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“It’s Like an Invitation To Be Human”: Corsage Star Vicky Krieps (Back To One, Episode 233)
The last time Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread, Bergman Island) was on this podcast (episode 174), we learned about how she approaches the work through a kind of “emptying out” of herself, and a “deconstruction” of everything in her obit, even her preconceptions regarding the role. This time she’s back to talk about her astounding work in Marie Kreutzer’s film Corsage, an imaginative re-telling (or perhaps a “correcting?”) of a year in the life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Krieps talks about treating the work as an invitation to play, how dealing with the coldness of the character had an effect on relationships outside of […]
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“The Only Goal Is To Be Lost”: Andrea Riseborough on To Leslie (Back To One Episode 232)
The first time Andrea Riseborough was on the podcast (episode 100), we got a chance to hear how this incredible actor approaches her craft. On this episode, we get to focus on her astounding work in the new movie To Leslie. She talks about the interesting ways shooting on film in the middle of the pandemic affected everything, why working on her character’s alcoholism would have been a disaster, finding a touchstone with director Michael Morris in Barbara Loden’s Wanda, taking the objective “to just exist” from Mike Leigh, seeing constrains as freedoms, the importance of keeping your integrity, and […]
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“All These Mythologies, They Don’t Really Help Me”: Marc Maron (Back to One, Episode 231)
Marc Maron is a stand-up comedy veteran and the host of the popular WTF podcast. As a screen actor, he cut his teeth playing a version of himself in the series Maron. Lately the Netflix series Glow and Lynn Shelton’s Sword of Trust put more of his range on display. And now he delivers the epitome of “supporting” performance in the incredible new film To Leslie, opposite Andrea Riseborough. On this episode, he talks about his apprehension with accepting the role, his impatience with the process of acting in general, the importance of making himself emotionally available in his scenes, […]
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“Every Change I Make is Then Turned into a Budget and an Invoice”: Editor Mike Sale on Black Adam
Your first feature film credit is a memorable experience for anyone who grew up loving movies, but for editor Mike Sale, ACE, that inaugural gig was particularly indelible. Sale made his cinematic debut on the infamous trading card-to-movie adaptation of The Garbage Pail Kids. “It was like a film school—the Garbage Pail Kids film school,” laughed Sale. “It was a fascinating learning experience and I had a lot to learn back then. Just seeing that kind of movie come together was incredible for a young person who had never made a movie before.” Sale graduated from Garbage Pail Kids film […]
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Back to One, Episode 22: Grace Van Patten
You may know Grace Van Patten from Nine Perfect Strangers, Under The Silver Lake, or Tramps. I first took note of her in The Meyerowitz Stories, where her youth belied a seemingly effortless command of her character among the likes of Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, and Dustin Hoffman. In her latest, the hit Hulu series Tell Me Lies, she stars as Lucy Albright, and now she commands the screen with the same effortlessness, mixed with a complexity and nuance that is compelling viewers who are begging for a second season. On this episode, she breaks down one important scene from […]
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“Either It Blows Up or It Doesn’t”: DP Eliot Rockett on Pearl
Despite their dissimilar filmographies, I have great affection for both the arthouse friendly A24 and the drive-in exploitation of American International Pictures. That’s why I’m such a sucker for the story behind the making of A24’s Pearl, which follows AIP’s old philosophy that if you’re going to go to the trouble of hauling a cast and crew out to a remote location, you might as well make two pictures while you’re there. Pearl began life in a New Zealand hotel room in October of 2020. While in a government-mandated two-week quarantine ahead of making the 1970s-set horror film X, writer/director […]
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“I Go There While I Go There, and Then I Try to Divorce My Spirit From It”: Black Bird Star Paul Walter Hauser (Back To One, Episode 228)
Paul Walter Hauser is that rare character actor who has made a name for himself as a stellar talent in both comedy and drama equally. He established himself in films like BlacKkKlansman and I, Tanya, but playing Richard Jewell in Clint Eastwood’s film put him on the map. Now he’s wowing audiences and critics alike with his incredible performance as serial killer Larry Hall in the Apple+ limited series Black Bird. On this episode, he lifts the hood and lets us peek in on his acting process. He explains why his first step is all about self amusement, how mundane details help to […]
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All Along the Parking Lot Watchtower: DP Alex Disenhof on The Rings of Power
Conventional wisdom says not to start with anything particularly difficult on the first few set ups of a new project. Start simple and let the crew acclimate to each other as they begin the process of finding the rhythm that will carry them through the long days and nights ahead. However, schedules don’t always allow you to ease into things. Sometimes, as cinematographer Alex Disenhof discovered on Amazon Studios’s The Rings of Power, you spend day one on a 14,000-foot mountaintop accessible only by helicopter. “Our first two days of shooting were on Mount Kidd, which is on [New Zealand’s] […]
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“I Have to Tell Them the Truth, I Don’t Have a Choice”: Sarah Jones on Sell/Buy/Date (Back To One, Episode 227)
Renowned as “a one-woman global village,” Sarah Jones is a Tony Award-winning solo performer, writer, comedian and activist. Her directorial debut, Sell/Buy/Date, is a hybrid documentary/meta film which features Jones and four of her characters (all played by her) on a journey across the country to listen to real people telling personal stories about their experiences that land them on both sides of various aspects of the complex topic of sex work in America. On this episode, she talks about overcoming the many obstacles and controversies to bring this important film to life, how trusting in collaborators like cinematographer Joshua […]
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Back To One Episode 226, Special Episode: Writing As Acting (A Scriptnotes Segment)
On a special episode of Back To One, I’m sharing a segment from a recent episode of the popular screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes called “Writing As Acting.” In it, screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin “analyze what lessons writers can learn from acting techniques (such as staying present) and working with actors (like staying open).” When I first heard this segment, I desperately wanted to share it with Back To One listeners because I thought it was very enlightening, and maybe even healing, to hear creatives on the other side of the camera talk thoughtfully, and with sensitivity, about the process […]
