Fresh Air (NPR)

Episode: Richard Linklater: 'Filmmaking Is Problem Solving'
Date: November 3, 2025
Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Richard Linklater

Episode Overview

In this episode, Terry Gross interviews acclaimed filmmaker Richard Linklater, whose diverse, innovative career includes Slacker, Dazed and Confused, the Before Sunrise trilogy, School of Rock, and Boyhood. Linklater discusses his two new films — Blue Moon, an imagined night in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart, and Nouvelle Vague, a film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless and the revolutionary spirit of the French New Wave.

The conversation explores Linklater’s artistic choices, the challenge of adapting theater to film, the emotional complexities of artists, the logistics and philosophy behind his long-term projects, and the continuing inspiration that film offers him.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Blue Moon and The Tragedy of Lorenz Hart

[00:00–14:31]

• Structure and Setting: Blue Moon primarily takes place in one room at the iconic Sardi’s bar on the opening night of Oklahoma!, centering on Hart’s feelings after being left behind by his longtime partner, Richard Rodgers.
  • “You think, oh, it’s largely a one room film. But that room isn’t just any room. It’s Sardi’s…you’re getting 90 minutes in Sardi’s. It just happens to be a historic night…” – Linklater (04:08)
• Hart’s Outsider Status: Linklater and Gross discuss the pain and loneliness Hart experienced, being a closeted gay man, short in stature, and overshadowed in a changing artistic world.
  • “If you were gay, it was an underground kind of world. Your sexuality was against the law. You could be arrested.” – Linklater (05:12)
  • “He really struggled and probably never had, as he says in Blue Moon, a love of his own. So that’s the sad part, but that’s where those heartbreaking lyrics come from.” – Linklater (06:10)
• Hart vs. Rodgers: Sentimentality vs. Authenticity: The film dramatizes the perennial artistic tension between earnest sentiment and sharp wit.
  • “We can do something so much more emotionally complicated. …We don’t have to pander.” – (Hart, in film, as quoted by Linklater; 02:35–03:43)
  • “Are these questions you’ve had to ask yourself in the making of your movies?” – Gross
  • “It’s hard to define taste. …Almost everyone says Hart. You know, they just appreciate those songs more…” – Linklater (07:22)
• Recreating Hart with Ethan Hawke: Linklater insisted on Hawke in the role, despite the actor’s height and look, trusting Hawke’s wit and intensity; physical transformation was achieved through old-school techniques rather than CGI or prosthetics.
  • “We just had to get the body right…It was fun to see Ethan work so hard. …I think I’m at the edge of my talent. And I go, yeah, me too. You know, this is tough.” – Linklater (11:25–12:03)

Notable Quote – Opening of the Movie

• “The cast is singing ‘Oklahoma’…and as they sing ‘we know we belong to the land,’ Hart says, ‘here comes grand’ and of course, the next line is ‘and the land we belong to is grand.’” – Gross (06:29)

2. Merrily We Roll Along: Ambition and Time in the Sondheim Project

[14:31–19:51]

• Shooting Over 20 Years: Linklater is adapting Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along, shooting it over two decades with the same cast, echoing his method from Boyhood.
  • “I’ll be pushing 80, apparently. So you know, tempting fate and hoping to get lucky …You got to proceed through this life like things are going to work out.” – Linklater (15:58)
• Link to Blue Moon: Both projects dissect the breakup of creative partnerships and the bittersweet cost of artistic progress.
• Sondheim’s Cameo: Sondheim features as a character; Linklater shares a personal anecdote about Sondheim’s impact and blessing.
  • “He was very generous and letting me adapt that musical to film. …I was looking forward to the day I could tell him… your little 12 year old self is—you have, you’re in one scene, is that okay?...I missed it by a couple years. I’m sad about that.” – Linklater (16:36)
• Long-term Commitment and Trust: The actors participating are making a handshake deal rather than binding contracts, reflecting mutual passion and optimism.
  • “You cast lifers…Ben Platt, Beanie Feldstein, Paul Mescal. …Everything’s a leap of faith and belief.” – Linklater (18:23)
  • “So much of filmmaking is problem solving.” – Linklater (19:47)

3. Nouvelle Vague: Channeling the French New Wave and Godard

[22:25–38:09]

• Defining the French New Wave: Linklater sees the movement as an artistic renewal, founded on personal expression and breaking away from tradition.
  • “To me, the nouvelle vague really means personal filmmaking. It would be the archetype for the independent film. …It was a freedom. Film was maturing, and technology was helping.” – Linklater (22:25–24:47)
• Godard’s Radical Method: The film explores Godard’s on-set persona, his resistance to scripts, and his philosophy that “the best way to critique a film is to make one.”
  • “Jean-Luc Godard’s one of the great quoters of all time. He was either quoting others or himself pouring out quotable lines. He kind of inverted everything…If you’re going to do something different, you have to do it differently.” – Linklater (25:06)
  • “He didn’t want to use a script …He’d go, I don’t want a script. It’s too mechanical. If you’ve memorized your lines in advance, it’s going to be too mechanical.” – Gross (26:17)
• Linklater’s Approach vs. Godard’s: Linklater discusses his own, more structured methods and why that makes observing Godard valuable.
  • “I’m kind of a worker grinder, you know, a lot of rehearsal. …Most people shouldn’t, that you can just turn on a camera and something miraculous happens. Godard…certainly did.” – Linklater (26:44–27:45)
• Reconstructing Breathless: The technical process of recreating iconic scenes, with loving attention to location, performance nuances, and historical context.
  • “We’re reproducing moments usually from the other angle. …We, our goal was you could put up the film and our film and they would be in totally in sync just from a different angle.” – Linklater (29:19)
  • “It was really thrilling just to be making a film in 1959. That’s what we wanted this film to feel like.” – Linklater (31:03)

Notable Quote – On Artistic Renewal

• “Every culture has that…It’s almost like joining the priesthood or something. But fortunately, it’s not that.” – Linklater (37:42)

4. Making a French-Language Film Without Speaking French

[32:22–35:07]

• Challenges and Method: Linklater directed Nouvelle Vague in French, relying on rehearsal, visual communication, and his team for translation and fidelity.
  • “I cared deeply about the French version. I wanted that to work in France. …But me not having the language…wasn’t even in my top 10 concerns…” – Linklater (32:30)
  • “My goal with actors is to make them comfortable. …I just want to build an arena where they can do their best work…” – Linklater (33:20)

5. Lifelong Love and Obsession with Cinema

[35:35–38:18]

• Origin of Obsession: Linklater recounts discovering film in his early 20s and immediately recognizing it as his life’s calling.
  • “At age 20, I was working in Houston…this one summer, I started going to movies, and I really discovered movies. I was like, oh, that’s my art form.” – Linklater (35:54)
  • “The whole world kind of filters through cinema. I think cinema is a great place for people who want to kind of escape the real world and into another world because it’s so vast.” – Linklater (36:10)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Loneliness and Codes in Art:
  • “If you were gay, it was an underground kind of world. …But interestingly, in the art, everything was kind of coded. So those lyrics are there to be kind of enjoyed when you know that code.” – Linklater (05:12)
• On the Aging Artist:
  • “Artists are vulnerable to tastes changing…your thing is no longer what’s in vogue and you’re out of a job, so it’s kind of sad. No artist proceeds through life thinking they have an expiration date.” – Linklater (08:44)
• On Working with Ethan Hawke:
  • “Ethan had the kind of neural capacity, the quick firing verbal ability. …We just had to get the body right…” – Linklater (11:25–12:03)
• On Making Multi-Decade Films:
  • “You cast lifers…You’re doing this for the rest of your life… Everything’s a leap of faith and belief.” – Linklater (18:23)
• On the French New Wave:
  • “It’s just, you know, it’s a new generation’s come along and you’re not happy with the status quo…they wrote their film criticism and they were really film enthusiasts…” – Linklater (22:25)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Blue Moon – Hart’s Character and Historical Context: 00:00–06:29
• Hart vs. Rodgers, Artistic Authenticity: 06:29–08:44
• Ethan Hawke as Hart—Transforming the Actor: 09:47–12:03
• Merrily We Roll Along—Long-Term Filmmaking: 14:31–19:51
• Nouvelle Vague/French New Wave: 22:25–31:03
• Directing in French Without Speaking It: 32:22–35:07
• On Film Obsession and Lifelong Art: 35:35–38:18

Overall Tone and Takeaways

The episode is wide-ranging, reflective, and often bittersweet, as both Gross and Linklater meditate on the sacrifices, experiments, and ironies of artistic life. Linklater’s voice is humble, curious, and at times self-deprecating. He emphasizes process, problem-solving, and devotion to craft over ego or simple genius—mirrored in both his subjects and his own cinematic philosophy.

Closing Recommendation

• Terry Gross: “If you’re interested in seeing the movie, watch Breathless first… you’ll enjoy the movie so much more if you’ve seen Breathless, even if you’ve seen it before… there’s so much insight and joy to be had if you do that.” (38:18)

Summary

Richard Linklater joins Fresh Air for a deep-dive into the heart of artistic creation, both through history and in his own evolving work—revealing a portrait of filmmaking not as mystery, but as relentless, passionate problem-solving, always in dialogue with the past, the audience, and the medium itself.