Good evening.
My name is Sophie Cavoulacos , I'm a
curator of film at MoMA.
So delighted to be with
all of you here tonight in L.A.
And it is my great, great pleasure
to introduce Golden Globe
nominated actress greta Lee.
Give it up.
I had to.
I was just saying, I've been trying
to get my kids to call me the Golden
Globe nominee Mommy,
and they are ignoring me.
Yes.
Well, we're trying to trying it out
here. We're loving it.
And just so thrilled to celebrate
all the great successes of the
film, past lives and of your great
success, Greta.
But we were just saying backstage,
it's been a year, right?
It's been it's been a journey from
Sundance all the way up
now to award season.
It's a film that I think has made an
impact on a lot of people, has meant
a lot to people in different
ways.
And I just love
to hear about the beginning, about
getting the script and starting
to work with Celine.
I mean, well, first of all, I have
to acknowledge that for us,
the awards and all of this, it is so
incredibly exciting and surreal.
But really for us, what what
it means is that is that people
are watching our movie,
which is incredible.
And that's that's the thing.
And to realize
that after all of this time, because
we did we premiered at Sundance
now almost a full year ago,
and to be here now
talking about this movie in this
capacity is
completely wild to us and
is so dreamy.
So, yeah, that
being said, the
beginning of this process, yes, it
does go back many years,
actually. As you know,
films take a long time.
And I remember
distinctly the moment that,
I mean, I got this script.
It was a somewhat traditional
path in that I got an
email from my agents and I think
the subject line said something
like, you know, do you speak
Korean?
It's almost as if there are,
you know, as if, you know, agency.
Do you ski?
You know, do you have your scuba
license? It's just sort of like,
what can you do?
And to be honest, I thought
initially, oh, no,
because I just I
don't know. I think I had my own
assumptions about what kind of movie
I'd be, I'd be what script I'd
be reading if, you know, I'm
imagining a full script in
Oh, look at this.
And it's like we're taking
off into space.
Very cinematic.
Yes, it is.
Anyways, I.
I read the script completely blind,
not knowing anything about Celine
at the time and
not knowing anything at all.
And I have to say that even after
all of this time, reading that
the script is probably the closest
in terms of matching maybe what
your experience is like watching
them the film.
I'm in the film, so it is different
for me when I watch it, but
in reading the scripts
I have never.
Been so profoundly
impacted
by words.
By a PDF file.
Truly.
And even the practically
speaking, the experience of trying
to read while being
blinded by your own tears
was like a totally new experience
as well.
But I think that it was immediately
clear that whatever this
was, was incredibly
was extraordinary.
It was very plain to see
and to to read, and that it
was incredibly ambitious.
And I found it so
subversive in everything it was
and everything that it wasn't.
And I wanted it badly.
And so I auditioned and
then I didn't get the job.
Yeah.
And then.
Yes.
And then.
Well, you know, as is the case,
often, sometimes things don't go
your way, and sometimes they hurt
more than you know.
Then other jobs that don't work out.
And in this case, this one was
it it was painful.
But I at the time,
I assumed I thought,
you know, surely there are many
other Korean women who speak
Korean much better than I do.
And, you know, I know that
there are all kinds of
justifications in my mind.
And then almost a full year later,
completely out of the blue, I got
a call.
They had recast the movie,
essentially. Selene This is based
on a real experience
that she had, and she
describes it as when she
initially
decided to make the movie and had
and cast the movie.
She had it in her mind that
the triptych would end
with the two characters, Nora and
Hansel and Arthur
being in their late twenties because
that's how old she was when this
actually happened to her.
And then as time
passed and she became 30
and 31 and three, she realized
that this idea that
29 is the most interesting
year of anyone's life
sort of faded away.
And that's when the older actors
came in.
So they pulled us out of our nursing
homes and gave us this
chance.
I never thought of the age
power aspect of
when I think of your performance,
but what you are describing
is something I think really special,
which is that, you know, to me this
is a kind of like instant classic
in a way, a film that
hasn't made already in 12 months
a really important impact on
contemporary cinema, how we think
about cinema, but it's also
incredibly a first feature.
And so, you know, you're
working with someone who's coming
from theater, making her first film,
but it's also clear
in what you've just said and in
seeing the film that it's
you working with somebody with a
real intensity
and like clarity of vision,
even, you know, the film is about
love, it's about destiny, but it
actually is like transcending those
things and such.
What you said some subversive, like,
that's like a wonderful way to think
about it. Such a daring way.
And I would just love to hear more
about, like those conversations with
Celine. Like, how did you.
Yes, it's a romantic triangle, but
it's actually so much more than
that. Like, what was that like?
Well, it's hard it is hard to
separate the writer from the
director. And first of all, we are
all deeply suspicious that
this is her directorial debut.
I feel like enough time has passed
that she can just come clean and be
honest about that, and we wouldn't
hold it against her.
I have never met anyone
like her, and I don't
I don't mean to be hyperbolic about
that. She is.
She is super human.
She's like an alien.
She.
She's a master.
I have never experienced
getting to witness someone
literally step into their gift.
I don't imagine I will
have many more experiences
like that.
It is was clear that collectively
our producers
are all of the departments,
our entire crew, the rest of
the cast, certainly we all assembled
together
because of the script.
Initially it was the script.
And then imagine our shock
when when then it became,
oh, we came for the script, but now
we're staying for the director.
How can this be?
And I think
it is hard almost to articulate
what it is that is so exquisite
about Celine.
She has such a profoundly
mature
acceptance of
she's so generous in her
portrayals.
If you notice that the
men in this film,
there are no villains there very
easily could have been
and there's no shouting.
In a lot of ways.
It's an exceptionally proud
film, which
Celine is very proud of
at night, but I find that
extraordinary.
And she is so invested
in the and
the dignity and grace
of human beings
in a world where certainly that
is not so supported.
I mean, we are continuously
reminded that we within the
marketplace, in the industry,
for us, it has
been so much more about
the loudest voice in the room.
And this film was absolutely
the antithesis of that in
every way. And that is all
because of Celine.
Yeah, there's so
much more I could say about her.
Well, it's yeah,
I mean, the film is so, but
it's like the sense of intimacy
and emotion is so
palpable, but it's also
so subtle in the way that
things are lives through, the way
emotions feel.
And but there's one thing that
really comes across that I want
to ask you about, which is this kind
of the tension,
the kind of emotional caliber and
tension of these relationships.
You again, we're not talking about
the kind of traditional in a
cinematic romantic triangle, but you
clearly had to build different
kinds of rapport with your two
costars.
And I've heard that Celine had
very specific notions about how that
might, you know, again,
really like build up.
Yeah.
Well, it does take two
very exceptional
and extraordinary kinds of actors
to take on these roles.
Teo you and John Magaro,
I, I, we could not
have done this without those
two artists
and Celine had once we
were all assembled, she had this
idea, she had certain
experiments in mind
for the two of them.
She really
was certain that
it was necessary to keep them
absolutely separate because
she wanted to protect
these distinct
individual worlds that
Nora and his gang had
and Nora and Arthur would have.
And she felt that the only
way to conjure that,
the essence of that experience
of having these two men who
would know Nora so completely
differently in
totally different ways and different
languages and different cultures,
the only way to do that was to do
was to keep them apart.
So the moment in the film
when his young and
Arthur meet for the first time,
was actually the exact
moment John Magaro
and Teo, you met for the very
first time,
and she ended up using that take
because, as she says, it
was the best take.
And what that meant for me was
I had to
keep them separate and she
would ask me to
talk about the each
of them to the other respectively,
to sort of create a sort of
professional jealousy
or an interest
or curiosity intrigue.
There you go. Yes.
Which was very fun for me to do.
So I wanted to get a little bit more
into into Nora and how
we kind of envisioned her, because
we have, again, these two
relationships.
But there's also. So the
relationship essentially that she
has with herself,
which Celine spoke about so
beautifully when we did the Q&A
in New York,
in a way, you know, the we have
these like three chapters like we
have we see the evolution of the
character.
We
it's not a film that's like a period
piece, but we certainly there is
kind of the evolution of time and
seeing her in New York in a
specific time, like trying to make
it and seeing her at a later stage.
And I was just curious
how this kind of structure
kind of fed into how you thought
about the role or how you worked
with it.
I mean, I think that we
okay, in the West, we have
a very certain idea of what love
is, the
way we experience it culturally, the
way we consume it in our art,
in our films.
Certainly.
I think, though, what was so
interesting for us and felt very
radical from the very beginning,
both in the script and in our
conversations with Celine, was
thinking about love, maybe
in a more Eastern way, in a more
expansive way, where love
as opposed to in the West, it being
some sort of actionable
sort of decision,
a path, a right way or wrong
way, the right person, the wrong
person, that love
in it of itself
could exist as sort of a its
own genuine form,
that that is something that
is related to anyone that we
see in this film and how
love can yet be
a tangible,
ever changing experience
and part of your
life. And and even
this idea that for someone
like Nora, the greatest romance
in her life could actually be the
one that she has with
herself living
her own life.
So all of these ideas felt
very exciting to
us.
And that first conversation Celine
and I had, I think we were kind
of like giggly girls
trying to full of this
ambition. And when wondering, you
know, could we pull this off, how
could we take these somewhat
ordinary scenes,
somewhat conventional and
simple scenes,
and make them feel extraordinary?
And yeah.
I have completely forgotten what
your question was.
No, no, but.
But. But that was just it that
the relationship with herself is is
is the one that's actually
prioritized in the film.
And that is. And that you don't see
on screen. Really.
Yeah.
And it it also
it reminds me of
just this idea of a woman at the
center of a of a love
triangle and
how to present
a woman who is not formed
by the person she loves.
A woman who crafted
by Celine is entirely
herself.
She is so Nora
is so unapologetically
ambitious.
Yes.
And in a lot of ways, I mean, her
first her first love is is her
own future.
And I found that.
So moving as
as a woman myself.
And and I found that
to be such
a an exceptional challenge
to.
To ask questions about love
and and loss and the
choices that we make from that
place. From a place of knowingness,
actually from a place of strength.
What happens when when
you think you know, when when
your plate is very full and
you are confronted
with a ghost, a ghost from your
past?
I want to ask you a little bit about
the aspect of making the film a bit
of a process.
And one thing that
kind of stuck out to me was that
the these intense relationships
that you're depicting
or thinking about start
with the childhood
years and these incredible
young actors.
And I was curious how much
you worked with
them directly or were involved with
them again, seeing how these
wonderful stories about them.
Yes.
Single and something they
are extraordinary.
Some guy who plays a young Nora
I call
the young Meryl Streep of South
Korea.
She is.
She I, I
owe so much to her.
And we
were very
methodical about trying
to carry through
the physicality and the
gestures of of these
children.
Teo and I, I mean, we we talk
all the time about how
we really we are so grateful
for the chemistry that they
establish in the film
for us to I mean, we
are coming off of the wings
of what they, they,
they have in such a beautiful
and pure
in this way that we, that we really
tried to grab on to later
on.
And there are moments like the end
of the film when we first get
to see Nora cry as
an adult.
We did things like I
had video footage of
tuna crying
because we hadn't shot
that sequence.
We hadn't the Korea unit
hadn't been set up yet, so
we needed to make sure that
whatever I was going to be doing
as the adult version of her
would correlate.
So we got to use
young footage of her.
I mean, it sounds kind of sadistic
now that I'm saying it aloud of
literally making her cry
repeatedly.
It's just so I could make sure my
performance was.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's that's the
power of the emotion.
But maybe on an unrelated
note, I'd love to hear a little bit.
I mean, you make it look so
effortless, all of you.
But an
international production, a
bilingual production and crew,
it just seems to relate
to the ethos of the film, maybe even
the values of the film.
What was it like working in that
way?
Making this movie was a complete
dream come true on
so many levels.
Yes, of course.
Professionally, for me to have
this experience, to be
able to play a leading
role for for the first time, and
I think maybe at this
point around two decades
of working
that putting that even aside,
I think just the idea that we
were making this film with a 24.
In New York City,
shot on one camera
and 35 millimeter.
Often on locations like
with the Statue of Liberty behind
us.
And feeling like, is
it possible that we're we are
redefining what it means
to be an American film
speaking almost entirely in a
language that nobody could
understand.
Most of our crew couldn't speak
Korean and to have hold
signs and if you're familiar
these pages, it's like a
small, shrunken down script
that were in Korean.
I just cannot.
It was so unspeakably special,
and it made me genuinely
optimistic for
what kinds of movies we will
continue to have.
I mean, for me, selfishly as a
consumer, that maybe there will
continue to be movies like
this.
And I am I'm not just saying, you
know, movies about the immigrant
experience or that, you know, I have
to be in movies where I am at the
center of my own story.
I just mean movies that
can be about love, that can
have this kind of restraint
and that the power
of this kind of quiet I
have found very invigorating
in this in this current world.
It's meant so much to so many
people. I think you know that more
than anyone. You've seen so many
audiences respond to it.
And speaking of,
we have the great chance to take
just a few audience questions
pertinent and brief audience
questions. So
please raise your hands.
Thank you so much.
Their mikes in the room.
Beautiful work.
I wanted to ask you about your dance
with Celine.
Given that this is you are basically
playing her story and your
moment to moment work with Teo
was so in the moment.
How did you both balance
her explaining to you her experience
or did she reserve that?
Did she communicate a lot of
her experience or did she allow
you to create her experience
in essence, without.
Do you understand what I'm.
I do, yes.
I think that my answer
to that question is the markings
of an excellent director
are.
It's that that ability to
hand over completely
almost the soul of a person,
even if that person is
is you.
She i i
it it is that kind of exceptional
gift, the generosity
of giving it over
to me entirely.
And there was never
this sense that I was trying to
replicate an experience even that
she had.
And I think also hearing her explain
that, yes, the genesis,
the seed of this film, it
is this moment that she actually
had. She found herself sitting
at a bar flanked between two
men in real life, her
actual husband, her Jewish
husband and
her childhood, her childhood
sweetheart who actually
came to visit her from Korea.
And that experience
of sitting at
this, the threshold between these
two men that spawned the entire
film.
However, from there, she
adamantly feels that
that it it it is a departure
that this is an autobiographical.
So that that did
help. That was very liberating.
And I also I feel compelled to
share that.
I think sometimes with this style
of filmmaking, with naturalism,
there might be a certain assumption
that we're sort of leaving things to
chance and that, you know, Teo
and I could just sort of show up
and see what happens.
I was very handsome.
Maybe I can just look at and then,
you know, we can find something.
However, this
was so surgical
and deliberate.
I come from comedy and doing
improv comedy.
I could not use those skills
for this film.
I was strongly discouraged from
doing so, rightfully so.
But what this experience was,
was honoring the script, and
it was all Celine's vision.
It was much more like
following a musical score.
The emotional beats of
every scene, every moment
was decided
on before.
And of course, there within
that kind of framework there, it
becomes freeing.
Then discoveries can
be made and there are certain
inventions that are that
that can be made by us.
But but that's
always a kind of distinction.
That's something that I feel very
eager to share about the making of
this.
Is it true that you and Teo
were not able to have any kind of
physical touch?
Yes. That's the other experiment
that Celine felt very strongly
about.
She had asked us not
to ever touch each other, physically
touch, which makes it sound
a lot more explicit than it really.
I mean, I think she were just
talking about no hugging
because actors tend to hug each
other all the time.
So she had asked
us not to touch
until the moment that we
do as adults in
Madison Square Garden.
So that hug is the first
time we actually
made physical contact.
Which was interesting, I think.
You know, we've we were
admittedly initially
sort of, I don't
know, skeptical because it seems
sort of like a mastery thing to do.
And we were kind of
thinking like, does she doubt that
we can hug effectively?
Is this necessary?
But it did do something interesting.
It created a question.
The question about what is
what is longing?
What is what is the physicality
of love?
It is a full body experience
to fall in love with somebody.
So all of those things ended up
being very helpful in in
creating moments like that.
Extraordinary.
A few more questions.
I love this film.
It was amazing and made me feel a
lot.
I was wondering if you'd have any
insight on this.
I noticed that Nora never said
goodbye throughout the whole film,
and I was wondering if.
You.
Knew why or if you had
any insight.
On that.
Oh, I wish Celine was here for this.
She has.
I'm going to ruin it.
And I think there's this film
there, so there's going to be
evidence of my insufficient
answer.
I love this question because
you're right. She never says
the words.
She does not say goodbye.
But the way Celine
sees it, it's a series of
goodbyes.
Again, I think I'm going to ruin and
that the number of goodbyes.
But there are the sort of bad
goodbyes,
the unsatisfactory ones
as children, the inability
to say goodbye,
and then another
opportunity maybe to make up
for an insufficient
bad goodbye later on
with, I guess, arguably
a very excellent goodbye.
And the choice of when to do
it. Right.
We will take. I think we'll take one
more.
This is really one of the most
beautiful movies I've ever seen in
my life, and it gave me a lot
of hope for the future.
As you were saying, you know, I saw
this movie the first time this
summer at the Century City Mall, and
the theater was packed.
And I just thought maybe we
have a shot here at movies
coming back and movies that are
really about something.
And
the author comforting
you at the end in your grief
and heartbreak was
just something I've never seen in a
movie before. I thought that was
incredibly beautiful.
My question is,
did you and Celine have
conversations about what kind of
playwright you were or what kind
of plays you wrote? And I saw there
was a copy of Arthur Miller's
The Price On Your Desk and
Arthur Miller fan.
I may be curious.
We did. We did.
We had some conversations initially
about, you know, Beckett and about,
you know, I come from theater as
well, But I have to say, more
so than that, it was about this
kind of unburdened,
very
pure, kind of just
straight ambition
that could translate across whatever
sort of medium, be it
theater or playwriting or
that that is that was the goal.
And I think there were there were
versions of this film
that incorporated, you
know, more of a, I guess, what you
could call a back story.
I think there were some very
beautiful scenes in Montauk where
Nora and Arthur were espousing
their sort of mutual love of this,
actually, Arthur Miller.
But I think that in
the spirit of what the movie
was going to be about and
all the things that we had to cover
it, it is I guess it's it's
interesting to me to realize that
those things ended up falling
off and not being part of the larger
conversation in terms of who
Nora is.
These are all very good questions.
Should take one more. One more,
maybe. Yeah. One.
One more.
Thank you. Really excellent.
Work. Thank you so much.
So I'm supposed to be sitting.
I want to ask you about
the statement about the little girl,
because it seemed clear
that the.
Little.
Girl was still there, but
nor in her
adult form was denying
that. That's how I saw
it. Can you tell me how
you saw it?
So you're talking about the bar
scene? Yes.
Where Nora and his gang are
discussing
union and their
past selves.
I mean, I think that that is
the complexity
of
identity that is being discussed,
because on the one hand,
Celine was very
certain that we it
was sort of like
a funeral, that she was at
her own funeral that she
was attending and
finally getting to have for herself
in a lot of ways.
And and that speaks
to a certain kind of experience,
whether you're an immigrant who
moved somewhere or if
you're just someone who made
a big change in your life,
that kind of
reconciliation with that part
of you that can no longer exist.
But I do I feel like in
that moment for
me, it has so much more to
do with his home and
what his own.
It's her gift to his own
in because arguably
the most romantic gesture in
the film is the act, his
songs act of coming
to her and
and as a ghost,
as a hologram
of her past, and
gifting her the opportunity
to say goodbye.
And I think in that moment,
in describing
and re conjuring the ghost
of that girl,
it is sort of the
her gift back to his
home.
And I do think that
she, in a
hopeful way, she
is telling him that
she has gone
almost, you know, and giving him
license to move forward.
And for him now to say goodbye
now that he's finally come
to see Nora and confront
his own ghost, the ghost of his
his past.
You've been so very generous with us
tonight, and I know we'll be talking
about this film for years and years
to come. I really want to
have everybody here the most warm
congratulations and all the very
best.
Thank you so much.
This is my pleasure.
Thank you.