Lynne Ramsay

Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. There's a certain kind of person who delights in spending hours figuring something out. For them, this kind of work isn't a waste of time. It's an irresistible pursuit of the aha moment when everything clicks. And that's exactly the kind of thinking that Claude was designed to do, to skip over the easy answers and dig into the deep stuff. Try Claude for free at www.claude.ai.com slash fashion neurosis and see why problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. Hi, come in. Welcome to fashion neurosis, Lynn Ramsey. Oh, but don't fall asleep. This is extremely relaxing. I'm never going to fall asleep. I'm way too lively. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Well, I'm wearing a shirt from Prada actually because I was at Rimalanshul last week. It's just nice and white and crisp and clean and super comfy. They're wearing a pita, adidas trousers from Liberty. They do a collection together. They're just super comfy because I sprained that ankle really badly. They need to be super comfortable. So they felt like the most comfortable things to wear today. And you're wearing my eye mask that I've wrapped around your foot to calm down the pain. Totally. That's my bill of Freud ankle. And it's very vivid in waistwood as well. I like in this style, you know, but it's making it feel much better. Oh, I'm glad. And you're a multi-award winning, glaswegian filmmaker. And you're an auteur, as they call it in the film world, which is the greatest compliment. And your short films from film school all won prizes and Ratcatcher, your first feature won numerous awards and is one of the most moving and unsentimental films I've ever seen. And how do you create so much feeling without telling people how to feel? I think it's about creating almost a memory, you know, almost... I suppose in the case of Ratcatcher, it was a landscape I was very, very familiar with. And I really base it around the canal that was always a place of kind of... It was quite seductive, but it was quite dangerous. Like people would fall in and drown or you'd be up there with your boyfriend or, you know, it was a sort of dark, sinister, but seductive kind of place. And once I saw there was a paint factory next to the canal, and they used to check the cans of painting. And so I remember seeing this amazing vision of these swans, you know, like just moving through this paint and making it a kaleidoscope, you know, and getting covered with the paint, you know. And so it was like a... Sometimes locations, I think, for me are... It's like a portrait of a person. But there's just things I can see, I think, because I used to be a photographer. And so I look at details of things and details of emotions and try and show them in a way that's maybe not the most conventional way to do it. But I don't know, it instinctively works for me. Yeah. And it works for everyone else too, because it's so affecting. And people often have a strong attachment to where they come from, but somehow it happens more with Glasgow than anywhere else. And what's so powerful about identifying as Glaswegian? It's just a pretty extraordinary place. I mean, my friend, who's Italian, was there while I was in Milan, which was quite odd because she's my best friend. So she's the city of my birth, and I'm in Milan, the city of her birth. And she kept saying it looked like Gotham City. It's got this kind of crazy... It was the first grid system before New York. And the buildings became black with the coal, and I don't know, it's got this kind of imposing dark kind of majesty. And also a kind of humour in it, like from the people, you know, that's dark as well, but fun. It's twisted and crazy, and it feels like almost like you're in the wild west sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. There's even a place called the Grand Old Opry, where people go dress up in cowboy costumes and shoot guns and stuff. It's just a kind of this particular city, and it's sort of dark and a little bit beautiful. And in the summer, it becomes this other place, you know, that's light until 12 o'clock at night. You have this lightness, and then you have this darkness. And I always thought it was a great place for a sci-fi. But Jonathan Glazier beat me to it, you know, with under the skin. Oh yeah, good. Damn, you joined Glazier. It's true, because that seems to be part of the characteristics of the people I've met who are from Glasgow with this humour and also this darkness and this originality as well. I read Bobby Glespie's biography recently, and it was like, not that recently, but a few years back, and it was funny how similar it was, and we're coming from quite a similar background. His parents were really intellectual and communists, and so there's a certain telegenic with it as well. Even though it's pretty blue-collar working class, you know. There's this sort of fierce intelligence as well. I don't really know, I can't really put my finger on what makes Glasgow Glasgow, but I ended up kind of going back there, and I didn't think I would. I tried to escape there, if anything, when I was a kid, you know. And, you know, maybe you just escaped the place you were born, you wanted to move on, you know. But I went back there and I sort of rediscovered it, and it's quite an eye-opener. It's like it's become something different. It's going to morph into this place with great restaurants and great culture and really multicultural. And I'm quite enjoying being back there, really, you know. That's so nice. You're an incredibly artistic person, and when you talk about ideas, it's almost as though they're in 3D as you're describing them. When did that first start? I think it was when I was a really young kid. I mean, I used to draw the whole time. My mum would just say I was the best kid ever because I didn't cry. She'd just give me paper and pencils and I'd just be happy for hours and end. And it wasn't about the end result or anything, it was just the process of drawing. I just found it so fascinating. And then I would sort of draw things up around me. I guess, from very early on, I remember just having sketched the whole time and looking the whole time. My mum was relating to the movies as well, so I would watch Saturday in Matinees, and Mildred Pierce and things like that. I was just fascinated by, became quite fascinated by film. My family started thinking I was deaf because they'd be coming up and watching something and they'd be like, Lynn, Lynn, and I was so into it that I didn't hear anything because it was a big noisy family, so it was my way of just separating, you know, like just going into my own world. Yeah, yeah. There's a great line in a Dizzy Rascal song that says, a heavy bass line is my kind of silence and I had such a good description of getting them. That is fantastic. Yeah, you know, because the house was so, I mean, I had like one brother, two sisters. It was quite a small house, like three bedrooms, I think. And it was always bustling and noisy and like, you know, everyone fighting to, you know, when you were in the bathroom doing your hair or something, then sisters coming and, you know, getting you out, you know, like just the fighting for a bit of space, I guess. Yeah. So my space was, within all this noise, I could find a kind of silence, I could tune in to things and not hear anything else. And it became a kind of thing that helped me as a filmmaker, because it made me, I could focus in a different way, even in a very noisy environment. And what was the garment that first changed the way you felt about yourself? Well, I had this T-shirt that my mum had given me that was, had Speedy Gonzalez, the cartoon character on it. And I just thought it was fantastic. And my sister had a pair of flared trousers that had Rupert the Bear on them. And I stole them a bit, you know, like I'd have this outfit, the Speedy Guns Alice T-shirt, and they're Rupert the Bear Flares. I think they just had a little bit of, like, just a little Rupert the Bear insignia here, then the Speedy Guns. And I just would not take it off. My mum couldn't get it off me, she couldn't wash it, she couldn't do anything. And every time I see a photograph of me with it on, I've got my hands up and total joy at wearing this T-shirt, you know? Like arms outstretched to the heavens. And I just remember never taking that T-shirt off, you know? And my mum said, we really need to wash it. So that's the first really clear memory I suppose, a piece of clothing. Because children feature quite a lot in your films, and you've a way of portraying their experiences, which are often on the edge of quite disturbing, as though you're in that child's body and not as the anxious parental onlooker. Do you inhabit those children? Yeah, I guess. It's funny what people see as dark and light, because I think kids just have to see this kaleidoscope, you know? I suppose the kids in my films, Rat Cat Shiret, was a specially... It's a landscape I really knew, and so the horror, which what people would see as horror, like something like, you know, there was a refuse strike, and there was rubbish all over the streets, and there was black passive bags, and there was loads of rats and crazy stuff of it. But I remember pulling clothes out of a bag, a black bag, you know? I think someone's grandma had died or something, you know, these 1920s hats and crazy stuff. It was like, you would in a medieval kind of landscape, you know? But there was fun in it and intrigue, you know? So that horror, I never really saw it. That just was how life was. Yeah, because it's such a... There's suspense, but it's a completely different kind of suspense of... of not really knowing what's going to happen, and the way you made that film, you can't predict anything, and it's... Somehow it opens you up more and more to being on every moment of that journey in that film, and it really is one of my favourite films I've ever seen. It's so incredible, and... I think it was me with you. You know, we were all a bunch of filmmakers. I'd never done anything. We were just at a film school, and I really fought to have, like, my DP who had never shot a film before, and that's a camera. Really? Yeah, like, they wanted me to use people that had more experience, and I fought and fought to get... So every single person who'd made Ratcatcher had never made a feature film, like the production designer, the cameraman, the DP, the editor. None of us had made a feature film, so it was a real trial by far, but it was... Then we went up and it was a Glasgow crew who were thinking, who's this bunch of moronic students, probably, you know? But there was a real purity with it because of that. It was a bunch of students making a film, really, and we found these amazing locations, and we built a canal because you couldn't go near the water there. Really? It was so quality. Yeah, we had to build a canal, and I think if someone asked me to do that, I think the naivety of us, you know, because I think now if someone went, we have to build a canal, I'd be like, oh, my God, that seems like an impossible task. But it sets in Ratcatcher, and it's also built, and we did it in a kind of naive, punk, kind of, we can do this kind of spirit. But it was a really... I remember I wrote it to be this, you know, it was a warm summer, like, the whole thing was sun, and then it rained the whole time. It just rained and rained and rained, and there was no weather covering. It was a painful shoot, but somehow the kids in it got me through it and they just totally loved the experience and we shot it chronologically, so that, you know, every day was new for them and every day was the whole script, so things would be unfolded in real time. So it was really fun, the kids, there hadn't been for the kids, I think I'd have ran a mile, you know, to be honest, because the DP and I were often like, oh, my God, let's never make a feature film again. This is so stressful, you know, it's such a big deal making a film, my feature film. And so it was a real insight into this new world and totally scary in so many ways as well, you know. I kept moving the camera away from the crew, I was like, there's too many people, because I've been used to making short films with maybe crew of 15 maximum. And so seeing all these people, all these gaffers and people like, you know, doing lighting, you know, just the amount of people you need for a film shoot, a long film shoot, I kept just taking the tripod and the camera and moving it away, kind of like running away with the camera, yeah. So it was quite, you know, it was a special experience and when I see photographs of me at that time, because I was only like 26 or 27, and amongst all these kids is a beautiful photograph where it's the crew and the kids and stuff like that and it looks like a school photo, you know. And I look like I kid myself and amongst these kids and I just think there was a lot of authenticity in that whole process, it was non-actors, a lot of the kids and they'd never done anything before. But it was a painful process, I mean, I didn't enjoy the shoot, whereas some other shoots have enjoyed more, you know, because it was almost like something so pure being ripped away into just dealing with the whole mechanisms and making a feature film can be really, really trying, you know, like, people have, when you work with people that are, oh, it's, you know, you've never worked with a, you need like a DP at a cabra bar or a production designer that's done loads of stuff because you're not experienced yourself. And I get that, but I've made these really great shorts with this great crew of people and I wanted to keep it intact. But everything was such a fight that it became so tiring. But the kids got me through, the kids totally got me through, you know. Because how do you choose your shots? Because it's something I really notice in your films, how you'll use shots of bits of people or the incidentals, and they draw you in so much. And I was just watching this documentary about Martin Scorsese by Rebecca Miller, where it describes how he uses these shots because he's spent so much time looking out of his bedroom window and being stuck inside with asthma. And I, how do you, how are you so sure about which shot you want to use? I think it's something to do with when I, because I used to be a photographer, I studied photography, I studied painting first. I thought I'd go to art school, I'd become a painter really. That's what I thought I'd really do, and maybe I still will. But I discovered a dark dream when I was a kid. I was at this place called the Glasgow Art Center, and it was, I had a dark dream and no one was using it. And so I ended up using it, I had the whole place to myself, probably making pretty crappy pictures, you know, like sort of teenage stuff. But again, to that, which brought me to film in the end. But just the way I look at people, I like to, you know, being a photographer, like you look at details, or you look at what's outside the frame, or you're always observing. And I think Scorsese, I was a photographer as well, as was Kubrick, you know. So I came from that kind of visual background, where some people maybe come from theatre, or different ways. But to me, it's the rhythm of how you put an image with an image, with an image. And also what you don't show, you know. So I just can think of things in a very visual way, you know. And I suppose there was just an ability from being a kid, you know, and just always observing. But I definitely, I mean, one of my favourite things going back to Ratcatcher is, there's just one tiny detail where, Jane, and it shows a lot of love between the mother and the son. And it's basically, you know, the mother's got a stalking, she's forever darning, because she can't afford new tights. And James, the main character, sees her sleeping one time, and he sees a hole in her stalkings. And he pulls it and pulls it, as if trying to mend it, you know, for her. And it's just this tiny, tiny detail of an act of love that spoke volumes, but it was only two shots, you know. So, or even one, maybe, you know. So it's nice to think about maybe quite prosaic ideas, in quite an economical way. And also, when you were never really here, I didn't have a lot of time to shoot that film. And there was a sequence which I thought would be a big action sequence, and I ended up shooting it with surveillance cameras. And it was, and that was like, you know, basically a necessity, because I had no time to shoot it. It was a big, balletic action sequence. And yet it gave it something that was super original, because the violence is so mechanical, and a lot of it's off-screen. So a lot of the time, people will say, that's such a violent film, but actually there's no violence in the film, it's all off-screen. And I think that they just, the way your brain reacts to it, it does feel violent, you know. It's what you didn't see. The piece of the picture that you put together in your head becomes quite scary, you know. So it made me laugh a lot, and people said that was such a violent film, because it's like, there's really, you're showing almost nothing. Support for the show comes from Anthropic, the team behind Claude. We've all become so accustomed to getting instant answers to any question that crosses our minds, which is understandable, we've all had access to search engines for decades now. But often search engines will trade depth through expediency, and the answers you're given can be incomplete, or compromised by advertisers. That's what sets Claude apart. Claude isn't interested in giving you quick and easy answers. When you ask it a question, it's prepared to get into the why with you, to dig deeper and follow you down rabbit holes. What's more is that Claude can also support you with the kind of admin tasks that are tedious to complete on your own, which is how I prefer to use Claude. It helps me with things like cleaning up a cluttered inbox, or summarizing meeting notes, or synthesizing a plan of action when I want to get started on a new project. In that way Claude is more like an ally than a simple search engine. Try Claude for free at www.claude.ai.com and see why problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. Yeah, because I was reading about how you brought that film forward, and you seemed to be able to make films in very chaotic circumstances. On the first day when the crew was setting up, you said, you just grabbed the camera, and then Joachim Phoenix said, are we filming? And you said yes. Do you feel more in control in a way when things are out of control around you? I don't know. Possibly. Making films is so chaotic anyhow. Something always happens that you don't expect. I think I do work well in the environments where I've kind of like, you've got a gun in your head and you have to make a decision. Whereas when I'm interested in normal life, I'd be like, oh, I'm in a restaurant, it'll take me ages to make a decision. But in film, it's just this kind of total instinct that you're going in instinct. And yeah, it's true, and you were never really here, I just started shooting. And everyone was running because the first day, people are just getting up to speed and it's a bit slower, and I think that really broke the ice between us, Joachim and I, because he loves moving fast as well. He's not even like hanging around too much. And I think he started laughing when I was, he was like joking right, we're shooting now. I was like, yeah, we're going. Literally turned up, got out of the car, set the camera up and started shooting. And even the same people were running and, you know, like what the heck's going on, we're just shooting. Normally, we're just literally turned up and starting shooting. But I think that really made our relationship quite special because he saw the way I was working and I saw the way he was working and it really was one of the most special times I've ever had being an actor because over the period of the film, it just became a bond. It was like a real bond. It was like a real, I think, mutual respect, you know. Or a way of working that we both were similar. Yeah. Yeah. Because I met you first when you wore one of my suits to the backers and you told me you'd had a T-shirt when you were a teenager, I think saying whatever. Yeah. And was fashion a thing in your household? Well, yeah, it was actually. I mean, I had two sisters and I used to like to make things, you know. My mum was a cleaner, you know, so, but she would take us out every month, one of us, and then buy us an outfit. Wow. But I used to do things like find bandages and made a hat out of them wrapped around my head or went and missed self-rejies and bought a bikini bottom and made it into a hat, you know. With an elastic band and just do these kind of well thing or send away for Doc Martens or, you know, I would tie-dye stuff with my brother's airfix paints, you know, and put them in the bath and then make, you know, put T-shirts on top of them and stuff like that to make patterns. Yeah, that's so cool. Then my mum would go absolutely crazy because the bath was all covered with oil paint, you know. So, but I got quite a lot of memories, like sending away for the first Doc Martens, you couldn't get them in Glasgow. Seeing, there was a style for a while in Glasgow, which was kind of copies of Burberry-type trench coats. And I remember begging my mum to please get me one of these, then we eventually went and I went with my older sister as well, who always saw me as this little kid. She's like, you can't get her that. And I came back with ankle socks and a pair of sandals, crying my eyes out that I'd never got this Burberry-type trench coat. But my mum would do things like she would buy. And maybe she bought me this. We went together, but like a mint green miniskirt. I was a mod for a while, like when I was about 11 or then I was into ska and stuff. And it was a mint green miniskirt with a kind of Mary Quaunt plastic belt, with the circle. And then there's this strange shirt that went with it, was multi-coloured, almost like a Hawaiian shirt. And me being the coolest at the disco and, you know, in my little moored outfit. And then, so my mum was really kind in that way that she would like make sure you were treated down again, even if she didn't have a lot of money, you know. Because my dad was away a lot and he was like, you know, I mean, she was really making ends meet as much as she could. But she still made this time to treat us all. But I used to look quite different. At one point I changed my style at school and I used to use to borrow my older sisters clothes and she'd like leather trousers and things like that. The 80s were baggy leather trousers and things like that. And she'd go crazy. But then I discovered alternative music and I was into the Smiths and stuff like that. And the Cure and the Human League and you know, and I ended up shaving all my hair at the back and making it a perm. Like it looked like a kind of 1920s bob and made in black plimsoes and kickback skirts. And you know, just have a more style really. And people at school going, you used to look so good looking at you. You look terrible now, you know. Because I had my own thing going down, you know. But I just, it wasn't a school you wore a uniform on. So I used to be really event of about what I was wearing or fighting things or, you know, just making the best of what we had but making it something different or whatever. So the hat making went on for a while. Yeah. And how was your transition from girlhood to woman? Was your mum supportive of you during that phase or who in your family looked out for you while you were going through that? Oh, good. Well, it was, I mean, it wasn't my sisters because everyone was always fighting over clothes or something, you know. And I was a set of hierarchy. So it's probably my mum more or less, you know. And probably music played a big part. My brother used to listen, he listened to Pink Floyd and B-52s and things like that. And I used to, really music made a big impression, you know. And my dad was really into music as well, which was great. But I think my mum was, I was the most close to really, yeah. She used to laugh at some of the things that outfits I'd wear. Yeah. But she thought it was, I know she thought I was inventive because I'd come, you know, I'd start some fashion at school or something, you know. Like people would laugh at me then before, you know, there was people wearing the same thing. That's so satisfying. And your short film, Gas Man, won a BAFTA and it starred your brother James, who later committed suicide. What was he like? Oh, he was beautiful, super sensitive. He was never quite of this world. He was always super sensitive. And I remember he had this collection of budged eggs. So he was stealing the eggs from the nest, which is pretty terrible, but he had these desks where they were full of straw and they were all labelled in this beautiful copper plate, right, and all the different eggs. And then one time he blew, you could make a hole, would you make to get the egg, you know. Yeah. So he blew it out, he blew the yolk out. There was a tiny little chick. And he started crying and he never did it again. Because I think before he'd never encountered that. But he looked like, I mean, a young denier or really, you know, with very blue eyes. He was very charismatic when he filmed. He's in quite a lot of my films. But just picked up on lives from people. He was a real sensitive soul, and I think he just couldn't really cope with the world in the end. You know, it was like, you know, when people are empaths, you know. And I think you have to be to a degree to do what we do as well. And you need to be empathetic. You need to get the temperature of people or a room. And he just had that, like, to an extraordinary degree, you know. And it certainly has helped me as a filmmaker just to read people and be sensitive and stuff. But I think it brought him a lot of pain in the end, you know. He kind of filled people's pain. Yeah, too much. Yeah, too much. It was just too much. He was almost thought... He was almost like... It wasn't really meant to be here, you know. I, you know... So I really, really miss him. But, yeah, just an extraordinary person, extraordinary intelligence. Had these issues and things with drugs and different things. But I was trying always to get out of that and, you know... get sucked into a bit of the Glasgow heroin scene when it... Because it was a really crazy time where there were so many people that were dying. And half the people I know from school, like, are dead because of heroin. Yeah, it was a real epidemic. Yeah, it was a super epidemic and AIDS as well. Because of shared needles, you know. So it was quite a dark time, to be honest. They get sucked into that. I don't, you know... I often wondered if I'd been a heroin addict if it hadn't been for him. Because I remember as a child I was sketching them. And he looked like he'd fallen asleep. But he'd actually overdosed. I started turning blue and I didn't know what to do. So I asked that my instinct was to walk him. And I'm walking down the street in this little housing scheme with my brother on my back, basically. And people are going, hello, but they're not doing anything. It was so kind of like, I don't want to be like that, you know. And so in a way he saved my life, you know. Because everybody was doing it, everybody. Yeah, he was, I must say, he was a brilliant actor. And I mean, he's such a... He's so beautiful in gasman. It's so powerful and moving. Yeah, I mean, in a different life, I think he's been a really, really major actor. He was in gangs in New York and he was in a few K-loach films. But he just was lost to drugs and lost to this kind of sensitivity that was almost too much for him, you know. Yeah, because when I was thinking about, because you've talked about him a lot and thinking how... Oh, I think you would have loved him, yeah. Yeah, I think so. And how you survived and he didn't. Yeah. That's so interesting. Yeah, I think about him often, actually. Yeah. But yeah, there was this time in my youth that was basically, you know... I mean, Irving Welsh gets it pretty right. There was a time that was just like, it was this epidemic, you know. And a lot of people just... Young people died. So I suppose like back, you know, during my teenage years, I was that kind of hanging over the whole city as well, you know. Because also you've said, people have said you have a reputation for being difficult and you've actually gone through some really difficult times and do you think that accusation is something more easily leveled at women rather than men directors? Yeah, I mean, I think I said that in a flippant kind of manner and they made it the headline, you know, like people love to do stuff like that. Yeah. It's actually been quite a nice interview and I'm actually probably one of the least difficult filmmakers to work with. I mean, I love my crew. I love the actors. I tend to like what they make it quite a nice, tight and enjoyable place to be. But yeah, I think to the latter part of your question, it's like, if you're single-minded and if you... You know, to be a director, it's in the job description really, you know. Like, you have to be directing, you know. Yeah. You need to have a point of view. You need to know what you want to do. And I think sometimes I've heard stories which would make your toes curl about something a guy's done. Yeah. And yeah, it's all like, oh well, he's a genius, you know. So I think maybe there is more pressure in women, you know, or it's still the ren that's been frowned upon to be a director. You know, it's a half... Yeah, it is a bit of a... A guy who just can't handle, you know, women being in control to me. It's like being in a relationship like that sometimes, you know. I mean, when you read about Francis Ford Coppola, an easy riders-raging bull, the making of Apocalypse Now, which is one of my favourite films ever. Oh, I love it. I mean, it's so insane the things that... Yeah, I can't imagine the women getting away with some of the stuff, you know. It's something like having spaghetti bolognese flown over from America to the Philippines. Yeah, yeah, you know, that would just be insane. It's super insulting, you know. But I mean, I think times are changing, but not as much as you think, you know. Not as quickly as they should be, you know. Cos actors love to work with you and you've worked with some incredible people, you know, apart from Joaquin Phoenix and Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek and Tilda Swinton and then most recently Jennifer Lawrence. And how do you cast your films? I think it's again, it's through meeting people really. I've never cast anything on Zoom. I mean, some people do that now, and I just don't understand that at all. I think it's meeting people, feeling what the vibe is like between you. Jennifer got in touch with me. She was very cool speaking to me, emailing me, Zoomed, and we spoke about it for a year, you know. And then Joaquin, I spoke to him over the telephone when I was in Greece and he now claims that he understood about like 10% of what I was saying and that's why he agreed. But I don't know, that, I mean, it never happens overnight, it takes a while, you know. Tilda, you know, she really loved what she did with Kevin. I thought maybe Eva, the main character in Kevin, should be a more everyday woman where Tilda's quite extraordinary. Yeah, she sure is. But actually then she took me for lunch or dinner or something like that and she goes, no, I'll tell you why, you know. She should be extraordinary because everyone's going to notice her, you know. And I thought that's a bloody good point, you know, and plus she's amazing. And so she said, she wanted to do that, you know. She almost took me by the scarf of the neck a little bit and was like, no, let's do this together, you know. Yeah, she does that, doesn't she? Yeah, no, she's a get a willpower and a determination and I really love working with her. You know, we'd love to work with her again and I'm fine as well with the actors. I spoke to Samantha Morton this morning. Samantha Morton. Samantha Morton, you know, he was in Morvyn Cattler and we were just talking about maybe talking about another film again next week, you know, she's got an idea and she wants to meet up, you know. But we're still being in contact since I was 26, you know. Really? Yeah, I've known her so long and I still speak to Wickey, but still speak to Jennifer and Robert, you know. Actually, oh, Sissy's basic an emailer, she's expect the one from them. So I tell you, keep in touch with the people I've worked with and enjoyed working with. Joyce C. Riley as well, he was amazing. So I'm kind of in touch with them all, you know. Because you have such a close relationship when you make a film, it's a bond, you know. And I think we've made some special work together. Yeah. I mean, there's such a strong feeling of intimacy in your films. It's hard to imagine sort of just forgetting that and moving on to the... Yeah, films are very weird. You spend this amount of time with people and it's very intense. That's why a lot of people have affairs on film sets. It's so intense. And then when it gets to the end, it's almost like, you're almost still really blue, you know. You feel really like, oh my gosh, is that it? You know, because you've been so welded together for this intense period of time. Yeah. I always get quite sad at the end of film shoots. God, I can imagine. Even if I'm really tired, hoping it will finish, you know. It's often said that creative people are not the best at managing business. We may know what we want, but we don't always know how to get it done. This is where I use Claude. Not to have ideas for me, but to help me navigate the administrative tedium of bringing my ideas to life. My inbox is full of unread emails. This is my system for reminding myself of things left to do. Claude looks at my inbox and my calendar and tells me what needs my attention and what can safely be ignored. Before meetings, Claude reads long email threads so I don't have to pretend I can remember everything. Claude helps me keep track of what I said I'd do, what I've already done and what everyone else has quietly forgotten. And when I'm working on a project, I can give Claude some context. And it helps me sort through my ideas and prioritize the order of things. To me, Claude feels less like a tool and more like an authoritative ally. I can spend more time thinking, listening and making decisions and less time managing chaos. Try it for yourself at www.claude.ai.com What is fashion neurosis? Is the edit process like a very slow comeback? So you can re-engage and then start to shape it and start to detach from the emotional intensity? Yeah, I guess so. Editing is really where you're making the movie. It's as close to the direction as you can get, like editors are. But there's so many avenues you can take. It's a real conundrum and sometimes even after an edit you'll get the idea after later. Because a lot of the time it's thinking time. It's not about the doing time. Once you know what you're doing, you can do that pretty quickly. But often it's just watching the rushes and considering the material and really, really thinking. So sometimes I felt like I wanted more time for that. And sometimes I felt like I had great edits and sometimes I have terrible edits because maybe the financier didn't like the cuts or whatever. But it's quite a crazy process and funnily enough I just reconnected with the first editor I've ever worked with who had done rat capture in Morven Caller, Lucia Soeketi. And she looks quite nearby. Honestly, it was like as if we'd never left each other because she's like my best friend as well. And that became a bit hard working together. Sometimes work with your best friend can be great and terrible at the same time. But you know what? She needs her just jail and bond and I really, really want to do my next film with her. Because we've got a rhythm, she's very different from me. And I think it made me really happy again to reconnect with her. But the editing is a really strange process because I often think maybe a year later I'll go, shit, I should have done that. Or that's why I didn't edit or I should have reshotted. And I've never reshot anything, that's the thing. I mean a lot of people get the, you know, the... That's quite normal. Luxury reshooting, but I've never had that. So I'm always like thinking in my feet doing it as quickly as I can. Yeah. But yeah, sometimes you think you miss something or sometimes you get an idea much later in the day. But you've just got to... They're all like babies, you know. You're still thinking about them years later, it's strange, you know. You're still thinking about how you could have done this maybe differently, you know. But you also, you know, into the next one. And how do you make someone attractive in a film? Well, sometimes I make them unattractive. But in a way that's attractive, I think. I mean, for instance, Jennifer Lawrence is rolling, you know, Die My Love. You're like, you don't know how she's going to react from one time to another, you know. And she can be like, she can say things that are so off the cuff that it could seem, you know. She could be unlikable for that, you know, or she could just seem totally out there. But she's always got this humour and this beauty that brings you back, you know. There's an honesty in it, you know. And an honesty in her character that I think brings you back to her, you know. So I mean, I always work with flawed characters. I think I've ever made a film that doesn't have flawed characters in it, you know. And you're very involved in the music in your films and you can write songs and sing. And in Die My Love, your new film, you actually sing the last track, Love Will Terrorist Apart. Yeah. And did you ever think of being in a band before you became a filmmaker? Oh, because I'd much rather been a band. I can imagine. I really would. You know, it would be a hell of a lot. But funnily enough, I've been talking to Bobby Glespie recently about maybe, you know, doing some stuff together, you know. Because he saw the film and he liked it. I wrote some lyrics for another song and he recorded it and it was really sweet of him, you know. I really like writing songs because they're much faster than films, you know. I mean, the Love Will Terrorist Apart cover just came out of me singing it down the phone. Really? Maybe we used something like that. But I didn't think it would be in the movie and I still probably would change it because I've had my way, you know. Like, the music supervisor, Rafe Bertul, at the time, was like, this is brilliant, this is brilliant. But also, like, there was a cover of Jennifer singing The Beast and Me that I liked as well. Oh, wow. So I still like to revisit things in the music. But yeah, I do love music. You know, and I think maybe when I was younger, I was just maybe not hanging around with the right people or to shite you being a band. But I think now I would definitely like to write songs for other people. Yeah, it's a lot quicker than making a movie. It's like a polaroid. It's like a polaroid. You know, doing a polaroid instead of like doing a 10-8 camera photograph, you know. So I love that. That's spontaneous. You're really good at it. I remember you calling me up once and saying, I've written a song for you. Bella, Bella, I don't need a fella because I've got Bella. Oh my God, I completely forgot to vote on those ladies. I've never forgotten that. Oh, that is so funny. So good. Yeah, okay, put the world together, you know. That's so great. That's so nice of you. Because in Die, My Love, Jennifer Lawrence plays a woman spiraling sort of after she's had a baby. Yeah. Some kind of postpartum psychosis and she's got this little baby and you think is something going to, you know, is she going to harm this child? And she's actually a really protective mother. It keeps you in this understanding of and sympathy of her deterioration and so you don't withdraw your loyalty to her character. Yeah. How did you know how far you could go with that portrait? Well, it was a difficult one, you know, definitely like, it's based on a book by a writer called Danyana Hardwich. It was quite a surreal novel, but also at times you were thinking, did I really want to go with this main character because she's so out there? But also the one thing that was so powerful and I thought made it super special and I think that's what Scorsese saw in it as well, was that you never felt that you were apologizing for this character. Yeah. Or it over-expletely, you know, that the she was never the victim, you know. And I loved that. And also that she was, she was a bit of a punk herself. Like she'd say the things that you really want to say, you know, but, you know, for fear, don't say them, you know. She was, there was a kind of authenticity and honesty to this character as well within her madness. Yeah. Which I thought was really extraordinary and I hadn't seen them film before. And so the closest we thought was maybe A Woman Under the Influence or something like that, which is an extraordinary film. But she really, I think, Jennifer really humanized Grace so much with humour. Yeah. She's just a natural comedian. She's naturally, her timing of things is funny and, you know, if ever we cut that film, there's, again, I've got, or I should put some extras in that film and stuff, there's some crazy stuff, you know. Even before she throws herself through that glass plate window, there's a bit of her dancing, you know, and it's just brilliant, you know. And I often think there's just so many moments of humour. Yeah. That I still love to interject, you know, when I'm at 80 and I'm recutting things, you know. So, you see, you know. But she just brought, she was on it, in it. We'd spoken about it before and she just was there. It's the same as Joaquin, you know. He came two months before the shoot. Right. Yeah, like sometimes actors turned up the day before. But he came two months before the shoot and I was like, oh my God, I haven't even recut the locations. I was terrified, to be honest. But the more and more we talked and the more and more we got it and the more and more he got me, you know. Yeah. I think it was first the first time he made me really thought, oh my God, she's such, you know, like, like, this is such a dumb conversation. I was like, I didn't know what he said to him. I was like, quite intimidated by him. And I was like, are you left handed or are you right handed? He's like, da, you know. But there's a great questions. They're quite sort of grounding questions that you can answer them. Yeah, but he's probably thinking what they make, you know. Yeah. But we've, we ended up living like a couple of like, like a block away from each other in New York. And I'm running around in the middle of the night with a computer going, hey, I've got this idea, you know, and he had ideas as well. Yeah. And it just made it brilliant. I mean, it was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had working with an actor, working with him, you know, because he brought a lot, you know. But I think if you've done a lot of prep with an actor, then you really can, the shootings, the gathering of material that you don't need to start directing them, they do millions of different things because you've already just really made that happen in prep, you know. And that's certainly how I felt with Jennifer. We talked about in prep, and she just was on it. She was in single takes, you know. So I didn't need to say, I don't do it differently because she was there, you know. So because of that, maybe it's sporting about it. Yeah, she was absolutely amazing. I mean, but I mean, I've heard you talk about ideas and, you know, something very simple and suddenly you've made it into this, you know, when you use this word kaleidoscope and you do that and you have these, all these other visions for how it could be done and what you could do with it. And it's when you, when you were like bringing up working in the middle of the night, did he just love that? Yeah, he's the kind of weirdo that would be up in the middle of the night anyway. No, he, yeah, he did actually. I think he loves dedication. You know, he's super dedicated. He's super, you know, not many actors are going to come that early. He has to be in it. So he, I think that made us bond a lot, you know, because he knew that I was, you know, it was in both of us were thinking about it all the time, you know. God, so much fun. Yeah. There's a great picture of you wearing white socks with black patent Mary Jane shoes. And how do you like to dress for the red carpet? Well, I think you've got to feel comfortable, you know, like you've got to feel you. And sometimes, you know, people can give you clothes and yeah, but that doesn't mean you need to wear them, you know, you have to, I think, I mean, there was one time I was voted worst dressed at BAFTA. There's someone who appeared with a purple dress like they said they were going to make me a dress and I felt obligated to wear it. And it just wasn't nice on me, you know, and I had a very waste of dress. It was much like lovelier, you know. And so as well as not winning the BAFTA that night, my mum got getting sick at the BAFTAs and then I'm not getting on with my mother-in-law kind of type, you know. Then I was voted worst dressed as well. So it was a pretty bad night. But from then on, and I thought I'll never ever wear anything that anybody just, you know, for obligation, you know. And I always feel much more comfortable wearing what I like to wear, what looks good to me. I went to the Golden Globes recently and I wore a $15, like, you know, net skirt with a corset under it, you know, and then a kimono underneath it. And then this beautiful Prada coat, you know. So I mixed it up and made it my own, you know. And so to me, it's like finding that just something you really like, you know, and that was a real lesson after being, you know, wearing something that was so hideous on me, you know. Yeah. And I felt that I should wear it because a lot of the time I think people are getting clothes and they feel that they've got to wear them. Yeah. Or that they're, it's part of that designer or whatever. But I always kind of try and subvert it and make it mine. It's so important because when you wear something wrong, you never forget it. It's the thing you remember. Yeah. I find your whole life wearing those, that thing and it haunts you. It's so, it's like someone's put a spell on you almost. Yeah, it was the hideous thing I wore because I felt I should do. And I was a bit, I was quite young, you know, so it was, and I knew that someone had went to the trouble of making this dress, but it was hideous and I should never have worn it. And I'm never, never going to do that ever again. Yeah. So I think it's about not just that it has to be a designer thing or anything like that. I like things I find, you know, finding portable market, you know, or the coolest things are mixing up a bit, you know. Yeah. But I've got my own style and I think that's the one time I went against it and yeah, I was voted worst dress at the BAFTAs. God. And so I just do have an idea. One of the worst dresses. And if you fancy someone and don't like something they're wearing, does it kill your attraction? It can do a bit. I mean, there's a guy I quite like, you know, but he's very proper, you know, where's like three piece suits and stuff like that. Maybe he's too proper, you know. You know, but I don't know if it totally kills it, but if it's, yeah, it depends, you know, if they're wearing really terrible shoes or something like that, probably. I know that sounds extremely showable that I'd probably think. I'm gonna quit. You don't if you get good taste or not, you know. What's wrong with the three piece suit? Is it the, is it the suit? Oh, I love three piece suits. Yeah. I absolutely love three piece suits. It's just, it's almost too buttoned up. He's a business guy. So it's like probably made somewhere really beautiful, you know, like handmade and stuff, but he's a bit buttoned up. Yes. He's a bit of a business guy. Where as someone else, we have three piece suit can really do it because I love three. I actually love them and I love them. I mean, I love your three piece suits and I just love suits, you know, but he's somehow he seems like a business guy. He's almost too tight, too buttoned up. He's a bit unless you're sort of like Jimmy or something. or something, you know, like, you know, lanky and sort of languid. Yeah. So almost it's been made in German mainstream, you know, in German. Yeah. Yeah. But she's beautiful. I love that, you know, but yeah, maybe too buttoned up, you know, because he is a business guy, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm intrigued. I'll tell you later. And if you're feeling low, are there certain clothes that make you feel better? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Colour. I love colour, you know. I've got this coat recently and it's like, you know, one of those, it's like, you know, cobalt blue, or polk-clay blue, or, you know, and just that colour, it just makes me, you know, especially when it were yellow or red. Wow. It just is such, it makes me happy. Yeah. Like colour can really make me happy. And also, I think feeling, not feeling too buttoned up as well, like feeling, you know, like you can chill out in clothes. It's nice, you know. I love pajamas. Yeah. I like pajama fan. Yeah. Do you find that the colourfulness in the clothes kind of brings up your mood? Oh, for sure. Definitely. I love mixing colours. I love, you know, when you have a, like a clashing colour sometimes, I just, I just really like that. I love colours and paints, like Kandinsky and, you know, like, you know, just colours that jump, you know, leap sometimes. They just make me feel happier, you know. I do think colour just can lift you so much, you know. Yeah. I like to disappear into black at any chance, really. No, but black can be great as well. Yeah. Disappearing into black can be fantastic. I disappeared into black for many years and then I thought, oh, colour, a light colour. So maybe it just works to shoot that time. Yeah, it's true. I feel like disappearing into black again soon because I went through a mad colour phase, you know. Black is the best colour, really, isn't it? Well, yeah. I mean, black is it, you know, which I mean. Wrap up in black, you know. And Martin Scorsese was a producer on Die My Love. How did that come about? Well, he'd read the book before I had and then I didn't know that actually. And then he's saying to E. Jane if you're in St. Louis, I think you might, this is interesting for you. Then she thought about director and thought I'd be interesting for it. And so it was in Martin Scorsese's book club. I didn't know Martin Scorsese had a book club and I'd like to be part of his book club to be quite frank. But now he's an extraordinary man. He's so amazing. He's shooting right now with Jennifer, actually. Really? Yeah. He's making a film right now with Jennifer and Leonardo DiCaprio in Poland, you know. I know a lot of the crew in it. But you know, just what a warm, amazing guy, so knowledgeable. And so, you know, it was, he just thought I was a good fit and she thought I was a good fit. You know, the conversations we ever had were like, you know, where he could be helpful or, you know, where he wanted, we thought if I, if I had a good fit, if I could ask him anything, you know. But he never intruded at all upon my process. I said, just was like, it's a real cool film. And what did you ask him? I asked him things like, do you think that scene works or whatever? And he was like, yeah, I mean, he was really, he wasn't in my fate, you know, if I felt a little bit of doubt about something, I would ask him something. But at the same time, I think he thought it worked, you know, so he was never like, you should do this or you should do that. Not that kind of guy at all. You know, he's a really respectful filmmaker. You know, and I saw that he really liked Joanne. I saw the Souvenir 2 the other day, it was like, I hadn't seen that. Yeah, it's great. But he's a real supporter of Joanne Hogg as well. And it was really nice to see that film and see what he likes about her, what her work's really interest as well. I really liked it, you know. And so just the support of presence, really, you know, and amazing filmmaker, you're like pinching yourself when you meet them, thinking, God, I'm just hanging out with Scorsese, you know. I just watched this five part series by made by Rebecca Miller. I've seen that. Is it called Mr. Scorsese? Yes. It's absolutely tremendous. It's so exciting. It's really stayed with me. It's like going to university of just about having kind of refining your ideas and having confidence and exploring. Totally. Super inspiring. So interesting. And all his all his ups and downs and yeah, he's so human, you know, he's so human when he's being. I personally identify with so much of it. And I find it totally enthralling watching that. Yeah. Because like it's a he's shown the really unvarnished way is even if you're Martin Scorsese make movies and it's hardcore, you know, it's hardcore and you come across all this stuff you've got to deal with that shit that hits a fan, you know, and you, you know, it was just really inspiring seeing the him, even if you think it's Martin Scorsese, he's had all this stuff that he's had to cope with. Yeah. It was fascinating. Did he give you leave you with anything that you've kind of carried with you? I don't know just to be that gracious, you know, to another filmmaker. He's got true grace, you know, and also how you know, he's in his 80s and he's still, he's so energetic and he's so talented. And that's not going away anywhere soon, you know, and it was just an inspiration of thinking, you know, I don't need to retire and keep going. Look at Agnes Varda. Yeah. Look at Martin Scorsese, you know, like, you know, it's that it's one of those professions that it's a vocation, you know, really. It's life. Yeah, it's life, you know, and it's something that makes me feel quite happy about that. Yeah, I completely agree. Rather than think, you know, here's the end of the, you know, your job or something, and this is what you do now, you know, that this is not like that, you know. No, my diapers are like that. I feel gratitude for that. Yeah. Yeah. I feel that's, that's how I want to go out. Me too. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lynn Ramsey, for being on Fashion Neurosis. You're a great inspiration to me and you always have been and a great friend. And thank you so much. Thank you, Bella Freud. Yeah. That was really, really lovely and very relaxing. Thank you. Thanks again to Anthropic, the team behind Claude for supporting this show. Claude is the AI for people who want a thinking partner, people who aren't satisfied with good enough, but instead, want to understand the why of the thing more than just getting a simple answer. If that sounds like you, you can try Claude for free at Claude.ai slash fashion neurosis.