← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:00]
Alison Stewart
Foreign. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. This hour we are celebrating the movies from 2025 that our Instagram followers were most excited about. And one of those movies was set right here in New York City. It's titled Preparation for the Next Life. It's. It's directed by Bing Lu. Aisha is a Uyghur Muslim refugee from China. She has a keen sense that she's running towards something hopeful, a better life, and she's willing to grind for it. Skinner is a former member of the armed services returning from an extended tour in Afghanistan. He has returned with both wonder of a big city, unlike his hometown, and the hard realities that PTSD has given him. Throughout the film, we see Skinner and Aisha wrestling with the same thing from different angles. They're both bringing their own baggage to the pursuit of the so called American dream. The film is a really interesting look at what it means to move from one phase of life into another with intention or without. Also asks whether it's better to plan for a future with someone you love or to decide you love yourself too much to wait for them. Preparation for the Next Life is available to rent now on VOD or to stream with mgm. Here's my conversation with director Bing Lu and actor Fred Hechinger. So, Bing, this is based on a 2014 novel. When you first read the novel, what felt resonant about it?
- [01:47]
Bing Liu
I just really connected with these two outsiders and living on the fringes of society who both felt extreme sense of loneliness. I relate to that. I saw that in my mom and her immigration journey into this country. And I just also relate to what it's like when you feel that and you try to find love at the same time. So I was really drawn in by that unsentimental love story.
- [02:14]
Alison Stewart
When we meet Skinner, Fred, he's sleeping on the couch in Times Square. He goes into a restaurant, he's flirting with the server a little bit. What were some of the things that you were thinking about or you discussed with Bing about how you developed the kind of personality that Skinner would have?
- [02:34]
Fred Hechinger
I mean, it kind of happens through all the details. I think we just, we met very early on in the process and I just, I really, I think any character you play, you sort of find your ways to love them. And I just. He's someone who, yeah, I felt really, really inspired by his urgency, but I. But I also felt really personally connected to the struggles. I think it's very hard to. Sometimes the most, it's Very, very hard to muster hope. And if you can, if you've already lived through a lot of difficult things, continuing to hope is what you sort of need to do. But it's also very dangerous. And I think he exists in that place where we're having hope is still somehow dangerous.
- [03:23]
Alison Stewart
If I were gonna meet him and you were gonna say, hey, this is my friend Skinner, what adjectives would you use to describe him?
- [03:31]
Fred Hechinger
I think he's funny and wants to connect. I think he's at a pretty desperate time in his life and he needs stability in a community of some kind. I guess I would say, like, give him a little bit of time and let's all hang out and. Yeah, spend some time together.
- [03:54]
Alison Stewart
Bing. In terms of sort of archetypes, what is it about the immigrant story and the story of a soldier coming home from warfare that fit together?
- [04:04]
Bing Liu
Well, both of them have, you know, like Fred was saying, struggle to find community. Struggle to find people that understand their experience. And for both of them, I think they both felt, you know, an even higher degree of isolation because Ayesha is an ethnic minority within an insular community already.
- [04:24]
Alison Stewart
Right.
- [04:25]
Bing Liu
And Skinner, you know, he got disillusioned with his experience in the military when he was overseas. And now he's coming back having lost his best friend that was there. And, you know, he's wandering around in a city where he doesn't know anybody. And so just the degree of loneliness and lack of connection with other people is, I think, what I felt was so, you know, strong about their connection.
- [04:49]
Interviewer/Host
There's a scene I want to ask you about when we first. It's early on in the film and you see a person asleep in Times Square, and the cop sort of taps the guy and the person on the foot.
- [05:00]
Alison Stewart
And at first I thought it was.
- [05:01]
Interviewer/Host
Going to be Aisha, but it turned out to be Skinner, which I thought was really interesting. I just wanted to hear about that a little bit.
- [05:08]
Bing Liu
Yeah, that was, you know, working with the writer Martina Mayuk, who's an amazing playwright. You know, she came up with a lot of interesting ideas, you know, to where. Yeah, she sent the script over, and I was. I immediately knew why she did that. And I was like, okay, this is great. You know, this is gonna be a great handoff to this other character.
- [05:27]
Interviewer/Host
Fred, you and your fellow actor have some really great and complicated chemistry in this film.
- [05:35]
Alison Stewart
How did you work together to understand.
- [05:36]
Interviewer/Host
Your characters and what they would mean to each other?
- [05:40]
Alison Stewart
Because it does change over time, but.
- [05:42]
Interviewer/Host
Initially, what they would mean to each other.
- [05:44]
Fred Hechinger
I think in the first moment there is one of these mysterious but very real sparks that they feel a shared desire for another kind of life, that they both are really trying to build a new life in different ways. Sabiha, who plays Aisha, is just an extraordinary actress. It's actually absolutely insane to me that this is her first film because she has the expertise of a great veteran actress, but she just is, like, she's so deeply truthful. And so the way that we started working felt so organic and so moving to me, because everything she does feels truthful, and everything that she does sort of pushes, like, in the direction of something more challenging and more deep. And so I felt from the day we actually had our chemistry workshop, like, not too far from these offices in downtown Manhattan. And I remember the day I met her immediately thinking, oh, oh, this. This actress is extraordinary.
- [06:56]
Alison Stewart
It was that.
- [06:57]
Interviewer/Host
That look you guys give each other. I think we've all hoped for that look at some point in our lives with someone else. Like, oh, this is magic.
- [07:05]
Fred Hechinger
I think it's hard, too. It's because magic. So much of the movie, I think, is about what are the practical decisions that you can make to. To carry these things into your life where love is not an escape, but something that is a healthy part of your life. And at least for Skinner, I don't think he has really any examples growing up of healthy relationships. And so I think he's really trying to build one in real time, but I think he has a lot of fear and is hiding a lot of stuff, which makes it really difficult to build that genuinely.
- [07:44]
Interviewer/Host
Bing, what was that casting process like to find your two leads? Because it really is about these two people. What did you need to look for? What were you hoping to find? What did Fred and Sabiha say it right, Sabia.
- [07:58]
Bing Liu
What did they show you with Fred? You know, one of the things that I was really fascinated by was how young a lot of boys were when they were first sent overseas to serve in the armed forces, you know, And I think in Fred, I saw the ability to kind of tell the story of youthfulness. One of the things I was doing when I was researching how to just show the veteran experience in a different way was I found these YouTube clips of veterans who were overseas, and they're just singing emo music in their bunker. And it's like, oh, you don't think about veterans as people who listen to emo music and dance around. And so I think I wanted to bring out that side of the veteran experience. And Fred, you know, brought it and with Sabiha, she's just a pure unicorn of an actress. She can speak Uyghur English and Mandarin fluently, and she has the authenticity and most important, she has the emotional resonance that is just one in a million. I mean, she will try to hide her feelings, but you still see through that. And so there's already attention in there, and it makes her so watchable.
- [09:08]
Alison Stewart
We don't get a whole lot of backstory on Skinner. What kind of research did you do, Fred, to get in the head of someone who had been to war and had to go back and back and back?
- [09:21]
Fred Hechinger
I mean, the main thing was what Bing said about his individuality and uniqueness as a young person. It felt really important to me to not typecast or other him in the box of a veteran the way that I feel certain some movies have done. I was also really, really lucky. I talked with a lot of men who had enlisted at very young ages, and people were very generous with their time and their experiences. But the main thing was just that specificity was the fact that, you know, being so young means that you've lived through a lot, and also you have a complicated multivariate relationship to what you've gone through. There are also a lot of different books. There's great writers like Phil Klay, who wrote Redeployment, and then Atticus Lish, who wrote the novel this is based on, and his. His work. Both of his novels were helpful, but there was just an array of sources. And then really, at the end of the day, it's just building that. That character.
- [10:28]
Interviewer/Host
How far did you go into researching ptsd? Because that is something that your character has.
- [10:33]
Fred Hechinger
Yeah, you know, you do all of that kind of. You ask all the questions, you find out all the information, but at the end of the day, I think the most important thing is what feels truthful from him and, yeah, his desire in that moment to really build. Build himself up. And I do think all of those. A lot of depictions of PTSD were sort of like, you know, sometimes in a movie, it feels like the scene where the character knows that it's happening. And in my experience of life, you never know really what scene you're in. And so I guess we looked at that and we thought about that as something that he's trying with all of his might to deny or to stop. And that felt more real and truthful, at least to that it was that, you know, you really, even as it's happening, are trying to avoid it. That's sort of how we approached that scene, Bing.
- [11:35]
Interviewer/Host
The film is shot in that sort of raw aesthetic. Running through the night with your buddy kind of feel. What kind of. What films did you reference when you were thinking about that?
- [11:47]
Bing Liu
My cinematographer and I, we looked at skate videos. That's. You know, my background is in skate videos. That's what I started making as a teenager. That got me into film eventually. But, you know, in skateboarding videos at their apex, in terms of the craft is about how to capture bodies moving through spaces in time.
- [12:06]
Interviewer/Host
It does flip in certain circumstances. When Aisha's remembering her dad and her childhood, it's almost. I don't wanna say fantasy, but it's got sort of a softer tone to it. Tell us a little bit about that decision.
- [12:20]
Bing Liu
Well, the cinematographer, Auntie Chung, and I, we chose these lenses that are in between anamorphic and aspherical because it gave enough realism, you know, without going overboard and having it become about too much style that would get in the way of the real story that was unfolding, you know, in front of us. But we selected this one lens that they used in the movie Heat, Michael man's heat, a 50 mil anamorphic. And we decided to use that for any times where we were kind of blending past and presented.
- [12:51]
Interviewer/Host
Oh, interesting.
- [12:52]
Alison Stewart
So, Fred, this was shot mostly in New York. You're from New York.
- [12:55]
Fred Hechinger
Yeah.
- [12:56]
Alison Stewart
As an actor, does it change the job to be playing against such a potent backdrop like New York and especially a place where you grew up?
- [13:04]
Fred Hechinger
Yeah, I mean, I think it's a Marty Scorsese quote where he says that, you know, you could pay a million dollars for the fanciest soundstage and it wouldn't even touch shooting on a New York street for free. And it does feel that way. You know, you walk outside and there's so much life just brimming. And at the same time, there's everyone that's on the street living their life. Sort of doesn't care too much about the filming either, which is useful and helpful and connected to these characters who are just trying to get through their day. I would say the majority of this film was made in Flushing, Queens, and that was enormously special to work there. It's one of the most beautiful neighborhoods, but it's also not depicted that much on film. And it really feels like you're in another world there. And so those. I would say Corona, Queens and Flushing were where we spent the majority of our time. And it was really very special.
- [14:05]
Alison Stewart
What challenge did you have shooting in New York City?
- [14:08]
Bing Liu
One can only imagine noises, people looking into the Camera. You know, people now want to sign forms. You know, we got really lucky. We had a really great team, you know, who was out there putting up sandwich boards, saying, you know, if you come in this area, you might be filming. I mean, we did it kind of doc style because we really wanted to embrace, you know, what was already there, rather than try to impose a movie on top of an already vibrant, chaotic, you know, setting.
- [14:32]
Alison Stewart
Yeah. What did you learn from your filmmaking background as a documentarian that helped you on this film?
- [14:37]
Bing Liu
I would say that, you know, there's a certain truth you look for that you're kind of waiting around for when you're filming people. And I think I just used that kind of radar to guide me when I was working with Fred and Sabia in their performances.
- [14:54]
Alison Stewart
What did you notice about working with a former documentarian in a film feature setup?
- [15:00]
Fred Hechinger
Well, it's. I think I've worked with a documentarian one time, turned narrative filmmaker one time before. And I think Bing and I talked about at some point early on. But I love. I love that. I would say a lot of the time when the scene, like, when you're just getting to the meat of the scene, it feels no different. But the one thing that does feel special and unique and different is I think there's not a sort of meaningless obedience to past rules of what a film set is supposed to be. I felt like we were redesigning the process every day based on what the material was and what would help our, you know, the group and the community make it the best way. Sometimes I've been on sets where, you know, you're shooting this. No one knows why the camera is in the place that it is. It's just like coverage for the sake of it. And this was the opposite. Every day felt really intentional and really focused. And I think that came from a reaction to life rather than trying to, you know, design it too much.
- [16:06]
Interviewer/Host
It's interesting. One of the big questions in the film, before we run out of time, I want to make sure we get here is this sort of, like, what do we owe each other, Bing? Like, what do we owe each other? What were you thinking about when you were thinking about that?
- [16:22]
Bing Liu
Ooh, that's a good question. I think there is a reason that certain people come into our lives. And I think, you know, at the end stages of a relationship, you know, as you're processing what the meaning of that relationship was, you kind of want to walk away with some thing, you know, and sometimes that's not a material thing. Sometimes that's just, you know, the knowledge that I am happy and glad that I experienced this relationship even if it didn't work out. And I think that's where they both land by the end of the film. In the most hopeful read, we don't.
- [17:02]
Alison Stewart
Want to spoil anything, but the film kind of leaves us with some open ended, some unresolved questions. Without giving too much away, Fred, why was it important for the film to end this way?
- [17:17]
Fred Hechinger
I think the trickiest thing to do, but in my view the most honest is to hold multiple truths together.
- [17:26]
Bing Liu
Yeah. Yeah.
- [17:29]
Fred Hechinger
I don't think any person is a hero or a villain. And I think with to me, you know, depression and joy sometimes walk hand in hand. And at least without spoiling anything, I would say the open endedness of this was about being very truthful and not looking away from what's in front of us, but also through that, as Bing was just saying, finding things that can push us ahead, finding ways to continue walking, finding genuine hope. Not that kind of cheap and fake hope, but real hope.
- [18:08]
Alison Stewart
That was my conversation with actor Fred Hechinger and director Bing Liu about their new film, preparation for the Next Life. You can rent it now on Video on Demand or stream on mgm. Coming up next hour, actor Harris Dickinson on his directorial debut. Plus a documentary about combating book banning. That's after a quick break. This is all of it.
- [18:33]
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