Diego Luna: On Going From “Andor” to Argentina in “Kiss of the Spider Woman”

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At one point during our discussion about his new film, Diego Luna likens the character he plays to a Matryoshka doll, the Russian wooden figures that nest within each other.

The reference is apropos for the film itself. Kiss of the Spider Woman began life as a 1976 novel by Manuel Puig, and as Luna points out, the haunting story of two vastly different men who form an unlikely bond when imprisoned together has spawned various iterations. “It is fascinating that this novel has inspired a play, there’s a film, a stage musical, and now there’s a film about the musical,” says the actor via Zoom while traveling to the set of Eleven Days, his latest film.

Directed by Bill Condon, the film adaptation of the Broadway musical also stars Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez as the enigmatic title character. Luna plays Valentín, a political revolutionary imprisoned in an Argentine jail, accused of trying to overthrow the current regime. As the film opens, he is joined by Tonatiuh’s Molina, a gay window dresser, convicted of lewd acts in public. To escape the trauma of confinement, Molina weaves tales about his favorite actress, Ingrid Luna, and what he believes was her masterpiece, the 1950s Technicolor musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Initially, Valentín ignores these excursions into fantasy. But eventually, he can’t resist the magical tale with its colorful musical numbers that Molina details in all their CinemaScope glory. As he does, the relationship evolves into a love that changes both in ways neither thought possible.

 

Luna, who rose to fame in films such as Y Tu Mamá También and Frida, and has been thrilling Star Wars aficionados as Cassian Andor in the Disney+ series Andor, admits he knew little about the musical version. His only inkling was a plaque in his hometown.

“There is this beautiful theater in Mexico City, Teatro de los Insurgentes,” Luna explains. “I have worked in it three times. We have a tradition where every time a show reaches 100 performances, it receives a large plaque on the wall in the theater lobby. And I remember seeing Kiss of the Spider Woman. It starred Christian Bach.”

Once Luna read the script, he was immediately intrigued by the possibilities of a musical adaptation. “It was fascinating to find out what it represents,” continues Luna. “There was a feeling of, ‘Yeah, there’s room for a new approach, for something unique, different, and authentic to come out of this collaboration.’” It didn’t hurt that Condon was leading the collaboration. Luna knew he would be in good hands with the director who had ushered both Chicago and Dreamgirls to film.

Jennifer Lopez on set of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Courtesy Lionsgate.

“It’s all about who’s directing, whose perspective and point of view is gonna be celebrated,” continues Luna. “The opportunity to work with someone that had such an intense connection to the play, and to the book, and to the story in general, meant a lot.”

For Luna, it was a tale of two films. There were the colorfully splashy musical numbers. And there were the stark prison scenes. Up first was getting the choreography down, a challenge Luna admits was not exactly in his wheelhouse.

Tonatiuh and Diego Luna in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Courtesy Lionsgate.

“You are not mistaken,” Luna laughs when asked about his lack of choreography experience. “I love dancing, but with a few tequilas, and with a good reason. But I’ve done films and a theater play with a little bit of dancing where I had to move my body.”

Rehearsals began on a cavernous New Jersey stage occupied by only a piano. Luna credits choreographer Sergio Trujillo with helping him find the right moves.

“I started working by myself, with just one dancer,” Luna says. “I don’t have a proper technique, the background, but I was comfortable once we were shooting. It took me a while to get there, to gain confidence. And Sergio was crucial for me.”

A set from the soundstage in New Jersey for “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Courtesy Scott Chambliss/Lionsgate.

Luna says Lopez was also instrumental. He remembers Trujillo telling him what Lopez, a veteran dancer, would add.

“Sergio said something that I didn’t understand until she arrived, ‘Whatever you’re not bringing, she will bring. She’s gonna make you look great, because she’ll be so controlled that you’re controlled,” Luna says. “And it’s true. She was not only very generous but also really good at what she does. She was always helping me, giving me confidence, and making me feel great. And it is beautiful to see someone work that hard. It was a great example for everyone. No matter the challenge, she was always up to it.”

Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez on set of “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”

As important, Luna understood he wasn’t just going through the motions. The dance was telling a story. This is when Luna likened Armando, his musical character, to a Matryoshka doll.

“I’m this Mexican actor playing Valentín, right? And then Valentín happens to be the inspiration for the fictional actor appearing in a movie,” details Luna. “The guy dancing is a Mexican-American actor from the 1950s who is somehow related to Valentín because it all happens in Molina’s head. It’s a character, inside a character, inside another character.”

Diego credits the dance team, particularly Skizzo Arnedillo, with helping him create his persona for the musical numbers. “They helped me find a style that would differentiate my movie character,” Luna continues. “Armando had to bring his own thing. It was fun once I could do the steps this guy would have. Gladly, I have just three numbers in the film. I had little to prepare and more time to do it.”

The jail scenes were the antithesis of the big musical numbers. The set was deliberately confining. Locked in for weeks, the sun was a rare luxury. The only light Luna and Tonatiuh saw was the backlight shining through a tiny cell window.

Tonatiuh and Diego Luna in Kiss Of The Spider Woman Courtesy of Roadside Attractions

“It allowed me to feel the struggle of these men and what confinement brings,” Luna says. “It’s what motivates these characters to go into the fantasy. It was interesting to try to find new ways to approach the same space, finding different scenarios inside the jail. We were saying, ‘How do we shoot this next scene? I mean, there are just two beds. What are we doing now?”

Luna believes the tight space helped build intimacy. So did shooting the scenes in order.

“We got to know each other as performers, as actors, as people. We spent a lot of time together. Both of us were far away from home, driving to the set every day together,” Luna remembers. “There was a very organic approach to the development of this love story.”

When asked to compare his Kiss of the Spider Woman character to his portrayal of Andor, Luna answers that he approached one more realistically than the other. But not the one we might suspect.

“Valentín lives in a fantasy movie. Living in the fantasy that Molina invites Valentín into gave us a lot of freedom as actors. We could play with the tone,” Luna explains. “Andor is supposed to be a fantasy, but our goal is to make it as realistic as possible, as grounded as possible. You have to forget you are in this galaxy far, far away.”

Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) in Lucasfilm’s ANDOR Season 2, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. ©2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.

But Luna also sees a connection. “When the time comes to react, to join, to believe they can be part of change, they both make the right choice,” he says.

Luna is proud of the story Kiss of the Spider Woman tells and hopes it will inspire audiences not to be afraid to feel, to open up to others, and, in the end, open up to themselves. “It’s a beautiful film about not letting fear drive you, which I think is something crucial to say today,” he adds.

Perhaps just as important, the film is a testament to why Luna became an actor in the first place. “I love it because it’s a homage to film and to theater. I come from a theatre family. It’s what I dedicate my life to, and what I love the most,” he says. “I’m always pleased to be part of a story that celebrates my craft and the possibilities of learning from telling stories to others.”

Featured image: DIego Luna and Jennifer Lopez in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Courtesy Roadside Attractions

Editing in Secrecy: How Amir Etminan Cut Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or Winner “It Was Just an Accident”

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“When Mr. Panahi called and invited me to meet him, I didn’t ask any questions because I knew the secrecy and the sensitivity of his projects,” picture editor Amir Etminan tells The Credits through an interpreter. “So I accepted the invitation and went to have a conversation in person.” What followed was a discussion of Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, an unflinching portrait of trauma, moral compromise, and the devastating choices made by those in power.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, its roots are drawn from Panahi’s time in prison. In March 2010, he was arrested and accused of “making propaganda against the regime” for an alleged documentary about the disputed 2009 reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 86 days later, Panahi was released on bail from Evin Prison until his hearing date. In December, he was convicted and sentenced to six years in prison, along with a 20-year ban from making films, traveling, or speaking to the press. An appeal a year later was denied, and Panahi had been largely confined to his Tehran home until 2022, when he was arrested again on July 11 for inquiring about Iranian filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof (The Seed of the Sacred Pig) and Mostafa Aleahmad, who had been detained days earlier. Authorities sought to enforce Panahi’s 2010 conviction, and he would spend seven more months in prison before being successfully overturned by lawyers. After a hunger strike, Panahi was released in February 2023. It Was Just an Accident is a response to his confinement.

On set with director Jafar Panahi in It Was Just an Accident. Courtesy Neon.

“I asked myself what would happen if one of the people I’d met in prison were released and came face-to-face with someone who had tortured and humiliated him? That question triggered a writing process with two screenwriter friends, Nader Saeivar and Shadmehr Rastin,” Panahi says in the film’s production notes. “We began sketching out possible developments, but I quickly realized that what mattered most was the authenticity of the stories about life in prison, and the different ways they can be told. I brought in someone who had spent a lot of time in prison, and who is unfortunately back there again, Mehdi Mahmoudian [a journalist accused of “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”]. He helped with the dialogue, drawing from what actually happens in detention, and how differently people talk about it once they’re out.”

As his previous works – The Circle (2000), addressing Iran’s oppression of women, Crimson Gold (2003), depicting the country’s class divide (which was banned in Iran cinemas) and Offside (2006), a critique on gender inequality – Panahi did not submit It Was Just an Accident to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance (MCIG) for approval. Believing the script would be denied, it was produced in secrecy.

The film opens on a deserted highway, where a husband (Ebrahim Azizi) drives his wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and daughter (Delmaz Najafi), who’s nestled in the backseat. Music plays until he accidentally hits something. An inspection reveals it was a stray dog, damaging the car. He stops at a nearby garage for repair when a worker, Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), recognizes his voice and the distinct squeaking sound from his prosthetic leg. He believes it to be Eghbal (nicknamed Peg Leg) – a prison officer who blindfolded and tortured him, causing irreversible physical damage. The next morning, Vahid kidnaps the man in hopes of uncovering the truth and more: to bury him in the desert. Doubt sinks in, and Vahid turns to other survivors– all who Eghbal has abused in one form or another – to validate his claim.

Panahi says the characters – Shiva (Maryam Afshari), a traumatized photographer, a bride (Hadis Pakbaten), and groom (Majid Panahi) preparing for their wedding, and a hell-bent former inmate Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) – are fictional but “the stories they tell are based on real events experienced by actual prisoners.”

In uncovering character trauma and mystery surrounding Eghbal, picture editor Amir Etminan approached each arc both as a distinct thread and as part of a larger emotional tapestry. “Each scene had its own rhythm and space, and each character had their own rhythm and tempo in behaving, in acting, and in being filmed. So, Mr. Panahi kind of started the editing process by applying the rhythm of each character while we were shooting,” says Etminan. “So, for example, if we followed a character in a scene, and the scene by itself has its own tempo and rhythm, then imagine two characters crossing each other in one scene, we would decide in that moment which character will be the one who is going to be the reference for the rhythm of that scene. We’d then switch to that rhythm, and everything had to be in order to help the storytelling.”

Shiva (Maryam Afshari), a photographer, takes photos of the bride (Hadis Pakbaten) and groom (Majid Panahi). Courtesy Neon.

The film’s final sequence shines a spotlight on its themes, as Vahid and Shiva decide Eghbal’s fate. Etminan mined the moment with a delicate touch, allowing the scene to play out in a seemingly single shot – Eghbal bound to a tree; the devilish red glow from the van’s brake lights filling the screen. “I have to say the film is a humanitarian film. It’s about the human condition. Each character represents a part of the society that was under the oppression of a totalitarian system. So there was a moral responsibility toward those people to see if they are going to forgive or seek revenge,” he says. “And there’s a big question: who has the power? The power is in the hands of the government, which is there to oppress people. But in the film, the power is switched into the hands of the filmmaker, where we could oppress or avenge those characters. But what would be the difference between us as filmmakers and this government as a totalitarian system? In that case, anyone who has power would be the criminal.”

Scorned by trauma, the characters question how to plot their revenge. Courtesy Neon.

It was Just an Accident is the sixth major project Etminan has worked on with Panahi. Risking his own freedom, the editor cut footage on a 2020 MacBook Air with only 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Additional external SSD cards helped manage the RED Komodo footage, where he worked alone without editing assistance to keep its secrecy. When asked what draws him to the filmmaker, he notes, “The thing that I really like about Panahi’s work is that it’s raw reality. In fact, it’s very raw in relation to reality. Another reason for our long-term collaboration is the fact that his way of narrating is very close to the way that I see the cinema and narration. We have the same vision of treating a subject, and he always works as an independent who sees things differently.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Panahi said he no longer faces legal issues and his professional ban has been lifted. But has no plans to make films through MCIG. One can only hope we continue to see his independent vision in the years ahead. 

It Was Just an Accident is in select theaters now.

 

Featured image: A scene from Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident. Courtesy Neon.

“Blue Moon” Screenwriter Robert Kaplow on Capturing the Genius and Tragedy of Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater’s Latest

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People still sing, dance, and swoon to “My Funny Valentine,” “Where or Where,” and “Blue Moon.” But mention that those songs were written by Lorenz Hart, and you may get a puzzled “Who?” Luckily for screenwriter Robert Kaplow, whose film Blue Moon stars Ethan Hawke as Hart, at least one crucial person not only knew Lorenz Hart but loved his work.

“Richard Linklater made a film of my novel ‘Me and Orson Welles’, which was a good experience for me. He let me be involved; I went to the Isle of Man, where they shot the theater stuff,” said Kaplow.

The two stayed in touch. Linklater asked Kaplow what he was working on, and Kaplow told him he’d been writing about Lorenz Hart.

ETHAN HAWKE as Lorenz Hart in ‘Blue Moon’ Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

“There was a pause, and he said, ‘I am really interested in Lorenz Hart. Could I read it?’ That’s a pretty extraordinary thing for someone in the film business to say instead of ‘Who is that?’ or, even worse, silence.”

Kaplow had been fascinated by Hart’s life ever since his 20s, when he fell in love with the music of composer Richard Rodgers, Hart’s legendary collaborator, and the dynamic duo, who began writing together in 1919, are responsible for not only iconic Broadway musicals that became movies but also much of the Great American Songbook. But while Rodgers would end up joining with Oscar Hammerstein II to become one of the most successful composing teams of the 20th century, Hart struggled with alcoholism and died in 1943 at age 48.

ETHAN HAWKE as Lorenz Hart in ‘Blue Moon’ Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Kaplow listened to an audio interview with Rodgers, recorded in the 1970s, that made a lasting impression on him. “When he got to the point about leaving Hart, there was something in his tone that was cold and businesslike. He was not going to allow himself to be sentimental about it. It was kind of chilling to hear. Something in my brain said, ‘I want to write about this.’ Thirty years later, it never left me. I thought it was worth writing about. The challenge was to try to create the voice of that lyricist who could have written ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘I Wish I Were in Love Again.’ His comedy; his irony — those songs are deeply romantic and sad with an undercurrent of yearning and loneliness and rejection.”

ETHAN HAWKE as Lorenz Hart, ANDREW SCOTT as Richard Rodgers in ‘Blue Moon’
Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Although he worked for years on this “labor of love,” Kaplow didn’t know what the end result would be. “I write by hand and ended up with one hundred pages of material. I showed it to Richard, and he showed it to Ethan Hawke, who said, ‘This is a little movie.’”

The trio met regularly at Hawke’s New York City home to read through the dialogue. Still, Kaplow wasn’t convinced it would ever lead to a film. “It’s an odd project,” he said. “I was never sure it would get made.”

Blue Moon, now in theaters, imagines a single night when Hart, who was diminutive, balding, bisexual, and alcoholic, sees his personal and professional life unraveling. It’s the opening of Oklahoma! in 1943, the first collaboration between composer Rodgers (Andrew Scott) and lyricist Hammerstein (Simon Delaney) that would ultimately change Broadway history.

 

Arriving early for the after-party at Sardi’s restaurant, Hart engages in witty banter with the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) while awaiting the triumphant entrance of Rodgers and Hammerstein as well as his young protégée and crush, Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley). Later at the gathering, Rodgers encourages Hart to get himself in shape to write some new songs for their reworked show, A Connecticut Yankee. But Hart seems to grasp that the world and his place in it have forever changed.

Kaplow wanted his script to be more of a character study of Hart rather than a traditional cradle-to-grave story. “I did not want to do the typical biography like ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ about George Gershwin. There’s that terrible movie about Rodgers and Hart, Words and Music, with Mickey Rooney as Hart; even Rodgers didn’t like it. I don’t like movies that try to cover that much material.”

Me and Orson Welles (2008) takes place over the course of one week. That’s the kind of tight time focus Kaplow wanted for Blue Moon. “If you can move the camera in close enough, metaphorically, you can see all you need. In one night, you can see the DNA of everything else outside the frame; all that [Hart] was yearning for,” he said.

 

Blue Moon was shot in Ireland, where the crew built the famed Sardi’s bar and restaurant. Kaplow, who was on set for rehearsals, marveled at how Latham Gaines, credited as “height wizard,” transformed the 5’10” Hawke into the barely five-foot-tall Hart. “No CGI was used. It was all stage magic and tricks [such as Hawke] standing on the floor, but his feet were going through his shoes. Some of it is pretty astounding; things that only a magician would think of,” said Kaplow.

MARGARET QUALLEY as Elizabeth Weiland and ETHAN HAWKE as Lorenz Hart in ‘Blue Moon’ Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

In the end, though, Kaplow credits Linklater for bringing his Lorenz Hart story to life.

“No other director in the world would have made this. He’d had commercial success with Hit Man [in 2023] and wanted to follow it up with a small film. First, he made Nouvelle Vague and [several months later] Blue Moon. That’s a testament to his integrity as a filmmaker.”

But long before Blue Moon became a screen reality, there were those readings in Hawke’s house with the actor reading Hart’s lines; Linklater as Rodgers and the bartender; and Kaplow playing Elizabeth. “There’s that fourteen-minute scene in the coat room between Hart and Elizabeth,” said Kaplow. “[At the end of the scene] Ethan Hawke had tears in his eyes and I thought, ‘I’m doing a love scene with Ethan Hawke and I’m a middle-aged man! Even if this movie doesn’t get made, this is a moment I’m going to remember.”

RICHARD LINKLATER, MARGARET QUALLEY, and ETHAN HAWKE on the set of ‘Blue Moon’
Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Blue Moon is in select theaters now.

Featured image: ETHAN HAWKE as Lorenz Hart, MARGARET QUALLEY as Elizabeth Weiland in ‘Blue Moon’ Image: Sabrina Lantos. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

 

“Queens of the Dead” Producer Natalie Metzger on Tina Romero’s Zesty Zombie Film, Tom Cruise’s Help, and Creating a Dream Set

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Natalie Metzger is the proud producer of one of the most critically acclaimed horror films of the year, Queens of the Dead (in select theaters now), from a filmmaker with a very specific (and very special) vision—Tina Romero. Romero, the daughter of the iconic George A. Romero, the man whose 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead established the modern zombie archetype and has inspired filmmakers and creators for generations, put an ingenious twist on the formula. Working off a script she co-wrote with Erin Judge, Romero tells the story of drag parties disrupted by zombies, now chewing their way through New York City. Katy M. O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) is one of the ensemble players combating the undead, as well as the infighting in the drag community. The cast includes Margaret Cho, Jaquel Spivey, Quincy Dunn-Baker, Tomas Mastos, Nina West, Dominique Jackson, and Jack Haven.

Metzger is the Vice President of Production & Development at Vanishing Angle. The company is behind films such as Werewolves Within, Too Late, Thunder Road, and The Wolf of Snow Hollow. The Spirit Award-nominated Metzger makes crowd-pleasing independent films, and Queens of the Dead is the perflect blend of a deeply personal yet irresistibly fun independent movie she hopes to continue producing.

Recently, Metzger spoke with The Credits about getting the horror-comedy into production, her ideal collaborations with filmmakers, and her goals as a leader on set. 

 

Did you shoot any of Queens of the Dead in Bushwick, or was it all Jersey and Hoboken?

We shot a couple of days in Bushwick. Day one, we were totally guerrilla-style on the streets of Bushwick. Just running around with Katy O’Brian on the subway. I remember our first AD was like, “Oh, it’s fine. As long as you don’t set the camera down on a tripod, you are allowed.” We were pushing the limits there.

L-r: Katy O’Brian and Jack Haven. Courtesy IFC.

When did Queens of the Dead start for you? 

I want to say in 2020, around then, a friend of mine had sent me Tina’s lookbook and script and said, “Hey, I think you would connect with this.” It was at a time at Vanishing Angle where we were not looking at any new projects.

Why’s that?

Our bandwidth was too thin; we were just juggling too many projects. I glanced through the lookbook out of politeness, and I absolutely fell in love. Tina had such a clear vision. The visuals were so strong, even just in the lookbook with the blood in the glitter and glam gore. It was all so fresh, and I wanted to see it get made. And so, I read the script, loved the script, and met with Tina. We talked for over two hours for our first meeting, and we both were like, oh, we want to work together. I went to the Vanishing Angle team and said, “I know we said we weren’t taking on anything else, but this is worth our time.”

Where’d development go from there? 

We did a bit of a development process with Tina and Erin [Judge] that took a year or two. Then we started going out to cast and getting cast attachments, because we knew that was going to be critical to get financing. The craziest thing was getting Katy O’Brian, specifically because her Mission: Impossible shoot dates conflicted with our shoot dates. My producing partner, Matt, got a hold of the Mission: Impossible producer and said, “Can you just commit to a certain number of days that we can schedule around?” Tom Cruise was like, “I want her to be able to work. Let’s do this.” They thankfully gave us specific dates that we could work around. But at first it was kind of like, no, no, I’m sorry, you can’t conflict with Mission: Impossible.

“Queens of the Dead.” Courtesy IFC

I spoke with Tina Romero, and she is delighted to have Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie in the special thanks. 

It speaks to what a creative Tom Cruise is. He could have easily said, “No, we don’t know what our schedule is yet. We are the bigger film.” The fact that he fought for an independent film to happen and for Katy to be a part of it…I have a lot of respect for him as a creative.

For something like Queens of the Dead, as many conflicts as you prepare yourself for, what can’t you brace yourself for? 

We weren’t prepared for New Jersey having a historic heat wave last summer when we were filming, and we were filming in an old rope factory that did not have air conditioning in all the spaces. We ended up having to bring in these industrial air-conditioning units and break the crew every 90 minutes to make sure they weren’t overheating. It was a hot shoot. 

Margaret Cho in “Queens of the Dead.” Courtesy IFC

How do you maximize resources while shooting Queens of the Dead? What’s a simple method to get more work done with less time? 

More tableau shots, especially with a large ensemble cast where everyone’s interacting together, instead of getting single shots on each person. You let the choreography happen in front of the camera, or the camera can move, dancing with the actors. You’re not adding as much coverage. Tina was so good about that because she has a dance background; she’s familiar with choreography. Being creative with shot lists is something that we’ve done for a lot of our movies. We do a lot of long takes on these oners. 

What about your crew in New Jersey and New York? What did you appreciate about their work ethic on the film? 

It was very lean, but everyone came together and was so passionate about making this film. It was one of those sets where, I think, we were a 90% queer cast and crew, which is so rare. I think we were over 50% female. Everyone was so positive and so excited to get together and make this. Through the different hardships and the heat, the people who were still on board to make the film were amazing.

Dominque Jackson. Courtesy IFC.

What do you think that diversity of thought and opinions brings to a film? 

There was an inclusivity that I felt on this set that we tried to promote on other sets, but this one was particularly special. When we all first got together at the morning safety meeting, everyone shared what their pronouns were. Everyone was being thoughtful and respectful of everyone else. I think it also helped with just the nature of what we were making. So many people were coming to the table with great ideas that were maybe outside of their department, like, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if we did this and that?” 

What kind of leader do you want to be when you’re on a film set? 

I want to be there for the director as a facilitator of their vision. I often think of the producer as being the midwife, helping the baby come into the world, and it might not be her baby, but she cares as much about getting it safely out there. Obviously, there are logistical hoops you’re jumping through at every turn with budget and schedule. But in general, in terms of the vibe of the set, we hope to create a set that is positive. We try to create a summer camp atmosphere. If you can’t have a big budget with all the bells and whistles and all that stuff, we at least want to make it fun for everyone. 

Dominique Jackson and Tomas Matos in “Queens of the Dead.” Courtesy IFC.

You’ve made good films at Vanishing Angle. Where do you see the company going in the future? What’s the plan?

We’ve found success in these lower-budget or mid-budget projects. In the future, we would love to continue doing those, but also expand to bigger budget projects that have a bit more of a broader reach. In an ideal world, we’re still doing one or two of these smaller projects while also doing one or two bigger studio projects a year, and then continuing to develop relationships with the filmmakers that we’ve already been working with and helping their careers grow, from doing the micro-budget feature to the slightly bigger budget project to getting them a studio project. We want to help guide them on that journey.

Queens of the Dead is in select theaters now.

Netflix Drops the Epic, Nearly 3-Minute Long Trailer for “Stranger Things” Season 5

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The official trailer for the 5th and final season of Stranger Things has arrived, opening with a shot of the seemingly immortal Vecna intoning We can begin. At nearly three minutes long, this is the kind of meaty, bombastic look at the final season of what has inarguably been one of the defining shows in Netflix’s history. The trailer gives you a sense of the massive size and scope of the final season, which co-creator Ross Duffer said took a year a filming and involved capturing more than 650 hours of footage. “It’s like eight blockbuster movies,” Duffer said. By the looks of this trailer, that seems accurate.

The stakes are as high as they’ve ever been in season 5. We’re now in the fall of 1987, and that punching bag for all things supernatural, Hawkins, Indiana, has been changed forever by the opening of the Rifts. This means our heroes have a very simple, if terrifying, goal—to kill Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). But to do that, they’ll need to find him first.

STRANGER THINGS: SEASON 5. (L to R) Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley, Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Winona Ryder as Joyce Byers, Noah Schnapp as Will Byers, Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson, and Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair in Stranger Things: Season 5. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2025

There are problems aplenty. The military is quarantining our heroes as the government searches for Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), while the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches and brings with it a familiar foreboding. The end is nigh, but whose end will it be? 

Joining the aforementioned cast in the final season are series regulars Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler), Amybeth McNulty (Vickie), Nell Fisher (Holly Wheeler), Jake Connelly (Derek Turnbow), Alex Breaux (Lt. Akers), and Linda Hamilton (Dr. Kay).

Netflix has already announced the titles for the final eight-episode season:  “The Crawl,” “The Vanishing of [censored for now],” “The Turnbow Trap,” “Sorcerer,” “Shock Jock,” “Escape From Camazotz,” “The Bridge,” and “The Rightside Up.” Volume 1 of the final season premieres on November 26, while Volume 2 arrives on Christmas.

Check out the trailer below:

From “Dogtooth” to “Bugonia”: How Yorgos Lanthimos Made Strangeness Irresistible

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In the landscape of modern cinema, Yorgos Lanthimos has emerged as a glorious anomaly: a filmmaker who wields absurdism and discomfort like surgical instruments. With deadpan dialogue, unnerving silences, and an unblinking camera trained on the joke that is the human condition, Lanthimos has carved out one of the most distinctive directorial voices of the 21st century. Before he was the toast of Cannes and the Oscars’ strangest darling, he was quietly sharpening his tools in the fringes of Greek media, directing commercials, music videos, and even the opening ceremonies of the 2004 Athens Olympics, a grand, symbolic spectacle that hinted at the theatrical instinct to come.

But beneath the glossy surface of that mainstream work simmered something stranger. Since then, Lanthimos has made a career out of exposing the raw edges of human emotion. Sometimes irreverent, often deeply unsettling, but always unforgettable, his films hold up a cracked mirror to the audience, reflecting our flaws, our rituals, and the absurd machinery of our lives. With his latest film, Bugonia, another collaboration with his muse, Emma Stone, in theaters now, we thought it was the perfect time to reflect on an auteur working at the peak of his powers—even if he just said he was taking a break from filmmaking.

 

From Greek Beginnings to Experimental Precision

Lanthimos’ first feature, My Best Friend (2001), co-directed with Greek comedian Lakis Lazopoulos, was a domestic comedy aimed squarely at Greek audiences. The film’s tale of friendship curdling into betrayal was commercially successful at home but invisible abroad. Even so, the seeds of his later sensibility were there: a taste for comic surrealism and a camera that lingered just a little too long, hinting at unease beneath the everyday.

With Kinetta (2005), his solo debut, those instincts exploded into full view. The film follows three strangers who obsessively reenact homicide scenes in an empty resort town, a premise as bizarre as it sounds. Shot largely with a handheld camera, Kinetta trades narrative clarity for visual experimentation. The jittery movements and lack of dialogue demand either the viewer’s full attention or their surrender. That divisive quality would become a Lanthimos trademark: films that force audiences to lean in or walk out.

 

Dogtooth: Breaking Through the Fence

Everything changed with Dogtooth (2009). Co-written with longtime collaborator Efthimis Filippou, the film presented an authoritarian family unit that had sealed itself off from the world. In their isolated villa, the parents redefined language, fear, and even reality for their adult children in a microcosm of control so perverse it could only feel plausible.

With its sun-bleached cinematography, static framing, and emotionless performances, Dogtooth felt like a home video shot by aliens. Roger Ebert called it “a series of family photographs of a family with something wrong with it.” The film’s precision and perversity stunned audiences at Cannes, where it won the Prix Un Certain Regard, and later earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Overnight, Lanthimos became the face of the Greek Weird Wave, his minimalist absurdism marking him as a major new voice in world cinema.

 

Refining the Ritual: Alps

Lanthimos and Filippou followed with Alps (2011), about a clandestine group that impersonates the recently deceased for grieving families. If Dogtooth was a howl against parental control, Alps dissected the emptiness of identity itself. The film’s rigid framing and clipped, ritualistic dialogue turned everyday interactions into alien ceremonies.

For all its deadpan absurdity, Alps showed Lanthimos growing more deliberate, sculpting discomfort with geometric precision. It won Best Screenplay at Venice and marked the end of his Greek-language period. Next, he would take that same unnerving tone to English-speaking audiences.

 

The Lobster and the Leap to International Acclaim

When The Lobster (2015) premiered at Cannes, it was clear Lanthimos had made the jump from arthouse curiosity to international auteur without losing his bite. His first English-language feature imagined a dystopia where single people are transformed into animals if they fail to find love within 45 days, a premise that plays like Orwell rewritten by Kafka and deadpanned by Monty Python.

Once again co-written with Filippou, The Lobster married absurdism to emotional precision. The stilted dialogue and flat delivery created a deliberately alien rhythm, making every human interaction feel like a bureaucratic ritual. Lanthimos used sterile hotel corridors, symmetrical compositions, and an icy palette to underline the artificiality of societal norms.

With a cast including Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, and Olivia Colman, The Lobster won the Jury Prize at Cannes and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. It was a breakout moment. Lanthimos had successfully exported his surrealism to Hollywood without compromise. His aesthetic of discomfort had become desirable.

 

The Sacred and the Strange

Two years later came The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), a clinical horror film steeped in Greek tragedy and moral dread. Farrell returned, joined by Nicole Kidman, in a story about a surgeon confronted by an otherworldly teenager demanding retribution.

Here, Lanthimos refined his visual grammar to chilling effect. Gone were the handheld experiments of Kinetta; in their place came Kubrickian precision: wide-angle tracking shots, slow zooms, and coldly symmetrical compositions that drained warmth from every room. The result is a film of suffocating inevitability, where emotion is replaced by ritual and guilt seeps from every frame.

At Cannes, Sacred Deer won Best Screenplay and cemented Lanthimos as a master of psychological unease. By now, his fingerprints of deadpan delivery, ritualistic dialogue, and moral absurdity were unmistakable. He was no longer an outsider but an auteur in full command of his cinematic language.

 

The Favourite: Mastery Meets Mainstream

In 2018, Lanthimos made his boldest leap yet with The Favourite, a lavish historical comedy that somehow felt entirely his own. Set in Queen Anne’s court, the film traded dystopia for decadence but retained his fascination with power and manipulation.

This time, however, Lanthimos loosened the emotional leash. The performances, especially Olivia Colman’s Oscar-winning turn, were still stylized, but the film pulsed with wit and vitality. What truly set it apart was the camera work. Lanthimos employed fisheye lenses, extreme wide angles, and fluid tracking shots that turned palace corridors into distorted mazes. His visual style became a character in itself, bending space to reflect the instability of courtly politics.

The Favourite earned ten Oscar nominations and grossed more than any of his previous films combined. Yet despite its accessibility, it remained unmistakably Lanthimos in its ability to be darkly funny, emotionally detached, and formally daring. In an era of safe period dramas, he made one that felt dangerous.

 

Poor Things and the Ascent to Cinematic Royalty

By the time Poor Things arrived in 2023, Lanthimos was no longer the Greek outsider; he was one of cinema’s reigning visionaries. Adapted from Alasdair Gray’s novel, the film reimagines Frankenstein through the lens of feminist liberation, following Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a woman resurrected by a mad scientist who embarks on a journey of self-discovery and rebellion.

The film is perhaps Lanthimos’ most visually audacious yet. He leans fully into surrealism. Fisheye lenses warp perspective, dreamlike camera sweeps collapse time and space, and the sets pulse with color and imagination. Gothic interiors melt into fantastical cityscapes, creating a world both artificial and alive. Beneath the spectacle lies a biting critique of patriarchy and the reconstruction of identity, elevated to mythic proportions.

Poor Things became his most commercially successful film, sweeping major awards (including Best Actress for Stone) and confirming that his idiosyncratic vision had achieved mainstream resonance. In a cinematic landscape dominated by franchise sameness, Lanthimos proved that strangeness could still captivate.

 

Kinds of Kindness and Scaling Down the Grandeur

If Poor Things represented Lanthimos at his most extravagant, Kinds of Kindness (2024) marked a return to stark minimalism in a triptych of interconnected tales exploring submission, control, and the desperate need for meaning. Reuniting with Emma Stone and other frequent collaborators, Lanthimos strips away the ornate world-building of his previous film to expose the bare mechanics of human power dynamics. The film’s three segments, each steeped in deadpan cruelty and absurd devotion, form a mosaic of obedience and rebellion, in which faith, love, and identity become commodities to be bartered. Visually, Kinds of Kindness abandons the baroque excess of Poor Things for an austere, almost clinical palette. Static framing, harsh lighting, and deliberate pacing heighten its moral discomfort. It feels like a companion piece to The Killing of a Sacred Deer, a return to cold precision after a fever dream, reminding audiences that beneath Lanthimos’s playful provocations lies an artist still fascinated, perhaps obsessed, with the cost of surrendering one’s will.

 

Bugonia: Marrying Mental Illness with the Magnificent

In his newest film, Lanthimos treats viewers to a world in which frenetic, schizophrenic logic and the fantastic collide. Lanthimos’ favorite (no pun intended), Emma Stone, plays a businesswoman abducted by two conspiracy theorists, made vulnerable to her kidnapping solely by her hubris. We become enmeshed and entranced by our characters’ deranged and despondent manner, imbued with a naturalistic quality that belies the absurdity of the narrative.

Bugonia offers frankly and succinctly what current filmmakers so often struggle to convey: a perfect example of the cognitive dissonance between logical thought and conspiracy theory in the era of social media. Straight, clean shots and slow pans mimic the sterile, contained manner of our heroine, as well as the unflinching, albeit misjudged, actions of her captors. In his most recent cinematic masterpiece, we can see Lanthimos’s ever-perfected ability to blend the absurd with the abject horror of human existence. Fantasy and banality exist at once in his worlds, offering us reprieve from the predictability of our modern existence.

 

The Anatomy of an Auteur

Across his career, certain signatures remain constant. Lanthimos’s dialogue is unnervingly stilted, his humor dry to the point of existential despair. He frames characters with geometric rigor, turning human interaction into performance art. His camera, whether handheld and restless or gliding with mechanical precision, always implicates the viewer, forcing us to question our comfort.

His films unfold like rituals: language reduced to code, emotion stripped of sentimentality, and behavior rendered alien. Yet within this cold precision lies something deeply human: a fascination with our attempts to make meaning, to impose order on chaos. He shows us the absurdity of our social scripts, but also their necessity.

As his career continues—hopefully, the break he says he’s taking is to recharge his batteries—the question is no longer whether Lanthimos belongs among cinema’s greats, but where he’ll take us next. Whatever the answer, it will be strange, unsettling, and entirely his own. Because that’s the world according to Yorgos Lanthimos, and we are all, willingly, trapped inside his lens.

Featured image: Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone on the set of POOR THINGS. Photo by Atsushi Nishijima. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. © 2023 Searchlight Pictures All Rights Reserved.

No Snow, No Cell Service, No Problem: “The Last Frontier” Location Manager Michèle St-Arnaud on Making Apple TV’s Wilderness Thriller

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For location manager Michèle St-Arnaud, Apple TV’s espionage thriller The Last Frontier is her swan song. The Montreal native is bringing to a close a remarkable four-decade career defined by her collaborations with top-tier directors, including John Crowley, Paul McGuigan, Roland Emmerich, David Fincher, and Denis Villeneuve. “In French, we say le chant du cynge,” she says with a smile. “I’m still in the business in other ways, but I’m no longer a location manager. I discovered good friends on this show, and we’re keeping in contact.” In fact, she tells The Credits that the locations team planned a reunion to screen the premiere.

Filming on location in “The Last Frontier.” Courtesy Apple TV.
Sam Hargrave in “The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

What they’ll most likely reminisce about are the challenges of shooting in Canada’s harsh conditions, hunting for dozens of practical locations to match the ambitious story demands, none more critical than the fiery plane crash that kicks off the series. “The pilot was all about the plane crash,” she says. “We wanted to find this stunning location to build this whole plane structure in the middle of nowhere. We found the crash site about 45 minutes away in Montreal, which allowed everybody to film at night.” While any plane crash is devastating, this story comes with a deadly twist. The passengers are hardened criminals who, while trying to escape, turn a peaceful Alaskan town upside down. Tasked with restoring peace is U.S. Marshall Frank Remnick (Jason Clarke), who teams up with CIA officer Sidney Scofield (Haley Bennett), to unravel the mystery behind what’s really going on.

Haley Bennett and Jason Clarke in “The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

With Montreal and the surrounding areas standing in for Alaska, St-Arnaud sought locations with scope and an Alaskan wilderness vibe. The Laurentides forest north of Montreal was a key location, along with locations in Quebec City, Calgary, Alberta’s Canadian Rockies, and Montreal. Before production began, the 2023 labor strikes impacted initial plans. “When the strike was over, everything in our schedule changed. We had to go with the weather. We were to do all stage work before going out on location, but now it was the other way around,” she recalls. “So we had to really rush to recreate this micro society and bring this entire infrastructure to these places, some didn’t even have cell phone communication.” Adding to the task was the lack of snow in some areas due to El Niño conditions. For added effect, production brought in snow machines and snow cannons to each location until production wrapped.

“At one point, we had multiple crews shooting at the same time—the main unit, second unit, stunt units, and visual effects units. We were up to 700 crew,” she says. “When we were running out of snow, we decided to move to a distant location. So we moved the whole crew about four hours north of Quebec City to this university that was shut down for the winter. We had to open all the roads to get inside the park and lodge everybody there. We didn’t have any electricity, so during night shoots we brought in generators to light up base camp. We were really in the wilderness.”

ason Clarke in “The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

Guiding the look was production designer David Sandefur (Away, The Recruit). “David was already familiar with Alaska. He had been there with his family, so he really knew how to make winter a character in our show,” says St-Arnaud. While plenty of sequences show characters trucking through snowy wilderness, one convict, played by Clifton Collins Jr., is on a hunt to find a secret satellite communications center. Locations connected with a practical facility for the scene. “They played well with us,” she notes. “We had big safety issues where we could not walk in some places, and we had to take a crash course in how radio waves work to make it safe for everyone to work. But the location looked just as great on screen as it looked in reality.”

Clifton Collins Jr. in “The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

Another key location was needed for the climactic finale. St-Arnaud found a city water plant, which was later enhanced by visual effects. Additional stage work mapped all the action in the sequence. “Ever since 9-11, all the water facilities in town were sort of locked up for security measures. But we got to open this water plant, and we were the first to shoot there. They collaborated really nicely with us, too,” she recalls.

“The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

From the way it sounds, the location manager seems to have wrapped up her career on a positive note. Or as the French might say, très bien fait.

The Last Frontier is now streaming on Apple TV.

Featured image: Jason Clarke and Haley Bennett in “The Last Frontier,” now streaming on Apple TV.

 

Director Yorgos Lanthimos and Writer Will Tracy on the Blurred Morality of “Bugonia”

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The title of Yorgos Lanthimos’s newest psychological thriller, Bugonia, refers to an ancient Greek belief that bees are born from the corpses of cows. In the film, protagonist Teddy (Jesse Plemons) keeps bees, but it’s a minor hobby compared to his main passion, which, as it develops on-screen, is as curious, revolting, and belief-beggaring as bugonia’s original ancient meaning. Teddy is absolutely certain that Earth is under the control of an alien race called the Andromedans, and right here in his rundown house in the American heartland, he is determined to do something about it. With his cousin and roommate, Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy kidnaps Michelle (Emma Stone), the CEO of a bioengineering pharmaceutical company, and the entity Teddy believes to be the Andromedans’ local representative.

(L to R) Aidan Delbis as Don and Jesse Plemons as Teddy in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

Convinced that Michelle has a plan to cause planetary armageddon via colony collapse disorder, Teddy and Don chain their captive up in their basement, shave her head—Teddy is certain that Andromedans communicate through their hair—and slather her anti-alien lotion. By way of testing her alien powers, Teddy tortures Michelle while Don, the film’s moral heart, protests. Michelle, steely and focused even in desperate circumstances, tries to reason with her captors. What gets her out of the basement isn’t her power of persuasion but Teddy’s belief, after a hideous round of electric shocks, that not only is Michelle an alien, she’s alien royalty. The cousins relocate her upstairs, and Teddy, via spaghetti and grocery-store wine, tries to treat Michelle according to her perceived regal status.

 

Teddy is a deeply complex villain who behaves monstrously but is also gradually revealed by Lanthimos and writer Will Tracy (Succession, The Menu) to be sorrowfully pitiable. “I don’t think the movie would make much sense or be of much interest if he were just crazy or wrong or stupid or immoral,” Tracy said. “Look, he does some bad things and he’s not right about everything, but he’s right about a lot, and identifies a lot of symptoms correctly.” It’s odd, for example, that the underemployed Teddy has a house, decrepit though it may be, all to himself; it’s eventually revealed that he used to share it with his opioid-addicted mother, Sandy (Alicia Silverstone). Don is now all the family Teddy has left, and the two young men are deeply, credibly bonded. “I don’t think the film would work if you didn’t feel at some point some empathy for Teddy’s character. It also comes through Don’s character and their relationship. You see the love between them,” Lanthimos said.

(L to R) Director Yorgos Lanthimos and director of photography Robbie Ryan during the production of BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
(L to R) Aidan Delbis as Don and Jesse Plemons as Teddy in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

Teddy and Don rarely leave their home, which the production built from scratch in the English countryside, and the house itself helps uncover their past. “It was unlikely we’d ever find a house that suited every situation we needed,” Lanthimos said. “We decided to build the house and the basement so we could make something that felt real, and so we could maintain some continuity while filming, because the film takes place in a very short period of time.” The basement is bleak, the ground floor is filled with relics of Teddy’s former life with his mother, and in the attic, there’s a brief glimpse of an anonymous, absentee father as Teddy and Don pull a dated pair of men’s suits from a box of old clothes to put on to meet their captive. By building the house the characters needed, Lanthimos said, “you could be very meticulous about the environment around them and what it stirred up.”

(L to R) Actors Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone during the production of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

The more Michelle tries to reason with Teddy, the stronger Teddy’s vociferous insistence that she is an alien becomes. At the same time, the reality of Teddy’s sad life builds up, and his conspiracy theories start to come off more sympathetic than lunatic. The blurred morality lines are intentional. “I don’t think it’s the main point of the film to figure out who is right and who is wrong,” said Lanthimos. Instead, Bugonia challenges audiences to focus on the dynamics between its tiny cast and their changing perceptions of one another, revealing certain truths about human nature and how each one of us perceives the world. “Even the nicest people can do horrible things if the circumstances are correct,” Lanthimos said.

 

Featured image: (L to R) Aidan Delbis as Don, Jesse Plemons as Teddy and Emma Stone as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

“Roofman” DP Andrij Parekh on Shooting Super 35, Filming in North Carolina, and Channing Tatum’s Surprising Vulnerability

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Director Derek Cianfrance and cinematographer Andrij Parekh forged a tight bond in 2009 while making Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams’ acclaimed indie drama Blue Valentine. In the intervening years, Parekh, armed with an MFA in cinematography from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, won an Emmy for directing Succession and helmed another HBO hit, their Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, while Cianfrance helmed dark fare including The Place Beyond the Pines, Sound of Metal, and HBO’s limited series I Know This Much Is True. When Cianfrance came upon the true crime misadventures of a North Carolina burglar, he co-wrote Roofman (now in theaters), cast Channing Tatum in the title role opposite Kirsten Dunst, and re-united with Parekh to capture the breezy vibe inspired by the stranger-than-fiction anti-hero Jeffrey Manchester, who drilled through roofs to rob several dozen McDonald’s outlets in the late nineties, then hid for months in a Toys “R” Us store after escaping prison.

Describing his rapport with Cianfrance, Parekh says, “Before Blue Valentine, we spent a lot of time together, in museums, looking at photography, making TV commercials. You’ve got to put that kind of time in with someone to get to the point where you can work together and not speak. That kind of understanding is a tremendous asset during production when the clock is ticking and you only have a certain amount of time on set.”

Talking to The Credits from his Brooklyn home, Parekh explains why he operates the camera himself, makes the case for shooting Roofman on Super 35 film, and reveals his most surprising moment on set as delivered by Channing Tatum.

 

What did you see as your key challenge in making a film based on this larger-than-life anti-hero?

We really tried to get inside the mind of Channing Tatum’s character, Jeffrey Manchester. He’s seductive, charismatic, and a total showman. Derek cast a lot of people in the film who actually knew Manchester, so we had a lot of different insights. He’s like a weird Rubik’s cube, showing a different facet to every person he knows.

 

How did you want to capture this multifaceted personality through your choice of camera gear and film stock?

Derek and I like to work very light and very quickly. It’s a kind of trick to get rid of the apparatus of filmmaking, because we’re both very performance-oriented, and all that stuff just gets in the way. So, in figuring out the most effective way to make this period piece, set in the ’90s, we both felt like shooting on film was the right choice.

How did that decision go over with the studio folks?

We had all kinds of constraints and budget issues, but magically, we were able to do it. Film, I think, has an indescribable quality. It’s much better for an actor’s skin tone, and I love the magic of dailies. We had focus issues sometimes, which you never find out about until the next day, but I love not knowing, I love being pleasantly surprised.

Channing Tatum stars in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

Film stock?

[Kodak Vision3 500 T] 5219. Super 35 is an amazing format. I love the grain and the beautiful imperfections. With digital, you sit and pick at the monitor and try to make things perfect, whereas with film, you just trust it and go.

What camera did you use?

The Arricam LT, which is one of my favorite cameras because it sits on your shoulder like it’s part of your body. A lot of this movie is hand-held.

Director Derek Cianfrance on the set of Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.” starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst.

And you operated the camera yourself?

Yes, I love to operate. When the camera’s on my eye, I feel very alive, very connected to the moment, to the actor, to the material. I have no idea where the camera’s going to go because I’m in the zone. It’s like I’m dancing with the actors. Of course, there’s a shot list and blah blah blah, but when you’re in the moment, the camera’s going to do what the camera’s going to do, and I just guide it along. And I think handheld operating can do wonders for a performance.

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst star in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

There’s a certain warmth to Roofman…

Well, I’ve got the focus puller right next to me, I can whisper in their ear. Derek is usually sitting right next to me when I’m operating. Film is more communal as opposed to digital, where the DP is in his own DIT tent and the director’s in a Video Village looking at monitors.

When you arrived to make this movie in Charlotte, North Carolina, where the real events took place, what kind of reception did you get from the local filmmaking community?

We were incredibly welcome in North Carolina. We had amazing key grips, the gaffer was an ex-Charlotte guy who’d moved to L.A. and then came back to Charlotte. A lot of the camera department and the art department are from Raleigh Durham or Wilmington. Shooting in Charlotte was wonderful.

 

Plus, the locations must add significant texture to the story.

In terms of a modern American film, Charlotte has so much to offer. It’s got strip malls, gas stations, churches, and gun shops, right? It’s America. For me, locations are to a DP as actors are to a director. They need to be cast very specifically.

LaKeith Stanfield, left, and Channing Tatum star in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

SPOILER

The star location here has to be the Toys “R” Us store where Jeffrey hides out for several months after escaping from prison. Given your preference for simple set-ups, how did you light the space?

We found an abandoned Toys “R” Us that had gone out of business probably 12 or 15 years ago, and all the fluorescent lights were still there. We replaced the burned-out bulbs with original lights from that era — T-8s at 4300 Kelvin —and shot under those bulbs. We only had one additional lamp, an F-60 on a stand. Our production designer, Inbal Weinberg, rebuilt the store using the same colors, tiles, and the standing shelves. We shot Roofman as if you’d walked into a Toys “R” Us and started making a documentary.

 

Basically, you’re working with available light.

What I love about not having lights on the floor is that you can point the camera 360 and follow the actor. For Derek and for me, it’s really important to give actors freedom. You can’t do that if you have a bunch of lights in the way. Actors are like plants. They know where the light is. And if the actors don’t have to think about where the light is, I think it changes performance.

Channing Tatum stars in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

If I understand correctly, you sometimes roll camera during rehearsals even before Derek officially says “Action.”

Derek never says “Action.” And he never says “Cut.” [laughing] It’s usually the roll out of the camera [running out of film] that is calling the cuts.

So how do people on set know when a scene actually starts?

Derek just tells the actors, “Go ahead, whenever you’re ready.” There’s no decisive action, no decisive cut, it’s all just sort of in-between, and everything that’s been committed to film is fair game.

LaKeith Stanfield, left, and Channing Tatum star in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

Channing Tatum’s performance as Jeffrey Manchester is like nothing he’s done before. Working with him day after day, what did you see him bring to the table?

Aside from being talented, handsome, and incredibly in shape, Channing works really hard. He shows up on time, knows his stuff, and does everything Derek asks of him. Sometimes we’d do take after take after take, and he never complained. No laziness, no sense of being the “star” on set. He’s there as an actor.

Looking back on the making of Roofman, what stands out as a peak moment, when maybe things took an unexpected turn?

A turn I didn’t expect? The scene where Channing is naked and confronts Peter Dinklage [laughing]. I saw all sides of him, so that was something I didn’t expect! Channing was willing to go for it, trusting Derek, trusting me, being in this very vulnerable position. I also found the last scene in the film between Channing and Kirsten [Dunst] to be magical. Again, you see how he’s willing to not hold back, to step out of himself and become this character. There’s not a dry eye in the theater.

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst star in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

Featured image: Channing Tatum stars in Paramount Pictures’ “ROOFMAN.”

“Wicked: For Good” First Reactions: A Heartbreakingly Tender Conclusion & Major Oscar Contender

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The first reactions to Jon M. Chu‘s Wicked: For Good have arrived. When we spoke to Chu and co-writer Dana Fox, Chu was putting the finishing touches on the film, while Fox, who had a chance to watch both Wicked and Wicked: For Good back-to-back (as many fans will be doing in the years to come), said the experience was overwhelming for her. “By the end of the day, I was like a shell of a person who had to be swept off the floor – makeup all over, mascara, sweating, weeping, joyful, happy, singing. It was all of the emotions.”

It sounds as if critics and others who have gotten to screen the film feel similarly to Fox. For Good completes the story that Chu, Fox, co-writer Winnie Holzman (the writer of the Broadway play), and their cast and crew have delivered on the promise of last year’s mega-hit, delivering a moving, heartbreakingly tender finale. Following the fortunes of the misunderstood, outcast Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), now labeled the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda (Ariana Grande), the glittery golden child of Oz known as Glinda the Good. Elphaba is now forced to live in exile, hidden in the Ozian forest as she continues her quest to fight for the freedom of Oz’s muzzled animals and expose the cruelty of the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Glinda, however, is enjoying her sudden stardom as she readies to marry Prince Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), living a dream life. But Glinda is not so easily seduced by the pomp and circumstance—haunted by her separation from Elphaba, she wants to try and broker a deal between her exiled friend and the Wizard. These machinations do Glinda no favors with Elphaba or the Wizard, and the aftermath of these choices is only heightened tenfold when a girl from Kansas comes crashing into their lives.

For one taste of what writers are saying, Vanity Fair‘s scribe Chris Murphy wrote on X, “Saw ‘Wicked: For Good’ last month and believe me when I say that it expands and deepens the original source material in generally exciting and innovative ways. Cynthia and Ari take their performances to the next level with jaw-dropping performances. The film fully sticks the landing.”

For Good doesn’t enjoy blockbuster songs like “Defying Gravity,” but it does have Erivo and Grande, and maestro Stephen Schwartz, and the mix of still beloved songs from the stage and two new original numbers should be more than enough to satiate the music-obsessed. Those new original numbers are “No Place Like Home,” sung by Erivo’s Elphaba, and “The Girl in the Bubble,” performed by Grande’s Glinda. Both tracks are penned by Schwartz, who composes alongside John Powell.

Last year’s Wicked enjoyed 10 Oscar nominations, and now, with the reactions to For Good soaring across the internet like so many flying monkeys, it seems like a safe bet that the conclusion will be another hit with viewers and Oscar voters alike.

Let’s have a peek at some of those reactions. Wicked: For Good will enchant theaters on November 21.

Featured image: L to R: Ariana Grande is Glinda and Cynthia Erivo is Elphaba in WICKED FOR GOOD, directed by Jon M. Chu.

How Cinematographer Robbie Ryan Used VistaVision To Capture the Claustrophobic Terror of “Bugonia”

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A good deal of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ new psychological thriller, Bugonia, is set in a cellar. Teddy (Jesse Plemons), alone in the world except for his cousin, Don (Aidan Delbis), and their belief that Earth is under the thumb of an alien race called the Andromedans, kidnaps Michelle (Emma Stone), whom he believes to be the aliens’ local representative and an architect of a plan to destroy Earth via colony collapse disorder. Teddy is desperate to coerce Michelle into admitting as much, but despite torture and incessant arguing, his captive is steely and resistant.

What plays out in the cellar is bleak. Teddy shaves Michelle’s head and coats her in antihistamine cream, efforts he thinks will prevent her from communicating with other Andromedans. Michelle implores Teddy and Don, who seem less convinced and more morally sound than his cousin, to believe that she is not an alien and that they cannot keep her in this basement much longer. The cellar, sharply lit under the bright lights of Teddy’s torture set-up, is vividly creepy. When Michelle is eventually released to the house’s ground floor, the lighting eases, but the full sense of the woebegone conditions in which Teddy and Don live comes fully into view. It’s a far cry from the sterile office park where Michelle presided as CEO, and the modern, manicured home from which Teddy and Don stole her. For the film’s cinematographer, Robbie Ryan, the sets provided the contrast between the characters, freeing him to shoot the film entirely in the high-resolution, widescreen VistaVision format.

We had the chance to speak with Ryan about this and more, who previously photographed Lanthimos’s Poor Things, Kinds of Kindness, and The Favourite, and has worked extensively with the director on other projects.

 

So much takes place in a basement. How did you handle lighting that space?

The production designer, James Price, made this amazing set for us to film on. James laid out where we would put all the lights, and we added some extra lights —what you’d find in a basement: an LED work light versus an older Tungsten work light. I would like to thank James for lighting the set for us [laughs]. Yorgos told me early on that we should have a lighting plan, since we’re in the basement for so long. I’m not very good on computers and drawing, so I tried, and we did endeavor to stick with it. The start of it is quite moody. Michelle’s character is first waking up on her cot in the basement, and the lights turn on a bit. The story starts taking it over, so the lighting plan went out the door. But the production design is so beautiful in that space that it photographs well from every angle. When you put those amazing faces in there, it was all good. But basements are not the nicest environments to hang around in, so I was glad to get out of there at the end.

(L to R) Emma Stone as Michelle, Aidan Delbis as Don and Jesse Plemons as Teddy in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

Given that the house was built from scratch, did you have any input there to make it work so well?

James is a really open production designer. He’s all about collaboration, and Yorgos works really closely with him. I have a prep period, which was about four or five weeks, so I’d go into the office each day and hang out with the art department more than anybody else because it was always the most creative space in the office. When you have great, enthusiastic people like James and Jennifer [Johnson], the costume designer, then you always have interesting chats.

(L to R) Actors Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone during the production of director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

There’s something about the way Emma Stone is lit when she’s locked in the basement that does make her appear otherworldly. Is that just her, or was that intentional?

Yorgos has been working with Emma on four feature films now, and I think their relationship pushes each of them in each film. It’s all about her eyes. The camera, obviously, is just drawn toward Emma’s face. I think Yorgos always had that in mind, to challenge Emma into a character like Michelle Fuller, with a shaved head and antihistamine cream.

 

What was your approach to get a very different feeling in Michelle’s offices versus Teddy’s house via the cinematography?

We kind of filmed the same approach for everything. Yorgos’ camera aesthetic is that if something’s moving, we move, or if not, the camera’s quite still. Both of their environments are so opposite. She’s very austere, powerful, and confident. The Teddy-Don world is very ramshackle, clumsy, just messy. The two really contrast each other, anyway.

Emma Stone stars as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.
(L to R) Aidan Delbis as Don, Jesse Plemons as Teddy and Emma Stone as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

What were you primarily using to shoot?

We shot on a format that’s now become extremely popular —ironically, it’s called VistaVision. We shot with it on Poor Things, and nobody was talking about it back then. Yorgos was very astute in trying that format out. It’s a very noisy camera, so you can’t really do sound with it, but we shot a bit of Poor Things on it, and we both really loved the results from that. That planted a bit of a seed to try and do a whole film with VistaVision. To endeavor to shoot on VistaVision is a challenge. From a production point of view, it’s more pressure trying to achieve something and makes life more difficult, but for a great, beneficial end. The film looks that much better because we shot on VistaVision.

 

To that end, did you have a shorthand with Yorgos Lanthimos going into this project?

I like to think I know what he doesn’t like nowadays, which is a bit of a shorthand. It’s great fun trying to figure out what Yorgos is going to do next, and he won’t tell you until he’s doing it. He enjoys the environment of leaving it until quite a late time before going ahead. I personally like that, too. It means there’s an energy and spontaneity to the film set. You concentrate very hard at that moment to see what the actors are going to do. He really doesn’t want to constrain anything, performance-wise. He wants to see where they’re sitting, what feels right, not necessarily rehearse it with them a lot, but see what the environment is giving them on that day or scene, and then make decisions. And then have a whole team around him, including the camera and lighting departments, to manage and adjust whatever we need to do. I absolutely love that. You don’t worry about what’s going to happen today. I would have been more nervous if I’d known that some of the things we had to do were coming up. He eased us into it.

(L to R) Director Yorgos Lanthimos and director of photography Robbie Ryan during the production of BUGONIA, a Focus Features release.
Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

Featured image: Emma Stone stars as Michelle in director Yorgos Lanthimos’ BUGONIA, a Focus Features release. Credit: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How “KPop Demon Hunters” Songwriter EJAE Turned Rejection Into Her Golden Success

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KPop Demon Hunters is a juggernaut. Since its release on Netflix, not only has it become the streamer’s most-watched film of all time, but the animated feature is the first to have four songs simultaneously on the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, the song “Golden” is now the longest-running number 1 by a girl group in the 21st century. 

Directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans, the story is about K-pop girl group Huntr/x, comprised of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, who lead double lives as demon hunters. They fight a rival boy band made up of demons while trying to create a final seal to banish them. When they release the new single “Golden,” they hope the incredible earworm they’ve conjured will also create the Golden Honmoon, which would banish all demons forever. It’s not easy being a superstar group of pop singers and demon hunters simultaneously, but Rumi, Mira, and Zoey make it at least look like a lot of fun. And they’re viciously talented, to boot.

Awards season is getting underway, and “Golden” is the current frontrunner for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. It was written by Emmy-nominated composer Mark Sonnenblick, who is known for his work in musical theater and film, and K-pop singer/songwriter and producer EJAE. Hearing EJAE’s song demos early in production, the filmmakers cast her as Rumi’s singing voice. 

The Credits caught up with EJAE at the Middleburg Film Festival, where she talked about her journey and her role in creating this record-breaking production. 

 

Starting when you were only 11, you were a K-pop trainee at SM Entertainment for over 10 years. Then, after being dropped as a singer in 2017, you attended their songwriting camp. 

Yes. Songwriting was never a career I’d thought of, but around 2015, when I was 22, I was dropped. After that, I fell in love with the underground SoundCloud scene, and the music there was more instrumentally focused, so I made a lot of beats. Then, while I was figuring out my life, I started singing on original soundtracks for Korean dramas, and that’s how I got into the music industry outside of SM. I started meeting songwriters who asked if I made music, brought me into the studio, and showed them my beats. They asked if I could topline, but I didn’t know what that meant, and they explained it was writing a melody over tracks they had. That’s how it started, and I just winged a melody. I wrote about my ex-boyfriend at the time, and that day it got cut by a pretty big artist in Korea. It was a song called “Hello,” which Andrew Choi heard, and then he asked me to start writing with him. He started mentoring me and brought me to my first SM song camp, and that’s where I wrote the song “Psycho,” which was released by Red Velvet. That was the fifth song I’d ever written. 

 

How did that shift your thinking about your career?

Back then, SM had a very specific kind of style, and they tried to change my voice. My vocals are very low and husky, and it was a big insecurity of mine because they weren’t clean and pretty like the voices they wanted. I kept trying to change my voice to suit them, which caused a lot of issues with my vocal cords and led to my voice cracking or my not being able to sing at all. Then I noticed that when I got into songwriting, it fit my personality more. I got very realistic with myself about whether I actually wanted to be a singer. I’d see my friends debut in the K-pop industry, and it seems glamorous from the outside, but it’s really quite grueling. It’s really hard on people mentally. I knew I didn’t have a thick enough skin for that, but songwriting felt like home to me. It felt healing. I was able to write about whatever was troubling me. 

KPOP DEMON HUNTERS – When they aren’t selling out stadiums, Kpop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey use their secret identities as badass demon hunters to protect their fans from an ever-present supernatural threat. Together, they must face their biggest enemy yet – an irresistible rival boy band of demons in disguise. ©2025 Netflix

How did your career progress from there?

At first, beat-making was a passion of mine. Then, once I got into songwriting, I went with the flow of whatever opportunities came and just kept learning. K-pop allowed me to extend the ways I used my vocals, but also taught me about genres, because K-pop is such a melting pot of different genres. All that helped me grow as a writer. Then Covid happened, and that’s where everything lifted up for me. At that point, I had a production background. My fiancé is an audio engineer at Berkeley, and he taught me how to mix and produce vocals. A lot of songwriters don’t know how to do that. He taught me how to send stems properly, which upped my game and made me more creative sonically in songwriting. It’s not just writing a melody or lyric; it’s how to express that with harmonies, mixing, adding reverb, adding crowd vocals, or using that as a sound, and designing the vocals for the performer. I completely fell in love with vocal production.

 

Your way into KPop Demon Hunters was through Daniel Rojas. How did that come about? 

We’ve been friends since before Kpop Demon Hunters. We had worked on other projects, like Netflix animation projects, and he and I have a really good working relationship and chemistry. He was brought on first, and he brought me in, telling Maggie Kang he knew a K-pop writer, so then it was just Maggie, Chris Appelhans, Daniel, and me. We were the only musicians on the team. I was so excited because it was the first animated film based in Korea. I’d never seen that before, and I knew I’d love seeing our food, our city, and so many other aspects of Korean life animated for the world. We created a sort of blueprint musically, and that’s how the movie got greenlit. Then more people came on, including Mark Sonnenblick, whom I worked with on “Golden,” and came on a bit later to help with building the story. The songs had to not only be great K-pop songs, but they had to forward the storytelling.  

 

In KPop Demon Hunters, you’re the singing voice of Rumi. How do you see yourself as similar to the character you play? 

Well, first, her hair is lavender, and that’s my favorite color! She’s also a workaholic and perfectionist, and I’m both those things. I see her working so hard to achieve her goal of breaking her patterns and hiding her shame and insecurities, and that’s exactly how I felt in my trainee days. I was always trying to hide what I thought were my flaws and look perfect. That struggle is really toxic to your mental health. The more you try to hide or ignore your imperfections or demons, the more they grow. There was just a point in my life when I had to accept who I was on so many levels and accept my voice. I am also related to Rumi, always trying to solve things on her own and look strong, even though doing that is exhausting. 

 

How did “Golden” get written? What’s the story behind the production of that song? 

The directors gave us the guidelines for what the scene was about. In Demon Hunters, they had teams of songwriters and scenes we were in charge of, but they’d have other writers work on it if they didn’t like what we’d done. “Golden” was the last song we worked on, but it’s the “I want” song, and the introduction of all the characters and what their problems and goals are, so it was very important. It was also an anti-victory song. For example, you hear Rumi sing on the bridge about not hiding anymore, at exactly the same time, she’s hiding her true self. She’s so focused on being perfect in the Honmoon, striving for that goal, so desperate, that she’s ruining herself. I really related to that on so many levels. As much as it’s a hopeful song, it’s also bittersweet. 

What are you hoping the film will do in terms of inspiring other Asian women who want to create?

I think the film’s and the song’s success are already giving many girls hope, and I love that. Even though this is very unfamiliar territory for me, since I’m so used to being behind the scenes, I think my being the face of this helps other Asian women see what’s possible. There are stereotypes of Asian women being submissive, and it’s really hard for us, so I want to kill that imposter syndrome, because I do know what that feels like. I really want to reach out to more Korean girls and mentor them. That’s a goal I definitely have going forward. 

 

KPop Demon Hunters is streaming now on Netflix. 

For more big titles on Netflix, check these out:

“A House of Dynamite” Scribe Noah Oppenheim on His Real-Time Nuclear Thriller’s Emotional Stakes & Shocking Ending

Production Designer Tamara Deverell on Building the Gothic Grandeur of Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”

Inside Netflix’s “The Twits”: Writer/Director Phil Johnston on Empathy, Evil, and Adapting Roald Dahl

 

 

 

Featured image: L;r: ELMONT, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 07: EJAE of HUNTR/X from ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ attends the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards at UBS Arena on September 07, 2025 in Elmont, New York. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images); KPOP DEMON HUNTERS – When they aren’t selling out stadiums, Kpop superstars Rumi, Mira and Zoey use their secret identities as badass demon hunters to protect their fans from an ever-present supernatural threat. Together, they must face their biggest enemy yet – an irresistible rival boy band of demons in disguise. ©2025 Netflix

 

 

“Stranger Things” Two-Hour Finale To Get Historic Release in Theaters on New Year’s Eve

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Stranger Things is going to go out with the biggest possible bang for a television series. The Duffer Brothers’ game-changing Netflix series’ two-hour finale, titled “The Rightside Up,” will have a simultaneous premiere on the streamer and more than 350 movie theaters on December 31st, beginning at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET. The finale will stay in theaters through January 1, 2026.

It’s an appropriately historic end for a series that has been a phenomenon on Netflix and made stars of many of its cast members, cementing the Duffer Brothers’ status as big-time storytellers. It’s the first time a Netflix series has gotten a theatrical release, and it will give the largest possible canvas to what should be an explosive and emotional send-off.

In an interview with Variety, the Duffer Brothers explained why a New Year’s Eve theatrical release would be so special.

“People don’t get to experience how much time and effort is spent on sound and picture, and they’re seeing it at reduced quality,” Matt told Variety. “More than that, it’s about experiencing it at the same time with fans.”

“That would be amazing,” Ross added. “Because the fans could be there with other fans, and experience it as a communal thing — it would be incredible.”

STRANGER THINGS. Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

The theatrical release for the Stranger Things finale follows Netflix’s approach to selecting certain features, but not all, for a run on the big screen. Most recently, films from big-name directors who worked on features for Netflix got Oscar-qualifying theatrical runs—Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is currently playing in theaters, as did Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite (which streams on Netflix today) and Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly. Next year, Greta Gerwig’s Narnia will get a theatrical run, as past films like Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman and other prestige films have, too.

Yet this is a first for a television series, fitting given how impactful Stranger Things has been over its 5-season run. The decision to exhibit the finale in theaters can partly be attributed to the overwhelming excitement fans expressed after Variety‘s cover story with the Duffers was published—a Variety Instagram post has more than 40,000 likes from fans eager to see the two-hour capper on the big screen.

Their wish has been granted. The final battle with the demons of the Upside Down will be screening in theaters across the country.

Featured image: STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Finn Wolfhard as Mike Wheeler, Caleb McLaughlin as Lucas Sinclair, Natalia Dyer as Nancy Wheeler, Joe Keery as Steve Harrington, Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers, and Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

“A House of Dynamite” Scribe Noah Oppenheim on His Real-Time Nuclear Thriller’s Emotional Stakes & Shocking Ending

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Spoilers below.

News veteran turned Hollywood scribe Noah Oppenheim (Jackie, Zero Day) has penned a new edge-of-your-seat thriller in A House of Dynamite, a cautionary tale about nuclear weapons and those in charge of them. Helmed by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), the film stars a dynamic ensemble that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Jared Harris, and Tracy Letts. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in early September to a flood of acclaim.

The doomsday plot unfolds in real-time, with the U.S. government scrambling to intercept an unidentified nuclear missile aimed at Chicago. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t. Oppenheim focuses on the frantic 18-minute window between launch and impact, weaving a non-linear timeline told in three chapters, all building towards the president’s (Elba) fateful choice: retaliate or stand down.

When asked what drove the stakes of each chapter, Oppenheim tells The Credits, “We always wanted to end each act on the question being put to the president of what he wanted to do. We wanted each act to unfold in real-time so that the audience had a visceral sense of how short a period of time a decision like this would have to be made in. And we wanted to structure the movie in such a way that the audience climbed the ladder of responsibility and authority.”

Below, we ask the writer about how he developed the emotions, the controversial ending, and that surprising Angel Reese cameo.

 

The story plays out like a handbook to America’s nuclear weapons response. How did you want to weave in the emotional stakes for these characters as they try to do their jobs?

It was important to try to carve out moments for each of these characters’ humanity to shine through. Once you’ve made the decision to tell a story in real time about a nuclear missile hurtling towards the United States, you have limited real estate to do that with from a script standpoint. Each one of the characters responds differently, as I think would be the case in real life. Some people want to reach out to their loved ones, but some are just so caught up in their jobs that they don’t even have the opportunity. Some remain completely stoic. Some crack.

Rebecca Ferguson’s role as Captain Walker is terrific. She’s this no-nonsense career woman, but still a mother first. Did you see her character evolve outside the script?

A lot of it was baked into the script, but then was also discovered by the actors on set in terms of what emotion they chose to play in different moments. The dialogue might be really professional, but their emotional expression might reflect something differently. There was always a scene with Rebecca’s character before she went to work with her son. In the process of filming that scene, the little boy was playing with a toy dinosaur. And so, Rebecca and Kathryn on set decided to have her take the dinosaur with her. And that became kind of a totem and expression of her connection back to her kid.

 

Jared Harris’s Secretary of Defense Reid Baker is another standout. How did you see the character during the writing process?

From the very beginning, one of the things that Kathryn and I discovered in our research process was that the folks at the top of the decision-making chain are often the least prepared to deal with this. So the idea was to have a character who is well-intentioned, but this is not something he has spent his life contemplating. He’s a character who’s gone through something in his personal life. He’s just lost his wife, and he’s got a somewhat strained relationship with his daughter. And how does a person like that respond in a moment like this, particularly when he finds out his daughter is in the target city?

And the choice Baker made was not to tell his daughter.

The decision to tell her or not is one of those kind of great dinner party conversation dilemmas that you can pose around the table. If a nuclear missile is going to hit Chicago, and she’s in Chicago, and she’s got four minutes, what is she going to do or where is she going to go? So would you rather have her walking to rehearsal with her boyfriend happy? Or would you rather have her spend the last four minutes of her life terrified?

A House of Dynamite. Gabriel Basso as Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Baerington in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.

We have to ask you about the ending. In the final moments, we see the president just about to make a decision on whether to strike back or not, and it cuts to black. Is there an alternative ending, or was that a deliberate choice to stir a conversation?

Kathryn has spoken pretty publicly about her desire to invite the audience to lean in and have a conversation. And if you think about the menu of options that we have around the end. You could end with the president deciding not to retaliate. You could end up with Chicago being obliterated. You could end with the missile that hits Chicago being a dud, which does sometimes happen. And then everyone is fine, and we all go back to our lives. You could end with the mushroom cloud or a hundred mushroom clouds destroying the planet. The problem with all of those endings is that it kind of lets the audience off the hook. It either says, like, problem solved, worst case scenario averted. Let’s just go back to scrolling TikTok and forget that this threat exists. Or you end with calamity and the audience can kind of say, well, all right, the world ended. Either way, it’s kind of a cop out.

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE – Idris Elba as POTUS. Cr: Eros Hoagland © 2025 Netflix, Inc.

We wouldn’t disagree.

I think in our minds, we much rather invite the conversation and the debate, not only about what the president should do in that situation or what the outcome is for our characters on screen, but just importantly, what we all want to do collectively when we walk out of the theater or turn off Netflix. What do we want to do in the real world about this problem? So I think it’s an invitation for people to lean into that debate and that conversation, both about the film and about the policy questions that it raises.

A House of Dynamite. Anthony Ramos as Major Daniel Gonzalez in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.

Very well said… and all those are valid points. But let me play devil’s advocate about the film. The final sequence shows people evacuating to the Raven Rock nuclear complex in Pennsylvania. In the sky there are two lingering smoke trails. Since the eastern region of the U.S. lacks nuclear launch sites, do you think those smoke trails are additional strikes?

I am not going to take the bait.

You sure? You were in the news for a long time. It would make for a great headline.

The headline is: Do we want to live? Do any of us want to continue living?

A House of Dynamite. (Featured L-R) Tracy Letts as General Anthony Brady and Gbenga Akinnagbe as Major General Steven Kyle in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025.

Agreed. But it does look like shit is hitting the fan at the end.

I won’t argue [that]. And to your point about what’s happening. If you or anyone who studies the nuclear issue can tell you about the litany of near misses that we’ve had in the last several decades… The more you read into it, the more you realize how miraculous it is that any of us are still around. I think that is terrifying enough.

Very terrifying. Ok, let me get you out on a few lighter questions. WNBA star Angel Reese makes an appearance during a scene when the president visits a youth basketball camp. She’s everywhere right now like 2003 Jude Law. Did you know she was going to be cast?

That’s really funny. I think Angel was Kathryn’s idea, actually. We wanted to show the president doing something kind of fun, lighthearted, and mundane. Famously, George W. Bush was reading a children’s book to school kids when 9-11 happened. And so, we wanted to capture him doing something like that during the moment he finds out about this.

Since Dynamite entangles weapons of mass destruction, for fans of the genre, what order should they watch these three movies: A House of Dynamite, Sum of All Fears, and Crimson Tide.

That’s hilarious. I will have to go with A House of Dynamite one because we obviously want people watching it.

Okay.

I am a huge Crimson Tide fan. I think it’s a terrific thriller. One of the great Tony Scott films. And I like Sum of All Fears. But I would say the pantheon of nuclear war movies is pretty stacked. I mean, from whether it’s Dr. Strangelove or Fail Safe…I’d also put War Games in there. It doesn’t have that same prestigious veneer, but it is as good a piece of filmmaking as one of the great Matthew Broderick movies.

 

You’re writing a romantic thriller that reunites Speed alum Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Any chance there will be a meet-cute on a bus?

Ah, I am deep into that one. Hopefully, all fans of their incredible chemistry will be satisfied by their reunion.

 

A House of Dynamite is currently in select theaters and streams on Netflix on October 24.

 

 

Featured image: A House of Dynamite. Rebecca Ferguson as Captain Olivia Walker in A House of Dynamite. Cr. Eros Hoagland/Netflix © 2025. 

Production Designer Tamara Deverell on Building the Gothic Grandeur of Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”

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Guillermo del Toro became obsessed with Frankenstein at the age of seven, after seeing the 1931 Boris Karloff movie, and walked out of the theater with a new calling. “Gothic horror became my church,” Del Toro said in a statement, “and [Boris Karloff] became my messiah.”

Ever since that childhood epiphany, del Toro has dreamed of reanimating Mary Shelley’s famous monster for modern audiences. Now comes his Frankenstein (in theaters now, Nov. 7 on Netflix), which follows the brilliant but cruel Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) and his Creature (Jacob Elordi) through a 19th-century cautionary tale about science gone wrong, the monsters within man’s ambition, and an electric story about fathers and sons.

Co-starring Mia Goth and Christoph Waltz, this Frankenstein draws dramatic power from the sumptuous backdrops created by BAFTA-nominated production designer Tamara Deverell (Nightmare Alley, The Strain, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities). Like Frankenstein himself, each environment was stitched together from disparate elements to produce a 360-degree spectacle. Deverell says, “One of the things about Guillermo: if you build it, he will shoot it. Some directors never show three-quarters of the room. With Guillermo, you know he’s going to favor every inch of the place.”

During a recent visit to Los Angeles, the Toronto-based Deverell talked about building icebergs, piecing together a palatial villa, and outfitting the mad scientist Frankenstein’s towering laboratory by the sea.

 

Frankenstein opens in the “Farthest North,” a vast frozen expanse where The Creature wreaks havoc on a ship of Arctic explorers. Where did you film all that ice and snow?

“Farthest North” is actually the parking lot of Netflix studio in Toronto.

No kidding!

What you would see from the top of the ship deck would be downtown Toronto, so “Thank you, visual effects, for taking that out and extending our ice expanse!”

How did you build icebergs on a parking lot?

We used a metal base structure and clad it with Styrofoam and silicone to create those giant icebergs. Then we covered it with real snow and ice. That’s the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Oscar Isaac in “Frankenstein.” Courtesy Netflix.

But why a parking lot?

We were looking at doing the Arctic in a field, but logistically, it made sense to have the ice and snow close to our studio. In case the weather wasn’t in our favor, we could move inside. In some ways, it was a nightmare because the crew lost all their parking, but that was outweighed by the ease of being able to run lighting tests and shoot fragments.

And the ship itself?

We built the ship on this big metal truss system and a huge roller gimbal positioned in the parking lot underneath our ship, which was made from period boards, water-blasted, and aged. We also built this little pool with a giant piece of flipping ice at the base of the ship for when the Creature falls into the water.

The Farthest North in “Frankenstein.” Courtesy Netflix.

How did you design such a realistic-looking ship from the 1850s?

Well, I used to be a shipbuilder.

Go on…

Honest truth. I went to art school in Vancouver, a port town, of course, and one of my summer jobs was finishing ships. I’d been very interested in wooden sailing vessels all my life, so when I became a production designer, I was like “Boy, if I could ever build a ship, wouldn’t that be fun!”

Even with your experience, you must have done a lot of research.

I visited maritime museums in Halifax, in Glasgow, and at London’s Royal Museums Greenwich, where they have the [19th century clipper] Cutty Sark. I connected with historians and people who build models of Arctic exploration ships. I became an avid fan of the Terror and the Erebus ships from the [Sir John] Franklin Expedition to the Arctic, which we based a lot of our ship on.

From the Farthest North, we flash back to a sprawling estate in Europe where young Victor Frankenstein grows up surrounded by luxury. Where did you find that villa, which looks to be as wide as a football field?

Part of Victor’s villa comes from the Gosford House in Scotland, which is an amazing estate, although it’s crumbling. I thought Guillermo would never go for it because it’s too white. Like, ivory white. We couldn’t paint it because it’s a historic building. But the magic of [cinematographer] Dan Laustsen‘s lighting made it work. And also, I just had to show Guillermo that double staircase.

Frankenstein. Mia Goth as Clarie Frankenstein and Christian Convery as Young Victor in Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

What else did you draw from?

We also shot Burghley House, and we shot some at Wilton House, which are both outside of London. We shot at the Dunecht House in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, which nobody had heard of until Frankenstein came knocking on its door. And I took elements from all these locations into the studio set.

Frankenstein. Christophe Waltz as Harlander in Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

The gleaming Frankenstein family library stretches on and on, lined with thousands of books.

It looked nothing like that when we came in because the library had been used for kids’ birthday parties, so there were skateboarding marks up and down. All the shelving had been ripped out, so we had to build all those bookshelves ourselves. But the base architecture was there and Guillermo loves long and narrow sets—he frames them so beautifully—so I knew as soon as we walked in, that room would be in the movie.

FRANKENSTEIN. Mia Goth as Elizabeth in Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

Cut to Victor Frankenstein as an adult scientist building his monster inside this spooky, spindly castle perched on the edge of a cliff.

It’s not a castle, actually; it’s an abandoned water tower. Guillermo wanted Victor to do his work in some great municipal building that had never become operational, and he wanted it on the edge of a cliff. That was in his head from the get-go. We pulled pieces from locations like Wallace Tower in Scotland and the Giant Cold Feet sculpture at St. Stephen’s Church in Edinburgh. Then [concept artist] Guy Davis drew sketches, I drew sketches, and between us, we had so many towers! But the one on the edge of the cliff – that’s what Guillermo fixated on.

Frankenstein. BTS – (L to R) Jacob Elordi as The Creature and Oscar Isaac as Dr. Victor Frankenstein on the set of Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

Was Frankenstein’s tower a physical building or a VFX creation?

VFX did the sky and stuff, but we wanted to physically build that water tower as miniatures, which I like to call a “maxiture” because it was 26 feet tall. We used that in the wide shots. Jose Granell of the Magic Camera Company was our key builder at Shepperton Studios [in London]. We built the tower base on a field in Canada for all the ins and outs. But having that model of the tower, which Guillermo insisted on, really made a difference because Dan could light it, and on some shots, the real sky is actually there in the background.

The 19th-century scientific equipment inside the Tower really enhances the atmosphere. Did you make those pieces?

We went to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in London, where I took a million pictures of real equipment and the real Evelyn tables [displaying human tissue]. Some of the set dressing pieces, such as the copper pots, were handmade, but most of it was rented from antique prop houses in the UK and shipped to our studio sets in North America. There’s nothing like the real thing.

A peek at Guilermo del Toro’s sketchbook. Courtesy Tamara Deverell/Netflix.
Frankenstein. Oscar Issac as Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein . Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

The Creature eventually escapes from the Tower and befriends a family of peasants living in a humble cottage on the edge of a beautiful forest.

We call it the Mill House and the fencing, the little gateway, the exterior – that was all built on stage months before we shot it. The Mill House just sat there through the winter, which gave it a particular patina. Then we dressed it in two different looks, one for spring-summer and one for fall-winter.

A sketch of the Creature. Courtesy Guillermo del Toro
Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi as The Creature in Frankenstein . Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025.

Everything goes violently downhill from there, but this fairytale-like interlude offers a nice respite from the horrors to come.

Well, part of that has to do with the Creature’s proximity to nature. We shot the forest scenes in the countryside of Ontario, and it’s very much related to what we had seen in Scotland. We’re supposed to be somewhere non-specific in Europe, but it just felt right. The conservation area where we filmed is particularly fairytale-like, with the trees coming out of the rocks. That’s where Creature communicates with the deer. We brought in the fake deer, which was created by VFX, and the berry tree, but the rest of it is just the real beauty of nature, which I think speaks to us all.

Frankenstein is in theaters now and arrives on Netflix on November 7. 

 

 

 

 

Featured image: FRANKENSTEIN. – BTS – (L to R) Director Guillermo del Toro and Oscar Issac as Victor Frankenstein on the set of Frankenstein. Cr. Ken Woroner/Netflix © 2025. 

How the “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere” Sound Team Captured The Boss’s Raw Emotion

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The Boss doesn’t just sing into a microphone; he commands attention. His raw charisma and rich baritone were evident when he burst onto the music scene in the mid-1970s at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, but arguably the strength and comfort of his singing voice became settled on his album “Nebraska.” That was the energy the sound team aimed to bottle in writer-director Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, with Jeremy Allen White (The Bear) portraying the iconic musician as he attempts to record that album during a period of tremendous confusion and pain.

The story pulls back the curtain on Springsteen’s struggles to create the now seminal 1982 album, which the artist recorded at 31 on a 4-track recorder in his home in Colts Neck, New Jersey. Haunted by his childhood and his relationship with his father and grappling with the pressure of success, the soundscape reflects the emotional darkness Springsteen was navigating during that time. It also features a number of electrifying performances, and is shot through with Springsteen’s inimitable songs and, incredibly, nine to be exact, mostly from “Nebraska,” but also his totemic follow-ups “Born in the U.S.A.” and “I’m on Fire,” released after “Nebraska” and the tunes that made him a global superstar.

Tuning the sonic notes fell on production mixer Tod Maitland, supervising sound editor Eric Norris, supervising editor and rerecording mixer David Giammarco, rerecording mixer Paul Massey, and supervising music editor Jason Ruder. We spoke to this quintet of artists and let them riff on creating the music, channeling Springsteen’s past, and collaborating with the legend himself.

 

From a production sound perspective, what direction did Scott Cooper give in creating the raw feeling of the performances?

Tod Maitland: Scott always wanted this thing to be a haunting mix between Jeremy [Allen White] and Bruce, with Bruce kind of always in the background. Everything that’s on camera, we did go for it live. We’d shoot all the close-ups first and get the live tracks, and then we’d go into playback for the wider shots. But for all the scenes inside the house while recording “Nebraska,” that was a straightforward approach.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

Was that the same direction for post?

Jason Ruder: Scott definitely wanted something very grounded in realism. So I think on set, it was trying to retain that very early on. I know Jeremy [Allen White] did an incredible amount of work training with Eric Vetro, his vocal coach, and his guitar coach, J.D. Simo. So there was a lot of work that went into trying to keep things very raw and authentic from the beginning, from an actor’s standpoint, with just a voice and a guitar.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

How did the pre-vocal recordings shape the overall direction of the music and sound?

Jason Ruder: Scott always wanted to achieve a very emotional, haunted mix. And I think that’s kind of what works so well at Colts Neck. You have some simple music that’s very live in nature, that was spawned live in nature, and all the wind, everything from the leaves to the subtle sounds at Colts Neck, sort of helped tie into Bruce’s psychology at that point in the story. And I think every little detail helped clock what Bruce was struggling with at the time. And when we transition to flashbacks, when Bruce was a boy, it was such an emotional sound design; it went really hand in hand with the music.

 

In terms of the production sound mix, how did you mic Jeremy Allen White to transition from dialogue into music?

Tod Maitland: With every musical, I’m always there for the pre-vocal recordings. What I’ll do is sit down with the actors before we start shooting and find a lavalier that matches their voice to the Sennheiser MKH 416 we use for the boom. I’ll take a bunch of different lavaliers and I’ll line them up on a little bar and put it right at their chest height, and then I’ll put the MKH 416 overhead and have them talk and then do some singing and record all those tracks. You’d be shocked at how different each lav sounds. There’s a clear winner 95% of the time, to which mic matches the best. For Jeremey, we used a DPA.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What was your approach to mixing the production tracks?

Tod Maitland: So much of it was the stage microphones that were on-camera, but we did wire him and use an overhead mic. It really was about finding the best match that can transition between any one of the microphones we were using and into the live singing or pre-records, so you don’t hear that difference.

There is a rich and dynamic soundscape happening outside the performances. What went into creating its details?

Eric Norris: Our brief from Scott was really to be realistic and detailed, and not to be over-the-top Hollywood. So, when we first started working on it, we talked with Scott, and we were sort of a little bit over the top. To give you an example, there’s a moment where Bruce’s dad slaps him. And we had initially built that up a little bit too far. And Scott really pulled us back. And that’s a little complicated, because Bruce had a complicated relationship with his dad, but we didn’t want to make his dad a huge evil monster. So we just pulled it back and made that slap pretty realistic. And then the way that the scene was cut, I think, it conveyed the way Scott wanted to convey the relationship between Bruce and his dad. 

(L-R) Stephen Graham as Douglas Dutch Springsteen and Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr. as Young Bruce in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Speaking of Springsteen’s youth, how did you want to contrast Freehold, New Jersey, the city where he grew up, and Colts Neck, the farmhouse where he recorded “Nebraska?”

David Giammarco: We researched the town where Bruce Springsteen grew up and what kinds of things were around there, and tried to play those when we could. Because when we got to Colts Neck, it had to be very, very quiet. We were allowed to play with subtle and supportive detail against this very quiet Colts Neck, but then we just let the music come like the wind and take over.

Were you able to visit places like Freehold to record natural sounds, or was the soundscape more built from a library?

Eric Norris: As far as the environmental sounds, we did use our library, although we did search to figure out what birds you would find in Colts Neck and used those birds to try to be authentic about it. We did a little bit of recording of props, like we recorded the TEAC 144 Portastudio. The physical sounds of the motors, the switches, and then we were able to use those accurately in the film.

Can you share how you sonically built the film’s iconic recording of “Born in the USA?”

Paul Massey: We had access to all the multitrack recordings. And when he’s recording at Power Station in New York, it gave us great flexibility to be able to mix that from scratch, essentially, and highlight individual instruments. There was a discussion to intentionally maintain the same perspective when we went in and out of the control room to keep the energy going. And then there were wonderful moments of Jeremy singing and Bruce singing, which Jason handled brilliantly in terms of how we get from one voice to the next voice. So we really had ultimate control over pretty much everything throughout that scene. Many of the other live performances were in a similar position where we had access to all the multitracks.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

What kind of support did you receive from Bruce Springsteen during the process?

Jason Ruder: We had so much support from Bruce and [Jon] Landau. They opened up the vault to the multi-tracks, so we had access to those. We also had some different live performances from “Born to Run” that really opened up some key audio for us to help our whole adventure from a music perspective. They were fully invested in everything, and they were on set every day when it came to music. It was really wonderful.

 

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere rocks into theaters on October 24.

 

Featured image: Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

Inside Netflix’s “The Twits”: Writer/Director Phil Johnston on Empathy, Evil, and Adapting Roald Dahl

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Writer/director Phil Johnston, known for his work on Zootopia and the Wreck-It Ralph features, says. “Every character I’ve ever truly connected to has been on the outside looking in. Outcasts, dirtbags, and weirdos are my people.” It seems appropriate, then, that he brought beloved weirdo-specialist Roald Dahl’s book “The Twits” to the big screen. He took Dahl’s story of two hateful people, expanded it, and turned it into a social satire wrapped in an animated comedy that is equally creepy and comforting, making it perfect Halloween season viewing for the whole family.

The screenplay, which he co-wrote with Meg Favreau, centers on orphans Beesha and Bubsy, who suspect Jim and Credenza Twit of plotting to destroy their town. The Twits have created a dangerous, disgusting amusement park called Twitlandia, which is cobbled together from junk, and features rides like twirling, used porta-potties. The Twits use magical creatures they’re keeping captive called Muggle-Wumps to fuel their park, and Beesha and Bubsy want to save the Muggle-Wumps and the people of their beloved city from the Twits. Co-directed by Todd Kunjan Demong and Katie Shanahan, the film features new original songs by famed musician and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. 

The Credits spoke to Phil Johnston about being inspired by Roald Dahl, getting his musical hero to work on the film, and why a story about the battle between cruelty and empathy is so important for this moment in history. 

 

What aspects of bringing Roald Dahl’s The Twits to life were the most exciting for you?

The Twits didn’t have to be redeemable; in fact, they shouldn’t be. Most of the adults in Dahl’s stories are either evil, ineffectual, or both, and I appreciated that. There are elements of the book that people love, but it’s a very episodic story, so creating something that paid homage to that but was also open enough to interpretation was really exciting to me.

The Twits. (L to R) Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in The Twits. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

What was most challenging?

The biggest challenge with Dahl’s work is that they’re mean stories. The world is mean. The elbows are sharp. The comedy has teeth, so convincing collaborators we’re doing this on purpose was a big deal. The Twits are not going to change, and that’s the point. That’s what we as people have to realize. I still preach empathy. You can try to understand people, but don’t be so silly as to think they’re actually going to change, because a lot of times they don’t. I think that’s an okay message for kids. Don’t assume that just because you’re positive, cheerful, and nice, other people are going to be. The challenge was convincing people that’s actually what we’re trying to say with this.  Also, the weight of Roald Dahl’s body of work, and making sure that I’m doing something that honors that, but also says something new, was really important to me.

The Twits. (L to R) Ryan Lopez as Bubsy, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha, in The Twits. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

You started out as a journalist. In what ways would you say that influenced or impacted your work on The Twits? 

Well, the town is called Triperot, and the news station is Tripewatch 7. I worked for a TV station in Omaha, Nebraska, called Newswatch 7, so that was a tip of the cap for my colleagues in Omaha. As a journalist, I loved doing weird feature stories. I ended up being the main news reporter at a station in Minneapolis, and it was a lot of covering crime and fires and such, but the times I got to do a story about something weird or offbeat, that brought me the most joy. In fact, Twitlandia was inspired by a story I did in Minneapolis. There was this 85-year-old guy in Aniwa, Wisconsin, who had a backyard circus. He had no teeth and would eat fire and do a tiger show. It was so janky and weird and great. I loved stories like that. As a journalist, I loved lifting up rocks and logs and poking at the grubs and creatures living under there, and that’s where I found inspiration for the house and Twitlandia in The Twits. 

The Twits. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

How did you develop the Muggle-Wumps? There must have been a number of permutations before what we see onscreen.

In the book, the Muggle-Wumps are monkeys in a cage in the backyard. Initially, we started down that road, then we started thinking it would be cool if they were magical somehow. They’re a species unto themselves, so they can have both traits of monkeys and also be magical. We went in the direction of The Muppets, and that didn’t feel right, but I loved the tactile nature of the fur, so we leaned into that. Then, being more magical, we came up with the idea of them being upside down, which is the upside-down monkey circus in the book. We then came up with the idea that maybe their emotions are so potent, and their tears are so powerful, that they can serve as a fuel source. There was a lot of bouncing ideas between the story and design departments, where it would go back and forth, feeding on each other’s ideas. It was a wonderful collaboration, and we built on top of each other’s ideas. Peter de Sève, the lead in character design, did a lot of the Muggle-Wump stuff, as did Bobby Chiu, who is a great creature designer. 

The Twits. (L to R) Timothy Simons as Marty Muggle-Wump, Natalie Portman as Mary Muggle-Wump, in The Twits. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025

David Byrne, a musician you’ve been a fan of since you were a teenager, contributes songs to the film. How did you connect with him and get him to do your movie? 

I wrote him a letter, which, in part, said, “Dear David, this is a fan letter as much as it is an invitation to collaborate. You’ve been the most consistent source of musical joy in my life since I was in junior high school. That’s when I found/stole my brother’s Speaking in Tongues album. Mere proximity to that record made me infinitely cooler and more worldly than I otherwise might have been.” Then I go on to say, “All these years later, I continue to return to your work for inspiration in my own career as a filmmaker. So naturally, when I conceived of a musical episode in my adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book The Twits, my first thought was, Wouldn’t it be cool if David Byrne would write the music?” At the time, The Twits was going to be a series, and the finale was going to be a musical, so we had a meeting and really hit it off, and he thought he might be able to come up with something. What he did was amazing. He really dug way down into the characters, and he was an absolute joy to work with. I remember when I got just an iPhone demo of him playing the banjo for the song “Not Like Everyone Else,”  just him and a banjo. I was sitting outside around my fire pit, and I just got chills. I just remember thinking, “This is a dream.”

 

There’s a great quote in the film: “ Empathy and naiveté, after all, are not the same things.” This is a very important topic to discuss right now.

It’s sadly very topical, and will be for a long time, I think. My dad was an Episcopal priest, and so I grew up with that swirling around the periphery, the notion of kindness and forgiveness. And while I’m not a religious person, I think it’s always been important for me to try to imagine what someone else is going through. I think there’s a lesson our kids learn at the end of this movie. They leave the Twits for dead. The Twits die at the end of the book, where they’re going to melt and shrink, and that’s that. We can cheer that, until you realize, well, that’s awful. That’s not the answer. Don’t expect them to change, but don’t sink to their level. Don’t become evil yourself. That’s not going to do any of us any good. I think we are in a moment where we have to remember empathy is not weakness, nor is it naiveté. It’s human decency. Let’s lead with that. I don’t want to be preachy, and this movie is a big, silly comedy, so let’s not pretend it’s anything else, but I hope at least people will take that message from it, that it doesn’t do any good to become rotten ourselves. There’s enough of that going around. Let’s be kind. Lead with kindness. 

 

The Twits is streaming now on Netflix. 

 

 

Featured image: The Twits. (L to R) Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in The Twits. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025 

“Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” Location Manager Sarah Brady Stack on Finding The Boss’s New Jersey

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For writer-director Scott Cooper’s making-of-an-album drama about one of America’s most enduring rock icons, finding the ideal location was a no-brainer, since Bruce Springsteen’s image and identity are inseparable from the Garden State. “Springsteen is like the New Jersey guy. If you’re gonna make a movie about him, it has to be in New Jersey, which is a character in its own in this film,” says the location manager for Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Sarah Brady Stack (Maestro, 3 Body Problem). “He has influenced so much around the state. Asbury Park was significantly revitalized and shaped around him. So much of New Jersey is shaped by him, and so much of his work is shaped by New Jersey. So, I don’t think you could’ve shot this anywhere else. At least I don’t think he would’ve been happy about it, and you would’ve lost some of what made him who he is,” she adds.

(L-R) Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen and Odessa Young as Faye in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

With terrain ranging from dense woods and mountains to beaches and cityscapes alike, New Jersey is a great location, particularly for stories set in the 1970s and 1980s. Charting the year between late 1981 and 1982, the 20th Century Studios film takes us behind the excruciating process — both emotionally and technically — as Springsteen (a gut-wrenching portrayal by Jeremy Allen White of The Bear fame) digs deep within himself to birth the famed 1982 album, “Nebraska,” with pivotal support from longtime manager and loyal friend, Jon Landau (Succession’s Jeremy Strong). The majority of the film was shot at historically accurate locations, including the boardwalk and convention hall in Asbury Park, the Stone Pony concert venue, and the Power Station recording studio where “Born in the U.S.A.” was recorded in 1982.

(L-R) Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau and Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

With an already robust production incentive program, New Jersey recently expanded its credit for studio partners from 35% to 40% of qualified expenses and increased the above-the-line wages cap by 50% to $750,000 per individual, luring a myriad of productions to the state, including Apple TV’s Severance and Netflix’s Happy Gilmore 2. The Springsteen drama spent 31 days filming throughout 14 municipalities, spending almost $42 million in the state on 500 cast and crew members, including Brady Stack’s 15-plus team of location scouts.

Brady Stack recently spoke to The Credits ahead of the film’s release.

 

How long were you on the project?

I worked for three months of pre-production through the shoot. I started two weeks after [assistant location manager] J.P. Varady began. He’s got an amazing eye.

How big is your team? Are they all based in the Tri-State area?

Yes, everyone’s based between New York and New Jersey. We had three assistant location managers, three scouts, four location assistants, a bunch of additionals, and two unit P.A.s.

The film begins in the autumn of 1981. I used to live in New England and the dazzling colors during peak foliage always warms my heart.

There’s nothing more beautiful than foliage in the Northeast; it never gets old.

It really gives this story that melancholy beauty as we follow Bruce down the spiral of his emotional crisis.

We wanted to capture all that with historically accurate locations, including the [Hell’s Kitchen recording studio] Power Station, the CBS Building in midtown Manhattan, and all over New Jersey. Many things have changed, and some of the places don’t exist anymore, or have been modernized to a point where they wouldn’t fit. But we went out of our way to make it as historically accurate as possible and include the locations where these events took place.

A scene from 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

What was your research process like?

We did our own research, but the Bruce Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music group was instrumental. A lot came from Springsteen himself — he has a vault with records, photos, notes, and everything you could imagine.

Your team was given access to his personal vault?

Our production designer [Stefania Cella] was, and she came up with mood boards for the tone and look of the film. Then, my team went out and created that world.

(L-R) Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen and Jeremy Strong as Jon Landau in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

I’m always fascinated by how location scouts find the nooks and crannies that really make the story shine. How do you do it?

We just talk to the locals to uncover these hidden gems. You talk to enough people, you’ll find the person who knows the area the best, and they’re usually more than happy to take you around and show you all the places that you might not otherwise find.

Let’s go over some of the iconic locations featured in the film.

Asbury Park is where he kind of got his start. We also shot at Meadowlands Arena, formerly called the Izod Center, where Bruce was the first musician to perform in 1981 when it opened. Although in the movie, it stood in for different arenas in Cincinnati and L.A.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

What is the process for securing permits and filming at these large venues, parks, and public locations? 

New Jersey is an amazing place to film. Our team handles the permits, deals with the different government agencies, and contracts with the locations. I think it’s also interesting to talk about the locations that aren’t supposed to be in New Jersey. For instance, when Bruce goes on a cross-country road trip. We talked about shooting some of that across the country, but ultimately decided the most efficient and cost-effective way was to do it here. We recreated parts of Texas and some of the South right here in New Jersey. When they went to the El Paso County Fair in Harding Township, New Jersey, the corn fields by the “mansion on a hill” were in the same neighborhood.

It’s interesting that New Jersey stood in for parts of the country that you may not expect to look similar enough.

For us, that was more of the fun, the challenge of recreating something that was supposed to be somewhere else.

For the centerpiece location, Bruce’s rental house in Colts Neck was where he painstakingly carved out the album “Nebraska,” as he took a deep dive into his childhood traumas. Where was that?

We took some artistic license here — the actual rental house didn’t really stand out and has changed a lot. So, we decided on something that conveyed more of the spirit and his emotional state at the time. Bruce is a down-to-earth guy, so it needed to be elevated but still humble. We got very lucky in Mountain Lakes.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

How did you settle on the house?

This lovely couple raised their children there and meticulously preserved it from the ’70s. It truly felt like a time capsule when you walked in the front door. There was this electric charge from all the love that’d been put into it. It felt like magic when you walked in — everyone, including Scott Cooper, felt it once we saw it: This is THE house. It was just meant to be, kind of like fate. Thankfully, the family was on board with filming.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Was any of it actually filmed in Colts Neck?

No. When Bruce lived there, it was much more rural. Now, it’s very developed with suburban complexes. But for the film, we needed a rustic, rural feel.

Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Many of the emotional demons that anchor Bruce’s writing in the “Nebraska” album came from his turbulent childhood. Where did you find that house in the flashback sequences?

We had a lot of trouble with that house in Orange, New Jersey. We needed the right look and feel, something that wasn’t too modernized, humble, and conveyed his blue-collar background—something sad but also hopeful.

 

How many places do you typically have to scout before landing on the right one?

There were at least 10 for the rental house, which we found pretty quickly. We scouted more than we needed to, just to make sure. I think it was the third house we scouted. Once we saw it, we were pretty sure that was it.

What about his childhood home?

I think we scouted 20-30 houses. 10 houses aren’t that much. If you try between five and 10 places for one location, you’re doing pretty well. Anything over 30 is really struggling. We got into that with his rental house in L.A., later in the movie, which we found in Montclair, New Jersey, even though the exterior shots were filmed in L.A. We needed something nicer than the one in Colts Neck, but that still feels humble and different enough. It’s easy to get too extravagant because by then, he’s a superstar on the rise, but that’s just not him. Finding a balance is much harder than you’d think, especially for that time period. We scouted roughly 50 houses for that. New Jersey is an amazing place to work, as is New York and the East Coast, which offer a variety of looks and feels and personalities. You can find pretty much anything you’re looking for out here.

(L-R) Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo by Macall Polay. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved

 

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is in theaters on October 24.

Featured image: Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in 20th Century Studios’ SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2025 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

“One Battle After Another” Production Designer Florencia Martin on Building PTA’s Three-Hour Action Thriller from the Ground Up

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Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller One Battle After Another is loosely inspired by a section of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” but this three-hour epic is rooted in the present, a contemporary vision of a heightened clash between far-left and far-right, and, more intimately, a story about vengeance, desire, and family.

Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) are partners and active members of a far-left militant group, the French 75. While planting a bomb, Perfidia is caught by Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), whom she previously sexually humiliated during a successful raid on an immigrant detention center. Perfidia sleeps with the obsessed Lockjaw, who lets her go. Nine months later, Perfidia gives birth to Charlene, and while Pat takes to family life, Perfidia can’t settle down. The family breaks apart, Perfidia is captured, and in exchange for ratting out the other French 75 members, Lockjaw lets her enter witness protection. Pat and Charlene go into hiding in sanctuary city Baktan Cross as Bob and Willa Ferguson. Perfidia eventually escapes the clutches of Lockjaw and goes on the lam outside the country.

Sixteen years later, Bob’s revolutionary skills are dangerously rusty when Lockjaw starts his hunt for Willa, hellbent on concealing his interracial relationship from the Christmas Adventurers Club, a white supremacist secret society he desperately wants to join. Former French 75 member Deandra (Regina Hall) flees with Willa, while Willa’s karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio Del Toro) helps Bob go after Lockjaw. The film unfolds in chapters, starting with the thrilling prologue that captures the French 75’s exploits, moving to Bob and Willa’s tiny off-grid house in Baktan Cross, and then into the desert, where Willa shelters in a convent, of sorts, and takes on the men who want to see her dead, in a three-car chase unlike any chase scene film has ever scene.

With scouting a primary directive, production designer Florencia Martin (Licorice Pizza, Babylon) built many of these sets practically, and frequently from the ground up, on locations across California and the American West. The rest was built on stage and shot at Los Angeles’s LA North Studios. We had the chance to speak with Martin about constructing entire buildings, setting up practical explosions, and creating escape hatches and secret society lairs across a range of locations to come together in one coherent vision.

 

Were there any specific directives going in from Paul Thomas Anderson?

Our process is really boots on the ground. We began scouting in 2022 and knew from the script the arc of Bob’s journey. We knew he was starting in the redwoods, going to the sanctuary mission, and ending up in the desert. The directive was really to scout as much as possible and gather all these pieces that became a visual tapestry, grounding these characters in the reality of their circumstances.

Caption: (L-r) LEONARDO DI CAPRIO and Director/Writer/Producer PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON on the set of “One Battle After Another.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Photo Credit: Merrick Morton

That really shines in Sensei Sergio’s apartment building. How did you achieve that?

It was all practical. It was one of the biggest gifts of my career, probably. We ended up going to El Paso, and one of the first locations we walked into was Dennis’s Perfumeria, a perfume gift shop two blocks from the border. We knew that location was perfect and not to touch a thing. Through a lot of effort from our local experts, Jacob Cena and architect Phil Helm, we were able to practically build Sensei’s apartment upstairs, which I lined up with the existing trap door that led to the neighboring bag store. It was all inspired by locations we had scouted. The hallway was the Gateway Hotel. It had been built and modified through time and was so perfect, a visual anchor. Paul wanted for Sensei to live in this community with his family, and he had this idea that the walls would be open, so you could pass through each apartment. Since we built it, I was able to make it look like exposed framing, and as if the floorboards had been ripped out, because we installed everything from the ground up. Our set decorator, Anthony Carlino, sourced everything locally.

Caption: (L-r) LEONARDO DI CAPRIO as Bob Ferguson and BENICIO DEL TORO as Sensei St. Carlos in “One Battle After Another.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

How did you find and then set up the convent? Was that all in the script?

It was really challenging, because Paul had an image of an old Spanish mission that was pretty derelict. We couldn’t find it. All the missions had been restored. This one was one on the mission trail, but it’s run by California Parks, so it gave us that pastoral setting. We wanted it to feel like it was hidden and believable that this group of women would have found this property. A lot of the characters in this film have a double side to them. It was fun to build that into that space, and let it breathe, too, and see the space for what it was, especially when Willa meets Lockjaw for the first time. You have to understand the story very clearly in that moment.

Caption: REGINA HALL as Deandra in “One Battle After Another.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

What was the approach for the Christmas Adventurer’s Club underground lair?

Paul had it in his mind that it was these underground tunnels that led to a meeting space or a clubhouse. I came across a Midwestern company that refurbishes basements, and they had all this wild, elegant molding and coffered ceilings with artificial light, so that became a visual element of what the space could look like. Somewhere along the journey, we had the idea, wouldn’t it be funny and great if what they looked at during these meetings was the perfect representation of the American West? It was just carving out the story behind this, and then the rest was practical. We went through a house in Sacramento that had stairs that led through a mural into their own secret bunker, and then that then led us to a tunnel that we found and loved as a location in Stockton. Then we built the set on stage at LA North Studios.

Was Bob’s escape hatch practical?

We built that whole thing. Bob’s in his one-bedroom cabin in the woods. He’s been there for the last 16 years. That house was too small, which was great, because that became part of the story. We built Willa’s bedroom and recreated his bedroom on a stage in order to build the beginning of the tunnel shaft. And then a 60 foot tunnel to make it look like he’d built it himself over time, so a hand-hewn tunnel on LA North stages. He pops out of a redwood stump, which are very typical of the area. Historically, all the redwoods were lumber for wood, so a ten-foot section of the tree would remain, and they’d turn them into outhouses and showers, sometimes bedrooms. He’s hiding his backpack there. We brought in a redwood stump and dressed it into a location. We carved in a tank for him to be able to emerge safely.

 

Speaking of practical, were the French 75’s explosive exploits done practically?

They were practical, and very much so, from the explosions to the car crashes. We actually studied a lot of YouTube videos and what we found was stuff that wasn’t very exciting. It was pretty banal. The way that the French 75 sequence ends where they’re smashing the cars and get fishboned, that was based on real crashes we would see. The arch rockets that Bob sets off, I think Paul had found these images at night. It was just about taking all of that information and sharing it with our effects team. The bank explosion was practical, in a closed down bank in Sacramento. We got permits through our team and worked closely with Jeremy Hayes [the special effects supervisor] replacing glass, creating furniture that would hide debris. It was all a multiple-step process but really fulfilling work.

Caption: LEONARDO DI CAPRIO as Bob Ferguson in “One Battle After Another.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

How did you pull off the final three-car chase scene?

We knew we were ending in the desert. We were always gathering locations as we went. We’d just left 1776 camp in Blythe, which is the end of California at the border of Arizona. We got on the road and just collectively felt this incredible experience being in the car, dipping in and out. Paul ended up writing that sequence of the chase scene, and then it was going back five or six times and camera testing, talking about time of day. That road runs north-south and east-west. The dips are different in different sections. Marrying that all together, they did a stunning job in the edit. That sequence was a huge team effort of safety, permissions to shut down a real highway, it was just incredible what we got to do there.  

 

 

 

 

 Featured image: Caption: CHASE INFINITI as Willa Ferguson in “One Battle After Another.” A Warner Bros. Pictures Release. Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

“Hedda” Production Designer Cara Brower on Transforming a Stunning Estate for Tessa Thompson’s Rogue Heroine

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To re-animate playwright Henrik Ibsen’s famously unhappy heroine Hedda Gabler, writer-director Nia DaCosta cast her longtime muse Tessa Thompson as the star of Hedda (opening Oct. 22). This vivid adaptation, featuring Nina Hoss in the gender-switched role of an ex-lover along with Imogen Poots, Tom Bateman and Nicholas Pinnock, takes place in 1950s England at a raucous party complicated by jealousy, existential angst, feminist fury, a precious manuscript and one handgun.

The movie marks production designer Cara Brower‘s third collaboration with DaCosta, following 2021’s Candyman and The Marvels in 2023. Brower, who previously art-directed Twin Peaks: The Return, Hail Caesar and Us, says “When I first read Nia’s Hedda script, I thought, ‘Wow this is a really terrible person.’ But then, when I saw Tessa as Hedda, she brought something very mischievous to the table. She’s the life of the party and so magnetic you can’t take your eyes off her.”

Speaking from her home in Pasadena, Brower talks about how she transformed a 10th-century country house to reflect the raging range of Hedda’s flamboyant meltdown. 

 

Hedda happens in one English estate the course of one wild night. How did you picture the house that would anchor the story?

When I first met with Nia, I came in thinking we would do something very realistic and period correct for the 1950s like a beautiful Powell and Pressburger film. But Nia said she didn’t want that at all. She wanted the house to be something you’ve never seen before.

Flintham Hall. Photo courtesy Cara Bower.

That’s a tall order. How did you go about locating your ultimate destination: Flintham Hall in rural Nottinghamshire?

I happened to be in the UK doing re-shoots for The Marvels and had some extra time, so I took it upon myself to start looking, because I knew this house really needed to be special. Nia is very open to ideas, but she’s also extremely specific in her scripts. For Hedda‘s home, we needed a grand staircase, a library, a lake that we could see from the house, a ballroom or great room with a balcony on the second level that you can look down from, the ability to drop a chandelier [laughing], a period kitchen, a period bathroom, and ideally all in one house and 45 minutes from London.

That wish list is super specific. Tell me about your quest to find the perfect Hedda house.

Everything around London had been shot a million times so I worked my way out from there. A lot of these country houses are owned by the National Trust, and you cannot change anything. So I wanted privately owned homes but even then, I’d get to a house and the shutters could only be open four hours a day or “You can’t touch the draperies because we’re worried they’ll disintegrate” or you can’t move the harpsichord because it’s been in the family for hundreds of years.

Flintham Hall. Courtesy Cara Brower

That’s a lot of restrictions.

I ended up I photo-scouting 200 homes and drove out to see many in person. Sometimes you’d find a house that looked interesting in the photographs but then you get there and it’s some Jacobean house from medieval times where everything’s tiny because the photos were taken with wide angle lenses.

That’s cheating! So after months of searching, you located a 10th-century estate in rural Nottinghamshire called Flintham Hall.

I brought on this amazing location manager Emma Pill and as soon as we got there and saw the balcony in the great room, I just knew. The owners thought it would be fun to make a movie there, so we came in and took over the house and transformed it.

Tessa Thompson stars as “Hedda Gabler” in HEDDA.

The interior reflects Hedda’s personality in such vivid ways. What were your inspirations?

What unlocked the design for me is that I read about socialites in the fifties who wanted to hang out in a modern world with artists and musicians and bohemians. I studied the book Vogue Hoses Gardens and People, which is about eccentric socialites with incredible houses in Europe filled with modern art. And I studied this book, “Luggala Days,” about the heiress Oonagh Guinness, who had an estate in Ireland that her father bought for her. I could not believe how she decorated it! She had green carpet, purple wallpaper, and a hot pink satin canopy around her bed. Oonagh hosted week-long parties with the Rolling Stones and different artists, so that’s when I understood: Hedda’s a creative modern woman who doesn’t have a way to express her creativity.

Hedda’s bedroom. Courtesy Cara Bower.

Since the owners of this country house gave you free rein to re-paint the walls, what color scheme did you go with?

I loved the idea of doing kind of putrid colors — I don’t know any other way to describe it — because I felt this house needed to be somewhat faded. I had a beautiful reference of Lauren Bacall in her bedroom with faded purple wallpaper, sort of a dusty purple, so I thought “Lets bring in some Hollywood glamor.” It should be sexy and beautiful, but also cold.

Tessa Thompson and Nina Hoss in “Hedda.” Courtesy Amazon MGM Studio.

Early in the movie, servants are setting this extremely long dining room table covered with an equally long tablecloth. Hedda sweeps in and rips it off. What’s that about?

In my research, I learned that aristocratic dinner tables were usually covered in a white tablecloth, but in more artistic homes, where one might see Salvador Dalí and similar works, the tables were often beautiful and glossy. For her time, Hedda was really pushing the boundaries.

(L-R): Hedda Gabler (Tessa Thompson), Eileen Lovborg (Nina Hoss), Thea Clifton (Imogen Poots) in HEDDA.

Also dramatic is the spangly chandelier that comes crashing down and shatters.

That was made from a sugar glass type of material. The weirdest thing is the set decorator had gotten an email from a person who makes custom chandeliers for films. Kismet.

Modern paintings reinforce the artistic vibe in Hedda’s house. Where did they come from?

We rented some, but for the most part, we made our own paintings. My set decorator Stella Fox and I sent images to this incredible painter Thomasina Smith, and she created dozens of versions [in the style of abstract expressionists Helen Frankenthaler, Arthur Dove, Clyfford Still, and surrealist Salvador Dali]. All the art in the great room and dining room is paintings that we had made.

Tessa Thompson stars as “Hedda Gabler” in HEDDA.

The architecture itself seems well-suited to the several bits of treachery revealed during the party. How did you exploit the old-fashioned floor plan?

There are all these little nooks and secret hideaways in the house, so it was really fun to go around with Nia and realize, for example, that we could utilize this little nook right there for when Hedda goes off with the Judge [Nicholas Pinnock] for their secret kiss.

Tom Bateman (George Tessman) and Tessa Thompson (Hedda Gabler) in HEDDA.

The bucolic lake in the back of the estate looks very cinematic and expands the narrative space when drunk partygoers go skinny-dipping there. The lake also plays an important role in Nia DaCosta’s version of the Hedda story. Did you need to modify the lake to make it work for the plot?

We put a platform at the bottom of the lake so Tessa could walk in and go down to exactly her height. The area around the lake was completely overgrown with brambles, so we created that little shoreline area to make it all feel seamless.

Hedda is the third movie you’ve designed for Nia DaCosta, dating back to Candyman in 2021, then The Marvels, and now this. What’s she like to work with?

Nia is calm, she’s organized, she knows exactly what she wants, so she makes decisions like that [snapping fingers]. She’s very prepared, she storyboards everything, she shoots very efficiently, and Nia doesn’t get upset with anybody on the crew. She’s a dream to work with. And I realized on Hedda how much we learned on The Marvels. Because that was a beast.

How so?

We thought we knew what we were getting into, but I don’t think anybody really knows when they sign up for a Marvel film what they’re getting into.

It must be a very different thing to work within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is sprawling and interconnected.

You’re playing in their sandbox. You can be creative within it, but there are parameters. The fun thing about Hedda was that there were no set builds, no green screen, just one location, and it was very contained. Plan B [Entertainment] was involved through [co-president] Jeremy Kleiner, but he was a delight. For the most part, we were left to make the film that Nia wanted to make, and that was exhilarating.

This interview is part of our celebration of production designers during International Production Designers Week, which runs from October 17 – 26.