I wanted to ask, in a perfect world, would Dazed and Confused, Boyhood, the Before trilogy and now this Dazed and Confused spiritual sequel–
RL: The college movie…
Would they all have the same actors, same characters?
RL: The same people? Nah, I mean, you can’t think that way. It’s different aspects of yourself. The college movie, it will be a little more of the jock side of me whereas Ellar is more the writer/artist side of me. Where I made that choice [with Ellar] as a kid, he was an interesting– his parents are artists, I could tell he was going to be some kind of arty kid, not the kid that was playing little league. So I kind of went with the other side of myself instead of the normal side — “normal”, whatever that means?
So it’s kind of a choice, and [Boyhood] doesn’t reflect a whole part of my own life that could have been expressed through a different actor, but you need a different set of circumstances sometimes. It’s all part of something.
So what is next? I know you had the Mr. Limpet movie with Zach Galifianakis–
RL: Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening… You know, studios, eh, they’re so full of shit, you know, it’s just, nothing, nothing…
A Bernie sequel? Where he’s living in your garage?
RL: [laughing] Garage apartment! [laughing] Not next to the car.
He’s got a tent.
RL: Yeah, a tent in the garage. [laughing] Bernie is doing well by the way.
Were you surprised at the attention that got or did you expect something?
RL: A little bit. I didn’t pay much attention, but it just sounded weird.
Well, yeah, it’s just crazy for me to say Bernie is living in your garage.
RL: It sounded weird, “Murderer released to live with film director,” as if that was the sentence. Like, “Okay, you Austin liberal, he can get out, but he’s got to live with you!” It wasn’t that, we had a therapist for him, he had a job and I offered him a place to live and I had that offer on the table for the last year. It was just kind of this ongoing legal thing.
Have you recorded anything for a possible Criterion edition for Boyhood?
RL: Nothing yet, but we have a ton of behind the scenes footage. We had an intern with a camera that interviewed a lot of the actors every year so there’s this record of Ellar, Lorelei, Patricia, Ethan and me. It would be like, Patricia is running off to catch her plane to go back to doing whatever and, “Quick five minute interview” or something like that.
Speaking of which, the scene when Ethan Hawke is talking to Ellar over Skype on the phone, was that planned or Ethan just couldn’t be there because he was shooting something somewhere else?
RL: No, that was planned.
Because I thought that was the great thing about this movie, it didn’t matter where the hell they are, they can fit it into the storyline.
RL: Yeah, but it was a year where Ethan wasn’t– it just wasn’t scheduled for him to be around that year, but I thought that was just so typical, that he would have a quick call.
Life goes along at a certain tone, then there are
these little punctuations
And any plans or knowledge of Warner Home Video releasing the previous two Before films on Blu-ray?
RL: I don’t know if they will, but I’d love for it to be Criterion also. Yeah, Warners, that tells us everything about our industry. Before Sunrise was financed by a studio, Columbia, but with Castle Rock the deal went to Warners. The second one, [Before Midnight] was by Warner Independent and the third one [Before Midnight] was like we went from studio — all the same budgets by the way, $2.7 million studio film, they don’t do those anymore — Sunset was Warner Independent, they went out of business–
But was it still $2.7 million?
RL: Yes, nine years later–
But you’re losing money though!
RL: Tell me about it! My schedule went from 25 days to 15 days — it was a simpler film in one way — but okay, then the third one, we were indie, we were self-equity financed, no one would touch us.
And you were doing it on the fly.
RL: Yeah, we weren’t sure about the financing. We went to Greece and the financing was still sort of being arranged as we did it, I put my own money into it.
However, with IFC, now we’re looking at a possibility for a Criterion edition of Boyhood… You have to right?
RL: I certainly hope so, at some point.
Boyhood hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles this Friday, July 11, and it’s a movie so unique it can only be compared to Michael Apted‘s Up documentary series, which is a compliment in and of itself as that’s exactly what you think while you’re watching this movie, as if you’re watching life as it happens, something we get to almost right away.
To see when it’s coming to a theater near you click here. You can watch the film’s trailer directly below.
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