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Last week I had the opportunity to speak with talented writer/director James Gray about his new film, Two Lovers. I learned quite a bit as he conveyed his chagrin about the Joaquin Phoenixs’ retirement. But more importantly, where to get the best pizza in Brooklyn!

Good afternoon James! So good to speak with you today. Although I’m initially from the Bronx, I spent my formative years in Queens - I went to Van Buren High School - I lived in Queens Village. Let’s get the Jewish geography going!

James Gray: I’m a Queens boy myself.  I grew up in Flushing.

Susan Kandell (PS): I went to Queens College, so I’m very familiar with that area.

JG: It’s very different now by the way. My father still lives in the same house, a semi-attached row house in Queens. It’s very Asian now, which means the food my Dad can get is so much better than when I grew up. 

PS: Oh, I know.  I still have family living in Brooklyn, and we go back often. 

JG: I love New York!  I miss it so much.  I live in Los Angeles now. 

PS: Me too. I’m proud of you - local boy makes good!

JG: (hearty laugh) I did the best I could! What can I tell ya?

PS: I loved the film - the story the characters, the location. It was like - these are people I know!

JG: So good of you to say.  Thank you.  I tried to do that. I tried to base as much of it on fact as I could. I get a lot of people saying it feels very truthful. And then other people say, “What is this 30-something people living at home with their parents, and it looks like it takes place in the 50s.” And I’m thinking, “No, it just looks like that, because you live in Beverly Hills and drive a Ferrari”.  This is the way people that I know still live and I just felt like I wanted to make something that was unfashionably true to itself, that did not adhere to making something hip or aspirational where everybody’s got furniture from 2008 or listens to the newest pop song. I wanted to make a movie that had a sense of history to the people in it.

PS: I loved the scene where the parents first meet and I think Bob Ari says, “I love your apartment.” 

JG: “It looks like the place where I grew up,” he says in an almost condescending, kinda awful manner.”

PS: But then they start talking about the Catskills and brisket.

JG: (another hearty laugh)

PS: At one point, weren’t they even talking about kasha varnishkes?

JG: They might have, that was all improvisation. I was very specific about what improvisation I was after. I loved it when they talked about the Catskills, about the Concord Hotel (which they mention although I’m not sure whether or not it made it into the film exactly) I felt that it was very authentic, but I didn’t actually script it beforehand - that was actually decided on the day.

PS: That’s why it sounded so realistic. You made an auspicious directorial debut with your first film back in 1994 when you were only 24 years old – that’s amazing! Little Odessa received critical acclaim. It won the prestigious Venice Silver Lion Award and you followed it up with The Yards in the fall of 2000 and that was selected for Cannes. We Own the Night was also screened at Cannes. You’ve been nominated three times. That’s a hard act to follow. Didn’t you have the flu this year at Cannes?  Didn’t anyone suggest some chicken soup?

JG: That happened actually two years ago. It was a disaster – they lost my luggage too. 

PS: This is your third film with Joaquin Phoenix. He was totally believable as Lenny and a heck of a dancer, I may add.

JG: He’s actually a better dancer then that. He couldn’t be too good as Leonard, you know.

PS: I read somewhere that the two of you have similar views on the world. Is he your screen alter ego? I’m sure you’ve been asked this question many times – since he announced his retirement. Will it be difficult for you to find another actor with similar sensibilities?
JG: Yes! Brutally difficult. You’re talking about replacing an actor who has tremendous emotional intelligence and real diligence and is very inventive and can reflect complexity that, I know I‘ve said before, internally and externally both, which is a very high calling. How do you find that so quickly? And I have a rapport with him. Is he my alter ego? He’s more stylish, more hip and better looking then I ever was and am. Yeah, he’s gonna be very difficult to replace. For selfish reasons, I hope he changes his mind.

PS: How did you cast the other roles? When you wrote the script did you have Gwyneth Paltrow in mind as the neighbor? I think it’s interesting that in real life she’s half-Jewish but in the film plays the blonde shiksa. 

JG: Gwyneth is partly the reason the picture got made. I had known her socially for many years and she said to me one night, “I’d love to work with you, but you only make movies about guys with guns.” I thought, “Is that really what you think? I’m gonna turn that on its head.” So we started exchanging emails and spaghetti sauce recipes. Believe it or not I said, “I was going to make a picture with Joaquin Phoenix and it’s going to be a love story and I’m going to write a part for you. Are you interested? You have to say yes.” And she agreed to do it right then and there. I wrote the part for her very specifically. I feel she’s a wonderful actor and quite underrated. She’s got a lot of vulnerability in person and it’s hard to have her show that on film. I am very much in her debt.

PS: I adore the Israeli actor, Moni Moshonov (Reuben Kraditor) and we don’t often see him in American made films. I’m the director of a Jewish film series and a few years ago we screened Late Marriage as part of our festival. He was, of course, the dad in that film as well. It was good to see him again, specifically in a role that suited his talents.
Let’s talk about the concept of “bashert” – destiny. Isn’t that what this film is all about? Lenny thought he found his beloved once but it wasn’t meant to be. I can see where he would go off into another direction, but what were you trying to say here?

JG: I was just trying to say that the world is a complicated place and sometimes we don’t have complete control of what we say or do. Sometimes we have no control over the circumstances. I think too much is made of free will in our country. The idea that you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and that stuff is so nonsensical in a way. So much of who we are is based on our surroundings, our culture, our ideology - who our parents are, and what they said to us when we were young. So many things are out of our control. The book called Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell basically says the degree to which we can achieve success is so due to factors that are not considered on a daily basis, that it’s almost insane. In a certain way it’s very disquieting because it makes you realize that you are not the master of your own destiny, but rather there is a universe out there that, to a certain extent, controls our fate. There are certain elements of social class and our behavior, and how that divides us and our parents and their traditions that can divide or unite us and there are forces that are greater then we are. I think is interesting and the more we acknowledge it, the healthier, as a culture, we’ll be.

PS: This is a very New York story. New York is almost a character in and of itself in your films. Your love for the city shines through - even when it’s gritty and dirty. I read that your next film, The Lost City of Z, will take you away from your beloved city. And it sounds like a large undertaking - an epic! Can you talk briefly about your next project?

JG: I’m about ¾ of the way into the script. I’m extremely thrilled and excited about it. It’s a picture of huge scope. It’s about the true meaning of civilized behavior – civilization. And it is certainly ambitious. It’s almost like a tapestry in a way. The picture does have many of the same thematic elements that many of the other films that I’ve made have pursued – the sense of social standing and social class and our sense of self and self-worth. Certainly the story is very consumed with the flow of history.

PS: A last question for you, getting back to Two Lovers; Für Elise - that’s the only song I can still remember how to play on the piano. Why did you select it as the ringtone?

JG: It’s an homage to Rosemary’s Baby. It plays constantly in Rosemary’s Baby. It’s not more complex then that.

PS: Next time I’m in Brooklyn, I plan on going to Totonno’s Pizzeria (mentioned in the film). 

JG: Totonno’s on Neptune Ave – you won’t regret it.

 

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