The director returns with the follow-up to her Oscar winning debut, Promising Young Woman,
with a cast including Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
with a cast including Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi. Report by Nelsonj. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Congratulations on the movie. It must have been a strange, at times uncomfortable experience
00:05 completing a film amongst the backdrop of all this uncertainty in the film industry,
00:08 in the writer's strike and the actor's strike. How much of a relief, how much of a pleasure,
00:13 how much of a joy is it to unveil the film at a time like this when we're seeing light
00:17 at the end of the tunnel?
00:18 Well, I don't know because I'm kind of ferociously on the side of the strikers really and so
00:24 I kind of feel like I'm just more concerned that they get, as we did with the WGA, that
00:33 they get their dues and they get the deal and they fight as hard as possible. But of
00:37 course it's a very strange time to bring a film out because we're all super, super aware
00:47 that they're striking for all of our behalves and we're really, really grateful and we want
00:51 to do them proud.
00:52 Let's talk about the last film. Promising Young Woman is a bonafide masterpiece. How
00:58 did that change your experience writing this, following something that was so loved and
01:03 so successful? Does that make it more difficult when you sit down in the writers' room and
01:08 you're trying to knock out something?
01:10 I think honestly I was just, I was so, in a way I was lucky because I was at home, I
01:16 had two small children, we were in the middle of a pandemic which meant I wasn't, maybe
01:21 it didn't feel quite as close as all of this does. So I think I was quite lucky that the
01:27 pressure wasn't too intense. But of course you always want people to love the things
01:32 that you make. I think this film, like Promising Young Woman, is hopefully going to get people
01:38 talking and going to get people excited and fighting and all of the things that Promising
01:43 did. And it's nice because you already have an established language now with the people
01:48 watching and so you hope that they'll bring their love of the last film and they'll bring
01:54 that to this and see those similarities too.
02:00 How personal is this film to you? Because you think of great artists and musicians and
02:05 what have you, and you think of their first great work that they become recognised for
02:10 and all the time and the years of ideas and thoughts and emotions that sometimes pile
02:14 into it. And then you think of the second albums and the second effort as something
02:18 that, okay, now the pressure is on to deliver something for the world. Does this film speak
02:25 to you just as much as The Last Did?
02:27 Oh my goodness, of course. I think I'm lucky in the sense that there are lots and lots
02:33 of things that I've been thinking about for a lot of years. So Saltburn, it's not a kind
02:37 of new thing, it's been creeping around in the back staircase of my head for seven or
02:44 eight years now. So no, I'm lucky this feels just as personal.
02:50 I was listening to a chat between Zach Braff and Elizabeth Banks recently, another pair
02:54 of writer/actor/directors, and they talked about how they enjoy acting more but they
03:01 get more from directing. It's more exhausting at the end of the day but they take more from
03:07 it. Has that been your experience? Do you miss the simplicity of turning up on set and
03:12 having a very clear role?
03:14 Well, I think I'm very lucky. I've never, ever been happier. I'm never happier than
03:18 when I'm on set directing. So it's a kind of sheer joy to me every single day that I'm
03:28 able to do this. I'm able to do it. And I love, love, love writing and directing. So
03:36 I don't know, I think that's my main course in acting is putting.
03:41 Very, very quickly, just capturing lightning in a bottle is kind of the success, the secret
03:45 source to making a film work. Getting someone like Jacob Laudie in a place where he is in
03:49 his career, and Barry Keegan of course, I mean, seeing how their careers have progressed
03:53 over the last 12 months alone must have been a joy for you working with them.
03:58 It's so wonderful and there aren't two people in the world who deserve it more. They're
04:03 both so wonderful and so talented and they worked so, so hard on this movie. We pushed
04:10 each other, all of us, every day to do something complicated and weird and difficult and sexy.
04:17 And I don't think this film could work without them. So yeah, they deserve it, both of them.