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00:00Pete Hammond for contenders today. I've got a major contender here today
00:05nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture
00:09director original screenplay film editing lead actress and supporting actor
00:16here for the Academy Awards, but
00:19Its awards cred goes way beyond that. It is one several others
00:25It is nominated in every thing you can think of BAFTA
00:30PGA DGA
00:32WGA
00:33on and on that are coming up and I'm so happy here to have a lot of the
00:39Real creative team here behind it. First up. He is the leading
00:45nominee for all Oscars this year with four
00:49Nominations individually for best picture best director best original screenplay and best film editing Sean Baker
00:56Hi, welcome
00:59How are you and
01:01Congratulations. Yeah, that's a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much you do everything
01:06Sitting next to you
01:08Is best actress nominee and the wonderful star of a Nora the title star of a Nora Mikey Madison. Hi Mikey
01:15Hi Pete
01:19And
01:21Saying hi from other locales. Here are two producers of the film
01:26Samantha Quan. Hi, Samantha. Hi. Nice to see you Pete and
01:31Alex Coco
01:33Hi
01:35well
01:36congratulations to all of you on all the success that started where I saw the movie originally in can where it won the Palme d'Or and
01:43has been going strong ever since and this is
01:47The real story of this award season this movie that just has caught on and
01:53exploded everybody loves it as far as I can tell everybody I've talked to and
01:58I'm gonna show you a little reason why before we start to talk. Here is a look at a Nora
02:05If you think for a second, this is gonna be allowed you're dead wrong
02:10In fact if you if you don't help me fix this I'm gonna have you arrested yeah
02:15I'm gonna have you arrested arrested. Yeah
02:20Arrested for what for what? Yeah, I'll tell you for what trespassing fraud cheating theft
02:29Theft. Yes old and I and actually the picture is very very clear here a
02:37Skimming prostitute married Yvonne cheated cheated Yvonne to marry her so she can steal from his wealthy family
02:44That's it
02:46Definitely, and I'm sure you already have criminal records. So
02:50For sure. Yeah, one two three, you're in jail
02:54Yep
02:55Yvonne proposed to me. He wanted to get married. He put a fucking ring on my finger. Do you see this shit?
03:02What he bought me a fucking four-carat ring. Does this look real to you motherfucker, but you never seen one of these before have you?
03:09Got so see missing you
03:12Fucking ring. Give me that fucking ring. I am not
03:17Fucking scream motherfucker do not come
03:31This is Zahara's property
03:38Hey, what did you say?
04:09I
04:11Know this
04:13Sean you and Mikey were having a good time looking at that clip. You never get sick of it, huh?
04:18It's pretty funny stuff. Well, I was just laughing because I I always I
04:25Obviously have a different speaking voice than the character because of the accent I always forget for until I start listening to it
04:31like what an act what a
04:34Departure it is from my from my personal voice and then I was laughing at you're rolling his R's as he screams
04:42I haven't I haven't seen that scene since can so
04:48Wow
04:49It works, doesn't it?
04:51You know, they say
04:53Comedy is hard. It is hard to get right and the tone and everything it can just sail off
05:00When when you did this, I I think I told you this once but I said if Billy Wilder were alive
05:05He would love this movie. It reminded me of the spirit of that kind of movie making and you know, just going
05:13For the edge Sean. How did you come up with this one?
05:16We know you love movies about marginalized people a sex workers different things in your past work a lot of it
05:24But this one set in Brighton Beach and the Russian community there
05:29How did you come up with it?
05:32Well Karin Karagolian who plays Taurus in the film
05:36We go way back and he has a connection to the Russian American community in Brighton Beach
05:41I mean he lived there when he first came over from Armenia had lots of stories and we actually were trying to
05:47Tell a story that took place there for years
05:51It's just that we weren't able to figure out what the plot would be
05:55Until just like three years ago
05:57When we finally came up with the hook, you know young sex worker marries the son of a Russian oligarch
06:02And when we when we got that when we got that hook, we knew we were you're ready to go
06:08Yeah, it's interesting and in casting in
06:11Finding a Nora in any you you're sitting right next to her here
06:16But she had been in scream. She had been in once upon a time in Hollywood on television and things
06:23But how did you find her?
06:25well, um her performance in once upon a time in Hollywood really caught my attention and
06:32And then a few years later when we were moving forward with a Nora we started we knew we had to start looking for our Annie
06:40Samantha and I went out to see scream
06:44opening weekend and
06:46it was really a combination of those two performances and there's a there's a lot of
06:50Her performance in scream actually has a lot of humor in it and showed the attitude that I needed so
06:57We we made the decision right there and then in the theater
07:01And when we left the theater, we called her agent set up a meeting had a great meeting
07:06Realized that Mikey was very different from those two characters
07:12Which also gave me a lot of confidence because she definitely wasn't typecast and I knew they were they were performances
07:19And and so we offered her the role right there in that Wow that easy might be that's amazing ever
07:28That's a real Hollywood story
07:30I bet you didn't think when you were making scream or playing one of those Manson
07:34Girls and once upon a time in Hollywood in that scene, it's gonna lead to a role
07:37That's gonna win you your first Academy Award nomination. Oh
07:44Gosh
07:46No, I mean I I've been so lucky for every job that I've been able to have but
07:53Everything that has happened has been so wonderful and new and such a such a surprise
07:59I mean I had just just going to Ken Film Festival was like a career-long dream of mine
08:05And so yeah, it's it's been it's been quite a whirlwind
08:08But really it's it's just such a special film to me and I've always I've just always loved loved in Nora
08:15Yeah, what about Annie you really put a lot into this into making a real
08:21being convincing as a
08:24Sex worker here in a strip club you even don't tell me about it
08:29Yeah, if what you did in terms of preparing for this role. Oh, gosh. Yeah, I
08:35You know every time I prepare for a role. It's different. I think each year. I grow as an actress every job
08:42I have really it changes me and informs the next one
08:46And so this was a character that I recognized from the beginning was very very different for me lives in a world
08:53That is really foreign to mine and I was like, I'm gonna have to to do a lot of preparation a lot of physical preparation
09:00Emotional lots of research, you know
09:03I had to learn another language. I speak Russian in the film, which is not a language
09:08I had ever attempted to speak before
09:12and so that required a lot of time dedicated to trying to understand what what I was saying and
09:20Also figure out the way in which she speaks Russian what it sounds like and the dialect to you know
09:26working with a dialect coach for many months and then moving to Brighton Beach about a month before production started and just trying to
09:34really soak in the environment and
09:37Fine-tune the accent and you know got really doing research into the sex work community reading
09:44reading memoirs talking to incredible consultants
09:49Going to clubs and shadowing dancers and you know, then obviously the physical preparation
09:55Which was really fun and exciting and new for me lots of training, you know months of training to
10:03try to realistically
10:05Dance as much as I possibly could
10:08So, you know I I did I did the most preparation I ever had for a role before but I loved it and it was
10:15Really interesting. I think it it
10:18Allowed me to really easily slip into the character of a Nora who at first I was kind of, you know
10:24Scared by how different she was
10:26From me, but yeah, it was it was really a unique experience
10:31How difficult was that scene we just saw where you had to scream like how many times did you have to do that?
10:36Scream that you're doing that's driving the your co-stars crazy
10:43Just I mean screaming for like eight days I think
10:50There was one point where Mikey said to us we should probably stop
10:56Probably stop screaming for today or I'm not gonna have any scream in me for tomorrow
11:04That's wild and that's just one scene there are so many where this goes Sam
11:09I have to ask you here about the rest of the cast
11:13Russian actors Europe is the first Russian actor to be nominated for an Academy Award since Mikhail Baryshnikov
11:21in
11:221987 and
11:23The last one to win was 60 years ago Lila Kudrova in Zorba the Greek in terms of this
11:30How do you find not just him?
11:32But this wonderful cast all of whom are nominated for the SAG Award for a best
11:37Outstanding cast and should be it's an incredible ensemble that you put together here
11:44It's absolutely incredible. We're so happy for all of the nominations our cast
11:50Honestly are a bunch of the most talented
11:54comedians
11:55draw high drama actors
11:58They're just they're just amazing
12:00they can do and they could do anything in terms of you could ask them to do improv and and and they could do it
12:07with aplomb and I think that
12:10Everyone would agree. We're we just feel so fortunate to have one of the best cast ever
12:15They came from all around the world just super kind people super generous with cast and crew and
12:23and yeah, honestly, it's like
12:26It feels like a Cinderella story
12:29Yeah, it is and you know in terms of
12:33Making this all happen on a budget Alex
12:38You know because you are you know, Sean makes these movies, you know for you know a price
12:43You can't it's not a major studio or anything in trying to get these kind of movies made independently
12:50What's the biggest challenge there?
12:52I think it's just I mean shooting on film shooting with the amount of days that we shot
12:58You know, all those things are just very we're very important to Sean from the beginning
13:02How many days did you shoot we shot about 40 days? So which is a lot which is um, you know
13:08Not normal, you know, I think I mean some of the things that we do
13:12you know, I think I'm these small productions a lot of times it's 20-something days, but
13:17We wanted Sean wanted to play you're talking a lot about the actors and their performances
13:22I mean, he really wanted the room, you know to be able to
13:25Define the performances to find the story Sean likes to write rewrite and continually writing as we're as we're making the film
13:32So it's important to give him that space to you know
13:36To make sure that there's things that we shot, you know on one day reflect
13:40you know the the later parts of the script and and to have you have that ability to
13:45To respond to new things, you know in the performances and also he was contending with you know
13:52Three different languages, you know, which I think is so impressive, you know and all the time every day
13:56You know, we're Armenian Russian English is just it was a high wire act and just trying to give him the space
14:02You know to be able to you know to make to tell the best story
14:07He could I think this was a big part of how we approached the budget and gave him that freedom
14:13Yeah, you know I Sean I want to talk about one of the categories you're nominated in original screenplay
14:18There aren't as many these days a lot of stuff comes adapted or it's based on a toy or it's based on something else
14:25It's easier to sell stuff. You're a guy that writes original stuff, you know first time we've seen it
14:31How important is that to you as a filmmaker?
14:34Yeah, it's it's uh, it's it's very important to me, you know, we have to be telling new stories, you know, or we've
14:41We're kind of
14:43We're not progressing. You know what? I mean? We need a and we need contemporary stories stories about the now
14:49and so that's what I've we've been trying to focus on, you know for for the last few films and and in this case again
14:57And this community that in this location that I felt we could we could bring something fresh, too. And
15:06So, yeah, that's that's how I approach and that community used a lot of that community real people when she talks about you know
15:13Learning all this stuff in the strip club and everything else. Mikey was the only one who wasn't like really in that world
15:21Which is interesting. You're authentically casting
15:24I mean for the most part, I mean, you know
15:28We are
15:31This entire cast the main cast and most of the supporting cast. They're all seasoned professionals, you know
15:38Which is a little it's a little bit of a departure from my other films in which I used to really mix it up
15:44Um, but I have to tell you an absolute pleasure
15:47I mean to be able to work with people on this level with this level of experience and talent my god
15:52It was they were giving me
15:55They were giving me gold every day. I could I could sleep well at night
16:00Rarity, which is a rarity on well
16:04Well gold indeed well our time is up here on contenders, but best of luck to you
16:09We'll see you next time. Bye
16:17You uh everywhere, uh this season and thanks for joining us here on contenders to tell us all about
16:24Nora, and we'll see you at the oscars
16:27Thanks guys. Thank you