December 1, 2025 • 32 mins
Writer and filmmaker Noah Baumbach joins Ruthie to talk about the role of food in his latest film Jay Kelly, which stars George Clooney as a world-famous actor reflecting on his life, relationships, and legacy, trying to make sense of his past and his present.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table for in Collaboration with Me
and em intelligence style for Busy Women. I've seen Noah
Bromback's brilliant new movie J Kelly five times, and I've
plant to see it many more times. It's a story
about a man of a certain age, a movie star
(00:20):
played by George Clooney. He's traveling through Europe with his
long time manager, trying to make sense of his past
and his present, the people he's loved, the family he
hasn't always been there for, and the legacy he'll leave behind.
Food runs throughout as a symbol of love and emotion
of taking care of some one, knowing there will be
(00:41):
food wherever you go and whoever you are with. In
an early scene, Kelly's agent comes to his house to
make him a sandwich of pickles and potatoes, Helman's mayonnaise
and olive oil. Kelly worries that the pickles have passed
their sell by date. He replies, pickles don't fire. I
(01:01):
love this line. I see it as an algory for
lifelong friendship, like the friendship I had, not a bumba.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You write a line like that, like pickles don't expire
and part of you really just means it literally.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And then it takes you saying.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Something like that for me to feel like it was
for me that.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Was maybe a better line than I thought it was.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's a bit, you know, for me seeing it again.
For me, the able to concentrate on the writing of
the movie was so important and it's the most beautifully written.
People always ask me about luxuries in life, you know,
whether it's a handbag or a cashmir dress or a scarf,
and then you realize that being able to sit in
(01:45):
the middle of the afternoon in a cinema enveloped by
the most beautiful language and beautiful film was a great luxury.
It was a luxury.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It is a luxury.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's the same way to have like a great sprawling meal,
and I feel like is a great luxury too, and
not worry about them turning the table, and to like
you come to a place where you feel like you
can you're all just there and let's we're all going
to be here and we're not thinking about it ending.
(02:17):
And you know, and and I think that's true about movies.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's actually a luxury that I, Gret and I have
made sure of over the last few years is that
we screen a movie in a theater once a week
for that very reason, because I think it's so important.
And it was actually our freak friend Jake Paltrow had
compared like watching movies at home is like takeout, Like
(02:46):
if you're starving and you you know, when you order
out and you get kind of a cold burger and
soggy fries, you just wolf it down and go on
with your night. If you're in a restaurant and you
get a cold burger and soggi fries, you send it back.
And I think he was saying that in terms of
like entertainment, it's like if you go to the theater,
you have you want to have a real experience, and
(03:07):
you and you're also more likely to have a real
experience than sitting at home and pausing and going over
to the yeah thing and half watching and then running
the movie and people are coming, you know, and expectations
are just different, and that's okay. Takeouts great sometimes you know,
it's it's exactly what you want.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And for me, the luxury people always ask me my
greatest luxury, and I say being in a museum when
it's closed, you know, which is the same thing when
you can look. And as tumultuous as the applause was
in New York and as how encouraging and excited the
audience was in Venice, the absence of the audience for me,
and just the luxury sitting in that chair and being
(03:49):
alone with the movie was you know something very very important.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I think there is something I feel the same way
of some of my favorite movie memories are going alone
to his end, just having this private experience, but on
a big screen. You're sort of this small person in
this big space.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Tell me more about planning the food. When you were
writing it, you just say he will be a cheesecake
rather than a chocolate cake.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Well, it was part of his routine.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I suppose the cheesecake is part of j Kelly's rider.
They list all the perks and things that they want
to have, they need to have in their rooms to
feel comfortable. So this is true of many actors, and
I think what often happens in these riders is people
say things are want a thing wants, and then very
(04:40):
diligent people will put them in the rider. So then
you end up getting it multiple times. So in the
in the movie, Jay has apparently said that he likes
cheesecake and I would like to have it as an
option whenever he you know, goes into a room. But
(05:02):
when he discovers it in his trailer in the movie,
he's annoyed because he doesn't like cheesecake and he doesn't
understand why they persist in giving it to him. Ron
Adam Sandler's character, his manager keeps pointing out that he
does like it, and that he had put it in
his rider years ago and had mentioned that he liked it,
(05:23):
So that's a disagreement from the opening of the movie.
But then thus the cheesecake becomes a symbol of how
food also identifies us, how we associate ourselves by our
taste and food. You know, I like this food. I
don't like this food. I used to like this food.
I don't like that food anymore, I you know, And
(05:45):
and restaurants are that too, of sort of, it's another
way of defining yourself in the world of I'm a vegetarian,
I'm you know. It's and since the movie is about
identity and about how we define ourselves, and the cheesecake
is emblematic of that, is he's sure he doesn't like it,
(06:07):
although some part of him has asked for it in
the past.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Maybe and then at the end.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He realizes, maybe I am someone who likes cheesecake. What
does that mean about me?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Now?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Also perhaps that everywhere he goes somebody's taken care of him,
that he has what the scene with his daughter, what
she says, you're never alone, right and that? And then
somebody comes and you know, his other gives him a drink,
proving the point, doesn't he say? There? And there's a story,
you know, a Wall Street journalist was giving the assignment
of following a billionaire in New York around for twenty
(06:42):
four hours. And they met him, and they went to
the gym together with the trainer, and they did that,
and they had massages, and then they flew down to
play golf and bahamas and were met and you know,
the luggage was taken to the house and they changed.
They played golf, and then they went back and they
went to the office, and they were met outside, and
(07:02):
the chauffeurs with them. In anyway, the whole day went by,
and he said he came away not with the all
they did, or where they lived, or the wealth of it,
but that this man was never alone. Also, you know,
as part of these movies we question friendship and people
who work for you and attachment.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, that was something that we Emily and I thought
was kind of a funny idea in some ways, but
it works thematically as well, with this idea that he starts,
character starts with all these people around him all the time,
and then he goes out into the world, and then
one by one they start peeling off, and you know,
(07:43):
he's left with fewer and fewer people as he goes
and the world expands as well as he goes out
into it. I mean the it was actually our neighbors
when I was growing up were the Zuckerbergs.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
They Joan Zuckerberg had surprise party for Richard Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
This was the late seventies, I think or early eighties,
so I was the nine to eleven range or something
like that. And I always liked them as friends for
my parents because they were very like they had big
parties and they would like, they would sing, and they
would do things that my parents didn't. My parents were
more reserved in their way, and so I always liked
(08:23):
that the Zuckerbergs brought this stuff out in my parents,
but I was there once and it was a surprise
party for Richard, the father. I was friends with their son,
Josh and who was my age, and the cheesecake was
his cake as part of the surprise, and at some
point in the evening he confessed that he actually didn't
(08:46):
like cheesecake and that somehow this had been the cake
of choice for years and he hadn't had the heart
to tell his wife that he didn't want.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
It, and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So I had cheesecake in my head as sort of
this thing of some that would be a presumption that
someone would like cheesecake. My version of that it was
I've had like I mean, I like red wine dinner.
And when I was doing press for a movie, they somehow,
in a nice way, got out that they knew I
(09:17):
liked to have a glass of wine or something. But
then the wine would just turn up. I would have
like an eleven am you know, press thing, and I'd
come into the room and there'd be decanted red.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Wine and I was like, this is now humiliating. That
was al said. Part of what I was, I think it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Comes to probably people wanting again food being away of
saying I want to make you happy wine, I want
to give you something, you know, and I used to
do that in the early days. You know, we're just saying, Oh,
somebody's here, let's bring them that to try and that
to try, and you realize that actually you just kind
of want to eat what you ordered.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, the the and I, Greta and I always have
this thing where we're like too well behaved that when
when that would happen, we would eat it. And because
I feel so bad to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Something, it's like you're turning a gift.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And yeah, you're just like you're just
so uncomfortable by the end of the evening. Yeah, but
then if they stop doing it, you're like, what happened
to the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Where's my pizza? Where do you keep the knives?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
That magnet thing by the cutting boy. Lately, I feel
like my life doesn't really feel real.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I heard about your break up with a hand model.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Breakups are like death something mayonnaimes refrigerated on the show.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Oh yeah, how that goes?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Daisy graduates this spring and then she's at Johns Hopkins
from biochemistry. If you can believe it, she's a brilliant girl.
Then Jess is in San Diego. That's I don't know
what to do there.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
You'll figure it out. Do you have olive oil?
Speaker 4 (11:18):
I've been thinking a lot about Cranberry Street. It's such
fun shooting that, didn't.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
We We were always laughing.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Do you know it's the thirty fifth anniversary coming up?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Jess was born the next year. That's how I know
that all my memories are movies.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's what movies are for us.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Pieces of time, nieces of time. Do you have pickles
in the pantry? I think, oh, yeah, you know, check
the expiration.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Pickles don't expire.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
My laugh.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was thinking about the movie also in terms of food,
because the sandwich scene, in particular making the sandwich, and
there's something about this sort of intimacy of making a
sandwich in someone else's home, of like coming there and
using their ingredients to make them something that's from you,
and and that sort of vulnerability also of putting yourself there,
(12:13):
because it is a very vulnerable scene for Jim's character
to really be that.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It was.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was actually a story that Peter Mugdonovitch told me
about when he was Warren Baby called him once round
the late seventies, and said, I'm going to come over
and make you a sandwich. And I thought that was
such a kind of like great way of I guess,
(12:41):
both a sort of power play, but also he also
wanted Peter to direct something, so it was like a
way of taking control but also providing something. And it
also gives you something to do, so you're not just
there asking for something. You're like, you have a job
(13:02):
that you have to And that was a different circumstance
because it was the actor coming to the director and
he was asking him to direct, having can wait and then,
which Peter didn't end up doing and then Warren did.
So I just liked that sort of I'm coming over
to make you a sandwich that that was sort of
gave me the start of the scene, and Emily and
I kind of went from there. You had that conversation
with people that when you do do food in movies.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And you have to eat it, well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
You have to eat it repeatedly, and you know people
I once worked with the kid who we made like
it was like a bullya base or something, and what
movie was that?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
This was Margot at the wedding.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And he was he hadn't had lunch and so he
was just eating it the whole time. Where was all
the nicole kidman and John deturo knew to just sort of,
you know, do like the and he just ended up
throwing up because I guess a good lesson of how
to eat on film.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And the other scene, the ring and the ganash.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right, the ring in the ganache. Yeah, that was so
Adam Sandler's character Ron, who's j Kelly's manager, And we
discovered that they had a history in that twenty odd
years ago. They had been a couple and had worked
for Jay even back then, and things that were never
spoken of come out.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
We did just bowl that night back then on the
Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
We just sat down to dinner.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I wanted to turn our phones off, but you said
keep them on just in case.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And of course we got the call.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
She'd been photographed with that daughter of the French ambassador.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
One of us had to go.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I stayed to keep the table.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
I was so nervous because I had a ring planted
in the ganache.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I never knew that part.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, it was like a very romantic movie. Look, one
that is not romantic at all. In fact, because you
never came back.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I don't know, I guess that just felt like a
kind of a somewhat dramatic way of proposing, old fashioned,
that way of proposing, like like like the Chocolate Nemesis or.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
The well, you know the story of the Chocolate Nemesis,
which is someone was coming to the River Cafe, it's
very similar and ordered a chocolate Nemesis and with the
words on the top saying will you marry me? And
they ordered it, and then halfway through the meal he
came up and he said, cancel the cake. And so
you just wonder what happened in that first in that
(15:42):
first course that made him change.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It, you know, I mean scenes around tables. It's it's
interesting because I think because I I'm so tied to
and interested in in ritual and repetition in relationships. I
mean sort of how people get into habits and people
and friendships over a long period of time, marriages, whatever
(16:08):
it is, whatever this is in the movie, and how
when ritual is broken or things are changed, how are
you able to adjust with that? And food is such
an important ritual to me, but it's it's such a
part of people's lives, a sort of being at the table. Yeah,
and so I I mean, I mean, in some ways
(16:31):
I could probably just set.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
All my scenes at tables. I have to have to.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I have to try to gussie it up a little
and get people standing and moving over.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
People are always.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Need something or you know, like just becomes about behavior
and about people's faces and about and I love people's
behavior at tables too, with food, just arms reaching across,
there's a lot of If you look at that scene,
there's a lot of we shot sort of lower on
the table, so you people are like reaching over and
blow walking, and Jay is even blocked by the flowers.
(17:03):
It was something we did a bit as Jay goes
sort of further on this journey and the reality that
life doesn't actually revolve around him becomes more and more apparent.
He's sometimes he's framed smaller and kind of bigger landscapes.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
But another thing we did is we.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Blocked him at the table more like the flowers block
his face, people's hands. I mean, these are little things
that you hope people don't notice so much as feel.
But it's something I've given a lot of thought too,
because of course I do inevitably end up shooting people
at table is eating and I actually one of my favorite,
(17:41):
like sitting at a table. It's not very long, but
in the movie Grand Illusion, the Renoir movie, it begins
with this French soldier and they're called to fly over
in Germany and they get shot down. This is the
very beginning of the movie. And they get shot down
and they're brought over by the Germans and they invite
(18:03):
them to lunch and they just sit at and eat
lunch with the Germans at the table. But within it,
there's the way he shoots it. There's just all these
arms reaching like everybody's just and there's a kind of
casualness in the way it's designed, which also belies the
sort of like the drama they're now prisoners of war.
(18:25):
I just always love that, and I've always thought of
that scene when I think about tables, because I think
about shooting people at tables is where people put their
arms to people asked to pass, they reach do they
I don't know. To me, it's it's cinematics.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's so revealing. You know, we're just wanting to someone
about that this morning, about interviewing somebody for a job
in a restaurant, or why people go out to dates
in a restaurant, right right, And what does it tell
you about how they share their food? Do they give
it to you first before they take it for themselves?
Do they do they recognize the waiter? Are they have
(19:03):
a rude to the way to what is it? The
way someone's behavior and you know, you know our own
you know the way we you know, and that that
kind of is revealing and no rules. I had had
somebody you know tell me, you know. Famously, Mike Bloomberg
said that if he was interviewing somebody for a job
(19:24):
and they ordered a glass of wine.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
He would hire them, you know, he wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And then another architect was there at the table and said, well,
somebody didn't order a glass of wine, I wouldn't hire them,
you know, And so or you know it just it
does reveal, you know, a character.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Greta and I a few years ago that was with
another couple who we didn't know very well in San Francisco.
It was an Indian restaurant and he was just up front.
He said, I don't like sharing, so I'm going to
order my own stuff and then you guys can all share.
And he stuck to it and I kind of appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, this is the deal. I like that Richard. You know,
they had a verb for him. Kids called him Barber
and they would say, are we going to Barber tonight,
which meant that he would just basically take the food
off their plate. And think of that that you just
knew when you were going out to dinner with their grandfather,
they'd have probably you know, he didn't even notice it,
you know, but then he would give you the food
(20:19):
off his plate. And their mother just made it Burnie,
just made it clear that, you know, she didn't like
sharing her food. Same thing like with the place mat.
So it is revealing how you sit and how you.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
My friend of mine told me about his father. What
he would do is when he'd have his steak or
something at the table, he would go like this and
put his arm over the thing so nobody you couldn't.
I mean, it was really defining.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
His Yeah, people I've talked to you grew up in poverty.
We'd talk about that that when their plate was put
in front of them, that the idea of giving anybody
a thing, anything off your plate because you were never
having seconds.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
We maybe talked about this a bit when Great and
I were on but we both tend.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
To eat as if we're like, this is it, this
is it.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And I think part of it is I look forward
to going out to dinner so much. I mean, when
I'm filming a movie, there's like a point towards the
end of the shoot day where I start to sort
of think about the dinner as the reward for the day.
And I mean, because I shot j Kelly mostly here,
I got to come here so often, and Lena's the cinematographer,
(21:33):
and Mark Tilseley design we would often come, and Jacqueline
the custom designer. We would all have our meetings here
and come here. But I would it would be like
I'd be working out sort of what I might have
while I'm working out the scene. But it's very comforting.
It's like nice knowing this thing. Greta's very different. Greta
(21:53):
likes to eat almost in a utilitarian way, like while
she's finishing for the day, Like when she's done, she
doesn't want to go think about she just wants to
lie on the couch. I even if I'm just going home,
I think about that and having a glass of wine
and thing, and it's almost part of the same creative process.
(22:18):
I don't really like to have lunch while I'm shooting,
because it's it's too what I think part of it is,
it's like it takes too much energy out of me.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I mean if I.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Have funch howers that you skip.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
That, yeah, which I love to do it that way.
I mean some people lunch is important to them, and
I respect it. But I essentially have like a like
something in late morning and something in early afternoon and
then have like a real dinner, but even the coffee,
spacing out the coffee through the day and looking forward
(22:50):
to the four o'clock coffee but maybe it'll be three
thirty today because it was an earlier, Like I'll have
it all like you know, as like ways of treating.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yourself, as taking care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But I even love the ritual of looking at the
like of like having you know, things to start and
then the think and having the pasta and then having
the main course. That there's always something a little sad
to me if I just get a pasta for like
and I don't do the.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Main You're my favorite to eat with because you know,
we sit there and we look at the menu. We've
eaten so many meals here. Food was some important a
lens of food. There's also the I don't know if
(23:38):
you can have a lens of music, but there is.
The music was so it was so clear to the
continuity of the film, of the drama, of the film
of and you know, you listen to music always in
a film. That's there. But maybe because of the connection
with Nick and being at heavy road that day, but
I thought, you know, when we look back, you know,
(24:00):
I can often remember where I was when I was
eating something, and I can also remember exactly how I
was feeling when I hear music. You know, it takes
you to a place, you know, of of memory, you know,
just a song or.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I have that with movies. Music and movies too.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, I remember the movie I saw, where I saw it,
who I saw it with. I used to really remember it.
I've lost some of it now. But I but food too,
like restaurants that you went to and with who you
were with, and.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The first time you ate Priscutta, you know, a piece
of music.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
And music as well. Definitely tell me about music and well,
Nick Brittel, who.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I mean he was.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I liked I liked the music, the score to be
part of the experience of making the movie. Too, to
the degree that it can be. I bring the composer
in the early to the script stage. And I never
worked with Nick Fortel, but I reached out to him
and we met and just connected. And so when I
(25:09):
gave him the script, he already was thinking and he'd
already written some of the themes that are throughout the movie.
I mean three of them really that are really a
big part of the movie. He wrote them from the
script and and he came on set. He played piano
for the crew. He like he was there as part
(25:30):
of the whole thing. But I love about his score
as well, is that it's such a it's such a
movie score. It's like a it's like a proper it's
got melody, it's got emotion, it's got you know, so
much life, and it's very and it really comes from
him and his experience.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
It's at the memorial.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
That that Ruth the stars and memorial.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And Jay runs into George's character. Jay runs into an
old friend, Timothy. They find their way to having drinks
that night and going out together and it's a place
that they used to frequent when they were younger. To
have an actor, a great actor, and Billy Crudip actually
(26:20):
show him perform, and in this case he's no longer
an actor, he's a child therapist. He's but he's being
asked by Jay to do a thing that it would
impress them all back in the day, which was the
sort of method acting thing, which was to read something
with no emotion and then give it, give it emotion.
I mean it's funny because he's reading a kind of
(26:42):
bar menu and then giving these you know, these sort
of ordinary shrimp cocktail and Brussels sprouts and aoli sauce.
He's giving it suddenly, like Jen, you win emotion in
a simple way. I thought it would just it would
(27:03):
be fun, like I said, to show what actors.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Do to have and to have.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
This is a performance that do that.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
This was the better actor in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And it's also why it points out why why am
not me?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Why why do people become you know, how do you
become a movie star? You read interviews with movie stars
and they'll there's always sort of this sort of accidental clow.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
I never really wanted it. I happened into it.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And the truth of it is, it doesn't mean that
that isn't true on some level, and people are complicated.
They can want it and not want it, but you don't.
No one becomes a movie star by accident. Yeah, it's
you work so hard you have to want it more
than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I watched you on set the day that I was
starring in my movie Yes, and I thought, I think
you and I are very similar in a lot of ways.
We are we are where like you know, we found
each other kind of late enough, but we know each other.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
We recognized each joal we did.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, And I think that watching you work was so
intimate for me. And to watch you the way you
kept the set, the way you had people feeling good
about themselves or critical. You know that you called somebody
up on a scene or directed the way it was
(28:36):
and there was a mutual respect. There was a kind
of feeling that we can do this through kindness, through
kind of guiding and treating people as individuals I suppose,
you know, and getting them through hope rather than fear
or There was no shouting. There was a long day
and it was a day that reminded me sometimes when
(28:58):
you look at you clock here and it's you know,
eleven and you still have are there any more tables
and they go, yeah, two fours, a three and a sixth, okay,
And then you know that's a challenging time. And so
there was.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Also a lot of people, which is sometimes a lot
of people people who.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
All need attention.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I don't mean in a negative way, but you have to.
I have to pay attention to all the performances. And
I had a lot of important people, uh there beyond that, but.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It was it was fun as well. You see that
you were really involved and engaged. And it reminded me
that of a way of working, that probably we share
the values I think.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I mean when I watch you here, I what I
also recognize is we work the same way as we are.
I don't I don't talk to actors. I mean, of course,
you understand different actors respond better to different things and
different kinds of direction, and so I do, of course
(30:03):
alter my approach depending on who I'm working with. That's
a lot of rehearsal I find is not just getting
the scenes going, it's also learning each other. But I
still talk to them the same way I talk to anybody.
I don't have a directing way of doing it. I
just I still talk in the same halting way that
(30:26):
I talk.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I find I often stop midnight and then I divert.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And then come back.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Somebody I think affectionately said it was like I'm always
trying to park a car in an impossible spot. But
I direct that way too. I'm not any clearer when
I'm talking to actors. I don't generally call action for
this reason because although George liked action, so I did
call it on j Kelly, but I don't usually do
(30:56):
it because I like that whatever is happening in front
of the camera and whatever's happening sort of behind the
camera or or between takes is all is within a
similar energy. So we're not suddenly acting. We're just continuing
and it's a conversation we're having and continuing at the
(31:17):
same time, just as you're pointing out. I mean, some
people I think like anxiety, anxiety or drama helps them,
like they almost need to be cornered to be able
to do their thing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I'm not that way. Yeah, no, I know you aren't.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I love you too.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Let's go have some lunch. Thank you. Ruthie's Table for
is proud to support Leukemia UK. Their Cartwill for a
Cure campaign raises funds for vital research and more effective
and kinder treatments for a cute my Lloyd leukemia. Please
donate and to do so search Cartwill for Cure. M H.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bell and Zad
Rogers with Susanna Hilock, Andrew Sang and Bella Sellini.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
You're listening to Ruthie's Table for in Collaboration with Me
and em intelligence style for Busy Women. I've seen Noah
Bromback's brilliant new movie J Kelly five times, and I've
plant to see it many more times. It's a story
about a man of a certain age, a movie star
(00:20):
played by George Clooney. He's traveling through Europe with his
long time manager, trying to make sense of his past
and his present, the people he's loved, the family he
hasn't always been there for, and the legacy he'll leave behind.
Food runs throughout as a symbol of love and emotion
of taking care of some one, knowing there will be
(00:41):
food wherever you go and whoever you are with. In
an early scene, Kelly's agent comes to his house to
make him a sandwich of pickles and potatoes, Helman's mayonnaise
and olive oil. Kelly worries that the pickles have passed
their sell by date. He replies, pickles don't fire. I
(01:01):
love this line. I see it as an algory for
lifelong friendship, like the friendship I had, not a bumba.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You write a line like that, like pickles don't expire
and part of you really just means it literally.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And then it takes you saying.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Something like that for me to feel like it was
for me that.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Was maybe a better line than I thought it was.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
It's a bit, you know, for me seeing it again.
For me, the able to concentrate on the writing of
the movie was so important and it's the most beautifully written.
People always ask me about luxuries in life, you know,
whether it's a handbag or a cashmir dress or a scarf,
and then you realize that being able to sit in
(01:45):
the middle of the afternoon in a cinema enveloped by
the most beautiful language and beautiful film was a great luxury.
It was a luxury.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
It is a luxury.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It's the same way to have like a great sprawling meal,
and I feel like is a great luxury too, and
not worry about them turning the table, and to like
you come to a place where you feel like you
can you're all just there and let's we're all going
to be here and we're not thinking about it ending.
(02:17):
And you know, and and I think that's true about movies.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I think the.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's actually a luxury that I, Gret and I have
made sure of over the last few years is that
we screen a movie in a theater once a week
for that very reason, because I think it's so important.
And it was actually our freak friend Jake Paltrow had
compared like watching movies at home is like takeout, Like
(02:46):
if you're starving and you you know, when you order
out and you get kind of a cold burger and
soggy fries, you just wolf it down and go on
with your night. If you're in a restaurant and you
get a cold burger and soggi fries, you send it back.
And I think he was saying that in terms of
like entertainment, it's like if you go to the theater,
you have you want to have a real experience, and
(03:07):
you and you're also more likely to have a real
experience than sitting at home and pausing and going over
to the yeah thing and half watching and then running
the movie and people are coming, you know, and expectations
are just different, and that's okay. Takeouts great sometimes you know,
it's it's exactly what you want.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
And for me, the luxury people always ask me my
greatest luxury, and I say being in a museum when
it's closed, you know, which is the same thing when
you can look. And as tumultuous as the applause was
in New York and as how encouraging and excited the
audience was in Venice, the absence of the audience for me,
and just the luxury sitting in that chair and being
(03:49):
alone with the movie was you know something very very important.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
I think there is something I feel the same way
of some of my favorite movie memories are going alone
to his end, just having this private experience, but on
a big screen. You're sort of this small person in
this big space.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Tell me more about planning the food. When you were
writing it, you just say he will be a cheesecake
rather than a chocolate cake.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Well, it was part of his routine.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I suppose the cheesecake is part of j Kelly's rider.
They list all the perks and things that they want
to have, they need to have in their rooms to
feel comfortable. So this is true of many actors, and
I think what often happens in these riders is people
say things are want a thing wants, and then very
(04:40):
diligent people will put them in the rider. So then
you end up getting it multiple times. So in the
in the movie, Jay has apparently said that he likes
cheesecake and I would like to have it as an
option whenever he you know, goes into a room. But
(05:02):
when he discovers it in his trailer in the movie,
he's annoyed because he doesn't like cheesecake and he doesn't
understand why they persist in giving it to him. Ron
Adam Sandler's character, his manager keeps pointing out that he
does like it, and that he had put it in
his rider years ago and had mentioned that he liked it,
(05:23):
So that's a disagreement from the opening of the movie.
But then thus the cheesecake becomes a symbol of how
food also identifies us, how we associate ourselves by our
taste and food. You know, I like this food. I
don't like this food. I used to like this food.
I don't like that food anymore, I you know, And
(05:45):
and restaurants are that too, of sort of, it's another
way of defining yourself in the world of I'm a vegetarian,
I'm you know. It's and since the movie is about
identity and about how we define ourselves, and the cheesecake
is emblematic of that, is he's sure he doesn't like it,
(06:07):
although some part of him has asked for it in
the past.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Maybe and then at the end.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
He realizes, maybe I am someone who likes cheesecake. What
does that mean about me?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Now?
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Also perhaps that everywhere he goes somebody's taken care of him,
that he has what the scene with his daughter, what
she says, you're never alone, right and that? And then
somebody comes and you know, his other gives him a drink,
proving the point, doesn't he say? There? And there's a story,
you know, a Wall Street journalist was giving the assignment
of following a billionaire in New York around for twenty
(06:42):
four hours. And they met him, and they went to
the gym together with the trainer, and they did that,
and they had massages, and then they flew down to
play golf and bahamas and were met and you know,
the luggage was taken to the house and they changed.
They played golf, and then they went back and they
went to the office, and they were met outside, and
(07:02):
the chauffeurs with them. In anyway, the whole day went by,
and he said he came away not with the all
they did, or where they lived, or the wealth of it,
but that this man was never alone. Also, you know,
as part of these movies we question friendship and people
who work for you and attachment.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, that was something that we Emily and I thought
was kind of a funny idea in some ways, but
it works thematically as well, with this idea that he starts,
character starts with all these people around him all the time,
and then he goes out into the world, and then
one by one they start peeling off, and you know,
(07:43):
he's left with fewer and fewer people as he goes
and the world expands as well as he goes out
into it. I mean the it was actually our neighbors
when I was growing up were the Zuckerbergs.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
They Joan Zuckerberg had surprise party for Richard Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
This was the late seventies, I think or early eighties,
so I was the nine to eleven range or something
like that. And I always liked them as friends for
my parents because they were very like they had big
parties and they would like, they would sing, and they
would do things that my parents didn't. My parents were
more reserved in their way, and so I always liked
(08:23):
that the Zuckerbergs brought this stuff out in my parents,
but I was there once and it was a surprise
party for Richard, the father. I was friends with their son,
Josh and who was my age, and the cheesecake was
his cake as part of the surprise, and at some
point in the evening he confessed that he actually didn't
(08:46):
like cheesecake and that somehow this had been the cake
of choice for years and he hadn't had the heart
to tell his wife that he didn't want.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
It, and so I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So I had cheesecake in my head as sort of
this thing of some that would be a presumption that
someone would like cheesecake. My version of that it was
I've had like I mean, I like red wine dinner.
And when I was doing press for a movie, they somehow,
in a nice way, got out that they knew I
(09:17):
liked to have a glass of wine or something. But
then the wine would just turn up. I would have
like an eleven am you know, press thing, and I'd
come into the room and there'd be decanted red.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Wine and I was like, this is now humiliating. That
was al said. Part of what I was, I think it.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
Comes to probably people wanting again food being away of
saying I want to make you happy wine, I want
to give you something, you know, and I used to
do that in the early days. You know, we're just saying, Oh,
somebody's here, let's bring them that to try and that
to try, and you realize that actually you just kind
of want to eat what you ordered.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Yeah, the the and I, Greta and I always have
this thing where we're like too well behaved that when
when that would happen, we would eat it. And because
I feel so bad to leave.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Something, it's like you're turning a gift.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, And yeah, you're just like you're just
so uncomfortable by the end of the evening. Yeah, but
then if they stop doing it, you're like, what happened
to the Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Where's my pizza? Where do you keep the knives?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
That magnet thing by the cutting boy. Lately, I feel
like my life doesn't really feel real.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I heard about your break up with a hand model.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Breakups are like death something mayonnaimes refrigerated on the show.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Oh yeah, how that goes?
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Daisy graduates this spring and then she's at Johns Hopkins
from biochemistry. If you can believe it, she's a brilliant girl.
Then Jess is in San Diego. That's I don't know
what to do there.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
You'll figure it out. Do you have olive oil?
Speaker 4 (11:18):
I've been thinking a lot about Cranberry Street. It's such
fun shooting that, didn't.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
We We were always laughing.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Do you know it's the thirty fifth anniversary coming up?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
Jess was born the next year. That's how I know
that all my memories are movies.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
That's what movies are for us.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
Pieces of time, nieces of time. Do you have pickles
in the pantry? I think, oh, yeah, you know, check
the expiration.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Pickles don't expire.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
My laugh.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I was thinking about the movie also in terms of food,
because the sandwich scene, in particular making the sandwich, and
there's something about this sort of intimacy of making a
sandwich in someone else's home, of like coming there and
using their ingredients to make them something that's from you,
and and that sort of vulnerability also of putting yourself there,
(12:13):
because it is a very vulnerable scene for Jim's character
to really be that.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
It was.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was actually a story that Peter Mugdonovitch told me
about when he was Warren Baby called him once round
the late seventies, and said, I'm going to come over
and make you a sandwich. And I thought that was
such a kind of like great way of I guess,
(12:41):
both a sort of power play, but also he also
wanted Peter to direct something, so it was like a
way of taking control but also providing something. And it
also gives you something to do, so you're not just
there asking for something. You're like, you have a job
(13:02):
that you have to And that was a different circumstance
because it was the actor coming to the director and
he was asking him to direct, having can wait and then,
which Peter didn't end up doing and then Warren did.
So I just liked that sort of I'm coming over
to make you a sandwich that that was sort of
gave me the start of the scene, and Emily and
I kind of went from there. You had that conversation
with people that when you do do food in movies.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
And you have to eat it, well.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
You have to eat it repeatedly, and you know people
I once worked with the kid who we made like
it was like a bullya base or something, and what
movie was that?
Speaker 3 (13:37):
This was Margot at the wedding.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
And he was he hadn't had lunch and so he
was just eating it the whole time. Where was all
the nicole kidman and John deturo knew to just sort of,
you know, do like the and he just ended up
throwing up because I guess a good lesson of how
to eat on film.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
And the other scene, the ring and the ganash.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right, the ring in the ganache. Yeah, that was so
Adam Sandler's character Ron, who's j Kelly's manager, And we
discovered that they had a history in that twenty odd
years ago. They had been a couple and had worked
for Jay even back then, and things that were never
spoken of come out.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
We did just bowl that night back then on the
Eiffel Tower.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
We just sat down to dinner.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I wanted to turn our phones off, but you said
keep them on just in case.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
And of course we got the call.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
She'd been photographed with that daughter of the French ambassador.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
One of us had to go.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
I stayed to keep the table.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
I was so nervous because I had a ring planted
in the ganache.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I never knew that part.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, it was like a very romantic movie. Look, one
that is not romantic at all. In fact, because you
never came back.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I don't know, I guess that just felt like a
kind of a somewhat dramatic way of proposing, old fashioned,
that way of proposing, like like like the Chocolate Nemesis or.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
The well, you know the story of the Chocolate Nemesis,
which is someone was coming to the River Cafe, it's
very similar and ordered a chocolate Nemesis and with the
words on the top saying will you marry me? And
they ordered it, and then halfway through the meal he
came up and he said, cancel the cake. And so
you just wonder what happened in that first in that
(15:42):
first course that made him change.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
It, you know, I mean scenes around tables. It's it's
interesting because I think because I I'm so tied to
and interested in in ritual and repetition in relationships. I
mean sort of how people get into habits and people
and friendships over a long period of time, marriages, whatever
(16:08):
it is, whatever this is in the movie, and how
when ritual is broken or things are changed, how are
you able to adjust with that? And food is such
an important ritual to me, but it's it's such a
part of people's lives, a sort of being at the table. Yeah,
and so I I mean, I mean, in some ways
(16:31):
I could probably just set.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
All my scenes at tables. I have to have to.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I have to try to gussie it up a little
and get people standing and moving over.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
People are always.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Need something or you know, like just becomes about behavior
and about people's faces and about and I love people's
behavior at tables too, with food, just arms reaching across,
there's a lot of If you look at that scene,
there's a lot of we shot sort of lower on
the table, so you people are like reaching over and
blow walking, and Jay is even blocked by the flowers.
(17:03):
It was something we did a bit as Jay goes
sort of further on this journey and the reality that
life doesn't actually revolve around him becomes more and more apparent.
He's sometimes he's framed smaller and kind of bigger landscapes.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
But another thing we did is we.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Blocked him at the table more like the flowers block
his face, people's hands. I mean, these are little things
that you hope people don't notice so much as feel.
But it's something I've given a lot of thought too,
because of course I do inevitably end up shooting people
at table is eating and I actually one of my favorite,
(17:41):
like sitting at a table. It's not very long, but
in the movie Grand Illusion, the Renoir movie, it begins
with this French soldier and they're called to fly over
in Germany and they get shot down. This is the
very beginning of the movie. And they get shot down
and they're brought over by the Germans and they invite
(18:03):
them to lunch and they just sit at and eat
lunch with the Germans at the table. But within it,
there's the way he shoots it. There's just all these
arms reaching like everybody's just and there's a kind of
casualness in the way it's designed, which also belies the
sort of like the drama they're now prisoners of war.
(18:25):
I just always love that, and I've always thought of
that scene when I think about tables, because I think
about shooting people at tables is where people put their
arms to people asked to pass, they reach do they
I don't know. To me, it's it's cinematics.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
It's so revealing. You know, we're just wanting to someone
about that this morning, about interviewing somebody for a job
in a restaurant, or why people go out to dates
in a restaurant, right right, And what does it tell
you about how they share their food? Do they give
it to you first before they take it for themselves?
Do they do they recognize the waiter? Are they have
(19:03):
a rude to the way to what is it? The
way someone's behavior and you know, you know our own
you know the way we you know, and that that
kind of is revealing and no rules. I had had
somebody you know tell me, you know. Famously, Mike Bloomberg
said that if he was interviewing somebody for a job
(19:24):
and they ordered a glass of wine.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
He would hire them, you know, he wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
And then another architect was there at the table and said, well,
somebody didn't order a glass of wine, I wouldn't hire them,
you know, And so or you know it just it
does reveal, you know, a character.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Greta and I a few years ago that was with
another couple who we didn't know very well in San Francisco.
It was an Indian restaurant and he was just up front.
He said, I don't like sharing, so I'm going to
order my own stuff and then you guys can all share.
And he stuck to it and I kind of appreciated it.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, this is the deal. I like that Richard. You know,
they had a verb for him. Kids called him Barber
and they would say, are we going to Barber tonight,
which meant that he would just basically take the food
off their plate. And think of that that you just
knew when you were going out to dinner with their grandfather,
they'd have probably you know, he didn't even notice it,
you know, but then he would give you the food
(20:19):
off his plate. And their mother just made it Burnie,
just made it clear that, you know, she didn't like
sharing her food. Same thing like with the place mat.
So it is revealing how you sit and how you.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
My friend of mine told me about his father. What
he would do is when he'd have his steak or
something at the table, he would go like this and
put his arm over the thing so nobody you couldn't.
I mean, it was really defining.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
His Yeah, people I've talked to you grew up in poverty.
We'd talk about that that when their plate was put
in front of them, that the idea of giving anybody
a thing, anything off your plate because you were never
having seconds.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
We maybe talked about this a bit when Great and
I were on but we both tend.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
To eat as if we're like, this is it, this
is it.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
And I think part of it is I look forward
to going out to dinner so much. I mean, when
I'm filming a movie, there's like a point towards the
end of the shoot day where I start to sort
of think about the dinner as the reward for the day.
And I mean, because I shot j Kelly mostly here,
I got to come here so often, and Lena's the cinematographer,
(21:33):
and Mark Tilseley design we would often come, and Jacqueline
the custom designer. We would all have our meetings here
and come here. But I would it would be like
I'd be working out sort of what I might have
while I'm working out the scene. But it's very comforting.
It's like nice knowing this thing. Greta's very different. Greta
(21:53):
likes to eat almost in a utilitarian way, like while
she's finishing for the day, Like when she's done, she
doesn't want to go think about she just wants to
lie on the couch. I even if I'm just going home,
I think about that and having a glass of wine
and thing, and it's almost part of the same creative process.
(22:18):
I don't really like to have lunch while I'm shooting,
because it's it's too what I think part of it is,
it's like it takes too much energy out of me.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
I mean if I.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Have funch howers that you skip.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
That, yeah, which I love to do it that way.
I mean some people lunch is important to them, and
I respect it. But I essentially have like a like
something in late morning and something in early afternoon and
then have like a real dinner, but even the coffee,
spacing out the coffee through the day and looking forward
(22:50):
to the four o'clock coffee but maybe it'll be three
thirty today because it was an earlier, Like I'll have
it all like you know, as like ways of treating.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yourself, as taking care of yourself.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
But I even love the ritual of looking at the
like of like having you know, things to start and
then the think and having the pasta and then having
the main course. That there's always something a little sad
to me if I just get a pasta for like
and I don't do the.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Main You're my favorite to eat with because you know,
we sit there and we look at the menu. We've
eaten so many meals here. Food was some important a
lens of food. There's also the I don't know if
(23:38):
you can have a lens of music, but there is.
The music was so it was so clear to the
continuity of the film, of the drama, of the film
of and you know, you listen to music always in
a film. That's there. But maybe because of the connection
with Nick and being at heavy road that day, but
I thought, you know, when we look back, you know,
(24:00):
I can often remember where I was when I was
eating something, and I can also remember exactly how I
was feeling when I hear music. You know, it takes
you to a place, you know, of of memory, you know,
just a song or.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
I have that with movies. Music and movies too.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Yeah, I remember the movie I saw, where I saw it,
who I saw it with. I used to really remember it.
I've lost some of it now. But I but food too,
like restaurants that you went to and with who you
were with, and.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The first time you ate Priscutta, you know, a piece
of music.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
And music as well. Definitely tell me about music and well,
Nick Brittel, who.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
I mean he was.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
I liked I liked the music, the score to be
part of the experience of making the movie. Too, to
the degree that it can be. I bring the composer
in the early to the script stage. And I never
worked with Nick Fortel, but I reached out to him
and we met and just connected. And so when I
(25:09):
gave him the script, he already was thinking and he'd
already written some of the themes that are throughout the movie.
I mean three of them really that are really a
big part of the movie. He wrote them from the
script and and he came on set. He played piano
for the crew. He like he was there as part
(25:30):
of the whole thing. But I love about his score
as well, is that it's such a it's such a
movie score. It's like a it's like a proper it's
got melody, it's got emotion, it's got you know, so
much life, and it's very and it really comes from
him and his experience.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
It's at the memorial.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
That that Ruth the stars and memorial.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And Jay runs into George's character. Jay runs into an
old friend, Timothy. They find their way to having drinks
that night and going out together and it's a place
that they used to frequent when they were younger. To
have an actor, a great actor, and Billy Crudip actually
(26:20):
show him perform, and in this case he's no longer
an actor, he's a child therapist. He's but he's being
asked by Jay to do a thing that it would
impress them all back in the day, which was the
sort of method acting thing, which was to read something
with no emotion and then give it, give it emotion.
I mean it's funny because he's reading a kind of
(26:42):
bar menu and then giving these you know, these sort
of ordinary shrimp cocktail and Brussels sprouts and aoli sauce.
He's giving it suddenly, like Jen, you win emotion in
a simple way. I thought it would just it would
(27:03):
be fun, like I said, to show what actors.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Do to have and to have.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
This is a performance that do that.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
This was the better actor in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
And it's also why it points out why why am
not me?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Why why do people become you know, how do you
become a movie star? You read interviews with movie stars
and they'll there's always sort of this sort of accidental clow.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
I never really wanted it. I happened into it.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And the truth of it is, it doesn't mean that
that isn't true on some level, and people are complicated.
They can want it and not want it, but you don't.
No one becomes a movie star by accident. Yeah, it's
you work so hard you have to want it more
than anyone else.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
I watched you on set the day that I was
starring in my movie Yes, and I thought, I think
you and I are very similar in a lot of ways.
We are we are where like you know, we found
each other kind of late enough, but we know each other.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
We recognized each joal we did.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Yeah, And I think that watching you work was so
intimate for me. And to watch you the way you
kept the set, the way you had people feeling good
about themselves or critical. You know that you called somebody
up on a scene or directed the way it was
(28:36):
and there was a mutual respect. There was a kind
of feeling that we can do this through kindness, through
kind of guiding and treating people as individuals I suppose,
you know, and getting them through hope rather than fear
or There was no shouting. There was a long day
and it was a day that reminded me sometimes when
(28:58):
you look at you clock here and it's you know,
eleven and you still have are there any more tables
and they go, yeah, two fours, a three and a sixth, okay,
And then you know that's a challenging time. And so
there was.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Also a lot of people, which is sometimes a lot
of people people who.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
All need attention.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
I don't mean in a negative way, but you have to.
I have to pay attention to all the performances. And
I had a lot of important people, uh there beyond that, but.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
It was it was fun as well. You see that
you were really involved and engaged. And it reminded me
that of a way of working, that probably we share
the values I think.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I mean when I watch you here, I what I
also recognize is we work the same way as we are.
I don't I don't talk to actors. I mean, of course,
you understand different actors respond better to different things and
different kinds of direction, and so I do, of course
(30:03):
alter my approach depending on who I'm working with. That's
a lot of rehearsal I find is not just getting
the scenes going, it's also learning each other. But I
still talk to them the same way I talk to anybody.
I don't have a directing way of doing it. I
just I still talk in the same halting way that
(30:26):
I talk.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
I find I often stop midnight and then I divert.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And then come back.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Somebody I think affectionately said it was like I'm always
trying to park a car in an impossible spot. But
I direct that way too. I'm not any clearer when
I'm talking to actors. I don't generally call action for
this reason because although George liked action, so I did
call it on j Kelly, but I don't usually do
(30:56):
it because I like that whatever is happening in front
of the camera and whatever's happening sort of behind the
camera or or between takes is all is within a
similar energy. So we're not suddenly acting. We're just continuing
and it's a conversation we're having and continuing at the
(31:17):
same time, just as you're pointing out. I mean, some
people I think like anxiety, anxiety or drama helps them,
like they almost need to be cornered to be able
to do their thing.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I'm not that way. Yeah, no, I know you aren't.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I love you too.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Let's go have some lunch. Thank you. Ruthie's Table for
is proud to support Leukemia UK. Their Cartwill for a
Cure campaign raises funds for vital research and more effective
and kinder treatments for a cute my Lloyd leukemia. Please
donate and to do so search Cartwill for Cure. M H.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Ruthie's Table four was produced by Alex Bell and Zad
Rogers with Susanna Hilock, Andrew Sang and Bella Sellini.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
This has been an atomized production for iHeartMedia.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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