{"id":7167,"date":"2021-12-23T23:06:51","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T04:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=7167"},"modified":"2021-12-23T23:25:52","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T04:25:52","slug":"cmon-cmon-qa-with-director-mike-mills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=7167","title":{"rendered":"C’mon, C’mon : Q&A with Director Mike Mills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Synopsis<\/strong> :\u00a0Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his young nephew (Woody Norman) forge a tenuous but transformational relationship when they are unexpectedly thrown together in this delicate and deeply moving story about the connections between adults and children, the past and the future, from writer-director Mike Mills.<\/p>\n

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Q&A with Director Mike Mills on “C’mon, C’mon” (Q&A was conducted at the MOMA’s<\/strong> “Contender Series<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Q: Thanks for being here. Thanks for this super-tender movie. Maybe we can just start with, there are these twin anchors that bring us through, the first being these really beautiful recordings with all these kids all over the country. Maybe you can tell us about how you found that as a way to anchor this story?<\/p>\n

MM: First, it\u2019s really lovely to see a room full of people that came to see my film. So thank you so much for being here. And thanks to MOMA for having this. Really, this means so much to me to show my movie in this building. I\u2019m a museum director\u2019s son, and this is sort of like Mecca, so it means a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The story really starts with me and my kid, I have a child. It\u2019s all about that crazy intimacy and vulnerability of walking through the world with the kid holding your hand. But I didn\u2019t want to stop \u2013 I\u2019m sure there\u2019s tons of parents here, right? \u2013 so for me, at least, when I had my kid it really tied me to the world in a way I didn\u2019t understand was coming. It made me feel so connected to other people and other kids — and all of us — in a way that I\u2019d never experienced before.<\/p>\n

So while I wanted to make this really intimate story, really a kind of small story, I had this other opposing desire to explore that as big as I could, and include all the kids I could \u2013 and to kind of de-center my kid. And that became increasingly important.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then I just really loved the texture of the way, when you interview someone, the way they think and talk and reveal themselves, it\u2019s so alive. It\u2019s so carbonated, and so surprising \u2013 it has like an extra bouncy quality that really livens up all your written parts. It just changes the whole thing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then all those interviews, those are all kids who aren\u2019t actors. Joaquin had a list that I wrote, but he would also follow his instincts with the kids, which was really beautiful to watch. He\u2019s really such a sensitive, perceptive person that\u2019s so aware of power and so good at dissembling it as you\u2019re in the room with someone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Often Joaquin walks in the room and there\u2019s a kid, like, \u201cYou\u2019re the Joker!\u201d I was really worried how that would go because \u2013 it was Fall 2019, right? so Joker shit is everywhere. Joaquin would so nicely go \u201cOh, totally. Yeah, let\u2019s talk about that right after. Um, what are your shoes?\u201d And when Joaquin says \u201cWhat are your shoes?\u201d it has a certain power to it \u2013 not because it\u2019s Joaquin, but because he knows how to have energy and you just start answering.\u00a0<\/span>So that whole process was really quite beautiful. It influenced the whole filmmaking process\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: Maybe you can tell us how you guys moved around the whole country, right? New York and L.A., were really intrinsic to the story, but then you have these two other poles [New Orleans and Detroit] anchoring us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: That\u2019s a good word, \u201cpoles\u201d, and it kind of ended up making some sort of a cross in a funny way.\u00a0<\/span>We did it in order. I shoot most of my films in order because all the stuff accrues and happens that you never could predict to the crew and to the actors. I try really invite stuff that I didn\u2019t see coming, like I hope for and invite. I\u2019m looking for it and I want it so it comes. So it\u2019s great to shoot in order because then you can adjust or you can discover something and then incorporate it in a way that makes sense.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So we started in Los Angeles, went to New York December of 2019, and then went to New Orleans. We shot Detroit at the very end. It was because it was only a few days there, really. Relationships with everyone grows, but especially between Joaquin and Woody, who plays the kid. By the time they\u2019re in New Orleans, I\u2019m just wildly jealous of their relationship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They lean on each other, they have their own weird language I do not understand, take pock each other\u2019s noses, literally. So the human in me is like \u201cI want to be in there\u201d. The director in me is like \u201cthis is gold! This is what you need, this is what you want.\u201d And this is what it\u2019s my job to encourage and enable and make happen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: So the moving around in some ways creates this kind of road movie. Did you think about it through that lens?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: Well, I thought about \u2013 it\u2019s like an airplane movie more than a road movie. The road movies are such a thing. I really did think of it as a cities movie and \u201cAlice in the Cities\u201d was a very big influence. I couldn\u2019t have made this movie without watching \u201cAlice in the Cities\u201d as a way to recover from 2016. So I just watch it all the time as kind of like Zanax.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because I was lost, really lost, as to what to do. I wanted to do something about my kid. I didn\u2019t know how to do it. I was like, maybe I can use this as like a blues structure, a blues chord thing, and I\u2019m going to put my own lyrics and my own thing in. So I do owe Wim Wenders a lot for that. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yeah, I wanted it to be scenes about giving a kid a bath as the core. But then I also want to thrust that mystery of that relationship out into America at large, and especially after 2016 I really wanted to somehow \u2013 not that I have any great resolution or understanding or anything. I just want to be in it \u2013 kind of in the mess.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: I feel we shouldn\u2019t go any further without talking about Woody \u2013 such a revelation, especially alongside somebody like Gaby and Joaquin. They really feel like such a real family. It\u2019s hard to believe that Joaquin and Gaby never played siblings. Can you talk about them building a unit?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: Do you know that Woody\u2019s British? He cruises in doing that accent, and I can\u2019t do a British accent. When I said \u201cCut\u201d he said \u201cReally?\u201d It gets you every time. So let\u2019s park Woody for a second.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gaby and Joaquin, two people I\u2019ve always wanted to work with, that I really admire deeply, I\u2019m so taken by their work, in different ways. Didn\u2019t know either of them, felt so wildly lucky to get them. Getting Joaquin was one of the more tricky, difficult things in my life — to get through that jungle journey with him — to get him to say yes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They both weirdly had this idea, like \u201cWe should not meet. We should never meet until he walks through the door in Los Angeles.\u201d And I, who love Fellini, was like, Well, the film gods are telling me this is what has to happen. Because I like a lot of prep, I was like \u201cOh, let\u2019s do all this experiential, improvisational Mike Lee process stuff.\u201d They wanted that, so I was like \u201cCool. Let\u2019s do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So that was the first time they all met, and it was really effective in the way they did it. It was not as I expected. I think the scene is great, it\u2019s fine. It would have been the same, I think, if we had prepped or done something else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u2019re all so good. There wasn\u2019t a problem. But what it did [was] it scared them<\/i> so much \u2013 the actors. And those are two actors who are the kind that are easily bored. So it hot-seared them into their gestalt with each other, and they kindof like cried after Take 2, because it was so much nervous crazy energy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Gaby said to me that I thought was really profound and I just trusted immediately was, she said \u201cI know him\u201d \u2013 she had never met him. \u201cI know him. He is my brother. I feel like a familial situation. I can\u2019t explain it to you. I do. So therefore, it\u2019s there. We just need to kindof crack it, and it will all kindof spill out.\u201d I like that, even just a physical gesture. I was like, \u201cI get it.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there wasn\u2019t my usual long prep situation. The same thing with Woody: we did some things together. Gaby and Woody did hang out. Joaquin and Molly Webster from Radiolab who plays the Roxanne character, they did radio stuff together, but that was when they happened. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then for the rest of the shoot, it was in a very sibling situation: they\u2019re either making each other laugh so much I couldn\u2019t film, or they were arguing so much I couldn\u2019t film. If Woody was here, he would do this big performance for you, like \u201cThey were so impossible.\u201d And it\u2019s true: they were the children on the set and Woody was the grownup. All felt very familial \u2013 familiar and familial \u2013 and that\u2019s so how it is in my \u201chouse\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: You achieve a naturalism that I think a lot of people strive for but few really succeed. It\u2019s really in just the smallest gestures. How did you achieve that, staying close to the text you\u2019ve written? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: A lot of that is obviously just letting things happen. I shoot in series, so I don\u2019t say \u201cAction\u201d. We just start, they all know when the camera\u2019s going and they\u2019ll do a take, maybe we\u2019ll have \u201cstill rolling\u201d, and the cameras are all going, maybe say a couple things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To do it again, maybe all go plop down on the bed that we\u2019re shooting on and chat for like a second, camera is still rolling. So you\u2019re on kind of this constant simmer, but not like the thing of \u201c[Ohh!] We\u2019re gonna do a take\u201d and then we\u2019re done. We\u2019re simmering for fifteen or twenty minutes, and I find that really helps for that quality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another thing I think people don\u2019t realize: it\u2019s so much about the editing. Being brave enough to include the little moment where they\u2019re lost and just playing with the napkin, or all the little things that are behavior- and not dialogue-driven; looking for those moments, and then believing all that story, actually, and that kind of pushed the boat forward.<\/p>\n

Another thing is, your film sucks until it\u2019s okay. Like in the edit, it sucks, it\u2019s so bad, until the last minute. No one told me this for years. All those moments I just described \u2013 just coming through a door and being nervous and hanging out — you\u2019ve got to cut that out, and get to the moment when they\u2019re talking and the thing happens \u2013 \u201cthe thing\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It took me a long time to understand this will slowly figure itself out, it takes a long time to build the brain to be able to finish your own film. The filmmaker doesn\u2019t have it at the beginning. So it\u2019s a lot of editing, it\u2019s such a huge part of what a performance feels like on screen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Another framework is something that has been in your last two films as well, which were these texts. In \u201cBeginners\u201d we have The Velveteen Rabbit<\/i>. In \u201c20th Century Women\u201d we have [writer] Judy Blume and all these things that bring us into the larger culture. How did you find these three or four texts that guide us through this film? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: In this film? From the ones you mentioned, like The Velveteen Rabbit<\/i> [Margery Williams, 1922], that\u2019s real. My dad had a show about teddy bears, and put the Velveteen Rabbit quote on the wall a week after Harvey Milk was assassinated. That came from personal discovery.<\/p>\n

I really love observing the world and being a good observer. That\u2019s my favorite thing, and to find ways to incorporate it. And then that\u2019s when the writing happens. It\u2019s like, all these things I love. How do I put them into something that means something? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So those texts — I read Star Child<\/i> [Claire A. Nivola] to my kid all the time and they make fun of me for crying, and they like [smack forehead] \u201cMike, don\u2019t cry again.\u201d So that whole scene is really from my world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And then that Jacqueline Rosa is so piercingly accurate, I found, as a father-man-person. But from what I have observed from the moms around me, I felt that was so wildly accurate in such a condensed, sharp way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So there are things that I have collected. The Kirsten Johnson piece is amazing. That came in the edit. I actually did a Q&A with her while I was editing my film. It reminded me of her amazing cameraperson essay and how personal and direct in admitting her own complicitness in different parts of the documentary process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There often are things that I just love, and I\u2019m like \u201cWell, if this is in my movie, maybe there\u2019s half a chance it\u2019s okay\u201d. And it\u2019s like \u201cCompany,\u201d in that way. If you have a great thing on your team, maybe you\u2019ll play as good as the other members of the team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: I can really understand your last few films existing in the same universe. Do you think about this one, particularly in dialogue, with the other two films?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: I didn\u2019t see this coming. My dad passed away in a very kindof dramatic way and grief can give you so much bravery. It\u2019s kind\u3000of hallucinogenic. I was braver, smarter, wilder than I would have been if my dad was all those things. I blame my dad, you know?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My dad came out when he was seventy-five and really went for it. And included me in that trip. He was a very staid person before that, so he was quiet and experienced. And I feel like I\u2019m still \u2013 like he pushed the canoe and I am still on the canoe from that experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So he came out. He was born in 1925, and he also had so much embedded self-hatred, embedded self-shame, and all that. He came up out of all that and he became politically active right away \u2013 or socially active about his gayness right away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That whole connection between that which is wildly internal and personal and that which binds us all together in a socio-political way, became really accessible to me. So I feel I had been finding that spectrum. And the same thing with my mom, her time on earth and how it relates to being \u2013 feminism, in a way.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So that first film really taught me that I could write from a really personal place and it can connect with strangers in a dark room. It can connect. That\u2019s an amazing, miraculous, magical situation. So yeah, that did point me in this direction. But I\u2019m kindof surprised. I\u2019m surprised, and I\u2019m totally not surprised that I\u2019ve done these three [films].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: It\u2019s funny to hear you say that because I wanted to ask you about spirituality in your films, which maybe isn\u2019t something one would think of while watching your films. But they make me feel like a larger force \u2013 and maybe that kind of grief is actually the thing behind it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: Yeah, big time. Do you guys ever read Fellini interviews?\u00a0 <\/span>Just go home and get it. Read it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To me it\u2019s like Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n. You ever read Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n? It\u2019s deeply spiritual. There is so much energy that goes into a film; so many people, so many decisions, it\u2019s wild. It\u2019s like Las Vegas on drugs. She talks about them as these sortof psychic soul entities that you summon, you ask for, and they come. And they come with their own needs and they summon different people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That sounds very spiritual, right? I fully believe that. That\u2019s my experience. Films have personalities, they have ways that everyone on set feels, and they have ways that audiences feel. It\u2019s really trippy, so I\u2019ll be doing press, and I\u2019ll do it here, and I\u2019ll go to different countries. There\u2019s like four or five questions each film will summon, or four or five moods or feelings. So I do really believe in that.<\/p>\n

I think you\u2019re right to base it all in grief, and some sort of connection with history. And I find history to be kindof a spiritual situation — our relationship with it and how it affects us. And I think filmmaking in general — okay, the older I get, the more I find it to be a bonkers, pagan, spiritual deal. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Yeah, that sense of history and humanity is something I feel so much in this one. You see Johnny tired at the end of the day, immediately reflecting, taking this thing that happened in the moment and capturing it in his own words, and kindof making this artifact to pass down this intergenerational [moment]. Can you talk about those moments with Joaquin, having him narrate the scenes?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: That was really interesting to get Joaquin to be this radio person — to get Joaquin to do something that was kindof naturalistic. He\u2019s so suspicious of \u201cnaturalistic\u201d editing \u2013 you always say it with quotes — because he\u2019s like, \u201cwhat is more contrived than acting normal? Or like walking through a door and saying \u201chi\u201d but with a film crew? That is such bullshit.\u201d So it took a long time to find a way for him to feel comfortable or have entry.<\/p>\n

Studs Terkel really helped. I love \u201cThis American Life\u201d and Ira Glass and ________. I told him. And he was like \u201cyeh\u201d. But Studs Terkel and Ira Glass told me about Scott Currier, who I had heard before but didn\u2019t really have the name. Studs created this amazing journalist who works mostly in radio, and does podcasts now, but has a really specific voice. It\u2019s often very monotone and kindof flat, and often talking about very dramatic things in that way. But has a real gift for \u201cthe small\u201d and how \u201cthe small\u201d is big.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joaquin is like, \u201cThat guy is it!\u201d So right before we started shooting, maybe a week before, he\u2019s like, \u201cMaybe I do kindof Scott Currier-like, just processing my days.\u201d I said \u201cYeah, great. Sounds great.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When an actor starts to author stuff, to me, that\u2019s always like, yes, you got under their skin. As a writer-director person, that\u2019s the best sign. I\u2019m always going to invite that. And who knows how it\u2019s going to go. And Joaquin, first of all, would be [hah] Who knows? It could be the most indulgent, ridiculous thing. He might even say it is now, if he was here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So we just started doing those about every three or four days. I would start by writing what he\u2019s saying. But he would just start to remember. Because we were shooting in order, he would just live through those scenes a day or two before. So he\u2019s mostly really remembering and it\u2019s really beautiful. He\u2019s struggling to remember and catch it down. I don\u2019t know why I find that very emotional, and very human or something.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And to me, that\u2019s what films are, right? It\u2019s trying to hold on to our confusing lives that we don\u2019t understand, and maybe we can \u2013 I don\u2019t think we can understand it better. But we can hold on to the fact that we don\u2019t understand it a little better, and it doesn\u2019t slip away quite so fast. That\u2019s an Oscar right there, if you can do that. So the film kindof started doing that inside of itself a little bit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: You make these really comfortable domestic spaces in this film \u2013 and all of your movies. When I think of your films, I think of dried flowers, like a flower on a window sill or something.<\/p>\n

MM: Do they have to be dry?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: They often are \u2013 I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve noticed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: Like a few days old, still in water, and it\u2019s okay, right?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: But I guess not even from a production design standpoint, but maybe just textually, like how you go about building those, in service of a character\u2019s story. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: That\u2019s really interesting. Well, a lot is \u201cas is\u201d. So Viv\u2019s house in Los Angeles, that\u2019s my friend Maximel\u2019s house. That\u2019s — ninety percent is their stuff, and all the layers, and all the clunk and all the taste, I guess, too, like layers of aesthetic decisions over the years. I find that really hard to recreate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnny\u2019s apartment in New York City: that is created. That was a barebones space. I had an amazing model of how to make that apartment look, that we definitely studied and thought about a lot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I love place. I feel like either an interior like you\u2019re describing \u2013 or even an exterior \u2013 I like to leave it alone and use natural light. Natural light is really huge — natural<\/i> light, not lighting things too much. Usually if I\u2019m sitting here in mind of a film — like right now, there is a spotlight on me. So you light for the face. Anyone like Gordon Willis and those different heroes of mine in cinematography \u2013 you light for the room, not for the face. Or better yet, you just don\u2019t light. Because it bathes everything in this kindof dried flower vibes, maybe.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, I felt like place \u2013 and to bring up Wim Wenders again, I think he\u2019s so good at place. When you watch one of his movies, it\u2019s like, well, those emotions, that scene, that dialogue, that need, could have only happened right then, in that situation, next to that wall, a light coming there, and that piece of trash over there. It\u2019s all a \u201cthing\u201d, right? So I definitely think of place and dialogue as together\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Maybe you could tell us a little about the cinematography process. In the black and white, there\u2019s so much gray range, it\u2019s not so intensely what you might think.<\/p>\n

MM: Yes.\u00a0 <\/span>Robbie Ryan is an amazing cinematographer. He does Ken Loach, Andrew Arnold, all those natural light [films] and that\u2019s part of why I reached out to him. He\u2019s Irish, charming, and lives on a boat in London \u2013 can\u2019t be more charming. Travels everywhere with one bag this big \u2013 that\u2019s it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Robbie doesn\u2019t like a lot of stuff. Robbie loves to turn the camera on, so he\u2019s like my favorite date. It\u2019s like that\u2019s all we need to be best friends. We use a tiny \u2013 not like a dolly, just like a post on a skateboard platform, with two V-channels that are, like, totally illegitimate. But it takes one person to set up, and it\u2019s so light on the land and it kindof creates a vibe on the set. I go \u201cThat\u2019s your dolly? I don\u2019t even know if this is a film set.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Often we\u2019re shooting in New York City streets. No one knows we\u2019re there. Those shots on Grant Street, before he goes into the pharmacy with all the people. So we just put up the sign on either side of the block and that\u2019s just everyone walking home. And Joaquin\u2019s really good at being not the droid you\u2019re looking for, and just going out into a crowd and walking towards camera, and no one knows that we\u2019re filming a film.<\/p>\n

Same thing when they walk on a beach in Santa Monica, he\u2019s on the phone. All those people do not know they\u2019re in a movie. It might not be even legal, I\u2019m not sure. But we put the signs up, and the poor woman in the bathing suit, I was going \u201cIs this right? I don\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At one point, there was one take where Joaquin\u2019s going and talking. We\u2019re doing the scene, we\u2019re down the beach on a 150-millimeter lens. I\u2019m like, here, and Joaquin\u2019s like towards the end of this audience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s walking, and there\u2019s an iPhone in the sand. He\u2019s doing the scene, he\u2019s on the phone \u2013 he\u2019s really on the phone, with Molly Webster in New York City. He picks up the phone, and he [hands it to someone] and says \u201cHi, is this yours?\u201d He\u2019s still talking on the phone, and \u201cYeah, he\u2019s amazing, he\u2019s doing great stuff. You should see him.\u201d [While handing the iPhone to someone]. \u201cYeah, I think you left it.\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cNo, it\u2019s not my phone.\u201d Joaquin [looks at the iPhone] \u201cWell, will you take it?\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all on film, and so that kind of vibe was existing all the way through. I completely lost myself in that story. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Q: Cinematography?<\/p>\n

MM: Right. The graininess that you were talking about is interesting to me. I love Satie, piano. I love the way you can enter the music, literally, like the notes are so far apart you can walk in between them and get in there and look around. I find that space and that openness to be super-beautiful and healing. I would love to make a film like that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, black and white is like Satie piano. It doesn\u2019t talk loudly at you, it talks like this, and you have to kind of lean towards it, I find. I thought that that would be really a beautiful way to capture what it\u2019s like to give a kid a bath. And to invite everyone in with you doing that, or be in bed with the kid. That sort of quiet whispering intimacy is part of the film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The grayness you\u2019re talking about is because we used mostly natural light or just a little bit of practicals in a room, and so it\u2019s low-lit and has some non-pointing quality. It makes me feel just comfortable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: Before we go, I just want to ask you when you think about the future, what do you think it will be like?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

MM: Every once in awhile a kid will pull that on us.\u00a0 <\/span>Like at the beginning, we said \u201cIf there\u2019s any question you don\u2019t feel comfortable with, you don\u2019t have to ask, you say \u201cskip\u201d. Molly taught Joaquin to do that. They\u2019d often say \u201cIf there\u2019s any questions they don\u2019t ask that you want, just ask.\u201d<\/p>\n

So everyone once in awhile I would see a kid ask Joaquin and Joaquin would go \u2013 and Joaquin\u2019s a very pessimistic \u2013 big, big, huge-hearted, sensitive pessimistic person. And there\u2019s a ten-year-old asking that question. And I watched Joaquin just want to cry.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s sortof my answer. It\u2019s so heavy to me right now. So I guess I don\u2019t feel it\u2019s a hard question.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Q: That\u2019s okay. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n

MM: Thank you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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