Adam Driver: ”I want to work with great directors”
This year's Toronto Festival premiered Jim Jarmusch's Paterson , which has already earned rave reviews at its Cannes premiere. The hero of the film, the bus driver played by Adam Driver , is named after his birthplace - Paterson, New Jersey - where he still lives. Seven days in the life of Paterson make up the plot of the film. He writes poetry, walks the dog, drinks at the local bar, sleeps with his wife Laura (Golshifte Farahani). Unlike her husband, who is accustomed to the routine, Laura is liberated, free and constantly carried away by something new.In most of these dramas, you can see how external forces and circumstances undermine family relationships, but in this picture, everything is different. Through a series of everyday troubles Paterson and Laura carry unchanging love and care for each other. According to Jarmusch , he wanted the film to become"a triumph of the poetry of little things, subtle interconnections of everything with everything in the fabric of everyday life, an alternative to hard dramas and action films". According to him, “ Paterson ” should be perceived as a stream of images seen from the window of an old regular bus, like a mechanical gondola moving through the streets of a forgotten small town.  After the festival screenings in Toronto, Adam Driver spoke in an interview about his love for the work of Jim Jarmusch and about the creation of “ Paterson ”, as well as how his participation in Star Wars helps to promote smaller projects, the specifics of Episode VIII and the intricacies of working with Daniel Craig, Steven Soderbergh and Martin Scorsese. How are you? It seems like the last two years have been one big adventure. There were, yes. Good, good ... Kind of good. No, everything is fine. Which is more difficult to control - a bus or a lightsaber? With the bus, of course. To manage it, you must first obtain the rights of a certain category. And with a sword it's easier: "Come on, good luck!" - and went. Of course, you go through training there, but when you swing a lightsaber, you have less lives in your hands than when you are at the wheel. Now, of course, the question is: when did you realize what should be in every movie coming out? It just happened. It's hard to say no to Jim Jarmusch or Soderbergh calling. It’s just impossible. But I'm really looking forward to the vacation. Jim wrote this script without targeting specific actors. Tell us a little about your first meeting. How did he know that his Paterson was you? By the way, do you like his films? I love them. At first I saw ... Either "Stranger than in Paradise", or "Ghost Dog". I remember how, as a teenager, I discovered his work for myself, and then closely followed everything that he did. Before the meeting, I was very worried. I would agree to any role in his film because I think Jim is a great man. The spirit of independent cinema is alive in him, like, you know, tying cameras, making friends with everyone, keeping everything under control all the time. And this energy of his permeates every film. He's very funny, I didn't even expect. His paintings, of course, speak of his irony, but in himself he is one of the funniest people that I have met.  People may not know that Jim himself has been writing poetry for a long time. And in the course of working on the film, it seems, he demanded the same from you. You even had a notebook ... Oh, yes, a notebook for poetry [laughs]. He attended the poetry school at Columbia University. I didn't know much about poetry, the poetry of Ron Padgett, William Carlos Williams (although I had heard of him), Lunch Poems Frank O'Hara; I didn't know anything. But I got an excellent introductory external course. It was Ron Padgett who set the correct poetic vector. Jim is drawn from all sorts of linguistic subtleties, from wordplay, and an additional ironic tonality is brought into the film by the fact that my character mainly listens. As a poet, living in the space of language, he observes and remains silent. This is one of the many non-random contradictions in the picture. Jim has spoken out about the antidote to screen violence and mindless action that he hopes Paterson will communicate to the viewer. Maybe you are tired of large-scale performances, and this project attracted you because the most dramatic of possible events here is a bus breakdown? No, I was attracted by Jim and only him. Neither the scale nor the theme was initially important, the point was solely in him. But then ... I'll tell you, it's crazy cool to play a person who basically does this: he listens. Because of this, the movie turned out to be truly unpredictable. This is the first time I read the scene: the guys are driving, one is talking about his dog, and this is a ten-page monologue. I think: something will happen to the dog, or the bus will break down, something bad will definitely happen. Someone brings weapons to the bar, which means someone will be shot. But no, nothing happens. When we had already decided that we would work on the character together, we came up with an army past for him, but we didn’t define anything specifically. He's a bus driver who happens to be a poet. Or a poet who works as a bus driver. He was a military man, but that's not part of his destiny,  You're really lucky with blockbusters, right? Thanks to this, more modest projects with your participation will surely gain a significantly larger audience. I don't think of it in such terms. I'm just happy to be working and I want to continue working with great directors. If this is due to Star Wars - well, this is a gift. But Star Wars is very important to me in and of itself. Perhaps working with great directors is the goal of any actor, and if you have such an opportunity, and you are ready for it, then everything goes in the best way. Did the filming process under the direction of Jim Jarmusch turn out the way you envisioned it? I thought Jim would be such a titan, very thoughtful and serious. Before our first meeting, I could only get an impression of him from the videos from YouTube . A representative of the New York old school, conservative, perhaps overly romanticized. But it turned out that this is an extremely sweet, sensitive, attentive person, and also incredibly funny - he can very accurately portray everyone with whom he worked, from Roberto Benigni to Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. And how he loves those with whom he shares the set! How many times have I heard something like, “Look at Fred Elms during smoke breaks. This is Fred Elms , you know? How cool he is, I love him, I love everything about him! " “ Golshifte , she ... Oh, she is so beautiful! With her, all the scenes immediately turn out. " He just loves to be on set surrounded by great people. I was very comfortable with him, but this approach to work, when you just do what he wants, Jarmusch does not accept. It requires active participation, your personal conclusions, your ideas.  In the photos from the set of Soderbergh's new film, you and Daniel Craig, dressed in prison clothes, look completely insane. How is the shooting going? This team gives me a surreal feeling. I usually share work and entertainment, but I wasted the full with them. Craig is one of the coolest people I know, and Channing Tatum in the picture is just hilarious. And Soderbergh is so impetuous, he always knows exactly what he is doing: “Done. Move on!". For me, it was an exercise in unconditional trust. He is very smart and interested in a lot of things, which is reflected in his films. While we work together, I watch those that I haven’t seen yet, and they are so numerous and varied ... Here is the same story as with Jim - at first glance, his films are very different, but they are united by a signature sense of humor and irony. Soderbergh does the same. " Silence " is a project that Martin Scorsese has long and passionately dreamed of realizing. Filming has ended, but work on the film continues. Have you seen the draft? How did you like working with yourself, damn it, Scorsese ? It was great. Scorsese is perhaps the greatest, most unattainable filmmaker I've worked with. And so my willingness to obey him was complete. But, as happens with me on any set, sometimes a strange dominant feeling came through, a desire to eventually rebel against the director. Not in the sense of not coming to the site or not learning the words, but simply starting to play in your own way. If you're working with someone like Scorsese , Jim , or Soderbergh , maybe sometimes you shouldn't literally follow their directions. It makes sense to try to do it in a new way, in a different way, surprise them and yourself ... And understand that this is exactly what was expected of you.  When Scorsese turns to you with the words: "What do you think?" - he really wants to know your opinion, your thoughts, ideas. He hired you, including for this. There are directors who believe in the dictatorial method, they are like choreographers, like puppeteers, and one cannot say that such a path is bad. But for Scorsese , despite the vast experience and achievements, co-creation is characteristic through conversation, through joint efforts to understand what the next step will be. He dreamed of making this movie for more than twenty years, and still thinks right on the set: “What could happen here?”. To see a person who at this stage of his career and life maintains such an openness to cooperation is a rare success. And suddenly you realize that this is the only way you want to work. He's really great he justifies absolutely all your expectations only by doing his job, and doing it flawlessly. By the way, we lost a lot of weight during the filming. They became a living illustration of the statement that an actor is able to lose a significant part of his weight for the role. "Significant" - that's putting it mildly. But it is difficult to make a movie about Jesuit priests of the 17th century and still be well-fed and rested, to have ideal conditions for shooting. It was such a challenge to myself, like a post.  Do you have a big role? I think so. Although I haven't seen the final version yet. How was working with Ryan Johnson, another genius director? Familiar role of [Kylo Ren], but new director - is there anything special about this experience? Ryan surprises me with his calmness. In his place, I would be much more tense. In general, he adheres to the course we have taken, but takes history to a new, transcendent level. After all, he wrote the script, and everything is very clear in it. I learned a lot from there to develop my character. Something has already been shown, but there are also completely new moments. He wrote the script while we were still working on the previous episode, to understand what JJ is doing, and to get to the helm without losing his excellent work. A polite and modest guy, he, nevertheless, did not allow anyone to manage the process. But if he was wrong, he was always ready to admit it first. It can take you a long time to figure out what the Ryan Johnson script really is. It's like the key change in Empire Strikes Back. There will always be those who will say: "Oh, some kind of dregs," but for me it is obvious that this is exactly what is needed. It just changes the tone, which is great, it is necessary. Ryan believes that his viewer is ready for subtleties and ambiguity, does not adjust and does not simplify anything. Therefore, it is very interesting to play this role. In short, he's incredibly cool, and it's a pleasure to work with him.  The episode, which was filmed by JJ - your first steps in Star Wars. A big role in a big franchise that the entire planet is watching. You must have been very worried. What is it like for you as an actor now - when you come back, already knowing that people liked your acting and the film also liked? Tell us about the energy of this part compared to the previous one. I think the stakes are even higher. Nobody relaxes. Well, I can't speak for everyone, but I personally don't feel relaxed, as if there was nothing more to strive for. I think that it is necessary, on the one hand, to redouble efforts and direct them in the right direction, and on the other, not to reflect too much, because this interferes with work. But this is a general rule, it doesn't matter whether it's about " Star Wars " or, say, about Jim's movie.  Source: Collider The Topic of Article: Adam Driver: ”I want to work with great directors”. |
