Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for being a part of the show today. Thank you for spending your time with us. The new film Close to You stars Elliot Page as Sam, a young man headed to his small hometown to see his family after years of being estranged. It's his dad's birthday, and he's a little anxious, a little brittle. Sam's a trans man. He's not really sure how it's going to go. As he takes the train from Toronto, he spies an old friend, a really close friend of his, sitting a few rows ahead, Katherine, played by Hillary Baack. She is so happy to see him, but behind her eyes, something is going on to the point where she makes a break for it at the station. We watch as Sam negotiates with his family, but really just wants to be with Katherine. Variety said, Close to You, "Elliot Page makes an affecting big screen return in a fragile homecoming drama. Adding the actor brings palpable personal investment and empathy to director Dominic Savage's study of a strained family reunion Close to You starts in theaters on Friday. Joining us now is actor and co writer Elliot Page. Hi, Elliot.

Elliot Page: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi. As well as actor Hillary Baack. Hillary, nice to meet you.

Hillary Baack: Hi, nice to meet you. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: And writer and director Dominic Savage. Hi, Dominic.

Dominic Savage: Hi there. It's good to be here.

Alison Stewart: Elliot, you and Dominic started talking during the pandemic. What were the initial conversations like?

Elliot Page: The initial conversations were us just connecting really quickly. I'd seen Dominic's work. The first thing I saw was the film he did with Samantha Morton, one of my favorite actors of all time. It completely blew my mind, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't stop feeling it, and was just so in love with his filmmaking. Our initial conversations were really just us connecting as people, why we like to make things, what films we love, and we started talking about different ideas, and it grew from there.

Alison Stewart: Dominic, sometimes meeting someone over Zoom, it can be kind of hard. What about Elliot made him someone you wanted to work with?

Dominic Savage: I think it was literally the sense in which I felt that we developed trust quite quickly on that first Zoom. It was quite an intense discussion. We talked about life as well, and I think that was a really important moment because you can always tell straight away whether this is going to become a relationship that something interesting will come from. I think it was then I was inspired to do this from that initial meeting. We just kept talking, kept exchanging ideas, developing this storyline together in a truthfully collaborative way, in a way where there was a really quality in terms of the way in which we were working. Everything started to piece together. It all clicked, and I thought, this is meant to happen. This film is meant to happen.

Alison Stewart: Hillary, where were you when you first entered the Close to You universe?

Hillary Baack: I remember actually being in my kitchen and Elliott texted me and said, "Oh, my God. I just had a Zoom with this incredible director and I think this might be the perfect opportunity for you and me to finally do something together. Elliot and I had been talking about trying to create something that we could do together and get to work together again, and of course, I was so incredibly thrilled and honored. I, that night, watched Dominic's film, the same one with Samantha Martin, and was just blown away and just thought, this is exactly the kind of thing that I want to do.

It's been an absolute honor and joy to be a part of it. I also just loved my meeting with Dominic as well. I felt like we clicked immediately and it was so easy to talk with him and share with him, and it was a beautiful beginning to making this [unintelligible 00:04:33]

Alison Stewart: Dominic, you've got your team together. Much of the language in the film is improvised. What do you give your actors to work with?

Dominic Savage: The whole process is quite different to way most films are made because I do like to keep the initial script quite minimal. It's got lots of description and it's got lots of things for the actors to understand what the character is and what my hopes are for it, but I'm not prescriptive. That's the point. I don't like to write dialogue. I like that to emerge as we make it after a process of lots of talking, about character and about the story and about settings and about our lives and all that. I think that's a kind of process that that eventually gets to something as we're making it that becomes really meaningful, and meaningful to everyone involved. That's the point of it, that everyone feels invested in it, feels like they're really immersed in it. I think that's the point.

Of course, when we actually shoot the scenes, there's a sense in which the actors are totally in it, totally present in the moments that we're shooting, but it becomes almost like a real moment in life. It's not like it's being acted out and that everyone knows where it's going and they know where the end is going to be, it's much more like we're actually being. We're feeling, we're being. I don't know what's going to happen here, but we don't in life, do we? We don't quite know what the end of a conversation is going to be like. We just don't know. That's what I like to work. It's the surprises that are so important.

Alison Stewart: Elliot, for you, creatively, what did the improvisation do for you?

Elliot Page: Oh, my gosh. So exhilarating. I think I feel like it's okay for me to speak for all of the actors in this movie, where everyone just fell in love with this way of making something. Because not only is it improvisational, you shoot it in order, it's all natural light shot on the same lens, so you don't stop. I think I'm used to, as most actors, making things in a more conventional way in film and television, of you have your couple minutes and your take, and then maybe you do a couple more, and then you wait as the camera and the lights are getting moved to do the night, and that comes with its own challenges and joys, of course. But working this way, that joy of acting, that inexplicable feeling of creating this other reality that feels so deeply honest, you get to keep going. You get to go deeper and deeper and deeper.

Then as an actor to be working with someone who's as extraordinary as Hillary, who's just so present and so open, and to truly disappear in these scenes together, it's like nothing else. I feel so lucky to have gotten to be a part of Dominic's body of work and how he creates. It's an absolute thrill.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the film Close to You. My guests are Elliot Page, who plays Sam, Hillary Baack, who plays his longtime friend Katherine, and writer director Dominic Savage. Hillary, where is Katherine when we meet her, what's going on in her life?

Hillary Baack: Katherine is on a train heading back home to her family, her husband and her children. I did a lot of thinking and working about all of her backstory, which is not necessarily totally obvious, but when you talked about that, there's something underneath her eye, underneath her look, when we first see her, yes, she's been feeling unsatisfied in her life, and it's really seeing Sam that makes her realize this even more. Maybe feeling a little bit unsatisfied in her marriage, or about some of the choices that she's made. She's not maybe feeling quite as alive as she used to, and seeing Sam brings back this feeling. The memories of the time that she had with him when she was younger, made to think about the decision she made when she was younger and how she felt when she was with him.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to a clip where Sam sees Katherine on the train. It's their first introduction. This is from Close to You.

Katherine: I've not gone home in over almost five years, but, yeah, it's my dad's birthday, so I-- Yeah, come back. Yeah, yeah, it'll be-- I think it'll be-- yeah, it'll be nice.

Sam: Tell him I said happy birthday.

Katherine: Of course. What do you mean, of course they do. They always loved you, you know. Yeah, it'll be nice. My siblings will be there. Yeah, yeah.

Sam: How are they? How's Kate?

Katherine: I mean, yeah, she's good. They all-- I haven't really been, you know, I've been away and a little, you know, disconnected. Needed some space. You know, needed some-- I needed some space from Coburn. So, yeah.

Sam: Yeah. I'm always, like going by places, you know, like where we always used to hang out. I'm always thinking about you and remembering.

Alison Stewart: Elliot, at first, Sam, he can't quite decide whether or not to approach Katherine or nothing. What is he thinking as he's peering through the train seats?

Elliot Page: Oh, gosh. He's thinking a lot of things. It's been a long time since they've seen each other. He hasn't seen her since he's transitioned. In many ways, it's someone he's never stopped thinking about, and I think the idea of saying hi and sitting down and starting a conversation is only overwhelming in the sense that he does feel so much and always has for her, and misses her.

Alison Stewart: Dominic, you have these two actors who are engaging with one another, but there's so much that isn't spoken. It's so much body language. Tell us a little bit about how you talk to your actors, so that they can communicate without the language.

Dominic Savage: I think that's interesting, because the scene that you just played is a really interesting example because I met Hillary through Elliot and I really, really liked Hillary. I really felt something again when I did the Zoom with her. Of course, you can be very full of excitement about what's going to happen when these two characters come together, but, of course, it's only when it happens that you can really, really feel it and know. That's what kept them apart, even.

Alison Stewart: Oh, really?

Dominic Savage: Yes, leading up to the actual shoot. They didn't need to speak. They shouldn't have done because they haven't as characters in the story. There was this sense in which, this will be really interesting to see what actually happens, and, of course, what did happen was that there was, for me, something really special going on, almost telepathic between them. There was a kind of feeling that they got when they looked at each other. It was really powerful. It was really affecting, and I could see that on my monitor. I felt this was a really everything that I'd hoped for and everything that I'd believed would happen is happening.

A lot of that is just those conversations that I had with Eliot and Hillary leading up to the scene, leading up to making the film. It's just all about sort of aligning. It's aligning with my actors, aligning with them and almost giving them a sort of-- I often think when I'm making these films, that there is a degree of spirituality involved in the process. Somehow we're sensing things, and I really hope the film that comes across that sort of sensitivity of it, because it is a sensitive subject, it's a sensitive feelings involved, so the whole film is made with a kind of delicacy, I think.

Alison Stewart: Hillary, for people who don't know, you're deaf. There's very little use of sign language in the film. Was that a discussion? Did you have a conversation about that, or just didn't matter?

Hillary Baack: That's a great question. It was something that we discussed. In my understanding of Katherine, I felt like she was a deaf woman who had grown up orally, meaning speaking most of the time, and that she had started to learn ASL and started to get to be involved with the deaf community maybe five, seven years ago. So I did want it to be a part of her life, but it wasn't. As you could see, she wasn't signing with her husband, and she wasn't signing with Sam, so it wasn't something that she used all the time. That's not exactly my story, but it certainly does draw on a lot of my real lived experience.

It was something that we talked about and thought about, and I was excited to have a bit of sign language in there and also excited to be in a film as a deaf actor, as a deaf woman where it wasn't about that.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the film Close to You. My guests are Elliot Page, who plays Sam, who's headed back home. Hillary Buck, who plays his longtime friend Katherine, as well as writer and director Dominic Savage. All right, Elliot. Sam goes to his home. When he opens the door to the family home, what's he feeling?

Elliot Page: Nervous. He loves his family, of course, and they love him and are really trying. I mean, are welcoming. This isn't a movie about someone going home to stereotypical transphobic family, and it's full of trauma, that's not this movie. He's just going home to a situation where people don't necessarily have all the information and are trying their best, not always getting it right.

We see him having these sort of more nuanced experiences that I think a lot of trans and queer people will relate to, and I hear them relating to it when we're in screenings. People, laughter of recognition at so many moments. So, yes, he's going home, not quite sure what to expect, and bracing himself slightly.

Alison Stewart: Dominic, we see the family. They're really overjoyed to see him. Sometimes a little too overjoyed in some ways, and it made me wonder about, is this movie a lot about relationships that haven't been maintained and what it takes to maintain them?

Dominic Savage: There's that element to it, yes, but I think what I was interested in with it was to get a range of nuanced reactions and senses of those relationships that there's a complexity to it, but there's also these differences within the family of their perspective on Sam. I think that's what gives the film a more surprising quality. You don't expect those characters to behave in those different ways, and it tells you a lot about them as well. It tells you a lot about what they kind of want for themselves from it, as well as what Sam wants. But that really ultimately came from careful casting of people that have their own perspectives and own stories as well to add to this film.

Hopefully, there's a richness to each character that's in it and that's playing in it, and it's also about what they want from it as well as what they're prepared to offer Sam. I think we see all that complex family stuff going on in a way that there's pain there, but there's a kind of beauty to that as well, I think.

Alison Stewart: Let's listen to another clip from Close to You. We have another moment between Sam and Katherine escaping the family, walking on a beach and sharing a moment. This is from Close to You.

Sam: You look so good. You really do. You look just so like, you just look the same, just more you. I love it.

Katherine: Thanks. Yeah, that's how I feel.

Sam: Yeah?

Katherine: It's cool to be like, oh, yeah, there's that guy. I was wondering where he was.

Sam: Ah, I love that. I'm so happy for you.

Katherine: Thanks. I'm happy for you too.

Sam: Thank you.

Katherine: Yeah.

Sam: When you think about us back then, what did I do for you?

Katherine: I was in love with you.

Alison Stewart: All right. Hillary, your eyebrows go up when he says he's in love with you. Do you think Katherine knew?

Hillary Baack: Yes and no.

Alison Stewart: Yes and no?

Hillary Baack: Yes, and I think maybe deep down she knows and she knew, but it's new for her to see Sam come out and say it. I think she's just overwhelmed with maybe the truth of his feelings and also her feelings from that moment.

Alison Stewart: Elliot, there's a moment in the film when your mom uses the wrong pronoun and she's beside herself and Sam is pretty cool about it, sort of. He has to deal with it. How did his feelings for his mom come through at that moment, and then his feelings to protect himself?

Elliot Page: I think that's a moment so many people will, of course, relate to, trans people where, particularly a moment like that. Say, I've known Wendy, for example, for a long time. If Wendy was to misgender me because things take a second, or my mom, if still, I probably wouldn't even correct as Elliot. I'd just be like, oh, they're figuring it out. I don't care. I know the difference between when someone's trying to be purposefully negative versus someone who's trying and what have you. But I'd say, yeah, sometimes the inclination to not want to correct. Because in some ways that could just be seen as being helpful. Oh, let me just help you, because I get that it takes a second, but then it can turn into those sort of moments when then you see someone kind of crumbling, full of shame and it's like, oh, I don't want you to feel that way, it's fine, and it's okay. I'll avoid that, but then that means you're the one sort of navigating these moments all the time. At the same time, wanting, of course, people to-- having patience because it's these things, it's a hard thing to just switch immediately.

Hopefully, that scene in these certain moments are examples of those sorts of experiences and more nuanced moments that we were ideally hoping to capture while we made the movie.

Alison Stewart: Dominic, the cinematography tells us a lot about the feeling of the film. What conversations did you have with Katherine, your cinematographer?

Dominic Savage: The conversations, always, they involved, really, the process that I go through a lot with the films I make. As Elliot has just said, I do like to keep the process as simple and as paired back as possible. I don't like to make it complicated. It's a small team around, actually, on the set. To minimize the process of filmmaking, I like the actors to feel like actually, they're in the scenes, really, themselves, and there's no process of filmmaking that visible. It was a lot about that and keeping it simple, again, using one lens throughout, we don't have to change things. But always going with what we felt was a degree of truth in the way that the film was shot and representing those locations and those moments, and those times of day with a feeling. I think there's also a feeling in the cinematography. There's a sense in which it's empathizing with the scenes and what's going on, and to that effect, I like to choose the locations carefully, so that they have an atmosphere.

I think the photography does match and almost exemplify that atmosphere. It sort of goes with it. It's not trying to manipulate anything. It's being as pure as possible. I could go on, there are so many aspects to it, which one is conscious of, but I don't want to be too prescriptive about all that, because, again, it's all about feeling. I think, for me, everything is dictated by the feeling of a scene, and that includes the photography. Katherine Lutz, the DOP was amazing, she was always in the scene as well. She was always feeling it, and I think the film reflects all that.

Alison Stewart: Close to You will open in theaters on August 16. I've been speaking with Elliot Page, Hillary Baack and Dominic Savage. Thank you so much for your time today.

Guests: Thank you so much.

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