00:00 (laughing)
00:01 - I've been asked that a bit lately.
00:03 You know, who knows?
00:05 Anything's a possibility, isn't it?
00:07 I'll lean over and ask my wife
00:08 and then lean over and ask Netflix and then I don't know.
00:10 (upbeat music)
00:12 - Miles, this movie is fantastic.
00:22 It's so wild and everybody in it's so great.
00:26 I'm curious how far you even get into a screenplay
00:29 like this before you just say,
00:31 "Yeah, I'm totally in, I'm doing this."
00:33 - Probably not too far with this one
00:35 just because it came from Joe and Joe and I have,
00:39 you know, this was before this movie,
00:42 we had just done two movies prior
00:43 and I had such a great experience with him.
00:45 So I don't know, I mean,
00:47 I'm not gonna say he could offer me anything,
00:48 but he could probably offer me a lot of stuff
00:51 and I would say yes, but I just really enjoyed the world.
00:55 I thought it, I think Joe coming into this,
00:58 having done "Oblivion" and "Tron"
01:00 and the worlds that he's able to create visually,
01:03 but still maintaining it, you know,
01:06 with really rich characters and performances,
01:10 I was excited, I'd never done anything in this genre before.
01:14 So luckily for me, the script was also very good.
01:17 - I think I was so,
01:19 I was leaning into so many themes and ideas about it.
01:22 The Milgram experiment was something
01:25 that I kept thinking about as I was reading it,
01:27 which was an experiment that I had read about
01:29 when I was in high school and it stuck with me.
01:31 And then, you know, when I met with Joe Kosinski,
01:35 our director, you know, I had ideas and opinions
01:40 about ways to really bring Lizzie to life
01:42 and things that I wanted to do to just flesh her out more.
01:46 And we, it became a brainstorming session
01:50 right the very first time we met.
01:52 And I was like, I wanna work with him.
01:54 You know, I'm buying into his vision.
01:55 I mean, he's such a visionary.
01:57 - You know, the music choices,
01:59 the presence of an Etch A Sketch,
02:00 all these things that make you think it's the past,
02:03 but the tech is obviously the future.
02:05 Did you think about what timeframe it was?
02:07 Did it even matter?
02:08 - Good question.
02:10 I mean, I think we had had that discussion.
02:13 It was kind of, I had assumed it was a little further
02:16 in the future than today, than present day.
02:20 I bet it's up to interpretation.
02:22 And as you say, it's, again,
02:24 it's just something unsettling
02:25 about what era am I in?
02:26 Where are we?
02:27 What country is this?
02:28 You know?
02:29 And I think Joe did such a great job
02:33 at combining all of those elements
02:36 to have it feel unexpected and slightly unsettling.
02:41 - I mean, I think it should feel present day-ish
02:46 or as science fiction goes, you know,
02:48 in the not so distant future at times.
02:51 I think that's kind of the dystopian reality
02:55 that we're creating here.
02:56 But I think it feels kind of parallel
02:59 to the life that we're living now.
03:00 - Well, I think it's timeless, you know?
03:02 Like that's the thing.
03:03 Like Lizzie's costumes intentionally are from another era,
03:08 you know, very influenced by like the 80s
03:10 and the 90s period.
03:12 And even like Lizzie's Walkman is like not from now.
03:19 It's not like some high tech thing.
03:21 And yet everything else in the facility is high tech.
03:24 And I think one of the things we spoke about was like,
03:28 well, Lizzie has to feel like analog to digital.
03:32 - Okay. - You know, like,
03:33 she's got to feel like vinyl player
03:37 when everything else feels like, you know, an MP3.
03:41 - I liked the kind of hermetically sealed world
03:44 of the Spider-Head where you don't understand
03:47 what time it is just as Jeff and Lizzie have no idea
03:50 what time of the year it is.
03:51 You know, it's this, you're going off on this journey
03:54 to this place that is tightly controlled by Steve.
03:58 Everything's designed.
03:59 The soundtrack is curated by him.
04:03 It's all a part of this elaborate plan centered
04:07 on the theme of control.
04:09 And so it was a fun world to create.
04:12 - Let's do this.
04:14 (upbeat music)
04:18 - This film is amazing.
04:21 The story is incredible.
04:23 It's a terrific exercise in how far along you're able
04:27 to string an audience before they finally start,
04:29 need to receive some answers.
04:31 So I'm just curious what kind of conversations you guys had
04:34 as you were assembling the picture in terms of,
04:36 in terms of when you can just dole out some of the details.
04:41 - I think it was important.
04:43 And if you've read the George Saunders short story,
04:46 you like this guy, Ebnesty.
04:49 There's a sort of facile quality and a charisma to him
04:54 that makes you think, oh, you know what?
04:56 I'd follow this guy, you know?
04:58 And I think that was important that his villainy comes out
05:03 at some point when you realize he's taken this too far.
05:07 I think that was also why Chris was the perfect choice
05:12 because you like him, you know?
05:14 And I think there is a long history of charismatic villains
05:18 that under different circumstances,
05:21 you would very much follow.
05:24 So I think that to me was the goal,
05:29 getting people comfortable with this thing
05:33 before it becomes uncomfortable and then unpleasant
05:37 and then terrifying.
05:39 - Beautiful people get away with too much.
05:40 And I say that having benefited myself from time to time.
05:43 - You know, it really read to me
05:44 like a piece of theater, this film.
05:46 And it takes place in one set, basically, one environment.
05:51 And because I had a lot of dialogue and American accent,
05:55 I didn't want it to start to sound repetitive.
05:58 I wanted to have it be,
06:00 there was a sort of intimacy and a very personal way
06:05 he spoke to people and individuals
06:07 and very welcoming and opening.
06:09 And that was the goal,
06:10 to constantly be kind of luring people in
06:13 and drawing them in.
06:14 - You like that word, but no, I mean,
06:15 how attractive is she?
06:17 - And the script allowed me to do that.
06:20 And what was great then was the moment they're drawn in,
06:24 you're kind of hit with,
06:25 "Whoa, hang on, this is not what I thought it is.
06:27 And this individual is not who I thought he was."
06:30 So yeah, I had a fantastic script and a great cast
06:34 and Joe Kaczynski to collaborate with on it.
06:37 - Have you even had a chance to celebrate Top Gun's success?
06:40 - I mean, I guess, yeah,
06:43 I'm being able to celebrate it when we're doing
06:45 all of these premieres really,
06:47 because that's when you,
06:49 because as actors,
06:50 that's really the only time you get to kind of
06:52 experience it with the fans.
06:54 It's not, you know, we're not,
06:56 it's not theater where it's live and we're not rock stars.
06:59 We don't get that kind of live feedback, but from,
07:03 yeah, but I have felt it,
07:05 even just a little bit I've been out,
07:06 if I'm at the grocery store or something like that,
07:08 the people are very generous
07:10 with their kind of praises for that film.
07:13 So it feels nice.
07:15 - Well, we can't talk too much about Spider-Head
07:17 'cause there's a lot of secrets.
07:18 Joe, have you had a chance to celebrate Top Gun's success
07:21 or have you just been nose to the grindstone?
07:23 - You know what?
07:24 I am happiest when I'm working on something.
07:28 So it's great.
07:30 Obviously, you know,
07:31 the Top Gun release has been phenomenal
07:34 and being able to go around the world
07:35 and talk about it was great.
07:36 But now I'm pumped to be able to talk about Spider-Head
07:40 and then right after this,
07:43 jump into prep on the next thing.
07:45 You know, that's how I like to do it.
07:48 - All right, how do we get the Interceptor
07:50 and Extraction franchises to cross over Expendables?
07:53 (Chris laughs)
07:53 - I've been asked that a bit lately.
07:56 You know, who knows?
07:58 Anything's a possibility, isn't it?
08:00 - Yeah, keep it in the Netflix family.
08:01 - How do I do it?
08:02 I just have to lean over and ask my wife
08:02 and then lean over and ask Netflix and then, you know.
08:05 (Chris laughs)
08:06 - Thanks for your time, Chris.
08:07 I appreciate it.
08:08 - Thanks so much.
08:10 - The time to worry about crossing lines
08:11 was a lot of lines ago.
08:13 (upbeat music)
08:16 (upbeat music)
08:18 (upbeat music)
