美国国家公共电台 NPR Ira Sachs And Jennifer Ehle: Stage And Screen Collide（在线收听）

Ira Sachs And Jennifer Ehle: Stage And Screen Collide

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

This is NPR's ASK ME ANOTHER. I'm your host Ophira Eisenberg, and it's time to bring out our next two guests. She's an actor who starred in "Zero Dark Thirty," "Contagion," as well as the BBC's "Pride And Prejudice." He's the director of "Love Is Strange" and "Keep The Lights On." Their new movie is called "Little Men." Please welcome actor Jennifer Ehle and director Ira Sachs.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Welcome.

IRA SACHS: Thank you.

EISENBERG: Thanks so much for being on the show.

JENNIFER EHLE: Thank you.

SACHS: Thanks for having us.

EISENBERG: Pleasure. Ira, I feel like you were born to be a director. You've spent a lot of your childhood at Sundance because...

SACHS: Oh, yeah.

EISENBERG: ...You were visiting your father there.

SACHS: Yeah. My father moved to Park City in Winnebago...

EISENBERG: (Laughter) That's awesome.

SACHS: ...In 1972, I guess, he got to Sundance Park City before Robert Redford arrived, and there was a festival there for film. And I started going to the movies when I was 12, and I would go there just to visit my dad and go to the movies during that festival.

EISENBERG: After college, you went to Paris, but did you see Paris? No, you didn't.

SACHS: I did not. I was a very lonely non-French-speaking Memphian in Paris who had no friends, and so I saw two or three movies a day. I saw a hundred and ninety-seven movies in a three-month period.

(LAUGHTER)

SACHS: Changed my life.

EISENBERG: And then you applied to some top film schools - NYU being one of them - did not get in.

SACHS: I did not get into any of the film schools I applied to.

EISENBERG: But then you became a filmmaker and then taught at NYU in the graduate program.

SACHS: Yes. Yes. I went back with a vengeance.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Yeah. So what was it like teaching at a program that rejected you?

SACHS: Well, you know, I actually felt that there was some advantage of never being taught how to make films, but only sort of learning it instinctually. I had a sense from a very young age that I was actually making things that were meaningful in the world. And I think that's something the film school often takes away from people. They feel like the teacher has to give them approval, so I always tried to give my students kind of the initiative to take their work seriously.

EISENBERG: And have a specific voice, allow yourself to have a voice.

SACHS: Exactly. And I think that there is, within film school, a sense that there's always something you're supposed to make that other people are making. And what I would always tell my students is probably like if they made a film about their mother, it would be the most personal film and the most specific film and actually be one that people care about.

EISENBERG: Yeah. Do you know why in hindsight they rejected you?

SACHS: Stupidity.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Yes, I agree. I agree.

SACHS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: Now, Jennifer, I'm a huge fan. I read that when you're not working, you live on a farm and you raise chickens and play board games which basically makes you exactly like most of our listeners.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: So just to make them happy, what kinds of chickens are you raising?

EHLE: Well, we only have two chickens at the moment.

EISENBERG: OK. That's OK. That's OK.

EHLE: We had seven two weeks ago, but something ate five of them.

EISENBERG: Was it you?

EHLE: No.

EISENBERG: Are you...

(LAUGHTER)

EHLE: No.

EISENBERG: No, OK.

EHLE: It was not.

EISENBERG: It was a chicken hawk.

EHLE: It was a chicken hawk or a bear or a fox. But one of the chickens, Plato - pretentiously named Plato - she got very broody right after this happened. Maybe it's a response to the flock being decimated, and she wouldn't leave the nesting box. We thought she was traumatized at first, but she's broody. And we don't have a rooster so nothing was going to happen to those eggs. She was sitting on. So we got six eggs from a farmer friend and slipped them under her, and she has taken to them.

EISENBERG: No way.

EHLE: And she is there sitting on them right now, and she's been sitting on them for a week. And if she lasts another two weeks, then we might have six roosters.

EISENBERG: Whoa.

EHLE: I don't know what we would - I don't know what they'll be. We don't know.

EISENBERG: That's right.

EHLE: Yeah, it's a surprise. So it's very exciting.

EISENBERG: And what's your favorite board game of the board games you're playing?

EHLE: Oh, God. You know, I love Clue.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

EHLE: And nobody will play Clue with me, but I love it.

EISENBERG: Why not?

EHLE: My family doesn't like it. I love Risk as well.

EISENBERG: No.

EHLE: You don't like Risk?

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: No clue.

JONATHAN COULTON: You weren't good at risk I bet.

EISENBERG: I was terrible at Risk.

COULTON: I can tell.

EISENBERG: I was terrible at Risk. Now, Jennifer, you kind of grew up onstage. Your mother's a famous actress, Rosemary Harris, and, you know, people know her from TV and film and movies. A lot of our listeners would know her, of course, as Aunt May from "Spiderman" because we have a lot of superhero fans. And in 2000, you and your mom were nominated for Tonys in the category of best actress in a play.

EHLE: Yes.

EISENBERG: Both of you up against each other and then you won.

EHLE: Yes.

EISENBERG: What was that car ride home like?

(LAUGHTER)

EHLE: It was - my mother couldn't be more wonderful and supportive, and we were both thrilled to be nominated. Neither of us expected to win, and she was very generous and always is.

EISENBERG: Yes, she never has said I made...

EHLE: No (laughter).

EISENBERG: ...You who you are. Did she ever do that?

EHLE: No, never (laughter).

EISENBERG: Let's talk about the new film "Little Men." Ira, I will let you describe this film in your words.

SACHS: The film is about two boys who are 12 and 13 who become best friends at the same point and moment where their parents become worst enemies. So it's a film about childhood and specifically it's set in a corner of Brooklyn where they're fighting over a very particular storefront. One set of parents owns it. The other one rents it, and there's a problem over the lease. So it's also about the changing nature of neighborhoods and the Brooklyn that I know.

EISENBERG: Yeah. That is constantly changing. And, Jennifer, you've played so many different roles, obviously a lot of people know you from "Pride And Prejudice," but you've done Shakespeare, you've played spies. In this film, you play a mother who's a psychologist and dealing with her son and these issues. What drew you to this role when you read the script?

EHLE: This was one of the most beautiful scripts I'd read, and it's very truthful. And it's about love and people, and you really feel like you get to know these people intimately. And that's quite a rare experience in film.

EISENBERG: Right, a very deep character study. So we have these relationships. We have the money problems and then this impact of New York real estate, which in "Love Is Strange," there's also a theme of New York real estate really impacting the main characters' lives.

SACHS: Right.

EISENBERG: So I understand this because I live here. But how do you feel someone in another part of the country?

SACHS: Well, I think it's pretty clear that everyone worries about where they're going to live and how they're going to pay for it. I sort of feel like if you get the details right, then it will resonate widely.

EISENBERG: Yeah, and do other New Yorkers come up to you and ask you about any of the apartments that are in the films?

SACHS: You were the first.

EISENBERG: I was the first?

SACHS: (Laughter) Yeah.

EISENBERG: I'm obsessed with this.

SACHS: As I told you, it was a fiction.

EISENBERG: Yes, Yes.

SACHS: So that apartment - don't go looking for that apartment.

EISENBERG: It was like, how did you get that apartment?

SACHS: (Laughter).

EISENBERG: Ira, you founded and curate a film festival called Queer/Art/Film. And actually, you've created a mentorship program to promote queer film artists. What would you like to see more of when it comes to LGBT film?

SACHS: Money.

EISENBERG: Just more money. It needs to be funded.

SACHS: Well, I would like to see a whole apparatus that supports and encourages the - it gives artists the permission to tell these stories. Capitalism does not do that. So I try to create an apparatus that allows that. And if you've got any money, come talk to me.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Yes.

SACHS: I mean, I sort of make that as a joke. But I actually think that in some ways, my films are all about money. They're all about how people try to navigate through the various complicated sort of negotiations that you have to make in a daily life around income.

EISENBERG: Now, you said as a screenwriter, you write 90 percent of it, but you leave 10 percent up for improv.

SACHS: Yes. Often I want tension between the documentary kind of very realistic elements and the more scripted material in the film. And what it does is it makes the whole film feel, I think, to audiences, very familiar. They know those people because they're not controlled by the director or the filmmaker in every moment.

EISENBERG: More authentic.

SACHS: Alfred Molina, who I've now worked with on "Love Is Strange" in this film said that I'm a director that wants everyone to be extremely free and don't follow anything but to get all the lines exactly right.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: All right, are you guys ready for your ASK ME ANOTHER challenge?

EHLE: Yes.

SACHS: Yes.

EISENBERG: OK, great.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: So, Jennifer, you've won two Tonys. Ira, you're a huge cinephile. So here's your game. Jonathan Coulton and I will perform dramatic readings from movies that were adapted from plays...

SACHS: Oh, wow.

EISENBERG: ...That either won or were nominated for Tony Awards.

SACHS: OK, we're excited.

EISENBERG: What do you think of that?

EHLE: All right, yeah.

EISENBERG: Yeah. So all you have to do is buzz in and identify the work. And I just want to let you know right now, I respect both of you. And what we're going to do right here as far as acting...

COULTON: Acting is generous.

EISENBERG: It's a joke, yeah. OK, here we go. In 1928, I had a big year. I averaged $170 dollars a week in commissions.

COULTON: Now, Willy, you never averaged...

EISENBERG: I averaged $170 a week in the year of 1928.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Ira.

SACHS: "Death Of A Salesman."

EISENBERG: That is correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EHLE: Hey, well done.

SACHS: Willy is what gave it away.

EHLE: Willy.

EISENBERG: I know. Did you know that one, Jennifer?

EHLE: No.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: So far, so good.

EISENBERG: Fix me another drink, lover.

COULTON: My God, you can't swill it down, can't you?

EISENBERG: Well, I'm thirsty.

COULTON: Oh, Jesus.

EISENBERG: Look, sweetheart, I can drink you under any goddamn table you want. So don't worry about me.

COULTON: I gave you the prize years ago, Martha. There isn't an abomination award going that you haven't won.

EISENBERG: I swear to God, George, if you even existed, I'd divorce you.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: Jennifer.

EHLE: "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?"

EISENBERG: (Laughter) That is correct.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Did that hurt you seeing us do that?

SACHS: I was wondering if you were going to switch - no, you're not going to switch gender roles here. You're going to...

COULTON: No, we're totally normative here.

SACHS: OK.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Why can't you lose your good looks, Brick? Most drinking men lose theirs. I think you've even gotten better looking since you went on the bottle. You are such a wonderful lover.

COULTON: I'm going to be late.

EISENBERG: Oh, Brick, how long does this have to go on, this punishment? Haven't I served my term? Can't I apply for a pardon?

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EISENBERG: (Laughter) Jennifer.

EHLE: (Laughter) "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof."

EISENBERG: Yes, yes indeed.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Matter of fact, the next line in the play is...

SACHS: Cat on the hot tin roof.

(LAUGHTER)

EISENBERG: Cat on the hot tin roof, exactly. Look, when you're in office, you've got to do a lot of things sometimes that aren't always in the strictest sense of the law, legal. But you do them because they're in the greater interest of the nation.

COULTON: Wait, just so I understand correctly, are you really saying that in certain situations, the president can decide whether it's in the best interest of the nation and then do something illegal?

EISENBERG: I'm saying that when the president does it, that means it's not illegal.

SACHS: Do you know?

EHLE: I have no idea.

EISENBERG: Oh, let's go to puzzle guru Art Chung for some...

SACHS: "Pretty Woman."

EISENBERG: ...Hints.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: Tony Award-winning play "Pretty Woman."

ART CHUNG: This was nominated for a Tony in 2007 but lost to "Coast Of Utopia." And it starred Frank Langella and Michael Sheen in the original West End production.

EHLE: And it was by Pete Morgan.

CHUNG: That is correct.

EHLE: Yeah. So I know the playwright...

(LAUGHTER)

EHLE: ...But I don't know that name of it.

SACHS: Nixon

CHUNG: Yes.

SACHS: Frost.

EISENBERG: Yes.

JENNIFER EHLE AND IRA SACHS: (In unison) "Frost/Nixon."

EISENBERG: "Frost/Nixon," that's correct.

CHUNG: We'll give you each a point for that.

EISENBERG: Yeah.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: This is your last clue. And now I'm just going to warn you, we had to replace the curse words with a phrase that would be acceptable to NPR's standards and practices.

SACHS: Oh.

COULTON: So don't let that throw you.

SACHS: Fudge.

COULTON: That's actually a little too close for NPR standards and practices. So let's talk about something important. Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closers only. You think I'm pledge driving with you?

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I am not pledge driving with you.

(LAUGHTER)

COULTON: I'm here from downtown. I'm here from Mitch and Murray. And I'm here on a mission of mercy.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SACHS: "Glengarry Glen Ross."

COULTON: You got it.

(APPLAUSE)

SACHS: It was the performance that really did it.

COULTON: I really sold it. I really sold it.

EISENBERG: Let's go to our puzzle guru, Art Chung.

CHUNG: Well, we have a tie.

EISENBERG: Whoa, we have a tie.

SACHS: Oh, that's how we wanted it.

CHUNG: One more buzzer question. This is a short one. Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

EHLE: "Streetcar Named Desire."

CHUNG: That is correct. Congratulations.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Thanks to both of you for playing. From Little Men, let's give it up for Ira Sachs and Jennifer Ehle.

(APPLAUSE)

COULTON: (Singing) In violent times, you shouldn't have to sell your soul. You shouldn't have to shout, shout. Let it all out. These are the things I can do without. Come on, talking to you, come on.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: Jonathan Coulton.

(APPLAUSE)