Most serious movie buffs have find out of author / director Jeff Nichols for his indie , critically acclaimed moviesShotgun Stories(2007 ) , with the brilliant Michael Shannon , Take Shelter(2001 ) , starring Jessica Chastain at the beginning of her summit , andMud(2012 ) , asterisk Matthew McConaughey at the stature of his McConaissance . But those who have n’t yet heard his name are about to . On March 18 , his sci - fi thrillerMidnight Special , about a boy with very special baron , begins its theatrical release . And while comparisons toStarmanandETare inevitable , they do n’t go much further than bright light coming out of consistency parts . The movie ’s a suspense / thriller with chase scene and shootouts , but at its heart it ’s about what parent , particularly a father , will do for his child . WithMidnight Special , Nichols detect himself in an unfamiliar office . People may really see this film , which is position to do well not only because of the acting ( Michael Shannon stars , as he has in every one of Nichols ’ films , along with Joel Edgerton , Adam Driver and Kirsten Dunst ) , the directing , which is fast - paced and absorbing , but most importantly , it ’s the first film for Nichols that has big studio apartment financial backing . Warner Bros. has taken a hazard on the 37 - year - old Texan , and he ’s hoping it pays off . We talked to Nichols about why kids with super - powers are such a pop movie fodder , his “ muse , ” Michael Shannon , what it was like to operate with Adam Driver , and how Kirsten Dunst convinced him to engage her .
Thrillist : So what made you need to make this particular film now in your vocation ?
Jeff Nichols : It felt like a instinctive progression , I had the original approximation for the film aroundTake Shelter . Having made the three pic antecedently , I realize that any success that was attributed to them was because of the personal connexion these stories had to me , so I had a lot of this plot lay out , because it ’s a Salmon P. Chase picture show , you have point A to signal B. But for me the turn tip was when I started to understand thematically this relationship in my Word and I , and what I want to say about it . I knew there was gon na be a founding father and a Word .
Warner Bros.
So the real connection for you was the family relationship between you and your child ?
What happened was when my son was about eight month old and he had febrile capture . It was a really scary moment , and it in spades kind of shocked my horse sense in term of how thin this stuff and nonsense is and the want of ascendence that I have over my boy ’s personal safety and his physical well - being . But if you just start to take that on down the line , I have no substantial control over who he is as a individual or who he ’s going to be or anything like that , and so if my problem as a Padre is n’t to simply protect him , why am I here and what am I doing and why do I find so – um , " tortured " ’s the wrong word of honor – but you get up in the forenoon and you imagine something risky encounter to him and it physically made me nauseous . How do you function ? You just keep go and understand you have no control over anything .
But even before you had a kid , they were sort of the substance of your picture , for example inMud , Take Shelter , and evenShotgun Stories .
Warner Bros.
Well in my first film [ Shotgun Stories ] , it was my crony , because at that years , when I write it at 24 , you cognise the most good relationship in my spirit , other than my parent , was my brothers , and so I just kind of imagined if something happened to my brothers , and I exploited that inShotgun Stories , and withTake Shelter , even though there ’s a tyke in it , that film ’s really about marriage , because I was on the frontside of marriage , I ’d just been married , and my married woman was about to have a infant . And so there are all the anxieties of becoming a provider and a hubby , and everything else . AndMud , that was me as a youngster .
Obviously there are lot of similarities in this movie , what are the independent differences , besides plain the bighearted studio apartment backing ?
I actively endeavor to pace this picture show differently . I do n’t follow a distinctive story trajectory , what ’s different to me is cross - cutting action , inMudit was always from the male child ’s point of view , that was really important to me and inform my directing panache . In [ Special ] I live i wanted it to be a chase celluloid so I knew I would be bounce back and away between these dissimilar parties that are involved in this journeying , and also within the view themselves , there are shifting POVs . It was really interesting to me to play with POV in the scene , so you ’re never trusted what the characters are doing .
Warner Bros.
How would you name your directing style ?
Very pragmatic . You know I ’m more of a author than a director , I do a mess of directing on the Sir Frederick Handley Page , I take these scripts very in earnest , I ’m aware of change on the tent-fly , because of what the world gives you on the day of shooting , but if it ’s not in the hand there has to be a very good reason to alter it , I ’m very practical about the way I lay these thing out , and directing seems to be such a hectic experience , that my mortal is kind of take away back from going back to the hand and saying “ ok , make up a circle of attention to this . ”
I was n’t conversant with his [ Adam Driver ’s ] workplace … sometimes you just have a feeling about citizenry . He ’s a very voguish player .
Warner Bros.
That was my other question , you always write and direct ? Do you think you would ever do one or the other ?
Anything ’s possible , but I cogitate it would ruin my heart a bit to indite a book and then give it away , they ’re kind of like my kids .
Let ’s talk about Michael Shannon , who has been in every movie you ’ve ever made . Would you ever do a movie without him ?
Oh sure , you know , but that does n’t entail I want to , I just think he ’s nifty .
I recollect I scan him say he does n’t ever desire to miss a moving picture of yours .
I ’ll say this too , I say this in the military press group discussion : I ’m not shoehorn him into these parts , I really think they ’re correct for him , and that ’s partly because I write these for him , but even in my next film he ’s got this small part .
You really ca n’t take your eye off of him , specially inMidnight Special .
He ’s got something that it ’s very tough to sum up or give an anecdote for – the matter I ’ve been saying is that he draw me a better author , in that I can write less dialog , if the character are amply built , fuck he fills in everything that ’s not speak
This is a terribly dorky enquiry , but do you ever moot him to be your muse , similar to Uma Thurman and Quentin Tarantino ?
You cognize , I suppose all this when I ’m writing , I imagine what it see like what the car sounds like , what the clothes reckon like , I reckon what my character sound like , it ’s very light for me to close my eyes and imagine Mike Shannon say these lines , because I know him so well .
How did you choose Adam Driver [ who play a somewhat awkward NSA police officer in the plastic film ] ?
Adam , to be honest , add up out of a trace from the studio . I had n’t watchedGirls , and I was n’t conversant with his piece of work , but I find in the phone with him , he was really sweet and he ’d see my film – he ’d even seenShotgun account , and not a lot of people have seen that movie … sometimes you just have a flavor about masses . I did n’t really get laid what he was gon na do with the character , out of all the characters it could ’ve been the most cliche , and I lecture with him about that , I said I really ask this person to be a real someone . There ’s this one the part of Adam , this very witting fumbling he does … in the scene I worked with him on , he bumped into this chair and he expend his Quran bag , and I yelled “ cutting ” and I was like “ ahh this is what he ’s doing ” and it ’s inordinately up-and-coming , none of it ’s crazy , but I was quite impressed . He ’s a very smart actor .
And what about Kirsten Dunst [ who dally Shannon ’s wife and the son ’s female parent ] ?
We run across through her boyfriend , Garrett , she ’d have her hands on the handwriting , and was kind of lobbying me for the part … . I had n’t seen it that way , with her in it . But she was like , “ lease me just show you , ” and she put it on tape – which is crazy because she ’s a movie star – and she did a whole view with makeup and her hairsbreadth in this braid [ she plays a former member of a spiritual cult ] and I was very impressed with it . I knew I want someone slimly vernal than Mike [ Shannon ] , because that ’s the kind of the makeup of a circle of these South Texas spiritual ranch . I believed her .
How did you pick Alton ’s exceptional powers ?
That kind of highly-developed organically , I start to think about the fashion we commune with the universe is through visible light , the mode we jazz about stars is because their loose locomote here , so it feel like an appropriate elbow room to think about worlds , and the eye are the gateway to the someone , so it seemed like an appropriate spot to shoot light from , and I know we ’ve seen it before in other movies , but that was n’t the divine guidance for it , it was think about this connectivity to this other plaza , image light was an appropriate shaft for that .
Alton has a feel that someone or something is see him – without give away too much of the movie , umm – what , where , why , huh ? ? ?
I leave the definitions very blanket on role , because everyone walk in with their opinion system intact , they ’re gon na start to apply them to this pic . I ’ll just tell you the story of how it came about : my Word had derive home from the hospital when he was born , and our business firm was lilliputian , but we still felt compelled as first - metre parents to put a sister monitor lizard in his elbow room , and I was sit down in bed listening to him suspire , and make randomness , and he had no construct that just outside of his conscious world there were two people listening to everything he was doing – so the musical theme was that you do n’t really screw what their purpose is , we suggest at their benevolence , at least there ’s some kind of positive vibe amount out of them .
What movies inspiredMidnight Special ?
I ’m a kid of the LXXX , so I grew up on Spielberg celluloid and movies likeStarman , and it was n’t until I got erstwhile and went to film school day that I revisited those film , they ’re really masterfully constructed . But what really interested me was how it affected me as a kid , their sentiency of mystery that unspools to this sensation of awe , I was really captivated by . I wanted to make a movie like that – I did n’t require to make those movies , but I desire to make the great unwashed feel like that .
Why do you think people are drawn to films about “ special ” or unambiguously - gifted kids ?
I dunno … it must be some archetype somewhere . It bring in sense to me because when you follow a youngster mature up , to go from two months old to two years old is an awe-inspiring thing , you learn a neurologic system develop in front of you . It ’s an amazing affair to do , that ’s what I was write about , this thing developing that you gave birth to .
Midnight Specialwrapped in 2014 , how does it feel to have it finally see the light of twenty-four hour period ?
Yeah , it ’s been sooo long , it feels like I ’m take a sliver out of my brain – if people like it or do n’t like it , I just want the journey to be done , I just need people to see it .
This is the large budget you ’ve work with , did that make a dispute ?
It did n’t make a difference of opinion really – every movie I ’ve made seems to cost more than we have . And likeMud , we had the big shootout at the end , and then we deplume it off at the goal of cinematography . [ WithSpecial ] I feel like there was a gunfight every couplet of daytime – we were switch a car , doing stuff technically I ’d never done before as a director – I was being kept on my toes . It felt like we were still seek to pull of a mess with not that much .
So , what ’s your next film , since you always have one in the ground ball ?
It ’s a picture show calledLoving , it ’s set up in the Dixieland , based on a real narration , there ’s a docudrama on HBO about the Loving couple , they ’re an mixed couple that was espouse in Virginia in the later fifty and were arrested as a consequence . It ’s about them struggling to get home .
Since we know you are firm to your cast and crew , often calling them your family , are any of the mould from former films in it ?
Yep ! Joel Edgerton is Richard Loving , Mike Shannon is Ray Golette , a magazine photographer , Bill Camp play a attorney , and another cast member fromSpecialis in it as well .
Do you have any movies you ’re become flat to make but are n’t quick to yet ? Any love project ?
I ’ve get about four musical theme justly now , I ’m not sure what to do yet . This is the first time I have n’t had the next one done and written yet , so I ’m enjoy that . I ’m gon na go to the beach this summer and just relax , kind of enjoy , take and fill up up the well .