Movie People: Interviews & More From the Southampton Playhouse

This week, we've got a Halloween season double bill: First, a conversation with NPR journalist Larry Maslan, whose new book Hitchcocktails pairs films from the master of suspense with first-rate drink recipes. Then, we'll hear from a real-life ghost hunter: Michael Cardinuto, co-founder of the Long Island Paranormal Investigators.

This week, we're keeping the spirit of Halloween season alive. First we looked at vampires, then zombies, and now it's ghosts...thanks to this conversation with Black Phone 2 editor Louise Ford, best known for her collaborations with director Robert Eggers (The Witch, The Lighthouse, Nosferatu). Tune in to learn more what it takes to cut a good horror movie!

This week, we're keeping the spirit of Halloween season alive, following on recent episode, which focused on the vampire monstrosities of I Am Legend. Now we're moving on to zombies...and, specifically, Zombieland, the 2009 horror-comedy starring Jesse Eisenberg. In addition to looking back on this major turning point in his career, Eisenberg spoke about his unique challenges as an actor and filmmaker over the course of his career.

This week, we're joined by Akiva Goldsman, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of A Beautiful Mind. Goldsman is a truly eclectic writer with a number of major Hollywood achievements under his belt beyond that major crowdpleaser, from Batman and Robin to The Da Vinci Code. In late August, he joined artistic director Eric Kohn at the Playhouse to discuss one of the more fascinating chapters of his career: His 2007 adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend. The original post-apocalyptic book finds the sole survival of a world overrun by vampires gradually coming to terms with the end of the world. It's a tense and at times quite frightening horror movie, but the version that came out in theaters two decades ago wasn't as bold as Goldsman originally intended it. At the Playhouse, we screened the "alternate cut" of the movie, the writer's preferred version. In a post-COVID world, I Am Legend resonates on a whole new level that deepens the material and makes it well worth a revisit -- especially this month, as Halloween season takes hold.  Goldsman spoke about the unique backstory of the project, his feelings about Will Smith, and the rather unique way they originally intended to release the movie.

This week, we're joined by David Nugent, the chief creative officer of the Hamptons International Film Festival, which begins October 3 with screenings at the Playhouse taking place October 9 - 12. If you're lucky enough to have access to a festival of this caliber, it means that you can take the temperature on the state of world cinema from many angles at once. This year's lineup does that with highlights from other festivals. Our conversation covers a lot of those, as well as Nugent's history with the festival and his thoughts on the curatorial process as a whole.

This week, we're joined by two of the greatest independent film producers of the modern era -- Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler, co-founders of Killer Films. The pair came to the Playhouse over the summer to celebrate the 30 year anniversary of their bold production company, which is best known for supporting fierce, original voices working on the margins of American cinema, including renowned queer filmmakers such as Todd Haynes, Kimberly Pierce, and John Cameron Mitchell on celebrating films including Boys Don't Cry, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and Carol. Killer has enjoyed an especially long-lasting relationship with Haynes, whose work has evolved from the boundary-pushing early work of Poison and Safe to the postmodern melodramas Far From Heaven and Carol. Vachon also teaches filmmaking at Stony Brook University, and some of her recent students joined us in the audience for our discussion. The conversation preceded a screening of Velvet Goldmine, Haynes' daring glam rock musical from 1998. It's one of many ways that these two women have supported adventurous work that pushes art of cinema and storytelling into uncharted territory. Shortly after this conversation, Killer Films' new romcom Materialists opened theatrically to great success. Two months later, the company premiered a new film, Late Fame, at the Venice Film Festival. As they continue the important work of producing original movies, they show no signs of letting up.

This week, we have two very different segments tied to two very different -- but equally fun -- new releases. First up, the new dark comedy Caught Stealing from Darren Aronofsky stars Austin Butler as a former baseball player who gets stuck in a web of gangsters and murderers searching for a missing bag of money. Set in the 90s New York City, the movie is an accurate depiction of that grittier era. But at certain key moments in the plot, it's also an accurate depiction of baseball. Jordan Baltimore, CEO of Empire Baseball, and trainer Julian Malenda, came into the picture. The pair were drafted to help Butler -- who had never played baseball before -- transform into someone with a lot of batting talent. Baltimore and Maleda joined us before opening night of Caught Stealing at the Playhouse to discuss how they got involved in the project. Plus:  If you enjoy raunchy romantic comedies, you'll love the latest effort from director Michael Covino. The filmmaker stars alongside his writing partner Kyle Marvin, Dakota Johnson, and Adria Arjona as two couples whose boundaries are tested by open relationships. Covino and producer Emily Korteweg explain how they managed to make an original comedy and why we don't see more of them these days.

This week, we're joined by one of the greatest American actors working today: John Turturro. If you know anything about movies, you're probably a Turturro fan: From Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing to the Coen brothers' Barton Fink and The Big Lebowski, Turturro has been a powerful cinematic presence who always goes to unexpected places. Most recently, he has been widely acclaimed -- and Emmy-nominated -- for playing the rabble-rouser Irving on Apple's hit sci-fi show Severance. Turturro's unique talent branches off in many directions. It enables him to play angry, funny, confused...sometimes all at once...and when you see his face on the screen, he always makes you lean in.Actors capable of such exacting performances are, in their own way, first-rate storytellers. That's especially true for Turturro, who has directed five films, including one of the best musicals of the 21st century -- the boundary-pushing blue collar dramedy Romance and Cigarettes, screened at the Playhouse for its 20th anniversary this past month. The occasioned marked the first 35MM screening at the theater. Before the event, Turturro sat down with the Playhouse to talk through the unique nature of his talent on both sides of the camera, as well as his evolving relationship to fame. 

Tony Gilroy, an Oscar-nominated writer-director known for Michael Clayton and the Bourne series, delves into the art of storytelling. He shares insights on the inspiration behind Andor and reimagining action in films like Bourne. Gilroy discusses the themes of revolution and human stakes in Andor, focusing on everyday characters over spectacle. He also explores the freedom of storytelling in longer-format TV and hints at his next project centered on music. This deep dive into his creative process is both insightful and thought-provoking.

This week, we look into the past and the future at once. In 2025, the idea of sentient robots threatening the future of humanity might not sound so far-fetched. But when a naked cyborg arrived in Los Angeles in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1984's The Terminator, it was a warning sign way ahead of its time. Director James Cameron, who would go on to mount epic spectacles ranging from Titanic to Avatar, emerged from B-movie maestro Roger Corman's low-budget filmmaking factory to create one of the most impactful blockbusters of all time. He wasn't alone, either: Producer Gale Anne Hurd, another Corman alumna, joined forces with Cameron to stitch together the $6 million dollar production. Hurd visit the Playhouse to revisit The Terminator and think through its resonance more than 40 years down the line as a timeless work of art, one heck of a warning sign...and let's face, a really cool action movie too.