00:00If we scour the backgrounds, if we're going to spot your gravity character, Kowalski, floating by at all.
00:05The effects guys did this hysterical thing.
00:07You'll probably see it at some point where they have ether.
00:10Our spaceship is floating by and then it just goes by me.
00:13And I'm like, as Matt Kowalski.
00:15And I just go, little help.
00:17You filmed that?
00:18Yeah, we filmed it.
00:20Does anyone copy?
00:24I have to warn them about the conditions on Earth.
00:29Is anyone out there?
00:30It's fantastic.
00:32It actually ends up hitting me.
00:34And then I'm like, woo!
00:35Hey, guys.
00:36Where have you been, man?
00:37I've been out here.
00:38And then they just eject me out.
00:40Oh, my God.
00:41I need to see that.
00:42Please.
00:42Do they have extra scenes for Netflix movies?
00:45They'll put it in because I just saw it yesterday.
00:47They did it as a, you know, happy Thanksgiving.
00:49And, you know, thanks for working with us as a gift to Grant and myself.
00:54But we definitely have to get it on the, get it out somehow.
00:58That's amazing.
00:59I am fascinated with your work as a director.
01:02I love all the stories that you choose to tell from the director's chair.
01:05And we are fast approaching 20 years of confessions.
01:08I want to know something that you think you are much better at now than you were when you first
01:13tackled Dangerous Minds.
01:15As a director?
01:16As a director.
01:17Well, I think I'm a little more relaxed and open to certain kinds of input.
01:26You know, when you first start, when I first started with Confessions, I boarded every single shot.
01:30I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what everything was doing.
01:33And I was pretty, pretty locked in on what I wanted it to be.
01:40Good night, good luck.
01:41We did a lot of, there was a lot more improv and a lot more openness to it.
01:45So as time has gone on, I think I've found, you know, for instance, I give you a really good
01:49example.
01:50When Felicity said she was pregnant in the middle of shooting.
01:53Yeah.
01:53You know, that would have been pretty devastating if it was, if it was 18 years ago, I wouldn't have
02:00known what to do.
02:00And this one was one where once we decided that, you know, that you have to accept it as opposed
02:06to try and hide it.
02:08And you can write into it.
02:09And that actually ends up becoming an, actually, I think it makes the film better.
02:14Miss Jones, I got to start with you because your character showed me something that I swear I've never seen
02:18on screen before.
02:19And that's a pregnant astronaut.
02:21I was so blown away by that as a character.
02:23And then Mr. Clooney told me that that was actually your pregnancy and that they worked it into the story.
02:28How special is that for you?
02:29Yeah, I think, I think it might be the first depiction of a pregnant astronaut.
02:37So, yeah, it was pretty revolutionary.
02:38It was a very organic, instinctive process.
02:43Originally, we were going to CGI the bump, which is what usually happens in countless films.
02:49It's amazing when you look at the list of actresses who've been pregnant, making iconic pieces of cinema.
02:55And we were sort of going to forge ahead in that way and let's pretend it's not happening.
03:00And then after about a week of shooting, George and Grant, his producer, were watching the footage and they felt
03:07actually, you know, this could be far more interesting if we have Felicity be pregnant in the film.
03:12And we went from there and it just made so much sense with the story.
03:18It really heightened the stakes for us on the ship and particularly with David and I and our relationship.
03:25And it just felt like a very natural way to navigate the story and was obviously very nice for me.
03:34And I didn't have to, you know, worry about trying to breathe in.
03:38There is an antenna that's stronger than ours.
03:42We get to that antenna, they'll hear us.
03:45Take a deep breath.
03:47How many lines of dialogue does your young co-star have?
03:50One line.
03:51One line.
03:52Is that the first time in your career you've done this many scenes opposite someone, a predominantly silent partner?
03:58Yeah.
03:58Well, it was interesting.
03:59There was a lot more lines for me and I was constantly taking the line and scratching them out just
04:04because you realize that you have to be careful what lines are important and what lines are just expository.
04:11And, you know, telling someone something that either they don't need to know or we're telling for the audience's sake.
04:16And so and I decided I called Alexander Desplat and I said, we're going to use score as sort of
04:22our narrative through all of this, which I think will make it more a meditation.
04:26Also, how expressive is her face, though?
04:28She says so much without saying anything.
04:30She screwed it up for the rest of us actors because also, by the way, almost everything I did with
04:36her was one take.
04:37Right.
04:38And so literally I shot all of our stuff.
04:40And then, you know, a couple of months later, we started with the other actors and I would say, Caitlin
04:45did this in one take.
04:46Go.
04:48An astronaut crew has to be able to sell real camaraderie and teamwork.
04:52And there are the characters in this particular story have been together for a very long time.
04:57So I'm really curious what you guys did as an ensemble to get to that comfort level.
05:02What did we do?
05:03I don't honestly, this is the nicest group of actors.
05:08Like, honestly, they're all so sweet and so nice.
05:12We did do a dinner at George's at the beginning, pizza night at George Clooney's house.
05:18That helps.
05:19You know, I know I sat next to Demian and we got to know each other.
05:23And it's just easy.
05:25We just sit around on set, talk about our lives, talk about our families.
05:28And I think it just came pretty naturally.
05:31I don't know how you guys felt.
05:33No, I agree with you.
05:34It was exactly like that.
05:36And then Kyle and I have met each other before, briefly during another film, King Kong vs. Godzilla.
05:43So we went out for a really nice dinner, a couple of whiskeys, and then we were best friends.
05:48You know, I have to bring up the spacewalk sequence because it's truly an eye-popping moment.
05:53But knowing that these sequences still come together through the use of wires and cords and harnesses,
05:59are those days on set that you look forward to?
06:02They're magical when we watch them, but putting them together, how is it like for you guys as actors?
06:08Yeah, watching them is a lot more fun than shooting them, I'll tell you that much.
06:14Yeah, it's pretty tough work, and it is wire work.
06:17And the key is putting maximum effort into making it look effortless.
06:24And that involves a lot of training.
06:27That involves having the kind of control of your core that is not your everyday.
06:33Myself and Tiffany Boone, who largely were doing the spacewalking, had two to three months of training.
06:40And, you know, thankfully we had someone like George who had played astronauts himself, iconically so,
06:47to guide us in terms of what it should look like.
06:50Little tips like, you know, your body has to move a lot slower than your mouth and your mind.
06:57You know, those are things that in the red-hot eye of a scene, you forget and you need constant
07:03reminding.
07:04You would think by now, you would have figured out an easier way to do this.
07:08But no, it's still training for months in advance, just working on my core,
07:14and then months of training before we shot, while we were shooting, on wires, people holding your feet,
07:22people holding your hands.
07:24Yeah, it's a whole thing.
07:27But it looks effortless at the end, so that's all that matters.
07:30It's worth it.
07:30Going back to re-watch the film a second time through, I was amazed at how the set seemed really
07:36palpable,
07:37that there was a lot of physicality to them that you could touch and hold on to.
07:40How important was that to you guys, to have that element of that there?
07:43It was crucial because, you know, they created such a fantastic scenery, fantastic space.
07:49The production design is, you know, high class.
07:54And so that made our work very, very easy.
07:57There's some really strong themes of fatherhood, parenting, and the relationships found in here, too.
08:02I'm the father of two boys, and I have some really interesting stories about movies that have changed completely for
08:07me from parenthood.
08:09So I'm just curious if it's changed for you the types of stories that you want to tell.
08:14I don't know.
08:14I haven't thought about that much yet.
08:16I know that my wife and I went through, like, my films, what the kids could watch.
08:22And it was kind of like, well, they could watch Fantastic Mr. Fox.
08:26And then after that, it's kind of, you know, they could watch Batman and Robin for a laugh.
08:31But other than that, you kind of run out of things that a three-year-old is going to be
08:34allowed to see.
08:34So I probably will have to look at some, you know, Sesame Street, the movie kind of things.
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