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Kerry: This is All Of It. I'm Kerry Nolan in for Alison Stewart. Thanks for spending part of your day with us. Whether you're listening on the radio, live streaming, or on demand. On today's show, we'll get a glimpse into a lifestyle most of us don't see, what it's like to be a ballerina at one of the most prestigious companies in the world.

The host of The Turning: Room of Mirrors will join us. We'll also hear a preview of the Hudson Jazz Festival, and we'll discuss the topic of queerbaiting. That's the plan, so let's get started with a new twisty-turn film.

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A new thriller exposes us to a world where you can't trust anyone, and the main motivation is greed. The neo-noir film is called Sharper. It's directed by Benjamin Caron. The film draws audiences in with a wholesome love story, when a PhD student named Sandra, played by Briana Middleton, walks into a local bookshop to purchase a first-edition copy of Zora Neale Hurston's, Their Eyes Were Watching God. The bookshop's owner Tom, played by Justice Smith, is smitten and asks her out to dinner. First, she says no, but later she returns to take him up on his offer. The two fall madly in love. That is until he loses $350,000 to her in what turns out to be an elaborate scam.

The rest of the film unveils a web of lies, secrets, and plots on one of Manhattan's most unlikely billionaires. A Vanity Fair Review said, "As Sharper snakes it's way along, Caron guides with a steady and confident hand. It's an auspicious feature film debut, artful and polished, while still mindful of the mechanics of a twisty thriller." Director Benjamin Caron joins us today. He's a Golden Globe, Emmy, and BAFTA-winning British film, and TV director. You may be familiar with some of his credits, Star Wars, Andor, The Crown, Sherlock, and Skins. Welcome to All Of It, Ben.

Benjamin: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I'm a big fan of your show. We listen to it a lot over here in the UK.

Kerry: Oh, how lovely. Well, you've directed music videos, documentaries, and TV shows, but this is your first feature film. How did this all come about?

Benjamin: Yes, it's not for want of trying. I guess from a young age I aspired to making a feature film, it just took a little while. Many years ago, it was really hard to break into the film industry. My path was taken towards-- I got my breaks in entertainment documentaries, some music promos, commercials, and then eventually into TV drama.

While in that world of TV drama, the landscape completely changed and the scope and the ambition and the talent suddenly started moving from film into television and I guess backwards. I was lucky enough to work on, as you say, shows like The Crown and more recently Andor.

My focus slightly changed a bit over those years, and I was just enjoying-- I just had the best time making The Crown and then it got to the point where I was like, now is the moment to jump. Now's the moment to go and put my head above the parapet and make a feature film. I was sent the script by my agents and it said that it was already had A24, which I know has new base and most amazing distribution company and Apple Films and it had Julianne Moore attached. That immediately got me excited and then I read the script [laughs] and I inhaled it. It was smart, it was funny, it was character-driven and it was original. That was exactly the kind of story I was looking for.

Kerry: You said just before that, that the landscape changed in terms of TV and film, how has streaming driven that?

Benjamin: That's what I was referring to, I guess. I was fortunate enough to be there at the very beginning when Netflix rolled out globally. I remember when at first it came on, I think it was House of Cards and then Orange is the New Black. When we pitched The Crowns to them, I think it was coincided with their global rollout.

They just snapped her up and of course looked at the Peter Morgan, Stephen Daldry, and were like, "This is an amazing opportunity." I guess they just had the money to make something like The Crown, and also they had an immense amount of trust in the storytellers. I can only talk personally from our experience on The Crown. They very much left us to our own devices and I think to their credit that shows in terms of the finished results.

Kerry: Now, critics have described the movie Sharper as a psychological thriller or a neo-noir film. You set the movie in New York City. What did you want that world to look like on screen?

Benjamin: That's a very good question. Why New York? I guess for me this movie was just New York movie to the bone. It's a city that I think that operates at the sharp end of the American dream. It's a transactional city that may be in a thought few short decades has become the heart of free market capitalism and takeovers and deregulation.

I thought it was just a city that venerates and attracts hustlers and chances and grifters and money equals success in New York. I just thought this film could only really exist in New York City. It's a place where everything is allowed.

When I first started speaking to the creative team, I guess I have a slightly outsider's point of view not being from New York, and I didn't want it to be a postcard version of New York. I'd love those character-driven movies from the '70s and '80s films like Flute, other ones like--

Kerry: Flute is really good example of that, that's modern noir.

Benjamin: I just think the way that Gordon Willis, the cinematographer, the way that he composed those frames, the way that he played with light and dark, the naturalism that they captured, but also the most beautiful framing, I just remember being struck by that as a young kid and I thought that was an essence of that film that I wanted to capture in Sharper.

Kerry: Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen chose to shoot on film. That was obviously a conscious choice versus video, but how did that affect the overall look of the project?

Benjamin: Do you know what that was? That was a decision that I made before. Mainly because it was my first feature of film and I've always wanted to shoot on 35 mil. I chose Charlotte because she had that experience of shooting on 35 mil. When we first met, we talked about that. I was half expecting some sort of battle to make that. The A24 who have been amazing, completely supportive of filmmakers. The same with Apple were like, "If you want to shoot on film, go for it."

If you want a film to look like film, I think you shoot it on film and I don't know any other process that can do what film does. The randomness of the grain, the information and the empty space between your characters, the liquid texture of the light. There's something always going on in the frame. It was a dream of mine and it was my first feature, so I'm really happy that we managed to do that.

Kerry: If you're just joining us, my guest is Benjamin Caron. He's the director of the new movie Sharper, which came out in select theaters, as they say, this past week and drops today on Apple TV+. Let's listen to a clip. This is Sandra returning to the bookstore to take Tom up on his offer to have dinner after she originally said no earlier that day.

[movie scene playing]

Sandra: Remember this morning when you asked me out to dinner?

Tom: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--

Sandra: Oh, no, no, no, I actually wanted to say yes. [chuckles] I was standing there thinking how nice would be if this guy asked me out and right as I thought it, he did. I don't know, I panicked.

Tom: You panicked?

Sandra: I panicked. [laughter] I'm Sandra.

Tom: Tom.

Sandra: Nice to meet you, Tom.

Kerry: How does the film pivot from this moment? How does it inform the rest of the movie? This very important moment.

Benjamin: This is very difficult because even in your description, I was slightly cringing. Thank you for having me on here and I obviously would love people either to go to the theaters to see this film or streaming on Apple. I guess the less you know about this film, the more surprised you are going to be. Right from the very beginning, even talking to the marketing I was like, "How are you going to market this film?" Because it is a magic trick. I do think the more other people begin to tell some of the little or the misdirections in there, it does slightly take away from part of the enjoyment of it. [laughter] I'm not going to be the person that says anything. I mean obviously, I can't stop you from saying something but I would encourage people to just go and see the film and then maybe read about it afterward if that's possible [chuckles].

Kerry: Okay. Let's go then to how you told the story. The film does have a lot of twists and turns. They were introduced to Justice Smith's character, Tom, and Briana Middleton's character Sandra in this dimly lit bookstore. What was important to you to include in terms of details in this first part of the film?

Benjamin: It's really interesting. That bookstore where we start the film and where we end the film, and that is not giving anything away. We literally bookend the film in the bookstore. That was one of the first locations I saw and met an amazing designer who's called Kevin Thompson, who's very much New York born and bred and one of the best designers working today. He did Michael Clayton. I jumped off the plane and I got taken straight there because this opportunity presents itself and it was down on Thompson Street next to Prince. It was exactly that almost if you'd taken a Richard Curtis Notting Hill bookshop and transported it to Manhattan and it just had the bones of that, and it was an empty shell.

Then which would allow Kevin to go in and decorate it. I wanted that bookshop to be somewhere where one of our main characters Tom was hiding away. That he was hiding away in the world of fiction. That actually was a safe place for him that he was lost in the world of the not real, rather than the real. Then in that opening scene a scene that just played before the one you played the clip, in walks Sandra, and then suddenly it's that classic, meet cute where boy meets girl, girl meets boy and they fall in love.

She's the one that takes him out of this world of fiction out into the real world. It was the detail in that bookshop. I can spend hours sitting in bookshops. They're warm and cozy [laughs] just surrounded by stories. I guess in many ways what we were doing was a story and there's something about us as human beings love the idea of stories and being told stories. I guess this was another addition to that.

Kerry: Sharper revolves around these five people in New York City, four of whom each get a section of the film dedicated to them, and then each segment of the film has a different mood. How did you visualize that? How did you come up with that strategy as a director?

Benjamin: I guess one of the defining things about the film was there was non-linear where the structure itself echoes the stories, tricks, and turns. One of the ways in which I thought we could lean into was the seasons in New York. I come in London, we have seasons. We have four seasons, and many times I've been in New York, we also have four seasons. I love that passage of time. It really helps you move through the year. I thought that could be something that we could use for our characters. For instance, when Sandra and Tom meet its springtime in New York, it's classically romantic season and a perfect time to fall in love.

For me, that was about Tom embodying hope and new beginnings, whereas when we come to Sandra's chapter, this takes place in the winter which maybe gives a sense of the harsh realities of her life, its limitations, and difficulties. Then we go to Madeline which is in Autumn, and it's-- Or it's Max and Madeline's autumn. It's a time for the arts, it's exhibitions. It's an important social season where the wealthy social set in New York. Then finally we end up in summer where all the secrets are brought out into the light.

Kerry: Did you find that you had any unique challenges in using this structure to tell the story?

Benjamin: Not really. I had to go back and-- We rehearsed for a couple of weeks beforehand we had to make it linear, just so in our heads we could go through the story as it would do, but not really. I come from working in television and, often as a director, you are directing multiple episodes, you have to keep very different storylines in your head when you're doing it. I guess I was quite used to that.

Kerry: That brings up another quick question. Your experience working on all these TV shows of Sherlock, The Crown, and Andor, what did you bring from that into your feature filmmaking?

Benjamin: That's a good question. This sound really boring.

Kerry: [laughs] Not at all.

Benjamin: I'm really [laughs] sorry.

Kerry: Don't stop.

Benjamin: Experience. There is nothing that can beat experience. I think about had I made a film when I wanted to make 20 years ago, I just don't think that would've been a very good feature film. I think hopefully some people agree, and maybe some don't. I hope that this feature film that I've made is much better for the 15 years that I've had working in television drama. I'm fortunate enough that has been with some really classy actors, with some tremendous writers, and with the opportunity to make some very ambitious television. I guess confidence and experience were probably the two things that really helped me.

Kerry: Julianne Moore plays Madeline in the film. She's the wife of Richard Hobbs, the billionaire who's played by John Lithgow. You worked with him on The Crown, and Julianne is also a producer on the film. How did she get involved in this project?

Benjamin: She was brought the project by her management team. It was on the script written by Tanaka and Gatewood, Brian and Alex. They wrote it when they were at college together, and developed over a few years. It was sitting on the blacklist, which is a place where unproduced scripts sit sometimes of the year, sometimes a bit more. She was looking for a part that excited her and her team brought her Sharper. There was a great part in there Madeline and was like, "I want to do this."

As soon as she said, I want do something, then lots of people got excited about that, including Apple, including A24. When I came on board, she was already a producer on it. She was the star and a producer on it and along with those Apple, A24, and also Picturestart. In a way, she brought me onto the project and then I shared my vision and she completely bought into that. Then we began the next part of the process in terms of casting the rest of the parts in the film.

Kerry: Let's listen to another clip. This is Madeline, Julianne Moore, talking to her husband Richard, played by John Lithgow, about Sebastian Stan's character another person in the movie, about the character, Max's erratic behavior, and his drug use. The problem is Max overhears the whole conversation.

[movies scene playing]

Madeline: He spent the last year putting together a company to charter boats in the Bahamas but then the hurricane wiped that out, which is too bad because he was so happy. He was doing so well.

Richard: Madeline, how does he live?

Madeline: His father left him some money, and I help him out from time to time.

Richard: Of course you do.

Madeline: I was so young when he was born, and then his father died and I'm suddenly a widow, and I didn't always know how to be a mother.

Richard: It's up to him to do better. He's an adult.

Madeline: No, he isn't. That's my fault. He's always been my little Max. He [unintelligible 00:19:59] me.

Max: Good morning, mom.

Madeline: Hi, sweetheart. How did you sleep?

Max: Great. Room's got an amazing view.

Madeline: Good.

Kerry: How would you characterize Madeline and what kind of a person is she? What does she want out of her life?

Benjamin: Well, again, I'm going to--

Kerry: Don't give away too much.

Benjamin: I'm going to tread very delicately because again, what I would say is that each of these characters are uniquely flawed no more so than Madeline. I think Madeline is a fascinating character. She's someone who's addicted to the win, someone who obsessively seeks power, and sometimes a power is a force that needs an object and in Madeline, I would say, she expresses her vulnerability by exerting it over everyone else who comes in her path [chuckles].

Kerry: After you had shot the movie, and you're in this whole post-production thing, what decisions did you make about the film? Did the narrative change or evolve throughout the process of shooting and then editing?

Benjamin: We were very fortunate. It was a pretty straight arrow. There were a couple of scenes that we ended up having to lose. The final act, I would say, came together in the cutting room. I remembered Usual Suspects and the end of that, the Keyser Söze moment, and there was something about that that I thought we could have a nod to. The final chapter, that was something that definitely evolved in the film. I remember just sitting there one day and watching the film and almost hearing another mini-film within it. I guess that became that final act. Like anything else you just have to bring a film down. It always comes in long. It comes in at three hours. I knew this film needed to sit comfortably under two hours. I think it's about one hour 50. You're just constantly reducing it. [laughter] I don't know. Like a [unintelligible 00:22:28] or something like that. You're just trying to get it down to that perfect texture.

Kerry: Now, you're currently developing a number of projects with your sister and long-term producing partner, Jodie Caron. What's it like working with her?

Benjamin: Working with your sister?

Kerry: Yes.

Benjamin: I'm very fortunate. I'm very lucky. We have a brilliant relationship. We'd been working together since I was eight years old and six years old. We used to sit in the office above the pub and pretend that we were running the pub. We've been working on it for the last 40 years. [laughter] It's brilliant to have someone that you trust with you, on set with you beforehand. You have a shorthand. We like similar things, so I feel very fortunate.

Kerry: What projects can you talk about that you're coming up with?

Benjamin: I genuinely don't know. For the first time in 20 years, I've not been either starting something or finishing something. I'm having a bit of a break and spending a bit more time with my family. There's a couple of things which I hate. It's always frustrating when you hear people say, "I can't tell you about it." More, I can't tell you about it because they may not happen, and I don't want to jinx them. [unintelligible 00:23:51] There's two or three horses, maybe in the race, and I think if any of them get out of the starting blocks and get closer to the finish line, then I would be excited by any one of those three. They're all incredibly varied. One of them potentially is set back in New York, so I'm very excited about that one.

Kerry: Oh, well, it would be nice to have you back here.

Benjamin: Thank you.

Kerry: I also want to mention that WNYC's very own John Schaefer has a small appearance in the movie.

Benjamin: He does. He is really kind. Again, in that first scene in the bookshop, when we first meet Tom, he's working there and in the background is Irma Thomas who's playing Ruler of My Heart, and I wanted it to come from the radio. It goes from that track into a Duke Ellington track. I got in touch with WNYC and, thankfully, John Schaefer lent his voice and his introduction, and so he is absolutely in the movie.

Kerry: Excellent. [chuckles] We're all thrilled.

Benjamin: Next time, Kerry, I'll give you a shout-out.

Kerry: I will hold you to that because now we have you on tape. Benjamin Caron has been my guest. He is the director of the new movie Sharper which is out in select theaters and has dropped today on the streaming service Apple TV+. Benjamin, thank you so much for being on All Of It. This has been just a delight.

Benjamin: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

 

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