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

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

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

[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is "On Story," a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators and filmmakers.

I'm your host, Barbara Morgan.

This week's "On Story," Karyn Kusama sheds light on the creative process behind her accomplished body of work.

- I've always said that working in television, particularly if you're a director in episodic, it's like you're learning to speak another language.

You're learning the alphabet of another language and you're learning how those words get put together by looking at previous episodes and previous directors.

And then you're also trying to find your voice within that visual, tonal language.

[paper crumples] [typing] [carriage returns, ding] [Barbara] This week on "On Story," Karyn Kusama sheds light on the creative process behind her accomplished body of work, including cult classics "Girlfight," "Jennifer's Body," and "The Invitation," and working across film and TV on the acclaimed show, "Yellow Jackets."

Kusama offers a glimpse into her creative process, explaining how she weaves her personal experiences into the fabric of her films.

[typewriter dings] - Just to start at the beginning, when you were growing up or when you were kind of finding yourself when you were young, what sort of movies were you naturally drawn to?

- I watched things like "Valley Girl" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and "Heathers" and horror.

I mean, I think for teenagers, it can be a kind of gateway into imaginative landscapes, both interesting and not so interesting.

But for me, that was probably a pretty big influence for me.

I feel very lucky to say that the work I make is generally a pretty accurate expression of some part of my psyche at the moment I was making it.

So that darkness really kind of comes from me.

I'm kind of a dark person in my way, in a great way, making movies and television is a place to put all of that.

- So at NYU, are you thinking about directing solely or are you thinking about writing more?

Are you thinking about other aspects of filmmaking?

- For a long time, I assumed I would direct the things I wrote pretty much exclusively and out of school, worked on a couple of scripts that I was trying to get made as features and it was really the second script that I wasn't sure I was as interested in, "Girlfight," that ended up getting made because I got great advice from a mentor that I was working for, John Sayles.

I worked for him as an assistant for almost four years and the one that I was most passionate about, he said, "I'm not really sure I wanna hang out with these characters, but this boxing story is a story I can see and I can imagine sort of rooting for this character."

And it was very simple advice, but it stuck with me.

And in the end I think he was right.

- I mean, how powerful from that early to have a mentor and have people that support you and also can give you the feedback that you need to get going.

I'm sure it must have been-- - Yeah, I mean, it's a life-changing thing to have somebody who was a filmmaker that I admired, who I was learning so much from, who could also then just give me very concrete, practical advice about the work I was attempting to make at that very formative age.

[typewriter dings] - So let's talk about "Girlfight."

I think you actually dabbled in boxing on your end too, right?

I think it's still just a really nice film and just exciting and intense.

- I used to actually be a pretty heavy smoker and I knew in my early 20s when I couldn't make it to the top of my sixth floor, walk-up apartment without stopping 'cause I had to rest, I was like, something is wrong with this picture.

And I decided I was gonna start boxing.

And once I started boxing, I knew I had to quit smoking 'cause you just can't be a smoker and box.

I became pretty obsessive about the sport and devoted a lot of my time to it.

And it was at least a couple years in just training with an incredible Panamanian trainer named Hector Rocha.

He just let me into his world and that's where the story kind of emerged from.

[fists thudding] - Hey, power is half the story.

Are you scared of me?

- No.

- That's funny.

You look scared.

- I'm not scared.

- Hell, I got you against the ropes and I'm gonna dance on your face.

[fists thudding] Haha.

Ah, see, someone gets you where you don't wanna be, you get out the way,.

Keep your footwork smaller.

Bop, bop, bop.

That way you can punch from different angles.

Okay?

Try it.

Now we're boxing.

- How did you find that character and how did you start writing her?

- So the character of Diana Guzman in "Girlfight" is, you know, sort of an uninformed 18-year-old pretty suffused with, I would say anger issues, anger management issues.

And I feel like I just saw a version of that character on the subway every single day I went to work and I felt like I saw all these girls stare back at me with the sense of like, don't you dare make eye contact.

And I really understood that kind of, um, defensiveness and wall on a female level.

But I also thought it was just really interesting 'cause it felt like a bit of like a warrior's mask to a lot of vulnerability.

So I just thought, "Oh my God, I'm seeing all these incredible boys and men looking for a family in these gyms, these boxing gyms, and I just don't see very many girls walk in."

And so I just decided to tell that story and kind of build a world around that kind of character, you know, who already feels like such a fish out of water.

[jazzy music playing in background] - All this sneaking around and for what?

To get the [bleep] beat outta you?

That's why.

- Thanks a lot dad.

- But you know, it was almost like entertainment.

- Hey, I won tonight.

You hear me?

I won.

What do you think about that?

- I think you're ridiculous.

You are nothing but a rotten street fighter.

You look like a loser in there.

- Everything I know about losing, I learned from you dad.

- Hey, I'm your father.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, some father you are.

The only thing you had the heart to love, you practically beat into a grave.

- Shut up with that.

- You just had to push her, didn't you, Dad?

- I mean it.

- So she'd rather die than answer to you, huh?

- I said shut up with that.

[glass breaking] [fist thuds] - One of the many impressive things I think you did in that movie was finding Michelle Rodriguez, who embodies that well and has gone on to be in I think every single giant movie ever made.

Can you talk about finding her and what made you wanna work with her?

- Yeah, we, I knew that I needed to have, first of all, I knew I needed an actor who felt genuinely young.

I believe when we cast Michelle, she was actually 20.

I knew we needed a Latina and I knew we needed a really fresh face.

And it's not really like at the time there was somebody who fit that bill, who made sense anyway, who would've helped me get the movie made.

So we did endless open casting calls and she was one of the last people to show up to some crummy Times Square office space.

And it took a while for me to be convinced that she could do it.

She'd never acted before.

She'd never really held down a job for more than 10 days.

And so I was really concerned like, is this gonna work?

But we, she just had charisma and I think in movies almost more than anything, charisma goes far.

You can really mold that into, into acting, into great acting.

- Sounds like you had a lot of support and a lot of mentors, but I'm sure some of this was pure brute force or just pure persistence.

- I think think it was initially kind of terrifying.

I mean there were moments on set where I felt like I was sort of like vibrating in my own body.

'Cause I was like, am I really here?

Can I be here?

Have I, have I learned enough?

But over time you just sort of get into the process of just being there and knowing you have to accomplish a certain amount every day.

And honestly that, the speed with which we had to work, the decisiveness with which I knew I had to work lent itself toward a kind of like presentness that I'm now looking to always replicate on, on film sets or TV sets.

- With all this like intense critical praise and audience praising at the same time, what did that do to your own momentum or your own, I guess, dreams or goals?

Like did-did it push you to keep on going or did it make it harder?

- The hard part was then trying to make the next thing and finding that actually that movie, which I also thought would be an indie, was super, super difficult to get made.

And I had to sort of let it go at a certain point and start reading, reading other scripts, which is actually what led me to doing my first studio feature "AEon Flux" and is how I met Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, who are my creative collaborators on many, many projects now.

And Phil is also my life partner and husband.

- Was "AEon Flux" the first script that was not yours that you directed?

- It was, when I read "AEon Flux," I just felt I heard a voice that I understood, a voice that I could interpret and see myself in and also add to.

And you know, the process of making the film had a lot of joy in it, finishing it, getting it out into the world did not, it was a very difficult, very painful experience for me.

But again, I just felt like the opportunity to make something of that scale was a good one for me in the end.

[typewriter dings] - Can you talk about the collaborative process with Diablo Cody?

- "Juno" had not been released yet, but I knew it was in post and "Jennifer's Body" was sent to me.

And I think initially I might've dismissed the movie because the title kind of put me off and then I started reading it and I just felt like this is such an incredibly vivid voice and incredibly fresh perspective and I really see the humor of it.

It was supposed to kind of make you scream and laugh and laugh with it and sometimes laugh at it and make you cry.

And I think that that's a very particular tone.

So we dug into all of that to make sure we were sort of surfing those waves tonally.

- Yeah.

So the movie I think famously has a bit of a time delayed acceptance or a time delayed popularity.

What were you hoping people were gonna get out of it that, that you saw leading up to it in the now with this kind of bigger popular resurgence?

- It's like when I think about "Heathers" or Jonathan Demi's "Something Wild" or Katherine Bigelow's "Near Dark," you know, these are movies that are saying I refuse to be one thing.

And that's so much what was happening on the page of that script for "Jennifer's body."

And I just was so excited to tackle that.

[suspenseful music] - Jen.

♪ ♪ Jen?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [fridge contents clattering] ♪ ♪ Um... my mom got that at Boston Market and, um, I-I'm not supposed to-- [Jennifer screeching] [choking] - What parts of your experience in the past were you able to bring with you and what did you have to like totally revamp or relearn for a horror film like this?

- I mean, it's funny, at the time, that, what the studio kept asking for was jump scares.

We need jump scares.

And I mean, I think the film has some, but I was more interested in kind of the dread that comes out of the female friendships that are super fraught with a kind of emotional violence or an emotional dismissiveness.

And that hopefully there could be this dynamic in which we felt afraid for Needy and Jennifer and afraid of Needy and Jennifer.

[intense rock music] ♪ ♪ [music distorting] [necklace thudding] [intense rock music] - The moment that you realize that Needy and Jennifer are secretly also lovers and you see the way that Jennifer can so quickly seduce Needy, that's when I was most scared for both of them because I felt like, oh my God, there's like tenderness here, there's lust, there's all kinds of stormy stuff that like hadn't been addressed up til this moment and now we understand why it's so charged and fraught a relationship.

And so that was the moment where I felt like, oh, this is where I'm seeing Jennifer at her scariest and at her most attractive, which is a frequent spot that females occupy in horror, you know, where they are both the monster and the object of obsession or desire.

I think that the best horror has females in them.

Like I don't think it's actually a new thing.

I think it's just an acknowledgement of the most successful examples of the genre often.

And so, why is that?

Well, I think oftentimes it's because we are asking the audience to put themselves in a place of identification with a character that might feel intrinsically vulnerable given the circumstances.

So whether it's "The Exorcist" or "Rosemary's Baby" or I hope someday "Jennifer's Body," there's like, there's something true there, not about being female, but about being human.

And there is something very frightening when we lose it.

So when we lose our vulnerability, we're immediately in, I think, a scary space.

[typewriter dings] - "The Invitation" is great and for a lot of reasons, but one is, I've used this word a lot for your work, but the tension is so palpable, I think more than any film I've seen maybe.

And it all takes place in one house.

- In a way, it's like the movie is kind of an exercise in establishing and maintaining and answering a certain amount of dread.

And so that's what it was on the page as well.

It was like a series of questions that the audience is forced to ask and then a series of answers they also have to experience over the course of the film.

And so yeah, I mean that the notion of the tension was key to the film, but inherent in that all one location question was also keeping that location fresh in some way or still alive.

And it's hard, it's really hard to do that if you're really bound to one place.

[dramatic music] [runner breathing heavily] [animal howls] [foreboding music] [voices whispering] [eerie music] [Female voice] It all beings here... [eerie music] with me.

[person yelling] [gasping] - Can you talk about your process with working with actors and how having them feel safe going to those dark places?

Yeah, I can't help but think of Nicole Kidman and "Destroyer," which the, the depths that...

I've never seen her go to that place before.

- Nicole had an, a gut instinct that she advocated for a pretty, pretty big transformation and she definitely knew some people she wanted to work with.

And so we were very lucky to work with Bill Corso, incredible, genius makeup designer.

But I also think for her it was a way into the character, like the, the first time she started seeing those makeup tests, it helped her find a posture and a walk and a voice.

I think she's somebody who, you know, in the kind of the classic theater tradition, in a way, the mask is as much the character as the lack of a mask.

A director's job is primarily communicating with actors.

It, I mean, and I think it's not something we're really actually taught a lot in schools or in like craft programs.

We're learning about composing shots and, you know, creating soundscapes and you know, but the actual work of it creatively and emotionally is the work that directors do with actors.

[typewriter dings] It took a long time for me to get TV work.

I was in that funny space where I'd made three or four features and people were afraid that I wouldn't know how to work on the TV pace, though I've never really luxuriated or I've never felt like I was luxuriating while I was making a movie.

And so once I got those first couple of TV jobs, it was on a great show that was on AMC called "Halt and Catch Fire."

And that was something that helped me just sort of hone my craft and continue to sort of stay sharp and try things under very challenging circumstances.

'Cause directing TV actually can be really demanding and requires a lot of thinking on your feet.

- I imagine there's some challenges in matching a tone and continuation continuity versus just setting it yourself.

- Yeah, yeah.

- How did you find that?

- You bring up this really interesting point and I've always said that working in television, particularly if you're a director in episodic, which I did for a long time, it's like you're, you know, it's like you're learning to speak another language.

You're learning the alphabet of another language and you're learning how those words get put together by looking at previous episodes and previous directors and then you're also trying to find your voice within that visual, tonal language.

"Yellow Jackets," it's so different from how Phil and Matt write, it's so different than how Diablo writes.

It's so different than how I write.

And I felt this incredible kinship with the words and with the logic, emotional logic of that script.

And I just felt a sense of joy and energy in the writing.

And I was really excited when I met Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, I just felt like, okay, I'm gonna be friends with these people and love them and that's what happened, you know?

And so we were able to really, I don't know, just for me talk about this notion of the wilderness, which was very strong on the page in that pilot script, but it was also very strong as a metaphor.

The wilderness of female adolescence, the wilderness of female middle age, both things I feel extremely close to creatively and emotionally.

- Well, it sounds like you guys all got along and saw things in a similar way, but were there aspects that you felt like you had to fight for or that were, were really important to you that you championed casting or tone or anything like that?

- In the pilot, for instance, there's a, there's a sequence that takes a about, I don't know, maybe four or five minutes.

It's a long montage near the end of this, the first episode in which we see each of the characters before they get onto that plane that crashes.

And, you know, if you read a script and you see an eighth of a page devoted to all these different characters in new locations, that is absolutely the very first thing a line producer will say, or a studio will say, can we lose this?

It meant that every single day of our shoot we were doing this little piece that seemed unrelated to everything else we were doing, but was going to all be encompassed in this montage.

And it just, it just had to be there.

♪ I was there ♪ ♪ Two worlds collided ♪ ♪ And they can never ♪ ♪ Ever ♪ ♪ Ever ♪ ♪ Tear us apart ♪ - Give you guys a hand.

- Wicked.

- I can't believe your dad paid for a private plane.

- It's pretty much his only form of parenting.

I guess I'll take it.

- Well, thank you, Mr. Matthews.

- We knew it was sort of the emotional fulcrum that the whole audience is gonna now descend into the wilderness storyline with.

And if we didn't have it, the episode and the story simply wouldn't be the same.

And so we actually really had to fight for that.

[typewriter dings] [Narrator] You have been watching a conversation with Karyn Kusama on "On Story."

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

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

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]