I always loved those early Elton John albums. I sort of keep going back there, |
I always thought I'd write about my dad, at some point, ... I didn't think it would be like this, but it arrived like this. I'd been listening to a lot of Garrison Keillor at the time. I love that simple story that ends on a grace note and you go, 'Wow, I'm just happy to be alive right now.' That was the feeling I was chasing. |
I do, I do!. There were songs like Ryan Adams' song 'Come Pick Me Up' that was sort of part of the writing. The Patty Griffin song 'Long Ride Home' you just try and earn with your script. Most great songs are their own movie without your help. So you just try to earn them really. |
I don't think [the residents of the town] really believed we'd come back, |
I felt his presence every day, beginning with the first day. |
I felt like I was seeing it with the audience it was made for, |
I just think if you play it, it seeps in, it seeps into the performances, it seeps into the atmosphere of the movie. And a lot of times I used the music ... while they were doing the scene. |
I knew 'Almost Famous' wasn't playing in theaters at that long length. And really, it wasn't one of those terrible squabbles that you read about, where people want to change their name or anything. Our toughest discussion was, did Kate Hudson dance too long? It wasn't that big of a deal. |
I like double albums, ... And this was kind of a double album. And with double albums, sometimes you say, 'Well this is a whole lot to process.' But then you listen to it again and you start to develop favorites and it gets a character all its own. And then you think maybe you see this movie later on TV and you start to think, 'Well, you know what? I get it. That all these themes are supposed to be part of a bigger simpler theme.' |
I liked the idea of beginning our movie with death, the place most movies end, |
I liked the idea of beginning the movie with death, because you sort of say well, where do we go from here. I think the only answer is life, and that's the ending of my movie. |
I liked the idea of fiasco as failure gone to church, ... How does that become a transcendent thing? And that morphed into the different mini-themes. |
I liked the idea of fiasco as failure gone to church. How does that become a transcendent thing? And that morphed into the different mini-themes. |
I liked the idea of starting the movie with the ending and ending it with the beginning, ... I feel that by the end Drew is ready to begin again. |
I love telling stories about people that don't normally get written about. It's a different kind of life here. This is a movie from the heart, and it's a little different from the normal movies you'll see. |