A few too many good quotes in this one for me to post them all. BUT I WILL GIVE IT A RED HOT GO:
in his first years as a screenwriter Kaufman was an enigma. “I think there’s this mythology around me because I was, and am, kind of camera-shy[...] There were all these articles about me saying I wouldn’t give interviews. I kind of got mad at a guy once because he asked me, ‘Why don’t you do interviews?’ I was literally doing an interview with him at the time!”
That would be this interview with David Poland, back around the time of Synecdoche, New York.
Other stuff:
“I have heard that description ["mindf---"] of things I’ve done, but I don’t set out to do that. But I think the way to approach one’s work is to put it out in the world and let it do what it does. So if people want to call it a mindf— or say I’m weird, that’s their prerogative. But it’s not my intent.”
[...] His frequent producer Anthony Bregman puts it best. “He’s trying to really push you emotionally to feel things and release you from the need to explain what’s going on intellectually and just understand by how it makes you feel,” Bregman says. “It’s more a heartf— than a mind—.”
Jessie Buckley, on the script:
“I would read it two or three times a week and send Charlie an email saying, ‘Do not worry. I understand exactly what this is about.’ I would tell him everything I was thinking, and he would respond, ‘Amazing. That makes total sense!’ Then I’d reread the script and go back and say, ‘I’m sorry — that was completely ridiculous. This is what it’s really about!’ And he’d say, ‘Oh, that’s great!’”
Bregman on the ill-fated How and Why pilot:
“It was brilliant, but it wasn’t cheap and it wasn’t for everyone, and that’s the tricky thing[...] There’s this tricky thing that needs to get matched — the price of something versus what the potential audience is for it.”
Anomalisa troubles:
“Anomalisa” had been a particularly challenging experience; at one point funds were so low, a delivery person showed up to repossess the bottled water. (A fast-thinking producer hid the bottles in another room.)
On Ending Things:
“[‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’] took place in a car and a farmhouse, and I thought, ‘That sounds easy and inexpensive!’” Kaufman says. As it turned out, it was a very difficult production. The 30-day shoot was whittled down to 24. Kaufman had hoped to build a car and a farmhouse he could disassemble to get creative shots, but budget restrictions prohibited that.
Also the weather caused problems. Click on through for more. Worth it!