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| Alessandro Nivola on Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through), starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton: “His world is so stylised … |
Alessandro Nivola was at the Venice International Film Festival this week for the world premières of two movies he is featured in. Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door (adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s What Are You Going Through) (London Film Festival and the Centerpiece Gala selection of the New York Film Festival), starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton with John Turturro, Alex Hogh Andersen and Esther McGregor, plus Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (co-written with Mona Fastvold and in the Toronto International Film Festival and the NYFF Main Slate) starring Adrien Brody with Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Stacy Martin, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird, and Isaach De Bankolé.
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| Alessandro Nivola with Anne-Katrin Titze on his scene with Julianne Moore: “He had very specific thoughts about every line, every moment …” |
In the second instalment of our end of summer conversation, Alessandro discussed his working relationship with Pedro Almodóvar for filming The Room Next Door.
From Long Island, New York, Alessandro Nivola joined me on Zoom.
Anne-Katrin Titze: How was it filming with Pedro?
Alessandro Nivola: It was wonderful. I've been a lifelong fan of his. Obviously I'm not alone. I was really curious to work with him and Ethan Hawke, who, as you know, is my neighbour in Brooklyn and very long time friend had done his short film.
AKT: Which was in the New York Film Festival last year, that cowboy story!
AN: Exactly, A Strange Way of Life. He had told me all of these stories about working with him, and they became very close friends after that. It was really interesting. You know, just for this one scene that I was shooting in the movie, he had me come to Madrid.
I mean, the movie is all set in New York City and in upstate New York, and our scene takes place in upstate New York, but of course we shot it in Madrid. They did come to New York for some exteriors in Manhattan and stuff, but all the interiors were shot on stages in Madrid, and he, you know, his world is so stylised to begin with.
AKT: I saw the trailer, and his colours are very present!
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| Alessandro Nivola on Ethan Hawke and Pedro Almodóvar’s A Strange Way of Life: “He had told me all of these stories about working with him …” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AN: Yeah, it looks like classic, at least from the production design point of view, it looks like classic Pedro. I think a lot of his sets were on the stages in Madrid. He flew me over a month before we were going to shoot for almost a week, to kind of sit and talk about it and work through the scene with Julianne [Moore], because the scene is me and Julianne. We really kind of broke this scene down line by line, and he had very specific thoughts about every line, every moment in the scene.
AKT: It's his first feature film in English!
AN: Yeah, I mean, I can't compare, obviously, never having done a film in Spanish with him. But I get the feeling that he has incredible attention to detail, both visually and with the kind of moment-to-moment emotional rhythms of the story and the script. And so, anyway we spent a lot of time with this one scene, kind of meticulously going through it.
And then when it came time to filming it, he just really kind of let us be and said hardly anything. It was a separate trip. I came, I went home for a month, and then I came back, and this time, you know, he was just very kind of hands off. He had his design and the camera work was really planned out before we shot. But as far as the performance went on the day, when we were actually shooting the scene, he really kind of let us be.
AKT: How do you look in this film? Is it a surprise? Did he dress you in any interesting way?
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| Alessandro Nivola on Pedro Almodóvar: “I get the feeling that he has incredible attention to detail …” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AN: I play an upstate New York cop. The challenge with being in his world is trying to sort of understand the world that you're in. It is slightly a heightened reality. But at the same time, in this particular case it was a character who was from a very specific place and a specific class, and had a specific profession, and I was doing something that was unique to a person who had lived in an Albany, you know, way upstate area from a working class background, and had been a lifelong cop and comes from a culture of faith. I was trying to be as specific with all of that as I would with any role in any film that I was playing.
But at the same time there's something kind of archetypal about the situation in the movie and the style of the particular scene. And so, you know, you don't want the sort of naturalism and detail of the reality of the character and the situation overwhelm the bigger style of the movie. Those two things are always a challenge to marry in any film you do.
You have to kind of be aware of those things, like, what's the world that I'm in, and and how can I help tell the story? You know, be part of that world, while also being very specific about who I am and what my particular behavior and physicality is. And experiences, you know, all those things. So we'll see how it marries to the movie. I'll find out soon.
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| Martha (Tilda Swinton) with Ingrid (Julianne Moore) |
Read what Alessandro Nivola had to say on Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, his grandfather Costantino Nivola’s relationship with Le Corbusier, the Nivola family life on Long Island and Italy, the Coco Chanel connection for him with his wife Emily Mortimer (soon to be seen in Dougal Wilson’s Paddington in Peru), and Paul Giamatti and Yale.
Coming up - Alessandro Nivola on Kraven The Hunter and more on The Brutalist.
The Room Next Door will have its US première at the New York Film Festival on Friday, October 4 with Pedro Almodóvar, Julianne Moore, and Tilda Swinton in person at Alice Tully Hall.
The Brutalist will have its North American première in Toronto on Friday, September 6.
The Brutalist will have its US première at the New York Film Festival on Saturday, September 28 with Brady Corbet in person (joined by Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Stacy Martin).
The Room Next Door will have its UK première at the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 19.
The Room Next Door opens in the UK on Friday, October 25 and in the US on Friday, December 20.
