I met Adam McKay at some posh hotel, where hed just done some filmed interviews.
That withAnchorman, it was Will Ferrell seeing footage of a sexist 70s real-life anchorman.
WithThe Other Guys, it was a dinner with Mark Wahlberg when you realised he could do comedy.
Yeah, the two of them had an odd chemistry together.
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What was the pinch point here then?
This was really simple, it was the book [by Michael Lewis].
I picked up the book at 9 oclock one night and just couldnt put it down.
I said to my wife that its such a remarkable book, and I hadnt read anything like that.
That information, yet that entertainingly presented.
Have you readFlash Boysof his?
Yes, I have.
I really loved that as well.
Hes really good at that.
And theres a drama to that.
Its a punch in of story you dont hear as much any more.
I think our popular culture has become a little more surface-orientated.
But Michael Lewis understands that its properly entertaining.
It was the book, 100% the book.
Can I talk about screenwriting, then?
I had no idea what I was getting here.
It struck me that the opening 20 minutes of your movie is a masterclass in economy of screenwriting.
It reminded me in a strange way ofInside Out.
Its stuff thats been there, but people were reading about the Kardashians instead.
That opening in particular, then.
Can you take us through the process of getting that right?
How hard did you have to work it?
That was the trickiest part of the entire movie.
It wouldnt work without it.
That first 15 minutes, we worked over and over and over and over again.
We had to have it right.
We had people saying from the outside cant you just cut it?
We cant cut it!
Its the seed of the entire movie!
There were a lot of little choices that went into it.
Then it felt cheap, it felt like I was doingAnchorman.
I thought that isnt right.
So my composer said what if I write you an original piece?
So its score but doesnt feel kitschy?
We did that, and that helped.
But I dont want to show him too much.
So we did a couple of little blips of Gosling in there, and that helped.
That gave us energy.
It was just a long process of choices like that.
You know what, this scene is too long!
Oh, wait a minute, you cut this scene too short!
You have to do this, and we just kept distilling it and looking for the essential information.
And heres an odd one you would never think of.
A big transition to Christian Bale, playing Michael Burry.
And really trying to get the timing right of that, and the sound of his drumsticks.
To get a break from the opening.
I sat with my editor, and was saying put an extra five frames on that!
Put an extra seven frames on that!
Can we go nerdy on that, then?
When you talk about the different between five and seven frames, what do you see that we dont?
Thats around a quarter of a second.
Its not a lot of time, its two hours!
Every single hundredth of a second is gold.
Every choice you make within those two hours should have thought behind it.
I remember asking my editor, do you have a profile of him doing the drumsticks?
Well dont go to him straight away.
Go to him with the drumsticks again, so we put that in.
It started to work better.
Then I said over the blackness, youve got about ten frames of just hearing it.
Just chuck an extra five on there!
Thats actually a lot a fifth of a second.
You do it 20 times in a movie, and it all adds up?
And each time youre doing that, youre sending a message.
I believe audiences can feel it when a filmmaker is doing that, being that specific.
One of my favourite movies in the last five or ten years isTinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
I just felt that every frame of that movie was curated, thought about, designed.
Ive never seen a movie tell more of a story just through production design and framing in my life.
My editor sometimes laughs at me when I do the three, four frame thing.
Every fucking moment, were going to attack.
Were not going to waste time, we dont want energy lacking.
There has to be information, some character, something visual, something always has to be alive.
That was our goal.
We knew we were doing an unusual movie in the form and the shape of it.
So it was even more important that the movie have life to it.
Did you seeInside Job?
Yeah, was a brilliant movie.
Nobody really sought it out.
I love it though.
I thought the best thing about that movie was showing how the banks are capturing academia.
I thought that was terrifying.
I really enjoyed the movie.
Also, Im just a believer that learning stuff is really exciting.
Truly learning stuff, not learning stuff by rote.
Not having a teacher drilling something in.
But really being turned on to a new awareness fills me with energy.
[Laughs]
You come from a country thats giving Donald Trump to the world, too.
Do you find the subjects of your film are the ones who are least getting the message?
Theres almost a micro-economy of bank apologists.
Certainly theNew York Post.
A lot of the Murdoch-owned papers and media outlets in the US love to apologise for the banks.
They all rose up immediately.
A whole rash of seven or eight op-eds that came out.
But then they would say they love it because its the governments fault.
Id go, well, the banks bought the government, so is it really government by that point?
But when you have a bank owning the government, I dont call it government any more.
Everyone puts their own filter over it.
Even if they hate your guts for doing it?
I was like, he doesnt know how to feel!
Hes feeling something hes never felt before, and doesnt know what it is!
Especially when Twitter seems to make it compulsory to have an opinion.
Heres another funny thing.
Youll see people who go, I sawThe Big Short!
I fucking hated it!
I didnt understand any of it.
And I was like, how are you so bold about not getting it?
Thats a consumer culture thing, the customer is always right.
If I didnt understand it, it must be a problem with the movie.
That cracks me up!
A lot]
Does that frustrate you to any degree?
[Still laughing] Heres the thing: I loveAnt-Man!
It doesnt frustrate me, thats the way its built.
The thing about movies is they play in theatres.
So if someone wants to talk aboutAnt-Man, I had a blast rewriting it.
Theres a little point in there about privatizing the military.
But it comes down to people watching films.
Thats what its about.
You just said you dont watch trailers.
I think thats awesome.
I would love it if people dodged marketing and didnt sit through trailers.
Go see films with a naked eye.
I love it when I go and see a movie and I dont know what its about.
Did you ever see the Greek filmDogtooth?
Its a dark movie!
I had no idea what it was about.
I trust this friend, so I told my wife were going to watch this.
We were fucking knocked off our feet.
I walked in to seeThe Giftlast year, for instance, knowing nothing about it.
If anything, it had been sold as a horror film.
Its more a comedy isnt it?
Its a very dark thriller, if anything.
Have you seen it?
Then I cant tell you anything about it.
How aboutCabin In The Woods?
It confused American audiences so much.
They thought it was a slasher movie.
They didnt get what it was doing.
They were like, what do you mean, its a slasher movie?
Oh no its not!
But often, it takes time for people to digest and work out what they feel about a film.
Its why comedy is a great Trojan horse sometimes.
As my colleague puts it, rage is more effectively channeled through comedy than pretty much anything.
Thats true, yeah.
Wolf Of Wall Street, for instance.
That comes back down to not quite knowing how to feel.
I dont know how to answer that either.
I think it was probably both.
I have to congratulate you on the Oscar nominations, that must have been a thrill.
Yeah, it was a kick.
If you win one, can you slip a random word into your speech?
Pineapple, or something like that?
Got it, got it.
I spat my coffee out when I read that.
Steve Carell did the funniest introduction.
He basically said what you were about to say.
But it was still nice.
It was flattering, it means they like the movie.
But all my friends were ribbing me about that.
It is comedy snobbery again, though?
You look at what you did withThe Other Guys.
The end credits did more than theWall Streetsequel did.
TheWall Streetsequel to me missed the goal.
It did for me too.
Same here, same here!
People cite the last five minutes ofThe Other Guys, but its not just there!
Youre making really important points all the way through it!
[Laughs] Youre one of the few people that saw that.
We designed the whole movie to be about that.
You open this movie with arguably the most terrifying characters in the movies now.
If youre looking for antagonists, go for men in grey suits, looking reasonable, happy and trustworthy.
But theyre the most terrifying of all!
[Laughs] Thats a great way to look at that.
When you come to writeAnt-Man 2, just stick them in as the villains!
They were a funny bunch of extras.
There were all like weird and slightly off, but they were perfect.
Thats an amazing film.
I thinkElectionis about everything in America.
I think its a tiny story that represents everything going on in America.
Its one of my all-time favourite movies.
No, but I should have done.
About how comedy kicks the door down on such serious subject matter.
We were talking aboutFour Lions.
One of the all time great comedies.
Do you ever read Chris Morris catalyst for why he made it?
That was his pinch point.
A lot of those terrorists are weird hillbillies.
Theyre people in some of the poorest areas too.
Theres a horrifying documentary on the attack on Mumbai, and one of the guys lived.
And I thought thats whatFour Lionsreally nailed.
At the same time, he was able to shift tones.
That movie really is a masterpiece.
Do you have a favourite Jason Statham movie?
[Laughs] Ill give you a boring answer: itsLock, Stock!
Adam McKay, thank you very much.
The Big Shortis in UK cinemas now.
