00:00 In a way, and perhaps it's self-protective, but I think I always like to know the next thing I'm working on
00:08 before the current thing comes out, kind of the getting back on the horse.
00:12 Whatever movie you're making, you've never made this movie, so you're always a beginner,
00:16 wherever you are, even if you've done, you know, 20 movies.
00:19 Whatever movie's in front of you is a country you've never been to yet, so you'll have to figure it out.
00:27 [Music]
00:51 So much of what you do as a director actually happens before anyone gets there.
00:56 I mean, it's the hours and hours and hours of meetings with your crew and your department heads
01:01 and everybody who's going to realize this dream.
01:04 And it's almost like you build outwards in terms of having everybody see the thing you saw in your dream,
01:15 and then they'll bring their own dream to it and deepen it, and you think,
01:19 "Oh, well, that's exactly what I meant, but I wouldn't have known how to do that,
01:23 that you had the other part to it." So you kind of start building a larger and larger group who understands it,
01:28 and then by the time the actors get there, it's like you have a couple hundred people
01:33 who are all seeing the thing that doesn't exist yet, and then that makes it easier for the actors
01:37 to step into the reality because we've invested so much into it.
01:42 You know, it is the ultimate collaborative art form.
01:45 You don't have the whole movie inside of you. It's contained in all these people.
01:50 So I suppose I try to be very open to people bringing what seems like outrageous ideas
01:57 because that might be the very thing that you need.
02:00 So whether it's an actor or set decorator or our dolly grip or anyone who says,
02:09 "What if you did it like this?" And I think, "That's right."
02:12 You know, you don't want it to become a cacophony, but I think that there's a way to guide,
02:17 when it's working well, where you can guide every idea so that you get the best possible thing.
02:25 It's great when it's all working.
02:29 So cool.
02:31 I get very emotionally involved watching actors work and watching it come to life.
02:37 Margot told me that I will make all the expressions of everyone.
02:42 I didn't even realize I was doing it, but I think I just kind of live vicariously through it.
02:49 I think directing, in a way, made me really realize my vast limitations as an actor.
02:54 Although I love acting and I love doing it,
02:57 but I've worked with some of the greatest actors of their generation.
03:01 There's nothing like watching Margot in America and Ryan and Saoirse and Timothy and Florence and Meryl.
03:09 Melori Metcalfe, I mean, to think like, "That's good."
03:16 I feel like they're so great at it.
03:19 C.S. Lewis Narnia books are something that I've loved since I was a child.
03:28 I would say the two big books of my childhood were Little Women and the Narnia books.
03:35 So I had that instant excitement, but instant terror that comes from trying to tackle something that has shaped me.
03:46 I think I'm trying to...
03:49 I mean, it's a small thing. I'm trying to make it magical.
03:57 I want to make it feel like magic.
04:01 C.S. Lewis said that the goal of writing fantasy, something from his imagination,
04:06 he'd say, "Let's say you wrote about an enchanted forest."
04:09 The goal would be that then every time you walk into a forest,
04:14 after you read it, you say to yourself, "Maybe this is an enchanted forest."
04:19 So that's a tall order, but I guess re-enchantment of the world.
04:26 No problem there.
04:31 I think Bohr has said this about writing.
04:34 He said, "A lucky line here or there is the gift of chance."
04:40 And he says, "Only the errors are my own."
04:43 And I feel like only the errors are my own.
04:46 There's almost no way to get everything right all the time.
04:49 So, you know, you never feel like the mountain's behind you.
04:52 It's only ever in front of you.
04:54 I set my sights a little high, but I don't know any other way to do it.
04:59 I think there's some combination of excitement and terror that are--
05:04 It's a certain feeling of almost like vertigo
05:11 when I know that's the thing I want to try,
05:15 because it feels-- Yeah, you feel that rush.
05:21 I don't like roller coasters that much, but it feels like a roller coaster.
05:25 I've done them. I did them.
05:27 I do them sometimes, but I'm sort of like, "I don't need to.
05:31 I do that emotionally."
05:33 [laughs]
05:35 [music]
