← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:09]
A
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. Today's show is quite a lineup of powerhouse actors, directors and writers. We'll talk about the new play Queens with three of its stars, Marin Ireland, Anna Chlumsky and Julia Lester, along with playwright Martina Mayock. Tony and Emmy award winning actor Laurie Metcalf will be here in studio to talk about her new play Little Bear Ridge Road. She'll be joined by her co star Micah Stock and playwright Samuel Hunter. Plus, we'll learn about the new film Peter Hujar's Day with director Ira Sachs. That's our plan. So let's get this started with the movie J. Kelly. My next guest, Noah Baumbach is set to return. Received the director tribute at the 2025 Gotham Film Awards. His latest film is J. Kelly. It stars George Clooney in the title role as an aging movie star. And Adam Sandler plays his loyal manager and his closest friend, Ron. Now, friend, it's sort of an important word because we have to wonder, are Jay and Ron friend friends or are they Hollywood friends? Jay has spent most of his life on sets. However, when the cameras aren't rolling, he has struggled to make time for the people in his life. When he realizes his daughter is leaving for a trip to Europe before college, he stages a not so coincidental meetup on a train to Paris with the help of his team, including his manager Ron, who leaves his own family to make the trip. Throughout this trip, Jay ventures down a path of self discovery, reflecting on the moments that made his career and regrets along the way. J. Kelly is in select theaters on Friday, November 14, and it streams on Netflix. Friday, December 5. Co writer and director Noah Baumbach joins me in studio. It is nice to see you.
- [02:10]
B
Thank you. It's good to be here.
- [02:12]
A
When did you and Emily Mortar start to write this film?
- [02:16]
B
Mortimer? We had, I had had a lot of ideas sort of over the years that I felt were for some movie, I didn't know what movie and they started to coalesce and I was talking to Emily about it and I don't know, there's something about the movie that I felt like I wanted to maybe do it with somebody. I think partly because it's a journey, as you were saying, sort of an internal journey for the main character. So that I thought, well, maybe in the writing it'd be nice to have a externalize it more, not Be in my own head, talk about it with somebody. So. And I've always loved Emily and her work, and I. It was really instinctual. I didn't have a good idea why, but I asked her, and I was lucky. She said yes.
- [03:05]
A
What's different about this film, the finished product, than when you began writing it?
- [03:11]
B
Oh, a lot, A lot. I mean, it's a thing with a good collaboration, too. It's like there's something that exists between the two of you. You know, it's like. It's like what you bring, they bring. You know, people will say, oh, whose line was this? It's. You don't know anymore. It's just. It's something. It's like a conversation. You don't remember how you started it. You just know where you. The feeling you get, you know where you end up. And so that was. It was. I mean, Emily's brilliant. And I also liked myself with Emily. I found. I felt. I felt I. You know, I was kind of funnier and more charming in some ways. And so I also felt like my work was better with her, in addition to the wonderful work she was bringing. And so it developed a lot. It was also. It's one of those movies, you know, some movies I've had a kind of good idea where I'm going to end up with it when I start it. And this one, in some ways, the journey, the character goes on was as mysterious for us as it was for the. For J. Kelly.
- [04:11]
A
How did you come up with the name J. Kelly?
- [04:13]
B
I don't know. It was like. Again, it's like you start writing names down and things. I often use names of people I know when I start writing, because I think it just grounds them in the world for me. So I'm not writing those people, but I use their names. It's like. It feels like a real name. It's a thing. For whatever reason, someone you know's name sounds like a real person, because they are a real person. And so, um. But Jake Kelly is not a real person. I don't know anyone named Jake Kelly. I just. I was. I was. I knew it was, you know, it was gonna be the title I had a good feeling about. And I also knew we would hear it a lot. And so, I don't know, it just was like. Of the. Of the names I started and the combinations, that's the one that stuck.
- [04:58]
A
Did you have it in your head what J. Kelly would look like?
- [05:02]
B
You mean the actor or the person? Well, there's that thing. It's I write often as I did, as we did with this movie. I do write often for actors I want to work with. And often I will reach out to the actors early on and say to them, you know, is this. You know, this is sort of a world I'm thinking of. You know, would this be something you'd be interested in? But I also simultaneously, I think kind of, they live as an abstraction for me, too. Even if I know what the actor looks like, I don't know the actor as this person quite so. It's both. As I started to think about George Clooney or Adam Sandler or Laura Dern or people in the movie, and as I started casting people, as I went along, they both exist as those, you know, as those people who we know what they look like. And also they remain abstractions while I'm writing, I think. Cause it allows probably some kind of flexibility for me.
- [06:03]
A
It's interesting when you think about this part, because it could have been a four or five actors who could have really played this part. Like maybe a Tom Hanks or a Brad Pitt. And you wound up with George Clooney. Not so bad, right?
- [06:13]
B
Not so bad.
- [06:14]
A
How did he end up involved in the script?
- [06:17]
B
Well, he was the one I thought of. And I think partly because I've wanted to work with George for a while, we know each other a bit. And he had said to me, we'd met 20 years ago, actually, because I. It was. I was. We were sort of doing the rounds. I was for me, for the squid and the whale, and he. For good night and good luck. And he. He said. At one point, he said, you know, if you ever need an actor. So when I called him 20 years later, I said, you know, good memory. Yeah. I don't know if you'll remember. Well, I remember it. I'm sure he didn't. But I was like, well, I'm going to take you up on that now. I need an actor. And he said sort of a version of what you said, which is. He's like, you're lucky. I'm saying, yes, because there's only about three or four people who can play this. But George. You know what, the thing about George, too, is that he has a timeless quality about him. I mean, not just the way he looks, but also his demeanor, his. You know, he's. You know, he'll talk about it. He really. He made it a point to meet and befriend movie stars that were older, like Paul Newman and Gregory Peck, and sort of. Sort of honor what he felt was this lineage he was, you know, inheriting, you know, not just movie actors, but people who sort of exist both in the movies and also then as personalities outside the movies. And so I feel like he could be a movie star in any era, which is kind of, I think, was also something that was important for me.
- [07:48]
A
Why was that important?
- [07:49]
B
Well, because the movie, it takes place in present day, but we were never interested in doing a kind of like, you know, sort of takedown of or expose of Hollywood now or anything like. I mean, those. There are things, I think about where movies exist in the culture now, where movie stars exist in the culture, which are embedded in it. You know, I think, you know, watching any movie now about him that talks about movie stars or, you know, celebrates on some level the craft of movies, I think, you know, it means something different. Not to me. You know, probably not to you. But it means, I think in the culture, movies occupy a different place than they did when I was growing up. And there's, you know, the movie is about looking back and it's about, you know, I think there's a. You know, there's a nostalgic quality to the movie, I think, even to the tone of the movie, of sort of movies that we don't sort of. That aren't made a lot anymore. And so I think that's inherent in it is this. There's a kind of almost sort of shadow narrative about, you know, the. You know, about. About the sort of, I guess, the history of the medium in some way. And so George being the ambassador of that, I think, in the movie as Jay, I think his timelessness was important.
- [09:16]
A
We're speaking with director Noah Baumbach about his new film, J. Kelly. It's in select theaters next Friday, November 14, and streams on Netflix Friday, December 5. Adam Sandler plays a fairly serious role, something that he's really good at.
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B
Oh, yeah, it's true.
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A
He really is good at it. I mean, he's hilarious and all, but when he plays a serious role, he's so wonderful in it. What is his character Ron, dealing with in this film?
- [09:42]
B
Well, Ron, in some ways is Jay's shadow. He's his manager. And it was. I mean, in some ways it's a kind of comic concept, but also.
- [09:55]
C
A.
- [09:56]
B
Dramatic concept of if, you know, because he caters to this person and movie star. If this person and movie star goes off the rails a bit and goes, you know, has a crisis, almost by design, he has to have a crisis even though he's not having a crisis. So he you know, he's forced to go on this journey with Jay and he's privy to some of what Jay's going through, but also, as we see, Jay is also going on a journey into his past and into his. His mind and his. And Ron is sort of dealing with more, I suppose, if Jay's having a crisis of the soul in some way or an existential crisis of some kind, Ron is having a more ordinary crisis, which is, you know, a kind of work life balance. And how do I be this person that I want to be to this man I love and respect and want to help who is not helping himself right now and not helping me, and also be the father and husband and, you know, all the things that, you know, are also equally important to him. And so, you know, he's. It's. It's a. It's, you know, in some ways, they're going through similar versions of the same crises, but in kind of very different ways.
- [11:18]
A
But it's interesting because you said Ron caters to Jay Kelly, not Ron helps J. Kelly. And that's important. That's an important distinction in the film.
- [11:27]
B
It is. It is, yeah. To help him is also to cater him and to, in some ways, I suppose, be a line of defense between him and the world. And, you know, I think what Jay's going through is in some ways he's actually trying to break down those barriers, but he's not quite aware or self aware enough to know he's doing that. So he's bringing the barriers with them with him, and they are the ones who actually have to say, you know, what? Like Laura Dern's character at some point is like, I'm not doing this anymore. And so, you know, it was interesting to me. And it was also a kind of fun idea of somebody who has all these people around him, and as the journey unfolds, they all start to peel away, which I thought was a nice, clear metaphor for what we all sometimes have to do, which is strip our defenses to see ourselves more clearly. And it's something that I think Jay both kind of wants on some unconscious level and also doesn't want, because we like to keep what we're comfortable with, even if we're, you know, even if we're pushing against that. And so, yeah, Ron is, you know, I thought it was sort of interesting was to have all these people all sort of question, essentially it's the same story for all of them, which is, is this the life I want to be living? And, you know, this is the life I've accepted this is the person I accept I am. Is there somebody else I might be? Is there another way I could do this? And, you know, I think it's something. We all kind of reach moments in our lives. Sometimes it's more dramatic, and other times it could be very ordinary of, you know, maybe I'm somebody else, you know, and maybe I'd like to meet that person.
- [13:27]
A
As a director, you have to make a ton of decisions. I always ask directors this. What was a decision that was hard to figure out and that you did figure out, but it took a bit of time, right?
- [13:39]
B
Yes, that's a good question. I mean, there are. Every day, there are thousands of those. I always love the story of it. It's like Tom Stoppard and Mike Nichols were on the. I think it was when Mike was making the real thing, the play, but they were just having a conversation and that Stoppard wrote the play. And somebody brought up two chairs just quickly and was like. And Mike didn't miss a beat and just said that one. And Stoppard said, you know, it's amazing to me, you know, immediately what chair you want for that scene. I mean, they look the same to me. And Mike said, I have no idea. You just have to look decisive. So I think that's a lot of directing. But a challenge was, you know, there are these memories in the movie that J. Kelly, George's character has. And we had written Emily and I had written into the script that he would sort of physically enter them, that they. I wanted that. However, we were going to sort of express this in the movie visually, that it would feel like memory. I mean, memory for all of us. I mean, memories are different than flashbacks. It's something that, you know, sometimes it's out of our control. Something sets off a memory. Sometimes we might search for a memory there. We also know their constructs. They're not exactly as they really happen. It's how we've interpreted it over time. But I like this idea that they're kind of behind these memories. Could be behind any door at any moment. And when he's open to it or ready for it or not ready for it, they're going to appear to him. And so we built sets where we would essentially put two locations together. For instance, he's on an airplane, and then he walks. You know, you could think he's walking back towards the restroom, and he opens the curtain and he goes into the back, and he's suddenly on a stage in an acting class from 30 years ago. And we just built the stage for the acting class on the back of this airplane so that it was, you know, the experience shooting it was the same experience you see watching it, which is he's, you know, that it's all happening live. There's no. We never. I didn't want to use any kind of CGI or anything. I felt like, you know, we wanted to do something kind of old fashioned and pure. And I think it feels that way in the movie. And I think I wanted it to have a kind of easy way about it. But there's also a real sophistication into how we shot it and built it and everything. So it ultimately became a very simple solution. But it took a lot of thought and planning with me and my collaborators, Mark Tyldsley, who did the sets, and Lena Sangren, who shot the movie with me, to come up with ultimately a very simple solution.
- [16:30]
A
Where did you shoot most of the film?
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B
Well, we shot many of these memories because they were sets we shot. And you see throughout the movie, it's the train that he's on that he walks know, into also into the past or. But that was at Shepperton in London, which is stages in London, which was wonderful. And then we went on location. We were in Paris. We were in Tuscany for about six weeks, where the last third of the movie takes place. And then LA for some time, too.
- [17:08]
A
The film opens with a quote from Sylvia Plath, which I was surprised. It said, it's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be someone else or nobody at all. And this idea of authenticity comes up a lot around Jay. What are some of the facades that we see, characters around Jay? His managers and his daughters. What do they put on in the film, these facades they put around Jay?
- [17:38]
B
Right. Well, it's, as you say, it's both who he is with them, but also who they feel they need to be when they are with him. And, you know, all of these in effect then set up, you know, barriers between ourselves and who we might be. And that was that quote, the quote from Sylvia Plata, something. I mean, when Emily and I were writing, we would come up anything we read or any places we researched we might do or something, we'd find things that would, oh, this is great, this is great, this is great. But the Sylvia Plath quote just felt like, oh, this really kind of cuts right to it. So we actually use that as the epigraph. But and also because he's an actor, of course. So you have that metaphor of playing Parts and a movie star again, who's also playing a part beyond he's an actor as a job, but he's also in some ways an actor as a personality as well. So it, as a character remarks in the movie, he's, he's acting twice. But yeah, I think that that concept is that you, that you express is, is something that was actually, you don't always know when you're writing a movie why you're right, you know, like, oh, here are the big themes we want to do. You know, just. It's, it's. It's usually a. Just a grab bag of ideas and things that are. Feel like, oh, this feels like it could be a movie. This, this could be in this movie. This could be the. And then as it starts to develop, you start to think, you know, and then you read a quote like the Sylvia Platkers. Oh, maybe this is. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of about how we're all sort of authenticity, as you say, and how we're all performers and how we're all, you know, and how we, you know, how, you know, I think when we're younger we all have this sort of notion that, you know, oh, I'll get to that later. I'll, you know, this is, you know, there's always, always time to read War and Peace, you know, and as you get older, I think you realize these sort of bargains you've made with yourself are things that you're, you know, that actually have defined your life in many ways. And you know what, how do. It's both. How do I reckon with that and also how am I going to keep going? You know, what am I going to do going forward? I could just accept it. I can, you know, this is. Maybe this is how I'm going to do it, or maybe I'm going to do something else or maybe I'm going to do it another way. And I think Jay, in a sense almost needs to go mad to be able to go sane in some way to sort of, you know, to save himself, you know. And I think again, I think that's true of all of us to some degree in our lives. Again, it can be very minor incidents. It doesn't have to be like totally go crazy, but you. But that this sort of importance to shake it up. And I think we do it in ways we're conscious of and not. I mean, I look back at times in my life and I'm like, oh, I really knew on some level I needed to change something, but. But I didn't know then if you'd asked me, I'd be, no, I'm fine. But whatever I did changed something. And, you know, and I'm interested in that. I'm interested in how we all do that. And again, an actor was a great kind of character to tell that story with.
- [21:02]
A
Do you think Jay is happy with his life, you the writer?
- [21:06]
B
Well, I think that's the question, too. I mean, another way of. Of saying all the things that we're talking about is saying is the question of, am I happy? And I guess we have. We all know from books and from therapy and common sense that probably the closer we are to our authentic self, the happier we might be. And so trying to close this gap between our performing selves and our authentic selves, which, whatever, nobody's going to do that. But, you know, I think we all kind of can try to close it in little ways throughout our lives.
- [21:46]
A
We see him on the train. He looks really happy to be with his fans.
- [21:49]
B
Well, there's a certain kind of mania, happiness, you know, that he has in the movie. I mean, I think the thing is, he's a very charming, seductive person. So the journey is actually quite a pleasure. And we wanted it to be a pleasure for the audience. I wanted it to be one of those movies you wanted to kind of be in, you know, and be on the journey, even though, you know, the journey is complex and that there's no real end in sight. I mean, you know, the end is the end. I mean, it's essentially about trying to outrun your mortality. But he's a winning personality. And George, of course, captures that so beautifully. And then what he also captures so beautifully is this sort of vulnerability and this cracks as the cracks start to form because he can't sustain it. And I think, you know, there's a difference between, you know, a certain kind of happiness that we might see Jay have in the earlier part of the movie, and then potentially a happiness that he might, you know, find on the other side of the movie.
- [22:51]
A
It was kind of cool to see George Clooney sort of embrace his age.
- [22:56]
B
In the film, which you don't see in American movie stars very often. I mean, I think, you know, and also there's a history of American movie stars who retire because they don't. I mean, Cary Grant retired because he didn't want to see himself, and he didn't want the audience to see him grow old. Cause we all. We all want them to stay young on something. They all remain young to us in.
- [23:16]
A
A way that's in one of the scenes, the banner of him. He's much younger on the banner.
- [23:21]
B
Yeah, yeah. And George, absolutely. I feel the same way. I mean, to see his, you know, to see somebody age on screen is so beautiful. I mean, and to see somebody we have a history with, I mean, as the character says to him in the movies, like, you know, you're 60. If you're getting old, that must mean I am. You know, because we chart our lives. I mean, many of us chart our lives through movies or art that we love throughout the years, things that, you know, experiences. We, they're part of our experience. And these people who are in them become these sort of, you know, companions to us as we go. You know, we don't know them, but we've identified with them. We've gone on journeys with them. And so to see them age it is, can be surprising. So I understand that idea. I mean, I think European, you know, I mean, part of the journey goes into Europe. And that was deliberate in many ways, not the least because it's nice to be in Tuscany and shoot in Tuscany. But also I think European movie stars and European actors and aging in Europe, it means something else. And I think, you know, there's a we, you know, Marcello Mastriani, you know, for instance, you know, we watched Isabel Hubert is beautiful. Oh, yeah, we watch the Mage, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, and it's, you know, it is really beautiful to see a real face, you know, and I really love that about George too, that he embrace that.
- [24:55]
A
Noah Baumbach's new film Jay Kelly is in select theaters next Friday, November 14th, and it streams on Netflix on Friday, December 5th. Thank you so much for coming to the studio.
- [25:05]
B
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
- [25:07]
C
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