Part of that could be the actors or actresses transitioning into what the adult actors and actresses actually do in terms of having a style. Kind of growing pains type thing.
SM: Yeah, I meant there is something kind of just intrinsically natural about the age Onata was. We auditioned a lot of kids and we did kind of find that six year olds were less self conscious, and more open and natural without trying. It’s just part of the way they are, they’re just less concerned about making mistakes, or trying to do something right, they’re just more themselves. But Onata, even in a universe of six-year-olds who are that way, Onata is a very special six-year-old.
It definitely shone through in the film, I felt.
SM: Well thank you very much, we really love her and think she did a great job for us.
How important with a book like this, as opposed to film adaptations where it’s fantasy or there are complicated backstories and stuff like that, how important is staying true to the book in this situation? Or is storytelling the number one priority, and if you stay true to the book that’s more of a nice side effect?
DS: It’s so far from the book that staying true to the book isn’t really– well, it’s just such a loose adaptation. Our feeling in general about book adaptations is, whatever it is that you’re trying to do with the story, that’s the most important thing to stay true to, not necessarily exactly what the plot is. And also, of course, that’s the thing that you’re trying to do. A movie and a book are so completely different – with books you have narrators, it’s just told so completely differently, like with finding analogous ways to get into the heads of characters cinematically. It’s a whole different world of storytelling.
SM: You know in our case, the book was adapted into a screenplay, and you might say the screenplay then was adapted into a film. And that’s a whole process too – we’re not trying to put a screenplay on the screen, we’re trying to tell a story, and the screenplay’s a tool to do that. And you know, the screenplay’s inspiring, and there’s a feeling that the screenplay generates in us as an audience of the screenplay, and if that’s moving then we try and capture that same feeling for the finished film, but staying true to the screenplay isn’t the goal.
The music selection in the film was extremely fitting, especially the last half hour of the movie I felt was beautifully done. I was wondering when you guys go to pick music, first of all is that your choice — I assume so — and how is the final choice made?
SM: In this case we worked with a music supervisor, a guy called Chris Douridas, who is a pretty well known DJ in Los Angeles who’s been involved with quite a few movies at this point. When consulting with him about what we were looking for, he introduced us to some ideas. The process working with the composer was very collaborative, and we talked to him about what we wanted for the movie, which was to kind of capture something that would feel like Maisie’s experience in the music. We wanted the music to feel like it expressed her vocabulary somehow, and came from her. The composer’s name is Nick Urata, a really talented guy and very intuitive in his approach, but he generated some beautiful music for us. He would give us first sketches, and then we’d listen to it, and put it up to picture, and make changes or ask for things to be different, like to start and end in different places or emphasize different feelings, and he was very responsive that way.
You guys not being musicians yourselves, if he’s responsive to your descriptions and feedback I imagine that must be very helpful.
SM: Yeah it is, and that’s kind of the case always when you’re directing a film, I mean you’re working with people who are experts in their field, and we don’t see it as our job to know what they do, so much as to know what we need from them. If we can describe that, then they’re the experts who can figure out how to get that for us, that kind of feeling that we’re looking for.
It’s funny because I actually interviewed Destin Cretton recently, and he said something similar about working with actors. He said that when he was younger he used to always try and micromanage to the point that he would tell actors what faces to make at certain times, but he eventually realized that it’s their expertise to act.
SM: Right, right. You know, it’s the director’s job really to be the first audience, to say “we’re trying to express this in a scene, and it’s not coming through yet,” and try and help the actors find a way to give us what we’re looking for, just by telling them what’s coming through and what isn’t.
To me, Maisie came across as an extremely strong character, and throughout the film she doesn’t even cry I don’t think until when she’s at the restaurant employee’s house and she wakes up.
DS: That’s right.
And she cries just one tear, which I thought was incredible that she hadn’t even cried up until that point. Was that intentionally an impactful moment in the film? How did you determine how she was going to react to all the craziness she’s dealing with in general?
DS: Yeah, that was an important moment, that’s sort of the fulcrum, and the moment that Margot realizes she’s got to take stronger action and take Masie away in a sense. We just talked a lot about what the level of upset ought to be. If the breakdown is too big, or if it seems too emotionally turgid, we sort of felt like the viewer would never really be able to forgive the parents. You’ve got to be able to get to the end of the movie and have some degree of redemption for the Julianne Moore character at the end.
Yeah, and in terms of having some sense of the audience not just hating the parents completely, I thought that Lincoln’s character was kind of the opposite. There are almost no moments where you dislike him, even at the moment when he maybe should have broke, when he sees Susanna with another man, all he really says is “I’m done,” and he doesn’t say anything Maisie shouldn’t hear, whereas pretty much all of the other characters are saying thing she shouldn’t hear throughout the whole film.
DS: Yeah… because Alexander is so pure at heart, we just couldn’t bear to put it in his mouth. [Laughs]
Alright guys, I think I’m all out, but I really enjoyed the film and I appreciate you taking the time.
SM: Thanks a lot, good talking to ya.
DS: Nice, very nice talking to you.
What Maisie Knew is out on Blu-Ray now, so be sure to pick up a copy, and a big thanks once again to Scott McGehee and David Siegel for taking that time to chat with us.
