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00:01The whole reason I became a filmmaker, or what was exciting to me about going into film,
00:06was thinking about telling stories of people who were not represented on screen
00:13as much as I wished I had kind of grown up with.
00:16And so that's why I think I tend to be drawn to these stories about really interesting, complex,
00:21sort of female characters that are, you know, we don't often get to spend 90 minutes to 2 hours
00:26in their world and their shoes.
00:35Will wanted to sell the place 30 years ago, right after Eric, after he was gone,
00:45to move on, he said, move on, sell the house.
00:51I couldn't.
00:56Maybe he was right.
01:00Maybe, maybe I've got to move on.
01:05Though she lives in a larger tank than me, I can deduce that the cleaning lady also wishes to break
01:11free.
01:13My superior intelligence makes me uniquely attuned to the behavior of all creatures.
01:20And I suspect that what she needs to escape lurks somewhere deeper.
01:27Welcome to Behind the Lens.
01:29Today, she is having a real run in her career here, even though she's only made three feature films so
01:38far.
01:39All of them have been in the awards conversation, critically acclaimed, and popular.
01:45Really important to be popular.
01:49Current film is Remarkably Bright Creatures on Netflix, of course.
01:55Where the Crawdads Sing was a huge hit four years ago.
01:59And before that, a terrific little movie I reviewed on deadline called First Match.
02:04This is Olivia Newman.
02:06Welcome.
02:08Thanks for having me.
02:09Yeah.
02:09When I say you're on a little roll here, it seems like every four years you have a movie people
02:13like to talk about.
02:14Wow.
02:16Well, I feel very lucky to get to do this.
02:19I'm just thrilled that I'm working and doing what I love, yeah.
02:23Is luck a part of that?
02:24I don't think so.
02:25I think you prepared for this and, you know.
02:29Well, these stories that I am drawn to that have really interesting characters, I think also speak to something universal
02:38that audiences seem to really connect with.
02:42Yeah.
02:42So in that way, I feel lucky that my taste is connected with, you know, with the kinds of stories
02:48that audiences seem to be really interested in seeing.
02:51And what I find interesting about those three films I just mentioned, First Match, Where the Crawdads Sing, and now
03:00Remarkably Bright Creatures, all three, the main driver of it is female characters.
03:07Mm-hmm.
03:08And the main drivers behind the scenes are female.
03:12Mm-hmm.
03:12Crews.
03:13And, of course, you as a director, producer, writer, and all of that, but cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, on
03:23down the line.
03:24Yeah.
03:24Editor.
03:25Yes.
03:26All of that.
03:27It's very important to you to have a female-driven crew for these stories?
03:32It is.
03:33It's mostly important to me to have a crew that comes to the project with the same passion that I
03:41do and connects with the story and the characters and the reason that we're telling the story.
03:47And those tend to be women because they are kind of female-focused stories.
03:54Yeah.
03:54I always interview everybody, so it's not that I am, you know, it's not that I have a bias against
04:01hiring men.
04:04But what the hell?
04:05You know, let's give the women a chance here.
04:08I worked with wonderful, wonderful men, of course, on all of my crews.
04:13But I think that these tend to attract some of the best women in all departments, and so I feel
04:21really fortunate that I've gotten to make all of my films with all, pretty much all women heads of departments
04:28on all three of my movies.
04:30I remember singling out Ashley Conner, her cinematography on First Match.
04:35Yes.
04:35And I could tell right then, you know, I didn't know her before that.
04:40Yeah.
04:40And you've worked with her again.
04:42Yeah.
04:42I worked with Ashley Conner on First Match.
04:47She was an absolutely brilliant cinematographer on that very small movie where we had very little resources.
04:54Yeah.
04:54We shot in 22 days, over 40 locations in late July in Brooklyn, so grueling heat.
05:02And she shot the whole thing handheld on her shoulder.
05:06And I was just, the way that she was able to embody the emotional interior experience of the character through
05:15that real physical shooting style was what I wanted for that film.
05:19Remarkably Bright Creatures is a very different style, but I also wanted her to bring that same sort of access
05:28to the interiority of characters with her cinematography.
05:32But this time, you know, using much wider landscapes and bringing in, you know, the context of the setting.
05:40And she's just one of my favorite people to work with.
05:44So I was so excited that we finally got to do it again on this one.
05:47It's so great.
05:47You know, as you know, I showed this movie in the theater to my screening series about a month before
05:55it opened and they just loved it.
05:56And, you know, when I asked how many have read the book, so many hands went up.
06:02So there's a lot of pressure or expectation or whatever.
06:08When you're doing adaptations, you're no stranger to it because Where the Crawdads Sing was this huge book that you
06:16brought to the screen with your adaptation there, which you didn't write that one.
06:22I didn't know Lucy Allen.
06:23Yeah, you directed it.
06:25And it turned out to be a ginormous hit in the middle of summer.
06:30Yeah.
06:31You know, $90 million or something in America.
06:34And $150 worldwide.
06:36Yeah.
06:37You know, for a movie that Hollywood, every time they make those movies and they're successful, I always say, get
06:45a clue.
06:45Yeah.
06:46Audiences want to see these stories.
06:49Yes.
06:49And it seems so hard to get them out there.
06:52I know.
06:52I don't know why.
06:54I mean, it seems like now that the book adaptation is sort of, it seems to be a way to
07:02get studios to trust that there will be an audience because they have this kind of built in book fan
07:09base.
07:10So that's why I feel like very lucky that I keep being sent books that I am really excited to
07:19see on the screen that also have an audience that's excited to see them adapted and that give studios kind
07:27of the confidence to put money behind it and tell these.
07:30Of course, that's as old as Hollywood itself.
07:32Yeah.
07:33Adaptations and things.
07:34I don't know where it fell off a cliff, but, you know, it changed.
07:39Yeah.
07:39And now it's just such a rarity.
07:41Yeah.
07:41When you see these, you know, particularly driven at a female audience who have proven time and time again that
07:48they will show up.
07:49Yes.
07:49If you give it to them there.
07:51Yes.
07:51The whole reason I became a filmmaker or what was exciting to me about going into film was thinking about
07:58telling stories of people who were not represented on screen as much as I wished I had kind of grown
08:06up with.
08:07And so that's why I think I tend to be drawn to these stories about really interesting, complex sort of
08:13female characters that are, you know, we don't often get to spend 90 minutes to two hours in their world
08:21and their shoes.
08:21You know, like the Marsh Girl in Crawdads.
08:26To Tova in Remarkably Brighton.
08:29And, you know, and the age gap here is considerable, but it's really interesting to see these protagonists going about
08:36things.
08:37And particularly also in First Match.
08:39Yeah.
08:39Your lead there was an incredible, great part.
08:44Yeah.
08:44For a young actress.
08:45Well, all of these characters are, you know, they're struggling to find their place, to find their voice, to figure
08:53out what their purpose is, to find a way to live and find joy again.
08:58Right.
08:58And I mean, they're all in completely different contexts and different ages and different settings, different time periods.
09:03But I think there's something really universal in that search for purpose and in that desire to feel joy when,
09:11you know, life has all these obstacles kind of coming at you, whether they're, you know, very personal or, you
09:19know, survival stakes.
09:21Right.
09:21As in Crawdads.
09:23Yeah.
09:23They're still, I think, inherent in what it is to be human is this desire to really live life to
09:30its fullest, to find joy in living.
09:33And that's what I loved so much about Remarkably Bright Creatures is we get to see that through the eyes
09:39of a woman in a later phase of life, you know, in her 70s.
09:44And we get to see it through the eyes of this young man in his 30s who's sort of really
09:49feeling lost because he doesn't have a kind of a sense of purpose.
09:53And to be able to show that that can happen at different phases of life and that you can find
09:58those connections across generations because you can relate to each other even though you're in different places in your lives.
10:04Which is so great and all narrated by an octopus.
10:07Right.
10:08You can't go wrong with that.
10:09Yeah.
10:09Which is great.
10:10Now, how did you decide to use the, you know, the structure of having it narrated by the octopus?
10:19Which is sort of bringing these two characters you just described together.
10:24Yeah.
10:25Like a little bit of a matchmaker in a sense.
10:27Yes.
10:28And that was always the intention was for Marcellus to become the narrator.
10:33In the book, he has his own chapters.
10:35And in the book, you know, each character gets their own point of view.
10:38Right.
10:39But even in the book, he really is, he functions as this sort of detective who's trying to figure out
10:48why these two people are connected and how to get them to see it in each other.
10:54It felt like for Marcellus to be present throughout the story, he really needed to have a hand in this
11:00relationship that's building between Tova and Cameron.
11:04Yeah.
11:04But I also think having the perspective of a species that is not us kind of watching us from outside
11:12of ourselves also allows us as humans to sort of take a step back and reflect on what it is
11:18to be human in all of our, you know, you know, all of our flaws and what we miss.
11:24And, you know, how we carry ourselves through lives and forget that there's this whole other worlds beneath the ocean,
11:30you know, just as we don't see what's right in front of us.
11:32Yeah.
11:33So it kind of gives it an opportunity to, it offers a different perspective on the human experience.
11:39It's very interesting too because we're looking at him and these creatures in an aquarium.
11:45Yes.
11:45You know?
11:46And so you think it's the opposite of what you're talking about.
11:49Yes, exactly.
11:49They're looking at us.
11:50Exactly.
11:51Here's this octopus who spends all day observing humans, right, in this space that is built for humans to finally
11:58have the opportunity to come and observe these species that we don't normally get to see on land, right?
12:05So it's, yeah, it is this beautiful thing that Shelby does allowing us inside of the point of view of
12:12somebody who is really the observer and kind of flip the script.
12:17And it's nominated for an Emmy as Outstanding Television Movie and also for Sally Field, her first Emmy nomination in
12:2417 years.
12:25Yes.
12:26She's won three previously and been edited a long time.
12:31She had this first before you got involved, right?
12:34She knew that there was something to this book, which was a bestseller.
12:37Yeah.
12:38She read, yeah, she read the book when it was still in galleys.
12:42Our producers, Brian Uncliss and Peter Craig, shared it with her.
12:47Peter Craig's her son too.
12:48And Peter Craig happens to be her son, so he was able to-
12:51And Brian's a long time collaborator of yours.
12:53Long, Brian produced First Match and then Brian and Peter, of course, have worked together on The Hunger Games and
12:59they had just started this company.
13:01And so it was, I think, one of the first projects that they put together and they brought to Sally
13:06and it was the right fit for her.
13:08She was excited about it.
13:09So when I came on board, she was already playing Tova.
13:12And actually, when I read the book the first time, I knew that.
13:15So I could imagine Sally as I was reading the book and picturing how he would adapt it with her
13:22voice in it.
13:23That's kind of a blessing or a curse.
13:26If you don't know you're going to get the actor when you're writing something, you know, oh, God, what am
13:30I going to do?
13:30But here you knew you were getting the actor because she was already there.
13:33Yes.
13:34So that really helped you as a writer?
13:35It was so helpful.
13:36It was so helpful because I could imagine her voice saying certain things or, you know, how she would make
13:44something funnier.
13:45And then, of course, you get on set and, you know, she adds even more humor and surprises you, you
13:52know, every day on set.
13:53But, yeah, for writing, I think it was such a gift to be able to picture her voice.
13:59Oddly, I couldn't picture the voice of Marcellus until I had the movie cut together.
14:06I just couldn't.
14:08Everyone wanted to know, you know, who are you thinking of for Marcellus?
14:11Well, there was an audio book that had Michael Urie as the voice.
14:16And actually, I couldn't listen to the audio book only because I didn't want any of the voices in the
14:23audio book to affect my read of the book.
14:26I really wanted to go in fresh and imagine all of these characters in my own way.
14:31So I really I didn't listen to the audio book for that reason.
14:34And I think audio books are such a different format than a film.
14:38So I also I just didn't want, you know, the two to confuse, confuse one another.
14:43But it really wasn't until the film was cut together and I had a dear friend who had done the
14:49temp voice for me because I didn't want to get attached, you know, to any particular voice.
14:56But I needed to feel the rhythm.
14:57And and it wasn't until it was all cut together and we had our full Marcellus that then we could
15:03imagine someone like Alfred.
15:05It's so perfect. And when I saw it, I said, well, how'd they get that octopus to act like this?
15:09You know, you make it look so real, which is the trick here.
15:15I know you can't train an octopus, but boy, it looks like you did.
15:20That is a testament to our incredible VFX team at Untold and Chris Ritfo, our VFX supervisor.
15:27They from the beginning, I wanted I made it really clear that I wanted to be able to shoot footage
15:34of a real octopus and integrate that into the movie because I didn't want the octopus to ever take us
15:41out of the real human grounded story that we were telling.
15:45Plus, we've seen wonderful documentaries with real octopuses.
15:49Yes.
15:49Oscar winning one, Netflix.
15:51Yes.
15:51As well as your movie.
15:53My Octopus Teacher.
15:53My Octopus Teacher, The Soul of an Octopus.
15:57Yeah.
15:57Yeah.
15:58People know what octopuses look like.
16:00And you don't you don't want to be suddenly, you know, watching this movie that feels like it's real characters
16:05in a real place and then suddenly have an octopus that looks kind of cartoonish or, you know, kind of
16:10takes you out of it.
16:10So we cast our octopus up and we knew we were going to shoot this in Vancouver.
16:17And they happened to have a giant Pacific octopus named Agnetha who was going.
16:22We kind of tracked how big she was going to be by the time we shot.
16:25So we had a sense of because they they grow and grow and grow until they die.
16:29They never stop growing.
16:30So we had to sort of calculate about what her weight would be.
16:33Thought about taking Ozempic for octopuses or something.
16:36I don't know.
16:37I didn't know that.
16:38Yeah.
16:40And and so and we shot hours and hours of footage of Agnetha.
16:45And then our VFX team used that to model our CGI octopus after and would always show me comps.
16:53You know, whenever we whenever they showed me our CGI octopus, they would show me Agnetha doing similar movement so
17:02that any of the physicality was based on what an octopus could actually do.
17:06So I think that really helped it.
17:08So interesting.
17:08And Sally sat here and told me about acting opposite essentially nothing.
17:13Yes.
17:14I'm sure she loved that.
17:15Yes.
17:16Well, you know, Sally comes from the method.
17:19Yes.
17:19She could see that octopus without it being there.
17:23Without it being there.
17:24It's remarkable, which is why she's such a legend.
17:26Unbelievable.
17:27I mean, she just can do anything.
17:28Yes.
17:29She could absolutely see him.
17:31And it made actually putting the CGI octopus then into her hands in post.
17:36We could absolutely see from her performance.
17:39I mean, what she was doing, what she was imagining, because she was so good at sort of feeling what
17:47where that octopus was and, you know, how she was reacting to it.
17:50So it was pretty amazing.
17:52We had a couple of puppets built for certain scenes where she had to pick them up or, you know,
17:56where it had to feel weighted.
17:57We had a weighted puppet so she could, you know, we could always shot with the puppet at least once
18:04so we could sort of get that the motion correct.
18:07But then always did it without anything in the frame as well.
18:11So that was all just Sally's amazing imagination.
18:15So cool.
18:15I mentioned the production design.
18:17I also say another star of this film is the house that she lives in.
18:22You know, you go to a movie like that and you see, oh, God, where did they get this house?
18:27I love this.
18:28The whole location and everything is beautiful.
18:31It's a beautiful house.
18:32It is not.
18:33So you didn't build that.
18:34Friendliest house to shoot in.
18:35We did not build it on location.
18:37It's a house that we went and did a very early scout months before we started actual prep.
18:45We went up to Vancouver mostly to meet Agnetha and to cast an octopus.
18:50And then we drove around this town, Deep Cove, where we ended up shooting most of Seoul Bay.
18:54And we were driving down this road that's, you know, right on the bay.
19:00And we knew we needed a house that overlooked water because I didn't want to have, I didn't
19:04want to blue screen and, you know, do tons of VFX inside the house.
19:10I wanted to save all of our VFX budget for the octopus.
19:13Right.
19:14And so there are these houses overlooking the water.
19:16And I saw the rooftop of this house from the scout van.
19:19And I said, stop, stop, stop, pull over.
19:21And ran and looked down the side of this hill.
19:23And there was this house built on the side of the hill that, you know, had this great
19:28rooftop and reminded me of the attic, you know, from the book.
19:32Right.
19:33And I was like, that looks like it could be Tova's house.
19:37Months, it turns out the house was for sale.
19:39Oh.
19:40Brian was on Redfin looking up houses in the area.
19:43He said, there's a house for sale that looks, the interior looks cool.
19:45And it turned out it was the same house.
19:47Yeah.
19:48So we kept track of this house for months and it didn't sell and it didn't sell.
19:52And our location manager said, listen, I'm not going to bother this woman until we're
19:57really close to starting.
19:59Right.
19:59Because if we scare her off too early, she'll never let us in.
20:02Yeah.
20:03So we scouted dozens of other houses and just in my mind was always this house.
20:08Yeah.
20:08And then finally, as she predicted three weeks before we were to start shooting, she contacted
20:15the woman and she hadn't sold the house yet.
20:17So she was a little more open to the idea of, you know, letting us use it.
20:21Yeah.
20:21Getting some extra money.
20:22And so it was amazing that, you know, luck was on our side with that.
20:27Yeah.
20:27It was so perfect.
20:28It was perfect, but it was on a hill and it was very hard to light and it was tight
20:34quarters.
20:36And you're used to that.
20:37I mean, where the crawdad thing, you're in the middle of the swamps and the heat of summer
20:43and all of that and having to go out on a boat and shoot and do all of that.
20:48I think it makes a difference to actually shoot on location, to actually bring the setting
20:54inside the interiors.
20:56I mean, that's the difference between building something where you then have to green screen
21:00everything.
21:01You know, in this house, you can see the view that Tova sees and you can move in and out
21:06of it and be on that hill and understand how dangerous those steps are that she has to
21:11walk down.
21:11You know, it makes a difference for the actors, too, to really feel what does it feel like
21:18to live in a house that overlooks the water where you lost your son and to stare out at
21:23that every single day and be reminded.
21:25And, you know, in Crawdads, we built a house on this lagoon so that we could shoot Kaya coming
21:33in and out of her house and we could be right there in the marsh.
21:37And I think it makes a difference.
21:39It's always really important.
21:41You're always doing weather and other things that you have to.
21:44And that's important, too.
21:45I mean, we wanted it to be rainy and gray and overcast for Remarkably Bright.
21:50We did not want that as much for Crawdads, but we got it.
21:53You got it anyway.
21:55We got it anyway.
21:56It's another beautifully shot movie.
21:58Yes.
21:58Yes.
21:59Holly Morgan's cinematography.
22:01She did amazing.
22:02Beautiful.
22:02Yes.
22:03Amazing job on that.
22:04That particular movie, too, you had the benefit of Taylor Swift.
22:09Yes.
22:09Right?
22:09We did.
22:10Yeah.
22:10Carolina, that song.
22:12A beautiful song.
22:13Yes.
22:14We had that song.
22:15Did you go to her and say, please, or what?
22:17No.
22:18She came to us before a frame of the movie had been shot.
22:22Wow.
22:23And had written the song.
22:25She'd read the book and loved it so much.
22:28And the song came to her and she wrote it.
22:31So we heard that song before we had even, before Lucy and I were done with the script.
22:38I mean, before we had cast, we knew that Taylor had the song that she, you know, was hoping
22:46we would use.
22:47And when I heard it, I thought, oh my God, this is tonally exactly where we want to be
22:52at the end of the movie.
22:53Which is a good thing because if you didn't like the song, how do you tell Taylor Swift?
22:57Can you imagine saying no to Taylor Swift?
22:59There's no way.
23:00No, it was, it really, when I heard it the first time, I just, like tears just streamed
23:04down my face because it was, it reminded me so much of the pain of young Kaya losing her
23:11mother and you know, how that echoes at the end of the movie is.
23:15So it was, that was, that was some really brilliant luck.
23:19So two big giant books here.
23:22Are you working on another one now?
23:24You want to do another adaptation?
23:26I am.
23:29I am working on another adaptation.
23:31I'm really excited to be writing again.
23:34This is, I'm writing and directing this.
23:36I'm also working with Brian again and Netflix.
23:40Again?
23:41Again.
23:41Yes.
23:42Because Netflix was on first match.
23:44Netflix was first match.
23:46Remarkably bright.
23:47And Sony did Crawdads, but, and they did this.
23:51Yeah.
23:51This one, yeah, this one we brought to Netflix.
23:55It's called The Remembered Soldier.
23:57It's a Dutch book that was translated into English and was on the long list for the Booker
24:01Prize and a finalist for National Book Award.
24:04Wow.
24:04And it's very different from the last two adaptations, but it's this,
24:09this unbelievable love story like I've never read.
24:13And it's about a Flemish soldier, 1922, Belgium, after World War I, who is living in an asylum
24:20and has amnesia, does not remember anything about who he is.
24:24And a woman comes to the asylum looking for her husband.
24:29And when she meets him, is absolutely sure that it's him.
24:33And she takes him home and hopes that in being back home with their two children and in the
24:38photography studio that they run, that he will recover his memory.
24:41And it's a story about identity and memory and loss and the trauma of war, both on those
24:48who have been on the front lines and those who have been at home.
24:51And as I was saying to you earlier, it's a bit of a, in my mind, a bit of a
24:56feminist retelling
24:57of the Odyssey if you spent most of the movie on Calypso's Island.
25:04So, but it's just a, it's just an absolutely beautiful book.
25:08And-
25:09Is that what everyone's going to go through now that the Odyssey is such a hit and
25:12been around, you know, like, it's just like the Odyssey.
25:16That's right.
25:16To get Hollywood to make these movies that aren't the 12th version of something we've
25:21already seen.
25:22You know, what's interesting is it was my, my uncle, I've had me, all my family members
25:26read this book because it's so good.
25:27And my uncle was the one who said, you know, there's a lot of, there's a dog in this book,
25:32you know, his dog that remembers him before anybody else.
25:35And there, you know, there's all these sort of little subtle nods to the Odyssey.
25:40Yeah.
25:40And then I went and saw the Odyssey.
25:43You know, in the middle of the movie, my husband leans over and says, the remembered
25:47soldier is just like Calypso's telling of the Odyssey.
25:50So I think, I don't know if we're all just, it's in the zeitgeist or-
25:54It's there.
25:54Yeah.
25:55But it's a beautiful book.
25:56I'm really excited.
25:57Any way you can get these made, you know, in this day and age is a, is a big plus.
26:02And I'm so glad.
26:04And I, you know, it's a very popular book and movie version of Remarkably Bright Creatures.
26:10The Emmy nominations.
26:12Well deserved.
26:13Oh, thank you.
26:13I wish you the best of luck at the Emmys.
26:15Thank you so much.
26:16And going forward.
26:17Can't wait to see the remembered soldier.
26:18Yeah, me too.
26:19So good.
26:20This is Olivia Newman.
26:21Thank you so much.
26:22Thanks for having me.
26:23It's always fun to chat with you.
26:24Thank you so much.
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