J. A. Bayona | Behind The Lens

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00:00 (whooshing)
00:02 Actually, it takes three days to be able to get there,
00:08 just to get used to the altitude.
00:11 I remember the first day I experienced
00:13 the altitude sickness, which felt terrible.
00:17 I mean, I remember sleeping in the same place
00:20 where the plane crashed in a small camp
00:22 the same time of the year.
00:25 - Right.
00:26 - And it was one of the most horrible nights in my life.
00:29 I lose the conscious of time.
00:32 I thought that the whole night had passed
00:34 and I look at my watch and it was only an hour and a half.
00:37 So it was incredible, you know?
00:39 But I had to be there to understand what happened,
00:43 you know, what they went through.
00:45 (upbeat music)
00:47 (gentle music)
00:52 (dramatic music)
00:55 (dramatic music)
00:58 (dramatic music)
01:01 (dramatic music)
01:03 (dramatic music)
01:06 (dramatic music)
01:09 (dramatic music)
01:12 (dramatic music)
01:15 (dramatic music)
01:18 (screaming)
01:28 (dramatic music)
01:31 (dramatic music)
01:34 (dramatic music)
01:37 (dramatic music)
01:39 - Welcome to Behind the Lens.
01:48 Today, this director has done so many exceptional movies
01:52 and television too, which you also do very well.
01:56 His current film is "Society on the Snow,"
02:00 which is the official Spanish entry for the Academy Awards.
02:05 Will be running on Netflix and in theaters
02:08 and all over the world.
02:10 But you've seen his movies from "The Orphanage,"
02:13 for which he won a Breakthrough Goya Award,
02:16 which is Spain's Oscar.
02:17 "The Impossible," for which he won
02:19 a Best Director Goya Award.
02:22 And then, oh my gosh, "A Monster Calls,"
02:25 for which he won a Goya Award.
02:27 I mention that because you just like are out of the box,
02:32 winning awards, winning acclaim.
02:34 It's amazing.
02:35 Welcome Juan Antonio Bayona to Behind the Lens.
02:40 Isn't that wild though?
02:42 Right from your first feature film
02:44 to get that kind of recognition.
02:46 - Yeah, I mean, I feel very lucky.
02:48 You know, I was able to do the films I really wanted to do
02:54 and got the respect and the appreciation
02:58 of the people you work with and your colleagues.
03:01 Sometimes it's difficult to be appreciated
03:03 in your own country, but not my case.
03:06 I'm very happy.
03:07 (laughing)
03:08 So I consider myself very lucky.
03:12 - Yeah, well that breakthrough, "The Orphanage," was 2007.
03:17 So, you know, relatively young career still.
03:22 But how did you get to that point
03:24 where you were able to make that film?
03:26 I understand Guillermo del Toro was very helpful too,
03:29 and actually helped in producing the film too,
03:32 in mentoring you in a way.
03:34 - Yeah, I met Guillermo del Toro in an interview
03:37 because I was attending a film festival in Spain,
03:40 SICES, it's a fantasy and horror film festival,
03:44 basically to get free tickets.
03:46 I was 16, I think.
03:49 And I basically was pretending to be a journalist
03:53 to get free tickets to watch the films.
03:56 And the festival said, "Okay, you're attending the movies,
03:59 "now you need to interview the directors."
04:02 And then I met Guillermo, he was presenting "Cronos,"
04:06 his first film.
04:07 - Yes.
04:08 (laughing)
04:09 - And we had a very funny meeting.
04:10 He told me that, years later,
04:13 he told me that his first question was like,
04:17 "Who is this kid with sideburns
04:19 "making me these questions?"
04:22 But the thing is that we became friends.
04:25 And it was years later that I told him
04:30 I was going to do a horror film.
04:32 And he said, "I wanna be part of it."
04:33 And he became one of the producers of "The Orphanage."
04:36 - Which is amazing to have that.
04:38 I kept thinking of relationships like George Lucas
04:41 making "American Graffiti" and having Francis Coppola
04:45 as a producer to get through all of the hoops
04:48 that you have to in getting a movie made.
04:51 - Yeah, he's a good friend.
04:52 To me, he's like a mentor.
04:55 Every time I do a film, I show him the cut before I finish.
04:59 And I always listen to his advice.
05:02 He's like a father to me in the industry.
05:09 - Well, it's amazing.
05:10 Now, what I didn't mention on your credits
05:12 is what's happened after with "The Impossible,"
05:14 which was your first English language film,
05:17 and then "A Monster Calls,"
05:18 and then you did "Jurassic World, Fallen Kingdom,"
05:23 and joined the billion dollar grossing club,
05:28 (laughs)
05:29 as they say in Hollywood.
05:30 - Not too bad.
05:31 - That's amazing, you know, right?
05:33 And to do that big thing,
05:34 and Steven Spielberg and have all of that.
05:36 And then in television too, with "Lord of the Rings,"
05:41 you directed the first two episodes of that series,
05:43 and "Penny Dreadful."
05:45 - Yeah.
05:46 - You know, your career is all around the world now.
05:48 You can basically call your own shots.
05:51 - I live in Spain, I live in Barcelona,
05:54 but I'm lucky that every time I do a film,
05:56 I find a new home.
05:58 So I was in London shooting "Jurassic World,"
06:01 then I moved to New Zealand,
06:02 and I shot the first two episodes of "Lord of the Rings."
06:06 I shot "The Impossible" in Thailand,
06:08 "A Monster Calls" in Manchester.
06:11 I mean, it's a great life, I love it.
06:13 (laughing)
06:14 - No doubt.
06:15 - I love my job.
06:16 - Now you've gone back to your roots,
06:18 and done your first Spanish language film in quite a while.
06:23 - Yeah.
06:23 - And why was now the time that you decided
06:26 to go back home, as it were?
06:29 - It was not the plan.
06:30 I read "Society of the Snow"
06:33 while I was preparing "The Impossible,"
06:35 and I was obsessed with that book.
06:37 We bought the rights,
06:39 I think it was the last day of the shoot of "The Impossible,"
06:42 we bought the rights for "Society of the Snow."
06:45 We wanted to do it right,
06:46 like shooting in Spanish with local actors, Uruguayan,
06:50 to shoot in the same locations,
06:54 and it took us 10 years to find the financing,
06:57 to find the financing.
06:59 Because it seems that for Spanish-speaking projects,
07:02 there is like a ceiling.
07:04 There is a budget that you cannot go over.
07:06 - Right.
07:06 - Because the market simply doesn't accept that, you know?
07:09 And it take us to shoot other films like "Jurassic World"
07:13 and "Lord of the Rings"
07:14 to finally have somebody in Netflix
07:16 who decided to bet on our film,
07:19 and we are here now talking about it.
07:22 And I feel very lucky because this is a movie
07:24 that is such a miracle that exists, you know?
07:28 - Yeah.
07:29 - That I'm very happy to be talking about it right now here.
07:33 - And it's very interesting too,
07:34 because this happened 50 years ago,
07:38 and there have been movies
07:39 there was a movie right away called "Survive,"
07:43 and then there was another one in English language
07:45 Frank Marshall did called "Alive."
07:47 - Frank Marshall who produced "Jurassic World."
07:50 - Yes.
07:51 - So we had the chance to talk about the project.
07:52 - Oh, you did?
07:53 - Yeah, yeah.
07:54 - I know Frank really well.
07:55 - Yeah, he's a great guy.
07:56 - He's such a great guy, right?
07:57 - Yeah, he is.
07:57 - So, and his movie was completely different than this one,
08:01 even though it's telling, you know,
08:03 the same event as it were,
08:05 but definitely from a different perspective than yours.
08:08 What was his advice?
08:10 What did he tell you that was helpful?
08:11 - He encouraged me, like he knew very well
08:15 some of the survivors, he worked with them in "Alive,"
08:18 and he was telling me, "Enjoy it, these are great people.
08:21 "You're gonna have a great time with them."
08:23 He was very kind.
08:24 - Oh, that's cool.
08:25 - Yeah.
08:26 - But this movie, "Society on the Snow,"
08:28 is not just about the survivors.
08:31 The key is it's also about those who didn't,
08:34 and not to give too much away if you haven't seen it,
08:37 but there's some very key casting decisions
08:40 and script decisions that you put into it
08:42 to make sure it's everybody that was on that plane.
08:46 - Yeah, you know, it's interesting because "Alive,"
08:49 the original book was written only one year,
08:52 was published only one year after the accident.
08:55 But I read "Society on the Snow,"
08:58 which was written 36 years after the accident.
09:02 So you can tell there is,
09:06 there is a different angle.
09:07 The way the survivors talk about what happened,
09:10 it's more an exploration.
09:12 It's less an action story and more a reflection.
09:17 It's more a search of the meaning of what happened.
09:20 And that was very interesting
09:21 because I thought I knew the story,
09:23 I thought I knew the fact.
09:24 But I didn't knew really the impact and the scope,
09:29 how big was the influence in all levels of the tragedy
09:34 and the survivors on a psychological, on a spiritual,
09:38 on even a philosophical level.
09:41 So it was very interesting to,
09:42 I was very in shock when I read that book
09:45 to find out what was so emotional to me,
09:50 like trying to find out what is that.
09:52 And I remember there were some conversations
09:55 between the living and the dead.
09:57 There is, I remember one line from Roberto Canessa,
10:00 telling the dead, "Accept in peace
10:03 "that we have the privilege to live the life
10:06 "that you didn't have the chance to live."
10:09 Those kind of conversations, that really moved me.
10:12 And I remember that actually we were shooting "The Impossible"
10:15 and we did like one of these moments
10:18 that the whole crew gathered together
10:20 and made like some good wishes to be blessed.
10:25 We asked for permission for the spirits in Thailand
10:32 to be able to shoot that film.
10:33 And I read these lines from Roberto Canessa
10:36 in that kind of a mash, a mash that we did in Thailand.
10:41 So it's been a long time that I've been working in this.
10:44 But I was very, very shocked about these conversations.
10:48 And I thought that,
10:49 why don't we tell the story from this other angle?
10:51 The same way, because everything had been told
10:54 about this story.
10:55 There were two movies and many documentaries and books.
10:59 - Oh yeah.
11:00 - And I thought, what is what is missing here?
11:02 And I thought the experience of those
11:04 who never had the chance to tell the story
11:06 is what is missing.
11:08 And I thought the same way the dead gave everything
11:11 they had to the survivors,
11:13 how beautiful would be now the survivors give their words,
11:17 their testimony, to give a voice to the dead now
11:20 and tell the story of these people that was so important
11:23 for the others to gain back.
11:25 And actually now when I see the movie with the survivors
11:29 and with the families of the people who stay there,
11:32 you can tell that the movie is almost like a healing thing
11:37 for them because suddenly everybody's at the same level.
11:41 It's not only the story of the ones who--
11:45 - The 29 that survived.
11:46 - Who live, it's not alive.
11:48 It's also about the other guys.
11:50 So, but I think it had to pass all this time
11:53 to get to that perspective.
11:55 - It absolutely.
11:56 And this story has over the years,
11:59 people often just like wanna shorten it and say,
12:02 oh, that's the one with the cannibalism where they,
12:06 and it's so exploitative.
12:09 And so I went into your movie,
12:10 not knowing anything about it,
12:12 except what the story was.
12:13 And I watch it and I go like,
12:14 you know, that is there, but it's not what it's about.
12:20 - Exactly.
12:21 - And it's, and it actually there's one scene
12:24 where one of the survivors tells someone else
12:27 as he's going off to do something,
12:30 it says, you have my permission for my mother and my sister.
12:35 And it was done with dialogue and not exploiting it,
12:40 but it was so moving and an amazing way to, I think,
12:44 handle that aspect of that story.
12:47 - You know, that's the power of film,
12:50 how the same fact, you change the perspective,
12:52 you change the point of view
12:54 and the meaning is totally different.
12:56 So by changing the point of view
12:58 from the guy who needs to eat the corpse of a friend
13:02 to the friend who gives everything,
13:04 gives his body to his friend to come back,
13:07 suddenly it's an immense act of love,
13:11 of generosity, of friendship.
13:13 So all that thing of cannibalism thing
13:17 gets like under the shadow of this big decision
13:20 that it's about life, it's about friendship.
13:22 It's about extreme generosity.
13:25 - Of the much bigger picture of what this is about.
13:28 Which is why this is really the first time for me
13:31 I'm really seeing this story.
13:33 And I've seen those times.
13:34 - And actually what is so big in this story
13:36 is the fact that when somebody gives everything
13:40 to his friend, you know,
13:44 and there is this line that they keep repeating,
13:46 you have the best legs, you need to walk for us.
13:49 You know, or give your own body to the other one, you know.
13:53 It's the immediate realization that you and I are the same.
13:59 - Yeah.
14:01 - And this is so important nowadays.
14:03 We live in a society that is constantly
14:06 putting ourselves in front of the other ones, you know.
14:08 And you read the news and it's terrible every day
14:12 what you read.
14:13 And this society, the way they behave
14:15 and the way they gave everything they had to the other ones,
14:19 like knowing that if you survive, I survive.
14:23 You know, it's so important, it's so relevant nowadays.
14:26 And it's actually the idea that stay there all the time.
14:29 You know, and it's such a hard film to accomplish.
14:32 You know, every day of the shoot
14:33 felt like climbing the mountain, you know.
14:36 But the idea behind it was so powerful, so moving
14:39 that it was the fuel for us to be working on it every day.
14:43 - And it shows the fragility of life
14:46 and the value of it, as you just mentioned,
14:49 in a time where all we're being bombarded with
14:53 are just horrifying stories of humanity
14:56 and terrible things that are happening.
14:58 Here is something that is actually uplifting
15:01 in showing that, which is unique.
15:03 It's also, but having seen "The Impossible"
15:07 and what you did with "Jurassic" and all of that,
15:10 I mean, you are a craftsman able to do this,
15:13 what looks like impossible filmmaking.
15:16 You go to the actual locations where they were so remote
15:20 where nobody could even find them for two and a half months
15:23 and actually shoot it there in those conditions
15:27 and everything, that could not be easy.
15:31 (laughing)
15:33 - No, it wasn't.
15:34 No, it takes, actually, it takes three days
15:37 to be able to get there, just to get used to the altitude.
15:41 I remember the first day I experienced
15:44 the altitude sickness, which felt terrible.
15:48 I mean, I remember sleeping in the same place
15:50 where the plane crashed in a small camp
15:52 the same time of the year.
15:55 And it was one of the most horrible nights in my life.
16:00 I lose the conscience of time.
16:02 I thought that the whole night had passed
16:04 and I look at my watch and it was only an hour and a half.
16:07 So it was incredible.
16:10 But I had to be there to understand what happened,
16:14 what they went through.
16:15 This is a film that it's impossible to understand
16:19 if you don't tell the context right.
16:21 If you understand the geography,
16:24 when you see those mountains, the size of those mountains,
16:28 the silence, you know, the biggest sound
16:30 in the mountain is yourself.
16:32 - Oh, wow.
16:33 - Because there's nothing alive in there.
16:35 So the only thing that you can hear
16:37 is your breathing and your footsteps.
16:39 You know, it's incredible.
16:41 So you need to tell the context right.
16:42 You need to tell the isolation, the cold, the hunger.
16:47 You need to put the audience in there.
16:50 The moment the audience will be there,
16:51 they will understand and they will comprehend
16:54 what they went through and what they did in the mountain.
16:57 - And the audience really,
16:58 before they even get on the mountain,
17:00 that plane crash is so effective.
17:04 You feel like you're on it.
17:06 And I've seen a lot of cinematic plane crashes,
17:09 but nothing that really got to this level for me.
17:14 I don't know how you pulled it off
17:16 in terms of the visual effects and what went into that,
17:20 but it really is very real.
17:22 - Yeah, and actually it's quite simple
17:24 because basically the camera stays all the time
17:27 with the actors inside the plane.
17:28 When normally these scenes,
17:29 they have lots of shots from the outside
17:32 to make it look like a spectacular.
17:34 That's a word that I was all the time trying to avoid.
17:38 It cannot be spectacular.
17:40 Of course it would be spectacular
17:41 because it's a plane crash.
17:43 You're not used to see that.
17:45 But I remember it was all about
17:47 sitting down with the survivors.
17:49 I talked for hours with them,
17:51 like taking notes about all the small details.
17:54 And then it was all about to stay with them,
17:57 not knowing more than what they knew at the moment,
17:59 which was very little.
18:01 So there is not the usual shot in the cabin
18:03 telling the audience what's going on.
18:04 They didn't know what was going on,
18:06 and that was the point.
18:07 Being with them, being inside the plane all the time,
18:10 and also make it very physical.
18:12 I mean, it's an accident that hurts when you watch it.
18:16 It's like you notice the pain.
18:17 It's a shock in their lives.
18:21 It's a pivotal moment in their lives.
18:23 After that moment, nothing is the same anymore.
18:27 And it had to feel like that in the audience.
18:29 - And the story, of course,
18:31 there were 29 survivors and things,
18:33 and it was almost like,
18:34 God, you can't make this up.
18:36 It was like a Christmas miracle that happened
18:40 when they were finally,
18:41 this movie's coming out in December,
18:44 and it really is a Christmas miracle movie in one aspect.
18:49 - In one aspect.
18:53 You're right, one aspect.
18:54 Because the experience,
18:56 one of the things that I love about the book
18:57 is that it was so complex.
18:59 Can you imagine being in the shoes of these guys
19:01 after what they went through,
19:03 and they were welcomed like heroes,
19:06 like the protagonists of a miracle,
19:08 and they were in shock.
19:10 They were coming from eating the corpses of their friends.
19:13 And suddenly they were the heroes,
19:15 and all the praise was there.
19:16 That was very interesting.
19:17 Like portraying the shock when they came back home,
19:22 and understanding who they were at that moment,
19:25 how they were seen by the other ones.
19:27 This is what I love about the book from Pablo García,
19:29 the complexity.
19:31 That is what makes the story so human,
19:33 because it never has an easy answer to what happened.
19:37 - Yeah, amazing.
19:38 And just a shout out to Michael Giacchino's wonderful score,
19:43 which uses Uruguayan instruments and things.
19:46 I mean, it's a very complex music score.
19:48 I know he scored,
19:50 I guess you met him on "Jurassic World," right?
19:53 And started that,
19:55 always interesting to me,
19:56 that filmmaker-composer relationship.
19:59 (laughs)
20:00 - Yeah, actually we became friends
20:02 many, many years ago in Spain.
20:04 He came to Spain to a film music festival 13 years ago.
20:08 And I was attending the festival,
20:11 because I love film music.
20:13 And then after his concert,
20:16 we spoke for hours.
20:19 We were talking all night,
20:20 drinking and talking about movies,
20:22 and we became friends.
20:23 And then, by coincidence, years later,
20:27 I did "Jurassic World,"
20:28 and he was a composer of the first one.
20:29 So I told him,
20:30 "Well, I guess that means that we're gonna work together."
20:33 (laughs)
20:34 And he did an amazing score for this film.
20:37 He was so intelligent, so smart.
20:41 The storytelling is so good.
20:42 He uses the music in such an intelligent way,
20:47 with such an emotional journey,
20:49 that he's all the time constraining the music until the end,
20:52 that it gets to an explosion
20:54 that is so effective in the audience.
20:56 And the way he uses the percussions,
20:59 there is a moment in the book
21:01 where Pablo Ierfi mentions
21:03 that the Society of the Snow
21:04 had this kind of primal,
21:07 almost prehistoric approach
21:12 to what they were doing.
21:13 - Yeah.
21:14 - Pablo Ierfi says it was like,
21:16 there was a moment that "Stay in the Mountain"
21:17 was going to the prehistoric age.
21:21 And he used the percussion
21:22 in a very primal and primitive way.
21:24 And this is a Uruguayan percussion.
21:26 - Yeah.
21:27 - That is influenced by African music
21:29 because it belongs to the people
21:32 who came from Africa in America.
21:34 But that connects with something very primitive.
21:37 - Yeah.
21:37 - No, and that was his idea.
21:39 He said, "This is what we need to hear in those moments
21:41 where they really need to face what they had ahead of them
21:46 with that strength."
21:48 You know?
21:49 - Well, you know, it's amazing.
21:50 And before we go,
21:51 I first met you when you had "The Impossible" out.
21:54 And that movie is just extraordinary too.
21:57 And everything you did with this overwhelming thing
22:00 that happened to humanity there too.
22:01 - Yeah.
22:02 - Is there something inherent in these stories
22:05 like "The Impossible" where a tidal wave
22:08 takes over a resort?
22:09 And this, where, you know,
22:13 we talked about what we've talked about,
22:15 the survival mechanism.
22:16 I mean, both these movies have something in common.
22:20 - I think so, yeah.
22:20 The other day I was talking to a journalist
22:23 and he was telling me,
22:24 because I don't like to overthink my movies.
22:26 I follow always the intuition, you know?
22:29 And I like to explore what I'm doing
22:31 while I'm doing it, you know?
22:33 But he mentioned something interesting.
22:34 He said about, something about growing up
22:38 and the hard process of becoming an adult, you know?
22:42 And when you see the orphanage and "The Impossible,"
22:45 you see Tom Holland.
22:46 - Right.
22:47 - And you know, these kids in the film,
22:49 these guys were 18, 20, 21.
22:51 - Yeah.
22:52 - It was, for most of them,
22:53 it was not the first time they saw snow.
22:56 It was the first time they saw a mountain.
22:58 - Wow.
22:59 - Because Uruguay is a flat country.
23:01 There are no mountains in Uruguay.
23:02 So you can tell that this is also a movie
23:04 about growing up in a very extreme way, you know?
23:08 Like getting in contact with the uncertainty of life,
23:13 you know?
23:13 And at the same time, it's a celebration of life.
23:16 - And "The Impossible" was that way too.
23:18 You had Tom Holland.
23:19 - Exactly, yes.
23:20 - Best known as Spider-Man right now,
23:22 but you know, Tom Holland started off in your movie.
23:25 - Yeah.
23:26 - And as a very young boy,
23:28 caught up in a life-changing moment too.
23:32 - Yeah.
23:33 - Amazing kind of connections
23:35 and things going on in your career.
23:37 Can't wait to see what you do now.
23:38 What are you gonna do now?
23:40 - Oof.
23:41 - A romantic comedy.
23:42 - Holiday.
23:43 - Something simple, huh?
23:44 (laughing)
23:45 - Some rest, because I've been jumping
23:47 from one project to the next.
23:49 But yeah, we are developing a couple of projects in Spain
23:52 because I really feel comfortable
23:54 shooting in my own country.
23:56 Hopefully it will not take me 10 years
24:00 to do the next film in Spanish.
24:02 And I am developing a couple of projects here also.
24:05 - Oh, good.
24:06 - So we will see.
24:07 - Cool, well, Juan Antonio Bayona, or J.A. Bayona,
24:11 or whatever name you like to go by.
24:13 - I love Juan Antonio.
24:14 - It's all up on the screen too.
24:16 You've gotta see "Society on the Snow."
24:18 And thank you so much for joining us on Behind the Lens.
24:21 - Thank you so much, Pete.
24:22 (upbeat music)
24:25 (upbeat music)