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Transcript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - What film or series lit your fuse
00:13 and made you have to tell stories on screen?
00:16 - Well, now that's interesting.
00:19 We, in order to answer that question,
00:26 I've got to tell you how we consumed things in Ireland
00:30 in the 1980s.
00:31 'Cause it was quite different from nowadays, obviously,
00:36 but also very different from America
00:38 and different than England.
00:40 We had a national broadcaster that ran two channels
00:45 and then we had BBC and ITV, the British channels,
00:50 coming in for free into our country.
00:54 And then we had the cinema,
00:56 and Irish people love going to the cinema.
00:58 And we had lots and lots of really great cinemas in Dublin
01:04 where you could see "Clash of the Titans"
01:08 and you could see "E.T."
01:10 and you could see Mel Brooks movies,
01:13 none of which you could see on television.
01:16 So TV was American reruns of shows
01:22 like the "Hillbillies," the "Beverly Hillbillies,"
01:24 and "Twilight Zone," and BBC shows.
01:29 So to give you an idea of how we consumed things,
01:32 myself and my brothers and sister would stay up late
01:35 watching horror movies on Channel 4.
01:38 We would watch "The Old Great Whistle Test" on BBC,
01:43 and we would watch chat shows on RT.
01:47 And then we would go to the movies, to the cinema,
01:50 and see mainly American movies.
01:53 And my mother occasionally would,
01:56 and my father, they both had great taste in movies,
01:59 so they were like, "Oh, there's a 'True Folk' season on,"
02:02 and we would all sit down and watch that.
02:04 Or there's some like "It Hot" is on,
02:06 we would all watch Billy Wilder movies,
02:08 literally like it was the fireplace of an Irish cottage.
02:13 And the TV was...
02:15 So I have a weird eclectic mix because of that
02:20 of influences.
02:22 The comedy of Billy Wilder,
02:25 the joyful musicals of the golden period of Hollywood.
02:30 And I was lucky enough that the BBC
02:34 had a sort of a cultural remit.
02:37 And RT, to a point, had a sort of like an educational
02:40 sort of curator-like, you know,
02:42 television is this great thing coming into our homes,
02:45 and maybe it's not just all about dumbed-down quiz shows.
02:49 Maybe there's an educational, social,
02:52 political aspect to these things, which was brilliant.
02:55 And it meant that we got this incredibly interesting
02:58 and diverse range of television.
03:02 And my influences come mainly from being a kid,
03:07 and my mother and my father having great taste in movies,
03:12 and then my older siblings directing me
03:15 towards great movies.
03:17 Or I should put it this way, actually,
03:18 a number of films made me want to become a filmmaker,
03:21 but "Faces" by John Cassavetes
03:24 made me think I could do that, maybe.
03:26 It was the only film that I had seen
03:29 that I felt like technically I could maybe replicate this
03:34 or knock it off.
03:36 'Cause it's four people in an apartment
03:40 shot in black and white,
03:41 which is exactly what my first movie was.
03:43 But I guess in a sense it was the most influential movie
03:48 for me because it told me you maybe could do this.
03:51 Whereas like E.T. or Spielberg movies
03:55 or big American movies were like, good luck.
03:58 You're never gonna have to look at them.
04:00 Here, then your parents would watch Billy Wilder movies,
04:03 but again, they were beautiful looking.
04:05 And even French New Wave movies,
04:09 you looked at them and you're like,
04:10 could I do, maybe I could do a shot like that,
04:13 but you couldn't because they were still,
04:16 they were shot on 35 and they were very aesthetic,
04:20 very beautiful and all the actors were beautiful
04:23 in French movies.
04:24 "Faces" was the first movie that gave me permission
04:29 to even dare to become a filmmaker.
04:32 - You break down the specifics of music
04:37 and you put it into a cinematic language.
04:40 Is there a film that's kind of a North Star for you
04:44 in terms of conveying to a movie going public,
04:49 the emotion and the inspiration and ambition
04:54 that you get because you grew up a musician?
04:57 Was there a film that did that,
05:00 that was a North Star for you?
05:02 - Yeah, I think there is actually.
05:06 To answer that question specific to music,
05:08 I would say "New York, New York", the Scorsese movie.
05:14 I'm in amongst the education that I was going through
05:17 on VHS of going down to the Art House video store
05:22 and just consuming, basically educating myself
05:26 in my late teens.
05:27 That movie, "New York, New York",
05:31 in amidst "A Star is Born" or Gene Kelly movies
05:35 or something like that, which I loved,
05:37 "New York, New York" felt like, this is weird.
05:41 This is like the same,
05:43 some of the same tonal ideas of those big musicals,
05:49 but as made by a gritty '70s film director
05:54 who I could relate to, who was still alive,
05:56 who you could read about in the newspapers.
05:59 Whereas the other people from the '40s and '50s
06:01 were kind of gone.
06:02 This was a film that was like,
06:04 this has all the really great dance sequences
06:09 and performing sequences of Judy Garland movies,
06:14 and it's obviously her daughter,
06:15 but it's Robert De Niro, who's Travis Bickle, in my mind.
06:20 There was a kind of a feeling that you could have
06:23 a musical that was more than just a sort of toe-tapping,
06:26 I got the da-da-da-da-da music,
06:29 but it had that music in it as well.
06:30 It has tons of Gershwin and Cole Porter
06:32 and really upbeat pieces,
06:35 but it has the breakdown of a marriage,
06:38 it has pregnancy, it has misogyny, it has racism,
06:41 it has race issues, it has diversity issues.
06:45 There's a thing about Harlem and a thing about uptown.
06:49 It was like, oh, you can have your cake
06:51 and you can make a glorious toe-tapping musical
06:55 that's about something.
06:57 - Right.
06:58 So now, on your way up,
07:00 when you were finding your way as a filmmaker,
07:02 what movie or series did you watch
07:06 that was so good it made you question
07:09 if you could ever really play in that sandbox?
07:12 - I'd say when you see good,
07:20 you know, really good TV or really good movies,
07:24 like if you watch "Seinfeld,"
07:25 just give up trying to be a funny writer.
07:28 Just forget about it.
07:30 Whereas "Friends," which was a really good series,
07:33 which I loved and I devoured
07:34 and I thought was really good fun,
07:37 that was more like, okay, I can kind of do that maybe.
07:40 Like in the way that you could watch a Neil Simon play
07:44 and you could feel like, oh, maybe I could have,
07:48 be a theater writer or write for a TV show or something.
07:53 Whereas "Bilko" or something,
07:55 you'd be like, forget about it.
07:57 I'd watch "30 Rock" and give up ever trying to be like,
08:02 work in TV or do something funny like that
08:04 or "Seinfeld" is like, it's so good.
08:06 It doesn't bear thinking about it.
08:10 But then there's other shows, you know,
08:11 like, and I think "Friends" and "Seinfeld" is a good example.
08:13 I like "Friends" and actually I owe a lot to that series.
08:17 'Cause again, it wasn't the unbelievable hit rate
08:22 of jokes and gags that "Seinfeld" has.
08:25 It was still kind of funny and likable,
08:27 but it also, again, gave me sort of permission
08:31 because it was pretty simple.
08:32 It was like four or five friends in an apartment
08:35 and the ideas aren't the high concept,
08:37 humorous ideas of "Seinfeld."
08:40 They're kind of more youthful and I get that
08:42 the characters are broader
08:44 and it's more romantic or whatever.
08:46 So that was a very influential show on me, I have to say.
08:50 I'm looking at my films now,
08:52 it kind of makes sense that I like "Friends."
08:55 - So now, whether it was good reaction to your own work
08:59 or approval from someone whose opinion
09:02 really mattered to you,
09:04 what first gave you the confidence
09:06 that you were on the right track and you did belong?
09:09 - Myself and my colleague, Tom Hall,
09:13 got a review by quite a good writer in Dublin
09:17 called Hugh Lenehan on our first movie.
09:19 Hugh Lenehan is his name, he still writes.
09:22 And he gave us a good review of our first movie.
09:25 And our first movie was "Made for Nothing."
09:28 We rented a studio and shot with our friends for seven days
09:32 and then went out and tried to hustle some money
09:34 and edit it together on an Avid, a very early Avid,
09:37 which we didn't know how to use.
09:38 So it was a real lark and it was like,
09:42 you know, we had made sketches and short films.
09:44 This was our first real attempt at doing a feature,
09:48 at being like taken a bit seriously,
09:50 having a film at a festival.
09:51 And he gave it a good review
09:54 and it told me how important being a critic is
09:59 and being, you know, that your job as a critic
10:03 is not just to like direct the audience away from garbage.
10:08 It's also the person who did the work,
10:13 that you're speaking to that person as well.
10:15 And I think critics often forget
10:17 that there's somebody at home with a wife and kids
10:20 or a husband and parents and kids reading this.
10:24 And so be gentle, like by all means,
10:27 tell the person how to be a better filmmaker or suggest,
10:30 but don't rip it apart.
10:31 And I found that review to be in the same way
10:35 that a review can easily turn people away
10:39 from their job and lose their faith.
10:41 This was the opposite.
10:43 And I think that was important to me as a young filmmaker
10:47 to get validation from, you know,
10:51 an Irish broadsheet newspaper.
10:54 And then I think with "Once," likewise, you know,
10:58 there were a few responses to that movie that like,
11:01 I might be onto something here.
11:04 What was really so sweet,
11:06 and it's amazing looking back at that now,
11:08 like it was like, you know,
11:10 when you get an airplane flight and there's like
11:11 no turbulence and you get a gin and tonic or a nice drink
11:16 and everybody's really nice and it lands on time.
11:21 And it's just like, that was perfect.
11:23 This film is that memory.
11:26 It's like everything just went well.
11:30 From the very beginning of the process,
11:33 it was, this has felt right.
11:37 It felt like everybody wanted to be there.
11:39 It felt like it was personal enough
11:43 for me to like get motivated every day,
11:45 to like get it off my chest and get it done.
11:47 And Glenn was my friend.
11:49 And a lot of the people in the film are my mates
11:51 and friends and a lot of the crew were my friends.
11:54 So I kind of, it's not that I wanted to prove it,
11:56 I wanted to finish it and show them that I could,
11:59 that I had some insight into making a movie
12:03 and then it got rewarded.
12:04 And so you felt like on top of the world
12:08 because it really, that movie really, really,
12:12 really was my worldview.
12:15 And it's just an amazing story.
12:17 It would never repeat.
12:20 I don't think it would happen to a lot of filmmakers
12:22 to be kind of, and validated isn't the right word.
12:25 It's more, it must be how it feels
12:29 to like write a beautiful song and to showcase it.
12:33 And everybody says thank you for that song or something.
12:36 Or to stand up and people are like,
12:38 Jesus man, I needed to hear that.
12:41 It's as close to that feeling of like,
12:44 I have something to say.
12:46 I was pretty sure it was nice myself,
12:50 but like that never, that usually doesn't mean anything.
12:53 And for this one film, it meant the world
12:56 and it connected in just a beautiful way.
12:58 And everybody associated with the movie
13:00 has that memory of it.
13:01 Like everybody was grateful for the movie,
13:05 glad to be of assistance and happy for it.
13:10 And happy to see it live,
13:12 not jealous or not pissed off,
13:15 but just it was a real once in a lifetime thing,
13:18 if you excuse the pun.
13:19 - One thing I wanted to, the film that you made,
13:22 I remember seeing at the Toronto premiere,
13:25 Kenneth's song "Save Your Life".
13:27 And I walked out just like all the buyers,
13:30 we were all just so energized and pumped.
13:34 I thought it was just the absolute perfect title.
13:38 And my question is, begin again, what the heck?
13:42 How did that happen?
13:44 - I know, it's my fault I allowed it in.
13:47 I shouldn't have, I didn't have the balls
13:49 to stand up to the Weinstein organization.
13:54 They were like, this is the name.
13:55 And I knew it was a terrible name,
13:58 but I didn't have the courage to stand up
14:03 and say, keep the name that,
14:06 'cause originally that name kind of song "Save Your Life"
14:10 was just like the thing I wrote at the top of my notepad
14:12 to remind me of what I was writing.
14:14 - Yeah.
14:15 - And then it stuck and we loved it.
14:17 And we should have stuck with it,
14:19 but you live and learn, the next one was a good title.
14:22 "Sing Street" was a good title.
14:23 We didn't, we sticked.
14:24 I think it's important to not change a film title actually,
14:28 unless it stinks.
14:29 It's always a sign, like we had a TV show
14:32 called "Batcher's Walk",
14:33 but it was called "Batcher's Walk"
14:34 from the very beginning.
14:36 "Once Was Once" from the very beginning.
14:38 "Sing Street" was, it seems to me there's something up
14:41 when you're going,
14:43 the title, maybe if we change the title,
14:45 we can make the film better, which is nonsense.
14:49 - So now what would you say was the biggest obstacle
14:52 that you had to overcome to allow you to turn the projects
14:55 that influenced you into your own cinematic language?
14:59 - That's a really good question.
15:05 I mean, money is always a very big factor in filmmaking.
15:11 I mean, and sometimes you forget, it's like,
15:14 you know, have you ever read about Van Gogh
15:16 writing to his brother saying like,
15:19 "If only I had green,
15:21 if only I could afford to buy this paint."
15:24 And it was literally like nickels and dimes,
15:26 like, "I can't afford to buy another tube.
15:28 Can you send me a tube of this paint?"
15:30 And even in painting, you realize,
15:32 "Oh my God, Jesus, the idea that one of the great artists
15:36 of our time was thinking about money."
15:39 My big thought about moviemaking is more than any art form,
15:42 it depends upon resources and being resourced.
15:47 It benefactors and subsidies and permissions.
15:52 And I think the biggest question in every filmmaker's life
15:56 is how much am I making this movie for?
15:59 And once you have that defined,
16:03 then you can get over a lot of obstacles.
16:06 And if you get the money wrong,
16:09 that's the thing I think that's often holding greatness back.
16:12 You either have too much money
16:14 and it didn't need that much money
16:16 and I started spending it on things that were distracting,
16:19 or I didn't have enough,
16:20 simply I just did not have enough
16:22 to buy the days I needed to make that film.
16:26 And they're always the,
16:29 they're the first and the last obstacles
16:31 of all filmmakers, I think.
16:32 And even being given too much money is a problem.
16:38 It's getting the right money for this particular project
16:41 and this amount of actors
16:42 and these amount of days or whatever.
16:44 And time is money in film, that's the thing.
16:47 What I feel like I'm doing is buying time,
16:52 buying another day, as opposed to like a crane
16:56 or a special effect or something,
17:00 just give me another day to try this.
17:02 That's what I am spending money on.
17:05 - So my last question is,
17:07 Florence, tell me what burned in you
17:11 to wanna tell this story
17:13 and how lucky did you get to have this actress
17:17 who it turns out sings like an angel?
17:19 - Yeah, I mean, to be honest,
17:23 there's only one person that could do this film.
17:26 - Yeah.
17:27 - And that's Eve.
17:28 And I think that once you,
17:30 once you make a movie that that's true about,
17:34 you're in, you have something.
17:37 Whether it's now, I don't know whether it'll be a hit
17:39 or I couldn't care less actually, to be honest.
17:41 I mean, I hope people get to see it,
17:43 but it'll certainly clean its face
17:47 and stand up on its own two feet and say,
17:49 I am what I am.
17:52 And it's because of her.
17:53 Kind of in the same way that Ruffalo
17:59 was Ruffalo in that movie.
18:00 And you kind of can't,
18:02 it's not that you just can't imagine somebody else in it,
18:05 but it would be a different thing with somebody else.
18:09 There are movies in which it would be the same movie
18:10 if that actor, it doesn't really matter.
18:12 But something happened with that actor and that's gold.
18:18 And it's definitely in,
18:20 and I think Glenn was that in once in a way.
18:22 - Yeah.
18:23 - Like could that have been Damien Rice?
18:26 I don't think so.
18:27 Damien Rice, perfectly good songwriter
18:28 and all the rest of it.
18:29 He just couldn't be that guy.
18:31 And Eve, even though there's tons of really great Dublin
18:34 actors that could play the role,
18:36 she had the right,
18:38 just the right vibe going into it,
18:41 the right insights,
18:43 the right amount of playfulness
18:45 and the right attitude going into the role
18:48 that made it hers.
18:50 And nobody else could touch that.
18:52 And that's why I think she's kind of a bit more like her dad
18:55 in the rockstar sense.
18:57 She kind of,
19:00 she's a bit like a rockstar
19:02 in her sense of smell about something,
19:06 like a sense of like,
19:07 oh, that's wrong or that's right.
19:08 Like her instincts was new.
19:09 It's less like an actor,
19:11 more like many of the kind of musical people
19:14 I've been with who are like a big deal
19:16 or have that rockstar instinct for things.
19:20 But three minute, like, oh, that's gonna work.
19:22 That's not gonna work.
19:24 And she has it
19:28 in relation to this,
19:29 the approach that she made to this.
19:33 And that's why I think nobody else,
19:35 just nobody else has her story.
19:37 I don't mean her U2 story,
19:39 but I do in a way,
19:40 like there's a connection to the fact
19:41 that she's from this big family,
19:43 but she's still a dub,
19:45 you know, and you could tell by her,
19:46 she's ridden the same like dark trains
19:49 that we all rode as kids.
19:51 She's been to the same beaches
19:53 and she's been to the same places
19:55 and she's been to the same beaches
19:57 and got drunk at a beach party as everybody else.
20:00 But she is removed slightly
20:03 in that she's obviously been to LA
20:05 and traveled with her family
20:06 and she's had this great,
20:08 this extra privilege.
20:10 But she uses that to hone her cast,
20:15 her craft as an actor.
20:18 And that's kind of what makes her special
20:21 and what makes,
20:22 and in the same way,
20:23 Bo has his things that make him special.
20:25 You know, like his story,
20:28 he brings his cast and his story
20:30 and his thing as being a child actor
20:33 and being in this TV show.
20:34 He brings all that to the role.
20:36 - Yes.
20:37 - And that's,
20:37 I'm very lucky to have the cast I have for this movie.
20:41 - So, you know,
20:42 so obviously we know her dad is Bono
20:44 and when you wrote it,
20:47 when you, you know,
20:48 did you always have her in mind?
20:50 Did you know she could sing?
20:51 Sometimes you can't.
20:53 - No, I did not.
20:54 I didn't think of her.
20:55 Her agent rang me and said,
20:56 did you ever think of Eve for this role?
20:58 I was like, Eve?
21:00 But like Eve Hewson?
21:02 I mean, I've seen her.
21:04 I haven't seen "Bad Sisters".
21:06 It had just been made.
21:07 It hadn't been out.
21:07 It wasn't out yet.
21:08 So I was like,
21:09 I met Eve when she was 15.
21:11 I was at Bono's birthday party or something.
21:13 There she was.
21:14 She seemed very nice.
21:16 Yeah.
21:17 Let's, let's,
21:18 I had not thought of her.
21:19 I had thought of like maybe Saoirse Ronan or something.
21:21 Like, I think I,
21:22 I think I may have sent the script to Saoirse,
21:24 but I don't know if she read it or not.
21:26 I was thinking of her maybe,
21:27 or maybe I'll go for like an unknown discovery actor
21:31 or somebody that I, you know,
21:32 and I thought,
21:33 and then I just Zoomed with Eve
21:35 and it was like,
21:36 this, this person is making this movie.
21:37 I mean, it's just such,
21:39 it was such a connection about the character.
21:44 And we had,
21:45 we both had a thing about Dublin,
21:46 which I think we wanted to get off our chest,
21:47 which was like,
21:48 we know these,
21:49 we, we, we,
21:51 there's something about Dubliners that's just so funny.
21:54 And,
21:55 there's a thing,
21:58 it's almost like,
22:00 it's almost like Italian Americans or something.
22:02 When I, when I listened to like Italian Americans
22:06 in like Scorsese movies or something,
22:09 or, or even that, you know,
22:10 I sometimes get a sense of like,
22:12 I feel like I'm in Dublin now.
22:13 I feel like I'm on the streets in Dublin.
22:16 There's, there's a weird musical,
22:18 funny way of expressing yourself.
22:20 There's a sort of a,
22:21 there's a witty kind of come back to everything.
22:26 There's a gallows kind of humor,
22:28 which is, which is fun.
22:29 And, and, and,
22:30 and she's got that edge.
22:33 Like she's always saying funny stuff.
22:34 And, and, and also kind of like,
22:37 Flora is always saying funny things
22:40 that are a little bit wrong.
22:41 So we've got that in a great way.
22:45 (upbeat music)
22:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]