Richard Linklater has cast his next film, ‘Blue Moon’.
Ethan Hawke, Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott are all aboard.
Linklater will film in Dublin, Ireland this summer.
While some directors would be content to rest on their laurels after a successful recent release (the Glen Powell-starring Netflix smash ‘Hit Man’), that really isn’t Richard Linklater’s style.
He already has ‘Nouvelle Vague’, about the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Breathless’ in the editing stage and is also still shooting footage for his decades-in-the-making film version of musical ‘Merrily We Roll Along’).
Deadline reports that the busy filmmaker has secured backing for his next movie, ‘Blue Moon’, which follows the highs and lows of a real-life songwriting partnership and has locked in an interesting cast.
Written by Robert Kaplow, author of the novel ‘Me and Orson Welles’ (which inspired the Linklater film of the same name), ‘Blue Moon’ profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart –– who wrote ‘Blue Moon’ itself.
The movie is set primarily in New York’s Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of ‘Oklahoma!’, which marked Richard Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.
Who will appear in ‘Blue Moon’?
Ethan Hawke stars in ‘The Black Phone,’ directed by Scott Derrickson and opening in theaters on June 24th.
Linklater has rounded up quite the cast for this one, which will be anchored by his ninth collaboration with Ethan Hawke.
(L to R) Adria Arjona as Madison, director and co-writer Richard Linkletter, co-writer Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, and director of photography Shane F. Kelly. Photo: Brian Rondel / Courtesy of Netflix.Cr. Brian Rondel / Courtesy of Netflix.
Sony Pictures Classics will be financing the film after developing it for the past few months, with parent company Sony distributing it around the world. Linklater is aboard to produce alongside Mike Blizzard and longtime manager John Sloss.
This was the official statement from Sony Pictures Classics:
“Almost a year ago, Rick, Ethan, and John reached out to us with Robert Kaplow’s amazing script ‘Blue Moon’. Helping them over the following months to bring it together has been incredibly exciting and now, on the verge of production, with this fantastic cast and crew in place and Rick at the helm, we are thrilled to finally announce it and bring the film to audiences everywhere in the world.”
Here’s what Linklater had to say:
“Robert, Ethan, and I have been developing this story for over a decade and are excited and grateful that the time has come to bring this to life.”
There is no release date for ‘Blue Moon’ just yet.
(L to R) Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, director Richard Linklater and Sanjay Rao for ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
Premiering in 2023 at the Venice and Toronto film festivals before being scooped up by Netflix for a reported $20 million, ‘Hit Man’ – kind of like the recent ‘Challengers,’ but very different – is a breath of fresh air: an adult-oriented genre mash-up of rom-com, crime thriller and comedy that’s all the more astounding because it’s partially based on a true story.
Directed by Richard Linklater (‘School of Rock’) with a verve that’s been missing from some of his recent work, and starring Glen Powell in another star-making turn as a humdrum academic who rediscovers his passion and confidence by pretending to be a smoldering assassin, ‘Hit Man’ is smart, sensual, character-driven, and highly entertaining.
Story and Direction
(L to R) Adria Arjona as Madison, director and co-writer Richard Linkletter, co-writer Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, and director of photography Shane F. Kelly. Photo: Brian Rondel / Courtesy of Netflix.
‘Hit Man’ is based partially on an article of the same name, written by Skip Hollingsworth, that appeared in Texas Monthly magazine in 2001. It told the story of Gary Johnson, a college professor who moonlighted with the New Orleans police department first as a surveillance tech and then as an undercover agent himself, part of a sting operation set up to nab people looking to hire a hitman to off someone who had become an irritant in their lives.
What Johnson discovered is also what his screen counterpart, played by Glen Powell, discovers: that he has a genuine knack for not just undercover work, but inhabiting different personalities according to what he thinks the target will respond to. As the film begins, Johnson – lonely, divorced, boring his students and, whether he wants to admit it or not, boring himself – is thrust into his first undercover role when the usual front man, Jasper (a slippery Austin Amelio), is benched after beating on some alleged perps. Much to his surprise, Gary gets into the ‘tough guy’ persona he comes up with on the spot – and the head of his team (Retta) is pleased enough to recommend he keep doing it.
As Gary moves forward, he begins donning different costumes for each sting: in one of the movie’s funniest ongoing gags, they reference everyone from Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman in ‘American Psycho’ to Javier Bardem’s Anton Chigurh from ‘No Country for Old Men.’ But while disguised as a cool, suave, and yes, sexy assassin named Ron (Ron wears black tank tops under shirts open halfway down his chest, his hair swept back, while Gary dresses in flannels, khakis, and glasses, his hair flopping over his face), Gary meets a woman named Madison (Adria Arjona), who is looking to have her abusive husband killed.
Gary, as “Ron,” talks Madison out of going forward with her plan, surprising both himself and the members of his team listening in. But no one is more surprised than Gary when he – or rather, “Ron” – reconnects with a newly-separated Madison and begins a steamy relationship with her. From that point on, the story takes multiple twists, and no one – least of all Gary, who is finding it increasingly difficult to figure out where he ends and “Ron” begins – is exactly what they seem.
Linklater directs all this with a sure hand, confident in the material, the characters, and his actors but adding a little flash here and there with a comic montage or two. What works best about ‘Hit Man’ is its unpredictability: the movie shifts from romance to crime caper to psychological exploration without ever feeling like it’s taken too jarring a turn, which is a credit again both to the balancing of tone in both Linklater’s direction and the script by him and Powell.
There is perhaps one false note at the end of the picture – a bit of moral ambiguity that is not quite resolved – but in the final analysis, it works within the context of the rest of the story and, if anything, adds a nice touch of subversion to a movie that already lightly subverts some well-worn genre tropes.
Glen Powell has obviously been around for a minute (he’s worked with Linklater several times already), but his breakout work in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ and his leading man turn in last year’s ‘Anyone But You’ has positioned him as one of Hollywood’s next big things. Frankly, he deserves it: ‘Hit Man’ features Powell at his most winning, with Gary a complex, compelling, and attractive protagonist who is empathetic and believable from the get-go even as his personal situation becomes more trying. His evolution from nerdy, existentially fuzzy Gary to confident, even swaggering Ron – and then fusing the two from there – is organic and expertly portrayed.
He and Adria Arjona have instant, off-the-chart chemistry from the start, an ingredient that helps make their love scenes in ‘Hit Man’ more sensual than some of the other screen romance we’ve seen in recent times. We last saw Arjona in a thankless role in 2022’s forgettable ‘Morbius,’ and here she’s much more alluring, sparkling, and funnier. But the character of Madison is somewhat undercooked: she goes from a relationship in which she has absolutely no agency to one in which…she kind of has no agency, waiting in her apartment for “Ron” to come around so they can get busy. There are some subtle reveals to the character later that help flesh Madison out, but she doesn’t come quite as fully to life as Gary.
The supporting cast is gold, led by Retta as the no-nonsense Claudette and Austin Amelio as the calculating, untrustworthy Jasper. And let’s not forget to mention the parade of suspects that Gary gets locked up through the sting operation – sure, some of them are no more than easily recognizable archetypes, but they each get a funny moment or two.
Light and sure on its feet, ‘Hit Man’ also touches on some heavy questions: Who are we and how many different layers are there to our personalities? Are we really the best version of ourselves and if not, how do we get there? These musings are sprinkled liberally through the film, but the philosophical underpinnings don’t slow down what is still essentially a romp, bolstered by well-drawn characters and a powerhouse lead turn. If a movie like ‘Hit Man’ finds it harder to exist in movie theaters, the industry is truly having an existential crisis of its own.
‘Hit Man’ receives 8 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Hit Man’?
New Orleans college professor Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) moonlights for the police department as a fake hitman, using multiple disguises to catch people looking to have someone in their lives killed off. But after he talks a beautiful woman (Adria Arjona) out of ordering a hit on her husband — while disguised as a smoldering hitman named Ron — Gary gets caught in an identity crisis that leads him to wonder just who he really is.
(L to R) Retta, Adria Arjona, Glen Powell and director Richard Linklater for ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
‘Hit Man’ is a new comic thriller coming to Netflix on June 7th after a limited theatrical run on May 24th. Directed by Richard Linklater (‘Boyhood’) and co-written by Linklater and star Glen Powell (‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ ‘Anyone But You’), the film is based on a 2001 Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth about a man named Gary Johnson, a New Orleans college professor who moonlights with the Big Easy’s police department as a surveillance tech expert.
In the film, as in real life, the unassuming Johnson (Powell) is working with a team of detectives conducting a sting operation to catch people who want to hire a hitman to kill a spouse, business partner, or anyone else they want to get rid of. When Johnson must suddenly pose as the fake hitman, he discovers he has a knack for it – as well as a talent for disguising himself as a different type of person for every potential customer.
But while posing as a suave, cool, and sexy assassin named Ron, Gary meets a woman named Madison (Adria Arjona, ‘Andor’), who wants to off her abusive husband. “Ron” talks her out of it, and soon he and Madison begin an affair of their own — with Madison not knowing who “Ron” really is — while Gary finds himself entangled in an escalating combination of identity crisis and deception.
Co-starring Retta (‘Parks and Recreation’), Austin Amelio (‘The Walking Dead’), and Sanjay Rao, ‘Hit Man’ is a crackling, inspired mix of noir, crime thriller, and rom-com that’s hard to pin down to one genre and even more difficult to believe is based on a real person. Powell, Linklater, Arjona, and Retta all recently participated in an online press conference for the film, and here are 10 things we learned there, edited for clarity and length.
1. Glen Powell Discovered the Story During The Pandemic
Glen Powell stars in ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
Glen Powell says it was early in the pandemic when he first discovered the true story of Gary Johnson and was fascinated by it.
Glen Powell: Immediately, it was so clear there was such a compelling character there. If you look at the real-life Gary Johnson, he was a psychology professor who actually moonlighted with the police department, did AV equipment, was an ornithologist, Zen Buddhist. It was just such an incredible character piece, but I didn’t really know where it went. All I knew is that there was a fascinating guy here, and they called him the Laurence Olivier of fake hitmen because he approached the job differently. Instead of just becoming the hitman for hire across from someone who is trying to kill their husband or their wife or their business partner, he embodied their fantasy of what a fake hitman is, because hitmen don’t exist. So he took this skillset to a whole new level and started putting on these disguises and all these different things. It was just a fascinating idea…So I called up Rick and I said, I just read this amazing article called ‘Hit Man.’ And Rick said, “Yeah, I read that article when you were in 7th grade.”
2. Powell Helped Linklater Crack the Story of ‘Hit Man’
(L to R) Adria Arjona as Madison, director and co-writer Richard Linkletter, co-writer Glen Powell as Gary Johnson, and director of photography Shane F. Kelly. Photo: Brian Rondel / Courtesy of Netflix.
Richard Linklater says he had been thinking about making a movie out of ‘Hit Man’ for years but that working with Glen Powell finally unlocked the story.
Richard Linklater: I was so excited to get this call from Glen because that story had been kicking around in my head. I had talked to Skip, I had had a couple of meetings on it over the years, but it didn’t really work. It didn’t really work as a film because there was this repetition. It didn’t really go anywhere. So I told this to Glen [and] he said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it.” I was like, “Oh, wow, it’s the pandemic. What else are we going to do?” So talk we did, every day for a while. We would just have hours of conversations. And Glen kind of loosened the logjam I was in. He said, “Well, what if we deviate? Why do we have to stick to the facts?” So once that floodgate opened, we were off to the races. We just started having these great ideas, and the last two thirds of the movie kind of comes out of that. The genres kick in and it becomes this thrill ride. But it was grounded in Gary Johnson’s life reality…[he] was a real person, [with] a real job, the strangest occupation anyone could ever have.
3. One Paragraph in the ‘Hit Man’ Article Became Half the Movie
In the movie, Gary Johnson meets with a woman who wants to put out a hit on her abusive husband. Gary, disguised as a suave assassin named Ron, talks her out of it, persuading her to take control of her life instead. The two later begin their own relationship, which drives the second half of the film.
Glen Powell: The story wasn’t revealing itself in a natural way, but then there was this paragraph about this woman that the real-life Gary Johnson sat down with. She was approaching him to get him to kill her husband. And instead of sending her to jail like he did with everybody else, he didn’t believe that she was capable of this thing. He sort of believed in the best of her and talked her out of it. It was the first time that ever happened, and there was a relationship that developed from that. But all of a sudden the article just sort of moves on, and Rick and I were like, well, what if we pull at that thread? We have so many questions about what that relationship is and how they reengaged with each other. Did he stay as the fake hitman? So really that was a big breaking point because that was when we started thinking about, [what] if he got stuck in this identity as this fake hitman?
4. Not Just Another Femme Fatale
Adria Arjona stars in ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
Adria Arjona’s character, Madison, reveals more layers to her personality as the film goes on, which is something Arjona wanted to happen.
Adria Arjona: She’s a woman that’s coming from a traumatic relationship, this weird kind of dark relationship, and she’s desperate for reinvention. I think we all do that in life, where we’re all always trying to find sort of a different version of ourselves. She’s sort of playing that. She’s kind of looking at Ron and going, what would Ron like? What would a bad boy like Ron want in a woman? So I don’t see Madison as a femme fatale. I see a woman trying to play the illusion of a femme fatale. That was really fun to play with. I just had so much fun crafting that with them, and it felt a little bit more grounded. That was something that I could do. I wasn’t interested in just being the femme fatale.
5. Retta Didn’t Find Out She Had Her Role For, Like, Forever
Retta stars in ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
The ‘Parks and Recreation’ star auditioned for the role of Claudette, leader of the undercover New Orleans police sting operation for which Gary first does surveillance and then acts as a fake hitman.
Retta: I got an audition from my agent and I was like, oh, it’s Rick and Glen. I didn’t know Glen wrote. So I was like, “Look at you, fancy.” So I put myself on tape and didn’t hear anything for a long time. Then Glen and I happened to be at [a party] and Glen is talking to me as if I was hired. He was like, “We’re going to make that movie. We’re going to have so much fun.” I was like, “Dude, did I get the job?” I literally went home that night and texted my manager and I was like, did someone not email me to let me know that I booked this gig? But I know Glen from 10 years ago; we did a movie together [‘Sex Ed’]. I know Rick from 20 years ago; we did a pilot together. So I know them personality-wise, and I was like, “Oh, this is going to be a very calm environment.”
6. How Retta’s Role Changed From Claude to Claudette
As is often the case, the role of Claudette was supposed to be a man (Claude), but Retta took it over with few changes and not a lot of research.
Retta: It was written originally as a guy. So I just chose to be me if I were a detective. Those are the choices that I made. I was me saying those lines as a detective in that space. It wasn’t much more than that. I didn’t study anything. We met some detectives that told us how things go, but that was about it for me. I don’t watch a lot of true crime. I listened to some podcasts and they used to scare me, so I stopped. I like to problem-solve. So that’s why I was like, I feel like he said this, so I feel like we need to do that.
7. Richard Linklater Was Very Happy to Work With Glen Powell Again
(L to R) Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, director Richard Linklater and Sanjay Rao for ‘Hit Man’. Photo: Netflix.
Richard Linklater previously directed Glen Powell in 2016’s ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ with the latter playing Walt “Finn” Finnegan.
Richard Linklater: Kind of the greatest thing about getting to do this over the years and decades is when you work with someone you like and if the planets align, you get to work with ’em again. It’s just wonderful. With Glen, I think our big breakthrough was 10 years ago we were shooting ‘Everybody Wants Some!!’ Glen came in and auditioned. I had a part that I thought would be very difficult to cast. He’s an athlete, yet he’s really smart and charming, and he’s kind of the team intellectual. I was like, oh, this is a small little target, who’s going to do this? I’d known Glen for about 10 years at this time. I’d worked with him when he was young, like a high school kid…But he walked in the room and was this guy. I was like, when did Glen become so amazing? He’s so smart. He’s so charming. I was just seeing this force of nature. I was like, oh my God, he solved my problem. I got my guy to play this thing. But we had such a great creative time on that…when he called me with this, it was off to the races creatively, because he is just fun to work with. He’s funny and smart and a great collaborator.
8. Glen Powell to Richard Linklater: Right Back Atcha, Pal!
Glen Powell explains why he enjoys collaborating with Linklater and would like to keep it going.
Glen Powell: The wonderful thing about writing with Rick is that your conversations become wonderful pages and friendship and work blend together in this kind of effortless way. It’s what I think makes him magical as a filmmaker. He’s never attacking a story. He sort of lets the story reveal itself. And when he casts people, he really allows them to come into the process. There’s sort of this wonderful room for life that he gives everything. I think it makes that ecosystem very different and very fruitful. So I’d love to keep doing this till our fingers just freeze up on the keyboard.
During one crucial, showstopping scene late in the movie, Gary (Powell) guides Madison (Arjona) through a fake argument by texting her what to say and how to act, even as the other members of his police team are listening to them talk.
Adria Arjona: We spoke about that scene so much between the three of us. It was that scene that we just never gave up on. There were so many different iterations of how we might do it… So when we first heard that first “action,” all of a sudden I start seeing Glen kind of guide me through this scene in such a seamless way. My job really was to follow his lead as much as I could. It was one of those scenes where we didn’t stop looking at each other. I looked at every gesture that he did, and it triggered something in me. So I feel like it’s a scene where teamwork was so important and so crucial. I don’t think I’ve done that before in any movie. You aspire to be the best listener you can. I mean, that’s what acting is all about. But everyone has their own motives. You’re playing your own characters. For this scene, we had to be symbiotic for it to work. It was also so much fun.
10. What a Surprise: The Studios Didn’t Get ‘Hit Man’
According to Powell, no Hollywood studios were interested in backing ‘Hit Man.’ The movie was financed and filmed independently, then played at the Venice and Toronto film festivals in 2023 – with Netflix purchasing it at the latter for a reported $20 million.
Glen Powell: We took this movie out and no one got it. We took this script out. We were so proud of it. We were so excited about what it said about identity and passion. We thought it was so universal and exciting. It was going to be an audience movie. And then it was just crickets. No one got it. Nobody responded to it because I don’t think it fits into one box. We were trying to do something original, and I think the town always wanted it to be something else. I think what I’m just really proud of is we got to make this movie independently, and make the movie that we wanted to make. It doesn’t subscribe to any genre. It doesn’t fit into any box. I think the reason it’s a really great audience movie, and the reason people are responding to it, is you can’t get out in front of it. You can’t predict it because it’s all the things.
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What is the plot of ‘Hit Man’?
A part-time staffer (Glen Powell) with the New Orleans Police Department stumbles into the role of posing undercover as a reliable hitman with the goal of arresting those trying to hire him. He discovers he has a talent for theatrically matching the expectations of his suspects with often-humorous costumes, accents, and mannerisms, which makes him especially adept at his work. He meets with a woman (Adria Arjona) who wants a hitman to kill her husband, but he falls for her at first sight and saves her from getting entrapped. Later she bamboozles her way into his life and murders her husband for the insurance money. The story explores how far will a person go for infatuation, love, and personal happiness.
The project sounds like an interesting one, not to mention a huge undertaking. Like the musical, it would follow characters over two decades. Linklater, who has ample experience working with actors over many years, is said to intend to shoot it over an extended time period.
The musical — itself based on George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s play of the same name — centers on Franklin Shepard, a Broadway musical composer who left his friends and songwriting ambitions behind to produce Hollywood movies. It moves backward, showing the moments and decisions that altered his path. In order to capture the many years the story covers, Linklater will shoot in reverse chronological order, Collider’s sources say.
Platt’s character is reportedly Shepard, while Feldstein will portray Mary Flynn, his close friend and a film critic. The two both appeared in “The Female Brain,” and each has a series on the way. Platt will star in “The Politican” on Netflix, while Feldstein has a main role in “American Crime Story: Impeachment.” Recent films for him include “Drunk Parents” and “Run This Town,” and hers include “Booksmart” and “Lady Bird.”
For now, we’d better get used to waiting for this movie, because it sounds like it won’t be released for a long, long time.
Troian Bellisario, star of Richard Linklater‘s new comedic drama “Where’d You Go Bernadette” joins our own Ms. Moviefone at the the art studio to celebrate one of the central themes of the film — artists must channel their creativity… or else. Watch below to see Troian discuss auditions gone wrong, what it’s like to hit a mark on a kayak, and mostly how she interprets the still life that includes a fox named Stixy Renard.
“Where’d You Go Bernadette” is in theaters everywhere starting tonight.
Looking for relief from the summer’s never-ending onslaught of superheroes, strongmen and animated birds? Well, director Richard Linklater has you covered. The filmmaker behind “Dazed and Confused,” “Boyhood” and “Before Midnight,” has something frothy and wonderful up his sleeve in “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” a slick adaptation of the best-seller by Maria Semple about a woman (Cate Blanchett), who becomes stifled with her suburban life and strikes out on her own, in the biggest way possible.
It’s another charming left turn from the American auteur and the kind of thoughtful, performance-driven piece that you expect around Oscar season, not in the dog days of summer.
So you can imagine how thrilled we were to talk about the process of adapting the book (which took a very long time), what it was like working with such a legendary actress, whether or not he’d want to do a horror movie, and what he thought of his bud Quentin Tarantino’s very Linklater-esque “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”
Moviefone: What drew you to this project initially?
Richard Linklater: It was just Maria Semple’s book, you know? It was an exhilarating read. Bernadette’s such a fascinating character — so complex. I just felt the book was about a lot of things, it gets its hooks in you.
You were announced for the project so long ago.
It’s been quite a journey, that’s for sure. It’s been a number of years. Cate Blanchett and I were just talking yesterday. It was like, “When we first had breakfast about this, it was coming up on five years.” That tells you something about, from the time we had both read the book and what the journey would entail. And the film itself, the postproduction journey took longer to edit than usual. There was a lot of story there. I think that adaptation process continued, but I was super happy with it. It’s just complex. It took longer than, than you expect. Everything about it was a little trickier than usual for me.
What was so tricky about it and how did you get it into shape in post-production?
It was just an extra layer of production. We had to literally go to the end of the earth and shoot this. We couldn’t actually shoot in Antarctica at times, because if it’s winter down there, they don’t even let you. So we shot early, we shot when it was summer down there, and then we had those plates we used and when we shot it in the North Pole with them around the icebergs. It was a bit of a visual trick, like most movies putting it all together, but that’s just technical. The psychological trick was probably the tougher one. Just like, what was this movie really about? Is Bernadette crazy? Is she normal and the world’s crazy? That was the fun part.
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How essential was Cate Blanchett to this whole process?
I don’t think you have a movie without Cate. I can’t imagine anyone else really.
If you were talking about this five years ago, what was her insight and input as you went along?
Well Cate to me is the dream, just the ideal collaborator. She works so hard, there’s a reason she’s Cate Blanchett. Genius is k hard to quantify and hard to talk about, but it’s easy to know when you see it. So she’s got that. What I liked about her that I can talk about is her work ethic. She really wanted to rehearse, really always digging in. There was always say and think about. We had a great time. I really loved working with her. I can’t put it any other way.
Is a move with this much plot challenging in a way?
Well, movies or stories are different to varying degrees. Even in my most hangout movies, there’s usually a clock ticking of some kind or there’s something driving that. And in this case we’re just revealing more and more about Bernadette and heating up these forces against her. At the one hand, she’s being characterized in a way and that’s reaching a boil that’s going affect her life. On the other hand, she’s sort of rediscovering her calling and that’s coming too, so there’s this big train wreck in the intervention scene, which to me is like a mini horror film. And she’s very right to jump out that window. Then she proceeds on her mystical journey to the Antarctica. She’s been drawn there, so that’s definitely the right track for her.
Is there a parallel between architecture and filmmaking?
Absolutely. I can’t think of another art form that’s closer to filmmaking than architecture. The director and the architecs are similar. You’re designing and all that but there’s still a lot of people to collaborate with before you have a finished building or a finished movie. There’s a lot can go wrong between that thing on paper and the final thing. It’s pretty heady. And also I think on another level, more of an anxiety, vulnerability level, I know a lot of architects who have designed some really cool buildings that never got built. They even made a little cool model of them but never got built. Sort of, I’ve written a lot scripts that haven’t been made. I mean, no songwriter wrote a song that didn’t get written. They wrote it, they played it, it might not become a hit or get big distribution, but they got to do it. The writers got to write, the painter got to paint. I’m not talking where it went from there, but the architect doesn’t get to build the building, sometimes. It stays on a drawing board or in a little model. For a filmmaker, it stays there. And that in itself is incomplete, that’s not the end. The plans are the beginning, not the anything unto themselves. I always felt that way about scripts. It’s just merely the jumping off point.
“Where’d You Go Bernadette” feels like new territory for you, tonally and genre-wise. Is there a genre that you haven’t done that you would like to do? You talked about the, the intervention sequence being sort of a horror movie. Would you like to do a full-on horror movie?
Yeah. But whatever that means. I’d like to do my horror movie, but I just don’t usually think in that those terms. So I don’t know if I’ll ever have a horror movie that interests me enough, that I can wrap my head around. Jarmusch just did his zombie movie, which is pretty interesting. He attacks each genre in some wonderful way. So I admire that. I don’t know. I think I’m less of a genre guy. What genre is “Bernadette” even?
It’s a big-time literary adaptation, which they don’t do that often.
Before e leave I was wondering if you had seen the new Quentin Tarantino movie, because it struck me as the most Linklater-y non-Linklater movie I think I’ve seen.
Oh yeah. can’t tell you how much I love that movie and it’s true. Quentin has pulled off the miraculous. He has made the biggest budget hangout movie of all time. It’s a total triumph.
That’s great that you loved it.
That’s a good observation about Quentin’s movie. I felt the same way but you’re the first person that mentioned that. I’ve known him for years and said, “I’m thinking of doing a hangout movie.” So I think he did his hangout movie.
Did he give you the script or anything?
No, I knew what he was working on. I even visited while he was shooting, but I didn’t know. I kind of knew what he was up to in the abstract. I want to be surprised in the theater, which I certainly was.
“Where’d You Go Bernadette” is in theaters on Friday.
Early last year it was announced that “Where’d You Go Bernadette” director Richard Linklater would make a movie centered around the 1969 moon landing, specifically the lives of those in Houston, Texas, who were working on the project (or at the very least adjacent to it). He’d even asked for people to send in their archival footage from the period, presumably to give the project even more texture and believability. (The Texas Film Commission website asked, “Where were you when we landed on the moon?”) But when speaking about the project earlier this week, Linklater confirmed that the project was no more.
“That one did not get off the launch pad,” Linklater said. “No one was willing to take the big leap or the small step for mankind at that time.” He’s not totally willing to accept defeat, though. “I’ve rejiggered it and I’m going to take another run at it. I’m still very passionate about it. I think it’s going to happen in some form, but you know, I’ve had scripts hang out there for a few years, sometimes 10 years, and eventually the time changes and it’s, ‘Oh yeah. It’s time to get that made,’ you know?” He points to two projects the he completed recently, the “spiritual successor” to “Dazed and Confused,” “Everybody Wants Some!!” and “Last Flag Flying,” as being on the shelf for a while before finally getting the go-ahead.
Still, you can go see a new Richard Linklater movie this week, when “Where’d You Go Bernadette” (featuring another Oscar-worthy Cate Blanchett performance) opens wide.
Richard Linklater remains one of the most acclaimed indie directors in the business, in no small part because of the enduring appeal of his “Before Trilogy.” With the middle chapter in that trilogy, “Before Sunset,” turning 15 years old, now is the perfect time to revisit the roller coaster love story of Jesse and Céline and learn more about the making of these three classic romances.
1. Linklater was inspired to write “Before Sunrise” by a similar experience in his own life, where he spent an evening in Philadelphia walking the city and conversing with a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt he met in a toy shop.
2. Sadly, Linklater only learned in 2010 that Lehrhaupt had died in a motorcycle accident prior to the release of “Before Sunrise.” “Before Midnight” is dedicated in her memory.
Columbia Pictures
3. While Linklater and co-writer Kim Krizan wrote the screenplay for “Before Sunrise” in a mere 11 days, it took nine months to choose Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as the stars.
4. Jesse and Céline are the only two named characters in “Before Sunset.”
Columbia Pictures
5. “Before Sunrise” contains numerous references to author James Joyce and his novel “Ulysses,” which also features a protagonist wandering a European city for a night.
6. Linklater originally envisioned “Before Sunset” as a much more ambitious sequel set in multiple cities. But when he couldn’t acquire the necessary funding, he opted for a smaller and more intimate approach.
Warner Bros.
7. “Before Sunset” features numerous long take Steadicam shots. The longest of these lasts a full 11 minutes.
8. The older couple who converse with Céline outside her apartment in “Before Sunset” are played by Delpy’s parents.
9. Many fans have speculated that Jesse’s frayed relationship with his unseen wife in “Before Sunset” is inspired by Hawke’s marriage to actress Uma Thurman, as the two got divorced around the time of the film’s release. Hawke and Delpy have both acknowledged drawing heavily from their own personal lives when writing their respective characters.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
10. Hawke and Delpy have actually played the Jesse and Céline roles in a total of four films. The two characters also appear in Linklater’s 2001 animated film “Waking Life,” where they muse about the strange nature of dream time.
11. Because “Waking Life” debuted several years before “Before Sunset,” that scene led many fans to assume Jesse and Céline did indeed reunite at the train station. “Before Sunset” proved otherwise, suggesting the “Waking Life” scene never happened or was merely a wistful dream on the part of one of the characters.
The Oscar-winning actress stars in the first trailer for “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,” Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the bestselling novel by Maria Semple.
Blanchett is the titular Seattle woman, who seemingly does have it all — loving husband, brilliant daughter, a successful career as an architect. And then one day, she vanishes, causing her family and friends to band together to figure out where she’s gone.
The trailer gives off a quirky, kooky vibe — perhaps a bit more heartwarmingly madcap than Linklater’s usual fare. He also added his writing touch to the screenplay, so it’ll be interesting to see how his dialogue meshes with whatever was brought over from Semple’s novel.
The movie also stars Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, and Laurence Fishburne. “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” opens in theaters March 22.
Richard Linklater‘s already documented the ’70s, the ’80s, and, of course, ‘the 90s.
Now the “Dazed and Confused” director is setting his sights on the moon landing of 1969. The Austin-based director put out a call on the the Texas Film Commission’s website asking, “Where were you when we landed on the moon?”
Linklater is looking for “home movies and archival images from Houston in the 1960s,” and confirmed to the Houston Chronicle that the film will be told from a child’s point of view.
“The Apollo 11 landing is one of the most significant days in human history,” the call for footage read. “For Houstonians, it’s a day we’ll never forget. The summer of 1969 was an unforgettable chapter in Houston history, and we want to share your memories of that time with the rest of the world.”
Linklater asked: “Have a home movie from Astroworld or the Astrodome, or a recording of your little brother with Kitrik? (Houston TV’s catwoman mascot, not the “World of Warcraft” character.) Did someone you know use a Kinescope to record the moon landing? If so, we want to see it and anything else that documents that era!”
The “Boyhood” director confirmed the project to The Houston Chronicle, saying, “You had so much going on in Houston at once: NASA, the Medical Center, the Astrodome. There was a communal atmosphere. You had all these kids with parents working at NASA for a common goal.”
Surely there’s a role in there somewhere for space enthusiast (and “Apollo 13” star) Tom Hanks.
