Judging the Cannes Lineup, Plus Special Guest Christopher Abbott

This episode is brought to you by Fandango.

0:01

People say fans are too distracted these

0:04

days, but the truth is when a

0:06

great movie hits the screen, you show up. You stay glued, invested, part of the story. And without fans like you, there'd be no cinema magic, no shared moments. So head to fandango.com to get tickets, stream or rent or buy top movies and series.

0:08

Fandango loves fans Foreign.

0:23

Welcome back to Screen Talk. After we took a well earned break last week, Anne's on vacation. This is Ryan Latonzio from New York catching you up on the latest goings on in Hollywood, which this week will actually be the latest goings on in France as we dive into the Cannes Film Festival lineup with our chief film critic David Ehrlich. Later, I'll be joined by a special guest who is actor Christopher Abbott, who merely a day after I sat down with him in our York offices to talk about his performance in Broadway's new edition of Death of a Salesman, as well as his upcoming Netflix miniseries East of Eden, it was announced that he is having a baby with Aubrey Plaza. But before we get into all that, thank you, David, for jumping on this morning. Were you up early to glance at this year's Cannes lineup, my friend?

0:32

Ryan, you, you know that I was not. I, I was, you know, holding on to every spare minute of sleep I possibly could, knowing that when I woke up, my wonderful and dutiful colleagues at AnyWire, namely Ryan Lattanzio, would have already put together and reported the lineup and all I would have to do like Christmas morning holiday. I've never celebrated but can appreciate from afar. I could reach over and turn on my phone and see what sort of bounty awaited us. But it is always a very exciting morning and I thought this year was no exception.

1:17

Yeah, this lineup is quite striking in its anti commerciality in the sense that there are not really any big American movies in the lineup. It's very heavy on tours from around the world and the art house, which obviously is very exciting for us. Maybe less exciting for our web traffic, I don't know. But what films are you most looking forward to?

1:48

What is traffic anymore in 2026? What jumps out at me from this list? I mean, there's not, there's not a ton of surprises. I think a lot of the films that we see here were rumored and heavily tipped to be at the festival, but obviously anytime Christian Monju is back with another movie, let alone his first English language film, fjord with Sebastian Stan. And is Renata Ryan in that? I just assume she's in everything these days.

2:09

She is in great.

2:34

That's a plus for sure. But I Christian Manu is a phenomenal filmmaker. He I don't really think has missed in the course of his future career. His last movie rmn I thought was a real standout. This story about a family who moves to I believe the Renata rides for the characters Norwegian town only to receive a prickly reception. Sounds right in line with what he does best. And I can't wait to see that Neon already has the rights already jockeying for Palmdale or position with that one for sure. So yeah, that.

2:36

That.

3:11

That jumped at the top of my list, you know, always welcome to see Hirokazu Korea back in the competition lineup. He's been there once since winning with Shoplifters or twice. Actually no, he had Broker and then more recently and. And more strongly had Monster. And now he's back with Sheep in the Box, which sounds like his version of AI not the concept, but the Steven Spielberg film. And it's one of two films at all this year. We have Ryusuki Hamaguchi with all of a sudden another case of a director working outside of their native language. And that film is set in France. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of. A lot of stuff here. I know. You're a big Zavig man, are you not?

3:11

Yeah, I love that guy who. Who has made only one hopeless movie after another basically at this point. And he was quite ill from COVID complications in 2021 through. He was basically hospitalized for almost a year. And so there was a question if he was even going to survive. So this is really his first movie since Loveless, which was at Cannes in 2017. It's actually one of my favorite movies ever. And speaking of hopeless, it is truly devastatingly there is not a glimmer of hope in that movie. And he tends to work in these political allegories that are grounded in real emotional state.

3:51

But there is a glimmer of hope in the competition lineup, namely Na Hong Jin's film Hope, which has been in the works for a long time and does bring some commerciality, if you want to call it that, to the competition slate. I mean, he has not made a feature since the Wailing the Korean Filmmaker and the Yellow Sea before that. I've been following his career since the Chaser, I think it was in 2008. And with hope, he returns with a cast that includes Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender. What are the odds you'll ever See those two together. And also Taylor Russell and the rest of the cast is led by Korean actors. It is a genre story set along the DMZ in a village called Hope Hyger, Hope Harbor.

4:28

It's.

5:15

There is a story begins with a tiger who is suspected to have appeared, and the police chief is alerted. I don't know. I'm clearly reading the Wikipedia for the first time live on air here, so I'll stop doing that. But I'm assuming that the title is couched in some degree of irony, but maybe an answer to the hopelessness that we see from not just some of the other filmmakers here, but, I don't know, life itself in the year of our Lord 2026. But I have hope for some other movies. I mean, Iris Ax again, he's. He's the sole American filmmaker represented in the competition right now, and there was a lot of scuttlebutt about whether James Gray and his film Paper Tiger was going to be in the lineup. When I talked to James about this in January, he was suggesting that Venice may be more likely, but rumors have surfaced in the last couple weeks that the film was submitted to the festival. I cannot corroborate those rumors, but I. I'm hopeful that that will be one of the films that is added to the competition lineup down the line. I think there's at least room for one more, although this is an unusually. Usually when Thierry Fromau unveils the lineup in early April, it's like 15, 16, 17 titles in competition with room to add four or five more. And this year, I believe he came right out of the game with 21, so there's not too much room to grow.

5:16

Yeah.

6:36

In the announcement, he did hint that there is one film that will be announced that we were all expecting to show up and not to worry that it will definitely be there. So I have to imagine that it's probably the James Gray movie. It's certainly not going to be the Terrence Malick movie that continues to be on these lists every year that probably doesn't even exist at this point. But James Gray, I don't. Maybe he's gone to Venice. I can't pull that fact off the top of my head. But almost all of his movies, and he has.

6:37

He was there with Ad Astra of all films.

7:02

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So that was the one that didn't go there.

7:04

And Little Odessa, I think once of time.

7:07

All right, so he's a. He's a mainstay of the Lido in some ways, but More likely to be at Cannes. Another one that is normally in competition that was put out of it is Nicholas Winding Refn. And I don't know if that bodes well that the movie was not put in competition. He's done a couple series since last putting the Neon Demon in the competition. That was like 2013. But to be. I mean, for me, he's kind of been on a downward slope since Drive, which was the movie that made him a household name.

7:08

I mean, yeah, as far as I'm concerned, the most exciting thing he's done in the last 13 years is to lend his likeness to Hideo Kojima's games Death Stranding. And so that. That was a welcome place to see him. But yeah, I mean, I'm excited to have him back in the feature space. I think the idea of him making something in Tokyo, you know, being. Being sort of outside of his comfort zone or as usual, milieu, whatever that might be. I mean, he's got these movies all over the place. Could be interesting, but I don't think that the competition environment has served him particularly well. I think people expect a certain kind of movie. I think that sometimes things that are a little bit more transgressive, a little bit more aggressive in their aesthetic, they can be. Competition is a difficult place for polarizing films. And so maybe an out of competition slot, which is a step above, so to speak, from like Cannes Premiere or something, there's still some respect to it. Could. Could serve him well. You know, I'm looking at the out of competition lineup and it does feel like, you know, a Guillaume Cane movie, a movie directed by Andy Garcia. I mean, I think Nicholas Winding Refn will probably be the main attraction in that sidebar.

7:35

Yeah, actually, finally, in the announcement, Terry Fermot described the Cannes premiere section as movies we felt like showing. So that doesn't really bode well for John Travolta's directorial debut, Propell One Way Night Coach. Nor does that title really bode well for anyone's SEO plans in terms of writing about the movie.

8:50

Well, I mean, who among us, who among us on this world does not remember the world premiere in. I think this was before the official introduction of the Cannes premiere section. But for all intents and purposes was the same thing of Gotti starring John Travolta, which I had the honor of attending in person. And that really opened my eyes to the fact that not all Cannes premieres are created equal. And you know, I think that given our financial and time related budgets at the festival, it is entirely Possible, if not extremely likely, that we will sadly return home to the United States having not seen Propeller One Way Night Coach,

9:09

but it'll be on Apple TV a week later, so not to worry. You can watch it when you get home.

9:49

But I will be making, you know, every effort to see Kyoshi Kurosawa's the Samurai and the Prisoner, which is in that same section. And I can't speak to why that film is not elsewhere in the lineup. But there's also a Volker Schlondor film in the same. So, you know, these things should be seen and judged on their own merits. But I. There's a part of me that's like the competition lineup is robust, but a Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie, especially coming off the highs of Cloud and Chime, to have that in that section is curious.

9:56

So what about Uncertain Regard? For the most part, I don't know who most of these people are, and I'm excited to get to know them. But a couple things that stood out. Jordan Firstman, comedian and actor, is making his directorial debut with something called Club Kid, which is shot by Anora producer Alex Coco, of all people, as the director of photography. And then we have Jane Schoenbrun finally at Cannes with their film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. And then. And the only other one that I'm interested in is a film by Sandra Volner called Every Time, which I don't really know much about, but I saw her last film, which is called the Trouble with Being Born. I don't know if you saw that, but it's a very disturbing movie about a man who is having sex with his robot child, which is really a sex doll.

10:29

So, yeah, it was really that last word that brought home the disturbing element to it. You know, for the most part of that sentence, I was like, this is not the bad who among us? But yeah, you know, the beauty of the Uncertain Regard section is that, you know, yes, it's top lined by a handful of familiar names, at least familiar to us, but this is really the discovery section for me. I mean, I tend to feel even though the director's Fortnite lineup, which has not yet been announced, is often maybe more esoteric and less more financially challenging, let's say. I feel like I am more familiar with the filmmakers who are programmed over there for the most part, than I am with the international lineup who appear in a certain regard. And there's a real anxiety over the course of the festival, similar to being at a festival more bent towards discoveries like Sundance, where You're always sort of keeping tabs on how these movies are received because they can be some real discoveries that you don't want to miss. So I'm perfectly happy not knowing too much about any of these movies at the moment, but looking forward to keeping my eyes on them. Obviously, Jane Schoenbrun's film, the very top of my list, you know, for the festival as a whole. And I thought that movie might be in Director's Fortnite, but I. I see it as a real vote of confidence that it's in certain regard. And Jordan Firstman, who I only really know from Rotting in the sun and to a lesser extent, I love la, is, you know, this movie just based on the one screenshot I've seen. And the premise gives me real party monster vibes, which are not vibes that I'm usually hungry for. But I think, again, Jordan Firstman making a movie that is accepted to play in uncertain regard is, again, a vote of confidence. And so one that I'm excited to see. Yeah. And then the. The full fill with Quentin Depew, who is someone that I, you know, I'm glad he exists. I tend to find his films more amusing in theory. I thought, you know, when his films are opening the festival or, you know, in sort of more in your face slots, it can be a little bit of a chore full. Phil is probably the film of his that I've been most excited to see, just based on the premise and the strength of its cast. But that's in the midnight screenings, which is always difficult to get through Cannes, but I think we might be making an effort to check that one out.

11:16

Yeah, I'll do my best. You know, he turns out a movie or two every year, and I turn in now and again, but. So we will see about this one. The other totally just back to the competition for a second. The one that was totally not on my radar, which means I wasn't doing my job very well, was another Laszlo Nemes film. And once we. If we thought we were done with World War II dramas from this filmmaker, he's got yet another one. So I don't know if you saw Orphan, that was at Venice last year, but that was quite dark even for my taste.

13:40

So I did not. I am, I feel like a couple of films behind Lazlo Nemesis. I. I'm current, unfortunately, in some ways, I was not moved by Son of Saul. It was not. That was not my cup of tea as far as Holocaust cinema goes. And he. I don't know. He's never really done it for me. Maybe this will be a grand return. But. Yeah, I also don't know if I knew that he had another one in the can, but there are other filmmakers who have been in other film festivals who have been in Venice like him, who have been in lesser sections of Cannes and are returning to competition, like Koji Fukada, whose Love Life is one of my favorite and most devastating films. The last like five years or so is returning with Nagi Notes, which I know absolutely nothing about. And Arthur Harari, who's the co writer of Anatomy of a Fall, is here with his neon acquired directorial debut, the Unknown. So that's another thing to, to keep an eye on for you got the Pedro Almodovar film, which is already open in Spain and drawing pretty positive reviews. One outlet that. Whose track record I cannot speak to, I saw called it his best film. But I think.

14:10

Yeah, yeah, no, he's, he's given up on English language movies, which may be,

15:24

I think, maybe for the worst.

15:28

Yes.

15:30

You know, it's funny because we've, we. There's so many filmmakers now in this competition, especially who are, as we said, operating outside of their native tongue, often in English. And that is like a, it's a very, it's very rare that that pans out and vice versa, that, that English language filmmakers do well making movies in other languages. It has certainly happened, I think of a certified copy, like one of my 10 favorite movies ever made, falling into that category. But yeah, it's funny that you have so many filmmakers going one direction and Pedro Moldovar going the other, you know, back to his, his native language here. Yeah. So there's, there's a lot to look forward to. Valeska Grisbach, who made Western as another movie. Marie Kreutzer and if Powell Polkowski, who, you know, made Aida and what was the other one? Cold War. Cold War, right. Is back with Fatherland, which I believe was formerly titled. The working title was 1947, but this is Fatherland 1949. They. Whatever. It's irrelevant now. You know, it's. This is the confusion. This is like we've got to take the numbers out of it. And then I. Rodrigo Sorgoyan is a name that I know and we'll have to Google right now to remember why I know that name. Oh, he made the beasts. Okay.

15:30

Yeah, he, he also did a movie called Madre that I think I had to review for Indiewire and like during the lockdown. That actually was quite good. So he. Yeah, I, I'm curious about that one.

16:44

How do you feel just sort of your general temperature relative to how you felt the morning of the lineup announcement in the past? How do you feel going into the festival?

16:54

This one I'm pretty excited about just because, you know, I am someone who is bent mostly toward European and other global art house kind of names that aren't really familiar to a lot of people in the US that are not, you know, beyond casual readers of Indiewire. So to me, I'm very excited about this lineup, but I am curious about what that 22nd movie will be, which I have to imagine will be some sort of American entry.

17:04

Yeah, I think Paper Tiger's a good guess. But I also think what you're seeing is that, you know, there's been a lot of trepidation. I know this from talking, you know, at length to distributors recently about some of the poorly received festival premieres that American films have had in recent years and how they've been perceived to have dinged their movies, sometimes in unrecoverable ways. And I think that that sensitivity, doesn't it quite extend to international cinema in the same way, for whatever reason? I mean, I don't think the knives are out anymore, but it's just, I don't know, there's a feeling that American films in particular can really sort of die on the vine at these major festival premieres. And so maybe this is the beginning of a trend where people pull away, but also at the same time can in particular has become so much more crucial to the awards system, that whole song and dance. And you become an invaluable way of getting movies into that conversation, into the pipeline. So it is a real push and pull. But I think you'll see that whichever of these films are coming into the festival with distribution in place, are really just going to put their best foot forward and only submit the films that they are confident are going to have a warm reception. So how that plays out we shall see. But yeah, I think it's an exciting lineup and I look forward to Directors Fortnite and Fingers Crossed for James Gray.

17:30

Well, on that note, David, thank you for coming on the podcast today. And obviously I'll see you in the office before Cannes, but I certainly will see you there.

18:55

Indeed.

19:03

In the meantime, we are going to seg into my interview with Christopher Abbott, and then Anne will be back on the podcast next week. So thank you, David.

19:04

My pleasure.

19:11

Today on the Screen Talk podcast, I have Christopher Abbott with us, and he is, I think, one of the best actors of his Generation and has been giving really fascinating, complex performances for more than a decade. Like a decade and a half now, I think. And I'm not just talking about Girls, which is what many people know him from, but other films, like James White I was really a big fan of, and things like Possessor, Vox Lux, Poor Things Last year in Testament of Van Lee and Wolfman. And now you are on Broadway with Death of a Salesman playing Biff Lowman. And so you've done Sam Shepard, you've done Annie Baker, John Patrick Shanley, and now this is your first time doing

19:14

Arthur Miller, right, in a production level? I've worked on it in class back in the day, but, yeah, yeah.

19:52

What was your relationship to the play before starting in this version?

19:58

Well, I'd only worked on it in school. When I was in school, I worked on the, you know, the first scene in the play between the two brothers. A lot of guys work on that scene, but I never seen a live production of Death of a Salesman. And Laurie Metcalfe, who's in the show, we sort of both had. Hadn't seen it for similar reasons. I think we both do this thing where if we think there's a time in the future where we may do said play, you sort of hold off on seeing that play just in case, so, you know, you're not influenced by. By it. But I'd seen the movie. I've seen the movie, you know, the. The Dustin Hoffman movie. So otherwise I knew the play, read it, but I had never seen a production of it.

20:02

It's funny, and I think other people have this experience. I almost like Mandela effect, convinced myself that I had seen it or read it before, and I really haven't. So to me, it was really entirely new. And obviously you hadn't read it either. I hadn't read it, no.

20:45

No.

20:58

I'm sure it was like on a syllabus somewhere, and I just didn't. I skipped it.

20:59

I have plenty of those from school.

21:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this one's directed by Joe Mantello, who is someone who, when his name is attached to anything, I feel like, you know, you're in pretty sure hands.

21:05

Yeah.

21:12

So tell me how you got cast in the show and what the audition process was like. I mean, you're not a stranger to theater, but it has to be somewhat different as auditioning for a film.

21:13

Yeah, well, I mean, I was lucky. I didn't have. I didn't audition for this, but, you know, I've done, like, readings with Joe and. And, you know, he had Seen my work and had I just gotten asked to do it, which was really. I was lucky for that. So there was no audition process. There was for the Happies. Ben Ehlers, who plays my brother, I got to read with him and some other guys. So I sort of had in the experience of I wasn't auditioning for myself, but I sort of had a little bit of that process for auditioning the happiest.

21:22

So this play, it's been around since 1949 and it's one that maybe some audiences feel they are familiar with. So what is relevant or interesting about revisiting this play? Now, obviously there is a lot of thematics in it about sort of the crush of capitalism on this family, disillusionment with the American dream. All of those things that are timeless in a way. But why.

21:55

I don't know.

22:20

Why mount this?

22:21

Yeah, well, I mean, like the bigger overarching themes, like, you know, the. The Fall of the American Dream, you know, it's. It was relevant then and is still relevant today. But I think just in a very different. Just through a different lens, you know what I mean? What, what, what the Fall of the American Dream sort of looked like, you know, I'm back in the 50s, which obviously I wasn't around for. You know, I guess you would call it like the shrinking of the middle class, really, which is like continuing to happen. But, you know, I mean, you can even relate it to nowadays to like whether it's AI taking over jobs and like, you know, you're just. Just the feeling of one being expendable is, I think is all. Has always been a theme that people can relate to. But, you know, what's beautiful about this play is those themes are always stand true, but the writing and the interplay between what this family is, you know, especially father and sons, you know, that that theme is always going to be relevant. And I've noticed that this is a play where like a lot of grown men cry, you know what I mean? Because of. Because of that, the father and son theme, you know, like, I've walked outside after a play often and, you know, grown men are sort of still like tearing up. And that's, you know, I think that says something. It's like it's probably the hardest demographic to get a squeeze, a tear out of, you know. So, yeah, I think those very human themes play true.

22:22

Well, this character of Biv is very restless and he showed a lot of promise early and then that sort of collapsed for various reasons. I mean, he finds his father in a Very compromising position. There are all these things that just don't really go well for him. You're talking about grown men crying. But, like, how do you feel at the end of doing the show every night? Is it emotionally depleting in this way?

24:03

It is, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it definitely is. I'm not one that, like, you know, once I'm done with the play or movie or whatever, once I'm done with it, shake it off and you go home. But the thing with this play, in this part, the thing that is hard to shake is what you're. You know, you're. I'm. My job. I'm trying my best to completely believe in the story that's happening on stage while doing it. So you, you know, you're acting, quote unquote, but, you know, you're still putting your body through, you know, even though if you're drumming it up and you're making it up, those sort of emotional, you know, big emotional swings. So it is depleting because, you know, your body doesn't know the difference. You know what I mean? So it is. After every show, I am pretty. Just depleted. Yeah.

24:25

One creative choice. Well, there's a couple really interesting creative choices about the show. One is the set design, where it basically is taking place in the. It's set in the garage, basically, right where Willy Loman's car is parked. And for those who know the show, we know this is the car that's going to eventually kill him. So they're kind of all in the midst of death together in this way that I found very haunting after rehearsals. And once you were in that environment, how did that change the performance?

25:18

Very much. I mean, what starts off as what could feel sort of inhibiting, right? Let's say, like, the lack of furniture, you know, and the lack of furniture sort of has. Which. It means, like, there's less anchors on stage to hold onto or, you know, things to use. It's. I think it creates this almost like open playing field for these scenes and you don't have much to hang on to, you know, physically. So you're. I think it gives it all much more of, like, a vulnerability to it. You know, you're sort of. You're left. You're sort of left up there with nothing to grab onto. And I think what. In the beginning, that was sort of difficult, but I think I appreciate it now. You know, there's that feeling of like, well, there's nothing left to hide. You know what I mean? And so much of the play is about trying to. For my character, especially, trying to get to the truth of something. So I really enjoy it. And I think, you know, it's a great idea to kind of have this abstract, abstract set because it lends itself to sort of what that Arthur Miller originally had thought of for this play. And I know that Arthur Miller didn't like the title, but the original title for the play was in his head or something. I think that was it. Right. But it sort of creates this very dreamy psychological turmoil effect for Willy. And it's like it all kind of feels like a dream. And sometimes you're up there and it feels like you're in a bit of a fishbowl. And, you know, it's. All these scenes are sort of happening on top of each other. So I think the set really works for this play. A friend that came to the show described. I was curious about his interpretation of the set. And he had a really good interpretation, which I'll share, which was he kind of felt the set was like, you know, kind of looks like an abandoned garage or like warehouse of some kind of. And he thought that. And the play originally takes place in their house, or it should take place in their house. So he felt like the house had been long been abandoned. And then they built this whatever warehouse, garage, and then that became abandoned. And that the characters in the play are sort of these ghosts that haunt this space that their house used to live on. And I was like, that's pretty cool. And that notion also lets, I think, any audience member interpret it to be sort of whatever they want. It's sort of open, fair game.

25:49

Something else that struck me was that I think there's other versions of this play where the same actor plays the younger version of Biff. The same person playing the older version of Happy plays the younger version. But in this one, you have younger actors playing those younger versions. What kind of work are you doing with them, knowing that you're not really gonna interact that much on stage?

28:26

Yeah, we don't. We don't really interact on stage. I think me and my younger self at one point just sort of throw a football around. And then in the hotel scene, we're sort of in the same room, but we're sort of separate entities in that room. I think, you know, the early work on that was physical. You know, we did some, like. I would call it movement work or something like that to, like. Not to, like, mimic or match, like for the young guys to sort of mimic and match us, but it's just an energy Thing. And I think the cool thing that's been happening as the. As we've done to play more and more and have done more shows, things I think are starting to meld between the younger selves and the older selves, but again, without being complete mimics. I think it's important to. A lot of this is through Willy's eyes or in Willy's head. So this projection of my younger self being a golden boy for Willy Loman is very much his projection. You know what I mean? So the rules are sort of open. He doesn't have to be. He doesn't have to have my gestures or like my speech pattern or whatever. It's just. It's Willy's projection. So I think it's interesting. They feed each other and then work independently at the same time.

28:47

You were in another show a few years ago. This was with Aubrey Plaza called Danny and the Deep Blue Sea by John Patrick Shanley. That's another one where you played a real kind of tortured person. Much more so than this guy.

30:06

Tortured New York guys, apparently, is my niche. Yeah, yeah.

30:18

I was gonna say you like me. Rarely. You rarely play a sweet, innocent person.

30:22

Yeah, well, there's a vulnerability, sure. You know what I mean? Yeah. But I'm getting older now, too, so there's, you know, innocence and sweetness is for the young.

30:26

Yeah, those things are long gone.

30:35

Yeah, those are gone.

30:37

Yeah. Yeah. Well, theater has always been part of your, you know, the work that you've done going back to really early in your career. Career with House of Blue Leaves, which

30:38

was also on Broadway. That was my first Broadway play. Yeah. Yeah.

30:46

And so that's obviously something you've always wanted to maintain a footprint in. Is there something that you get out of it that is nourishing in a different way than film or TV especially? You've been really prolific in those things. But especially now where it's like the whole indie film marketplace is getting contracted and there are fewer roles and movies like the kind that you've always been doing.

30:49

Yeah, yeah. I mean, just for me, I think. I think one thing I struggle with as purely as an actor is probably some lack of control, you know, And I think theater, doing plays, I feel it's collaborative. It's collaborative because you work with a director and writer and other people's words. But, you know, I think I feel the most control. I think I feel I have the most control in some sense over my performance and in. In theater. And I like this sort of high wire act of. Of, you know, things can. Can Always go wrong and, you know, can sort of become improvisational if things do sort of go wrong, if someone forgets a line or whatever. I like the act of it. And the analogy that I use the most is like, you know, it's if a band is playing a live show versus making, making a record in the studio, that's like. I think that's a pretty, pretty good analogy. But yeah, I always, I always like to do plays. I don't necessarily prefer one or the other, but I would say that usually after I do a play, I will feel like then doing a film, working on a film, and after I do a film, I want to move on and, you know, it kind of oscillates.

31:12

Yeah. I wanted to ask about some of your film and TV work, which is you've done two movies with actually three movies with Mona Fast Fold now. Right. You've done.

32:29

The first one was a Sleepwalker.

32:38

Yeah. And then the World to Come, which was one of my favorite movies of that year. And then obviously Ann Lee last year. I felt like the latter two, though World to Come and Lee, they didn't get like, they should have gotten the better shake in terms of, I don't know, year end awards or acclaim and things like that. Did you feel that way too?

32:39

Of course, but I think so. But maybe I'm biased because, you know, Mona and I are long, long dear friends and. But I also think she's a genius, so of course I want that. But you know, I mean, this, it's. It was a smaller movie and sometimes you need, you know, you need some push behind those movies and, you know, and it did have a great push. I don't know, I don't know the reasons why it did or didn't, but it got, I think it got enough acclaim and did really well. So I think, you know, it's always about making the next movie. But. But yeah, my track record with. I joke that in all of Mona's movies I somehow play some sort of abusive husband in different time periods.

32:56

Yeah.

33:37

Like a misogynist.

33:38

Yeah. She needs, she needs to give me some other. Something else.

33:39

Yeah.

33:42

Yeah, maybe not.

33:42

Yeah, maybe. Exactly. Maybe don't play a sexist next time or something. So. Oh, and so another role that you have coming up now is in Netflix's east of Eden series, which I'm really excited about that. That's another role that is etched in the annals of literary history. And it's a different kind of character than some of these other ones we're talking about because this guy Adam is, you know, he's fundamentally good, but he can be kind of feckless and naive as well. Have you been able to watch the series? I know it wrapped, like, kind of a while ago, right? Like, yeah, it was 2025.

33:43

Yes. I'm forgetting the timeline. It feels like a while ago now. I mean, we started shooting it. What was it? I finished in March of 2025. That was for about six months. So six months before that is when we started shooting it. So now, yeah, from the start of it, it definitely feels like a while. But, you know, it's an epic, and there is probably going to be, I think, seven episodes or something like that. So it's a lot to go through, so I'm not surprised. It's taking a little while to edit this, you know, epic story, but I'm very excited about it. It's one of my favorite books. I adore the book, and I've been lucky. I've been lucky to have worked on, you know, it's now my second, like, famous American novel miniseries because I got to do catch 22 and this. So it's like. It's a. It's. If this becomes some sort of niche for me, I'll. I'll be happy with that.

34:16

Well, it sounds like this series is going to encompass more of the book, whereas I think in the Elia Kazan movie, I would say that a lot of it is about the kids and it's more like the second half of novel. Right.

35:09

Even less. I feel like the movie's probably like the. More like almost like the last quarter of the novel. Yeah. Yeah. I'm.

35:19

I'm really curious to hear what it's like seeing Florence Pugh, who plays your wife in this, playing a character who's very much an antagonist and who a lot of readers see as being pretty evil. She actually started her career with a movie called Lady Macbeth, where she is also using her feminine wilds to manipulate people around her. So. But I haven't seen this kind of a performance from her in a while. So. What was your impression of, well, you

35:25

know, Zoe Kazan, who wrote it, I think is this is sort of shaping this version of east of Eden to be, like, very much through Kathy, that character's eyes. And, you know, and Florence is such a great actress that you. Even though on the surface the character might be considered, you know, an evil person, you always still try to find the heart and the humanity in that person. And I just think that there's more. With this version, there's a lot more there's just gonna be. There's a lot more to work with for that. For that character specifically. Obviously, way more than in the movie version. So I think with that comes nuance. And I think you'll get to see. I think, you know, Florence is fantastic in it, and people will agree, but you'll get to see a lot of nuance in what that character is.

35:48

I'm really interested in this idea that Zoe, she's directing from a source material that was also obviously directed by her grandfather, whose Legacy in the McCarthy era, she's had some complicated relationship to and has spoken about that. And so. And the movie, too, I think it came out, like, only a couple years after he gave these names of people in the theater company to. Over to the government. So I wondered if you observe some kind of intention there on her part to reckon with that legacy or. I don't want you to speak.

36:40

No, I won't speak for her, but. No, I mean, I think. I mean, I'd imagine she was aware of the sort of lineage of working on east of Eden, you know, but what I do know is that it's also one of her favorite books and she adores it. So I think when. I think you probably couldn't ask for a better adapter of this material because she wasn't just hired to do it, she did it because she wanted to. And I wouldn't speak for her in that sense, but I think. I know she loves it and she's the right person. She always was the right person to

37:10

do it last year and. Well, 2024, 2025, you did a couple of studio movies. There's a film called Wolfman that you gave a really good performance in opposite Julia Garner. Then another movie called Kraven the Hunter, which, candidly, I haven't seen.

37:52

That's okay.

38:07

But my. But my colleagues say your performance is very good in that.

38:08

Am I. You know, I'm my own worst critic, but that's very nice of them.

38:14

What did you learn from. I mean, those are. Wolfman is. That's more of an intimate film. There's a smaller ensemble in that. Kraven the Hunter. You are one piece in a giant.

38:21

I'll be honest. Sometimes, like, sometimes when I choose work. Okay. So I mean, that Craven, the Hunter, for example, I. I had worked with and am friends with JC Shandor, who directed that. So he's. He's one who asked me to do that, and I hadn't ever. Sometimes when I choose stuff, it's not always, you know, whatever for like, artistic. All artistic value. Sometimes I'm curious, like, for. For the example of Craven. I wanted to work with JC and, you know, and I liked a lot of the other actors in it. I'm huge fans of and. But I also just wanted. I kind of wanted to just see how the wheels turned in that kind of genre. You know what I mean? Sort of superhero, you know, I know it's not like, Marvel, whatever I see. I don't even know, like, what are the labels. It's like, this one's like a Sony Marvel one or whatever. But I just, you know, I was just curious, like, I wanted to just be there and just see, like, see how these kinds of movies get made, because I never experience what it was to be on set for something like that. So, you know, I mean, I don't know if. I don't know if my performance in the Craven is going to be in the pantheon of whatever, but it was interesting to sort of just see. Yeah. See how the gears turned on a movie like that.

38:30

Yeah. I mean, there's other actors that I feel like are kind of in your mold. Touching. Maybe Carrie Coon, she also did one. She did one of these, too.

39:47

Did she? What did she do?

39:54

I don't remember. She did it. I don't know if it was Marvel. I don't watch any of those.

39:56

I don't know. Yeah, Yeah.

40:00

I don't have to check, but, I mean, I just. I'm like, I hope these people got paid well or they had a good experience working with the other actors. Or maybe not.

40:02

I didn't. I just made a face.

40:10

Yeah.

40:11

Yeah.

40:12

So. Okay. I also wanted to ask not to, like, rehash Girls a lot. I know you. You probably. You don't. You've had to answer to that so much over the years. Okay. But, you know, in the last year or two, there's been a whole resurgence.

40:15

I.

40:27

A rewatch. Is that something that you would ever do as an audience member of the show?

40:28

No. Oh, a rewatch of. Well, I mean, again, I'm not good at watching. I don't watch myself that much, and especially when it comes to tv, because I don't. This is truly honest. I don't know a good place to do it. Meaning if I do a movie, I will go to the premiere, and that's a great way to experience it. But tv, it's like, it gets tricky. If there's a screening of it in a theater, let's say I'll go watch it. But it's like, I don't want to really sit at home by myself and watch myself for an entire season of something. I think that's weird. I don't. Nor do I want to invite people over and have a party around it. You know what I mean? I think that's also a strange thing to do. So TV's been the hardest thing to watch myself in. So, no, I'm not going to. I'm not doing. I'm not part of the rewatch party, and I was only slightly part of the watch party. But, you know, if they screen it somewhere, I would.

40:32

Well, you are, you know, you star in what is regarded as one of the best, you know, couple episodes of the show, which is the Panic in Central Park.

41:29

Yeah.

41:38

Do you get recognized a lot for being Girls, or is there, like a project that you feel like most people associate you with is probably that one?

41:39

Yeah, I would say it was like. It was one of the more popular things that I've done. But, you know, it's. It just depends, you know, it's. There's different demographics. Right. So, like, sometimes I can kind of tell, like, basically how someone looks of what they're gonna recognize before. You know what I mean? Like, I know like the. If someone's like a possessor fan of

41:46

that movie, what does that person look like?

42:10

I'm not gonna. I don't know. It's not. Maybe it's not like a physical thing. It's like an. It's like an energy thing. You know what I mean? But, yeah, it's just. It just really. It's. It just depends, you know, if someone's more of a theater, you know, it just depends. But, yes, Girl, of course. Like, you know, Girls was popular and continues to get popular, so I. I understand that.

42:11

Yeah. Well, I'm a big Possessor fan, so.

42:30

Yeah, me too.

42:32

But there's a bunch of other ones I named that I would also recommend,

42:33

but it's more niche, you know, like, those are like. You know, those are like Die Hards. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

42:36

yeah. So speaking of that, there. There are. And this is something I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of these kind of movies that you have done that are these more niche independent movies that I think definitely stand the test of time. But now we are seeing. It's not like these aren't proliferating, but you are seeing in festivals. Like, there's things like on the count of three or something that. That had a pretty small distribution, I think. And there's. I think we're seeing a similar phenomenon with Other. These other type of movies. Has that affected your career in indie film?

42:42

No. I mean. No, it's just, you know, sometimes a lot of that stuff can be so circumstantial. Right. Because those. The smaller movies really need. You know, we were sort of unlucky with on the Count of Three. I love on the Count of Three. And, you know, Gerard is a good friend of mine. I think he. He directed a great movie with that. But we got. We just got a little unlucky because I think we were. It was kind of do. Can I do this? Lean back a little bit? I think we were. We did that at home. Pandemic, Sundance or whatever, you know what I mean? And I think it would have helped to have, like, a live audience for the first screening of that. You know what I mean? I'm not making excuses of why maybe the movie wasn't bigger than what it was, but, you know, sometimes, like, stuff like that is circumstantial, and you need the pop of, like, a movie festivals to sort of of get it off the ground. And we didn't quite have that because of. I think because of Pandemic. But, you know, I of course, wish it had more eyes or whatever, but the people. The eyes that were on it, people seem to really like it. And so you sort of take that as face value. Again, talk about control. This is something I don't really have control over of how well a movie does, you know?

43:14

Yeah. Another one that I saw of yours at Toronto a few years ago that played really well for the audience was Sanctuary.

44:27

Yeah.

44:33

And actually I was sitting in front of Andy McDowell.

44:34

Yeah.

44:36

And she.

44:37

She.

44:38

I think she had not seen it before. She seemed so.

44:38

We must have been sitting in the same row.

44:40

Oh, you were right. You were with her as well.

44:42

I was. Maybe I was sitting in that same. Yeah, you must have.

44:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was kind of, like, interested to look at her and see what her reaction was.

44:47

Yeah.

44:52

Very sexually graphic movie.

44:52

Yeah, that was a Pandemic. I mean.

44:54

Yeah.

44:57

I mean, I shot that during the. That was like, the first job I did after a bit of a Pandemic break.

44:57

There was another project that got announced a few years ago called the Maid of New Orleans that you were gonna star in with Elle Fanning, and you were also gonna produce this maybe.

45:03

Yeah, that one, like, that was one where, you know, sometimes, like, when they announce things that, like, I'm attached to, you know, these independent movies, sometimes you're gonna go in September, then for whatever reason, something gets pushed and then. And then you move on and then you do something else. And then all of a sudden, when they want to shoot it, I'm already doing something else. So it was, it was kind of one of those. For that movie. Yeah, I was going to do that. And then schedules and then the shifting timeline of that movie never, never came to fruition. Yeah.

45:11

Well, this Thursday is the opening of Death of a Salesman. So are you done with the preview? I mean, is this. There's no more performances till then, right? Like, no, there are. Oh, there are.

45:44

Oh, yeah. No, I have a show tomorrow. We had a show yesterday. There's a show tomorrow. I mean, we're going. Yeah, we're. We keep the same schedule, seven, eight shows a week, but we just happen to open officially on Thursday. But it doesn't change anything. There's still been audiences, paying audiences, for now, weeks before that. So the only thing I think you feel like you've. It's been a long process and rehearsal and preview period in tech and everything like that, but so in some way you feel like you're not reaching the pinnacle. You're just sort of reaching a little bit of a plateau with opening night. But then, you know, we have a show the next day. So then there's another, you know, so you kind of. You're not there yet. And so it's an interesting feeling. It's very, again, very different from like a movie premiere, you know, because it feels like you do. You have a movie premiere, you're done filming it, you've done the press and whatever, now you can celebrate it. And then it's off into the ether. It's like, for this, it's like you're still very much in it and you're still very much learning. You know what I mean? Like, that's the beautiful thing about this play is like, I don't think any of us are going to be done working on, you know, I think we're still going to be discovering things and we're still going to want to find things, discover things, probably up until whenever we close the show, you know, so in a sense, my work is nowhere near done.

45:53

Well, on that note, thanks for coming on the podcast, Chris.

47:13

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

47:16

Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors, and learn about our associate degree in nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot now at Carrington. Edu Events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington. Edu Sci.

47:21