On the topic of dialogue, you have these two characters that don’t speak the same language. This is such an intimate story and there’s a language barrier. Did that change your directing process?
Beck: Ahead of time, before even going in front of cameras, it was important to rehearse as many sequences as we could to try and understand what’s the best blocking, and what’s conveying the emotion from a spatial distance standpoint. Then once you’re on set, it’s all about getting variety. One thing that we loved with both Adam and Ariana is they were always game to push more and more and more and do as many takes as it took to really feel comfortable that we were conveying the story.
We don’t have the crutch of dialogue. So much of that was also like, “How do we move the camera? How is the camera intuiting what we should be feeling with the audience, and what should the characters be feeling?” So working with our cinematographer, Sal Totino, it was very much plotting out every single sequence and literally storyboarding the movie from start to finish to make sure we were conveying the story visually as much as the actors were conveying it from a performance standpoint.
Woods: And for Ariana with the script, we would write all the lines in English so she could identify with them and process them. Then our language expert, Felipe Machado, came in and designed a whole alien language that she would then have to learn. So she’d have to learn it twice: She’d learn it in English, and then she’d learn the alien version. I think that helped her performance as well, to know the meaning behind the lines.
She was fantastic and I gotta say, made me even more excited for “Barbie,” because I know she’s in that.
Beck: Yes, absolutely.
Woods: Yeah, it’s amazing. We did a worldwide search for this young actress to play Koa, and Ariana really won the job. She really fought hard and won the role. Then since then, she’s popped. It seems like she’s in 10 more movies.
It’s incredible. My last question for you is admittedly a vanity question. Was it surreal getting to work with Sam Raimi?
Beck: Oh yeah. I mean, Sam, outside of being one of the most prolific filmmakers who’s done it all, from independent horror to giant tentpoles like “Spider-Man,” just one of the most creative and genuinely nice human beings we’ve ever met. His brain is incredible. He’s somebody that comes across as very innocuous, but he also has this ability to capture an entire room with his storytelling. And he’s told us so many great stories I wish I could share right now. But we just feel lucky to be in the presence of that great filmmaker and great human being.
“65” arrives in theaters on March 10, 2023.
