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Back to One, Episode 141: Delroy Lindo
There are several moments in Delroy Lindo’s performance as Paul in Da 5 Bloods where I believe the voiceless (Black solders who never came back from Vietnam?) speak through him. Sure that might be hooey, but the very idea that I believe it says something about his incredible work in Spike Lee’s celebrated Netflix film. On this episode, I ask Lindo to break down the filming of the gripping monologue that is the centerpiece of that performance, and about his initial apprehension and ultimate acceptance of the MAGA aspect of Paul’s character. He takes us back to his first formative […]
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Back to One, Episode 140: Christina Anthony
Christina Anthony plays Denise on the ABC series Mixed-ish. She generously gives us a fascinating inside look at working on a sitcom from the point of view of an actor who is totally new to the process. She tells the story of sitting at a table read 90 minutes after being cast on the show following years of struggling through more than 100 fruitless pilot auditions, talks about how her Chicago theater roots still pay dividends in her work, getting used to the idea of rotating directors, knowing when to speak up about issues with the script, and how she’s […]
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“The Ceilings were Only 8 1/2 Feet High”: DP Tami Reiker on Shooting One Night in Miami with Jibs and Finishing Production after COVID
In February of 1964, Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston at the Miami Beach Convention Hall to become the heavyweight champion of the world at the age of 22. He spent the night celebrating with Malcolm X, Jim Brown and Sam Cooke. Within two weeks of the fight, Clay announced his membership in the Nation of Islam and changed his name. Within a year, both Cooke and Malcolm X were shot dead. By the summer of 1966, Brown had retired from football at the age of 30. Based on the 2013 play by Kemp Powers, One Night in Miami offers a fictitious […]
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Back to One, Episode 139: Tom Noonan
As the annual Sundance Film Festival begins again this week, legendary actor/director Tom Noonan takes us back 27 years to a very different Sundance, where his film What Happened Was… won the Grand Jury Prize. It’s the ultimate “actor’s film,” just two people, Noonan and the incredible Karen Sillas, in one room, real time, on a first date like no other. He talks about the circumstances that led him to Sillas, the extensive rehearsal process they had, the production, and the ups and downs of its ultimately triumphant reception. Plus Noonan tells the story of the first big lesson that […]
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“IMAX Cameras are Sewing Machines—They are So Loud”: DP Matthew Jensen on Wonder Woman 1984
“You still can’t beat reality,” says Matthew Jensen. That may seem like an incongruous proclamation from the cinematographer of a $200 million superhero spectacle that concludes with a flying goddess facing off against a half human/half cheetah. But instead of simply shooting the film’s opening Amazon Olympics flashback in a greenscreen wonderland, Jensen headed to Spain’s Canary Islands and put 10-year-old actress Lilly Aspell (as a young Diana Prince) on horseback on an IMAX-rigged process trailer. Instead of digitally returning a gutted Virginia mall to all its 1980s glory, the Wonder Woman team rebuilt more than 60 period stores. And for […]
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Back to One, Episode 138: Nicole Beharie
Some actors go through a transformation to the point where the word “performance” feels inadequate. “Embodiment” is more apt. Nicole Beharie transforms into Turquoise Jones in Channing Godfrey People’s film Miss Juneteenth. It’s a wonder to behold. On this episode, she talks about the immersive preparation work that went into her Gotham Award-winning performance, how the opportunity to take her time and “own the space” affected her work in a deep way, and the substitutions necessary to create the motherly bond so central to the film. Plus we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of unanswered questions in a performance, and […]
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“Backwards Continuity is Not a Category, Is It?”: Script Supervisor Steve Gehrke on Tenet
In the world of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, people from the future have figured out how to reverse the entropy of people and objects, making them “time inverted.” Effect precedes cause for inverted objects and people. Inverted bullets return from bullet holes and swirl back into the barrel of the guns that fired them, a fight between an inverted soldier and a soldier operating on regular time looks like a freak-puppet show, and reverse speech sounds like the dream speak from the Red Room in Twin Peaks. All someone has to do to swap their inversion status is enter a turnstile […]
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Filmmaker‘s 20 Most Popular New Posts of 2020
To rhyme with the year, I’ve expanded this year’s roundup of our most popular posts, as determined by Google Analytics, from 10 to 20. It’s full of both expected entries — our 25 New Faces scores highly every year — as well as a few surprises. It also shows the dominance of TV and streaming, or perhaps the ’20 decline in theatrical exhibition. So many of the articles on this list — which aren’t “a best of the year,” although many are indeed that — are the ones that intersected best with search analytics, caught viral waves, or rode along […]
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“We Don’t Find Shots, We Build Them”: DP Erik Messerschmidt on Mank, Lens Flare Painting and Native Black and White
In 1941, a 25-year-old Orson Welles made one of cinema’s most auspicious debuts by directing, co-writing, starring in and producing Citizen Kane. With Mank—David Fincher’s look at the evolution of Kane’s screenplay—cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt makes an impressive feature bow of his own. After working his way up through the ranks of grip and electric and earning DP credits on the shows Legion, Mindhunter and Fargo, Messerschmidt’s very first fiction feature has landed him in the midst of Oscar conversation. With Mank now streaming on Netflix, Messerschmidt spoke with Filmmaker about deep focus, high ISOs and painting in lens flares; and how even […]
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Back to One, Episode 137: Nat Wolff
The only thing that makes this a “Special Holiday Episode” of Back To One is a brief mention of Hanukkah, but the talented Nat Wolff brings plenty of joy to make up for it. He talks about playing Lloyd Henreid in the new version of The Stand on CBS All Access, and one scene in particular that worried him until an 11th hour “cloak of inspiration” fell upon him in the form of a song. I ask about his directorial debut, a short called Youngest that just might be the film that has affected me the most of all the […]
