Good interview with indieWIRE this week, in which Charlie and Eva talk How To Shoot A Ghost, The Memory Police and Later the War. Couple of bits and pieces:
How did you land on the character having blue hair? You’re reminded of Kate Winslet in “Eternal Sunshine.”
Eva H.D.: That was [Jessie]! She bought that for 10 quid.
Kaufman: She said, “What if she had a blue wig?” She said, “I found this thing online.” She bought it, and she styled it. I can’t make decisions based on things like that [such as the connection to “Eternal Sunshine”]. People have determined that I fixate on certain things because they’re accidentally things that happen. Here’s an example because it’s meaningless: That I cast Jesse [Plemons] and Jessie [Buckley in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”] because their names are the same, and I was making some comment. No! It was [originally] Brie Larson and Domhnall Gleeson. They both couldn’t do it. I had no idea who Jessie Buckley was at the time. I called a friend of mine, a production designer, and said, “I need somebody for this role.” She was working with a director in England at the time. I looked at the “Beast” movie [she was in], and said, “OK, I want this person.” And I got her.
[...]
Charlie, is there more anxiety or liberation in the short-film format as opposed to a feature? The life cycle of a short film is less traditional. Does that affect your outlook?
Kaufman: I couldn’t make this as a feature. I can’t even make the features that I write that are more narrative. It’s very difficult to get financing. It’s easier to get financing for [a short], but the downside is that no one is ever going to make any money on it. You have to piece together financing. I don’t need, like in “Jackals,” there were no movie stars. We happen to have Jessie in this, which is great for us, because she brings so much to it. There are all sorts of equations when you’re casting a feature to get financing. This person who is of this value, and it’s garbage. I don’t have to deal with that for a short. It’s a lot of work. It’s not like it’s less work. We’ve been working on this forever, and there’s no payoff.
[...]
Kaufman: We’re working on getting [“Later the War”] going. We had to rethink it. I don’t know what to say about it. We’re still working on getting it going, and I’m hopeful, and it’s very good!
On The Memory Palace:
Kaufman: I adapted that from a novel, and Reid Morano is directing it. I stuck to the book. There are things, as you know if you’ve read the book, that you need to figure out because they’re kind of abstract in the way it’s described. But [my screenplay] follows the book.
Click on through for the full interview!
