[lounge music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - The best response you can have to a payoff in a thriller is someone goes, "Oh, right, I forgot, of course..." [multiple voices chattering] [Narrator] On Story offers a look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

All of our content is recorded live at Austin Film Festival and at our year-round events.

To view previous episodes, visit OnStory.tv.

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[waves] [kids screaming] [wind] [witch cackling] [sirens wail] [gunshots] [dripping] [suspenseful music] [telegraph beeping, typing] [piano gliss] From Austin Film Festival, this is On Story.

A look inside the creative process from today's leading writers, creators, and filmmakers.

This week's On Story, "Love and Basketball" creator Gina Prince-Bythewood.

- I love a great love story.

I love the feeling of being wrecked and then built back up.

I feel like the great love stories make you ache.

You should feel it in the writing process.

You should feel it on the page.

[paper crumples] [typing] [typewriter ding] [Narrator] In this episode, award-winning director, writer, and producer Gina Prince-Bythewood talks about her character-driven work in "The Old Guard," "Love and Basketball," and "Beyond the Lights."

[typewriter ding] - How has this year been for you?

Of course, with The Old Guard, an amazing big project, congratulations on just massive success with that.

- It's been fascinating, it's been exciting, it's been sad.

All those things.

I feel very blessed that I was able to get two audience previews in before the COVID shut down.

So I got to see "The Old Guard" in front of an audience on the big screen.

It was one of the few films that was able to come out.

I was excited about this year of so many films in the genre being directed by women and women of color.

It felt like a watershed year, and then suddenly so many of our films having to be put on the shelf for a while.

But the fact that this was on Netflix, it did have the opportunity to get into the world.

And it was, you know, it was an amazing time to have that many people watch your work that first day, when it dropped in 190 countries on the same day, you can't even wrap your head around that.

[typewriter ding] - I'm curious, something that stuck out to me upon rewatching so many of your different films and series is the depth and power that all of your characters seem to have and convey.

Certainly your female characters, especially.

- I absolutely take pride in creating characters.

I mean, it's so much a part of the writing process.

And for me, once I have the idea of what I want to write, the story, the themes, then it's about characters.

And I spend so much time on every single character.

And for me, it's about making them real, because when they're real, then they start to talk to me as I'm writing.

It's a very cool thing of getting into that flow.

- I mean, I feel like now I'm asking you to pick between your kids or something, but is there any particular moment or any particular character for you that really sort of stuck out and you even now till this day, think of that sort of connection throughout the creative process or development process?

You know, I certainly...

There's been a couple moments that have stayed with me.

You know, for Noni, certainly one of the first images that came to me as I was creating "Beyond the Lights" was Noni hanging off of a balcony.

So that was a big one.

And because so much of it was how do you love someone who wants to die, who doesn't love themselves.

And also how can someone come back from that moment, from wanting to die, to understanding to choose life?

[somber music] - Noni?

♪ ♪ What's going on?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Can you look at me for a second, please?

Please?

- You still can't see me.

- Noni is just an amazing performance by Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and also just a character that you want to see evolve and grow, and you feel for her throughout all the pain and all the struggles.

You mentioned watching someone as her character developing someone who's at the brink of death and really wanting to give up, and then choosing life.

- What's fascinating about "Beyond the Lights," the journey to get it made, and I've been, you know, very open about how hard it was.

The majority of studios who loved the script and loved the writing pointed to the fact that the suicide attempt happens within the first 10 minutes.

And kept asking me, can I take that out?

Because an audience will not get past that.

Where for me, that is the story.

I want to see that journey.

How can we go from a woman hanging off a balcony literally okay with letting go.

How do we get to her at the end in such a triumphant moment?

It was really about a woman able to break free, to find her own voice and have the courage to do that.

Especially when the forces pushing against that were so personal, her mother, her own mother.

I find that relationship fascinating.

It was certainly based on things that I read.

Two biographies were probably the most influential.

I read a biography on Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland and their relationships with their mothers were horrifying.

But I found that fascinating, that how can a relationship like that exist when your livelihood or sense of worth is based on your child, and the things that would cloud your moral judgment or your maternal judgment to maintain that success.

I found that a fascinating dynamic and Gugu and I, we just talked a lot about the depths of what Noni would be in.

And we did a lot of research, and a lot of stuff on suicide and people talking about how they felt in that moment.

That line that Noni says after breaking all the glass in her apartment, that came directly out of research, that level of loneliness and despair.

And we just really, really dug into that.

[typewriter ding] - "Blackbird," the song by Nina Simone, was so influential obviously to creating the piece and crafting the character.

But it also has such specific moments with it throughout the course of the film itself.

- I was looking for a Nina Simone song, because that just felt right for this character.

And Nina Simone is always on my writing playlist, just because she evokes such emotion when you listen to her.

And in the original draft, Noni was singing an original song of hers in Mexico.

Like that was the whole thing, she's always writing the song.

And then she has the courage to sing her own song.

I heard the song "Blackbird," and kind of thunder struck.

It felt like this was literally written for the movie, and hence the title because the movie was originally called "Blackbird."

As soon as I heard the song, it just changed the trajectory of the script.

And then suddenly, wait, this is what she's singing as a little girl.

And this is what she's trying to get back to.

♪ Why you wanna fly ♪ ♪ Blackbird ♪ ♪ You ain't ever gonna fly ♪ - I love using songs for score.

And this was a song that so spoke to the character and allowed me to just get an audience into her head and also into the emotion of what she was feeling by a song, and being able to have this song come up a couple of times in the story and use it in different ways was exciting to me.

- Where do you find yourself being able to pull from, and how do you find yourself being able to pull from life experiences, and really translate that to the page and translate that to characters, and then bring an audience, a world over into that space as well?

- As a writer, you have to have the courage to dig deep within yourself, to recognize sometimes things that are not so great about yourself, and explore that.

You pull from your life or pull from things that you've seen or experienced.

And I think that's what gives moments truthfulness.

- Do you find yourself also growing with how you perceive those characters and their experiences as you create more distance from their release and putting them out in the world?

Or do they sort of just live with you or sit with you?

- Everything I write is pouring myself into it.

And also oftentimes writing is great therapy.

So kind of using them to work through things that I may be going through, and the characters are, when I've created them, they are real, and what they're going through is real.

And so I feel like that's why for me they stand the test of time.

For me when I look back on it, what I find fascinating certainly is how, through the years, some people's perceptions of the characters have changed given, you know, social changes, political changes, that sort of thing.

But I know what I was thinking or wanting to put or wanting to convey in that moment.

And that none of that has changed despite some coming at the characters a little differently or perceiving them in ways that is just not intended, nor do I think is true, truthful.

But again, we're artists, we put work into the world to hopefully be embraced, but also judged.

[typewriter ding] - With regards to "Beyond the Lights," I'm so fascinated by the overall film, by the construct of it, by the narrative, certainly by the characters, on and on.

But to start in a particular place, I find it has a unique connection to "Love and Basketball," both films about romance and both films that I feel has a touch of tragedy elements in them, with regards to their overall arcs.

Can you just speak to working within that space, and what the freedom and love for you personally may be working within the romance space and pushing it to its furthest bounds?

I love a great love story.

I love the feeling of being wrecked and then built back up.

And, you know, for me, I feel like the great love stories make you ache.

So when you're writing that, that means that the conflicts are real, that they never feel contrived, that they are big enough where you believe that these two people are just...

They can't find each other, and you're just yearning, aching for these two people to come back together.

- I'll play you.

- What?

- One game, one-on-one.

- For what?

- Your heart.

You should feel it in the writing process, you should feel it on the page.

And then so I love that.

I love being in that space of creating two people, two characters that I love, and getting them back together.

And the thing with the love story, there's only two ways it's going to work out, either they're going to end up together or they're not.

So it's about the journey, and creating a journey that an audience wants to go on.

I certainly do have...

I'm saying formula, but it's not.

I don't think that's the right word, but I do believe for me, watching the love story, I'm more engaged when I'm following both characters.

That it's not like a guy who in love with a girl and her character is secondary.

If I know them both equally and I'm rooting for them both equally, I'm just more invested.

And I think it makes the story stronger as well.

And then also it can't just be about love.

It can't just be about their love story.

There has to be outside elements, or else you are just creating these contrived obstacles that anybody knows they're just going to hop over.

[typewriter ding] - Your projects have such a unique thread to them with regards to legacy and lineage.

Specifically looking at "Love and Basketball," the relationship between Monica and her mom, and then fast forwarding to "The Old Guard," you have Andy as someone who's lived for so many years she can't even necessarily speak to how many that may be, and what her impact has had literally on the entire world.

What are you so fascinated by as a creator in that sort of idea or those themes?

- Our childhoods affect who we are as an adult.

The fact that so many of us can't get over things that happened in our childhood, how much it influences who we are as an adult.

And also this thing of, do we have a purpose?

What is our purpose?

That's a huge question that I ask of myself often.

And that's what attracted me so much to Andy and all of "The Old Guard" is, but certainly Andy and then Nile when she becomes a part of them.

- I think you showed up when I lost my immortality so I could see what it was like.

So I could remember.

Remember?

Remember what it-- what is was like to feel unbreakable, remarkable.

[somber music] You reminded me there are people still worth fighting for.

♪ ♪ I know how I want to spend the time I've got left.

You know, Greg Rucka, who's such an incredible writer who wrote the graphic novels and then the screenplay, that's what we talked about so much is that thing of purpose and finding your purpose.

And again, I think that that's such a universal theme, and it didn't matter that these characters were essentially immortal.

I felt that I knew that the way I wanted to bring them into the world in a real grounded way, I wanted an audience to be able to connect with them despite the fantastical conceit.

And that desire to know your purpose, to find your purpose, I felt was something that no...

The way that I connected with it so strongly, I felt that an audience could as well.

- What was it like to work on that project with those pieces in mind, and was it a constant thing for you?

Or that was just an undercurrent of a driving force behind a lot of the impact of what you're trying to do with the film?

- I think it started, honestly, there are absolute ties from "Love and Basketball" to "The Old Guard" in terms of Monica.

You know, the way I grew up and being an athlete, my parents had me in sports when I was five.

So from that age all the way through college, that was my existence.

And so the women around me were athletes as well, and it's just a different mentality.

And it's a mentality that most girls do not grow up with.

We love the fact that you are skilled at something.

You love your athleticism.

You understand what it means to outwork somebody, to go after a win, to leave it all out on the floor, to have stamina.

Like all these lessons, and also that you are innately athletic, innately a warrior.

You want to win.

You want to fight.

That is in us, but as girls, we are just not taught that.

So to be able to put that on screen for girls and women, to be able to see themselves in that way that they may have not been taught is certainly absolutely a theme of my work, and something that I'm very intentional about.

"Old Guard," as soon as I read Greg's script, that's what I loved so much about it.

There was no traumatic experience that happened to these women that forced them to become warriors.

They became the Old Guard most likely because this was innately in them.

- With regards to Andy and working with Charlize Theron on that character, were there specific things you knew you wanted to adapt directly from the novel?

- Skydance were the ones that bought the novel, and they developed it for a year with Greg.

And it was in really good shape when I came aboard.

And then there were some things I wanted to do with it that Greg was 100% on board with.

So it was a great collaboration.

And most of the work happened during that time of really understanding these characters, making sure their drives were clear, making sure this thing of purpose was really elevated.

Certainly giving Nile more agency throughout the story, really elevating her need of wanting to get back to her family and really questioning why this was happening to them, because the Old Guard had stopped questioning.

- I got people that love me.

People that are going to worry.

[somber music] I'm a Marine.

They think I went AWOL.

- You're not a Marine anymore.

They're going to lock you up.

[somber music] ♪ ♪ You know, the character, and certainly Andy, that character is the character that was on those graphic novel pages that I certainly...

It's interesting.

I went back to the graphic novel after I read the script.

Like she's a dope character.

Like she is all there.

And so I think the biggest question in terms of once we decided to cast Charlize was, yeah, in talking with her, like you can't play an age.

You can't play 6,000 years.

And you just kind of think about who you are.

Like for me, I still feel like I'm 22.

Like that number is just... Maybe because that was a great year in my life, I don't know.

But you just don't feel your age.

And so it's really you are your experiences.

- You're the oldest.

- Yeah.

- Well, how old are you?

- Old.

- How old?

- Too old.

[typewriter ding] - Where did you find some of the impetus to bring a motherly, mother-daughter relationship from completely different perspectives, with completely different character motivations and desires to the table?

- It's certainly with "The Old Guard," the thing that I wanted to bring to the Andy-Nile relationship was a veteran-rookie relationship.

I just felt that that conceit was kind of funny to do with an immortal and a baby immortal.

I didn't want it to be about that, but that's certainly the relationship that developed and influenced the way that when Greg and I kind of were attacking some scenes really helped us shape, because we knew that that was the dynamic that we wanted to bring out.

- You think knowing is going to make you sleep better at night?

- I can't be that.

My family...

They're going to get old and I won't, but it'll be years before they realize that.

I still have time with them.

- Here.

Take the car.

And when you ditch it, ditch the weapons.

- You going to be okay?

- Always.

- That's the beauty of writing and then directing, is relationships.

That's what stories, that's what we're connecting to as an audience.

So to create those different dynamics within relationships are what cause conflict and emotion and all the good stuff that we want in a film.

- You have Noni as someone that is bombarded by media as a star, you have in "The Old Guard" these characters are fearful of media or any sort of revelations if you would, about their existence within the world.

It's dueling in a way, but also you have such a unique perspective and vantage point on both of those sides of the coin, if you would.

- Certainly with "Beyond the Lights," I was really fascinated by what I saw was a blueprint that was happening most definitely with young Black female artists, where you had to come out hyper-sexualized to make noise, make a name, yet then it felt like you were then trapped in that persona.

And anytime you tried to break free from that, you were then called inauthentic.

As opposed to maybe what you came out with was inauthentic and the way that, again, the way that you come out, that becomes your image.

And that is your image on social media and in videos and in commercials and in TV and it just locks you in.

That's what social media, that's what media does, it locks you into a persona.

And that fascinates me.

Really, all your films, even without overtly hitting this on the head, managed to tackle mental health, mental wellness in some sort of way.

As someone who also was a very high level athlete, and now is a writer, what about bringing, shedding the light on those realities and just sharing characters who are living within those different spaces and mindsets is really exciting or interesting to you?

- There's a piece of me in every one of those characters.

And so it really is exploring something that I was going through at that time.

And so...

But also I think that that's what I hope will make every film or project I do feel a little different, because I'm dealing with a different elements within myself.

And for me, I hope that I never feel like I'm repeating myself, even though there may be themes, certainly, that traverse my work.

I think searching for purpose, searching for your voice is something that I do return to because I think, certainly as an artist, it's something you're always struggling with.

So I think that's what draws me.

[typing] [typewriter ding] - You've been watching A Conversation with Gina Prince-Bythewood on On Story.

On Story is part of a growing number of programs in Austin Film Festival's On Story project.

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To find out more about On Story and Austin Film Festival, visit onstory.tv or austinfilmfestival.com.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [projector clicking] [typing] [typewriter ding] [projector dies]