'Tenet', Author, James Mottram

0:05James MottramGood. How are you?

0:07Jawad MirGood, thank you. How was your weekend?

0:09James MottramNot bad, not bad. Someone's 50th birthday, which was quite fun. Yeah.

0:15Jawad MirThat's good. Happy birthday.

0:17James MottramNo… not for me, not for me.

0:18Jawad MirOh.

0:19James MottramBut although I have had mine recently. I just read your email about the, recording. You wanted it…

0:27Jawad MirOh

0:27James Mottram... You wanted it to record on my side as well.

0:31Jawad MirYeah, I think Somaya probably sent that a little too late, so but if it's too much trouble, don't worry about it. I know she sent it…

0:36James MottramWell…

0:36Jawad Mir... Earlier this morning.

0:37James MottramNo, that's fine. I've got it. I'm playing it through my speaker, this thing, you know, one of these…

0:46Jawad MirSure

0:46James Mottram... You know, Bluetooth speakers, and I can record it on like an MP3 and then just send it to you. That's probably the best I can do. Would that work?

0:54Jawad MirOh, okay. No, I think what she meant was the video, but if you can't do video, then this is fine. I mean…

0:59James MottramOh, do you mean as in record it on my side on video?

1:02Jawad MirLike on phone, but it's… it's not a big deal. I don't wanna take too much of your time, James.

1:06James MottramNo. Sorry, what do you mean? Do you mean record it on Zoom or?

1:10Jawad MirNo, normally we record on Zoom. Like I'm recording it on Zoom.

1:13James MottramYeah.

1:13Jawad MirBut just as a backup some… there have been a couple of times when Zoom recording was not the most up to beat.

1:19James MottramYeah.

1:19Jawad MirSo we always ask somebody just to use their phone or tablet as lo… on 720p.

1:23James MottramOh, yeah. You mean just like a normal recording sort of thing?

1:26Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

1:27James MottramYeah, that's fine. Hang on a second. I'll, get that set up.

1:30Jawad MirThank you.

1:30James MottramAlthough this thing is probably just as good. This, but anyway, maybe an iPhone thing is better for you. Right. Sorry, one second. I don't normally use my iPhone to record, so trying to remember where the recording thing is.

1:47Jawad MirJust the camera app. The camera app is perfectly fine.

1:51James MottramWhat, as in click on video and then?

1:58Jawad MirYeah, it says the camera app, and then change it to video, and then just record it in portrait mode. Like just switch the phone like this instead of this. Just do it portrait.

2:08James MottramWhat, are you talking about recording me or?

2:10Jawad MirNo, yourself. Yourself. On a selfie.

2:15James MottramOh, you mean like setting the whole thing up to record my face? Is that what you're saying?

2:18Jawad MirYes. Yes.

2:20James MottramAh. Right. Okay. I'm not sure how that will look, but let me just see.

2:30Jawad MirWe may not even use it, just as a backup.

2:32James MottramJust a backup then.

2:33Jawad MirYeah.

2:34James MottramAll right. Fine. Okay, it's on.

2:36Jawad MirPerfect. Are you in the UK still?

2:39James MottramI am, yes.

2:41Jawad MirHow is the weather there?

2:42James MottramIt was good. Was it good? I can't remember. Well, I've been up north where it's always cold, so, it w… London... Hang on. Last Sunday, Easter Sunday, was really nice, and then it was terrible, the weather. So it's no… it's, it's usual April weather basically.

2:59Jawad MirRight. Yeah.

3:00James MottramWhere are you again?

3:02Jawad MirI'm in Toronto, in Canada.

3:03James MottramToronto, yeah.

3:04Jawad MirYeah. Things are warming up here. We had some record-breaking summer temperatures, but now it's gonna cool again for this week. But I think we're just at the last stretch of winter, spring, and then probably in a couple of weeks we'll go, you know, full-blown summer. We get... It's similar to London. It gets really hot here in summer, and then it gets really cold here in winter, so.

3:26Jawad MirBut, I don't…

3:26James MottramI'm glad to see you've got the Tenet book on your desk right at the top there. Very nice.

3:32Jawad MirYes. Yes. Which is why we're here, and I, you know, that's... Speaking of that, just a segue, I guess, is that the film came out in 2020.

3:43James MottramIt did.

3:44Jawad MirRight? I, and I remember, I think it was after the first wave, when the restrictions were lowered a little bit, I made a point to go see it, and I was the only one there.

3:57James MottramWow.

3:58Jawad MirIt was, it…

3:58James MottramYou mean because, like, people were... Was this in Toronto where you saw it?

4:02Jawad MirYeah.

4:02James MottramYeah.

4:03Jawad MirIt was COVID. It was just COVID. Y… people were very skeptical, of coming out, and this was, I think it came out in July, right? Or August? I think it was like…

4:12James MottramIt was August.

4:13Jawad MirAugust. Yeah.

4:13James MottramI remember seeing it in early August at a press screening. I guess it was probably the first press screening maybe in the world. I'm not sure actually.

4:24Jawad MirYeah.

4:24James MottramBut, yeah, and then it came out, I think, end of August, as I remember, in the UK. We might have been the first, you know, maybe along with some other European countries, we might have been the first to have it. 'cause I'm pretty sure it came out before in England before, it did in America and probably Canada too, but maybe it was the same. I can't remember to be honest.

4:50Jawad MirYeah, August 26th. You, we get the same release, date for films…

4:54James MottramYeah

4:54Jawad Mir... As Americans do.

4:55James MottramYeah.

4:55Jawad MirSo it's August. So it's, it's pretty much the same thing as UK then, August 26th. But yeah, I remember, I remember going seeing it. I mean, it was, it was an weird experience because, you know, COVID was still looming and, it was supposed to be, you know, a Christopher Nolan film, which is like almost like an event that you go to and then I'm just sitting in this gigantic theater of like 600, 700 capacity and there's literally nobody there. And, but the film itself was just so incredibly, you know, as you write in the book too, it just, it requires so much thinking and, you know, as most Christopher Nolan films like Momento, for example, or Inception, and, absolutely loved the visualness of it, but I nor… I didn't really, you know, grasp it as probably you would no… on a normal film. I had to watch a couple of times just to still understand it. But what I loved about it, my son, he's 13, and my daughter, she's 11, they're a huge Christopher Nolan fan now.

5:58Jawad MirLike they talk about…

5:59James MottramBecause of seeing Tenet before anything else?

6:02Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. They, I was actually thinking that they're gon… I mean, it was confusing them, but it was still… It was engaging. Like, it was a concept of reverse time and, you know, forward time, and they absolutely loved it. So, you know, how did you get onto the book? Were you starting research as the production was going on, just like Jurassic World book? What was that like?

6:25James MottramSimilar actually. Yeah, so I did a book for the same publishers as the, as the Jurassic books and the Tenet book.

6:33Jawad MirYeah.

6:33James MottramSo this is Insight Editions. They... So the, just backtracking slightly, I did a book for, on Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan's film bu…

6:41Jawad MirRight

6:41James Mottram... One he made before Tenet, so I did that. And then a little bit later, obviously when Tenet was underway, they came back to me and said, you know, "Would you, would you be up for doing Tenet?" So it was a fairly simple process having been through, the Dunkirk experience. And I think by the time I started it, they'd just wrapped. So I, when I read the script, which would've been December 2019 as I remember, yeah, they'd just wrapped, so they were obviously in the process of editing and so forth. So that was a kinda good time to start because you could get people who'd obviously worked on the film and, you know, they were obviously free because they were no longer engaged on the film.

7:31James Mottram... I… i… in terms of people like the production designer, for example, the costume designer. I think the costume designer, Jeffrey Kurland, was the first person I spoke to actually for no particular reason. He was just the first one that kinda came up. Or a… and then the most important early, person to speak to was Nathan Crowley, the production designer, who's been Nolan's production designer on virtually every film since Insomnia, and he worked certainly on Tenet and Dunkirk as well. He worked so closely with Nolan from the very sort of beginning once Nolan obviously had finished... I think he hadn't even properly finished the script, but h… it was advanced enough that they could start talking about, you know, ideas as to how to sort of visualize this world that Chris had sort of imagined. So I got to speak to Nathan quite early on, having already read the script, and of course I had, like, a million questions. I mean, it's interesting when you talk about your first experience of watching it.

8:32James MottramSo as I just mentioned, my first experience was this j… you know, a press screening in London.

8:36Jawad MirYeah.

8:37James MottramAnd of course everyone sitting around me, it was their first time, you know, like yourself, going in and experiencing this world. And of course I'd lived with this world for, you know, several months in terms of trying to decipher it and sort of turning it into a sort of making of book. And o… of course I had a, you know, an advanced knowledge that they didn't have, but at the same time I still came out quite confused 'cause it, I'd finished the book two or three months, before that screening, so I'd, although I hadn't forgotten it, you know, I, y… to some degree you'd moved on and were thinking about other things. And then, but you go back to it thinking, "Oh, well, of course I'll understand it r… really easily," and I was still extremely confused. I think partly I had, I had quite a limited time to read the script. It was a sort of one-shot opportunity to read it. I had a few hours. I was obviously making detailed notes as much as possible. And, for the first, let's say the first half of the film, up to the point of the, sort of freeway, y… you know, sequence, which is obviously…

9:47Jawad MirYeah

9:47James Mottram... An incredible sequence to watch, and that's when they had, they're, they're, they're pulling this raid on the, on the truck, where he goes through the roof of the truck and everything. And that's when you start to see sort of inverted characters, these characters sort of moving backwards through time. And then you see the whole sequence in the, Tallinn Freeport, where, you see Kenneth Branagh's character, Sator, sort of speaking backwards, and you see the scene reversed and everything. That's when it starts to get really confusing. And

10:23Jawad MirYeah

10:23James Mottram... Excuse me. You know, it's confusing enough sort of on a, on a visual level when you're watching it, although I think it does, you can ex… you, it does make sense and you can sort of... E… even if you don't understand every moment, you get the sense of what's going on. But by the time you get to that final third, the battle of, in Stalag 12, which is incredible to watch. I mean, if you don't really understand what's going on, it doesn't really matter because you're watching…

10:50Jawad MirNo

10:51James Mottram... Buildings blow up and reassemble, all of that stuff, which is just crazy to watch and great fun. But in the script, the, th… that final third was very tricky to sort of piece together on a, on a one-shot r… chance of reading it. So I f… I did struggle with that as a, as a sort of, in terms of writing about it and sort of, wow, this is, this is complicated. So definitely that last third. Probably by the time I actually got to watch the film, I still struggle with, you know, understanding elements of it. I mean, excuse me. The, Neil's, Neil, the Robert Pattinson character, he's kind of the, crucial to the whole, to unlocking the whole film really in terms of where he is, you know, what he's been doing, certainly in that last third. But, I mean, I, how many times have you seen it now, Tenet?

11:47Jawad MirThree. Three times.

11:48James MottramThree times.

11:49Jawad MirYeah.

11:49James MottramSo just as a sort of example, you may well be aware of this, and anyone listening to this may well know this now I'm sure. Anyone who's interested would've looked this up. But it was very clear in the script early on in the opera house raid where the protagonist, the John David Washington character, he sort of… He's in this audience of people that have been gassed, and they're, they're all, they've all been knocked unconscious. And then he sees the inverted bullet coming out of the woodwork, and then sort of zipping past him and shooting the guy that sort of got his gun trained on him. And then there's, then there's a guy who's behind him, and the bullet goes back into his gun, and then that guy runs away, and you can't tell who he is. His face is obscured.

12:31Jawad MirYeah.

12:31James MottramBut you see the orange tag on his backpack, and that's very clear in the script, you know, the mention of the orange tag. And that repeatedly comes up, that... Well, I'll not say repeatedly, but it comes up at the end, when there's a sort of dead, well, a corpse-like character in the hyper center on the, who then, becomes alive again just in time to sort of knock, as it, the Kenneth Branagh sort of, henchman, i… you know, into the, into the sort of hyper center well. And again, he's got that orange tag on his backpack. So you know, ultimately you figure out that is Neil, the Robert Pattinson character.

13:09Jawad MirYeah.

13:09James MottramAnd he's, he was there at the opera house. He was there here, so... And he's been sort of shadowing effectively the protagonist across this mission. But, you know, that's pretty hard to pick up on a first viewing, particularly that orange tag. I mean, no one's gonna remember that…

13:24Jawad MirNo

13:24James Mottram... First time out when you see it first of all. There's so much going on in that opera house sequence. So there's lots of things like that. But, yeah, it's, it was a tough one to unpick. And to some degree, this book, this book obviously is about how they made the film, not about the intricacies of the plot. You know, you try and explain it as much as possible.

13:47Jawad MirYeah

13:47James Mottram... But you, i… i… it's as much about the locations they went to and how they did the explosions and, you know, tho… those kind of details.

13:56Jawad MirYeah. I think you mentioned about the final battle. One of the things that I was, on my first viewing, that I just noticed immediately, and I'm sure a lot of other people did, and that stood out for me is that when the... In some of the sequences, you have soldiers, you know, running forward, and in the background you have people running backwards, and their backwards movement was just so spot on. It didn't look like it was being reversed in post. And that stood out for me the most, like how in real time they were able to pull off these little fine details and, you know, you, even if you don't notice it, you know, but you do see it and you appreciate it, even if it has nothing to do with the plot per se. And the John, the Wa… the, Neil character, like I didn't see the twist coming, you know, in the middle of the film when you see that. And I didn't... Even when I saw it the second time, you st… I st… I mean, I knew it was gonna happen, but I was looking for, you know, clues and it just... It, the way Christopher Nolan, the way he did it was almost like Back to the Future, but you know how when Marty goes to the past and he makes sure his parents fall in love, and there's another Marty there and all that, it was in that s… realm, but completely complicated.

15:13Jawad MirLike, completely, totally differently done. And that's... And I think even one of the crew member in your book, it says, I don't know who it was, the production designer, he said that when I said, read the script, and I'm like, "What the hell is this?" Like, you know, "Somebody kill me." I'm like, "How are we gonna pull this off?" But that was the reaction, I guess, with everybody, and the, but that's what makes this film so great. And locations were just amazing, and they were, they were marvelously done.

15:37James MottramYeah. I mean, the, what… whatever you get out of it's, I don't know, I thought the reaction to this film was really strange from critics generally, 'cause I thought it's a... I mean, obviously, you know, I've worked on it i… in terms of writing a book about it, so I guess to some degree I'm biased. But I felt it's a kind of fantastic spy thriller. It's, it's completely unique. You've never seen anything like this.

16:00Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

16:00James MottramI mean, 'cause of course it's, it's espionage, but it's also science fiction.

16:04Jawad MirYeah.

16:04James MottramIt's dealing with classic Nolan themes of time. I mean, obviously the, it, this really leads into his new film, Oppenheimer.

16:13Jawad MirOppenheimer.

16:14James MottramYou know, Oppenheimer is literally referenced, you know, i… in Tenet.

16:19Jawad MirYeah

16:19James Mottram... They talk about the Manhattan Project and, y… you know, the sort of notion of sort of inventing something that could wipe out humanity and that there's a sort of fictional scientist within Tenet from the future who's done the same thing, in the sense of this algorithm that's been formulated, which is what the, you know, what Sator is trying to sort of reassemble. So, you know, you know, I mean, clearly when he was writing Tenet, he was thinking about Oppenheimer as well. N… not necessarily at that moment thinking of him as a potential film subject, but, you know, it's, you can thread... I mean, I, b… just before we had this conversation, I decided to rewatch the film because it's been a while. And…

17:04James Mottram... I even noticed something, I mean, this could be total coincidence. I've not seen him talk about this, but there's a moment on the yacht, this sort of super yacht that Sator owns, where Kat, the character played by Elizabeth Debicki, she's got this sort of box that's got kind of jewelry and

17:23Jawad MirYeah

17:24James Mottram... Sort of photos and a gun and so forth. Now, she, it's a momentary shot. It's, it's tiny, but, if you think back to Following, his very first film, that's all about, they talk about breaking into, someone's house and you find a box which has these sort of very personal possessions in, and I'm thinking he's literally going back to his first film with that shot. Now, whether he did that unconsciously, I'm not sure, but that's just something that struck me today be… because I'd re… I'd recently re… rewatched Following as well. And, you know, the, you can trace patterns between all his films, whether it's conscious or not.

18:01Jawad MirYeah.

18:01James MottramIt's hard to say. But that's what I... And I think that, you know, some people don't like that in filmmakers perhaps or, you know, there were lots of complaints, I think, about his portray of,... Of women or in this case woman in the cat character. I've saw, I saw that in a lot of reviews that I read. And yet, you know, her, the very final shot of the film is her and her son Max, who's obviously Sator's son as well, y… you know, walking away sort of hand-in-hand. And, you know, you could look back at whether it's Interstellar or Inception where children are a huge part of those, of those films as well. And, you know, Nolan himself is a, I think a father of four.

18:45Jawad MirYeah. Yeah.

18:46James MottramAnd I think it's become more and more important to him, these notions of parenthood. I mean, the whole point of, I mean, Sator sort of says on the yacht towards the end when he's talking to the protagonist, you know, "My greatest sin is bringing my son into a world, you know, where there's, you know, ecological..." He doesn't use the phrase ecological catastrophes, but he's talking about the oceans rising and so forth. And, you know, th… this idea of being a parent in a world where there is, n… you know, horrendous climate change, these are, these are real-life topics. And yes, it's been, you know, it's been put into a science fiction format or a science fiction, you know, genre, but, you know, these are, these are quite emotional things that he's exploring. So yeah, I found the sort of some critiques of the film quite baffling.

19:36Jawad MirI found, I don't know. I don't know why people would say that. I don't see anything wrong with it in terms of the portrayal of a woman. I mean, if you look at Interstellar, I think among all of his films, two films that for me personally were more than just, you know, sci-fi or as genre films but emotional films were Interstellar and, the one, Tenet.

20:02Jawad MirI think they were, they were, especially Interstellar was just another level, but Tenet had a lot of emotional elements in it, and the reason that was in there, it was because of that, the mother and son relationship. You know, even though the son is not even in the film barely, but that's what she's striving for. Like, she's, her entire character's based on, you know, getting freedom from this guy, and so that sh… she can live a better life with her son. And you know, you mentioned about the little box. I am willing to bet it was 100% intentional because, Spielberg has done that before, in, I don't know if you've seen his first film Duel, the truck one.

20:41James MottramYou know what? I've, I have, but a long time ago.

20:44Jawad MirYeah.

20:44James MottramDefinitely one I'd like to revisit someday.

20:46Jawad MirOh, it's, I saw it again. It's just masterful the way they did that. But the scene, you remember the ending what happens, right? I'm not gonna blow it up for you.

20:55James MottramIt, well, I, to be honest, I don't 'cause it's so long ago, but tell me. It's fine.

20:58Jawad MirBasically, there's a scene where there's a crash of a truck, and there's a certain sound effect that was in that crash. Spielberg took that sound effect and put it in Jaws when Jaws blows up at the end, and just a little, he says it on camera. He says, "This is like my little salute to Duel. Thank you for, you know, giving me Jaws." So I think filmmakers do that. Even myself, like, if I'm making a film, not that it's intentional, it's just, it's in our thing. It, we've lived a film so many time, like, so many years. You can't, you can't let go, and if it's, if there's a way to integrate it, I don't see anything wrong with that. Why not? It's just you're, you know, saying that I've, look where I was then and look where I am now. And I mean…

21:41Jawad Mir... He's come a long way. It's been over 20 years since Memento came out.

21:45James MottramYeah. And I mean, you know, I still think Memento is one of his most emotional films. That's not to say the others that have come afterwards are…

21:54Jawad MirYeah

21:54James Mottram... Are any, you know, suffer in that, in that way. But I think it, Memento was such a sort of perfect realization of his themes, you know, the form, the structure, and then this sort of horrifying cycle that this man, Leonard Shelby, is stuck in. You know, this sort of, this constant need for revenge but unable to grieve because of the death of his wife. His mental capacity is stuck at the very moment that his wife was killed. I mean, it's a, it's an incredible piece of work I think, I mean, from that point of view.

22:34Jawad MirYeah.

22:34James MottramAnd perhaps because it's not in a genre, yes, it's kind of toys this sort of film noir, but it's, it's not a big spectacle in the way, you know, some of his later films are.

22:45Jawad MirOf course.

22:45James MottramIt's, it perhaps, it, you tune in more to the emotions. I'm not sure. I'm sure other people will pick on Inception as a, as just as emotional, and that's a huge scale movie.

22:55Jawad MirYeah. That too. I, you know, I have to see Memento. I haven't seen it in a long time. And I remember when I saw it, I was, like, probably way more confused watching that than I was confused watching Tenet. And part of my fear, if you wanna call it, is, like, will I get it still? Like, should I watch it? Should I bother watching it? But maybe I should pick it up next week and try watching it again because even that…

23:17James MottramYeah. You sh… I mean, I think, you know, I remember the first time I saw it, and I thought, "Oh yeah, I get that completely." And then I watched it for a second time and was totally confused, and I, you know, because it, I probably thought I understood it and clearly didn't.

23:30Jawad MirYeah.

23:31James MottramAnd even Nolan says with that film he can sort of join it at any point in the film and still be a little confused as to where he is in the story because it's that…

23:42Jawad MirYeah

23:42James Mottram... It's that intricate basically.

23:44Jawad MirYeah

23:44James Mottram... And he, you know, there was a really good piece I read on, online which kind of broke the story down sort of chronologically in a quite good way, and then pointed out the sort of extra layers of confusion that you have. You know, there's like, there's like a shot of L… Leonard in bed with his wife with "I've done it" in one of his tattoos that he has on his chest. I've done it, meaning, you know, I've killed, I've avenged the man that attacked my wife. You know, and it's like but hang on. He's, he's sitting there with his wife in bed, so is that a fantasy? Is that real? There were just little moments like that just l… add to the… You know, the complexity of that film. I mean, that's one that people will be analyzing, well, probably like Tenet, probably like Inception. I mean, they're still talking about the end of Inception and whether it's, you know, whether the spinning top means it's a dream or not.

24:38Jawad MirYeah. I think Nolan is gonna go in history similar to how Kubrick was. I mean, they don't have similar personalities per se, but in terms of the, their films being discussed and talked about. You know, 2001: Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, these are all films that are still talked about after 50, 60 years. And you know, going back to your book, when you were interviewing all the people, in the book, was it, because it was kinda like just pre-COVID, was it always over the phone and you were talking to everybody in chunks? Or was it just, you know, talking to somebody whether it's a production designer, whether it's art director, whether it's even Christopher Nolan himself in one go or was it in all in different chunks?

25:24James MottramIt was largely done, I think I started just before Christmas of 2019. So I'd read the script, like I said, in early, the early part of that month. And then as I think, as I remember, it was, it was the costume designer who just happened to be the first up. Then just after Christmas it was Nathan Crowley, the production designer. And then you're really just reaching out to people and it's down to their availability. So yeah, I pretty much spoke to as many people as possible within a fairly short space of time. Nolan was obviously the tricky one to get because he obviously…

25:59Jawad MirYeah

25:59James Mottram... Was working on the film. His editor was really difficult to get, Jennifer, Lame, because, again, she was still working on the film.

26:09Jawad MirYeah.

26:09James MottramBut you know, I got time with them both in the end, so it happened. And yeah, it was a, it was f… relatively smooth sailing I would say…

26:22Jawad MirRight

26:22James Mottram... As I remember. It was sort of over a couple of months, I think, something like that. You know, the kind of people towards the end, like the sound designers and stuff like that.

26:32Jawad MirYeah.

26:32James MottramThey're, you, or you know you're gonna do them in the final chapter so you're not so worried about, because they're quite isolated those segments. It's like, you know, the ones you need obviously are, well, obviously you need, you know, Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, his, producer wife, Nathan as I mentioned. Y… it, a lot of the really difficult ones are the sort of special effects people because it's just the idea of trying to convey to the general reader how some of these practical effects on set were done, how some of the, you know, visual effects were done. It's difficult, you know, it's, it's, th… that's one of…

27:11Jawad MirYeah

27:11James Mottram... The most complicated bits in writing these books.

27:14Jawad MirSo when you spoke to Christopher Nolan, was it just once? And if it was it a very quick 30-minute call, an hour call, or a 15-minute call?

27:22James MottramIt was twice in the sh… in a short space of time. He had a certain amount of time one day. I think it was, it was more like 45 minutes or something, and then I think I had another 20 minutes or something with him the next day, something like that. So it was all, it was a, in fairly quick succession. And that was sort of enough for what we needed. Because you know, I, obviously it's import… especially as he wrote the book, it's, sorry, wrote the film, it's important, you know, he obviously has to be the spine of the book.

27:56Jawad MirRight.

27:56James MottramBut the way I look at these books is it's a sort of celebration of all of their efforts, you know, the, everyone that sort of is a sort of major contributor. And as much as I want him in the book leading the conversation, I want lots of other people's voices to be heard as well.

28:14Jawad MirYeah.

28:15James MottramSo, yeah, as much as you definitely need him and the thing is, he's e… ex… as you would imagine, extraordinarily articulate. And y… you ask a question, you're gonna use that answer because it's gonna be good, basically. So there's not really any wasted answers…

28:33Jawad MirOkay

28:33James Mottram... Within that time. They're always, I'm, I'm, you know, you wouldn't wanna not use material anyway, but I…

28:40Jawad MirOf course

28:40James Mottram... It's not like you kinda think looking at a quote going, "Well, that's not very good but I better put it in anyway." I mean, they're all, you know, very solid answers and move the conversation on and make you think about, you know, lot… lots of different things. So, yeah, what time I had with him was great.

29:02Jawad MirAnd then when you plan a book like this, right, like, so whether it's, I'm just gonna put this here so people can see it. When you are planning to write this, and I'm sure you know, there's a team of publishers and all that stuff.

29:15Jawad MirBut after the interviews or during the interview process or before the interview process, in terms of the chapter breakdown, right, does that happen as you're interviewing people or as you're writing it, or is that a t… separate team? What's, what's that like?

29:32James MottramDo you mean just how the book was structured and…

29:34Jawad MirYeah, like the, you know, the chapter breakdown, this is what we're gonna talk about in this chapter, this is what we're gonna talk about in this chapter. And then obviously…

29:40James MottramI think that was, yeah. Sorry, keep hitting my microphone.

29:44Jawad MirNo, go on.

29:45James MottramYeah, that was down to me. I mean, it's, it's kind of fairly self-explanatory in that you're obviously gonna start with a chapter about how the idea began and when he wrote it and, you know, so just the general beginnings. So you'd obviously bring Nathan Crowley, his production designer, in fairly quickly into that conversation, and obviously Emma Thomas as well because they're gonna be there right at the beginning with Chris. And then, you know, you'd start to move into sort of the sort of pre-production phase. I think the key thing was to sort of split up the different countries that they visited during the production… so now I'm trying to remember how the book was split up, but, you know, I think I… I… India would have its own chapter, if I remember, or the, in Mumbai.

30:37Jawad MirYep.

30:38James MottramThen I think we pieced together London and Oslo because they were fairly short…

30:46Jawad MirYeah

30:46James Mottram... Parts of the shoot. The, at the Los... The second, the, well, they went to Los Angeles twice, so the first, the first, the, they began the shoot in Los Angeles, where they did some of the fighting sequences in the, in the Freeport, the Oslo Freeport. So this is when, I mean, obviously presumably people have seen this, so I'm not spoiling it, but, where the protagonist character is fighting against another, an… another, a master assailant, which obviously turns out to be a, an inverted version of the protagonist later on.

31:19Jawad MirYeah

31:19James Mottram... So, y… you know, that was, even though that was quite a sh… a, I think as I remember, that was about a week's shoot in LA when they, when they started. It was extremely complicated because the stunt people were learning how to fight backwards, kind of what you were alluding to earlier with the…

31:35Jawad MirYeah

31:35James Mottram... With the guys running backwards at the end. So that in itself worked quite well as a chapter, or as a self-contained chapter because, you know, all these guys were just trying to get their heads around how confusing all of this was. So that worked quite well. Then you had, I think then was, the Amalfi Coast. I'm trying to remember if that came... I think that came before Mumbai. Then y… as I said, then you had sort of London, Oslo, et cetera, and then back to Los Angeles or California for the, for the Freeport, and I think als… sorry, not the Freeport, the Stalis 12, and I think also the airplane crash if I'm... And I'm now trying to remember this, if that's the right order. But you know, it was all fairly, you know, it all divided up quite naturally, if that makes any sense.

32:24Jawad MirYeah. Yeah, okay. It's funny you mentioned Oslo. So the film came out in 2020, so watched it, and then I was, in Oslo, for a screening of one of my film, and I had, like, four hours just to kind of, you know, kill, and I was just started roaming around the city, and I came across Oslo, Opera House. And there's a scene in the film where there, it's, the way the w… the opera house is you can actually go up on the, on the roof.

32:54James MottramOn the roof, yeah.

32:55Jawad MirYou know? Right, in an angle and this and that way. But it wa… it came very briefly in one of the shots, and when I was there, I was like, "Oh, this is where they did the scene for the, in Tenet." And the locations with Christopher Nolan films, whether it's Tenet or Inception, you know, Interstellar was more, like, obviously space, but still the way they pick these locations are just, you know, amazing and incredible. And…

33:22James MottramYeah, I mean, I know for Tenet, they'd sat down and said, this is Nathan and Christopher Nolan, and sat down and said, "Well, where haven't we been?" You know? "Where can we…... And also not just where haven't they been, but where haven't films been? So…

33:40Jawad MirYeah

33:40James Mottram... Obviously the opera house sequence, which is supposed to be the Ukraine in the film, but they shot it in Tallinn.

33:46Jawad MirYeah.

33:46James MottramAnd then of course the sort of heist in the middle of the film that we talked about earlier, the on the freeway where you get the car reversing and a… you know, flipping over and all that stuff, that was shot in Tallinn and that's supposed to be in Tallinn. Now, Tallinn, ha… you know, has n… not been used really for a massive scale movie. I mean, it's been used for smaller films, but, so it, you know, that was a great choice, just as a, just as an example. I mean, oh, you know, Mumbai, I guess has been used quite a lot, but

34:21Jawad MirBut you know what I loved about the Mumbai sequence was because it's been used so many times, they didn't overdo it. They just did that, you know, they didn't go into the actual city or trying to explore. They, it was just very subtly done. It was very creatively done. I really liked that, what th… what they did with Mumbai.

34:37James MottramBut they're also very keen on this sort of brutalist architecture, which you very much found in Tallinn wi… with that opera house. And of course that plays right into the fact that Sator came from one of these, you know, Soviet, secret cities.

34:54Jawad MirYeah.

34:55James MottramSo you know, ob… obviously everything's been thought about. It's not just about, "Oh, what looks good on camera? Where can we go next?" It's obviously thematically based…

35:04Jawad MirSure

35:05James Mottram... Pri… primarily. But, you know, obviously it also has to work, you know, Tallinn has to work for a point of view of being able to house a crew o… of the size that they're gonna bring…

35:15Jawad MirCost, catering, all that stuff

35:16James Mottram... And all of that stuff. Yeah.

35:17Jawad MirYeah.

35:17James MottramAll of that stuff. But, you know, I think they were very, from what I remember, they were the sort of Estonian, you know, film authorities were very helpful, as I remember. So, yeah, I think that worked out really well. And then, you know, you've got the Amalfi Coast for all the stuff, where they're on the yacht, and that…

35:35Jawad MirYeah

35:35James Mottram... Just looks... There was this, shot I noticed, when I re-watched it earlier, where it's the sequence where, Sator, i… well, the protagonist has got himself invited to this dinner…

35:50Jawad MirYes

35:50James Mottram... Where Sator is, and you, they come up to this sort of, well, it's, I think it's on the top of a sort of clifftop thing, and there are these statues just lining this sort of wall. And then Elizabeth Debicki is kind of bent over as almost as if she's looking way down this cliff, and then she so, it's almost a cliche, but she's so statuesque that she almost looks like one of the statues. And then of course she moves, and you realize that's her. But that was just a beautiful sort of little moment. But, you know, they make such good use of that location. I mean, I'm sure tourism shot up to the Amalfi Coast after they made that film.

36:32Jawad MirYeah. It most certainly did. And what did you learn one thing that you did not know, whether it was after you read the script or after you saw the movie, from anyone you spoke to about the film or about the behind the scene process that was kinda like, "Whoa, they actually did that." So something of that nature.

36:53James MottramWell, one of the best people to speak to, just because you sort of think, "Well, how interesting is it gonna be to spa… speak to a marine coordinator?" So this is the guy obviously that is, organizes…

37:05Jawad MirRight

37:05James Mottram... All the boats. Now, this is Neil Andrea who also worked on Dunkirk and had to organize an awful lot of, you know, the little ships for Dunkirk and…

37:16Jawad MirRight

37:16James Mottram... These huge destroyers as well, and had to sort of organize those to get those to the Dunkirk area, to film in. And you sh… you look at Tenet and think, "Well, that's surely going to be infinitely, easier than Dunkirk." And you had so many different marine vessels, you know, the s… the super yacht that we mentioned already that Sator, lounges around on. I mean, that was some crazily expensive, you know, obviously they had to sort of r… rent it and borrow it from someone. But then you had like these,.. What else did you have? There were those high-speed catamarans…

37:56Jawad MirYes

37:56James Mottram... That you have the catamaran scene on. They are, like, complete top of the range things, you know. I mean, it's funny, again, rewatching it earlier, I remember the sound editor talking about these kind of whiny noises that those catamarans make 'cause they get, presu… presumably 'cause they're traveling at this incredible speed.

38:18Jawad MirYeah

38:18James MottramAnd they just, it's almost like whistling across the surface of the water, and you can really hear it if you listen back, and watch the film. You hear that it's almost like a scream or a wail, as it were, as it, as they cross the water. So yeah, they had those. I mean, the, one of my favorite bits and it's, it's funny, when you talk to these people and they tell you about the kinda crazy stuff that they did, and then it comes up in the film and it doesn't actually look that crazy. So early on in the film where he's been tortured and then he's recovering, he's been put in a medically induced coma and he's recovering, and that's where he meets the, Martin Donovan character, Faye, who sort of is the one that tells him about the Tenet gesture.

39:02Jawad MirYeah

39:02James MottramAnd then they basically drop him off or they take him off on another one of these kind of, you know, s… I dunno what you'd call them, but these kind of huge boats that then, th… they then take him to these wind turbines, and he, you see him in the wind turbines sort of, that's like his little base to recover for a while.

39:22Jawad MirRight

39:22James MottramYou see him sort of doing chin-ups on the ladder and just generally recovering so he's in sort of, proper shape until he can, you know, c… continue on with his mission. Now, i… in the movie, that's a small element really. That, and that could've been shot anywhere. You could've shot that in a studio, in a sort of like a tunnel type, you know…

39:46Jawad MirYeah

39:46James Mottram... A pipe style setting. But of course, they went to real wind tunnels, wind turbines, sorry. And, you know, the effort that it took to get them, I think they were gonna try and do it in somewhere in the UK, as I remember, and then they ended up doing it, somewhere in Europe, which I'm forgetting at the moment. But, I think it might have been somewhere in Denmark, as I remember. But you know, that's the sort of, s… effort that he will strive for, Nolan, for realism that, well, the scene's set inside a wind turbine, that's where we're going to go.

40:22Jawad MirYeah

40:22James MottramNo matter, no matter how difficult it might be.

40:26Jawad MirYeah

40:26James MottramAnd, you know, in the end you do, it has a really strange feel, that scene. Like I say, it's a small moment in the film, and most viewers probably won't pay that much attention to it, but if you're sort of aware that's what he's hiding out in, it's, you know, there's a really weird claustrophobic shape to it and... So there's, i… it's always odd when you do these kind of books because you sometimes get hung up on moments that, aren't that big in the film.

40:56Jawad MirYeah

40:56James Mottram... And yet perhaps 'cause you've had interesting conversations with people who were involved in making them happen, they s… they seem really interesting to you, and maybe they are to the readers too. I hope they are to the readers, of course. But, yeah, i… it's, it's odd because you might think you'd focus on, you know, the huge battle at the end, and of course, you know, o… obviously I did write about that, but, sometimes it's the little bits that are the really…

41:21Jawad MirIt's the little details

41:21James Mottram... Fascinating things. Yeah.

41:23Jawad MirAnd it's funny you mention that scene because I remember, you know, like you said, it was very quick. It was like four or five shots, maybe even less. And to me, especially when the way, think there was an angle when it's kinda like shooting upwards so you see the never-ending, you know, imagery. And to me, because I knew it was about time, and maybe this is me looking into it too much and I most of the time do, to me that was like a setup for the journey and the time traveling that he's gonna go through upcoming. And that's, and that's what as a filmmaker, it, for Christopher Nolan, even if that's not what he intended to do, if people pick up on those things and make it the way they wanna think, mission accomplished, right? Like, that's, that's simply what filmmaking is, and I'm so glad now, you know, directors like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan, are, they like to shoot in camera the effects, whatever. They don't wanna hear about the post. He did that with, Inception. You know, the scene where in the lobby everybody's kinda going upward.

42:26Jawad MirThey actually created a hydraulic set, you know, to pull that off and that's, that's what, I think that's what those little things people don't You saw it, I noticed it. Even if people don't notice it, they s… notice it as a grand, you know, like all these little things, they went, put so much detail and effort into it. And it makes a difference. It makes a huge difference

42:48James MottramYeah. I think even on a subconscious level, your…

42:51Jawad MirIt does

42:51James Mottram... As you say, you might not notice it at the time, but then you, as you've clearly done, you go back and think about it in retrospect and go, "Yeah, actually, maybe that is w… you know, that is a reference to time," or, yeah, I hadn't even thought of that, but that's a great reference. I'm gonna steal that, so.

43:08Jawad MirYeah, go ahead. That's fine. A… and, you know, just to kind of wrap things up, about Tenet and the book experience, when the book is, you finished, I think probably in terms of your work, probably summer, right? In terms of the process.

43:25James MottramProbably earlier than that.

43:27Jawad MirEarlier.

43:27James MottramIt's hard to remember now, but, certainly COVID had happened. I'd done a, I'd done, must have done most of the interviews by the time COVID started, you know…

43:38Jawad MirYeah

43:38James Mottram... Happening. And then it was all this kind of weird thing about, "Well, when's the film coming out?" And

43:45Jawad MirYeah

43:45James Mottram... And you know, and I should add the publishers themselves had issues because they, where they printed and getting books shipped around the world is not easy, certainly was not easy during COVID times.

43:56Jawad MirYeah.

43:56James MottramSo there was a lot of, you know, these are not conversations I was obviously part of, but…

44:00Jawad MirSure

44:00James Mottram... Yeah, I can't quite remember exactly when we f… when I did my final bit, but, yeah, it might've been May.

44:11Jawad MirThat… that's fine.

44:12James MottramYeah.

44:12Jawad MirSo the book, the book came out in Septem… August or September, around the same time…

44:16James MottramYeah

44:16Jawad Mir... The film came out

44:16James MottramI think September-ish, yeah

44:18Jawad MirAnd then how, you know, not just in case of Tenet, of… you've written immense amount of books, when that happens, you know, when the book is published and it comes in your hand the first time, right? Not a vanity kind of a question, but just, you know, obviously there's pride that, you know, you're part of, you wrote a book and you're part of this, you know, history, you know, something like the Christopher Nolan. What is that feeling like? You know, I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I… I…

44:48James MottramNo

44:49Jawad Mir... Feel like

44:49James MottramIt's, no, I get it. Well, the funny thing is when you get the book, and it's not, I'm not referring to that book specifically, but any of them…

44:57Jawad MirYeah

44:57James Mottram... You've, you've detached yourself somewhat from the project 'cause you've been through it, and by that point, you've probably seen the film as well, and you just feel like, "Well, I've been there, done that." And of course, it… it's nice to look at, but I don't spend a lot of time looking at it. But at the ti…

45:15Jawad MirWhat…

45:16James MottramThe best, the best moment is when you get to read the script at the beginning because…

45:21Jawad MirOkay

45:21James Mottram... You're reading it, let's say, six months before s… everyone else will see the finished movie…

45:26Jawad MirMakes sense

45:26James Mottram... Or whatever it is. And that mean, yeah, that feels like you're let in on a, on a little secret basically, and that's, that's a very nice, that's a, that's a privilege. I mean, there's no question that's a privilege. I mean, that happened on Dunkirk, Tenet, and Jurassic World: Dominion for the Jurassic, second Jurassic book I did. So yeah, that is a real privilege. And, that does make you feel like you're kind of in, yeah, you're, you're, you're reading something that other people won't discover for quite a long time. Once it's out in the world, it's a bit like, "Oh, now everyone knows about it."

46:00James MottramBut no, of course, it is, you know, the, that particular publisher, they do a great job on

46:06Jawad MirOh, yeah

46:06James Mottram... The imagery and so forth, and, you know, they look beautiful. And a film like Tenet, there's plenty of good-looking stills that you can use and behind-the-scenes m… materials that we could use. So it looked great from that point of view. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's a great, it is a great feeling.

46:28Jawad MirGood. Good. And speaking of, reading something in advance, without mentioning any names, is there something you're working on now that's coming up this year or next year?

46:38James MottramWell, it's funny, it's very, part of the reason I re-watched Tenet was, I mean, it was really useful obviously before we had this chat, but I'm doing a, so there's a company in England, called 101 Films, and they're releasing some Blu-rays of Memento and Following. And I'm sort of helping out doing some extras for that, so like a, basically a sort of long-form essay kind of primarily on Memento, but that's why I wanted to re-watch some of his other movies. Tenet was a particularly good one, as you sort of mentioned, with time.

47:16Jawad MirRight.

47:17James MottramIt's a huge theme, I mean, it's a huge theme through most of his movies. So, I've been thinking about, I've been preparing, let's say, to write that. I don't know if you know, I did a book on Memento many years ago, not…

47:30Jawad MirOh

47:31James Mottram... A more... Yeah, so that's called, that was by a different publisher, by Faber & Faber. That was called The Making of Memento, and that was basically written about 20 years ago. And yeah, I just reread that book, and it's a very strange experience to reread one of your own books. Not something I do on a r… r… on a normal basis, I can assure you. But it was quite useful to sort of get myself thinking about Memento again because as you said, it's extremely complicated. And yeah, it was interesting to sort of go back and read that. So that, I'm, I'm sort of doing that, and then for the company inside that did the Tenet book, we are doing a sort of another Jurassic-themed book, which I'm hoping will sort of definitely happen. It's, it's more…

48:20Jawad MirReally

48:20James Mottram... Based around, the screenplay basically. We're gonna sort of, I think, publish, the sort of shooting script, and then…

48:33Jawad MirOkay

48:34James Mottram... I'm gonna sort of annotate that with… you know, little bits and pieces about the very... 'Cause you know how many drafts that went through…

48:43Jawad MirYeah

48:43James Mottram... The first, the original Jurassic Park. So I've, I've spoken to a few people for that book already and was... I mean, it's, it's not gonna be on the scale of the…

48:54Jawad MirYeah

48:54James Mottram... Ultimate Visual History books that y… you've already seen. But, yeah, it should be, you know, we're, we're trying to make it different to the Ultimate Visual History book, so it's not gonna cover so much production history, but more looking in... I mean, the UVH books did look into the scripts, to some degree, but this is trying to go into it more, and diving into the novel a bit more as well. That kind of stuff.

49:20Jawad MirThat's good. I think it's great timing. Obviously, that's why you guys are doing it, because the 30th anniversary, right?

49:24James MottramAbsolutely. Yeah.

49:25Jawad MirAnd I know in UK, I don't know, I think I'm guessing in London, I saw it on Facebook somewhere, there's actually a small museum that has opened up on Jurassic Park. When I think museum…

49:34James MottramYeah, that's in…

49:35Jawad Mir... I was thinking inside of a store

49:35James Mottram... The Natural History Museum.

49:38Jawad MirYeah

49:38James Mottram... Well, they, we had…

49:39Jawad MirYeah

49:39James Mottram... The Jurassic World, or the Jurassic what do you call it? Like, exhibition thing with animatronic dinosaurs. That was at the ExCeL Center in London, which I got…

49:49Jawad MirYeah, we have that in Toronto. It just opened up last week. But

49:52James MottramYeah. It's good fun. It's good fun. I went to that, so.

49:55Jawad MirI gotta go. I gotta go.

49:55James MottramYeah, you should see it. But yeah, the one in the Natural History Museum, I haven't seen yet. Someone did send me a screenshot of it, and it had a copy of the book there, so that was quite pleasing that they had a copy of that. Because at the Jurassic exhibition thing I just mentioned, they had loads of merchandise, you know, T-shirts, mugs, et cetera, and not my book, which I was quite annoyed about at the time. I was thinking, "Well, there's a missed opportunity," but there you go. But yeah, they have got it in the Natural History Museum, so that was quite nice. Yeah, and it, as you say, it's the 30th anniversary, so I don't really know what else is being planned as such, but, yeah.

50:33Jawad MirI'm sure there is. I'm sure there's gonna be DVDs. And I'm sure there is. I mean, there's just, I... You know, I think you and I talked about this, that there is such a big fan base of Jurassic Park, or Jurassic World. Especially Jurassic Park, especially in Europe. I mean, after talking to you, or maybe I mentioned it to you, if you... I discovered on Instagram there's these young people, like, you know, in their 20s. They have, like, literally almost authentic replicas of all the major scenes in the first film and the second film, and they're produced by proper companies, but they're not available in US and, the UK.

51:10James MottramWhen you say replicas, what do you mean exactly?

51:12Jawad MirWhen I mean replicas, I mean they look almost identical to the way it was in the film. You know, they would be, like, th… couple of feet long, high, you know, three, four feet wide T-Rex. And there would be a scene of, you know, when, Sam Neill's character is throwing that flare and the T-Rex is looking at... Just stuff like that. So there's, there's a lot of stuff, I'm sure they're gonna plan, because it, there's a market. There is a hungry market for it, which I just don't think has been…

51:39James MottramWell, you only have to look at how much money Dominion made despite, you know, pretty scathing reviews generally.

51:48Jawad MirYeah.

51:48James MottramIt made a billion dollars. I mean, it was the…

51:50Jawad MirYeah

51:50James Mottram... Second biggest film of last year, and after Top Gun: Maverick, until obviously Avatar came out right near the end. But, you know, it was b… only three movies made over a billion last year, and that was one of them. So that shows you…

52:04Jawad MirYeah

52:04James Mottram... The fan base. You know, ne… never mind if the review, it wasn't the best reviewed film ever. The fans came out, and they clearly would've come out more than once to see it.

52:14Jawad MirYeah. Just lastly, going back to Memento, so you're writing an actual book on Memento? Is that what you said?

52:19James MottramNo. It's, it will be, like, an essay…

52:24Jawad MirMaybe…

52:24James Mottram... Within the f… within the Blu-ray.

52:27Jawad MirOh, I see.

52:27James MottramAnd we did a, I mean, it, this will only really be available in the UK, I guess, or at the, I mean, I'm sure you could buy it for…

52:34Jawad MirYeah

52:34James Mottram... Other regions. But, I mean, these days, I guess you can play stuff on, in different regions. But, so I mentioned earlier having re-watched Following. We've just done a commentary track for Following. This is myself and Jeremy Theobald, who was the lead actor, and, co-producer of Following. And he was at college with Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas. And, yeah, so we re… we've re-recorded it, or recorded a commentary track for Following. So they're releasing that obviously with the, you know, with the film and other extras and things as well, which they're planning. And then the Memento disc is obviously separate, but, yeah, I'm, I'm sort of, yeah, hooking up a kinda long form essay. I mean, obviously the book that I did 20 years ago was very focused on Memento, obviously. That's what it was about. I guess this essay might be a little more, little broader. But, you know, maybe take in his, you know, some of his other films.

53:38James MottramObviously, what's happened to his career since Memento.

53:41Jawad MirYeah. Yeah. Well, I was hoping you were gonna say that you're working on, a book on Oppenheimer, but alright.

53:49James MottramI'm not doing the Oppenheimer book, sadly. But, you know, I'm, you know, that's, that's…

53:56Jawad MirI can…

53:56James MottramI'm sure there is one being cooked up, but

53:58Jawad MirYeah, there is. It's, I just am looking up on Amazon. It's, coming out on July 21st. It's written by Jada Yuan, and I wonder what publisher it is.

54:11James MottramI think it might be Insight as well.

54:13Jawad MirYeah, it is Insight. Well, that would be exciting to see, but it would've been good if you were working on it, having, you know, because you worked on Tenet and Dunkirk, but that's totally fair.

54:21James MottramYeah. I mean, you know, as you clearly have seen, I did the Memento book as well, so…

54:26Jawad MirYeah

54:27James Mottram... I've done a, I've done a fair, you know, I've had a…

54:29Jawad MirYeah

54:29James Mottram... I've had a fair crack at the whip, as it were. But, you know…

54:33Jawad MirGood

54:33James Mottram... And they're always, they're always great to do.

54:36Jawad MirAwesome. Any movies you're looking forward to this summer besides Oppenheimer and…

54:40James MottramGood question.

54:42Jawad MirIs there the ideal…

54:42James MottramWell, I'll tell you one, I'll tell you a couple I recommend which haven't come out yet

54:46Jawad MirSure

54:47James MottramAlthough the... And it surprises me that I say this, certainly with one of them, which is Evil Dead Rise, which I had no expectations for whatsoever, and I'm... You know, I like the Evil Dead movies, but I'm certainly not a, you know, aficionado or anything.

55:04Jawad MirYeah.

55:04James MottramAnd the new one, you know, you sort of think, oh, the fifth one in the franchise, however you look at it, that's not gonna be very good, is it? And, it's absolutely spectacular as a horror film. I never get scared by horror films, and that one I thought was pretty intense. So I th… you know, I would highly... Made by an Irish writer-director as well, Lee Cronin, which was,.. Obviously, he's got Sam Raimi's blessing.

55:28Jawad MirYeah

55:28James Mottram... But anyway, that was very good. And then th… this other movie I saw, which has had terrible reviews since, I'm not sure if it's come out in the States or if they just released the rev… the reviews, but, it's out in the UK in May. It's Beau Is Afraid. This is the film by Ari Aster, the guy who did Hereditary and, Midsommar.

55:50Jawad MirOkay.

55:50James MottramAnd this is more of a psychological kind of drama/horror. It's Joaquin Phoenix playing the… ... The character of Beau. And it's three hours long. It's kind of crazy and wild and intense, and I kinda loved it. I mean, there's, there's bits that didn't work particularly well, but there's a lot that was just insane. And yet it's had these kind of, the same kind of reviews that Damien Chazelle got for Babylon, which were, "Oh, well, this is what you hap… this is what happens when you give a director too much money and too much freedom." And it's like, these are the kind of movies that we should celebrate, you know, where someone just goes completely wild and makes something…

56:28Jawad MirYeah

56:28James Mottram... Crazy. But anyway, I like those two. I'm trying to think of what's... Well, I'm, I'm slightly fearful of what Indiana Jones 5 will be like. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing Harrison Ford back, let's put it that way, in that role one more time, 'cause that will be the last, so.

56:47Jawad MirYeah.

56:48James MottramBut…

56:48Jawad MirAnd my biggest thing is I wasn't a fan of the last Indiana Jones film. This one, at least the new trailer that they showed, it looked less like an Indiana Jones film, more like just like a regular film, which was, in a way, was kinda good. But I'm not, I know there's always this talk about that are they gonna continue the legacy of Indiana Jones, like, you know, with…

57:09Jawad Mir... Follow-ups. I…

57:10James MottramYou mean like a spinoff character that…

57:12Jawad MirYeah. I…

57:12James Mottram... Will materialize from this film or something, yeah.

57:15Jawad MirI m… I mean, I think they kinda tried that with Shia LaBeouf, at least that was, that's what it seemed like, although that didn't work out. And I think that's the thing in the fan community, even myself, like, I'm not a hardcore Indiana Jones fan as there are so many others. But I would just want it to end, you know, him kinda going into a sunset and that's it. You're done with Indiana. But you know, because it's a Disney-owned brand, at the end of the day, you have to make, you know, the buck to make sure…

57:42Jawad Mir... Everything flows so smoothly.

57:43James MottramNo, I kinda, I'm with you. I hope that it finishes here really. But you know, that said, James Mangold is quite a decent director. I mean, he did a fantastic job…

57:54Jawad MirI loved his films

57:54James Mottram... Yeah, with, he did a great job with Logan.

57:57Jawad MirFerrari versus…

57:58James MottramFerrari, yeah, Ford v. Ferrari. He's supposed to be doing this m… Star Wars movie as well down the line, where it's, you know, the very beginnings of the Jedi. That could be interesting. So I'm quite c… I'm, I'm, I think he was a good person to hand it to.

58:17Jawad MirYeah.

58:17James MottramBut yeah, I'm just, I don't know. You know what, you know what it's like. Well, this is another one. A bit like Evil Dead Rise, this is a fifth movie in the series, so you think, wow, how good will it be? But if it's the right story, we'll, we'll see.

58:30Jawad MirYeah.

58:30James MottramWhat about you? What are you looking forward to?

58:35Jawad MirThat's a good question. You know, Oppenheimer is one. There's so many trailers that come out, and since there's so many movies, you forget about them. But, I know I'm looking forward to the Penguin series they're working on at HBO.

58:52James MottramOh, with Colin Farrell.

58:54Jawad MirWith Colin Farrell.

58:54James MottramYeah.

58:55Jawad MirYeah. That looks interesting. I know they're working on Joker sequel with, what's her name? Lady Gaga

59:03James Mottram... Lady Gaga. Yeah.

59:04Jawad MirYeah. So that looks interesting. I mean, I'm, I don't mind escapism. I enjoy, like especially horror stuff, which I'm gonna watch in the movie theater, Evil Dead, but I still love stuff like, you know, I'm watching Contact with my kids, I don't know if you remember with Jodie Foster.

59:20James MottramYou m… Zemeckis you mean?

59:22Jawad MirYeah, Zemeckis.

59:23James MottramYeah.

59:23Jawad MirAnd then Zemeckis, actually, I was just talking to Don Burgess. He's his longtime cinematographer. He just finished filming, it's a film called Here with Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks, Robin Wright. And, they announced a couple of months ago, it's basically takes place in a room where the pl… where m… characters come and go, and Tom Hanks and Robin Wright have been de-aged to look a lot younger than they were just to show their evolution. So that I'm interested to seeing, 'cause I love Robert Zemeckis' stuff.

59:57Jawad MirAnd Spielberg is working on, no, what's his name? Francis Ford Coppola is working on, a big budget film, Megapop… Megapolis is it?

1:00:05James MottramMe… Megalopolis, yeah. Well, if…

1:00:07Jawad MirMegalopolis, yeah

1:00:07James Mottram... It, who knows what that will be like, but I am obviously very curious to see that.

1:00:11Jawad MirYeah. Yeah

1:00:14James Mottram... Yeah. I'm trying to think.

1:00:15Jawad MirYeah.

1:00:15James MottramThere's obviously, they've just announced Can… oh, well, that's one, the other one I am looking forward to that they just an… it's like a secret Jonathan Glazer film, th… that's gonna be in Cannes. You know, the guy that did Sexy Beast and

1:00:26Jawad MirOh, right

1:00:26James Mottram... That's…

1:00:26Jawad MirI love that movie.

1:00:27James MottramYeah, and he did Under the Skin was the last thing he did, and that was a… almost a decade ago, I think. So, yeah. I don't know much more about it than that, but that's in Cannes, so I'm looking forward to seeing that.

1:00:39Jawad MirYeah. Well, we'll see how it goes. Well, thanks, man, for chatting. I'm looking forward to talking to you about Die Hard, next month.

1:00:47James MottramYeah, the funny thing is it's quite weird that you've asked me to do that as well, especially because of the Tenet thing and doing this Memento essay. And then, I'm doing a Q&A. I mean, by, and sadly by the time this comes out, the Q&A will be gone, so I can't even get anyone to come along. But there's a guy, called Richard Marsh who, I went to the Edinburgh Festival last year, well, partly for the film festival as a journalist, but I was just wandering around the town, and then I saw this one-man show, about Die Hard, and I was like, "Well, I've gotta go and see that." And it was absolutely fantastic. It was kinda like about a guy who watches Die Hard with his girlfriend. And you know, it's, it's a sort of, you know, it's, it's very much he's partly playing the John McClane character, but also…

1:01:33Jawad MirThat's awesome

1:01:33James Mottram... Referring to his own relationship. Anyway, he's performing, in London this coming week, and, I'm gonna go and do a Q&A with him after one of the shows. So it's funny that you're, you're asking or you're, we're, we're gonna be talking about Die Hard because I'll be back into it. You know, my brain will be thinking about it again by the time you and I speak.

1:01:52Jawad MirThat's good.

1:01:53James MottramYeah.

1:01:53Jawad MirThat's such a cool concept. I wish I could, check that out. Let me know how that goes.

1:01:57James MottramI will do. Yeah, I will do. If he ever tours in Toronto, I'll, I'll let you know.

1:02:01Jawad MirPlease. That sounds very fascinating. Thanks, James. Appreciate your time. I know it's late there.

1:02:06James MottramNo worries.

1:02:07Jawad MirAnd, we'll be in touch, man.

1:02:08James MottramYeah. Speak soon. Take care.

1:02:10Jawad MirThank you.

1:02:10James MottramBye-bye.

1:02:10Jawad MirTake care, everyone.