TimesTalks ScreenTimes ｜ ＂I, Tonya＂ with Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan and Craig Gillespie

Good evening, everyone. I'm Michelle Gray, the director of programming for the New York Times Live Conversation and Performance Series Times Talks and our new film series, Screen Times, which hosts exclusive screenings of the most anticipated and culturally relevant movies, television shows, documentaries, indies, streaming originals, and more. I'm delighted to welcome you to tonight's post-screening conversation with actors Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan and the film's director, Craig Gillespie, who are here to talk about one of the 20th century's most gripping true life tale and the absurd, irreverent, and piercing portrayal of Harding's life and career in all of its unchecked and checkered glory. Moderating tonight's conversation and all events in our Screen Times series is veteran Times reporter and self-proclaimed film fanatic, Logan Hill. Please join me in giving a very warm welcome to Logan Hill, Sebastian Stan, Craig Gillespie, and Margot Robbie. Thank you. I think you're in that one for you, I think. Is that right? Thank you, everyone. I think they like the movie. I think so. Did you guys like it? I think they like Margot. Yeah. Thank you all for coming. As you know, this is our new series at The Times. This is just six months old and we've been lucky enough to book some of my personal favorite films of the year. And it's just great to be able to share them with you and then to get to talk to such wonderful folks. We thank you for buying the tickets and you're helping us build this series into that tradition we hope is gonna continue. And we thank everybody for logging on to Facebook. Thanks for watching from wherever you are. If you have any questions online, you can put them in the comments and then I'll be interrupted at some point and I will ask them to you. You know, the series has really turned out great. We had Guillermo del Toro here on Monday and backstage I just found out that Margot and Guillermo share a very special connection. We do. So, Guillermo is now the proud owner of my old rat, Rat-Rat. Is Rat-Rat the name of the rat? Yes, very original. I didn't have a lot of time to think of one. Yes, so Rat-Rat was a gift. While I was doing Suicide Squad, I got given Rat-Rat. And then when the homeowners of the house I was renting in Toronto found out that I had a pet rat, eventually they cottoned on eventually and then they said like, either you gotta go or the rat's gotta go. So Rat-Rat then went to Jai Courtney, another actor in the film, and then he got sick of Rat-Rat and then it went to one of the girls that worked in the wardrobe department and then she got sick of Rat-Rat, or Rat-Rat and her cat didn't get along or something like that. And she had just worked on Guillermo's film and so she comes in peak and then she gave it to Guillermo. So as far as I know, Rat-Rat's still like living it up. I was like, Rat-Rat's such like a fame whore. Like he's just gone for like, he was like, oh, sick of you. Jai Courtney, oh, this is fun. Now he's like living in Guillermo del Toro's house in Toronto. Good on him. We'll just have to book the next Times Talk with whoever Guillermo then gives the rat. Yeah, who knows where Rat-Rat is now? Maybe he ditched Guillermo months ago, I don't know. We're really, this is, I'll admit, this is one of those movies, Craig, I saw the logline for this movie, I knew it was coming out, and I thought, is there really a movie there? You know? We've seen the documentary, we know the story, where's the movie in this? Is it gonna be enough? What was it about the script that convinced you this is really good? I mean, I had the same reaction. Yeah? When my agent sent me this script, but he called me and he said, hey, I'm sending you this script about Tonya Harding. And literally I went through this rapid fire response in my head of like, I'm not doing a, I just had done two biopics. Going back and revisiting another one, and I thought this story had been told, and I didn't think there'd be that much to it. And then he finished the sentence, starring Margot Robbie. And I was like, that is just so intriguing. The idea of Margot playing that role, I was just mesmerized by it. I thought, she does drama and she does comedy so well, and does that dance so beautifully. But staying empathetic and caring about her, and not playing up the comedy for the sacrifice of the character, and all the work that I knew her with. I didn't know how she would be doing this necessarily, but I was so intrigued by it. And then I read the script, and it's unbelievably crazy and outrageous, as you guys get a sense. And that combination of her and the script, I was begging for it. It took a while, I had to go and convince Margot, which is a producer on this. And Brian Uncliffe and Tom and Stephen Wright is also a producer, so I met with them all separately, and gave them my pitch. And we all had like-minded ideas for what we wanted to do. As you're producing, I mean you're not just producing films for other people. Like one of the big, you are producing projects for other folks to star in as well. But when you think about the kind of projects you want to make available for yourself to play a role in, are there certain things you're looking for, or are you just kind of looking for good material wherever it comes? Always looking for good material, whether it's something that I could star in or not. But there's some roles that I read, and I feel like honestly I can, sometimes I read it, and I just know that another actress would play it better than I can. And I don't really know how to explain which ones they are, but often my team have been like, why are you passing on this script? It's amazing. I'm like, oh, I know it's amazing. No doubt this will be a successful film, but I know there's someone out there who would actually do a better job than me, and I shouldn't take that role. And it frustrates them, but yeah, so there's some roles that... And then also there's some roles, like this role, to be honest. I was like, I want it so bad. I'm also really, really scared that I can't pull it off. But when I have that feeling, it's like that's the role that I should go for. When I really, really want it, and I'm scared of it as well, then I know that I have to. I wonder what fears all of you had about this film. I mean, there's obviously things that can go wrong in any movie, right? What's the fear that, Sebastian, that you get this part wrong? I mean, listen, there were a lot of fears for me, for sure. But I think just the fact that there were real people for me. I never really played anybody that was a real person, so the fact that having to mold yourself to something that already was out there and existed in a way, and you looked and spoke and acted, apparently, very specifically. So that was very scary. And then reading the script, I mean, as an actor, I was really entertained by it, and I was very engrossed in it, and I was obsessing about it already. I was already kind of thinking about it. But as a, the human part of you is always kind of immediately forming judgments and preconceived ideas and misconceptions, which is essentially what was out there about them anyway, like a lot of noise as to many different takes on who they were and who did what and whatever. And so it actually kind of felt in a way that it was appropriate for me to have that at the beginning, and then once you commit to the project, then you kind of have to let all that go and just do your job. Was that slipperiness scary, like trying to figure out that balance? Do we stick to one story? Do we tell one part of the story? Do we admit that there are these contradictory narratives? Resolving that problem seems like it must have been tough. It was, I mean, it was sort of a fascinating dilemma because the structure is so crazy, and having these disparate points of view, I kept trying to find film references. And one of the first things I went to was To Die For, which, you know, back in 1987 with Gus Van Sant and Nicole Kidman, and they do these interviews, but it's a very linear situation. They're all talking about the same story. There's no conflicting accounts. But that was about as close, but we've got conflicting accounts. We're breaking the fourth wall. They're arguing in the interviews with each other. There's this sort of meta-awareness, like Allison's talking about the screenplay. I mean, it's everything. The whole kitchen sink is in there, and I couldn't find it. I mean, you find movies that have some of those elements, but they have the whole kitchen sink. So it was a little nerve-wracking to be like, all right, is this actually gonna work? And I had these amazing actors. The biggest challenge for me, I mean, having Margot as a star just was an enormous security for me. And the other thing we had was Allison Jenney, who was attached with the script. So I was like- Stephen Outrider wrote the role for Allison, they're friends. Yeah, Stephen. So I felt I was so close to the finish line, but to get the third piece of this puzzle, which was Jeff Gillooly, that was the most stressful for me because I thought these two were so strong in their corners, Allison and Margot, and we needed that third element, and they have such a tricky relationship and such a dangerous dance that they do. Until we found Sebastian, I couldn't really breathe easy. And once we had that, and once Sebastian came in, actually blew us away in an audition, which was amazing, and he read with Margot. What was so great about the audition? It was wild. It was so fun. It was really- Did you come in with a mustache, Hard? I did. He came in with a mustache. Really? And a turtleneck. He got it right there. But he had this moment where we were doing one scene where he's kind of like, he says something like, I'm gonna ******* kill you, and then he grabbed my face and kissed me right afterwards, and that wasn't even in the script, but it was so like, it was- I was like, well, this guy's great. We should give him the job. He's awesome. Please don't take that quote out of context. This is like a lot of other stories we've been running at the time. It's not, it's not. My husband is one of the producers on the job, so it's fine. It was what it was. He was so reactionary. His emotions were bubbling right outside. There was nothing premeditated about the violence or the affection. Everything was reactionary, and no one had played Jeff like that, and Jeff didn't make sense in this format, in this story, to be this premeditated, calculated, ice-cold villain. He didn't know how to cope with his emotions, and that's what Sebastian showed us in that audition, and it was the second he walked out, Craig and I were trying to play it cool while he was in the room. We're like, thank you, thank you, and he walked out, and we were like, oh my God. Yes! I totally thought it was not going my way. Oh, it was going so well. Yeah, because I remember, I got in there a little bit early or something, and I was waiting, and I was paranoid, because I was like, I lost it. I lost this character. I don't have it. And then I walked in, and it was so quick, but it was a blessing. Sometimes, actually, this movie taught me so much about that, but in terms of, if you can not audition, it's nice to not audition, but I actually find that, in some instances, like in this particular situation, I was blessed that I got to do that, because A, we found out how we can all work together, and B, I gained some confidence there that I could show up on set one day, and then go, okay, at least everybody knows what we're showing up with, as opposed to that weird pressure you get sometimes when nobody has seen you. It's the tape and whatever, so. So you show up on set, and you're doing the scenes those days when you're really going at it, when they're throwing each other up against the walls, it gets violent. I mean, watching those scenes, I was like, it made me so uncomfortable. I think everybody in the audience, you're laughing, you're feeling guilty because you're laughing, you're not sure if you should let yourself laugh, you don't know if you should be horrified, or who you should believe. What is it like playing on those days? What is it like acting out those things? I mean, it was amazing because we had Craig, obviously, we had a director that we could trust implicitly, a director who knew exactly what he wanted, but was always open to something else as well. There were no boundaries, but at the same time, we had a very safe place, and it's really hard to get that exact temperature right on a set. I truly think it helps that we had a smaller set. It was a physically confining space working in that house, and it was brilliant, it was intimate, it was claustrophobic, it was cozy, but then it would be too much. It was a really wonderful thing, a really wonderful space to build our relationship in. But also to have a co-star, to have an actor there with you, I feel like we work in quite a similar way. I feel like we both understand the buttons to pushing each other to get to the next level in the scene, and always in a respectful way, and it was just such a good working relationship with everyone, and our DP was awesome. Craig had said from the beginning, it was another one of the things that blew us away when he came in and gave his take on the film, he was like, I want it to feel like the camera is catching up to what's happening. I don't want actors walking into a neat shot. I want the actors, I want the characters doing what they're doing, and the camera's only just catching it, and there should be this frenetic energy about that. You don't consider it sometimes, but you need a DP who's willing to do that too, to let their work be whatever happens in the moment, and Nico was like that, and all our department heads, everyone who worked on this film was happy to just get in there, roll your sleeves up, get dirty, and just see what happens, because honestly, sometimes it would escalate, and no one could understand or see what was gonna happen. Yeah, even hair and makeup, we were jumping from decades, you know, from in the 80s and 90s to the present, like back and forth, and she had, I think, four or five different ways that were all timeline, and. They didn't take as long as Sebastian's mustache. The mustache. Not gonna ever live that down, then. We talk about pushing buttons, right? I'm interested, like, there's some kind of, there's interesting questions this film raises, obviously, about what does it take to make a champion, to bring out a terrific performance from somebody, to make a great performer? You know, my favorite quote from the movie is skate wet. Yeah, yeah. That's an amazing line. Improvised by Alison, that line. Oh, it was? Yes. Oh my God, it's so great. Yeah. But I wonder, you know, are there parallels you see between that kind of pushing buttons? Is Craig our stage mom? Yeah, you know. Would he let you go to the bathroom? Yeah, we were allowed to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I think, yeah, it's like I said, like, knowing each other well enough to know how to provoke one another in a way that's gonna bring out something positive is a very hard thing to gauge, I think. It was, honestly, I don't know if it's luck or fate or whatever that this specific group came together, but it is hard to find a group that can work like that. I mean, you do hear those stories of directors who intentionally push buttons and manipulate situations psychologically to get certain kinds of performances out of people. Have you been in those situations yourself? What do you think of that world of things? It's such an amazing experience. I have, and I actually like it because it does get a better performance out of me. Yeah. I've found in the past, yeah. I mean, I feel like I was so lucky with this because all of our actors, like, the amount of prep that I think they all had felt the responsibility with these real people, and there's so much footage online that you can go to, so they all did their homework, and it's something that you kind of take for granted as a director that, you know, you hope they're gonna do it, but you never know exactly what their discipline is. The amount of work that Margot did for this, from between the skating, she trained for five months and three, four times a week just doing that, but then, possibly, she's got that hurdle, and then she has to get all the physicality of Tonya because she's so well-known in the media that you know it's gonna be in her subconscious judging that she could pull this off. So, and the Poland accent and the different ages. We were doing a scene at one time and we had Liz Halstein, who's the dialect coach, on set, and she's very quickly talking to me, like, just bring your octave down a little bit, and I'm like, what is she talking about? And Margot's like, oh, I'm doing a different octave for 15 and 21 and 46, so. And, you know, the same with, you know, Sebastian was listening for hours to Jeff's voice and getting that right and the context, and so they came in so prepared, but they had all of that arsenal, and then they could improvise, and, you know, they were so reactive to each other, and say something and everyone would go right with it, but stay in character and stay on plot. We were talking about that footage I was pulling up, like, on YouTube, with, like, the Little Hammer footage, and, you know, the NBC commentator is saying, you know, this bizarre real-life movie continues, and she's struggling with her shoelaces. How much of that real-life footage did you really, I mean, I could see, yeah. Yeah, for a lot of, especially that sequence, that's all, you know. Exactly as it happened. Exactly as it happened, every, like, hand movement, everything's what she did, what Diane says right beforehand. Yeah, we kind of replicated those moments. Any moment that we thought people watching might have a sense of nostalgia or, you know, might remember, maybe not to that level of specificity, but still remember, we kind of replicated it. And I have to ask, I know you've answered this question a million times with other reporters, but let's talk about real Tanya, real Jeff. I know you've, you know, reached out to them and talked to both of them. Would you like to talk a little bit about, sort of, what was surprising about that process? Yeah, Sebastian met Jeff, I met Tanya, Craig and I met Tanya, actually, at the same time. And, yeah, we kept it to that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I, well, it's- Where'd you meet? He was in Portland, I think, not far from Tanya. Yeah. But, you know, Craig at first, like, told me, he was like, look, if you wanna go meet him, you should, and he's there, you don't have to. And, you know, I went primarily because, again, like, the footage that I found of him was really only, I think, him, like, minor things in the relationship in this inside edition, which is way after everything happened. But there was nothing of him, like, in his 20s, there was nothing of him now. No interview of him now, what did he look like now? Did he gain weight? Did he, you know, I don't know, how does he feel about the situation now? What questions, what did he wanna be when he was a kid? You know, did he have girlfriends, you know, whatever. So, all that stuff, and, you know, the physicality I wanted to get from him, now is the only reason I really wanted to meet with him. You know, I never really got much about, you know, what is he, is he gonna tell me the truth or not, or, you know, any of that stuff. It didn't really matter, because the script is all we needed to follow. So what did you learn about him? Again, I mean, look, it's odd, you're studying someone for a long time, and then you go and they sit in front of you, and it's bizarre, it's a little bit like being in the Twilight Zone, and it's, I think, you know, my own impression was that from the script, really, was always that it was, there was somebody, it was somebody who was very ill-equipped to deal with that, with these circumstances that they, you know, found themselves in. The fame, I mean, there was a socioeconomic situation there, they were very poor, they were literally growing up on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and suddenly they were faced with a lot of money. And so there was sort of ideas there that were, it just didn't seem to add up in terms of, like, thought about consequences or anything like that, and just overall, somebody who felt, didn't feel good about it, you know? I mean, the first thing he said to me was, why would you want to do this? Why would anybody want to see this movie, or why do you want to be a part of it? And you could see that that was part of his weariness of revisiting this one highlight that came to define his life. And, you know, I can't speak for him, really, but, like, all those little things were just, you know, little kind of seeds to kind of get in there in some way. And at the very bottom of it all, it's crazy, of all the noise, it was clearly a love story of sorts. That I think is necessary, at least from my point of view, to kind of, like, approach. Because otherwise, there would have been too many judgments, and I would never have been able to show up on set, you know? Right. We actually were, like, halfway through shooting, and I remember, like, Craig and I looked at each other, and we're like, this is actually a love story. This is, like, what Sebastian's bringing to it. It's, I don't know, we really all emotionally invested, at least on set, I don't know how people feel watching the movie, but on set, we were really emotionally investing in their relationship in a very strange way. But, yeah, I mean, I just think Sebastian made him human. Made someone that could seem like a caricature very human. Both of you guys, there's certainly moments that, you know, that aren't on the page that you get between them in these, you know, with the oh-mys, and, you know, getting ready for different events, and just the way that they would have these little moments, you started to, and the complication of the domestic violence that was going on with them, and how they would interact with each other, you understood this dangerous circle that they lived in. And also, he, you know, you don't really see it a lot in the movie, but he actually had a pretty bad upbringing himself, you know? And that's another thing about it that you take away from it, like, you know, it seems to me we're always reacting the same way, going like, oh my God, here's the issue. And we never talk about the issue that it starts in childhood, and it gets repeated, and it's always about kind of recreating that love that you sort of think you have by your caretaker, and how that gets translated to you. And, you know, I think to some extent they were both victims of that. And how was Tanya? Did she give you, I mean, I know she, I've read some of the other interviews, I know she told you, you know, like, work on your core, don't worry, you know? Do sit-ups. It's good advice, I did. I started doing a lot of sit-ups. Yeah, no, well, unlike the situation Sebastian was in, there was a ton of footage of Tanya online. There was a documentary, so fortunately for me, it was fortunate, that was made about her when she was 15, where you could never later in life, once she was under intense media scrutiny, ever get interviews as candid, and honest, and vulnerable. And what were they like? I haven't seen those, what were those like? It's, you know, she's got the short hair, like we kind of replicated, and she's quite open. It broke my heart how nonchalant she seemed listing off something like, my mom's an alcoholic, and she hits me, and she beats me. And, you know, as she seemed, it struck me how emotionally desensitized she was to the abuse at 15. And I, that was like the most important information to know for everything we did later in, for plotting out when she was in her 20s, and when she's older. But to have, to see that footage when she's 15, there was a million interviews, and obviously the skate routines, and stuff like that in her 20s, before the incident, and after the incident, and then also later in life. And, you know, later in life, you know, when she knew the camera was watching, it felt like she had, you know, a bit of a guard up, and defiance as well. Because people were starting to pick her apart a lot, I think, and then later in life, perhaps a bit of bitterness. But it was three very clear, different stages of her life, and stages of her personality, and persona, and it was all very valuable. So I could study her, I studied her for like six months. I mean, I did nothing but watch these clips endlessly over, and over, and over. And even when I think I'd seen every single one, someone like in the costume department would mention like a sequined outfit, and I'm like, I've never seen that. Wait, I haven't seen that. There's a piece of footage I haven't seen, show me where, and it'll be from like a Japanese outlet, or something, and I'll be like, wow, there's footage I haven't seen. So I got to do all this study, and I could study her mannerisms, and her voice, and her accent, and everything, and do all my character prep I do with any character, I could do all that. I wanted to have all that done before meeting her. So it was right before we started shooting that Craig and I flew to Portland, and up until that point, I had kept her and the character very separate, compartmentalized, and intentionally so. And when I met her, I just wanted to say, like, I'm playing the character, I'm not trying to replicate you specifically. We're embodying your story in this character, and I just need you to know that they're separate, otherwise I'm gonna be trying to sugarcoat things on set, and I don't wanna do that. She was incredibly understanding about it. We said, this is not a traditional biopic, and this is not a documentary, it's a feature film, and she was great about it. Really, really understanding. I thought, amazingly trusting, and open, and gracious about it. And I was surprised, because I thought I had a lot of trepidation that she wouldn't wanna revisit this again after 25 years, and bring it all back. But she was really trusting with us, and that gave us a lot of, it gave me a lot of confidence, in a way. It's like, because I felt in the script, and it was part of my goal with this film, I felt like, from what Stephen wrote, I love this opportunity, that she's being portrayed as this villain in this punchline, in our society, for 25 years. She's like the poster child. And just the idea to look at that with a different lens, and look at her as a human being, I thought was a wonderful opportunity. And so I felt confident that we would do her well with this portrayal, I think, in what we were hoping to set out to do. That it was amazing that she was so trusting. Do you think there's sort of a third act for her? Do you think she, you know, like, Nancy Kerrigan's gone on Dancing with the Stars, and had all of that, do you think, do you think Tanya will be back in the limelight? Do you think, I mean, after all of her struggles with fame, do you think she still has a taste for it in some way? I have no, I would never even begin to predict what could happen, I have no idea, no idea. We've got some questions from Facebook, so here we go. Leo from Facebook asks, did you steal anything from the set after you finished the film? I took so many scrunchies with me, and I still wear them. I love scrunchies, honestly, they're so good for your hair as well. Lots of scrunchies. How about you, your klepto? They gave me the mustache. And they put it on a piece of black, on like a wood, and they called it the galooly. So I have that, I guess. I didn't steal anything, I just have the slate, which is a classic director thing. Yeah, Caitlin from Facebook asks, do you think class difference is its own character in this film? Yeah, it's one of the issues. There's a lot of things that we kind of focus in, the media, the 24-hour news cycle, classism. I think in Tanya's case, she obviously, she was in a sport where people, you'd hear the commentators say it as she was skating on the ice, like, and here's a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, or whatever they would preface it with. She had a tough life. Yeah, had a real troubled life. It felt as if they were never gonna let her fit in, even if she was trying, and I think she stopped trying at some point and did the defiant, like, no, I'm not gonna do the image of what you want, I'm not that, and I can't buy a $5,000 skate costume, and it was all in the fabric of who she was. I think there was, obviously, class is involved, and it was, you felt that back then. There were the diehard supporters for her, and there's obviously a parallel, I think, between our culture and how it's exploded that way now and become even more disparate and more of a clash, and back then, the media, I think, tried to polarize that even more, because Nancy wasn't nearly as wealthy as they portrayed her. She was basically middle class, but they put her on this pedestal, and they shoved Tanya down, and they sort of created this spoon-fed images that they wanted us to sell papers, and it was an interesting take on it, and I loved that there is this commentary, obviously, and we end in a fairly strong way with the commentary about America and the media and how they want somebody to hate, and they want somebody to love that. Obviously, there's a commentary on the media, but I also thought it was a great opportunity to have a commentary on us as society, because we demand this, and we have the appetite for it. We have the appetite for scandal, and we eat it up. Yeah, and it's like, if it wasn't that, all of this craziness wouldn't be going on. I mean, for the two of you, and franchises, Marvel, DC, when you see those cameras lining up outside the house and stalking Tanya in the film, I mean, and that's become a part of both of your lives right now, right? You go on tour with these films from hotel to hotel, and people are chasing you down the street. How does it feel to be in the center of that, the eye of that attention right now in a different way? It does seem like things change when you are in a movie of the kind of scale that you've been playing in. Yeah, it definitely struck me when looking through all this footage and seeing paparazzi shots of her, you know, sitting on a dumpster smoking a cigarette in between her shift waitressing. It's like she didn't have the financial resources to put up a wall and a boundary and keep herself protected, and it would have been so hard to have no support network, emotionally and financially, to deal with an intense amount of negative fame. It wasn't like, you know, it's really lovely when someone says, oh my God, I love what you're doing, or whatever. For the most part, if everyone was saying they hate you, and you have no way of protecting yourself, and no one around you trying to help you, it would have been horrific. I was really sad for her, and she was young. She was so young, and we all kind of forgot that. I feel like Craig was the first person to bring it up when we sat down meeting him. He was like, God, she was really young when she went through all that. Valen from Facebook asks, what was your favorite scene in the movie? Do you each have favorite scenes? What's your favorite scene, Craig? God. Nice way to deflect. I mean, favorite scene, maybe not the right word, but the scene that was, there was two scenes, really, to me, and they're both scenes with these guys. Two scenes that we had the most difficulty with, in casting, which was the first kiss. These guys having to play teenagers, and really trying to figure out that body language, and the way that, you know, with Margot, with her hands in the pockets, and just that awkwardness, and that sincerity. And we just couldn't crack it in the audition, really. And then we just kept working on it, and then it just evolved, and it actually became a really beautiful scene. And then the polar opposite of that was the scene where he breaks into the apartment with the gun, and that just, that's, you know, where we get to sort of the darkest place in their relationship, but where, you know, there's still this vulnerability, and this pain in that scene, even though it's horrific, and trying to get that balance, which I think they did such a beautiful job with. Well, you know, like, art's not the same kind of competition, but this is the season when films are competing, right? Everybody's going for the gold. There are awards being given out, and everybody's staging campaigns. I feel like, in some ways, you guys are this sort of Tanya Harding of the film scene, right now. The scrappy underdog. Yeah, they're these very classy, very expensive movies set in Italy, and whatnot. Is it the wardrobe? What is it? No, no, no. Is it double under? You guys have your stonewashed jeans, and your ZZ Top soundtrack. Yeah. Do you feel like you've got a little bit of Tanya spirit, as you approach this grueling awards season path ahead of you? I kind of do. I mean, even when we joined with our distributors, Neon, and they're awesome, and they're a smaller company, and I remember when we had our first meetings, they're like, we're not the biggest company, but we care, and we do it grassroots, and we're like, well, that's how we made this film. I mean, we made this film on a tiny budget, and everyone just got in there, and I was like, at some point before we started shooting, and we were going through yet another budget, trying to cut it down, cut it down, you know, you ask that question that you have to, as producers, like, are we doing this story a disservice by making it at this cost? Should we just not do it at all? And we got to a point, and we're like, no. I mean, this is her story. I mean, she's rough around the edges. She is. She's scrappy. She's a fighter. She's resilient. Yeah, she's not polished, and perfect, and planned out. So I was like, that's what the movie should be, and we did it. That's how we made it. It was rough around the edges, and it was scrappy, but everyone cared so much, and I feel like everyone that's come on board, even after filming, me on whoever, it's everyone just cared so much, and yes, I do feel like we're the kind of movie that's scrappy on the dogs of this race, yeah. Sort of being that way, I mean, because there's always been, there is a knee-jerk reaction when you hear Tanya Harding, and from the get-go, it's always been certain, like, studios, like, eh, I don't know about Tanya Harding, and it's like, and then you get into the next phase of it, and then when we got to the music, and the knee-jerk reaction from the bands was like, will you, can you use your song, and they're like, no, we can't. We just kept getting no's from people, and we had this amazing music supervisor, Susan Jacobs, who, she's like, we're not gonna take no, and the dire straits had said no, you know, out of the gate, and she managed to track down Mark Hopler, and she's like, you have to watch the movie, and she made him watch the movie, and he emailed back and said, all right, you can use this song, and so it was like this constant, like, fighting for everything as we went along, and then, you know, the budget as well. We actually chose to do this, very specifically, we decided to go independent, and make it with less money, to have this freedom, this creative control, to be able to tell the story the way we wanted it. We always sort of went the outside route. Well, we're really so glad you shared it with us tonight. Thank you for coming, and thank you, Thank you for listening. Thank you. That was great. Thank you.