280 | Noah Baumbach & Emily Mortimer on Creative Partnership, Process, and Permission

Noah Baumbach (MARRIAGE STORY, FRANCES HA) and Emily Mortimer (THE PURSUIT OF LOVE, DOLL & EM) join Lorien to talk about co-writing their new Netflix film JAY KELLY, from long conversations and false starts to discovering the emotional core of the story together.

They talk about writing without outlines, why not knowing is part of the job, how acting informs writing, and the surprising gift of having permission to be “whimsical, wrong, and brave” before locking a script into shape.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Lorien: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna, and this week we are dropping two episodes back to back because there are so many amazing filmmakers we wanna talk to. Today I'm talking with Noah Baback and Emily Mortimer, who co-wrote the new Netflix film Jay Kelly with Noah directing and Emily acting.

We're gonna talk about their collaboration, their creative process, and what it means to write from life without being trapped by it. Noah Bombach is a four-time Academy Award nominated writer and director. His films include White Noise, Marriage Story, The Meyerowitz Stories, New and Selected, While We're Young, Miss America, Francis Haw, Greenberg, Margot at the Wedding, The Squid and the Whale, Kicking and Screaming, and The Documentary De Palma. He co-wrote Barbie with Greta Gerwig, as well as fantastic Mr. Fox and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with Wes Anderson. 

Emily Mortimer is an actor, writer, director and producer. She's currently in production on her feature directorial debut Dennis for A24, which she wrote and is producing under her King Bee Productions banner alongside Emma Stone's Fruit Tree. Emily previously wrote, directed, and starred in the limited series, The Pursuit of Love for Prime Video and BBC One, and co-created and co-starred in HBO's, critically acclaimed series Doll & Em with Dolly Wells.

As an actor, her work includes Lovely and Amazing, Lars and the Real Girl, The Newsroom, Hugo, Mary Poppins Returns, and Noting Hill. Noah and Emily, welcome to the show.

Emily: Thank you so much for having us.

Noah: Thank you.

Lorien: Yeah, so I loved your movie. Jay Kelly is on Netflix. I. Really responded to so much of it, especially the line.

It was do you know how, I know you didn't wanna spend time with me and it's because you didn't spend time with me. And that hit me in such a deep, dark, personal way. I tend to avoid movies about fathers and daughters because I have such a complex relationship with mine. But that line and that young woman coming to it so early in her life when it took me most of my adult life to figure that out really.

It stung and it was beautiful. And I felt like the specificity of that was really like painfully delicious in a way. So, so much of this movie felt that way for me, and I'm sure maybe writing it, it felt that way. I don't know. So I do wanna talk about but I wanted to let you know that upfront because that, thank you.

That was so beautiful. And I don't even need to know which of you wrote it or how it came about, because for me, I give. Credit to both of you. How did the movie and your collaboration start?

Emily: Well, Noah, I had the idea for the movie and then he asked if I would write it with him. And I, I said yes, and I said yes.

I would've said yes before I'd even ever had the idea. 'cause if anyone had said, who would you most like to ask you to write a screenplay with them? I would've said him. And I would never have believed that he actually would've done that. But but once he did that and he told me the idea I was so engaged by it and I can just immediate, I remember just immediately saying, I'd like to see that movie, and I knew I'd like to see that movie, and I'd like to see the version of that story that, that Noah made.

Noah: And also whatever I had at that point, when I told it to Emily, it just sounded much better to me than it had previously.

Lorien: So, so you mean like in pitching it and sharing it with Emily, what you got back from her made the pitch, the storytelling a little bit richer? Is that what you're saying?

Noah: Ultimately, what she'd brought to it have definitely made it, I mean, it made it. It made it better and it made it a movie. I, but I also, even just what I've had already just sounded better to me when she, when I called it to her, when she listened to it. Yeah. Like, however she listened, however she, whatever she said, just I found myself liking it all a lot more, and so I felt like, well, why wouldn't I wanna be around this person all the time then?

Lorien: I think that's so amazing and something we often forget as writers and creatives, that we're looking for the people as much as the ideas. You know, we're looking for the collaborator, the person who sparks to life when we share their story, and then we get more excited about our own story. Yeah, I love that.

Noah, when you came up with the idea, where did it come from? We don't have to get too personal if you don't want to, but like an idea, an image, something you heard.

Noah: I mean, I probably all those things, I mean, I had the last line. Of the movie for, I've had it for a few years, is something that maybe as and as the idea for a last line in a movie.

And I thought, well, if it was, you know, then it should be an actor who says it. And so I think that probably started it in some way. That, that it would be a movie about an actor and an actor who these things aren't the, you know, it's, it, they're, these are only the things we. Articulate or arrive at when we have to, you know, when we talk on podcasts and promote the, and things that you think, oh, well, of course you make a movie about an actor.

It's a movie about identity. It's a movie about, you know, the. The authentic self and the false self the, you know, it's about performance. It's about, I mean, there are all these sort of things that we can now sort of look at and say oh, this is the mo this is what we wanted to make a movie about.

But I think in, in, in the beginning it was just more straightforward. It was an actor on a journey and a journey that would go. Out into, they, you know, take him out into the world, out of his comfort zone. Into, you know, and out of America too. 'cause you know, specifically an American actor, an American movie star, sort of out of his world.

And then also that it would be a journey into his past at the same time. And so I think those were sort of things that felt. Alive for me in the early stages. And, but that was pretty open-ended. And so it really wasn't until Emily and I got into it that, that these things started to have definition and, you know, and come alive.

Lorien: I love that you had the last line already done for me. That's such a thing that I keep hearing. You have to know how the movie ends. Do you always, are you always at that place where, you know where the movie ends?

Noah: No. Each movie, I find each movie, for me anyway, I find it's a different, it's something different.

It's some, I have some I can see more clearly on the earlier. In in, in early stages in some I have to really write the movie to understand what I'm doing and I don't know that I've, I don't think I've ever had a last line before. I mean, I don't think, I don't think so. I, some of the times I've had ideas of where movies might end up.

I, with marriage story, I thought I had this tying of the shoe, the tying of the sneaker idea that cheek maybe ties his sneaker 'cause and that would come at the end of the movie. So I guess that was something. Now that's not a lot, but it was something I felt I could maybe arrive at. But there are other movies where I don't think I've known where it's gonna end.

I have to write the movie to figure it out and for some movies I've written where I've probably never really figured out the ending.

Lorien: No, that never happens to any of us. Never. Never. Yeah. We all know exactly what's happening. We always finish it. Right. So what was the process of co-writing together?

Did you write solo and share cs? Did you start with an outline? Outline? Did you lock yourself in a cabin for three weeks? Like what was the actual physical exchange of scripts and ideas like?

Emily: Well, we weren't physically in the same country for a lot of the initial parts of the writing. And we were in various different places doing various different things.

Noah was making Barbie with Greta when we started writing. And was editing. Had you finished the edit by the time? We'd finished.

Noah: No, we were working. I was editing White Noise also.

Emily: Yeah, exactly. And and so it was he had all that going on and a lot of writing together was in the same space as an office space that, that Greta was editing Wellby.

Noah: What was like when we started editing Barbie? That was in new, because we came back to New York and then. That's when you and I could meet more regularly every day. And then we would meet often in the editing area since I was working on the edit as well.

Emily: So that was where we start, that's when we started physically being in the same place.

'Cause we do live in the same city. We do both live in New York but because I was acting in various things and pushing sort of. You know, mascara wands outta my face as I try to kind of keep on the phone with Noah. But, and Pace ran car parks and sort of, I don't know, Shepherdson or wherever.

I dunno. But it was okay because a lot of the beginning of it was just talking and talking and talking and writing notes, but not actually writing. It wasn't like we never had an outline, I don't think, did we? We just wrote.

Noah: I've never, I don't, never really written an outline.

Lorien: You know what, I'm really happy to hear you say that because no one ever admits that.

And I don't usually write from them either. 'cause I have to figure out the movie as I'm going.

Noah: Yeah, exactly.

Lorien: I keep being told it's, that's a bad idea. And I'm like, well, it works for me.

Noah: Yeah. I dunno. I didn't realize it was a bad idea. I yeah. I also feel like. I don't wanna know too much, you know?

'cause then it's Or figure too much out before I've had a chance to kind of arrive at it. I mean, it's nice to have ideas for things that might come later, but. I know. Then sometimes in the early stages, I, you know, it would be nice to be able to look at a wall and see the whole movie up, up on the thing.

Yeah. I'm glad to hear you feel the same way. I've not never done it that way.

Lorien: I have been called out on the podcast by other writers about it. Oh, really what you need. So I had set up a whole like, I'm gonna learn how to do the outline and I know how to do it. I mean, that's all we did at Pixar, right?

We had all the movie up on the board and it was broken up into six sequences and it was the whole thing of it. I just, I like to discover the characters as I go. It's not until I hear them talking and see them moving around and watch what they're gonna do until I know actually what their story is with their point of view.

Noah: That's how I feel. I'm with you.

Lorien: Look, we're the same, so same. Emily, what's your experience as a writer and how is that different from being an actor? You're handed a script. You read the whole beginning, middle, and an end. Like how do you discover the character? Is there any connection between your work as an actor and then your work as a writer in that way? Like discovery?

Emily: I definitely felt when I started to get more into screenwriting and filmmaking as opposed to acting that. That my understanding of storytelling as an actor was really helpful to me as a writer because I think you just sort of work out that as an actor you know, there are just a few kind of you basically have to start to understand the rhythm of the story and you have to know how to pace your performance.

You have to know you can't. You know, just like you just get by kind of trial and error that you can't repeat yourself too much. You don't wanna be boring ultimately. And so you have to find a kind of interesting way of doing the thing, or an unexpected way of doing the thing or and pace the thing.

And then you have to know when to kind of land the emotion or. You know, and of course a lot of that is, is sort of signposted for you in the script. But if you are lucky, but often. Not, and often maybe you are not lucky enough to be working with a great director or a great screenplay. You have to kind of work it out yourself.

And and so I, all those sort of skills came in handy. When I started writing more.

Lorien: Whether you have an outline or not. I think the creative process is about discovery. Like you said, trial and error. Fail a whole bunch of times. Hit on something, ruin it, fix it, put it back together, ruin it again.

Right? The collapse of self. So many times you're trying to put something together.

Emily: But I guess what's interesting though about the thing of performing, which is slightly different is that. When you are writing that, it is so important that the discovery, the journey, like the getting it wrong a million times, and Noah was so good about that.

Like his whole thing was like, you know. It's not just that it's okay to be sort of whimsical and not know what you are doing, it's really it's vital, you know, it's vital that you're just sort of saying silly shit to each other for a while. I often felt when I was writing with him like that, that watching the Beatles do, you know, in that Get Back documentary where he's like, oh, right.

You know, you know, just say anything. Just say, what's something in the way she moves? Reminds me of the. Whatever it is, cauliflower, you know, just say something and then you'll get to the thing. But you have to be silly and whimsical and brave and sort of idiotic first. And he really, that was such an amazing thing working with him and seeing this great writer and how he went about it.

And it was just really permission to be kind of. Silly in a way at the beginning, or not, silly is the wrong word, but kind of, you know, brave women. 

Lorien: Brave, right? It's not fearless, brave, but it's brave, right? Because it's still like, oh my God, people are gonna think I'm silly or foolish or all those things, all that negative voice stuff we have in our head.

Emily: But then you have to kind of lock it in, like you have to then get more grown up kind of as the process goes on where. You have all these inventive thoughts and ideas and anything's possible, and then you gradually sort of lock it in.

And of course it doesn't mean that you are not constantly discovering things and you should be there. The script should stay alive as long as possible till the very, even beyond the moment that it's finished and ready to shoot. But it's sort of, whereas the act is kind of the other way around.

And I mean, of course the beginning is very. Process of getting to know your character and everything but when it there's something that happens in performance where it's like you've kind of done the hard work first and you've done the sort of grown up considering and the thinking and the kind of reading and the wondering and worrying and sort of learning.

And then in the moment you have to let go of all that and be free and something else has to happen where. Nothing to do with any of that. Not even really to do with the words you're saying. It's to do with the thing that's happening between you and the other person on in that moment, and it has to kind of live in a different way and that, and it's almost like you become more childish free or whatever the word is.

Lorien: Then we'll be right back.

Noah: Welcome back to the show.

Lorien: So listening to you describe that, I realized there was a reason I stopped acting and went more to writing because the way you described that is so beautiful and powerful and magical, and I didn't have that as an actress. I find that in writing. So my question to both of you is when did you have that moment of I'm a writer? Or “Oh, no, I'm a writer.” Whichever way.

Noah: I think in a funny way I almost thought of myself as a writer and even a filmmaker before I was one. So like, I, not in a lofty way, just didn't like my head, like it was the way I thought about things, even though I wasn't actually doing it. Like, like there was something, I guess just the language of it felt intuitive to me.

But it was. I think I wrote a thing in, in, in early high school that was based on a prompt from the teacher, which was a kind of silly opening line to something like it was kind of earnest opening line to a story like that. She gave like a couple, you could start your story with this line kind of thing, and I thought it was sort of.

In a way, the thing I wrote was a rebellion against the assignment, even though I used the opening line, but I kind of mocked it and wrote something. But in somehow in doing that, I found something that felt very like, oh, maybe this is my voice as a writer. I written things. I suppose I'd written things at that point, but I think I probably was writing things like dutifully in a way, like, oh, you're supposed to write like this, and I think I like it.

I wrote it. My way, and I think that was the time, the first time I felt like, oh, I, maybe not that I thought of myself as a writer, but as I, but then I felt like, oh, this is I was able to express myself in writing, which I mean, I'm, I've, Emily and I've talked about this, I think I've, you know, been chasing that feeling ever since.

Lorien: Yeah. Yeah. What about you, Emily?

Emily: Well, I did always write. You know, when I think about it, but it was always kind of weird. Like it wasn't, I wasn't writing sort of, you know, interesting poetry or something. Like, I feel like if you are a true writer, you would when you were little, but I would basically just act out adverts for my parents on the stairs Act adverts that really existed.

Like just sort of repeat them on the stairs to my parents and pretend to be the people in like washing powder adverts or something. But then there was, when I was about. Maybe eight or nine or something. There was a thing on, there was a TV show on the television called ards, which was from a book that nobody's ever heard of.

I mean, I know I've never met a single other living soul that said, oh, I loved Slams, dude.

Lorien: Everyone was listening right now. Google it, make it a thing.

Emily: It was a thing. I was just so struck.

Noah: Oh, I don't think it exists.

Emily: I know. I was thinking that maybe I need to Google it, but. It probably doesn't exist.

Lorien: Is this like the Mandela effect, but only for you?

Emily: No, but it was, in my memory, it was a thing about, it was kind of this first World War or Edwardian times, and there was a girl. Who sort of moved in with this family in this country estate, and she rode a lot of horses and she was called Christina and it was anyway, and she had a dog called, oh no, there was a little boy called Tizzy.

And I made my mom called our dog Tizzy after the little boy in it. But anyway, I rode a whole play that was basically, again, just, it was, there was, it was just the story of... So-

Lorien: So fan fiction.

Emily: It was fan fiction. Thank you. That's a nice way of putting this out, out, plagiarism. So that's really all I did.

I wrote down the story of ARDS and acted it out, and then I wrote down adverts and acted them out, and that was my start as a writer.

Lorien: Right. When did you though say, I am a writer? So for a lot of people that's really hard. Like I am a director. Like I was telling people I was a showrunner before I got my first show.

I'm a showrunner. I just don't have my show yet. Right. So like, I was like, I had to start.

Emily: I don't think I, I don't think I know. I find it embarrassing to say I'm anything. I'm like, yeah. I can't, fair to say I'm an actress. I remember someone at a Hollywood party when I first moved to la. And my husband sort of was not with me.

And somehow he was in another room and I was, somebody said, what do you do? And I was so embarrassed to say I was an actress. I, but I had to say it 'cause that's what I did. And he said, oh really? He was just interested, genuinely. And I was like, yes, but I'm not a very good one. Made it. He looked so confused.

It was like all the words in his brain fused and he sort of made his excuses. It’s not fair to say that I'm this thing because I feel like somebody's just gonna think what you’re not. This is so-

Lorien: Yeah, go ahead.

Emily: But then Noah. Got me to join the WGA as part of the process of writing the thing. And I guess when I got my little card.

Lorien: So it's such, there's such a, I don't know, reverse parallel an upside down about j Kelly who, see he's an actor, but he sees himself as the role of being an actor. Right? But his whole identity is actor. He's made all the choices. And then you have this sort of rejection of that. I don't know. It's just so, such an interesting place.

And then Noah, you're talking about, you know, you found your voice and that's exactly what Jay Kelly is really trying to the inside the truth, the capital truth, voice. Right. And just sort of how both of you have such different experiences coming into collaborating on this film. And you know, neither of you are huge action stars, but that you can relate to him in such a specific way.

And to this story like you both draw from, we all artists draw from personal experiences. When you have all that lava we talk about on the show, how do you turn the factual truth, the real things that people remember about you, that you remember and make it that capital T truth. And where do you find the line when you're writing, directing, acting, so you don't burn your face off in a lava, but you're also exposing enough so that the audience can connect and relate.

What is that process?

Emily: I don't think, for speaking personally, I don't think. I think you just. To burn your face off no matter what. Like, I feel that it's almost like you have to, otherwise it's it's just, it has to feel kind of painful and dangerous in a way. I mean, I don't know. I mean, of course, maybe. Particularly so if you're writing something that's obviously autobiographical, but as you said, everything is autobiographical and everything in some way is harvesting from your own experience and you're kind of selling.

Even if you not selling people out that you know and love by telling stories about them, you're selling those, the experiences you've had, you are kind of getting rid of them in some way. You are saying goodbye. It was so funny. I just read and it's embarrassing that I had taken until just now to read the Catch It in the Rye.

I mean, I probably did read it when I was young and I just, but I don't know whether I really ever did. It's one of those things I think I just said I had and I never, and anyway, I read it again and the, and it's so amazing and. In the very end, you know, he's in the he's in the institution, wherever he is, and his brother comes to visit him, who's the movie star, and says something like, or the actor or Hollywood person or whatever, and he says, you know, do you, how do you, he asks him how he feels about having told the, or how he feels about the events of the story that just have happened and he says something like.

I don't really know how to feel about it. All I know is I wish I hadn't told so many people about it. And oh God. And then he, and I was like, oh my God. I immediately was like, oh my God, I just, that's exactly the feeling of having written something for public consumption. And then he said, 'cause. You end up missing the people.

He's kind of ambiguous about whether he, you are missing the people that you told about in the story or you are missing kind of the people that you are telling. But I think it's really that you miss the people that you told about. It's almost like you say if you write about them, you kind of both say goodbye to them as real people and then you also kind of makes you miss them, those real people more.

It makes you feel more for them, even if they weren't what people that you didn't like or that gave you a hard time or that you have a complicated relationship with, you end up missing them. And anyway, it was just such a beautiful way of putting the complicated, paradoxical feeling of writing, which is inevitably when you're writing about your own shit and your own life and it's complicated and it, and I don't think it can ever not be.

But is that too depressing of an answer?

Lorien: No, I think it's, I think it's right. I mean, I agree.

Emily: What would you say?

Noah: I thought it was lovely what you said. I think it's a, it's both the, there's I do think the freedom that it requires at its best, you know, when we're, when we are, when we're writing. That we'll take anything, you know, we'll take anything.

We have it or someone else has it, you know, or it's so, okay, well this happened to me, but which, and I've always wanted to kind of write about this and thing, but then this other thing happened to someone else, which could have happened to me and works in the story. So I'm gonna take that and then I'm gonna do this.

And then as it shapes itself, it's like, well now this doesn't work anymore, so I'm gonna get rid of this, but I'm gonna. Now, which changes what may be the truth the small tea truth of like what I put in the other thing to get to this, you know, other thing. So then I find, you know, 'cause there is something sort of almost brutal about it.

And then but then I think what you're saying too, Emily, there's like at the, there is also then it does provoke this, I don't know what you would call it, but it's like a missing thing. You are saying goodbye to people.

Emily Yeah. It's like, it's cathartic, but it's also a farewell and…

Noah: Yeah, and-

Emily: And a loss. A loss in a way.

Noah: And I mean, I've written a lot of, I mean, I, many of my movies have been, at least it had been, people have decided they're autobiographical. And, you know, and I've often find myself in interviews making the, this sort of distinction between, oh, it's personal, it's not autobiographical so much as, but as you're saying and it's implicit in your question, is that I think no matter what the piece is that, and it Jay Kelly's no less autobiographical than the squid in the whale is for me, really.

I mean, the squid in whale uses things from my life that are. That as a basis that were true. But it, the movie isn't my life. It's like, you know, and I think that was what helped me tell that story and fictionalize that story was basing it in. A kind of autobiographical fact, which was, I grew up in Brooklyn and had, you know, a brother and my parents divorced and that was the story of that movie.

But, so I used all of that stuff because it helped me tell the story the best I could. Which again, is kind of. You know, like almost amoral in a way. When you're writing, you're just like, I'm just going to use what works. But I do think by the time you finish something to, if it's gonna work as a movie, it's going to transform and it's going to go beyond whatever.

Emily: Yes. And you are gonna, you know, we were reading a lot of the George Saunders essays on, on writing when we were writing j Kelly. And he's so good about that, that like, in a way, like if you are gonna write about somebody that you are close to or an experience that you've had in order to make this thing good.

You have to make, you have to do right by that person in the sense that you have to, or that happening or that relationship or that thing, whatever it is that you are. You have to make it complicated. You have to show all sides of it. You have to show, you have to really get to the heart of the thorny complications of it, rather than just as if it's not the same as just kind of spilling your guts to your friends and saying what a asshole this person was.

Or, you know how I've been so mistreated by that person. It's not that way at all. You that wouldn't, you can't just transpose that experience in that way. It can only be. And proper and cathartic if you see it from all sides. And then in some ways it's sort of, in some ways there's a kind of wonderful thing that happens in, in writing about your experience because you can't make it good unless you've talked about it not just from your point of view, but from the other persons.

Lorien: What you said Edna, about it being personal and not autobiographical is such a distinct and specific definition of the lava versus the, you know, capital T truth, the factual that I think more people can relate to in terms, we have a lot of emerging writers that listen to the show and it's always like, how much lava should I get into?

Like you don't want people to fully dive into their trauma, but the personal, right, like you said, Emily, like connecting to another people. Another person. That's what sort of binds us together in the storytelling and the creative exploration we're doing. I don't know why we do this. Why do we do this?

That's a good question. Why are we doing what we're doing? Why are we storytellers? What do we get out of it?

Emily: I know it's a good question.

Noah: Kind of doing to try to figure out that answer, I guess. Right?

Emily: Yeah.

Lorien: We'll be right back. 

Welcome back to the show. I just love hearing both of your perspectives on this so much.

What did you learn from each other in this process of co-writing the movie and making the movie together?

Noah: I mean, I just liked seeing Emily every day and talking to her and getting her perspective on where we were on any given moment in the movie. I mean, we were, what I liked too is Emily would really fight for things and we would argue a lot, I mean, in a good way.

We, either one of us would make a case for things. There would be a lot of like, why are we even doing this? If we're gonna cut that line, why are we even making this move? You know, that like, but-

Lorien: I love it.

Noah: It was great. And I, 'cause I also can sometimes get tired with even just something, even with like with my own, like something I'd had from the beginning or something early on that I, and I think like, oh, why don't we just get rid of that?

And she would. Remind me why it was there and. I just liked, I mean, it goes back to what I was saying before. I mean, I liked my, I liked myself with Emily and I loved what she was bringing, but I always liked what I was bringing to the table. Better be when she was there. You know, it was like even on days where it was hard, which was lots of the time where, you know, and I even.

There was a day where I came in and was like, I don't, maybe we don't, maybe we throw this out and do something.

Lorien: That never happens. Whatcha talking about?

Noah: Let's write another movie. Yeah. And you know, and I mean, we have our own different ways into it, but there's just, so it's also something I think I think we find familiar in each other.

And so it was, it's, it was a good synthesis of sort of different. Different and same that we brought to it. But I mean, I felt like I learned from her every day. I mean, everything she brings is only her, you know, it's like, it's and even when she would, you know, she'd write some brilliant.

Bit of a scene and then she'd put it into an old draft and sent me that and then we'd be working for a while on that draft and then realized, I'd realized it was an older draft and we're driving nuts because now we have to like figure out all the new stuff we did and go put it back into the current draft and knowing we were gonna lose something in the process, but it was worth it because I wasn't gonna get the other stuff without also getting.

Emily: I'm really sorry

Lorien: Screenwriting. It's so easy.

Noah: Yeah. It's so easy.

Lorien: Yeah. What about you, Emily? What did you take away from it?

Emily: Oh my God, just so much. I don't even know where to begin, but it wasn't just okay to kind of not have all the answers and to say something kind of. Whimsical and maybe a bit idiotic.

It was actually sort of vital and that is part of it and that you have to start with that. And then you have to start with just kind of flights of fancy, not start with some. Big grand plan, you know, the first of all, the best laid plans or whatever. But it's also just like, it has to start as a kind of and even if it's just you and and not you and someone else but it should feel like a funny conversation with somebody you really like hanging out with and already want to kind of.

I, I had that, I mean, I just have that with Noah any anyway chatting in life. Like, you just want to sort of, you want him to, you know, want to be there and, 'cause you are having such a good time being there. So it's just like that, like, I just felt like I, I wanted to make him laugh and or make him curious or whatever.

But I also felt. Very unafraid in a way that I'm is not my usual way. I'm normally kind of really nervous of being an idiot or being or people I don't know very well, or, you know, and it was, he was very, I don't know, for somehow easy to sort of not worry about that around. And, yeah it was but as, as well as all that, like this kind of permission to kind of go anywhere and and say anything. There was also a rigor of course that was something that I really learn from. You know, there's just sort of, you know, just, you just. You have to keep going and you have to do it every day.

And and even if in doing it, you are not coming up with anything, you have to still keep doing it. And that was this kind of exacting kind of rigor in hand with this sort of permission to be sort of fanciful. It was just so cool. And yeah, I mean, I just learned so much and continue to.

There's always another, there's always another thing. There's always another chance. There's always another story. There's it's not I think that, I don't know. I feel like Noah has a very, he, he doesn't lead with it necessarily. You wouldn't necessarily think it, but action in actual fact, a very kind of positive attitude to all of it.

Like he's very forgiving about all the things that sort of. Twist me up about it, which we just talked about, like this kind of feeling of guilt or something about doing it even, or, you know, the mm-hmm. The imposter syndrome or the, all of that and he just has a kind of feeling of like, it's okay. It's okay.

It's good and there's always another one. Somehow.

Lorien: You have wonderful partnership. You bring out the best in each other and you feel the best version of yourself. I love that. I wonder if we can get that with just ourselves one day. Wouldn't that be great?

Emily: Yeah, that would be great.

Lorien: Like I could partner with myself and feel I bring out the best in my own self.

What a dream. Right?

Emily: Right. Me.

Lorien: So I have one question and one compliment, so I wanna get to it really quickly. What do you wish people would ask you about your work? And they don't.

Noah: It's so much it's much easier and much, it feels much more intuitive to. Have conversations like this one where we're talking about craft and about the pro, you know, the process.

'cause it's, that's all we know really. I mean, we only know that, you know, we, I took a nail, I hammered it into this wood and then I, you know, it, we don't know what the building means. We know, you know, how we got there. I mean, and we only know how we do it. And so it's. The harder thing is, 'cause you know, we're always asked about what we mean and theme and, you know, you know things.

And I think particularly with the movie that we just made, it's very hard to know what you did. You know, and you did, you made the movie to say it. So to go then and say it again seems kind of strange. And all that is to say, I, it's nice to talk about. Process, you know, it's, you know, whether it's writing or it's directing or it's 'cause it's that's tact, tangible.

That's a thing that, you know. So it's really a reverse, I guess, answer to your question, which is what I wish I wasn't asked about.

Emily: I think that's, I would second that. I think it's so lovely having this conversation because you don't feel like. You're selling something really. I mean, that, that's a, it's a very, it's a very odd thing, and I think it's a very uncomfortable thing for everybody, all of us that have to do it. Writers and actors and directors and everyone, you know.

When you feel like talking about this stuff is the, you know, it.

Sell it, you know, and get people to come and watch it. The way that you kind of describe it. And you can never do that in a simple, uncomplicated way. And you know, it's all about having these soundbites and sort of presenting this kind of. Fit version of yourself that makes you feel very twisted up.

Ella j Kelly. And this is so nice because it's not, it doesn't feel like it's, that, it just feels like it's talking about what it's like to write things.

Lorien: Yeah. And it all comes back to j Kelly right there at the end. See? Right. So

Maybe we did seven living. We totally did. Right. Living the fantasy version of your life, you know, and then realizing that's not actually real.

And then, you know. Confronting the choices that you've made. See we are selling the movie. It's great. We did it. We did it. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about the movie and your process. I really appreciate it. You've been great guests. I would love to have you back again.

So thank you so much and I hope you have a really good, positive rest of your day.

Emily: Thank you so much. That was lovely. Thank you.

Lorien: Thank you so much to Emily and Noah for joining us. Their film, Jay Kelly, is now streaming on Netflix. The Screenwriting Life is produced by Jonathan Hurwitz and edited by Kate Mishkin.

For more support, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. You can also head over to thescreenwritinglife.com to learn more about our workshop program, TSL workshops, we have a growing library of prerecorded workshops that cover craft related topics from Character Want to Outlining a Feature. We also host two live Zooms a month where you can chat with me and Meg about projects you're working on.

The link to sign up is in the episode description. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us at thescreenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.