Noah Baumbach on “Jay Kelly,” His New Movie with George Clooney

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The filmmaker Noah Baumbach was long known for comedies and dramas that drew on his own life. Films like The Squid and the Whale and Marriage Story. But things change and so did Baumbach's source material. In 2022 he released White Noise which is based on the novel by Don DeLillo. And then in 2023 he worked on a smash hit in Hollywood called Barbie. He co-wrote the script with Gretty Gerwig who directed. Baumbach's latest film is something of a return to form. It's a sharp character study of an extremely handsome, extremely famous movie star having an identity crisis. George Clooney of course plays the actor and Adam Sandler is his beleaguered manager. Suddenly remembering things I've thought about in a long time. Our family's losing it at home. It's like a movie where I'm playing myself, watching myself. I'm sorry, you gotta go again. I didn't hear what you said. I said I'm suddenly remembering things. What is that? Memory? Well, yes. Maybe your memory is trying to tell you something about your present. Like what? I don't know. I'm tired. Jay Kelly opened in theaters and it will stream on Netflix starting this week. Now we at the New Yorker take a familial pride in Noah Baumbach. He worked as a messenger in the office back when that was a thing and he wrote his first humor piece for us in 1991. And he still contributes every so often. At this year's New Yorker festival our own Susan Morrison sat down with Noah Baumbach to talk about the new film. Now, Jay Kelly is a love letter to a certain classic kind of movie and it has this lush Hollywood score by Nicholas Bertel, a big movie star, these gorgeous locations. But I've read that you've said that working on this movie it began as an exercise to help you, try to prod you to fall in love with movies all over again. When did you fall out of love with them? Why did you have to do that? It was somewhere on a sort of deserted highway in Ohio at about 4 a.m. with a rain machine shooting white noise that I think I felt like, oh god, I don't know that I like doing this. And that movie was just very difficult for me for several reasons. And I mean we shot during COVID which was a big part of it just because it was so difficult and such a fraught time. But it was just really difficult. I'm proud of the movie but I was the making of it was so hard and I was just thinking. But then actually when I was writing Jay Kelly I also, then I went and worked on Barbie with Greta and the filming of it and that was a really great shoot and that sort of almost like watching her and as she has many times for me like she sort of led by example I guess and I had a really good time on that. So I felt like well maybe I do still like it. But it's a thing. I guess you have to kind of, it's good in a way too to check back in with yourself because I think it's something that I dreamt of doing is something I always wanted to do and you know I've been doing it for a long time now and so I was sort of like well am I doing this only because I do it? You know maybe I want to go restart yeah. Yeah and so it is part of the the energy of Jay Kelly is my affection for the medium and both the movies themselves but also the making of them. Yeah I remember now reading about pajama parties on the set of Barbie. I mean it must have been a very different vibe than you know. I didn't know those. That girl's only I guess. Yeah yeah there was the Barbie. But it must have been a very different, I mean I'm thinking filming that scene in the car and the river and white noise I mean that must have been very difficult stuff. It was hard yeah it was really difficult and it's not like my favorite kind of things to be doing in movies. So it was an action movie actually. Yeah it is and so I and I kind of was doing it because it was what the material required and sometimes I you know I write something and then when I'm directing it I kind of realize oh now I have to actually interpret what I wrote you know and with that one in particular I think I realized sort of too late how ambitious it all was too late for my own pleasure. I mean it's hard to actually write something and say I'm going to fall in love with movies again. Yes. I mean it could have not paid off. Well the opening line of Jay Kelly which is the opening scene is on a movie set as they're wrapping a film. The opening line is we're coming to the end and and I kept thinking if I'd seen that in the script it would just make me think it was a becket play you know. It does have a kind of a valedictory feel and so even though the whole movie is a love letter to movies there's also a sense of you as this kind of mature artist you know reckoning with your work in the same way that that's what Jay Kelly is doing. So I mean for you was that a little bit of a struggle or is that just the character that you're writing? Yeah well I'm sure I'm sure it must be and the the endings is this another sort of aspect of the movie I think and that was kind of implicit I guess in my the feelings I was having about do I love this is also I'm now an I'm older I have you know other things that I you know I have a family I think you know things that I could be spending my time you know more time doing and do I love this enough so that feeling of coming toward facing the end in life as well I mean they're facing the end in the movie but they're also they're Jay Kelly's facing his mortality. I mentioned to you that last night I was talking to Ian Parker one of our writers who wrote a great profile about 12 years ago and he reminded me of something that Greta had said to him when he was working on this piece which is how very often the first lines of your movies kind of basically tell you everything that it's about to happen in my roots stories Adam Sandler is trying to park parallel park. I didn't get my driving license those four years. And Sandler says am I fitting you know and in the beginning of Greenberg Greta is trying to merge into traffic on the freeway and she says are you going to let me in you know so I mean and then I also realized that Squid in the Whale opens with you know the the Sun one of the Suns saying on the tennis court mom and me versus you and dad so I mean it's almost like it's a conscious decision to kind of give the viewer the cliff's notes to the movie before it even begins. Just putting it out there it's so obvious. Yeah I don't know I'm not even that aware of that I mean I it was brought up at a certain point but I mean I think it's really sort of like you always kind of want to tell the story of the movie in the beginning of a movie I mean it's the opening shot of J. Kelly is in a way a kind of representation of what the rest of the movie J's journey is going to be and so whether it's the line or it's something else but a lot of those ones just were just word the lines I mean when you were just now talking about Meyerowitz I was sort of wondering what the first line was and I guess that that works I am the are you gonna let me in one was I was doing for Greenberg I was doing an interview after the movie came out and the interviewer pointed out that this was what the story of the movie was is sort of like are you gonna let her to Greenberg are you gonna let me in and I all of a sudden felt myself about to cry because I didn't I'd never thought of it or realized it. Well I think Ella metaphors her unconscious I just now remember that when we first talked about Squid and the Whilt 20 years ago I said you know there's a lot of ping-pong in tennis in this movie is that because the movie's about these children going back and forth between their parents as a part of their custody arrangement and you shocked me by saying you're never that would never occur to you. No now you're again I'm shocked again when you say that. Well you know your movies often we're talking about Squid have a really strong autobiographical component and you know this one is about a giant movie star you're not a giant movie star but you're a big deal Hollywood director and it's it's it's tempting to kind of see J. Kelly in some ways as a stand-in for you you know especially it makes me wonder you know after the giant success of Barbie one of the highest grossing movies of all time and do you feel like have you kind of vaulted into a slightly different relationship to Hollywood or is it more just about age as we were talking about you know looking back at your whole career. Well and I also think the notion of an actor you know was something that was interesting it was a good metaphor for something you know about sort of playing yourself which is something a lot of my movies are kind of about I guess it's sort of how we play ourselves. I also what I you know you think about these things in retrospect I've written I a lot of my characters in the past have been people who define themselves by a certain lack of success or a lack of the success they hoped for the way they sort of hoped their life would be their sort of projection of their self not reaching that and and calling that failure I think or thinking of it as failure. Like Dustin Hoffman the Meyerowitz story or Jeff Daniels. Yeah or Greenberg himself or you know and what I realized in doing this was that in some ways defining yourself by your own success is sort of the same challenge because it's just another way of not knowing who you are not not looking at who where you really are and where you you know and I think Jay Kelly is there's something in him in the beginning of the movie that's sort of motivating him to go out in the world to find himself in some way. What's the package? You just come from the game? How'd you and Vivian do? Well we were up five four and I do too many movies. But it's fine. What's the packing? You think I do too many movies? I think you do just the right amount of movies. You think I do too many movies? You do work a lot. See Barbara tells me the truth. What happened last night? You can't have too much underwear. How'd you get the black guy? I'll tell you on the plane. What plane? The plane that I booked we're leaving at one. Where are we going? Meg where are we going? France. France? France? I mean there are events that sort of set him going but I'd like that about the character that it was somebody who there's something kind of there's certainly something infantilized about his life but that there is something in there you know in ways that we often do like in some ways talking about coming after white noise of like reinventing himself. Like something in him knows he needs to almost perpetuate his own crisis to move forward in life and I think I'm interested in that too of this sort of unconscious things we do throughout our lives. Like you look back and you're like oh yeah I needed a change then but I didn't I couldn't have told you that but right but I did this which made the change happen you know and you know certainly people have gone through I mean divorce is that I've dealt with that a lot and you know it's like what Mike Nichols said about the graduate it was like the story of a man who saves himself through madness. Yeah yeah well all the movies and if you think about it a lot of art is really about the gap between who we are and who we think we are right and and you and I were talking about this the other day. At first when I saw you were making a movie about a massively successful person I thought what a change but you were saying that that this feeling of failure and unfulfilled ambition and huge success are both ways of kind of having a barrier to who you really are and it made me wonder is there some kind of median level of success that is emotionally more healthy or is this just the human way? No because you probably just want more. I think no matter what there's a gap you know no one's ever going to close that gap and I think we look and find different ways in our life you know throughout I mean it can be more conscious like through therapy or through whatever but to sort of reintroduce ourselves to ourselves as we go. Noah Baumbach speaking with Susan Morrison of The New Yorker. More in a moment. When the economic news gets to be a bit much listen to the indicator from Planet Money. We're here for you like your friends trying to figure out all the most confusing parts. One story one idea every day all in 10 minutes or less. The indicator from Planet Money your friendly economic sidekick from NPR. You know you were just quoting Mike Nicholson I was just remembering something I read and what they're two interesting biographies of him recently he's quoted at one point of saying you know people who figured out how to like themselves they're really boring you don't want anything to do with them. Yeah. I just kind of interesting. Yeah. So I think I feel like this movie is in the tradition of you know I'm thinking of Seth Rogan's show studio Robert Altman's you know the player. It's a great comedy of manners about about Hollywood and you know there's some really funny there's great running gag about a piece of cheesecake in his rider that is so funny and so anyway watching the movie I kept imagining you you know through your various movies you know making notes of all these little idiocies that you have encountered along the way. I mean is is J. Kelly a repository the film a repository for little things you've noticed or I also assume that Clooney and Adam Sandler themselves have probably lived a J. Kelly kind of life and have absolutely I mean was it like a kind of grab bag of people's. Yeah I think so I mean also like this idea for a character which is true for people of you know movies stars of of a certain level what they have like they do wherever they go there's always the same things laid out for them you know and. Does this happen for you do you have a rider? No I don't have I mean there's definitely that thing of like I mean because also the rider for for him you know it's this sort of notion of like in the beginning of the movie you haven't seen the movie it's it's like there's a cheesecake as part of like the assortment of things that is in the every room he goes into and he says I don't like cheesecake how why is this always here and Adams plays his manager says you know well you once said you liked it so it made it into the rider but I also felt like it was actually a good you know an amusing way to sort of also again tell the sort of story of identity and of like who are we are we the person who said it then are we you know and these things like this rider idea too they get repeated so it is sort of like well I wanted this one time years ago and I'm still getting it you know and it kind of can keep you from advancing or changing in your life because it's the same stuff that you had asked for back then and I think sort of and that's what happens to those I think to people sometimes who get too you know they're they're too sort of bubbled in that way so I thought that was again they're amusing details and I'm you know the milieu is fascinating to me it's a it's a world I know well but I also there are so many elements in it that I felt like I could kind of tell these this sort of tale of identity crisis yeah well the cheesecake as kind of part of his composite identity that he's performing as you just said it you know this whole movie is kind of about you know at one point he says I don't know who I am am I just playing a part it's about how we all just kind of perform ourselves you know and collect little bits of cheesecake and you know idioms and whatever and it also reminds me of another thing that you do in your films and I'm especially thinking of my own stories where you know Joan Deutie and always said that we tell ourselves stories in order to survive you know to console ourselves and you often create characters who within a movie they'll tell the same story you'll hear them tell the same story the way people tell the same family stories or the same jokes or even in Jay Kelly Adam Sandler as the manager is always calling his clients puppy you know and the one client probably doesn't know that the other client's being called puppy you know but this way of repeating phrases and stories makes the characters feel so lived in and so real but that's another version of you know just how you're kind of performing your character well hell yeah and how language the way we talk or the way the characters talk is so become self-defining too and and sort of can they break those patterns I mean it is I write a lot of dialogue and I it comes naturally to me I think I've been you know an ear for it but I I'm always interested in the movies of sort of like how the the rhythms of how people talk both you know as is helping me find the characters often as I'll write myself and kind of discover the characters while I'm writing the dialogue but also how the you know what people say is not what they're saying and I often write a lot of extraneous stuff that isn't even really meant to be focused on it's like musical you know just sounds and things but I think or how people talk so is not to have to say anything you know or but also how people's patterns of can change over the course of a movie and how that is also a way of discovering character or revealing character in a movie well so if if we all tell ourselves a story about our lives in order to make us feel better what's the what story is jay kelly telling himself well I mean I guess at which point in the movie we don't know I I think the story that initially that he's telling himself is that these sort of choices that he's made and the bargains he's made with himself throughout his life are we're worth it you know I think you know when we all are younger we make you know we make decisions that seem much easier because we think well well I have plenty of time to get to the other thing like you know I'm gonna read war and peace you know at some point you know and you know then you get to a certain point and I think the point that jay kelly's in in the movie where essentially it's a kind of shocking realization even though it's the most obvious thing in the world which is that that this is the only one he's gonna get this is the only this is the only version of it of this of his life and these decisions are real decisions and they've had real consequences and they're real and you know it's a shocking realization I mean like that the human experience is your experience yeah and I think that's the story he's telling himself and I think that story starts to show its cracks as the movie goes which is I think true and probably a lot of my movies is the characters have these these stories that are ways to sort of justify the life they've lived jay kelly is wonderful and I hope you all see it thank you so much thank you Susan yeah thank you that's writer and director Noah Baumback talking with the New Yorkers Susan Morrison I'm David Remnick that's the New Yorker radio hour for today I hope you had a great holiday and a special welcome to our new listeners on WBAA in Indiana hope you enjoyed the show the New Yorker radio hour is a co-production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of tune yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul this episode was produced by Max Bolton Adam Howard David Krasnow Jeffrey Masters Louis Mitchell Jared Paul and Ursula Summer with guidance from Emily Boteen and assistance from Michael May and special thanks this week to Catherine Sterling Amanda Miller Julia Rothschild Nico Brown and Michael Edrington and thanks also to Pat Thomas and Terry Chun at the 92nd Street Y the New Yorker radio hour is supported in part by the Tarina Endowment Fund Wired has always put a microscope on the people power 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