Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Director and writer who became the first woman with sole director's credit for a billion-dollar blockbuster, Barbie.
On the island
Eight records
Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban
I hope I get it. I hope I get it. How many people does he need? How many people does he say? I hope I get it. How many boys? How many girls? Look at all the people. At all the people.
Even of my rock and roll choices, they're pretty musical theatery. … This never fails to just make me excited. Like when you hear some of those chords, you're like, yes!
Sleigh RideFavourite
My dad loved Johnny Mathis too. … I feel like it has this almost like joy mania. Like there's something about it where I was like, I love this song so much. It makes me just thrilled.
And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind
I didn't really love Elvis. Elvis wasn't my person, but a friend of mine said, wait, you gotta listen to it. … I don't know that anything beats like a friend or someone you respect saying like, try it again. You've missed it. Try it again.
I truly think if David Bowie hadn't existed, I wouldn't have made anything. … I couldn't believe that it existed. … it tripped some wire in me that I had always been there and then I was like, oh, there it is, it's Bowie.
For a long time, I had a fantasy that I would have a … wedding where a bunch of men who were tap dancing … were tap dancing and wearing like full tuxedos. … In my fantasy, there's not really a groom. It's just me and this like male sort of generalized generalized tap chorus.
Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner
I chose the reprise because it's sad, and also, you know, it's like at the end, his kingdom is falling apart, everything's a mess, and he's recounting what it was. … that kind of ache of what's already gone was part of it. And Richard Burton has my favorite voice of all time.
I think I'm attracted to voices, obviously. … Nina Simona's the pain and the joy in her voice is both. And I also thought, given that I'm on a desert island, this was a sort of celebration of what you you have and not what's missing.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:11What did it feel like to be caught up in the Barbenheimer moment?
Honestly, I mean, it was such an extraordinary moment of when it was released and came into the world and then there was this overwhelming sense of everyone's going to the movies again. I don't know. For me, so much of when Noah Baumbach and I wrote the script and what was the dream of making it was really this hope of like everyone being in cinemas again. And that was because we wrote it during, you know, we started really writing it in March of 2020. … And that was just, there was no movies. You know, we weren't gathering. And we I kind of thought, well, if we ever do this again, let's make the most … thing they'll let us get away with that you would want to be together for.
Presenter asks
5:08How did your parents share their creativity with you?
Well, I mean, there was a record collection in my house, which is where honestly, a lot of things come from. It was lots of different stuff, but it was also … like Steve Martin's stand-up album and stuff. Like, it was just this connection to other things like music and comedy and theater. And it was, we had recordings of plays, which they used to put on records. And then they would take me to everything that there was. I mean, there was a symphony in Sacramento, which we went all the time. It was like a lot of like, let's go to every, absolutely everything there is to offer in Sacramento. … I felt like they gave me all this access and then they also just kept allowing for it. Like they were like, she's interested and let's keep going. I don't think they ever thought I was actually going to do it. It was a hobby.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
She gets at mortality and loneliness and but then the joy of finding things that you would only find in in silence or emptiness, which I think you probably need that voice on a desert island.
The luxury
I just know I would go absolutely bananas if I didn't have something to write with.
Presenter asks
9:37You've described yourself as a child of big emotions. Tell me more about that.
I had intense loves and, um, passions and, I mean, when I was young I w I wanted to be a dancer. I had studied ballet. I would have spent seven days a week there for as long as I could have done it. I had to be sort of kept from things. … My mom was worried, I think, that I was too I would get too obsessive about. You would get fixated on a thing. Yeah, and I think I realize now that that kind of fixation is not um not everyone feels that, but I had that sort of level.
Presenter asks
14:29What exactly happened with the short story your teacher pinned up?
That's so embarrassing. It's still embarrassing. … It was the first time I changed classes, and there were all these people and lockers, and it just I felt intimidated. And anyway, we were taking a math test. … I had peed my pants in seventh grade, and I was doing a math test for placement. … a girl across from me saw what was happening. … she had a sweatshirt and she took it off. And she sort of gestured, wrap it around yourself so no one sees. And she gave me her sweatshirt. … It was this moment of just like … Just kindness. … I wrote about it in eighth grade. … She pinned it on the board, and I I thought I was just turning it into her, and it would just be for her. … And then it was all of a sudden on the board and then everybody knew that it had happened to me, if I'm remembering correctly. I think I wrote about it as if it was f funny, but I still was like just emba so embarrassed by it.
Presenter asks
17:47After high school you didn't get into musical theatre colleges. How did you handle the rejection?
I started comedy. Not that I was the best at comedy. It was just comedy was … Even if you weren't good at comedy, they always need a straight man to have the other people to be funny around. … I knew that there were lots of different ways to be part of the world of show people. … I liked actors, I liked writers, I liked dancers, singers, directors, production designers, lighting designers, stage managers, people who made things, people who created these fictions. And I was like, well, there's gotta be a spot for me in all of this because it is a job.
Presenter asks
29:16Your work is generally hopeful. Was that a choice you made early on?
It's not really a choice so much as, um … I think I must believe it. You know, obviously there's very many things in the world that are there's there's a lot of obvious pain and everything else, but I I think I I believe in people. I'm not negative about it all. Although I can have melancholy uh about it, but I hope we uh we find the best way to go forward. And we don't always obviously obviously, but um I do love people.
“I had intense loves and, um, passions and, I mean, when I was young I w I wanted to be a dancer. I had studied ballet. I would have spent seven days a week there for as long as I could have done it. I had to be sort of kept from things.”
“I think that's why I love directing so much and being on film sets so much, is because it's long hours and it's all encompassing and it's sort of however much you can ask of yourself to do. There's always more. That gives me a sense of calm.”
“I'm pretty superstitious and pretty mystical. I don't know. I'm always on the lookout for signs, I'll say that. See two pretty clear ones there.”
“I think people make something better when they feel safe. So I try to give them that safety. … I want them to bring me things that I never would have thought of because that's the fun of making movies, is they're totally collaborative.”
“I think I must believe it. You know, obviously there's very many things in the world that are there's there's a lot of obvious pain and everything else, but I I think I I believe in people. I'm not negative about it all. … I do love people.”