Film school is in session as three-time pod guest, Eddington director Ari Aster, joins his good friend Bill Hader in a real meeting of minds.
Topics covered include: Steven Soderbergh’s greatest commentary tracks, the first Mission Impossible as a perfect film, writing movies for actors not executives, Ari telling Bill the idea for Eddington outside of an Italian restaurant, Bill laughing at the sound of Toni Collette’s head falling off in Hereditary, being intuitive and impulsive, David Lynch as a great spiritual teacher, using genre film as a shield, Ari’s deep research process in New Mexico before making Eddington, the genius comedy of Christopher Morris, walking into the meat grinder, unmade horror scripts, Bill’s cameo in Beau is Afraid, going beyond the breaking point, Steven Spielberg as the king of shot sequencing, childhood obsession with screenplays, Sturges on Sturges, Bill filming shorts as a kid with his sister in Tulsa, meeting Scorsese at SNL, and 50+ films that shaped them.
Ari Aster: I'm Ari Aster.
Bill Hader: And I'm Bill Hader, and this is the A24 podcast… Yeah, we should recreate the Steven Soderbergh/Lem Dobbs Limey commentary.
Ari Aster: The commentary?
Bill Hader: Where we get in a fight.
Ari Aster: Where Lem Dobbs is like…
Bill Hader:"I never liked you."
Ari Aster: ...Just airs all of his grievances. That is the best commentary.
Bill Hader: I think it might be the best commentary because you're watching it and enjoying the movie, and then in the middle of it, yeah... I think it starts because Peter Fonda has a picture of Terence Stamp's daughter in his house. And Lem Dobbs-
Ari Aster: Right. And Soderbergh is like, "Yeah, that covers it."
Bill Hader: ...Yeah, yeah.
Ari Aster: Or Lem Dobbs is like, "Yeah, instead of her entire backstory that I spent years writing, we just put a photo of her." It's like every screenwriter's-
Bill Hader: He goes, "He would never have that photo in his house if he was somewhat responsible for her death. Why the fuck would he have a picture of her in her house?" And then I remember watching it and kind of laughing. It felt really intimate where you're at a dinner and you're like, "Oh, these are two friends kind of ribbing each other," and then you realize like, "Oh no."
Ari Aster: ...Yeah. By the end they had to clean it up a little bit, they had to patch it up before it's over. But it is like every screenwriter's fantasy to finally get the director in the room and just air their grievances one-by-one as the film plays. And Soderbergh is just like, "Yeah, well, I like it."
Bill Hader: Yeah, he handles it really well. I mean, he handles it incredibly well.
Ari Aster: Yeah, he's pretty graceful.
Bill Hader: He's like, "Okay, all right. Well." He's probably got in these conversations with Lem Dobbs before, or he is familiar with-
Ari Aster: Oh, no, you feel like it's definitely a fraught relationship. Well, it was Kafka too, that he wrote?
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah.
Ari Aster: And Kafka was just a reviled film.
Bill Hader: Yeah.
Ari Aster: I like Kafka a lot.
Bill Hader: I like Kafka.
Ari Aster: It's really, really cool.
Bill Hader: I think Jeremy Irons is incredibly good in that movie.
Ari Aster: And it's beautiful. It looks amazing.
Bill Hader: Yeah, it's a gorgeous movie. I remember when that movie came out and knowing about Sex, Lies, and Videotape and seeing the trailer beforehand, it was from the director of Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and I was like, "Wow, that's a cool left turn." It was just like, to be your follow-up to Sex, Lies, and Videotape I thought was cool. And then doing King of the Hill I thought was cool.
Ari Aster: King of the Hill is so good.
Bill Hader: Yeah. I just thought those early things were so interesting, that he swerved like that.
Ari Aster: And then Schizopolis.
Bill Hader: And then Schizopolis. I was obsessed with that film.
Ari Aster: Schizopolis is amazing. That's also got a great commentary track.
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah.
Ari Aster: Where he's interviewing himself.
Bill Hader: I forgot about that.
Ari Aster: Soderbergh is great.
Bill Hader: Yeah.
Ari Aster: Soderbergh is really-
Bill Hader: He's very funny in that movie.
Ari Aster: He's so funny in that film. There's a book he put out with...
Bill Hader: Richard Lester?
Ari Aster: With Richard Lester that's just incredible at that time.
Bill Hader: Yeah, so good. Yeah, actually, when I moved to LA, the Sex, Lies, and Videotape, his journal, there was a forward in that-
Ari Aster: Of the making of it, right?
Bill Hader: ...The making of it. And there was a forward in that, which was basically just about him moving from Louisiana to LA and just trying to get work and everything, that was so inspiring to me. And every time I would get really down, like 25 years ago when I moved to LA, I would break that out and read it and go like, "All right, you just have to work harder, make connections" and just do all that.
Ari Aster: That was a bit of a tradition. There were a lot of those. Spike Lee did one of those, a diary for pre-production and production for Do The Right Thing. And then Emma Thompson did one for Sense and Sensibility-
Bill Hader: Oh, my. Sense and Sensibility. That's true. I forgot about that.
Ari Aster: ...That was great.
Bill Hader: Yeah, that was really good. Yeah, they should bring that back.
Ari Aster: I know.
Bill Hader: Why don't you do that?
Ari Aster: No, no, no. Really, it just seems like such a waste of time. I could be working on the movie.
Bill Hader: I could be working on the movie instead of-
Ari Aster: Instead of reminiscing about what just happened.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah. Yeah, I don't even think I want to relive it. I would be writing the diary entry and then realize how I fucked up the day's of work. And be like, "Oh, wait a minute."
Ari Aster: No, I want to read somebody else's, but I don't want to memorialize anything on my end.
Bill Hader: But the Sex, Lies, and Videotape one's really good. And the Richard Lester one is really great.
Ari Aster: Really great.
Bill Hader: Remember? He's like, "Richard Lester as the man who knew more than he was asked."
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: I thought it was very funny. I tried showing my kids the new Mission Impossible, and they were not having it.
Ari Aster: I haven't seen the new one yet, but I do think the first one is incredible.
Bill Hader: Oh, the Brian De Palma one?
Ari Aster: It's amazing.
Bill Hader: Yeah, I love that movie.
Ari Aster: It's so great.
Bill Hader: I love that film. They liked that one.
Ari Aster: Wasn't that script, it was written by Steve Zaillian and Robert Towne?
Bill Hader: Yeah. Like Ben Hecht.
Ari Aster: Yeah like, Mankiewicz.
Bill Hader: Mankiewicz. It's like every great... I'm not lying, I think William Goldman might've been on it. It was just some crazy-
Ari Aster: I think it was William Goldman. It was, yeah.
Bill Hader: ...It was like every great writer, like historical writer, wrote on the first Mission Impossible movie.
Ari Aster: And then De Palma. It's so good. It's really good.
Bill Hader: It is really good. And it's funny.
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: It's very funny.
Ari Aster: And there's no action. It's all intrigue.
Bill Hader: Yeah. It's all-
Ari Aster: Until the end. And then you have the bullet train, which is so great.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah. With Jon Voight on a bullet train and masks. But that sequence where he's being lowered into the room is like-
Ari Aster: It's incredible.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah. It's masterfully done. I mean, that is one of the best. I remember seeing that in the theater and people just losing their minds. It works so well.
I got to talk to you about your movie a little bit. So you sent me the script for it a while ago. I remember us actually sitting outside at an Italian restaurant and you telling me the story and you're like, "I'm doing a COVID western that's kind of Jim Thompson-y." And I went, "Oh, okay. Wow. That sounds-
Ari Aster: You thought it was a bad idea.
Bill Hader: ...I thought it was a bad idea, yeah. No, I'm joking. I was like, "All right. Well, that's interesting." No, but then when I read it, I was like, "This is awesome." But you can never really fully understand, and you're such a real filmmaker. When you read the scripts of actual filmmakers, they read where you could see the movie in a way, that's not written for executives. As an actor, I would read a lot of scripts that I was like, "Oh, this is to sell."
Ari Aster: Right.
Bill Hader: But your scripts are so full and interesting, because I'm like, "Oh, this is the guy who's seen the movie and they read really well and are exciting. But then seeing the movie, which I just saw a couple of weeks ago, and I called you after, there's no hyperbole, I think it's a masterpiece. I really do.
Ari Aster: Thank you.
Bill Hader: I can't stop thinking about it. My girlfriend, Ali, we are still talking about it constantly. And anybody we talked to were just like, "You have to see Eddington when it comes out. You have to see it." And Alec Berg, the co-creator of Barry was there, Jason Woliner, and all of us. Guillermo del Toro was there. And we've all been texting each other going, "What did we just see? That was phenomenal."
And I think that the word that I relate it to, Ali said, "That was very refreshing, that somebody came out and made a movie that just stated the problem." It's that, sorry to be pretentious, but that Chekhov thing of you present the problem, not the solution. And so many things today I see are trying to be the solution, or at least some, "If we just did this, this would..." and that never really works. But someone going, "Well, here's how I feel about a lot of things." I don't want to ruin it, I don't want to give anything away, but I was just really, truly... The feeling I had when we got in the car, and I told Ali, I go, "I can't believe I'm friends with a guy who made that. That thing's unbelievable." So it really is. I don't know what else to say. I do think it's a masterpiece.
Ari Aster: Oh, thanks man.
Bill Hader: I know it's-
Ari Aster: Thank you.
Bill Hader: ...I know it's-
Ari Aster: I really appreciate that.
Bill Hader: ...Look, I don't want money or anything.
Ari Aster: No, not at all.
Bill Hader: I'm not asking for money. I'm not about to hit you up.
Ari Aster: I'll give you money. It's okay.
Bill Hader: No, no, no. It's all right.
Ari Aster: We'll do it after the thing.
Bill Hader: But when you're writing something like that, is it just like... I know you're going to be talking a lot about how'd you come up with the idea and all these things, but I'm always interested just in process stuff because I am so insecure about my own process. Which is not very disciplined at all, and I would say kind of lazy, and then suddenly I just get a ton of work done, and then I'm lazy and I get a ton of work done. But with you, with this idea, was it a thing that, "Okay, every day I'm just going to work on this thing"? Or was it a burst of...
Ari Aster: It was kind of a burst. Well, I don't have much of a process either. I think mostly it's an intuitive thing, but also an impulsive thing, where if something's there, I write it down and I tend to try to not censor myself or edit anything until it's down. And then once it's down, it becomes a process of just steeling yourself and not taking out the things that you know should probably not be there. That maybe need to be there for the integrity of the thing, but for your own peace of mind would be better taken out. And this film has a lot of those.
Bill Hader: A couple of those. Yeah.
Ari Aster: Yeah. There were a couple things that I am actually happy I-
Bill Hader: Took out?
Ari Aster: ...I took out.
Bill Hader: But when you look at that first, like you get that inspired draft out, and then do you take a period and then look at it and go, "Oh, okay, what was I thinking?" Or, "Oh, I like this"?
Ari Aster: Well, in this case I had been wanting to write something about the atmosphere, about just the environment we were living in. And that of course just includes the internet. Like what does it feel like to actually just be living in the internet? And I didn't have an idea beyond that. And then I realized that I had this script called Eddington, that I tried to get made eight years before I made Hereditary.
Bill Hader: Oh, wow.
Ari Aster: And it didn't happen.
Bill Hader: Oh, wow. I didn't know that.
Ari Aster: It was just sort of like this contemporary western that I lost interest in. Because it needed something else. It was missing something. And then I realized, "Oh, I could take the basic structure and world of that script, and then use that as a thing to hang all these other ideas on."
Bill Hader: That's great. Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool.
Ari Aster: Yeah. So that allowed me to write something in about three weeks.
Bill Hader: Oh, wow.
Ari Aster: And then I left it alone because Beau Is Afraid was the thing. And then in editing Beau, I started to polish it and return to it and revise it. And then I went to New Mexico, which is where I'm from, and drove around the state going to different small towns and pueblos, and interviewing sheriffs, police chiefs, public officials, mayors, and just started getting as full a picture as I could, of the state's politics. And once I had done that, and I met certain people that felt really great models for different characters, it started to get away from me in a good way. And then it stopped being kind of me playing with little army men on a board.
Bill Hader: Yeah. Some people don't let that happen. You can see the movies people make where you’re like, "Oh, they're playing with their army men." You know what I mean?
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: But I like that you don't do that.
Ari Aster: We'll talk about those after.
Bill Hader: Yeah, we'll talk about those off camera. But that's what I like about your stuff, is that it feels so personal. I remember seeing Hereditary for the first time and shooting it too, and I went with some of the people who were making that movie. And I remember going, "Well, that's not only a great horror movie, the last 20 minutes of it were really breathtaking," I thought, and funny. Hiro Murai was the first person I met that we found Toni Collette's head falling, the sound effect of her head falling, funny.
Ari Aster: Well it's satisfying.
Bill Hader: It's very satisfying. When you hear her head falling I remember laughing, because I was like, "That's funny that this guy included that." Because you don't need it, but it's there. Most movies, a horror movie, would've taken that out. But it's so funny that you hear it. And I was telling Hiro Murai, and he goes, "Oh my God, I laughed so hard when you hear the head fall." And maybe that's just a filmmaker thing that we found it very funny. But I was also like, "This is an amazing filmmaker." I was like, "Jesus Christ," because it was so personal. It just felt incredibly personal. And for me, that's the best... We've talked about this. You see something like Rosemary's Baby or something like that, and you go, "Wow, this feels like a very personal story on some level."
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: And it was that the details feel very personal.
Ari Aster: The details feel so personal with Polanski.
Bill Hader: Yes, with Polanski it always does. But was that a thing that again, is just instinctual? Or was that something AFI, were like, "All right, you need to put more of yourself" was it one of those things?
Ari Aster: No, I think-
Bill Hader: David Lynch too does that too. I would actually say David Lynch, when he passed away, I think we were texting, but I watched all his movies again right after he passed away.
Ari Aster: Yeah, me too.
Bill Hader: And that was the thing that knocked me out about it, I was like, "God, these are so personal. These feel so almost like embarrassingly personal."
Ari Aster: Well, yeah, just the vision is so complete and singular and just idiosyncratic, and his picture of America. And obviously just his always including the things he loves and the things that scare him-
Bill Hader: And these motifs-
Ari Aster: ...That he's drawn to. Also, he's like a fetishist. Yeah, no, his death really hit me hard. In a way that kind of surprised me. I probably haven't been hit that hard. I feel like that part of that has to do with him being something of a spiritual teacher for a lot of people. But also just-
Bill Hader: Yeah, I think so too. I think he also just was a person that showed... I remember seeing Eraserhead and watching it again this time and just thinking like, "Oh, this is about a guy who is terrified of having a family and terrified of all his responsibility-”
Ari Aster: Yeah, having a child.
Bill Hader: ...And having a child. But that it came out of him in this way.
Ari Aster: With the in-laws.
Bill Hader: Oh yeah, Bill and, "Look at my knee." That whole scene with the family is just amazing. That movie's also kind of timeless too. You watch it and you think it was made during the seventies, but it could have been made any time. I couldn't imagine seeing that in the seventies and just going like, "Well, someone found a new language."
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: It really is. And it just was all instinctual. And I feel that in your stuff though, it's like it's a similar... Like Midsommar. I think that's how you and I started talking. I was supposed to do a Q&A, or moderate something? And then I was like, "Well, can I just say hi to him?" It was during the pandemic and I think I called you and I was like, "I just was watching Midsommar."
Ari Aster: Yeah, we had a four hour conversation-
Bill Hader: Yeah, we talked for like four hours.
Ari Aster: ...During COVID. Yeah, during lockdown.
Bill Hader: And then I was just like, "This is amazing. This is one of the greatest breakup movies of all time." But yeah, is that a thing that's you tend to be drawn towards, or it's just an instinctual thing in your writing?
Ari Aster: The personal stuff?
Bill Hader: The personal aspect of it.
Ari Aster: Well, yeah. I would say that for me, I think I use genre in some ways as a shield. It's a way of obfuscating. So in some ways it's cowardice, it's that I need to veil just how personal the stories are. And so yeah, I think if anything, I'm sometimes a little embarrassed by just how it verges on solipsism sometimes. But I know that just writing is hard and I can only ever really do it without effort if I'm in some kind of crisis or if I'm really stuck on something.
When we first became friends you sent me a script for a feature that you haven't made yet. I won't talk about it, but except to say that it's incredibly personal and it has a lot of things from your life. And I found it to be just so real and really beautifully observed, and-
Bill Hader: Oh, thanks.
Ari Aster: ...It's a movie that was so vivid on the page that I feel like I've already seen it. It doesn't exist yet, but I really, really want it to. And anyway, so I know just as far as that project is concerned that you operate in a similar way. I mean, you mentioned Chekhov and it really brought Chekhov to mind in its lack of sentimentality, and then also just the way that it sets up a familiar problem, but the innovation is that it ends the way life does, not the way a story does, which is why the Chekhov thing.
Bill Hader: Which is why it's been so hard to get it made.
Ari Aster: Has it been?
Bill Hader: A little bit, yeah, but not in a huge way.
Ari Aster: It's so great.
Bill Hader: In a bit of a way. Yeah.
Ari Aster: It's so great.
Bill Hader: But that's the thing. When we talk about, and I think I mentioned this to you after I saw Eddington, was I had written a horror movie right after Barry wrapped. And I didn't really take a break after Barry, I went right into writing this feature, and I was like, "I'm going to make this feature." And I had a meeting with a big producer who's actually very smart, a lovely guy, but it wasn't for him. And if you've seen his other movies, I won't say who it was, great guy, but it's just not for him. But his response to it was so bad. He went, "This is so mean spirited and horrible," and everything. I was like, "Yeah, it's a horror movie." And it's like, "But it's just so disturbing and just so cynical," and this. And I was like, "Did you not see my TV show?"
But it was this interesting thing that happened, and I think it was just because I was very vulnerable after finishing Barry and this pressure of, "What are you going to do next," or whatever, it was all self-imposed, no one was asking me that, it was just my own neurosis, that I really lost my confidence. And so I set it aside for a bit, and will go back to it I know. But when I saw Eddington, I think I told you after seeing that, I was like, "Yes, okay. I'm going to go back to that project because he did it." I go, "He had the balls to do the thing that I kind of was talked out of."
Ari Aster: Let's see how Eddington does. It might not have-
Bill Hader: No, but for me it's fantastic.
Ari Aster: ...Opened the door further.
Bill Hader: No, but I think it's fantastic. Some of this you just can't control. But I do think it's a film that will last forever.
Ari Aster: Oh, man.
Bill Hader: I haven't had an experience like that in a while, where we were all in the parking lot afterwards kind of looking at each other going, "What the fuck did we just... That was amazing." And Jason Woliner, who's such a lovely guy-
Ari Aster: So great.
Bill Hader: ...And Alec Berg, and it was just like, "That was phenomenal." And I know Guillermo talked to you afterwards, and he was texting me just like, "That was amazing. It is a masterpiece. The balls. Ari Aster's got big balls, man." He just loved it. And so that's, it's very-
Ari Aster: Oh, that's so nice.
Bill Hader: ...But that's the best thing you could say about a piece of art, is it inspires you to go for it, go for the risk. But with you, it almost seems like it doesn't even occur to you that it might be an issue, but maybe it does. Like you go, "Okay, this might be an issue, but I got to keep moving."
Ari Aster: Yeah. I think the minute I started thinking strategically, I just lose steam. Those thoughts just don't go very far because I can't get the energy to do that kind of thing. But yeah, there were a lot of nerves in making this. Where I was like, "Am I going to do this?" I'm like, "Why?" I told a… I'm forgetting which filmmaker, a filmmaker friend, I told him the idea and he was like, "You're just going to walk into that meat grinder?" I don't know. But thanks, man. I'm so glad that you liked it.
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah. Loved it. And then I was happy too, people have asked me, "What's it like working with him?" Because I was in Beau Is Afraid. And it's always fun when people tell me they saw Beau Is Afraid, I've had this happen now four times where people are like, "Oh, I love Beau Is Afraid. I really like that scene where he's on the phone with the UPS guy and everything." And I'm like, "Uh-huh. You know that's me, right?" And they go, "No, it's not." I'm like, "Yeah, that's me." And that's happened to me three times where people don't believe me. And I'm like, "No, that's me on the phone. The guy crying about finding his dead mom and everything, that's me." And it's like, "Shut the fuck up." I'm like, "I'm in the movie."
Ari Aster: You're amazing in that scene. That's probably my favorite scene in the film.
Bill Hader: Well, it was very funny because my poor-
Ari Aster: Sorry, I was just going to say, the humor of that scene hinges on you just being that guy. Absolutely in hell. It's not like-
Bill Hader: ...I remember just recording that in my house, and my poor assistant, Alyssa Donovan, was just in the other room, and she would just peek her head in. Because I would do a couple of takes, and the memory I have is, I would do it with Joaquin, and then you would come in and go, "Hey, Bill, that was great." And then you went, "I have a question. Are you really crying?" I go, "I'm not crying." And you go, "I think you should really cry." And so I really got worked up alone, just alone, really crying and got really sad. And then I did this thing and I felt, "Man, I really poured my heart on that one," I'm wiping tears out my eyes. And then you come on and you're dying laughing. You go, "Oh, Bill, we're cracking up over here at the monitor. It's really great."
So I didn't have a monitor in front of me or anything, so I'm just going off of what was on the other end of the phone. So it wasn't until I saw the movie that I saw the shot and the slow pushing on him and everything, and I was like, "Oh, that's what they were looking at." And then I thought it was incredibly funny when I saw it. But over the phone, I was just trying to play the reality of the moment.
Ari Aster: You're so great in it. We did like 35 takes of that or something.
Bill Hader: Yeah, it was a lot of takes.
Ari Aster: It was a lot. Because it was one shot.
Bill Hader: Yeah, but it was very funny. Yeah, and Joaquin was just in it the whole time. People were like, "Is there any sort of small talk?" And I was like, "No, no. He's just fully in it."
Ari Aster: Do you know Blue Jam by Chris Morris?
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah.
Ari Aster: It's a radio show by Chris Morris that he ended up doing as a TV show, called Jam. I think for Channel 4. But the radio show was for the radio. And those sketches are so funny to me, because there are no jokes, it's just the most hellish nightmare situations. Like a woman whose baby just died and she calls over a plumber to fix the baby because he fixed her boiler last week, and she's just manic. It's a woman whose baby just died clearly, who's in denial. And it's so funny because it's so morbid and it's just so real. The minute it would've become arch or camp, it would stop being funny.
Bill Hader: Yeah. He never does that, Chris Morris.
Ari Aster: He's my favorite. I love him so much.
Bill Hader: When I was at SNL, the pedophile episode of Brass Eyes-
Ari Aster: Paedogeddon.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah, Paedogeddon. We would all sit in an office and watch it and just-
Ari Aster: It's so good.
Bill Hader: ...Marvel that they were finding genuinely great jokes about this-
Ari Aster: The pedophile dressed as a school? Well, the school with the little legs?
Bill Hader: ...Yeah, one of the hardest times I ever laughed was the-
Ari Aster: The prison vessel?
Bill Hader: ...No. What is that the thing where it's, "They shot the world's worst pedophile into outer space."
Ari Aster: In the one-man prison vessel, but a little boy accidentally-
Bill Hader: "But somehow-”
Ari Aster: ...Somehow.
Bill Hader: “...An eight-year-old boy got on board." And he goes, "Said NASA, 'This was the one thing we didn't want to have happened.'" And I fell out of my seat laughing.
But I remember going to South Park and they would quote Chris Morris constantly and I think he's just somebody that-
Ari Aster: Of course, those guys love him.
Bill Hader: ...Oh, they love him. And I think Matt's friends with him. But yeah, that stuff was something that we were like, "God, could you imagine they're getting away with this stuff?" And I remember reading Simon Pegg and he was like, "Oh, Shaun of the Dead, and stuff." I go, "No, no. The guy in the stocks who doesn't find..." Chris Morris is like, "Don't you want to have sex with my son?" He is like, "No, I don't fancy him." And he's like, "What do you mean you don't fancy him? Look at him. He's beautiful." It was like, "I cannot believe they're making these jokes." But somehow it was more of a-
Ari Aster: I loved Brass Eye, it was amazing.
Bill Hader: ...All of Brass Eye is phenomenal. “Cake”-
Ari Aster: The “Animals” episode. Yeah, “Cake”. The “Drugs” episode.
Bill Hader: ...The “Drugs”. Yeah, "Is a non-existent, but real sounding..." Or whatever it was. But that he would do these really extreme things. It was basically just a massive parody of media.
Ari Aster: Like 60 Minutes and yeah.
Bill Hader: Just media.
Ari Aster: And before that was On the Hour and The Day Today.
Bill Hader: The Day Today was amazing.
Ari Aster: Which he did with Iannucci. Which is just-
Bill Hader: Coogan.
Ari Aster: ...Yeah, Coogan as Alan Partridge.
Bill Hader: Yeah, Alan Partridge. And I remember Coogan did a very funny thing where he was the guy that saw a bank robbery. Do you remember that?
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: And they go, "What did you see?" Do you remember this? Did you not like this?
Ari Aster: No, no, no, no. I've seen them all.
Bill Hader: Where there's a bank robbery. He is like, "Well, the guy came out and he was like [imitates bank robbery]."
Ari Aster: He gets hit in the head. And what's the bomb dogs? The dogs that are being used as bombs?
Bill Hader: Yeah. I don't remember that one.
Ari Aster: There's so many. This is with Coogan again. Or is it with Patrick Marber, as the priest.
Bill Hader: That one was so funny.
Ari Aster: The priest was being bullied by the other priests.
Bill Hader: I mean, that was stuff that... Yeah that, and then when he did Four Lions and everything. I just loved it.
Ari Aster: Four Lions is fucking incredible.
Bill Hader: Yeah, it's unbelievable.
Ari Aster: I think he wrote that with Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who did Peep Show.
Bill Hader: Yeah. So funny. Jesse Armstrong obviously went on to Succession-
Ari Aster: Succession. The greatest.
Bill Hader: ...And everything, yeah.
Ari Aster: And The Thick of It.
Bill Hader: Yeah, The Thick of It was unbelievable.
Ari Aster: But Four Lions was so, yeah, just the Three Stooges as Jihadists.
Bill Hader: I mean that whole thing, where he is like, "Where did you get all the..." Was it manure or something for the bomb? They just kept going back to the same store. And he goes, "I went as a disguise." And he goes, "What was your disguise?" And he just put his-
Ari Aster: Covering his beard.
Bill Hader: ...He just put his hands over his face to cover his beard, and he talked in a woman's voice. I need to watch that movie again. But I just remember seeing it.
Ari Aster: It's great.
Bill Hader: But that was another thing, it's like -
Ari Aster: It's so funny.
Bill Hader: ...You see that in the theater. I remember, and I would say 20% of us were howling, and then there was 80% of the audience was just like, "This is not funny at all. This is really in poor taste," and everything. And I don't know, I really admired that. Well, for me doing Barry too, it was a thing where you go, "Oh, this doesn't look like a comedy." When those guys blow up it's very realistic, but also funny. The tone is a specific way.
Ari Aster: Well, Barry has this amazing trajectory of beginning. In its first season, there's something familiar about it. I really, really like its first season, but then two, three, and four for me... It goes to four, right?
Bill Hader: Yeah,
Ari Aster: Yeah. But two, three, and four, for me, it just becomes incrementally more fascinating and strange and sad and bleak, and it becomes kind of experimental. And I don't know, I really love how Barry evolved. It really became something totally unique.
Bill Hader: Oh, thank you man.
Ari Aster: And some of those, just as a director as well, you're so distinct. And there are action scenes. I mean, Ronny/Lily, was the first-
Bill Hader: Yeah, that was the Karate girl one.
Ari Aster: In season two. Because I just love a sustained, prolonged action sequence that goes beyond the breaking point, but that one went so far beyond it. And then in season three, there's the motorcycle chase, which is one of the most cinematic, vividly realized things I've ever seen-
Bill Hader: Oh, thank you.
Ari Aster: ...And not just on TV. I watched that a couple times. What you were doing with the sound, it felt like a shame that I was watching it on my TV. It's like, "I want to see this in a theater."
Bill Hader: I know. That was the coolest thing, was we did... That was the Emmy episode. And I think we chose it as the Emmy episode just because they would screen it at For Your Consideration e vents, and we could see it in a theater with proper sound and everything.
But no, I really appreciate it. No, but you know how it is, that's another one where you're following your instincts. And then, I don't know if you have this too, we've talked about this, where you're like, "Hey, man, that Ronny/Lilly one,” I was like, "I think I'm finding my voice a little bit. I really think I've figured this out."
And then it's always for me in the mix where I'm watching it and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm like the Coen Brothers. This is just such a Coen Brothers ripoff." Or, "Oh my God," like at the end of season two, I'm like, "This is Taxi Driver. Why didn't anybody tell me I was just doing the end of Taxi Driver?" I always realize in the mix.
Ari Aster: Well these things are inescapable. You can't escape these, yeah.
Bill Hader: It's like in your DNA. And someone asked me, "Oh, what where some of the movies you liked to watch for Barry?" And I listed some. And in there was The American Friend and The Third Man. And then too, the DP, Carl Herse, on season three, was like, "Oh, you know the Coen Brothers, every time before they watch a movie, they watch The Third Man-”
Ari Aster: They watched The Third Man.
Bill Hader: ...And The American Friend and The Conformist. And I was like, "Oh, jeez, I can't escape the influence of that thing."
Ari Aster: But they can't escape those influences.
Bill Hader: Yeah, they can't escape those. Yeah, that's true.
Ari Aster: Same with, you see The Hudsucker Proxy and you're like, "Oh, that's The Big Clock." And, "Oh, that's-
Bill Hader: Yeah, that is The Big Clock. That's right.
Ari Aster: ...There's so much Hawks in there, and Sturges, and so much Capra, and Hail the Conquering Hero.
Bill Hader: Oh, a hundred percent. You could tell how much they like Sturges movies. Or even growing up and watching Star Wars and Steven Spielberg movies and stuff, and then seeing, which is a movie for me, I think it looks beautiful, but didn't hit me the way I think it did for that generation, was The Searchers.
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: I think Ford in general, I think they look amazing. I love My Darling Clementine, actually, I think that movie-
Ari Aster: That's my favorite.
Bill Hader: ...I think that movie from top to bottom is pretty fantastic.
Ari Aster: It's perfect.
Bill Hader: And the O.K. Corral-
Ari Aster: And really, really moving.
Bill Hader: ...And you could tell it's post when he came back from war, because the whole ending, there's no music and there's something sad and objectively criticizing the violence of the O.K. Corral thing, instead of being in the middle of it and then in the mix. Do you know what I mean?
Ari Aster: Yeah. While also just being so romantic and just idyllic. My Darling Clementine, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Young Mr. Lincoln are my favorites.
Bill Hader: Yeah, those are great.
Ari Aster: But I'm with you on The Searchers, which I think is so gorgeous-
Bill Hader: It's beautifully-
Ari Aster: ...But tonally, it's really odd for me in a way that doesn't work. Where every time you go back home to the family it's so arch and slapstick and just not in line with the rest of the movie.
Bill Hader: ...Well, it's weird, in Mean Streets, when they're watching The Searchers in Mean Streets, that's The Searchers. And I always think that's a silly western from the fifties or something, where he is biting his like… And it's literally goofy noises.
But what I was going to say is that you watch Star Wars and you see when Luke comes home and sees his home has been set on fire, and his aunt and uncle had been murdered, it's like almost shot for shot feels like when they come and find that the homestead's been set on fire in The Searchers. And I'm like, "I bet it's just part of that language that you grew up with." Or you watch Spielberg movies, and then if you watch a David Lean movie or Michael Curtiz, especially, those two guys, you go, "Wow, these filmmakers had a huge influence on him." In a great way.
Ari Aster: Yeah. Well, Curtiz does that push in, that really smooth push into a close up? I see a lot of Curtiz in the Coens too, just what he does with the camera, just very, very-
Bill Hader: The Breaking Point is one of his that I've watched a couple of times.
Ari Aster: I love The Breaking Point. Which is, To Have and Have Not, right?
Bill Hader: Yeah, it is. And I've watched that a couple of times in a way where initially it was just to watch it, and now I am marveling at just the choices in it and how beautiful it is, and how kind of weird and moving those performances are with him and Patricia Neal. And-
Ari Aster: It's John Garfield, right?
Bill Hader: ...John Garfield.
Ari Aster: Yeah. He's so good.
Bill Hader: Unbelievable.
Ari Aster: It's so atmospheric and beautiful. No, Curtiz was amazing.
Bill Hader: But that thing, where it's like, "That's what a movie looks like." Those are movies and you feel like-
Ari Aster: Mildred Pierce.
Bill Hader: ...Oh, Mildred Pierce. But you feel like in the things that you and I have talked about, Spielberg, the way he does action sequences, the geography and those things, he's a master. It's unbelievable.
Ari Aster: Yeah, just as an architect.
Bill Hader: Yeah.
Ari Aster: Just his shots. He's like the king of shot sequencing.
Bill Hader: Totally.
Ari Aster: There's nobody better than him.
Bill Hader: I would say George Miller is pretty good, and James Cameron, I always think. But again, these are the people I grew up with, watching Road Warrior constantly, and watching Terminator and Terminator 2 constantly, and Spielberg. So again, it's like in your DNA, when you're putting together a sequence.
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: And actually I'll say Sam Raimi too. Sam Raimi-
Ari Aster: Yeah. Well, he's like the Looney Tunes version of that.
Bill Hader: ...He's the Looney Tunes version of it. But what Sam Raimi did for me, I don't know about you-
Ari Aster: Wide-angle lens.
Bill Hader: ...Massive wide-angle lenses, but he was the thing that was like seeing Evil Dead at 14, and I would go, "Oh, wow. You can do this on no budget." And it was so effective. It was like punk rock music.
Ari Aster: Yeah. And the Evil Dead 2 being like, "Okay, now I'm going to do the same thing with the budget now," which is just the greatest.
Bill Hader: Now it's like The Ramones with Phil Spector, or something, where it's like, "Hey, now we've got the dough and the prestige to do our thing at this higher level." But those movies are still so good. And then one of the actors in Barry, Jessy Hodges, her mom is in the original Evil Dead. She's the woman that gets raped by a tree.
She goes, "My mom's in Evil Dead." And I go, "She's the woman that gets raped by tree." Ellen Sandweiss, who's an amazing actor. And she goes, "Yeah, I grew up in Michigan. And my mom was like, 'Yeah, I was in this horror movie a long time ago.'" And she's like, "Yeah, we didn't really think about it." And I was like, "I had a poster of that in my room, and I don't think I would be..." Like that was the movie for me where I was like, "Oh, I'm going to pick up a video camera and go shoot stuff," because you could see how he did it, on some level. Because before that I was like, "Oh, you need a giant crew and you need all this stuff."
What was that for you? Was there a specific moment when you went, "Oh, I think I can motivate it now," or inspired to go shoot something on your own? Or was it just...
Ari Aster: I always hear about those kids who were making Super 8 movies with their friends, and I didn't have friends who wanted to make movies, so I just wrote scripts. And so I was obsessed with just reading screenplays in my teens. I went through all the phases, the David Mamet phase, and of course just read everything the Coens ever wrote. And it could go on and on. Like Schrader and Woody Allen.
Bill Hader: Yeah, those early Coen scripts are so interesting because they're so detailed. Beyond detailed.
Ari Aster: Yeah. Well, they're written as prose.
Bill Hader: Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's the same with those, I just found this Herzog Scenarios, and it's like the Aguirre-
Ari Aster: They're so great.
Bill Hader: ...It's just like a short story.
Ari Aster: They're short stories, yeah.
Bill Hader: And the same with Bergman. But then I remember going to a library when I first got here and finding-
Ari Aster: Yeah, Bergman was big, big for me.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah. I mean, as a filmmaker, writer, personality, the whole thing.
Ari Aster: And those screenplays. I loved the Scenes from a Marriage screenplay. I had that. They published that.
Bill Hader: I remember, I have one of Persona and Shame. I remember reading and going, "Wow, these scripts are so beautifully written." Because the Woody Allen ones, I remember reading an Annie Hall script that wasn't published. It might've been at the UCLA library or something. And-
Ari Aster: It has all the "ums" and the "uhs".
Bill Hader: ..."Ums" and the "uhs". Yeah, but his would just be like, "Annie Hall. Alvy walks in and sees Max." And then in parenthesis it would say, "Improv." And then it would get into the scene. So, "Improv, and then we lead into this somehow." And it would just be all dialogue.
Ari Aster: Oh, that's great.
Bill Hader: I was like, "Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's a good way." And then the Coens, that's where I learned the terms, "Push. We're pulling them. We're pushing them." They would say, "Tableau," meaning just an interesting wide shot with everything. And I was like, "Oh, this is really..." It really is so helpful. And the Preston Sturges ones I had that. Did you read those, where it was the big Preston Sturges scripts?
Ari Aster: Yeah. And his autobiography is the best too. “Sturges on Sturges”.
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah. He's so funny.
Ari Aster: That's the best one.
Bill Hader: Yeah, he's hilarious.
Ari Aster: It's one of the best ones. There are a lot of really great...
Bill Hader: So you were doing just writing scripts, and it wasn't until you went to AFI that you're like, "All right, I'm going to direct something"? Or was that...
Ari Aster: Well, I went to undergrad first, and then I again had to drag friends into standing there uselessly while I did all the jobs, making shorts. And then at AFI, that was my first time working with a crew of people who all had their own discipline that they were committed to. So this was their project as well. And then you realize, "Oh, not only is the result better, but it's not a joyless, suffocating process."
Bill Hader: Yeah. My shit was always my sister, carrying Katie unfortunately out in the woods, and Oklahoma and me, "All right, you stand there. I'm going to chase you with a camera." And literally just doing Evil Dead shaky cam and chase and doing all that stuff. And they loved it, but I was like their older brother, so they couldn't say anything. But I didn't have that experience.
Ari Aster: Yeah. One guy that I was really ripping off was Guy Maddin, who's somebody that I've had the chance to work with-
Bill Hader: Yeah. Rumours.
Ari Aster: ...Now as a producer, and he's the loveliest guy ever. But he was a really big hero of mine, especially when I first started making shorts. Especially because those films are made on a shoestring, but they're these phantasmagorias.
Bill Hader: Yeah, yeah, those movies are phenomenal.
Ari Aster: If people haven't seen Guy Maddin's films or what he's doing now with Guy Maddin and the Johnson Brothers, Evan and Galen.
Bill Hader: Yeah, but they did that movie you guys worked on.
Ari Aster: Rumours.
Bill Hader: Rumours. Yeah.
Ari Aster: But they've been working together for a long time. And I just think they're so funny and just genuinely brilliant people.
Bill Hader: Yeah. Yeah, you're also the person that turned me onto... Peter Greenaway was someone that I never could get into.
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: And I remember-
Ari Aster: He's not somebody you get into, he gets into you.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah, he gets into you. But it was never a thing that I could like... And then I remember you telling me, but it wasn't like a hard push, but you went, "I would give him another shot." And I went back and I actually really enjoyed The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover. And another one I watched, and now I can't remember what it was.
Ari Aster: There's A Zed & Two Noughts, which is pretty brilliant. He made a film really early on called The Falls, which is really fascinating. About, I think it's something like, I'm going to get this wrong, where it's like 88 people who all died in mysterious ways, who have Fall in their last name.
Bill Hader: Oh, wow. Wow.
Ari Aster: It's like a three-hour experiment. Yeah, he's really fascinating. The Baby of Macon is just pure, it's like a diseased movie, just truly misanthropic. I feel like the word misanthropic, like it's applied to Lars Von Trier, which I don't agree with, I think there's too much life in those films to be actually misanthropic. But Peter Greenaway, he's sucked all the human personality out of the films. And I love them, but they're really, really... And I just happened to see them when I was 12, 13, and it was just a mistake. Like it really fucking bothered me and I couldn't get them out of my system for years.
Bill Hader: Yeah, it's amazing when you see a certain thing at the right time. Like Clockwork Orange and Taxi Driver always have a huge impact on me because I saw them at a sleepover.
Ari Aster: Yeah, those movies are like my parents.
Bill Hader: Yeah, you just go, "Well, I saw those at a sleepover. I'm never the same again." And became just kind of obsessed with movies after that. And Aguirre, the Wrath of God's another one. I think that's why I got that Scenarios book, I've always been just constantly drawn back to that.
Ari Aster: The monkeys crawling all over the boat.
Bill Hader: Unbelievable. But the POV, that movie is a master point of view of where they just stay on the raft, and those shots of the natives just looking at them. And any other movie, they would've gone behind the natives and you would've been tracking along them, and you're with them, but he doesn't do that, he just stays on the raft. And I still think one of the most haunting images is when they leave that horse.
Ari Aster: Yeah, no, it's amazing.
Bill Hader: And he holds on that as they just drift away from that horse, and you kind of go, "Well, that thing, it's going to get eaten in five minutes," or something.
Ari Aster: Yeah, so many of his experiments, they yield such amazing results. Like Heart of Glass where everybody's hypnotized.
Bill Hader: Yeah. Have you seen the footage of him hypnotizing the people?
Ari Aster: Yeah, it's amazing.
Bill Hader: It's amazing.
Ari Aster: It's so fucking incredible.
Bill Hader: And it's so much work.
Ari Aster: Yeah. My favorite films of his are his documentaries, like Fata Morgana, Lessons in Darkness.
Bill Hader: Yeah, those are all great.
Ari Aster: My favorite is Land of Silence and Darkness?
Bill Hader: Darkness. Yeah.
Ari Aster: Is that what it's called?
Bill Hader: Yeah, that's a really tough movie.
Ari Aster: With the mute, deaf, blind people.
Bill Hader: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Ari Aster: It's amazing.
Bill Hader: That's a tough movie, but it's really beautiful. Yeah, he just likes such extreme subjects.
Ari Aster: Yeah.
Bill Hader: Yeah. I think I had a time in high school, where it was like all those things hit a... It was late elementary school. It was finding Scorsese and Kubrick, and stuff like that. And always loving Spielberg from a young age. But then getting to high school, it was Herzog, Wim Wenders. And then Errol Morris, where I saw The Thin Blue Line-
Ari Aster: Oh my God.
Bill Hader: ...In a government class. We were learning about the judicial system, and I thank God this guy Brady Pringle was like, "I'm going to play this movie about a murder."
Ari Aster: Well, then you parody it on Documentary Now!, which is the fucking greatest. You even nailed the Philip Glass score, where you make it even more insistent and repetitive.
Bill Hader: Yeah, like, "Na, nu. Na, nu. Na, nu. Na." Rhys Thomas and Alex Buono deserve a lot of credit for how good those things came out. They're the directors. But, yeah, and then I got a chance to meet Errol Morris and just for the American Cinematheque-
Ari Aster: He's amazing.
Bill Hader: ...And talk to him. And the thing is, you meet all these people and you're so kind of in awe of them, and it's the same... He was telling me, he's like, "I saw Douglas Sirk once at Telluride, and I was so excited. He's my favorite filmmaker. And he watched my first film, Gates of Heaven." Which is I think a masterpiece.
Ari Aster: I love it. That and Vernon, Florida.
Bill Hader: It's unbelievable.
Ari Aster: They're just these amazing works of portraiture.
Bill Hader: Yeah.
Ari Aster: And what he innovated was just bringing that level of aesthetic. There's a formalism to those films and a very subtle surrealism.
Bill Hader: Totally. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I watched both of those-
Ari Aster: He's a cartoonist. It's kind of a cartoonist sensibility.
Bill Hader: ...Because yeah, it's very well framed. I thought about, we have a mutual friend, Dan Clowes-
Ari Aster: Yeah, amazing.
Bill Hader: ...And Dan was one of our heroes. He's one of those guys that I go, "I can't believe I'm texting with this guy."
Ari Aster: I know. Dan's like my closest friend. He's just the greatest guy in the world. On top of being an absolute genius-
Bill Hader: Beyond genius, yeah.
Ari Aster: ...Beyond Crumb, is clearly the most important practitioner of his art.
Bill Hader: Yeah, he's amazing. And proves that you can be a really nice, normal person and still produce stuff-
Ari Aster: Such a decent-
Bill Hader: ...That's so... And he's still doing it. I mean, his last book was phenomenal.
Ari Aster: Monica, which is a masterpiece.
Bill Hader: Unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Ari Aster: Yeah. Monica feels like something of a magnum opus for him. But everything he was doing in Eightball for me was as important as any film or book. And especially speaking of portraits, his comic, Like A Weed, Joe.
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah. And like, The Happy Fisherman.
Ari Aster: Well, The Happy Fisherman with the fish that's sucking his dick all the time?
Bill Hader: Yeah.
Ari Aster: And then there's the... Who's the hobo with the-
Bill Hader: Oh, I know what you're talking about.
Ari Aster: ...So funny.
Bill Hader: They're so good. And then-
Ari Aster: I grew up wanting to make movies that felt like a Dan Clowes comic.
Bill Hader: ...Yeah. I remember reading Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, as a kid.
Ari Aster: That's the greatest.
Bill Hader: I was 19, and I lived in Arizona for a year, and I made friends with these guys who were really genius artists. And this guy, Andrew Rye, he had that on his floor. We lived back then, just stuff would be laying on the floor. And I remember picking it up and reading it and just being like, I've never read anything like this." And I was like, "Can I please take this home?" And I just read it two or three times and just could not believe how funny, and strange, and disturbing, and sad, and everything it was. And I just went, "Who's this guy?" And then-
Ari Aster: And some dream-
Bill Hader: ...To get to meet him recently and went to his house, and was just like, he and his wife are just two of the loveliest-
Ari Aster: Yeah, his wife Erika.
Bill Hader: ...Erika. Just two of the loveliest human beings I have ever met.
Ari Aster: The best people. And Erika, you see Enid Coleslaw, you see where Ghost World came from. I mean, yeah he-
Bill Hader: Nice people.
Ari Aster: ...Even he has a few of these dream comics, like The Gold Mommy. I don't know, but I'll bet David Chase-
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah.
Ari Aster: ...There's something of Clowes' dream language.
Bill Hader: There's like a Buñuel thing in there too. And I don't know if Dan likes Buñuel.
Ari Aster: Dan loves Buñuel.
Bill Hader: But there is a Buñuel thing there. But yeah, what I was going to say is, going back to Errol Morris and what we were talking about, is that yeah, Douglas Sirk went to see it and hated Gates of Heaven.
Ari Aster: Oh, really.
Bill Hader: He said, "That was a slideshow." And it just destroyed Errol Morris. He told me. And it weirdly made me feel like, "Oh, okay. Yeah, of course." Like that's how I feel anytime I meet one of my heroes, that I'd step in it or something. So I'm always like, "Don't meet them."
Ari Aster: Do you have any stories like that, that you'd feel comfortable?
Bill Hader: No. I'm trying to think of one that is really funny. My thing at SNL was always like, "Oh my God, Scorsese's doing a bit." And he was so nice, but I just went into his dressing room and immediately just was like, "I'm going to go see your Shirley Clarke movie tomorrow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I just wanted to rap with him so badly about movies. And I could tell he was like-
Ari Aster: To prove that you're on the level?
Bill Hader: And I could tell, he is like, "Oh yeah, you're great. Yeah, you're great." And then the producer just pulled my shirt and was like, "Bill, get out of his dressing room, please." So that's a thing. And I've seen him since then and it was great, but that's one of those things for two weeks I'm like, "What the fuck was wrong with me? Why did I do that?"
Ari Aster: I've only met him so many times, and every time I'm paralyzed by the need to make him love me.
Bill Hader: Yeah, I'm the same way. And then I worked with Spielberg, and a similar kind of thing. And then there's certain people you become friends with. Like the South Park guys meant a lot to me, and then I got to become friends with them. And then Alfonso Cuarón, seeing his films, seeing Y Tu Mamá También and Children of Men, I was just like, "Wow, this guy is amazing." And now we're friends. So every once in a while you get to-
Ari Aster: He's a really nice guy.
Bill Hader: ...He's like Don Rickles.
Ari Aster: Yeah, he's funny.
Bill Hader: He's unbelievably funny, like insanely funny. You would never watch Roma and think that that guy is so good at burning people.
Ari Aster: Maybe A Little Princess, though. You could see it then.
Bill Hader: A Little Princess. You could see it in A Little Princess. But just very sweet. And the reason I became friends with him is he saw Barry and just went, "Man, you're a great director," and was so nice. But actually now I think about George Miller, I met him, he was so freaking nice.
Ari Aster: I've never met him. Yeah, he's amazing.
Bill Hader: He's such a nice dude. Yeah, but there's others where you just see them from afar and you're like, "I'm not going to go."
Ari Aster: ...Did you see Furiosa? I'm sure you did.
Bill Hader: Oh, yeah. I loved it.
Ari Aster: I love Furiosa so much.
Bill Hader: Yeah. I thought it was great.
Ari Aster: I saw that just after we wrapped Eddington, Darius and I went to go see Furiosa.
Bill Hader: It's great.
Ari Aster: And we were both, we were so giddy coming out of the theater.
Bill Hader: Yeah, I saw it with Ali, and we just loved it. We just went, man, "What a movie."
Ari Aster: What a vision.
Bill Hader: Yeah, his vision is... And again, it's all kind of self-taught, it doesn't feel like it comes from anywhere.
Ari Aster: He was making that film at 80? It's just-
Bill Hader: Yeah, he's 80. And when you talk to him about movies, he really likes M*A*S*H. Battle of Algiers and the movie M*A*S*H.
Ari Aster: Yeah. Well, M*A*S*H is so great. That's the funniest.
Bill Hader: You never see M*A*S*H and Battle of Algiers and go, "Oh, that guy will make Road Warrior." Do you know what I mean? And that's what so interesting-
Ari Aster: Although maybe those are actually-
Bill Hader: Actually as I said it out loud.
Ari Aster: ...That's exactly right.
Bill Hader: Oh, that's true. As I said it out loud, maybe you're right. Yeah, that's true. I just remember I was like, "Oh, okay." And Clockwork Orange too, he likes that one.
Ari Aster: Is there anything else that I want to say to you? I talked about how much I loved Barry.
Bill Hader: I said everything I wanted to say.
Ari Aster: Well, you're so generous. Thank you, man.
Bill Hader: No, it's all true. Yeah, this is going to say, "Bill Hader sucks Ari Aster's dick on..."
Ari Aster: This is what helps. I mean, this is really helpful.
Bill Hader: Oh, okay.
Ari Aster: Thank you. It's really great to have somebody smart with great taste, like actually advocating for the movie.
Bill Hader: Does that mean you guys will fund my next movie? That's why I did this.