The writer-director tells the Karlovy Vary film fest about male actors having “hard time trusting me” and indie film: “Everybody’s running scared, and there are generally six actors that will get you the financing you want.”
Indie icon Nicole Holofcener (Walking and Talking, Friends With Money) discussed in a Q&A her collaborations with Ben Affleck and Mat Damon, losing out on directing Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde (which became a huge hit).
The Karlovy Vary Fest (KVIFF) is honoring her with career retro, screening 3 of her movies: Please Give, Enough Said, You Hurt My Feelings.
Asked how much box office success means to her, Holofcener offered: “It means a lot to me. It means people are seeing my films. I’ve never lost money. So that’s why I’m able to keep going. And some movies have made a fair amount of money. But I never know why or which ones do and which ones don’t.”
Her TV work helps her making a living. “I make money from directing TV and doing writing jobs, adapting books or rewriting something.
Three weeks of writing on a Marvel movie paid more money than making three films. It’s obscene!”
Rewriting a Marvel tentpole?
“Fun because I get hired to make female characters better. Men don’t understand women,” she said. “So on Black Widow, I worked on Scarlett Johansson’s and Florence Pugh’s characters, making them more human, giving them more depth. It’s not hard, especially when they’re written just like cardboard characters.”
Work with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon?
“I knew Ben before because we were mutual fans. He had written me a letter, and I visited him on set,” Holofcener shared. “He’s one of the smartest, funniest people I’ve known. He might have love troubles but he’s really one of the smartest and funniest people, and I respect him enormously. I didn’t know Matt, except my son dated his daughter in high school. And I was jealous. ‘You know Matt Damon, and I don’t?’ They are just great guys. They were so generous toward me. They acted like they revered me so I was very comfortable. I wrote that part for her. In the end, we all collaborated on everything because it had to be cohesive script. It was very collaborative and really a great experience.”
Holofcener recalled missing out on a collaboration with another big star. “I was sent scripts that I regret not taking,” she said. “After Walking and Talking, I met with Reese Witherspoon, and she said, ‘Do you want to direct this movie, Legally Blonde.’ When I read it, I thought, ‘This is so silly, and didn’t know where to begin.’ So I passed. And you know what? It turned out to be a really great movie. And I think Robert Luketic did great job. I probably would have done a less great job. I would have made it less broad, less funny, more real.”
In the streaming age, she has seen cinemas close down. “So many theaters in New York where my movies used to play are gone. That’s just really sad for me and sad for new filmmakers coming up. It’s really different right now. But I survived the strike. I had a writing job, and I got paid the day before the strike, and I was okay. A lot of people were really in bad shape.”
“From what I understand in terms of the deals that we made, it’s good for writers to have more jobs, but at the same time, some of it doesn’t make sense, so it’s a mess. A lot of TV writers are really struggling to make enough money and to get work.”
