A Conversation with Dede Gardner

[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [Narrator] On Story is brought to you in part by the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation, a Texas family providing innovative funding since 1979.

"On Story" is also brought to you in part by the Bogle Family Vineyards, six generation farmers and third generation winemakers based in Clarksburg, California.

Makers of sustainably grown wines that are a reflection of the their family values since 1968.

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story."

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week on "On Story," Oscar-winning producer and Austin Film Festival's 2022 recipient of the Polly Platt Award for producing, Dede Gardner.

[Dede] Story works on me in different ways at different times in my life.

I have a kind of belief system in the cellular quality of literature and text and story, and so it's not foreign to me that they need attention.

I think if you're in love with something, you show it patience.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [Narrator] This week on "On Story," Dede Gardner discusses her extraordinary career as one of Hollywood's most in-demand and acclaimed producers.

Gardner reveals her process behind celebrated films such as "12 Years a Slave," "Moonlight," and her newest feature, "Women Talking."

[typewriter ding] - The process of choosing those stories that inspire you to wanna commit the time, and the passion, and the energy, and the drama that goes along with the process of filmmaking, how do you find those?

How do you not find them, but choose them?

- It's all gut.

It's always been gut.

It's always been, are you in love with this story?

Do you wanna spend years of your life telling this story?

Will you be sad if this story doesn't reach the world?

And you just sorta slowly try and build it from the inside out.

And is it a story that you think hasn't been told?

And does it represent a narrative or a life experience that isn't amply expressed in the world so far?

- I think one of the things that people don't understand about what a producer does is the producer's always running the race and has to make sure that it keeps going, even though those ups and downs can be debilitating probably for other people in the creative process.

So can you talk about, as a creative producer, how you continue to keep those things going?

How you re-look at things as something may fall apart?

- The durations are mysterious.

I think you're in a constant conversation with the project and with the title and with the characters, and you're sort of in a...

I think you need to be a careful listener sort of to it and what it's saying about when...

I mean, I know that sounds ridiculous, but I kinda mean it.

And then you have to know when you've gone wrong and you have to sort of pause.

You have to know when to stop.

You have to know when to pivot.

You have to know when to make a change.

You're just in sort of a constant conversation with the thing, I think.

And sometimes you don't know why something isn't happening until much later.

And then you look back and you think, oh, I get it now, you know?

- It's such a learning experience, each project, I would think.

And how did you sort of learn to find your groove with that?

- Story works on me in different ways at different times in my life.

There are books that I've returned to over and over, and I'm always amazed at how, oh, wait, this is what it means to me now.

And so I guess I sort of, I have a kind of belief system in the cellular quality of literature and text and story, and so it's not foreign to me that they need attention.

This must sound really weird.

[audience laughing] - But I don't know.

I don't think they're like these finite, contained things that have shelf lives, necessarily.

I've had instances where I've tried to chase the movie and then realized, oh, this world's moving so quickly that this story's actually no longer relevant.

Not relevant, but like we've moved past it.

That's happened.

But I don't know where the impulse came from.

I think if you're in love with something, you just are, you show it patience.

[typewriter ding] - I'd like to actually talk to you a little bit about some very specific kind of experiences in two films that I really love but are very different, "The Assassination of Jesse James" and "Moonlight."

And when I say that, I'd like to hear how they sort of compared and contrast as far as the actual process that you worked on.

We could do it in sequential order.

- Okay, let's do that.

So I had seen "Chopper," and I loved it, and I knew that Brad loved it.

And I'd met with Andrew Dominik, and I'd read the Ron Hansen novel.

He'd been trying to get the movie made and was having a pretty hard time.

It's an expensive...

I mean, we made it for 35, which is not a ton given what it is, but it was hard for him.

And Brad decided he wanted to be in it.

And that was the beginning of that one sort of getting on its feet.

It's the second movie I produced.

It was really hard and really fun.

And I loved making it, and then we got to the cutting room.

And we... Ooh.

[audience and Dede laughing] We cut that movie for over two years.

And we had the movie taken away from us and shown to other filmmakers, and taken away from us and shown to other editors.

And I mean, the studio hated the movie.

But I didn't, and I just thought it was one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

It wasn't there.

And it took Andrew a long...

He takes his time and...

But I just knew there was something great in it.

And we kind of... Oh, I mean, I guess it was a bit of a bet, like, well, they're not gonna shelve a Brad Pitt movie, and it didn't cost $75 million, and surely there's some pathway for this film.

We just outwaited them.

I mean, we literally were like, we're not budging.

Well, we're not.

I mean, it was a standoff.

It was kind of incredible.

And when I think about it now, I was so young and I knew absolutely [bleep] nothing, but I knew I loved it.

- Sure is good eating, Martha.

[Martha] Oh, well, I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

- How come George had a grudge against you?

[lips smack] - Hmm?

- I said, how come George had a grudge against you?

- Oh.

Well, you see, George had a nephew he wanted me to protect during the war.

His nephew had $5,000 on him.

It just so happens he winds up killed and someone swipes that money.

And when George is in prison, someone whispers to him, "It was Jesse James slit the boy's throat."

- It's just mean gossip, was it?

- Bob's the expert.

Let's put it to him.

[dishes clattering] - It's interesting, we took the movie to Venice.

Brad won Best Actor for it.

We flew into Toronto to go to the festival, and as I landed, I learned that he'd won it, won the acting award at Venice.

And I saw the head of the studio at a party, and I remember running up to him and saying, "Isn't it so amazing?"

Like thinking, oh, we've redeemed ourselves in some way.

And he was like, [scoffs] "No."

[audience laughing] He was just so irritated by the entire experience and he still hated the [bleep] movie and like... [audience laughing] And by the way, the movie made zero dollars I think it made like three million dollars.

But two things.

One, I took my kid to a birthday party like millions of years later that happened to be at that studio head's house and he was wearing a Jesse James baseball hat.

[audience laughing] [Dede laughs] And two, it is the movie that is cited by more filmmakers who come through our door than any other film I've ever been a part of as something that they hold on to, that they admire, that they revisit, that they cherish.

And I've made two more movies with Andrew since.

And so I just mean, now people regard that as one of the great movies of all time.

It just, to something I said yesterday, movies have shelf lives.

The adjudication of them in the immediate is not necessarily their final story.

And that's a really liberating thing, I think, to hold on to as you create.

I mean, I remember the year "Jesse James" and "A Mighty Heart" came out, and no one went to either of them.

And inside a particular metric system, that could be deemed a hugely colossal failure of a year.

And it was by, I mean, by maybe from the accountant's point of view.

But I was building relationships and it's where my friendship with Andrew started.

And I think it's one of Brad's greatest performances of all time.

And now the movie has given back to me so much.

So I don't... You can't do it for other people.

You just can't.

You can't.

I've had movies come out and get horribly reviewed, and then 10 years later, someone's like, "That movie was the most prescient movie.

It knew what it was talking about way before anyone else did."

And then there's movies that people are like, "That sucked and it still sucks."

And like, [audience laughing] what are you gonna do?

I mean, you know, [audience laughing] I think as long as your intention was good and you tried, then you just have to, I think you have to do your best to learn from it.

- Before we move on to "Moonlight," I wanna hear like what it was about that one that touched you, not just Andrew, not the fact that Brad Pitt wanted to be in it, whatever, what is it that touched you about that that was worthy of your persistence, worthy of you willing to be last man standing?

- That the movie was an illustration and an expression of this notion that you could be a person to whom everyone looks up or assumes something about them, has decided their reputation, has decided their legacy, has decided their place in history, and that...

But for that person looking outward, it's an entirely different experience.

And I think that amazing line when Jesse says to Bob Ford, "I don't get it.

Do you wanna be like me or do you wanna be me?"

And I don't even know... You know.

I mean, it was a long time ago.

Maybe there was social media, maybe there...

I don't even know.

There wasn't what's happening now, I assure you.

It only feels more and more... Its ideas feel more and more intoxicating to me in terms of gilded cage and the presumptions we make of what we are shown versus what's really someone's interior.

[Barbara] Mm-hmm.

- You know?

- I'd love to hear what it is that you felt you...

Ultimately, after that journey, certainly to the point where you get to the birthday party, what is it that you were gleaning from the experience that you went through?

- I was scared.

I thought, well, I know I'm right, but it might really not matter at all ever to anyone.

And now I've made two movies, or maybe I was starting to make my third, and these movies didn't make any money, and I was scared, but, or and I knew how much Brad loved it, and I knew, I could tell there was some, some very specific and profound admiration of it from very specific people who I admire.

And I thought, okay, just hold on to that, and just keep doing this until someone says you're not allowed to do it anymore.

I mean, which I sort of assumed would happen, but it didn't.

Yeah, I was scared.

But I was young and I just kept going.

And I don't know, I loved the movie.

That's one thing that tenure in any industry... And it's unusual, I think, in...

I mean, I've been at Plan B now 20 years.

Just it does gift you perspective.

[typewriter ding] [Barbara] Okay, so now let's talk about "Moonlight."

- So we had seen "Medicine for Melancholy," Barry's first movie years prior, and were totally in love with it, and met with him, and talked to him about what he wanted to do, and stayed in touch a little bit, and then lost touch, and he went to write stuff, and he was on "The Leftovers," and we kept making movies.

And when we took "12 Years a Slave" to Telluride for the very first public screening, Barry was the moderator.

And it was like we were scared.

We were putting a movie out for the very first time to the public.

And having Barry there...

I mean, having Barry anywhere is a like angelic gift, presence, amazing strength, backbone thing.

But it really felt reassuring in that moment.

And it was like, "Oh, my God, I'm so excited to see you.

It's so good you're here.

Thank you for doing this.

What have you been up to?"

And he said, "Well, I did an adaptation, 'If Beale Street Could Talk.'"

And we said, "Do you have the rights from the Baldwin estate?"

And he's like, "No."

[audience laughing] [chuckles] And we said, "Okay, well, let us read it."

And so we read "Beale Street," which was amazing, but we didn't have the rights.

And we said, "What else do you have?"

And he said, "Well, I read this play by Tarell McCraney, and I've been working on this thing, and I'll send it to you."

And it was "Moonlight."

And we read "Moonlight," and we're like, "You gotta make this like right... You have to make it now."

[pensive music] - Give me your head.

Okay, let your head rest in my hand.

Relax.

I got you, I promise.

I'm not gonna let you go.

Hey, man, I got you.

There you go.

Ten seconds.

Feel that right there?

You're in the middle of the world, man.

That's good.

Do like this.

[water splashing] [laughs] Look at you.

[laughs] More athletic.

There you go.

There you go.

Yeah.

I think you ready.

Think we got a swimmer.

You wanna try?

You ready to swim?

Go.

[water splashing] - And it was A24's very first movie that they financed.

And we made it for a million 250.

And it was just like having faith in Barry and wanting him so desperately to get back on the floor.

And we figured out how to do it, and then what happened, happened.

And "Moonlight" is how he then got the rights to "Beale Street" from the Baldwin Estate.

So he'll always say, "It's not the order in which I intended to make them, but it's the order in which the universe had me do it."

- So that's a pretty big shift for you all to be doing a million-dollar movie.

And from the space that you're in, I mean, was that a challenge?

- It's a different kinda challenge, and we didn't get paid.

But it's a different strategy, right?

We've done it now.

We did it with "Last Black Man in San Francisco," and we did it with "Minari," and it's so hard, but it's so fun.

And it's fast, and it's a bet you can sort of wrap your brain around, and I think it keeps you really agile.

- There's more of a structural element to "Assassination" than there was from "Moonlight."

And that's not a traditional jump in a script.

And I would think that having faith in the way that that story is going to be perceived is something that's a big part of what you do, right?

The sort of languidness of "Moonlight" is one of the things that I loved about it so much.

- I mean, yes, the triptych structure of "Moonlight" and the idea that you would have three different actors for each of those characters felt technically risky.

I knew, intellectually, it was risky, and I didn't think it was risky at all with Barry at the helm.

I just didn't.

I never questioned it for a second 'cause I just had such belief in his ability to cast an echoing essence in each of those characters.

You're right, on paper, that should not work.

But it does, and those actors are extraordinary, and yeah, I don't know.

Faith in a director is cool.

- You've used the word, scared, a couple of times, and I think that's an interesting piece of the process that you have as a producer is like having to make a lot of creative choices, having to facilitate a lot of creative choices.

And some of those are scary 'cause maybe they'll work and maybe they won't.

How much do you feel that, and then immediately address it or reacting to it as you're working through a process on any particular project?

- I think I'm better at managing it, but I don't think it goes away.

I mean, probably the point at which you don't feel that at all is when I should go home.

You know what I mean?

I mean, it should be scary.

You're making decisions about narrative that's gonna live in the world forever, and, oftentimes, are someone's words, and months, years of effort, and hundreds of people's contributions, and it's always a little nerve-racking.

[typewriter ding] - So I'd love to talk about "Women Talking."

I hadn't read the book and it was an really unexpected way of presenting that story.

- Oh, yeah, there was a lot of women talking.

[audience laughing] Yeah, we'd all read it.

We all loved it.

It was a conversation about, what do you love?

What do you think has to go?

What do you think can stay?

How do we frame these debates?

I think we knew the ending, but a lot changed, too, from those conversations.

- Again, it is a non-traditional way of putting a story out there and in the film world.

- Why do you think that?

- Well, 'cause it's a lot of people talking, [chuckles] but they're interspersed with a lot of interesting...

It feels like the talking is action.

It felt like it was spurring you, [chuckles] very much spurring you.

And so I think that felt intentional.

- I don't think we ever thought, oh, this is gonna be boring.

Like that's just not what we thought would be possible.

There were tons of drafts that went back and forth, and thoughts, and notes, and then things we learned when we heard it read by actors entirely different.

Like, oh, wait, whoa, we missed that.

And then a form of rewriting in the editing room happens and that was a lot of exchange.

And we knew we had to get outside, and use the outside, and use the landscape, and use the sun, frankly, to be the clock, be the ticking clock in the film, and to just depressurize what was happening in there.

And I think that's...

I think in doing so, it gave physics and musculature to what happens in the hayloft, right?

So then they both feel active 'cause they're in conversation with each other.

And there's a setting, and there's a deadline, and really, really, really high stakes.

- We can't know if we will stay or leave before we've resolved these last-minute concerns.

- I wouldn't call the future of our relationship with the boys and men we love last-minute concern.

[soft dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - I also think one of the things that is interesting about it, too, is they're all very distinct characters, and yet I don't really feel like I'm supposed to like or dislike anybody.

I feel like they're all genuinely presented in a way that I care what they're saying.

- Well, the movie's also positing what would it look like if a collective of people began to imagine what a new world would look like.

So in its essence, it's an expression of democracy in real time or the potential of democracy.

- Do we need to write the cons?

Isn't it obvious that we must stay and fight?

- Cons.

We won't be forgiven.

- May I say something?

- Please.

- Would it be a good idea before we list the pros and cons of staying and fighting to talk about exactly what it is we're fighting for?

- It's obvious.

We're fighting for our safety and for our freedom from attacks.

- But what would that mean to us?

Perhaps we need a statement which describes what we want the colony to be like after winning the fight.

Perhaps we need to understand more what it is we're fighting to achieve, not only what we're fighting to destroy.

[Neitje groans] [Autje chuckles] - Are we staying or are we going?

[laughs] - And we loved all of them, you know?

I love everyone in that hayloft, so.

And I also think one of the miracles of the movie, which you just never see anywhere, is you see that in the engagement of listening and discussing and debating, people change, and you change your perspective, or you see someone else change their perspective, or you see someone finally get to a place of regret of how they had been.

That just feels...

I can't think of anything more active.

[typewriter ding] [Narrator] You've been watching a conversation with Dede Gardner on "On Story."

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project that also includes the "On Story" radio program, podcast, book series, and the "On Story" archive accessible through the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University.

To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

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