'The Midnight Sky' Interviews with George Clooney, Felicity Jones And More

Cinema Blend

'The Midnight Sky’ stars George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Tiffany Boone and Demián Bichir discuss their Netflix film in this interview with CinemaBlend Managing Editor Sean O’Connell.

Transcript

00:00if we scour the backgrounds, if we're going to spot your gravity character,

00:03Kowalski, floating by at all.

00:05The effects guys did this hysterical thing, you'll probably see it at some point,

00:09where they have Ether, our spaceship is floating by,

00:12and then it just goes by me and I'm like, as Matt Kowalski, and I just go,

00:16little help.

00:17You filmed that?

00:18Yeah, we filmed it.

00:20Does anyone copy?

00:24I have to warn them about the conditions on Earth.

00:27Is anyone out there?

00:28It's fantastic.

00:29It actually ends up hitting me, and then I'm like,

00:32woo, hey guys, where have you been, man?

00:34I've been out here.

00:35And then they just eject me out.

00:37Oh my God, I need to see that, please.

00:40Do they have extra scenes for Netflix movies?

00:42They'll put it in, because I just saw it yesterday.

00:44They did it as a, you know, a happy Thanksgiving, and you know,

00:48you know, thanks for working with us, just as a gift to Grant and myself.

00:52But we definitely have to get it on the screen.

00:54I am fascinated with your work as a director.

00:58I love all the stories that you choose to tell from the director's chair,

01:01and we are fast approaching 20 years of Confessions.

01:04I want to know something that you think you are much better at now

01:07than you were when you first tackled Dangerous Minds.

01:11As a director?

01:11As a director.

01:13Well, I think I'm a little more relaxed and open to,

01:18to, you know,

01:21relaxed and open to certain kinds of input.

01:26You know, when you first start,

01:27when I first started with Confessions, I boarded every single shot.

01:30I wanted to make sure I knew exactly what everything was doing.

01:33And I was pretty, pretty locked in on what I wanted it to be.

01:40Good thing, good luck.

01:41We did a lot of, there's a lot more improv and a lot more openness to it.

01:44So as time has gone on, I think I've found, you know,

01:48for instance, I give you a really good example.

01:50When Felicity says she was pregnant in the middle of shooting,

01:54you know, that would have been pretty devastating if it was 18 years ago.

01:59I wouldn't have known what to do.

02:00And this one was one where once we decided that,

02:04you know, that you have to accept it as opposed to try and hide it.

02:08And you can write into it and it actually ends up becoming an act.

02:11Actually, I think it makes the film better.

02:14Miss Jones, I got to start with you

02:15because your character showed me something that I swear

02:17I've never seen on screen before, and that's a pregnant astronaut.

02:21I was so blown away by that as a character.

02:23And then Mr. Clooney told me that that was actually your pregnancy

02:26and that they worked it into the story.

02:27How special is that for you?

02:29Yeah, I think it might be the first depiction of a pregnant astronaut.

02:37So yeah, it was pretty revolutionary.

02:38It was a very organic, instinctive process.

02:43Originally, we were going to CGI the bump,

02:46which is what usually happens in countless films.

02:49It's amazing when you look at the list of actresses

02:51who've been pregnant making iconic pieces of cinema.

02:56And we were sort of going to forge ahead in that way

02:58and let's pretend it's not happening.

02:59And then after about a week of shooting,

03:02George and Grant, his producer, were watching the footage

03:07and they felt actually, you know, this could be far more interesting

03:10if we have Felicity be pregnant in the film.

03:13And we went from there and it just made so much sense with the story.

03:18It really heightened the stakes for us on the ship

03:23and particularly with David and I and our relationship.

03:25And it just felt like a very natural way to navigate the story

03:32and was obviously very nice for me.

03:34And I didn't have to, you know, worry about trying to breathe in.

03:38There is an antenna that's stronger than ours.

03:41We get to that antenna, they'll hear us.

03:44Take a deep breath.

03:47How many lines of dialogue does your young co-star have?

03:50One line.

03:51Is that the first time in your career you've done this many scenes

03:54opposite someone, a predominantly silent partner?

03:57Yeah.

03:57Well, it was interesting.

03:58There was a lot more lines for me

04:00and I was constantly taking the line and scratching them out

04:03just because you realize that you have to be careful

04:06what lines are important and what lines are just exposed.

04:10Expository and, you know, telling someone something

04:13that either they don't need to know

04:14or we're telling for the audience's sake.

04:16And so, and I decided, I called Alexandra Desplat

04:19and I said, we're going to use score as sort of our narrative

04:23through all of this, which I think will make it more a meditation, you know.

04:27Also, how expressive is her face though?

04:29She says so much without saying anything.

04:30She screwed it up for all the rest of us actors

04:32because also, by the way, almost everything I did with her was one take, right?

04:38And so literally, I've shot all of our stuff.

04:40And then, you know, a couple months later, we started with the other actors

04:43and I would say, Caitlin did this in one take, go.

04:48An astronaut crew has to be able to sell real camaraderie and teamwork.

04:52And there are, the characters in this particular story

04:56have been together for a very long time.

04:57So I'm really curious what you guys did as an ensemble

05:00to get to that comfort level.

05:02What did we do?

05:03I don't, honestly, this is the nicest group of actors.

05:08Like, honestly, they're all so sweet and so nice.

05:12We did do a dinner at George's at the beginning.

05:15Pizza night at George Clooney's house.

05:19I know I sat next to Demian and we got to know each other.

05:23And it's just easy.

05:25We just sit around on set, talk about our lives, talk about our families.

05:28And I think it just came pretty naturally.

05:32I don't know how you guys felt.

05:33No, I agree with you.

05:34It was exactly like that.

05:36And then Kyle and I have met each other before,

05:39briefly during another film, King Kong versus Godzilla.

05:43So we went out for a really nice dinner, a couple of whiskies,

05:47and then we were best friends.

05:49You know, I have to bring up the spacewalk sequence

05:51because it's truly an eye-popping moment.

05:53But knowing that these sequences still come together

05:56through the use of wires and cords and harnesses,

06:00are those days on set that you look forward to,

06:02they're magical when we watch them,

06:04but putting them together, how is it like for you guys as actors?

06:08Yeah, watching them is a lot more fun than shooting them.

06:12I'll tell you that much.

06:14Yeah, it's pretty tough work.

06:16And it is wire work.

06:17And the key is putting maximum effort into making it look effortless.

06:25And that involves a lot of training.

06:27That involves having the kind of control of your core

06:31that is not your everyday.

06:33Myself and Tiffany Boone, who largely were doing the spacewalking,

06:38had two to three months of training.

06:40And thankfully, we had someone like George,

06:43who had played astronauts himself,

06:46iconically so, to guide us in terms of what it should look like.

06:50Little tips like, you know,

06:52your body has to move a lot slower than your mouth and your mind.

06:57You know, those are things that in the red-hot eye of a scene,

07:01you forget and you need constant reminding.

07:04You would think by now,

07:06you would have figured out an easier way to do this.

07:08But no, it's still training for months in advance,

07:12just working on my core.

07:14And then months of training before we shot,

07:18while we were shooting,

07:20on wires, people holding your feet,

07:22people holding your hands.

07:24Yeah, it's a whole thing.

07:27But it looks effortless at the end.

07:28So that's all that matters.

07:29It's worth it.

07:31Going back to re-watch the film a second time through,

07:33I was amazed at how the set seemed really palpable,

07:36that there was a lot of physicality to them

07:38that you could touch and hold on to.

07:40How important was that to you guys,

07:41to have that element of that there?

07:43It was crucial because, you know,

07:45they created such a fantastic scenery,

07:47fantastic space.

07:49The production design is, you know, high class.

07:54And so that made our work very, very easy.

07:57There's some really strong themes of fatherhood,

07:59parenting in the relationships found in here too.

08:02I'm the father of two boys,

08:03and I have some really interesting stories about movies

08:05that have changed completely for me from parenthood.

08:09So I'm just curious if it's changed for you

08:11the types of stories that you want to tell.

08:14I don't know.

08:14I haven't thought about that much yet.

08:16I know that my wife and I went through like my films,

08:20what the kids could watch.

08:22Yeah.

08:22And it was kind of like,

08:23well, they can watch Fantastic Mr. Fox.

08:26And then after that, it's kind of, you know,

08:28they can watch Batman and Robin for a laugh.

08:30But you kind of run out of things

08:33that a three-year-old is going to be allowed to see.

08:35So I probably will have to look at some,

08:37you know, Sesame Street, the movie kind of things.

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