Exclusive Interview with Writer/Director Celine Song

 

Q : I heard that you used to be a matchmaker for six months of your life. How did you become a matchmaker, what was the genesis of the film?

Celine Song: So I became that because I was a playwright and I couldn’t afford to pay rent. So I needed a day job, and this was the only day job I could get. But in those six months, I think I learned more about matchmaking and people, human beings, and their desires and any other part of my life, yeah.

Q : When I was watching this film made me realize that most of their clients when they are talking to the matchmaker, they’re honest about the feeling. Probably even more honest than actually talking to family or therapist. So, wasn’t that kind of situation taking a toll on you, when you used to be a matchmaker? Because I imagine that it might be really daunting task to listen to all the emotional outbursts in a certain sense.

Celine Song: Of course, I feel like it’s so I get to know the actual truth because I think that they would be too polite or too embarrassed to use some of the language that they were using with me.

So I think that to me is really the key to it, right? Because it’s always about like just how honest they are. Because they’re asking me to acquire an asset. It doesn’t make sense. If they’re trying to get me to, they say I would like to get a boyfriend who has all of these things.

So it’s like an acquisition or it’s like getting something, it’s like a having, getting and having something. So because of that, just like how we’re shopping. For a house or a car, you might say, this is my dream car. I want this and this and this and this. That’s the way that they were talking to me and it was, I don’t if it was exhausting.

I think that it was more really interesting and very fascinating because I knew that all the way that they were talking about the partner, the height, weight. Income, everything like that. All of those things are actually so distant from, so contradictory from actual love. Which is this like a beautiful ancient mystery that has no numbers, right?

Q :  I completely agree with you on that. You presented Pedro Pascal character, Harry like unicorn, which is something that is highly desirable but difficult to find in real life, when you have the unicorn, his flaws or lack of something can  be damaging, but when you have a regular guy who has a lot of flaws can be dearing things to partner or lover to me. Thats what’s the intimacy all about in a certain sense. That’s what’s fascinating about this film. Sometimes people want the material things, but when it comes to love doesn’t necessarily work those material things.

Celine Song: And I also believe that we can say that we are really interested in someone who’s rich, tall, whatever. You can say that’s what you want. But the thing that we really want is true love. The greatest fantasy of all is true love.

And I think that to me is really at the heart of what the movie is. ’cause it’s about how we can really get into all the material things and we can all get into all the ways that like what we’re looking for in a partner. And especially in a marriage partner, like all the math that goes into that and all the dating games, and of course eventually like algorithm, right?

AI, like there’s so much happening in the dating as an industry. Like it’s an industry. It’s a corporation, it’s a corporate situation, but all of those things are modern invention. And something that is quite real is that all of those things are in search of this thing love, which is an ancient love, which is like this beautiful impossible thing that asks you to, not worry about any of the numbers we’re talking about.

So I think that it’s a pretty crazy thing that I want to do with this movie, which is that I’m trying to carry the character Lucy from somebody who completely believes in numbers, to somebody who is able to accept that none of the numbers mean anything when it comes to this one human domain, which is love.

©Courtesy of A24

Q : Yeah, I know you are married, but if you are still single, and trying to get your matchmaker Today. How do you sell yourself to this matchmaker? Could you tell your strong point within 1 minute?

Celine Song: I feel like the only thing that I can really say is that I will see you. I would be able to see you and see you as you are. And if I love you, I’m gonna love you for who you are. And then it’s gonna be unconditional. I think that’s what I would say is what do you have to offer?

I’m like that I can offer, I can offer to love them. Which by the way, is the only thing that you should ask for from the person who love you. If somebody wants to love you, only non-negotiable. That you should have for the person who loves you is that they love you.

That’s it. Wow. You don’t need anything else. All you need is this person to love you, because that’s who they are. If they love you, you can’t ask them for anything except for them to love you. So similarly, all I can offer as a dater is that I can offer to love them and that’s the only offer I can give.

Q : You really landed on the stellar cast for this film, could you talk about particularly casting Dakota Johnson, what are her quality that made you decide to cast on this film?

Celine Song: Yeah. I feel like Dakota to me is like this amazing, very professional and she has a beautiful shell to her as an actress that also so breakable. So when you actually break through that initial shell, then she’s able to show you just like a world of vulnerability.

She’s a very delicate person inside and I love those layers to her more than anything. She has something that I was really looking for in a Lucy, somebody who is very put together an incredible at her job, but somebody who is also able to watch, for all of us to watch her whole world break apart.

And it’s very emotional because she’s not like a hard on her sleeve person, neither is Lucy, but she’s going to be somebody who is going to be hiding and trying to hold it together in control. And then throughout the end of the film, she’s going to let go.

So it’s about her transformation. I love working with Dakota because she understands the transformation of Lucy. From a harder, tougher woman to somebody who is then able to break and be vulnerable and open, yeah.

Q : This film kind of reminded me of some of the films from Nancy Meyers or Nora Efron. But instead of getting into the comedy side of it, the film becomes more serious and more intelligent. How do you balance it out? And why do you think those romantic comedy films didn’t nominate it for the Oscar?

Celine Song: I think some of it has to do with the way that the genre of romance has become relegated to what we call chick flicks, right?

There’s a way to say it’s not serious. Topics of romance and dating are for girls, and they’re not serious. And I think that this is awful in couple different ways. In one way it is awful because it excludes girls and chicks from serious people, right? Because that’s, it’s like another way of saying that girls and chicks are not serious.

Which is a horrible thing to say, and it’s untrue. And the other thing that’s also true is it’s saying for serious people, romance and love are not their concern, which is also horrible about serious people, ’cause serious people also have to contend with matters of the heart, and talk about love and talk about romance. So why is it that serious people should not be concerned with this thing, this great drama, this great mystery of life? So I think that’s what is sad about anytime that a romance is a genre is dismissed or ignored or treated like it is meant to be stupid, right?

It’s like not meant to be smart, it’s meant to be meaningless and stupid and nothing, and you’re like that’s not true. Love is a great mystery and it’s a universal theme, and it’s something that we all do. We don’t do everything. Not everybody on Earth does anything, right? We don’t save the world.

There’s so many things that we don’t do. One thing that we do is love. So why is it that it’s not worthy of cinema? It is completely worthy of cinema, and we should make movies about it anyway. And I would like to only make movies about love in a way that feels honest to me and real to me. Yeah.

Q : Thank you so much. I had a good time talking to you again.

Celine Song: So good, I know. We have to talk next one, yeah?

Q : Yeah, I have to make sure that I’ll cover next one as well.

Celine Song: Yes, of course. We have to. Okay. All right. Thank You so much.

Q : Bye-Bye.

©Courtesy of A24

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Here’s the trailer of the film.