After decades of producing critically acclaimed and groundbreaking independent films, Christine Vachon has landed her first Oscar nomination with Celine Song’s Past Lives.
Appropriately, she found out about her nomination while she was on the ground at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where Past Lives premiered the year prior, becoming the sleeper hit of the festival. The film, which acts as Song’s directorial debut, follows a woman who reconnects with her childhood love after being separated by years and several continents.
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Vachon, the longtime collaborator of filmmakers like Todd Haynes, talks the The Hollywood Reporter about her advice about working with first-time filmmakers, when she had a feeling Past Lives could go “all the way” and what makes a great airport lounge.
How was it to produce Past Lives in New York?
One of the great things about Past Lives is it gets it so right. You have such a sense of New York and of Celine’s New York. It doesn’t feel like it’s highlighting things that aren’t significant to the story. She really was able to weave her New York into her story in a way that was incredibly effective. When you’re talking about the texture of a place like the East Village, at that moment in time, and what it meant to that character, you really can’t double it. As far as the challenges, when I first started out one million years ago, seeing a movie shoot was unexpected and kind of fun. I remember that it wasn’t so hard to get people to not walk through your shot, because they were like, “Oh! Wow!” Now we’ve all become so jaded, and it’s like, you know, “Get the fuck off my sidewalk! I live there!” But even when I walk into a movie shoot — and I live in East Village so, up until the strike, there were things shooting around us, constantly — even if it’s stopping me from getting to the bagel store or whatever, I do feel that sense of like: Here it goes, the magic is happening. [On Past Lives,] I got to shoot my neighborhood, but I’ve gotten to do that before. It was great to shoot in The Holiday cocktail bar where I whiled away way too many hours.
What was an unexpected challenge on the film?
In a funny way, it was the scenes where we were trying to convey the earlier days of the internet. That was a challenge to make that really feel right. It’s something that you want people to remember when they see it. Like the stopping and starting and the speaking over each other and how we weren’t used to this yet. That was a deceptively big challenge.
What was a piece of casting that you were concerned about getting right?
Some of the cast was already attached when we came on board, but I think the casting of John Magaro was so wonderful because he brings a level of empathy slash sympathy to Arthur. If Celine wasn’t guiding the performance so beautifully, and he wasn’t performing so beautifully, it could easily have been the classic case of, “She should have been with the other guy!”
What advice would you give to studios and other producers working with first-time directors?
The most essential thing is making sure — whether it’s a first-time filmmaker or not — that a filmmaker knows the story they’re trying to tell. In a lot of ways, with a first-time filmmaker, you have to go with your gut because there’s not a whole lot else to go on. That’s the whole point. But there’s a passion that comes with making your first film, there’s that desire to tell a story you’ve probably been waiting your whole life to tell. Those are all things that make it really, really addictive for us.
How important is a distributor partner on a film like Past Lives?
I always say that the studio has a personality. It has to mash with the story you’re trying to tell. Everybody needs to be on the same page, everyone needs to be telling the same story. You’d be surprised — or maybe you wouldn’t be — how often that’s not the case, and when that’s not the case, that’s when things go off the rails, in my opinion. Obviously, we’ve had a relationship with A24 for some time. We were at Sundance with the latest movie that we made with A24, A Different Man, and the only thing it has in common with Past Lives is that it is an extremely original story by a filmmaker with an original vision. When you’re making movies like that, there has to be, not just autonomy, but respect for the process and that is not necessarily what every studio advocates. At the end of the day, the movie depends on its originality, and it depends on the people around it to allow that to bloom.
Was it during the film’s first Sundance screening that you knew Past Lives would be a hit?
It’s 20/20 in hindsight. People say to me, “You must have known after that Sundance screening that the movie was going to go all the way.” You know, I’ve had many great Sundance screenings. They all feel special. This absolutely felt special and then very quickly after that, the film went to the Berlin Film Festival and really landed with an international audience. The truth is, at every step, you’re anxious. All right, it did great at Sundance. It did great at Berlin. Now, it’s finally opening, what’s going to happen? Are people going to want to go see it? What are the reviews going to be like when they’re coming from people who weren’t having festival fever? Is there going to be a backlash? We knew we were in the best possible hands with A24. But sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way you want. In this case, it did.
Then when did you know Past Lives would become the hit that it did?
I always go to the theater the opening weekend of every movie. I buy a ticket. Sometimes I buy two! And I just go try to get a sense. Here we are, finally, after festivals, after all the friends and family screenings. Now, it’s people who decided that this is going to be their Saturday night or their Thursday night. They are going to invest in that night. They’re gonna buy the tickets. They’re gonna have a bite to eat before. Maybe they have to pay a babysitter. That’s when you really get a sense of — not to be crass — was it worth it? Seeing the audience in the first week or two and how they responded to the movie was when I thought, “OK, this is really going to speak to people.”
You have traveled all around with the film and have studiously reported on your social media the promises of various airport lounges. To you, what makes a great airport lounge?
There’s many answers to that question. Sometimes what’s great about a lounge is you may not be in the best class of service, but you still have access to it. It can gloss up your whole trip. I love to interact with the bartender, but also love if there’s a serve-your-own wine situation, so I can taste them all, so I can report effectively for my followers.
