IR Z Direct Interview: Kristian Mercado For "If You Were The Last" [Peacock] - Part I
Director Kristian Mercado talks to The Inside Reel about approach, humor and performance in regards to his new film: "If You Were The Last", premiering on Peacock.
Transcript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - We're not attracted now,
00:13 but we would emotionally attach.
00:14 - You mean fall in love.
00:15 - What if this awesome thing we have going on gets ruined?
00:20 - People are meant to be together.
00:22 - Oh, sorry.
00:22 Is this, is this on?
00:24 Okay.
00:25 - Lame.
00:26 ♪ I want the strongest, I just you need ♪
00:29 - We're both married.
00:29 - I'm sure being adrift in space gives you a hall pass.
00:33 ♪ I want the sun, two days before ♪
00:38 ♪ Stuck inside, running out the door ♪
00:40 - You know what you wanna watch tonight?
00:41 - Alien?
00:42 - Never seen it.
00:43 - Why the hell did we watch that movie?
00:47 ♪ I want the sun ♪
00:50 - Yeah, 'cause the thing is,
00:51 there's such an intimacy in the film.
00:55 I mean, it takes on bigger thoughts
00:56 and everything like that,
00:58 but just sort of the psychological thing of being,
01:00 which you've examined in a couple of things
01:04 as far as your documentaries and stuff like that.
01:06 And obviously like with Taylor or with, even with Billy,
01:11 could you talk about finding sort of that cadence
01:14 of emotion within this aesthetic?
01:17 - Oh, absolutely.
01:18 That's a great word for it, intimacy.
01:21 Like I think friendship, love,
01:24 all those things require intimacy
01:25 and intimacy is vulnerability
01:27 and intimacy is being able to see someone
01:30 in the present almost.
01:32 And I think like, I strive for that.
01:35 I think like anytime I put a camera in front of somebody,
01:39 you're innately creating like an intimacy
01:42 because you're seeing the person
01:45 and there's like a presence,
01:46 and suddenly you have to ask questions
01:48 about who I'm looking at and like,
01:50 what is their intention or like, what are they thinking?
01:53 And I think, you know, like when I was doing things
01:57 like the docs with Billy, you know,
02:00 it's about trying to get closer to like where they're at,
02:03 like, or find the truth of them, you know?
02:05 And then like, I think in terms of like,
02:09 when I do it in this film and with the aesthetics,
02:12 I was always trying to have the aesthetics match
02:15 where they are emotionally and mentally almost,
02:19 like as much as possible.
02:20 Like there's something about,
02:22 I think like, because film is essentially really
02:25 about what's in the frame and not in the frame
02:28 in some ways, you know?
02:29 And they're both important.
02:31 Like the things you see on camera
02:33 and the things you don't even see on camera
02:35 are both kind of like informing how you feel about it.
02:38 So there's something beautiful about that, I think,
02:42 like just being able to like feel and see their emotions,
02:46 you know, in different ways.
02:47 - Irresponsible. - Irresponsible.
02:48 - Absolutely.
02:49 - They spent what, a trillion dollars
02:52 plus countless man hours,
02:54 not to mention political capital,
02:55 trying to get one dude back from Mars?
02:58 - Political capital, it united the world.
03:01 - Yeah, for a hot second, but what if they failed?
03:03 Everyone would have been like, excuse me,
03:05 you know there are people dying here, right?
03:07 - People are always dying on Earth, you can't change that.
03:09 But if you get the opportunity to bring back Matt Damon.
03:11 - No, screw Matt Damon.
03:13 - That's just harsh.
03:15 - Dude, it costs an average of $1,200 to save a life.
03:18 - What?
03:19 - If you give money to charity,
03:20 the ones that are actually going to save lives
03:22 are the ones that clean water
03:23 and give out medicine and stuff, right?
03:24 - Matt Damon's charity literally cleans water.
03:26 - So when you factor in administrative costs
03:28 and how many people would actually die without help,
03:30 that works out to $1,200 per life.
03:32 - Okay, so what you're saying is you take a trillion
03:34 and divide it by 1,200 and you can save
03:37 833 million people's lives on Earth?
03:41 - You just do that math right now?
03:44 - I'm wicked smart.
03:45 - But it's also about, you know, in many ways,
03:48 and I like to, when I was watching it,
03:49 I remember in the theater, I kept thinking, of course,
03:52 of like us unplugging, plugging and unplugging,
03:55 analog and digital, and how you let the camera rest
04:00 on Zoe or on Anthony and just sort of let them breathe.
04:04 And that's something that doesn't happen,
04:06 everybody's going for the quick cut.
04:08 Could you talk about that decision, per se?
04:12 - I'm very obsessed with the pacing of a film, you know?
04:15 Like I think sometimes, I don't like films to,
04:20 I think there's a rhythm, like I almost felt like a DJ
04:25 when I was cutting this because it was like
04:28 trying to find the mood and the cadence of it
04:31 and the performances.
04:33 And, you know, Zoe and Mackie, their performances,
04:37 they would give me a lot of stuff that wasn't just
04:39 in the dialogue, but just in their looks
04:41 or the way they're just like absorbing things, you know?
04:44 Like I think there was this spot sometimes
04:48 where like they would have dialogue
04:50 and then you'd feel like this weight kind of falls on them
04:53 for whatever was said.
04:55 And I thought it was just so important to like stay on people
04:59 and their reaction to it.
05:00 Like I think particularly, one of the ones
05:02 that I was most moved by personally as the director
05:07 and being on set and actually filming it was when,
05:12 you know, without getting too spoilery,
05:15 Zoe kind of tells him an emotional truth in the cockpit,
05:20 right, and then, you know, they're looking at the distance
05:24 where they're heading towards and like Adam has to kind of
05:29 sit with that truth, you know, for a beat.
05:31 And it's like, you know, just his face, I felt that a lot.
05:35 I was like, oh wow, like you can tell that
05:37 there's a little bit of pain in there, you know?
05:39 So I felt that that's important, you know?
05:42 - You could also explore that with Joy too.
05:44 So like both ways, you know?
05:47 - I know, it's just, you look like so dumb.
05:51 - Okay, okay.
05:52 Checkmate.
05:55 - Dang.
05:58 - Boom.
05:58 - Okay.
06:01 (sizzling)
06:03 - You really don't think they're sending anybody to save us?
06:19 - I mean, I'm sure they're doing what they can
06:26 within reason.
06:30 - Well, that's why I love the humor of the,
06:33 quote unquote, I'll beat myself out of this,
06:35 of the (beep) astronauts sitting there talking,
06:38 me and them talking to it.
06:39 There's just something so inherently dark about that
06:43 and yet so wonderfully light in another way.
06:46 - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
06:47 It's the perfect balance, perfect balance of humor
06:50 and mortality because it's like a, it's weird
06:54 because when I was reading the script
06:55 and when I was looking at the skeletons
06:58 and I really made a point that had to be
07:00 very specific about the skeleton, you know?
07:03 Like I just thought that was so important.
07:05 But it's also, and not to be too pretentious,
07:08 very sort of like a Shakespearean kind of thing, right?
07:12 Like holding the skull and to be or not to be
07:15 and like anytime you have death present
07:18 and you offset it with humor,
07:21 but there's always this trope,
07:22 like humor always has a trope to it, you know?
07:25 Like you're laughing to kind of almost like make
07:30 like sense of something, you know?
07:32 And it was just so much fun to just shoot that Benson.
07:37 Like Benson's just a cool, just a crazy character
07:40 to have in that scenario.
07:42 And I was giving it a sense of life, you know?
07:45 Like.
07:46 - Yeah, I mean, the great thing is that, you know,
07:48 the film, the one thing that was, you're right,
07:50 there's such joy, you know?
07:52 And there's, you know, 'cause in some of these films
07:54 like even like "The Martian," which you referenced,
07:58 there's a certain dread, you know?
08:01 But the thing is, is that you feel like
08:03 these two could live out there forever
08:05 if they really wanted to.
08:07 - Yeah, yeah.
08:08 - And that's beautiful to do.
08:10 That's a tonal thing.
08:12 - Oh, thanks.
08:13 Yeah, I appreciate it.
08:14 Yeah, there's something about just them as a couple
08:18 or as a pair, I should say, as a pair that like,
08:21 you're just like, oh wow, like there's just something
08:24 about their cadence, their friendship.
08:28 Their friendship just feels really truthful.
08:31 And like, you just wanna be buds with them, really.
08:34 Like you wanna spend time with them too.
08:37 Like it's, that's the thing about finding
08:40 your favorite person, I think sometimes.
08:42 Like if you find someone that you just really, really adore,
08:46 like it's like the moments apart hurt a little bit
08:50 and you kind of wish you could just do nonsense
08:54 with them all the time, you know?
08:55 (upbeat music)
08:58 - In case you haven't noticed,
09:00 we're doomed to spend the rest of our miserable lives
09:02 on this ship.
09:03 Maybe we should do it.
09:04 - Do what?
09:05 - It.
09:06 (laughing)
09:08 - Well, what we're talking about is existential,
09:10 but the thing is, is those conversations,
09:12 are those conversations, that's what I love
09:14 about the script and how you were able to capture it,
09:18 is that, you know, those are the discussions
09:20 you have late at night after a couple bottles of wine
09:23 or early in the morning in bed.
09:25 It felt very organic in that way,
09:27 but you know, sometimes scripts read that way
09:30 and it's hard to capture them on screen.
09:32 And sometimes you have to do,
09:33 figure out if the chemistry works.
09:35 How did you know that would work?
09:37 And when did you know it would work between the two of them?
09:41 - I knew that like from the page,
09:43 just Angela Barras's writing, like I could read it
09:46 and really, really, really connected to it on a deep level.
09:51 I think like I was at the time, I was sort of in a headspace
09:55 of like kind of thinking a lot about love and friendship.
10:00 Like they were really important themes in my own life.
10:02 And I could see myself a lot actually in Adam.
10:06 Like I could just, for some reason I could relate to him
10:10 in a deep level, 'cause I'm, I think there was just something
10:13 about that character that I was like,
10:15 oh, he's kind of goofy, he's kind of silly,
10:19 but he's kind of like also like an idealist,
10:23 in some ways and he's a gardener.
10:26 I thought that was cool.
10:27 Like I love gardening and like,
10:29 I love just being around plants a lot.
10:32 And I think like, and their chemistry is just so natural.
10:37 Like, I just think like, you could tell
10:39 that they were becoming friends on set.
10:41 And like, I could tell from the beginning
10:43 when they did a chemistry read, I was just like, oh wow.
10:47 Like you guys just seem to flow together in a good way.
10:52 Like I could, I was excited by the potential
10:56 of them together on screen.
10:58 (screaming)
11:00 (dramatic music)
11:04 (dramatic music)
11:07 (gunshots)
11:09 [BLANK_AUDIO]