey man I think I'm you know that Ronnie Lily one I was like I think I'm finding my voice a little bit you know I really think I figured this out and then it's always for me in the mix where I'm watching it and I'm like oh my god I like the Cohen brothers this is just such a Cohen brothers ripoff you know or oh my god this is the like the end of season two I'm like this is Taxi Driver. Why didn't anybody tell me I was just doing the end of Taxi Driver and it's I always realize in the mix inescapable you can't it's like in your DNA and and and I was like someone asked me oh were some of the movies you liked to watch for Barry and I listed some and in there was the American friend and third man and then to you know the DP Carl Hersy on season 3 was like oh you know the cone brothers every time before they watch a movie they watch man and American friend and the conformist and I was like, "Oh jeez, I can't escape the influence of that." But they can't escape those influenc Yeah, that's true. Same with, you know, you you see like the Huducker proxy and you're like, "Oh, that's the big clock." And that is the big clock. It's um you know, there's so much hawks in there and stures and and so much Capra, especially Mr. Deeds. Oh, Mr. Deeds. Uh proxy is so like Mr. goes to town. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Hail the Conquering Hero. Oh, 100%. You know, you could tell how much they like Sturgeist movies or even like watching growing up and watching Star Wars and Stephen Spielberg movies and stuff and then seeing which is a movie like for me isn't like I think it looks beautiful but didn't hit me the way I think it did for that generation was The Searchers. Yeah. I think Ford in general I think they look amazing. Um, but his movie I I love My Darling Clementine actually. I think that I think that movie from top to bottom is pretty fantastic and really really moving and and you could tell it's post when he came back from war cuz the whole ending there's like no music and there's something kind of sad and like objectively kind of criticizing the violence of the Okay Corral thing instead of being in the middle of it and then in the mix. Do you know what I mean? while also just being so romantic and and uh uh just like idllic. Yeah. Same that that's My Darling Clementine and The Man Who Shot Li Liberty Valance and um and young Mr. Lincoln are my favorite. But I'm with you on The Searchers, which I think is so gorgeous. But tonally, tonally it's like really odd for me in a way that doesn't work where like you go to the where every time you go back home um like to the family it's so like arch and and like slapstick and and just not in line with Well, it's weird in Mean Streets when they're watching the Searchers and Mean Streets that's searchers and I always think that's like a um like a silly western from the 50s or something where he's biting is you know, and it's like literally like goofy noises. But what I was going to say is that you watch Star Wars and you see like when Luke comes home and sees like, you know, the plan, you know, his home has been, you know, set on fire and his aunt and uncle have been murdered. It's like almost shot for shot feels like when they come and find that the, you know, the homestead's been set on fire and the searchers and I'm like I I bet it's just part of that that language that you grew up with or like you watch Spielberg movies and then if you watch like a David Lean movie or Michael Curtis especially like those two guys you go wow these filmmakers had a huge influence on him in a great way you know. Yeah. Well, Curtis does that push in that like really smooth push into a close-up. He he's Yeah, it's very Curtis is very um I see a lot of Curtis in the Cohens, too. Just ju just what he does with the camera. Just very very he has a really breaking point is one of his that I've watched a couple I love the breaking point which is which is to have and have not. Right. Yeah, it is. And I've listen I've watched that a couple of times kind of in a way where initially it was just to watch it and now I I'm just kind of like kind of marveling at just the choices in it and how beautiful it is and how kind of weird and moving those performances are with him and Patricia Neil and John Garfield. Right. John Garfield. He's so good. Unbelievable. It's so atmospheric and beautiful. I I uh No, I that thing where it's like that's what a movie looks like. Those are movies and you feel like oh Mildred Pierce and but you feel like in those in the things that you know you and I have talked about um you know Spielberg's like the way he does action sequences the geography in those things are like he's a master. I mean, it's like, yeah, just just as like an architect, his shots, right? Well, he's like the king of shot sequencing. There's nobody better. I would say George Miller is pretty good and and jame Cameron, I always think, but again, these are the people I grew up with. Yeah. Watching Road Warrior constantly and watching Terminator and Terminator 2 constantly and Spielberg. So, it's just kind of like in your again, it's like in your DNA when you're putting together a sequence. Yeah. And actually, I'll say Sam Ramy, too. Sam Ramy, he was the thing that was like seeing Evil Dead at 14 and I would go, "Oh, wow. You can do this on like no budget." And it was so effective. It was like punk rock music. Yeah. And then Evil Dead 2 being like, "Okay, now I'm going to do the same thing with the budget now." Which is just It's the It's like the Ramones with Phil Spectre or something where it's like, "Hey, now we've got the dough and the prestige to do our thing at this higher level." Um, but those movies are still so uh good. And then the um one of the actors in Barry, Jesse Hodgeges, her mom is in the original Evil Dead. She's the woman that gets raped by a tree. Um that's that was she goes, "My mom's in the Evil Dead." And I go, "She's a woman that gets raped by a tree." Ellen Sandwe is amazing actor and um and she goes, "Yeah, I grew up in Michigan." And my mom was like, "Yeah, I did I was in this horror movie a long time ago. My" and she's like, "Yeah, we didn't really think about it." And I was like, "I had a poster of that in my room and I don't think I would be like that was the movie for me where I was like, "Oh, I'm going to pick up a video camera and go shoot stuff." Cuz I you could see how he did it. Yeah. On some level. Because before that I was like, "Oh, you need a giant crew and you need all this stuff." What was was that what was that for you? Was there a specific moment when you went, "Oh, I think I can I'm motivated now to go or inspired to go shoot something on your own." Or was it just, you know, I I I always hear about those kids who like were making Super 8 movies with their friends and I, you know, uh I just I didn't have friends who wanted to make movies, so I I just wrote scripts. I was obsessed with just reading screenplays uh in my teens. Like I just I went through all the all the phases, you know, the David Mamemoth phase and the uh you know and and and of and of course just read everything the Cohens ever wrote. Yeah. Those early Cohen scripts are so interesting because they're so detailed. Yeah. Well, they're written as pros. Yeah, they are. Yeah. It's the same with those. I mean, I just found this uh Herzog scenarios and it's like the Airi. They're so great. It's just like a short story. Short stories. Yeah. And the same with uh Bergman. Yeah. Bergman was big big for me. Yeah. Just I mean as a filmmaker, writer, personality, the whole thing. And and as and and those screenplays like I I I loved the scenes from a marriage screenplay. I had that. Uh you have one I remember I have one a persona and shame. I remember reading and going like, "Wow, these scripts are so beautifully written." And I guess you can cuz the the Woody Allen ones, I remember reading an Annie Hall script that wasn't published. It was like it might have been at like the UCLA library or something, but but his his would just be like, you know, Annie Hall like Alvie walks in and and sees Max and then parentheses it would say improv. Yeah. And then it would get scene. Yeah. So they meet like improv and then we'll get into then we lead into this somehow and it would just be all dialogue. Oh that's great. I was like oh that's interesting. Oh that's a good way. And then the coins I just that's where I learned the terms I don't know push. We're pulling them. We're pushing them. They would say like tableau meaning like just like an interesting wide shot with everything. And I was like oh this is like really it really is like so helpful. Yeah. you know, and the Preston Sturis ones. I had that. I don't know. Did you read those where like the big Yeah. Preston Sturgis scripts and his uh his autobiography is the best too. Stures on Sturis. That's the He's so funny. That's the best one. Yeah, he's it's one of the best ones. There are a lot of really great. So, you were doing like writing just writing scripts. And when did it become Was it wasn't until you went to AFI that you're like, "All right, I'm going to direct something." Or was that? Well, I went to undergrad first and then I again had to like drag friends into into like kind of standing there uselessly while I did all the jobs, you know, uh making shorts. And then at AFI, that was my first time uh working with like a crew of people who all had like their own discipline that they were committed to. So like this was their project as well. Yeah. And then then you realize like, oh, this is not only is the result better, but it's like not a joyless suffocating process. My was always my sisters, Carrie and Katie, unfortunately, like out in the woods in Oklahoma and me. All right, you stand there. I'm going to chase you with a camera and just literally just doing, you know, Evil Dead shaky cam and chasing him going like, "Wow, wow." You know, and doing all that stuff and they loved it, but I was like their older brother, so they had no they they couldn't say anything. One guy that I was really ripping off was uh uh Guy Madden, who's somebody that I've had the chance to work with. Yeah. Rumors now as a producer. Yeah. and he's he's the loveliest guy ever. But he was a really big hero of mine, especially when I was first started making shorts, especially because those films are are made on on a shoestring, but they're so like uh you know, they're these fantasmagorias, you know. Yeah. Um yeah, those movies are phenomenal. If people haven't seen Guy Madden's films or what he's doing now with the Johnson brothers, Evan and Galen. Um yeah, but they did that movie you guys worked on. But they've been working together for a long time. Um, and I I I I I just think they're so funny and just genuinely uh brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. You're also the person that turned me on to uh Peter Greenway was someone that I never Oh, God. could like get into. Yeah. You know, and I remember that he's not he's not somebody you get into. He gets into you. Yeah. He gets into you. But it was never a thing that I could like and then I remember you you telling me how great. You go, "No, man. You should, you know, but you you it wasn't like a hard push." Yeah. But you went, "I would give him another shot." And I went back and I actually really enjoyed uh Cook, Thief, Wife, Lover, and another one I watched and now I can't remember what it was. Dead in Two Knots, which is pretty brilliant. He made a he made a film really early on called The Falls, which is like really fascinating. Yeah. About I think it's something like I'm going to get this wrong. It's like 88 people who all died and and uh in in mysterious ways who's who have fallen their last name. Oh, wow. Um it's like a three-hour Wow. uh experiment. Um The Baby of Mone is just Oh, yeah. pure Yeah. It's like a diseased movie just like truly misanthropic. I I feel like the word I feel like the miss I feel like the word misanthropic is applied to a like it's applied to like Lars voner which I don't agree with. I think there's too much life in those films to be actually misanthropic. But Peter Greenway like he's he's like sucked all the human personality out of the films. like they're they're just and I love them, but they're they're really really and I and I I just happened to see them when I was like 12, 13, and it it was just a mistake. Like it just it just really bothered me and I I couldn't get them out of my system for years. It's amazing when you see a certain thing at the right time. Like Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver always have a huge impact on me. Yeah. You just go, "Well, I saw those at a sleepover. I'm never the same again." and became just kind of obsessed with movies after that. And a gira Wrath of God is another one. I think that's why I got that scenarios book. I've always been just constantly drawn by the monkeys crawling all over the unbelievable the POV that movie is a master of of point of view of where they just stay on the raft. Yeah. Yeah. And those shots of the natives just looking at them. And in any other movie, they would have gone behind the natives and you would have been tracking along them and you're with them. But he doesn't do that. He just stays on the raft. And I still think one of the most haunting images is when they leave that horse. Yeah. No, it's amazing. And it just he holds on that is like they just drift away from that horse and you kind of go, "Well, that thing's about to get it's gonna get eaten in like five minutes or something." He he yeah he's I mean um so many of his like experiments are so they yield like such amazing results like Heart of Glass where everybody's hypnotized. Have you seen the footage of him hypnotizing the people? Yeah, it's amazing. It's so incredible. It's so much work. Yeah. My my favorite films of his are his documentaries like Fat Morgana. That's a Lessons in Darkness. My my favorite is um Land of Land of Silence and Darkness. Is that what it's called? Yeah, with the mute deaf uh blind people. Yeah, that's like a really it's beautiful. Tough movie, but it's really beautiful. Yeah, he just likes such extreme subjects. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think I had a time in high school where it was like all those things hit it was like late elementary school. It was like finding Scorsese and Kubric and stuff like that and then and and then and always loving Spielberg from a young age. Um and then but then getting to um high school it was Herzog Veners, you know, and then that's when Errol Morris I saw thin blue line in the Yeah. in a government class. We were learning about the judicial system and we I thank God this guy Brady Pringle was like I'm gonna play this I'm gonna play this uh movie that about you parody it on documentary now. You even nailed the Philip Glass uh score like the where you make it even more insistent and repetitive that that Ree Thomas and Alex Bo deserve a lot of credit for how good those things came out. they're the directors. But um but yeah, but and then I I got a chance to, you know, and meet Errol Morris and and and just for the American Cinema Tech and he's amazing, talk to him and and yeah, that um and the thing is like you know, you meet these people and you're so like kind of in awe of them and it's like the same like he was telling me he's like I saw Douglas Cirk once at Telluride and I was so excited. He's my favorite filmmaker and he watched um my first film, you know, Gates of Heaven, which is like I think a masterpiece. Douglas Cirk went to see it and and hated Gates of Heaven. He said that was like a slideshow and just destroyed Arrol Moore as he told me. And it weirdly made me feel like, oh, okay. Yeah, of course. I love it. There's a formalism to those films that are very like he and and like a like a very subtle like surrealism. Totally. That in Vernon, Florida are like just these amazing like works of like portraiture. Yeah. I thought about our we have a mutual friend Dan Claus and Dan is was it one of our heroes? He's one of those guys that I go I can't believe I'm texting with this guy. I know. Like Dan Dan's like my closest friend. He's he's the he's just the uh the greatest guy in the world on on top of being a uh a an absolute genius. Beyond genius. Yeah. Beyond crumb is clearly the the most important practitioner of his. Yeah. He's he's amazing and and art and proves that you can be like a really nice normal person and still produce stuff that's like so and you know and he's still doing it. I mean his his last book was phenomenal. Monica, which is masterpiece. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I it Yeah. Monica feels like something of a of like a magnumopus for him. But I but everything he was doing in eightball for me was as as important as any film or book. His comic Like a Weed Joe. Oh yeah. Like the happy fisherman. the happy with the happy fisherman with with the with the the fish that's sucking his dick all the time. And then there's the uh who's the hobo with the uh Oh, I know what you're talking about. I grew up wanting to make movies that felt like a a Dan Claus comic. Yeah, I remember reading like a velvet glove casting iron and this kid. That's the greatest. I was 19 and I lived in Arizona for like a year and I made friends with these guys who were really genius artists and this guy Andrew Ry he had like um he he had that on his on his floor like we lived like you know back then you just like you know just stuff would be laying on the floor and I remember picking it up and reading it and just being like I've never read anything like this. Yeah. And I was like, "Can I please take this home?" And I just read it like two or three times and just could not believe how funny and strange and disturbing and sad and everything it was. And I just wanted, who's this guy? Got to meet him recently and went to his house and was just like, he and his wife are just the two of the loveliest. Erica is just the two of the loveliest human beings I've ever met. The best people. And Erica, you see um you see Enid Koul, you see where where Ghostworld came from. And it's I mean he has a few of these dream comics like the Golden Mommy. Oh yeah. And it's just like I I I don't know but I'll bet David Chase. Oh yeah. Like the way there's something of like Claus's like dream language. There's like a Bunwell thing in there too. And I don't know if Dan likes Boon well loves Bunwell. But there is a Boon Well thing there, but do you have any stories like that that you feel comfortable? No, I'm trying to think of one that is really funny. But um uh my my thing at SNL was always like, "Oh my god, Scorsese is doing a bit." And he was so nice, but I just went into his dressing room and just immediately just was like, "I'm going to go see a Shirley Clark movie tomorrow." blah blah blah blah blah. Like I just wanted to rap with him so badly about movies and I could tell he was like prove that you're on the level. Yeah. And I could tell he's like good. He's like, "Oh yeah, you're great. Yeah, you're great." But and then the his the producer kind of just pulled my shirt like, "Bill, get out of his dressing room, please." So that's a thing. And I've seen him since then and it was great. But that's one of those things like for two weeks I'm like, "What the was wrong with me? Why did I do that? I've only met him so many times and I and I every time I'm uh paralyzed by the the need to make him love me. Yeah. in the same way and then I worked with Spielberg and like you know similar kind of thing and and then there's certain people you become friends with like the South Park guys meant a lot to me and then I got to become friends with them and then Alfonso Coron seeing his films like seeing you two mama and children of men I just were like wow this guy is amazing and now we're friends and smile he's a really nice guy he's such a nice normal he's very he's like a he's like Don Rickles yeah he's funny He's unbelievably funny. Like insanely funny. Like you would never watch Roma and think that that guy is so good at burning people. Like maybe a little princess though. You could a little princess. You could see in Little Princess, but just like very sweet, you know, just very and like you know, he would watch he the reason I became friends with him is he saw Barry. He's and just went, "Man, you're a great director, you know, and was so nice." And uh but actually now I think about George Miller. I met him. He was so freaking nice. I've never met him. Yeah, he's amazing. He's such a nice dude. Such a But but yeah, but there's others where you just see him from afar and you're like, I'm not going to go. Did you see Furiosa? I'm sure you did. I love Furiosa so much. I saw that uh just after we wrapped Edington, Darius and I went went to go see Furiosa. It's great. And we were like we were both just we were so giddy coming out of the theater. I I saw it with Ally and we just loved it. We just went, man, what a what a vision. Yeah, he's just his vision is and again, it doesn't feel like it's all kind of self-taught. Doesn't feel like a He's making that film at 80, you know, he's 80. And when you talk to him about movies, you know, he's just like he really likes Mash. He's Battle and the movie Mash. Yeah. M Well, Mash is so great. That's the funniest. You never see Mash and Battleers and go, "Oh, that guy will make Road Warrior." Do you know what I mean? Although maybe those are the per those are actually actually out loud. That's exactly right. That's true. As I said it out loud. Maybe you're right. Yeah, that's true. I just remember I was like, "Oh, okay." And Clockwork Orange, too. He likes that one. Uh, is there anything else that I want to say to you? Talked about talked about how much I loved Barry. I said everything I wanted to say. Well, you're so generous. Thank you, man. No, it's all true. Yeah, this is going to say Bill Hater sucks Ari's dick on Does that mean you guys will find my next movie? That's why I did this.