Rian Johnson Talks 'Poker Face', 'Knives Out' And 'Star Wars'
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Rian Johnson has had an interesting last ten years of his career. Taking an adventure to the galaxy far, far away, getting his own murder mystery film series on the go, and taking a different direction with that genre in a TV series. The second season of that last one, Poker Face, recently finished. Rolling Stone were able to interview Johnson on that season finale and more.
In asking about that finale, and why he had main character Charlie Cale end up a fugitive once more, Johnson talked about the episodic nature of the series. “From the start, it’s not like I had that ending mapped out when I started writing the season. I very much resisted the idea of putting a big season-wide arc on the wall. I just wanted to blue-sky individual episodic ideas, just to get the writers room, a few of whom were from last season, and a few of whom were new, in the right headspace. Just remembering that the engine of the show is episodic. So in that way, the arc of the whole thing emerged organically.”\
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He continued with why he wanted the series to be episodic, and how new things can always happen. “The decision to put her back on the run again wasn’t because her being in one place wasn’t working. I thought it was, and that we could keep going like this for a while. But it seemed interesting and fun. For me, part of the way I see the serialized dusting that we give each season is just to keep things interesting. It puts us in a spot where, if we find ourselves in another writers room again for the show, I don’t know what we would do next, and that’s fine.”
Moving onto the more silly moments within the series, and how Johnson let himself go to them in the writing process, he revealed, “That is very much distinct to the season. And I don’t know if we’ll do that if we keep making the show this way. I think you can tell from talking to me that the show is very much follow your bliss. I just felt like I wanted to have fun this season, and be a little bit sillier. And maybe an audience does, too. You push and pull, and you see if you go too far, and this and that. I didn’t want to delve into heavy questions about the nature of truth, even though the show inevitably has some elements of that. I wanted to just have fun, and I trusted that instinct, that maybe at least some of the audience would go with that as well.”
With regards to doing more seasons, Johnson said, “We haven’t really started the conversations. If it all makes sense and all comes together, I do love doing the show, and I have a blast doing it, and I feel like I could keep doing it together. But there are a lot of different factors. I’m not the brash young man that I once was!”
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In moving to the Knives Out films, Johnson was asked about the different tones each of the films are designed with, despite sharing the same character. He responded with, “What it comes down to, whether it’s in the movies or in the show, I feel like the experience I have making it is hopefully something that will get through and communicate to the audience. In other words, if I feel like I’m repeating the same thing, or turning the crank on the handle and turning out more of what I did last time, I’m not good enough to hide that from the audience. So what I end up chasing is the experience of each of these things.”
In continuing, he makes a very apt comparison to how repeating things can lose their excitement. “It’s not necessarily where I’m going to flip and do a totally different tone, but after three years of working on something that has a particular tone, it’s like you’ve been eating the same thing for lunch every day for three years. I’m more excited about doing something that feels new. That’s similar with the show. It’s not so much a conscious decision. In order to keep it exciting for myself, I don’t want to repeat myself.”
As for how he would describe the tone of the next film, Wake Up Dead Man, Johnson stated, “It’s much more a Gothic, much more grounded tone. It’s more similar to the first one in that way. It kind of gets back to the real origins of the genre, which, predating [Agatha] Christie, go back to [Edgar Allen] Poe.” And speaking of Christie, that’s who Johnson has taken inspiration from for not having main star Daniel Craig as the protagonist of the stories. “It’s something that all good whodunnits do. In a lot of Christie’s books, she did this as well: There’s a protagonist who’s not the detective.”
In continuing to explain, he makes another apt comparison to a certain thriller that’s celebrating its 50th anniversary. “Ultimately, these types of movies have to be driven by the same engine. You have to care about a character getting or not getting what they want. The detective is more akin to the shark in Jaws, more of a godlike presence in the movie. It’s very hard to sell emotional stakes regarding the detectives themselves.”
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Onto The Last Jedi, where Johnson was asked about the speculation there had been no communication between him and J.J. Abrams in how to continue the story that Abrams started. To that, Johnson had to say, “We communicated. We met and I spent several days with him and was able to get into his head and all the choices he had made. That being said, I communicated and I went and made the movie. And he was in the middle of Force Awakens. Ultimately, I feel like the choices in it, none of them were born out of an intent to undo anything. They were all born out of the opposite intent of, how do I take this story that J.J. wrote, that I really loved, and these characters he created that I really loved, and take them to the next step?”
In offering up an example of the speculation, of how Force Awakens sets up Snoke as the big villain of the trilogy only to see Kylo Ren kill him in Last Jedi, Johnson reveals his thoughts behind that. “That was, in reading J.J.’s script, and watching the dailies, and seeing the power of Adam Driver’s character. The interrogation scene in the first movie, between Rey and Kylo, was so incredibly powerful. Seeing this complicated villain that’s been created, I was just so compelled with that.”
He continues by showing how it is all a matter of a certain point of view, as a great Jedi once said. “This is all a matter of perspective and phrasing, but to me, I didn’t easily dispense with Snoke. I took great pains to use him in the most dramatically impactful way I could, which was to then take Kylo’s character to the next level and set him up as well as I possibly could. I guess it all comes down to your point of view. I thought, this is such a compelling and complicated villain. This is who is makes sense going forward to build around.”
The internet vitriol around Last Jedi has been great, with Johnson asked how he feels about it despite the movie’s success. “In the moment, it’s a complicated chain of reactions to it. It never feels good to have anybody coming after you on the internet, and especially coming after you saying things that I think I very much do not agree with about a thing I made and put a lot of heart and soul into. But at the same time, having grown up a Star Wars fan ultimately let me contextualize it and feel at peace with it in many different ways.”
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He then says that things end up being liked eventually. Like the prequel trilogy. “I was in college when the prequels came out. My friends and I were Prequel Hate Central. Everyone was ruthless at the time. And of course now the prequels are embraced. I’m not saying that as a facile, “oh, things will flip around in 20 years, you’ll see!” It’s more that this push and pull, and this hatred to stuff that seems new, this is all part of being a Star Wars fan. Culture-war garbage aside, I think that essential part of it is a healthy part.”
The interview contains much more about all three topics, and even a look back further into Johnson’s career. Even things that he’d like to do in the future. Check it out on Rolling Stone.
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Source: Rolling Stone
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