I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS
I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS | Jesse Plemons and Jessie Buckley meet the parents in Charlie Kaufman’s new film…
Chatting with Jess(i)es Buckley and Plemons.
It’s been four years since idiosyncratic writer/director Charlie Kaufman melted brains with Anomalisa, or a dozen if you don’t count films populated entirely by sex-starved puppets. After far too long away from screens Kaufman is back with I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, an existential break-up movie that puts him firmly back in Eternal Sunshine territory.
Adapted from Iain Reid’s 2016 bestseller, it stars Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons as a couple en route to dinner at his parents’ (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). She’s thinking of ending things, but a separation is never that simple in Charlie Kaufman World. Here the two Jess(i)es tell Teasers about working with one of cinema’s most singular voices.
How did you get involved?
Jessie Buckley: It was a pretty quick series of surreal events. I got an email with the script, and I had 24 hours to read it, learn this big poem, and put myself on tape. About two weeks later I remember going to test in-person, and the only note Charlie gave me was that this character was “molecular”, which is one of the best notes I’ve ever gotten. I needed to Google exactly what “molecular” meant, and then think, ‘What the fuck do I do with that?’ [laughs]
Jesse Plemons: It was something that just fell from the sky, which is probably a good way for a Charlie Kaufman film to come to you. It was very late at night when I started reading it; I had an interesting night of dreams after that! And then obviously I had to read it again to try to figure any of it out.
Swathes of the film take place in Jake’s car – that couldn’t have been easy to shoot...
JP: We got pretty delirious pretty quickly!
JB: It was trippy, I’m not going to lie. We’d do one or two takes of 25-minute dialogue scenes, so you’re in this car for nearly 12 hours. It was almost like doing a play, because you sink into a kind of hypnosis with each other. And you get to reach into each other’s skin in a much more intimate way.
JP: By the end of the first day, it felt like
we had known each other for a very long time. It really felt like we were in our own world, like we were under the sea, or something. It was nerve-wracking knowing that’s what we were starting with, but it really helped in jumping straight into those scenes, and exploring that dynamic right out of the gate.
Is working with Charlie as abstract an experience as watching his films?
JP: It took us a while to get some straight answers, because he wanted to see what the story meant to us. We had a rehearsal on the Saturday before shooting. We tried a few of the scenes in Jake’s house, when we meet the parents, and it just felt like some sort of mental asylum, because everyone was unsure what any of it meant. We all admitted to one another that night at dinner that we felt very lost, and actually asked Charlie for help, like: “Please, tell us what this means.” [laughs] The first thing Charlie said was, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Somehow, over the course of that dinner, we got into topics that were absolutely in line with the film, and we all agreed that we have to let go of needing answers, and get comfortable in not knowing. Then the next day it was completely different. Just admitting we were lost somehow opened up so many doors. And it, all of a sudden, started to feel like it was working.
JB: He definitely wants you to read it your own way, and is so open to everything. The minute I came on board I would read the script three times a week. Every time I’d have a revelation, and I’d send Charlie this stupid email being like, “Charlie, don’t worry. I totally understand what this is all about. No problem.” [laughs] And then I’d read the script the next day, and be like, “What the hell was I thinking? It’s not about that. It’s about this.” I think that’s what he’s reaching for. He doesn’t want to impose an objective view.
A Kaufman film must come with its fair share of memorable days on set...
JB: It was definitely a marathon! It’s a joy when you get tested to that extent. I get bored when things are just easy. What was so amazing is it was a really challenging shoot, but every single person who was part of it in a creative way, we all were willing to do anything we could for Charlie, and wanted to help him realise the question he was trying to ask.
JP: This is my first interview for [the film], and I’m pretty nervous because I have no idea how to talk about the film other than the experience. It felt like an experiment of some kind, and it didn’t always feel like a film. By the end, I don’t think there was anything he could have thrown at me – no matter how strange – where I wouldn’t have been like, “Yeah. That makes sense.”
ETA | 4 SEPTEMBER / I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS STREAMS ON NETFLIX FROM NEXT MONTH.