It’s been nearly three month since the first installment in A24’s podcast series – some featuring directors, others featuring actors, but all featuring artists. We’ve heard conversations between Barry Jenkins and Greta Gerwig, Jerrod Carmichael and Bo Burnham, John Early and Toni Collette, and now, in the fourth episode, the podcast brings together Paul Schrader and Sofia Coppola.
As the filmmakers reconnect, they cover a wide range of topics from Schrader’s “bridge of style” he’s found throughout his films to Coppola’s curiosity for obscure endings (as suggested in the podcast’s title “This is How it Should End”). In comparison, Paul Schrader and Sofia Coppola’s oeuvres are strikingly different, but in discussion, a common thread can be found between them: the consistent conflicts for independent filmmakers – and the podcast covers just that.
Both filmmakers are previous collaborators with A24: Coppola’s 2013 biographical crime drama The Bling Ring was distributed by the company, and Schrader’s most recent First Reformed just landed in theaters.
The last time Paul Schrader saw Sofia Coppola she was probably four feet tall. We recently brought them back together for a conversation about what it’s like to be an independent filmmaker today. Other topics covered include: Paul’s unexpected career trajectory, stealing from the best, what really happened at the end of Taxi Driver, the challenges of writing without “nighttime additives,” Ethan Hawke’s forehead wrinkles, and what it took for Paul to finally make First Reformed—the movie he’s been waiting his whole life to make.
You can listen to the podcast below and read our own interview with Schrader here. For more film-related podcasts, consider subscribing to our very own The Film Stage Show, and we’ve shared our First Reformed discussion below as well.