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On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org.com.
On September 28th, the Global Citizen Festival will gather thousands of people who took action to end extreme poverty. Join Post Malone, Doja Cat, Lisa, Jelly Roll, and Raul Alejandro as they take the stage with world leaders and activists to defeat poverty, defend the planet, and demand equity. Download the Global Citizen app today and earn your spot at the festival. Learn more at globalcitizen.org slash bots. It's on! It's on!
Hi, everyone, from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is writer and director Cord Jefferson. His first feature film, American Fiction, has been nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
American fiction is a satire about a black college professor and a writer named Monk Ellison who can't get his latest book published because it's not deemed, quote, black enough. As a big fuck you to the book industry, he writes an over-the-top ghetto novel called My Pathology. Yes, that's right, My Pathology, full of black stereotypes under a pseudonym. And the editors eat it up, especially after the writer claims that he is a wanted fugitive. You'll
You'll notice that our offer is unusually large and that is because we believe Mr. Lee has written a bestseller. We think it is going to be the read of the summer. I'm sure white people on the Hamptons will delight in it. Yeah, we will. It's going to be huge. Huge.
The New York Times calls American fiction, quote, a layered send-up of race and hypocrisy in the book and film worlds. Variety says it pokes, quote, fun at how Hollywood and others attempt to commercialize the African-American experience. And they're not wrong. But to me, American fiction is about a lot more than that, especially complicated family dynamics.
fighting with your siblings, and ailing parents. It's incredibly relatable. And that's the point. Cord Jefferson started his career as a journalist, then shifted to television writing. He worked on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, Succession, The Good Place, and Master of None. He won an Emmy for an episode of The Watchmen.
Not too long ago, I had a lunch with him in Los Angeles and was just riveted by his career trajectory. Our question this week comes from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. I also did the Succession podcast and Cord did work on that show, which was, of course, a giant HBO hit.
I want to talk to Cord about the film and his writing career, and I want to get his thoughts about the use of AI in Hollywood and how it could impact efforts like American Fiction to tell richer stories. We'll talk about all that and more coming up. ♪♪♪
Court, thanks for joining us. How are you doing? It's been a busy couple of months for you. Yeah, I'm doing well. Things have been great. To say that I'm overwhelmed, I think, is an understatement, but I'm doing as well as I can in all of it. I'm trying to enjoy the ride as much as possible. You are. Last time we met, I think you were in for a succession. We had lunch in Santa Monica with Amina, I think that was correct?
That was probably, well, I may have just gotten back from Succession to work on Watchmen. That was probably 2018. Watchmen, that was it. Close to six years ago. Yeah. Wow. I know. I know. And you hadn't mentioned this movie.
I really love this film. It was both a surprise and also it was clear it was going to be your sister's smart writer. But you wrote a screenplay based on the book Erasure by Percival Everett. Correct. Do you remember where you were in that book when you realized, I need to make this a movie? Yeah, about 50 pages in. It was very, very early into the read. I don't know.
I don't know if you've ever had this feeling, but it felt like somebody had written a novel specifically for me. Like somebody sat down and said, I'm writing a gift for Cord Jefferson. That's how deeply the material resonated with me. And nothing has resonated with me deeper before or since. And so, um,
It just felt like kismet. I was at a weird time in my life. I was sort of like down in the dumps professionally. It was COVID. What year was this COVID? December of 2020. So like I had, obviously everybody had a bad year, but I also had my biggest professional failure ever.
of my life that year. And so I was just, what was that? Uh, I was making a show for Apple and, we were so close to getting it on the air that they were telling me where, where the production offices were going to be in Brooklyn. When we started shooting, that's how sort of, that's how confident everybody was that the, that the show was going to get on the air. And then they pulled the plug at the last minute. And so that was September, October of 2020. And so I was just feeling really creatively adrift, didn't know what I was going to do. Um,
for my next creative project. And I was just picking up a book to read for fun over the holidays. So you got it yourself at the bookstore? Yeah, yeah. No one had recommended it? No, no. I was reading a book review actually for a different book called Interior Chinatown. And that book review said that
It referenced erasure as having a similar style of satire. And so I had never heard of erasure, and I went and read a synopsis, and it sounded intriguing. And so I bought it, and with no auspices, just read it because I was looking for a new thing to read over the holidays and instantly fell in love. So you started making it. You started creating...
The screenplay or what was the next move? The next move, well, I didn't want to write anything until we'd found out if the rights were available. So the next move is going to the author to find out if the rights are available. They were, but Percival Everett, who wrote the novel, said,
You know, he was a little cagey. He said no to people in the past about getting the rights for this book, I was told. And so they said he wanted to speak with me on the phone. And so Percival and I had a phone call for about a half an hour. And he just asked me about myself, my background, the stuff that I'd worked on. And then...
Wow.
And, you know, that if anybody knows about these things, that is just sometimes the rights negotiations can take months or years for things like this. And so, yeah, the fact that he gave it to me for free and just said, go write, that was...
a huge blessing for me. And I asked him afterward why, and he said he thought it was clear that I understood the essence of the novel, the point of what he was getting at. And so that was just a huge... I love a quirky novelist. I love a quirky novelist. Me too. I'll take it all day. Which you write about, by the way, which is what the movie's about, that, you know, a writer, a quirky writer. It's about a lot of things, American fiction. When you first took the studios as your first feature film...
What did you describe it as? Because it's sort of, it's a box in a box in a box. I think it's more about families than anything else. That's what I took away. Absolutely. But how did you bring it to the studio?
I mean, I think that the way that we sold it was leaning into the satire. You know, I think that that was what we knew was going to be the best sales tool for the project was just leaning into the comedy, leaning into the satire of the whole thing. And then kind of slipping in the sort of family stuff as a...
you know, not a secret, but just kind of, you know, as going to be sort of like the icing on the cake, you know, that that would sort of like just be a bonus. And I think that to me,
I think that a lot of people, when we were talking about it, maybe saw the family stuff as a hindrance to the project, actually sort of like wanted more satire. And I think that actually now that the movie's out and we've gotten a lot of feedback from people, it's, you know, I can't imagine this movie with, without the family stuff being what it was. I can't imagine this movie if it was just a pure comedy and you stripped away the family stuff. I think that that would be,
or pure satirical comedy about a novelist and his profession, I think that that would... It would diminish the movie a lot in my mind if we were to do... 100%. We would have done that. Yeah. Yeah. But the main character in American Fiction, Monk, is a writer. He's played by Jeffrey Wright, my absolute favorite actor of all times for years and years and years now. He's amazing. Oddly enough, I saw him...
In kind of a, both him and Paul Giamatti in Eyes of March, which is not a very good movie. Oh, yeah. They popped up and I'm like, oh, look at you two. And they're acting the hell out of it, but it doesn't matter. They're good in everything they do. You've talked about the overlap with your own life. Was that part of your attraction to Munk? Talk about the similarities or differences. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. That's the, I mean, that's what spoke to me so deeply was that as I was reading the book, it just sort of the Venn diagram between monk's life and my life started to become a circle. The more that I read the book, it was started to feel like kismet truly. I don't really like to think in spiritual terms, but, or sort of like fate. But this feels, it felt serendipitous. Yeah.
You know, before I started working in film and television, I was a journalist for about eight or nine years. You were. And toward the end of my journalism career, I wrote this essay called The Racism Beat. I published it in 2014. It was the year that I started working in TV. And The Racism Beat was about how
I had reached this point in my career when it felt like on a weekly basis somebody was coming to me and saying, "Do you want to write about Trayvon Martin being killed?" Or, "Do you want to write about Mike Brown being killed?" Or, "Do you want to write about, you know, insert black teenager's name being killed by the police?" Or, "Do you want to write about this racist thing that somebody said about President Obama?"
And it felt like, A, spiritually degrading. That's sort of like not a fun job to have is just to sort of like write about misery all the time. But then, B, it felt like, what can I write about this that I didn't write last week when this happened or the week before when this happened? You know, what more do you want to do?
Right.
I felt like, great, this is going to be a wonderful transition because we're not beholden to any realities of the world. We are able to write about anybody doing anything we want. It's fiction. It's fantasy. And it wasn't long, however, before I started getting offers to, do you want to write about this movie about a black teenager being killed by the police? Do you want to write this movie about a slave? Yes. Oh, totally. The trope. The trope. When you're an actor, would you like to become a drug dealer? Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly. Let me consult. We'll get our, you know, the lesbians will get our toaster ovens together and we'll discuss. Like, it was ridiculous. But let me just say, I read that essay. I did read that essay because it resonates with anyone who, yes, of course. I want you to read a passage from it if you would. Sure. Okay. Yeah.
I anticipate that I'll always write about race and racism in some professional capacity. Still, wouldn't it be wonderful if writers and creatives on the periphery were welcomed in from anonymity, not thanks to their accounts of woe, but simply because they have things to share, tales of love, joy, happiness, and basic humanity that have nothing to do with their race and also everything to do with their race.
I'm ready for people in positions of power at magazines and newspapers and movie studios to recalibrate their understanding of what it means to talk about race in the first place. If America would like to express that it truly values and appreciates the voices of its minorities, it will listen to all their stories, not just the ones reacting to its shortcomings and brutality.
You wrote that in 2014. I will say you were a very good journalist, as I recall. Thank you. This feels like an excellent journalist, actually. Thank you. It feels like a vision board for American fiction, to use an Oprah term. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that recalibration has happened? No, I don't think it has. So I think that I am an optimist.
in many ways and that I think that, you know, that I think that the world is getting better all the time as it relates to issues of identity and race. That being said, I think that we have a long, long way to go. I think that Hollywood has gotten better. You know, the fact that the reality is, is that there was a couple companies that gave me millions of dollars for this film. You know what I mean? That is the reality.
There's another reality that 98% of the companies that we took this film to passed on it and said, we don't want to have anything to do with it. Despite the fact that they were effusively praising the film and effusively sort of like saying that it's, you know, that they loved the script and that they love Jeffrey Wright. And yet they still,
it was too risky for them to tell this story. And so, you know, I think that it is getting better, but I think that if you were to sort of like look at the stories that are, that are still, that are primarily about people of color and other minorities, queer people, I think that you would still find that there is a lot of,
Misery born out there and sort of like this idea that we are defined by our ability to withstand pain and our ability to withstand prejudice and our ability to withstand abuse and that sort of like those kinds of stories, that rigid story.
narrow perspective of what our lives look like that are the only stories worth telling. So yes, I think that the fact that my story with this movie, American Fiction, was able to be made and sort of like got the support that it has is absolutely wonderful. And I don't want to deny that there are changes happening. But for the most part, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Although the lesbians are having a good time and mean girls, even though it's just you don't know that it's them. Anyway, one scene that really stands out for people who haven't seen the film. In the beginning, publishers say Monk's books aren't black enough. But in the bookstore, his novels are with African-American studies, which was just crazy.
cringe in the best of possible ways. So he sits down in a brown leather chair, a glass of whiskey in his hand, and his father's study with diplomas on the wall. The set is excellent, very upper middle class, very mad men. And starts to write, it was a wonderful set. We had a wonderful production designer, that's all I wanted to say, Jonathan Guggenheim. 100%. He's amazing. But he starts to write it with ghetto stereotypes, and the characters appear in the room, which is a wonderful way of doing this. Look at my face.
Look at my midnight black complexion. Now, that's not right, huh? What did you want to say? You can say it better than that. Right? Come on, what do you want? Think about it, Van Gogh. Look at my face. Look at my cold black skin. And look at your own. Look at my black eyes. And look at your own. Look at my big black lips. And look at your own. How's your daddy, whether you like it or not? Shut up!
Talk a little bit about the scene. It was over the top in the best of ways. Explain how you thought about that. Yeah. So in Erasure, in the actual Percival Everett novel, the character Monk,
writes this fake novel that's well no he writes a real novel but he intends it to be performance art he wants it to be sort of full of ghetto stereotypes to kind of embarrass the publishers who buy this kind of writing and so in the book Erasure the entirety of that book is published so there's a full novel within the novel that gives you really sort of like 110 pages of like the depravity that's really in this book and yeah it really makes you lean forward because you and you understand like how
crazy this is that is this is published and so I knew that we couldn't show the entirety of the novel in the film and so it's like the question is how do you make writing cinematic I sort of find that
that very frequently scenes of writers are not cinematic. Everybody's seen the sort of like writer punching at his keyboard furiously and then taking a big sip of coffee and then punching again. And I just knew that that would be boring to see words coming up on a computer screen. It's the, nobody sort of,
gets excited about that kind of scene. And so I thought, what's a way to get, get the audience to lean forward in their seats a little bit, the way that I lean forward in my seat a little bit when I was reading, reading the book and, and it felt like, okay, what if we actually just manifested these characters? And what if, you know, and writing for me has never been a fast process. Writing for me has always been slow and painful and methodical. And I rethink and sort of like go back all the time and change things. And so,
I felt like what's a way to show that while also having sort of like these characters come in front of Monk and show the audience exactly what it is that he's writing. What they might look like. Right, right. And so we got some tremendous actors. We got Keith David, who's a legend in his own right. And then Oki, who's a fantastic Broadway performer from Hamilton. And they just came in and knocked it out of the park.
Yeah, it was wonderful. But Monk loathes the whole thing of this book. But there are two women that push back against the idea. One is writer Sintara Golden, played by Issa Rae. She's fantastic. The other is his girlfriend, Coraline, played by Erica Alexander. I want to play a clip from the scene with her when he realizes she's read the book, not knowing it's his, of course. What's this? My friend got it for me. Have you read it? Of course not. Have you? Yeah. Yeah.
What did you think of it? I liked it. What did you like about it? It didn't offend you? You just said you didn't read it. What's your problem? No, you answer my question. You answer mine. My problem is that books like this aren't real. They flatten our lives. What do you mean? I mean that my life is a disaster, but not in the way you'd think reading this shit.
These things reduce us and they do it over and over again because too many white people and people apparently like you devour this slop like pigs at a dumpster to stay current at fucking cocktail parties. Okay, you got a lot of opinions for someone who hasn't published anything for years.
So talk about, this is wonderful writing and wonderful acting. So what's going on here from your perspective? Because I kind of agree with her in a weird way. Yeah, no, I don't think that's a weird way. I think that that's normal. I think that
What we are seeing is Monk is a person who's built up a facade in front of himself, and he's very much isolated himself, and he's not telling anybody the truth. And what's happening in this scene is his girlfriend, who's a wonderful, smart lawyer, who's really sort of a bullion in a way that
Monk is not has read this novel that he intended to write as a hoax. It's sort of like as a piece of performance art. And now she's telling him that she likes it. And he was writing it to make a fool out of people and sort of like filled it with all these stereotypes and
to shame everybody. And so all of a sudden, this woman that he has deep feelings for is telling him that she enjoyed it and it's frustrating for him. And I think that the thing that's important to remember is that just because, you know, for instance, like, I love Boys in the Hood. I think that's a wonderful movie. Is it about sort of... Sentara says the same thing. Her book is based on real interviews. Exactly, exactly. He's very upper middle class and doesn't relate to his own characters. Yeah, yeah. But I also think that
something that sort of like, something that happens kind of in that scene with Santara is that when they sort of talk about it at the end is she doesn't say it directly. She says it kind of glancingly, but she says, she says something to Monk where Monk says, I think I see the potential of black people in this country. I mean, I'm not saying these things aren't real, but we're also more than this.
And it's like so many writers like you can't envision us without some white boot on our necks. Do you get angry at...
Brett Easton Ellis or Charles Bukowski for writing about the downtrodden? Or is your ire strictly reserved for black women? Nobody reads Bukowski thinking his is the definitive white experience, but white people read your book and confine us to it. They think that we're all like that. Then it sounds like your issue is with white people, Monk, not me. Maybe, but I also think that I see the unrealized potential of black people in this country.
Potential is what people see when they think what's in front of them isn't good enough. That is a glancing reference to the fact that
Maybe Monk is a little self-loathing. Maybe he's got a sort of like little bit of work to do with his own relationship to his blackness and sort of like black people in America in general. And so I think that what what you're seeing there is when Monk is sort of so frustrated by the fact that his girlfriend likes this book that.
is maybe that he's sort of like feeling a little bit of self-loathing and feeling a little bit of resentment. Yeah, self-hating. Yeah, sure. Now, you've said that you and Jeffrey Wright had a conversation about not wanting this to be about respectability politics. Can you talk about this? Because it feels like the scene calls Monk out in that way in terms of how characters are depicted. Talk about the idea of respectability politics. Yeah. Are you familiar with the term talented 10th?
No, I'm not. No. So Talented Tenth was this, it was W.E.B. Du Bois used to write about it. He didn't coin the term, but he wrote about it. And the Talented Tenth is this idea that 10% of black people
are going to be the ones who lift the other 90% out of sort of misery. It's going to be up to the 10% who are truly gifted to help everybody else. And so I think that sort of like a more modern reference would be like Bill Cosby telling everybody to pull up your pants. Or Don Lemon, yeah. Exactly. Stop sagging your pants, stop listening to rap music, and white people will take you more seriously. Finally treat you correctly. Exactly. And so I think that the thing that
I wanted to make sure we didn't do in this movie was that I didn't want to shame any black people. I didn't want to shame any black artists. I have no interest in that conversation. And so to me, it was incredibly important to not villainize people who made that kind of work or people who enjoyed that kind of work, because that to me is sort of
a truly sort of pointless exercise. To me, the more important thing that I think the sort of movie, the more important question that the movie tries to ask, hopefully, is why are the people...
atop the institutions that make movies, that make television, that make books, that publish these things. Why are they so interested in repeating these stories over and over and over again? That to me is sort of like a better question. Why are the people with their hands on the purse strings interested in telling slave stories ad nauseum?
Yeah, that's true. You know, it reminds me a lot of, again, just not to make the link with gays, is that a lot of gays got mad when drag queens were in parades. Like, let's not have them here. They'll like us if we get married and look like them. I was always like, they'll never fucking like us. Sorry. Until we take it from them, you know? And that is a, that was a real growth moment for me. A, I don't think you should, I think you should stop apologizing for sort of making the connection to gays because I think that that's the thing about this film is,
this is a movie, yes, about a black novelist and a black family, but this is applicable to so many different... That's correct. I'm from Arizona, and I have a lot of Mexican friends from Arizona who say, you know, why does every movie set in Mexico have to be about drug cartels or about some sort of like poor person fleeing their miserable circumstances in their small town to come to the United States of America? Why does every movie or TV show shot in Mexico have this...
weird burnt sienna, sort of like dusty, like glow about everything. Yeah, exactly. And so I think that this is so, and yes. Guitar strumming somewhere. Exactly. And so I just, I think that this is, I think that there is an equivalent to this. But then B, it was a real growth moment in my life as a creative person when I stopped blaming myself
Other people sort of like on the ground. I think that it's very, very difficult for me these days to get angry at individual actors, because I sort of like realize in any sort of like arena, but I think sort of like especially art is like these artists are making art in institutions and societies that were created generations before they were even born.
And so who cares about what the people on the ground are doing? It's more important to ask why the people sort of like 15 levels above,
making these decisions. Yeah, we contain multitudes is always my thing. We contain multitudes, which is Walt Whitman. And in that regard, you're absolutely right. The resonance for me in this movie was the family in the film. Let's talk more about that. You are constantly ping-ponging between thought-provoking and even tear-jerker moments and laughing out loud, like the scene with the academics voting on that. It was just so funny. But the
Family storyline is what resonated with me the most. Monk and his sister, Tracy Ellis Ross, who is so good. She's amazing. I won't say what happens, but she's amazing. The scenes with his brother Clifford, Sterling K. Brown. I love hearing, to hear about your inspiration for writing these scenes as a director. You know, you had Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, and said Tracy Ellis Ross. What was the dynamic on the set? And I don't want to be remiss in saying Jeffrey and Sterling were nominated for Oscars.
Yeah, they're amazing. So there are some people who say that directing 90% of directing is casting. That's a quote that I've heard in the past. And I don't know if I fully agree with that. But casting was incredibly important on this movie. And one of the reasons it was incredibly important is because we had no money, which meant we had no time. So we couldn't have rehearsals. We didn't have time for the actors to work together sort of for weeks before we started shooting to really find the scenes and find the characters.
We just flew people in, you know, we, we had Issa for, I think all of like four days and, and her schedule was like within an hour. It's like we had to be done and she had to go. And so everybody just had to come onto set and work together. And fortunately I had these actors who for whatever reason had never worked together, but they just bonded immediately. And they were sort of able to really find that connection instantly. And I think that what they have told me is that a lot of it was there on the page. They
They really understood who these people were. They understood the characters on a molecular level. So it felt like they could just come in and do it.
And also just the fact that they're just total pros and everybody just came in and yes, we had no time, but they just, they knocked it out of the park instantly. And Leslie Uggams, Leslie fucking Uggams. She's amazing. So good. Amazing. How did you decide on her? I had, I was like, oh my God, it's Leslie Uggams. Yeah. How, where has she been? And please stay kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. No, Leslie is, once we got Jeffrey, Jeffrey was my first choice. I started reading the novel with Jeffrey in mind.
And once we got Jeffrey, I thought, well, for sure, our luck has run out. We're not going to get any of the people that we want after this. And then it was like, Sterling says yes. Issa says yes. Tracy says yes. And it was like, what? And Leslie says yes. Erica says yes. Like, it was just this sort of like embarrassment of riches as far as the cast goes. And Leslie, we just reached out and we, and Leslie said that she read the script and felt like I just, I have to do this. This is something that, that is worth my time. And she came and was like,
She was like a true leader on set too. This is a woman who's
sung with the Rat Pack in Las Vegas. She's the first black woman to host a variety show. She's been casting show business checks since she was four years old. That's how long she's been doing this. And so when she got to set, she was a true leader on set and really sort of, she was out there at one in the morning in rain and cold winds shooting her scenes. And Jeffrey Wright said to her, he said, Leslie, do you think you have another take in you? Are you tired? Are you exhausted?
And she goes, no, I'm fine. We're shooting a movie. She goes, just remember your lines. She's a pro. She's a pro. Because she's also playing a character that has a dementia issue, but also is trying to forget, right? She doesn't want to remember things correctly. We talked a little about the depiction of gays in Clifford. He is a total trope, a coming out trope, a gay plastic surgeon sniffing Coke on the living room table with a couple of Speedo-wearing boys as his life falls apart. Honestly, I've met that guy. I've met that. I know that guy.
guy. I didn't, I see, see, that's the, I sort of, I didn't think, well, I'm sure you do, but I actually thought of it as, I didn't think of it as a gay trope. I thought of it as a, as more sort of like a depiction of somebody having a midlife crisis and sort of like, there's, this is, this, it's, if it's a straight guy, he's like getting his ear pierced and dating a 25 year old and going out and buying a Ferrari for the first time. So I, I looked at it as more just a guy who is
felt like he's 46 and is like trying to really figure out his life now. Yeah. To be honest, the two people that I empathize with most in the film are Cliff and Monk. And I sort of like really, the way that I wrote Cliff was just
was largely like me and, and, and I'm not gay. It was more just based on my own weirdness. How do you think about his character compared to monk? Now that you've mentioned that, I think that she is. So the reason that I, the reason that I really empathize with both of those guys the most is because there was a part of me for a very, so, so that, so that conversation that he has at the end when he says, uh,
You know, I've been thinking a lot about dad dying not knowing I'm gay, and that makes me sad because he didn't know me entirely. That is the speech that I wish I'd given to myself before my mother died. My... I lived... I grew up in a family...
I love my father very much, but my father is a Vietnam veteran who came back with a lot of PTSD. And like a lot of men of his generation, my father came back and he was a stoic. He didn't talk about his feelings. He never sort of like let you in emotionally. My dad was very present. My dad coached my soccer team, helped me with my homework, very physically present person.
but very emotionally distant and gone. And so that's how I grew up. I grew up thinking that it was
you know, not masculine to talk about your feelings. I thought it was, yeah, I thought it was embarrassing to show your emotions, embarrassing to let people in. And when my mother died, I realized that there was so much about me that she didn't know that she's, that I never let her know. And, and it, and it really, really broke my heart. It still breaks my heart. It's still, uh, my biggest regret to this day. And so the reason why I really empathize with both those guys is because they're both, uh,
going through the same thing. They're both sort of like realizing that they've isolated themselves and they've built up a facade in front of themselves and they're not actually who they want to be. And they've been lying to a lot of people in their life and
for their entire lives. And so to me, that's sort of like... Lies are a big part of this movie. Exactly. And to me... Lying to yourself is a big part. Lies and secrets. Lies and secrets and sort of like deception. And you see where they learned it from their father, right? And so to me, Cliff is just like a little bit farther ahead on his journey.
Cliff is sort of like seeing we were raised in the same family. We were raised by the same guy who was great in some ways, but really screwed up in other ways. And I'm trying to teach you that there is a better way. And like, yes, the way that I'm going about it is a little rocky, a little tumultuous, but like I'm figuring out who I want to be and learning to live in that truth. And so that to me is sort of the relationship between those two guys. We'll be back in a minute.
Last question about the film. It's framed away by the white savior. I mean, the only people who cannot or are irredeemable are white people and their cringiness. You start with a scene where a white college student complains he's written the N-word on the board. It ends with a white director, played by Adam Brody, who is fantastic, greenlighting his film. We won't say how. And the fact that Monk isn't dating a white girl again is a running joke.
You don't seem worried about white fragility, which is fantastic, but also doesn't feel like you're playing into white guilt. But it's so, I've also been in those rooms. How are you thinking about white audiences, if at all? And have you been surprised by how well the film has actually been received by white audiences? So, yeah, I just, this was the first time that I just wrote what I wanted to write without considering any audiences, to be honest. This is the first time in my life
professional career as a screenwriter that I just really didn't give a damn. And I said, I'm just going to make what I want to make. And so I would say that I didn't really think about audience reaction. I thought about what, what would make the movie, the best movie possible. That being said, I did want to make a film that sort of, you know,
held a mirror up to a lot, held a mirror up to a lot of the people, a lot of the people that's, that I'm surrounded by a lot of people in this industry, a lot of people that I know in New York and Los Angeles and suggest not that they're bad people. Cause that's the thing. I don't think that they're irredeemable. I don't think that anybody in the film is irredeemable. I don't think anybody in life really is irredeemable. I think that that is, that is a wrong way of looking at the world. I think that they are people whose heart is in the right place and
who maybe sort of have some things to learn and that's okay. A lot of people have some things to learn, but, but it doesn't make you a bad person. I think that that's another thing that, that I want to, you know, I think that one of the reasons why we're so polarized in the world these days is because we
We sort of have a hard time with nuance and complexity. Yeah. And to me, just because somebody harbors some racial prejudice does not make them irredeemable. It does not make them a bad person. I just feel like if you will admit that, that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic society that has prejudice all the time, if you will admit that, then, um,
You have to be okay with people that you know harboring some prejudice when it comes to race and sexuality and gender. Yeah, I wouldn't talk to half my relatives if that was the case. Exactly, exactly. And so that to me is important.
What it reminded me of is when I went to see Book of Mormon and it was full of Mormons. And, you know, that's a real dirty theater. That's, you know, it's really, it's really eviscerating on Mormons. And the Mormons were like, we love this. And I was like, you know, it's completely mocking you. Or Silicon Valley, where it was completely mocking the tech people. And they're like, isn't that funny? I'm like, they're completely making fun of you. Like, and they wouldn't.
Like, they did not get it. They thought it wasn't them. I was like, it's about you because I was a consultant and I was talking about you in specifics. But some people have. We had a screening in New York and a white woman after the screening, a white woman I would say in her 40s or 50s came up to me after the screening and she said, that was very uncomfortable for me to watch. She said, I need to tell you that it was actually a little painful for me sometimes to watch. She said, but I'm really happy that I did because...
there was a lot of sort of like cathartic laughter, A, but then B, I learned something. And I think that that to me is also, I think a lot of people try to avoid feeling uncomfortable. And when I'm watching a piece of art or reading a piece of art,
and I feel uncomfortable, to me, that's the sign that I should lean in and pay attention more. You do it through humor. You could do that in an angry way. You know, stop calling me this. But I think humor, everyone sort of, everyone sees it. It's like comedy. It's like stand-up comedy when you're like, oh, I see exactly what you're talking about. So I do want to talk a little bit about your career, larger in Hollywood and where it's going. In television, you've worked in comedy.
Larry Wilmore, who's amazing. I've been on his show. The Good Place, A Master of None. You've worked on dramas, Succession, The Watchmen. You won an Emmy for an episode there. That's unusual in television. Do you have a genre preference or do you just like to switch between them? Yeah, no, I think that for me, I like stuff that feels real and authentic. And to me, life is neither comedy nor tragedy. I think that one of the reasons why I loved working on Succession was that it is a show that...
is probably funnier than most of the comedies on television, right? But people call it a drama. And so I think that, yeah, yeah, that's how I feel. And I think that, so, so for me, I think sometimes it's really good to be ignorant. And so I came into this industry, incredibly ignorant. And when I started writing on TV, I felt like, Oh,
Oh, all writers, you're just a writer, so you just go and write whatever, right? And it took me like a year or two to realize that a lot of writers just say like, I'm either write drama or I write comedy. And I felt like, I don't think you can have one without the other. This is your directorial debut too. Did any of the productions repair you watching people or what? That's a big leap.
For a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I was on set, you know, many times I was in the edit many times, you know, we're choosing actors and stuff. It's clearly sort of like not to the extent which I was for the first film, but I, I sort of had done this stuff. The thing that was really new to me was like, um,
You know, it's just a lot of the technical stuff. It's like lighting, it's camera lenses, it's working directly with actors to create these characters, right? These were things that I had not done before, but...
you know, it's on the job training, which people don't get enough of these days. And as I was doing it, that list of things that I didn't get like started to dwindle and I started to feel like I understood everything. And so, so, you know, but it's a frustrating thing because by the time you're done with your first movie, you wish you could go back and reshoot the movie because you learned so much and you changed so much. You seem to have nailed it on the first one, I have to tell you. Now, every week we get a question from an outside expert. I think you'll recognize this voice.
Hey Cara, hey Cord, this is Jesse Armstrong. So I have a question for Cord. Cord, what's the hardest part of making a film? Is it the anxiety of pre-production, the exhaustion of production, the punctured dreams of post-production, or the grind of the promotion and awards circuit?
I like that question. Jesse Armstrong is the creator of Succession, which you worked on. So what has been the hardest part for you? I think that the hardest part for me is the grind of the promotion. I will say that. That for me was, I have never been...
when I was a kid, I played AYSO soccer. And for whatever reason, they forced us to go sell chocolate bars for our soccer teams to raise funds. And they would put me in my damn soccer uniform and then go to the mall to sell chocolate bars. And I hated it. I could never do it. I always stood behind my mother and was just deeply embarrassed and shy. I've just never been a good salesman. I've always been reluctant to do it. And I think that
that has been the hardest lesson for me is like, I went from making this art project where it's like, I worked with a bunch of my friends for years to make something that I really loved. And then I'm really proud of, and it's an art project. And then all of a sudden there was this period that I wasn't prepared for where your art project is now a commodity and you need to sell that commodity.
And that transitory period was one that's new for me. And look, I don't begrudge it. That's part of the job. But it was part of the job that I wasn't prepared for. And that, to me, was the most difficult thing. You have to smile a lot, Cord. So before we go, I know you've got to go soon. I want to talk about Hollywood and the industry very briefly. The streaming services are really in the crosshairs this past summer.
when writers and actors went on strike, trying to get a bigger cut, more residuals, but also to protect themselves against AI taking over your jobs. Now that it's, you know, I know a lot of my friends are in the industry and they are still shook up. A lot of deals got cut, et cetera, et cetera. How do you feel it is right now? And do you think the deal they negotiated was strong enough? Yeah.
Yeah, look, everybody worked really, really hard and a lot of people sacrificed a ton. Our guilds worked tirelessly for us. And a lot of people, as you said, lost their deals. I have people who sort of are struggling to pay rent. I've heard of people who had to sell their homes.
So a lot of people sacrificed a lot for these deals. Obviously, everybody wishes that you could have gotten more. That's sort of like what a deal is, right? You make a deal. You have to make some concessions and not get everything you want. But I think we made the strongest deal possible this time around. That being said, I think that this is a fight that's going to continue. We understand what we're up against, and we're up against an industry that is –
That is trying to sort of, you know, I don't think that the AI stuff is going to go away. I don't think that sort of like them trying to cut corners as much as possible is going to go away. I think that we're going to have to continue to remain vigilant and fight as much as possible. But I'm wondering how much you think this is, because I have a theory that a lot of this
Has to do with the influence of tech on the industry. Oh, yes. I've just written a book. It's coming out the 27th. Oh, are you serious? Yes. Yeah. It's called Burn Book. It's not very nice to the people of tech. Yeah. I'll send you one. I'm fine with that. But yeah, please do. But that to me is the... Have you thought about chat GPT or any other generative AI programs? Now, your movie is distributed through Amazon MGM Studios, for example. Yeah.
Do you think about all these intersections? There's tools like Pickaxe where you can generate scenes by describing characters and plot. Do you ever think that you will be using these or are you nervous about them? No, I don't. I'm sort of like the John Henry in all of this. I sort of like figure that I'm going to sort of like have my hammer and just sort of like...
bang and bang and bang. And maybe I die at the end of it, but I'm still John Henry. He dies. He dies. Yeah, he does. Plot twist. Plot spoiler. Look, if these tools end up being helpful for creativity, then...
Yeah.
And stressing about it is sort of exactly the wrong thing to do. The world marches on and sort of you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point. And so the best thing you can do is make good work. It's like saying I'm not using this Internet thing, you know, back in the 90s.
One of the things, two more questions. AI has some notorious biases, including anti-black biases, again, creating those tropes. Surprise, surprise. Surprise, surprise. There's a very famous tech expression. It's very technical, which is crap in, crap out. Are you concerned about that? It's not going to affect you. You're going to go the full creative methodology of how you've been operating. No, this is the thing. I'm concerned about the biases in tech, of course, because especially as it pertains to like
you know, police and, you know, the sort of like justice system. I think that that is where it really frightens me. But yeah, I think that you have to look at the prejudices of the people making the stuff. And if these people are prejudiced who are making the stuff and these people are, as you said, crap in, crap out, then you need to be prepared for that. And so, again, I think that the idea that our salvation lies in technology is slowly going away. Hopefully people are realizing that like,
these things are not going to save us and save the world. And generally, you know, like the idea that just because something's new means it's great and benevolent and going to help us is hopefully people are realizing that that's not the case all the time. Absolutely. So I guess my final question is when you think about like that, where it's going, it's been a very unsettling time, but these movies are all doing very well. You know, you just saw the Grammys, very full of energy and very odd.
oddly diverse for a second and a half. Yeah. And in a natural, comfortable way. Like not, like it was really just great. It was just great. What's your dream? Obviously you want to win an Oscar. That would be great for your career. But is there a thing you want to work on now that's attached to the same way this book did? Yeah.
Yeah, I'm writing three different movies right now. They're all original screenplays. I'm writing two different TV series right now that are adaptations of stuff. And so I just want to keep making stuff. That to me is sort of the key. I just want to keep...
People ask me if I'm addicted to directing now, and it's like, yeah, I want to keep directing, but I just want to keep making art. That's all. I don't distinguish between stage plays or films or television shows or whatever. I just want to keep making art. That's my dream is just that people keep letting me make stuff. Is there someone who gives a preview of the topic area? You're going to go like medieval or something. No, no. Well, I'm zagging a little bit. The two screenplays that are most...
close to being finished right now, are an erotic thriller and a Western, a contemporary Western film, neo-noir Western, dealing with some similar themes of what we're dealing with in American fiction, but through a much different lens. Wow, fantastic. I'm sure they'll be great. Cord, I couldn't be more happy for someone. You are such a hard worker, and not just that, just plugging away. And this movie is very special. I urge everybody to see it. Thank you so much. I don't say that a lot, although there's a lot of great movies this year. There's a lot you're competing against.
It's really high quality. Yeah, there's some good stuff. There's some good stuff. It's great to be amongst a good company. Really good stuff. And good luck at the Oscars. I'm not going to ask what you're wearing, but, you know, what are you wearing? I don't even know yet.
Oh, no, don't do that. Armani overalls. Don't do Billy Eilish. Don't do Billy Eilish. You go. Just don't. Don't. Don't. In any case, Cord, thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. Spectacular debut for as a director. Thank you so much. It means a lot to me. Thank you so much.
On with Kara Swisher is produced by Nei Miraza, Christian Castro Rossell, Kateri Yochum, Megan Cunane, Megan Burney, and Michael McDowell. Special thanks to Mary Mathis, Kate Gallagher, and Andrea Lopez-Grizzato. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan. Our theme music is by Trackademics.
If you're already following the show, you get to meet Leslie Uggams. I'd be so lucky. If not, overalls to the Oscars. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. You can subscribe to the magazine at nymag.com slash pod. We'll be back on Monday with more.
