One Battle After Another - Behind the Scenes

Paul Thomas Anderson, more than anything, I think, you know, he's a filmmaker that as a writer-director has been such a unique and profound voice of his generation and one of the great filmmakers of his time. There's just so few filmmakers that have, you know, an unexpected way of tackling different subjects and there's always such a mystery and intrigue and there's the element of the unknown with his characters and his stories that makes you want to continue watching his work. So he brought this film to me and it was something he was working on for 10 years and I simply jumped at the opportunity to be able to collaborate with him and work with him. Three words. Paul Thomas Anderson. I mean, really. So Paul Thomas Anderson says, hey, I got a script, I got a part that I want you to play. You don't read it. I didn't read it. I showed up at El Paso and said, hey, what are we doing? Okay, let's do it. The freedom with which he wrote and writes was exciting and it has a lot of shifts in tone, great characters all the way down the line. It was a page turner. I think I called Paul right away and said, you know, where do I go? I could say it was an action, I could say it was a comedy, I could say it was a drama, all three and it still wouldn't, but I'd almost, I'd have to specifically say it's a PTA film because, you know, his storytelling is so unique and there's a stamp that you just know a PTA film. Even though it's big and full of action and stunts and there's explosions, there's all kinds of action movie stuff, but all through it, it's Paul exploring that human condition and that's at the core of the film and I think that's what makes it a little bit different. The comedy I think comes from like, oh my god, this is really real. Whatever I did in my past is really coming back to haunt me and I'm now in what seems like a James Bond movie, but I am not capable or well equipped whatsoever to deal with the opposition in any way and that creates a very comedic element that I think just comes naturally. I don't think it was something that we tried to force. My character kind of kicks into full gear when we see these dark forces from his past come back to get him and the one thing that he's trying to protect most dearly and that's his daughter. I think she represents the future and the hope and, you know, Bob loves her very much. I mean, Willa hasn't, she has a lot that she has to learn in a very short amount of time and she kind of holds her own in this world. That relationship between Leo's character and Chase's character, it's the heart of the film. She really took command of this character. We really needed somebody that could encapsulate the innocence of her generation, the cynicism of what they think of their parents, the world that they live in and yet be strong and powerful and do this incredible transformation that she has to make in this movie where that innocence is then lost. Paul did not want us to meet early on and that goes to the relationship. So I didn't meet her for a long time but I did see until we started working together. But I would see her on set sometimes and I saw her in dailies and I just thought, how did he find someone so perfect for this? This whole cast was really, you know, made me very happy to be around. Yeah, he is an arch villain but he brought a humanity to it and an incredible insecurity, you know, a needing to belong to something. The humanity that Sean was able to bring to this and that's as a result of what a great actor he is, is very unique in the realm of arch villains. My boy Leonardo DiCaprio. Oh my God, Bob is my favorite. That's my ghetto pet. He's so amazing and, you know, he's such a leader. Like, Leo, Leo is a leader. He really is because even in between those takes we go and practice, we go and study and we have dialogue about it. I think that's what really makes it funny between him and Puffidia, like their dynamic and their relationship. Puffidia is just Puffidia. She's crazy and has no filter in her own right and then Bob has no filter in his own right and I just think them together is like the most oddest but like cutest pair. Like it's just something in there with them. Puffidia is just a girl who is in survival mode and I think being in survival mode is a scary place. When you're in survival mode, trust issues is out the door, you know what I'm saying? So it's like she's complicated but it's still something that you empathize with. All of their performances were so dynamic and individual and powerful. Leo's character was so mesmerizing that it was hard to take my eyes off of him but yet there's another powerful performance with, you know, Teyana Taylor or Regina Hall or, you know, Chase Infinity. You know, I can go on and on and on. Everybody's got such a powerful role that, you know, you don't want to miss anything. You know, PTA film is like that. Like you can watch it 10 times, you know, you watch it 100 times and you're going to get a different experience every time and that's, you know, that's the math. That's why, you know, that's why he's got such, you know, a following is because the experiences you get out of his movies are just, you know, they're second to none. It's just fun to work with someone like Leo who's a great actor but also funny because I get to sit front row and enjoy it. You know, I get to see him do it. I get to sit there and really receive it and really kind of like have a blast doing it, you know. That was part of my job was to really enjoy Leo being funny and that's a good job to have. I've always wanted to work with Benicio for so long. He came in, you know, kind of halfway through the film when we kind of already established this world yet he didn't have a rehearsal time because he was off shooting another movie and as soon as he came in, he just brought an intensity but a reality of who this man was. I've seen the movie several times and while it's not, you know, this is not like a comedy per se, it's its own animal. Sometimes even in the most torturous stuff, I just find it such a giggle because it's a view through an original mind and I think that we're not used to, we don't see enough of that in the movies. I suspect everyone enjoys that to really be trusted with something fresh. The action sequences are really bold but done in a way that is, again, in a Paul Thomas Anderson fashion that is very unexpected. It's not your traditional action. He propels you with a tension that starts from the beginning and lasts throughout the entirety of this movie. There's not a second that you can kind of take a breath. So it's still like it's action but it's a PTA version of action, right? So it's still through that lens, you know, that his filmmaking lens but the scope of that feels big. The scenes, how they're caught, it's certainly bigger than it read on paper. I told Paul, I said, you know, you read it and it says car chase, chaos, TBD. Then you get on set and you're like, wait, we're going to actually be weaving through cars. I was interested in how he was going to approach action and like everything else, it will have an originality. It's not going to be a copycat of one thing or another. It feels like family, you know, and not only am I alongside Paul, but Paul's alongside people he's been working with for decades, you know, so you already know it feels like home. But I love his balance of like his toughness, his love and his warmth. And it just, it feels really good to work with him. What is freedom for this character is what Paul kept on bringing up and that is to not have any fear. Then, Serge, I need to review, let's review the cameras. We're going to, the order of rolling and speed. You're the first one, right?