Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1126636
36 DGA QUARTERLY PHOTOS: EVERETT; (OPPOSITE) HBO Q: In establishing that safety zone, I hear that you dis- miss nonessential crew members from the set. A: Well, it's three: It's the camera operator, who's the DP; the focus puller; and the boom. And sometimes the script [supervisor] and the 1st AD, very close. I'm behind the camera operator with the focus puller, where the boom is behind us, or he's hiding himself and that allows us to do everything we do. It's not that we want to be quick, but we are quick. We shoot 9 to 6 most of the time, or 9 to 7. We don't do crazy days and thank God, because it's demanding shoot- ing handheld like this and the poor focus guy, he has the pressure because we shoot the rehearsals in the blocking and he's often asking, "Can we have a re- hearsal?" "No, let's just see what they're going to do and record." If it is a great rehearsal and we haven't recorded it, man… Q: So that's another part of the Jean-Marc way: the lack of rehearsal; no table readings. A: I've learned to do table readings on the two HBO projects, because I have never done that before. But I do meetings, lunch, dinners—one-on-one meetings where we talk about the scripts, the characters. But it is very rare that we rehearse. So I'm next to [the focus puller], he sees me or feels me as he looks at the ac- tors, and then when he sees and feels my hand going this way, he knows that I want him to go to the other characters. Q: So, you're gesturing? A: Well, sometimes I talk, or I whisper, and the focus puller and camera operator, they're French Cana- dian, too, so when I whisper in French and they hear me, [the actors] know it's not about them. And when I whisper in English, the [camera people] know it's not about them. So, it's a good thing to have both languages to have this way of communicating quickly on this type of ap- proach. We know we're staging, and it is fiction but like a documentary; we capture it and it feels real because there is no mark. They can go wherever. There is no rehearsal and we use the space and we'll react. Q: Are you using film or digital? A: Digital now. Since Café de Flore I started with the Alexa and I went, "All right, I'm good," but we [applied] a film grain. I want to recreate the film impression, and I will never stop trying to recreate that. (DP) Yves Bé- langer is also very picky, and he likes this film impres- sion too. Q: In Dallas Buyers Club, the Ron Woodruff character is possibly one of the most abrasive and unsavory char- acters that would result in an Academy Award. How do you create compassion for somebody like that when he is showing you every reason not to care? A: We talked about it, and Matthew's and my refer- ence was Randle McMurphy in Cuckoo's Nest. We care for this guy and every single thing he did was wrong: the way he treated these mentally challenged people and the nurses and the help, and the women. The way he talks about pussy and sex is like, "Oh my God, Jesus, man!" And we love him, we care for him, that's the thing about him. There was something on the page that we loved (about Woodruff ) because he's just like McMurphy. It's easy to care for someone, even with all his flaws: he's racist, he's homophobic, the way he treats wom- en and cheats, he steals. But he's sick, and his will to survive [allows us] to embrace and to care for this guy, and it takes time. And also, there is the star quality that these actors have, Nicholson and the others. Matthew has [that] star quality. You put the camera on him, although mi- nus 48 pounds, he looked like… Q: I was going to say part of the challenge of warming to that character is getting over the fact that he looks so sickly and frail. When an actor undergoes such an ex- treme physical transformation, are you as a director en- couraging that? Or are you thinking we can do this with makeup and wardrobe and lighting? A: No, no, I was supporting [that] until 30 pounds. At 30 pounds when I looked at him, I went, "All right, are you OK?" "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And he continued. And then we went, "It's too much. Why don't you eat some burgers? You went too far." "Ah, no, no, I'm OK, I'm OK." He was closer to [losing] 50 than 40. He was happy to say 48 pounds, and I mean who does that? There is something about Matthew even with the Above, Vallée films Jake Gyllenhaal in New York for Demolition. Opposite, with Amy Adams on the set of Sharp Objects. "The star quality, the humanity in their face, that's why we love cinema so much."