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Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, we'll speak with poet, journalist, and community activist Felipe Luciano about his new memoir titled Flesh and Spirit, Confessions of a Young Lord. Jamie Bernstein, daughter of Leonard and Felicia Bernstein joins us to talk about the new film, Maestro and Director Sharon Rocky Roggio is here to talk about her new documentary, 1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture about the first time the word homosexual appeared in the Bible.

That's the plan. Let's get this started with Director Sam Esmail and the new thriller Leave the World Behind.

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Before it was even published, Rumaan Alam's novel, Leave the World Behind, had been optioned for a Netflix film with Julia Roberts attached, as well as my next guest, writer and director, Sam Esmail. The movie Adaptation has arrived and it is a horror-flavored psychological thriller. A Brooklyn family of four, the Sanfords, decided to get out of the city for a weekend and head to a swanky Long Island Airbnb. There's a pool, some Tony Arch, a pretty beach nearby. Sure, there's some wonky internet service, but who cares because this is a sweet setup.

Their getup is interrupted one night when there is a knock at the door. It's a tuxedo-clad Black man, a sophisticate named G.H Scott, and his evening gown-wearing daughter Ruth, who informed the guests that this is actually their home. They don't mean to intrude, but there's this massive blackout in the area, and they'd like to spend the night until things get straightened out. Julia Roberts' character, Amanda, does not react well and is not shy about her disbelief by showing and telling the Scotts that she isn't buying their story. In its review, Rolling Stone described her as "apocalypse Karen." Her husband Clay is a Lucy goosey charmer who invites them in. The kids don't seem to care much, they just want some wifi.

It soon becomes clear there's more going on than a blackout. Planes begin to crash. Animals start behaving strangely. A loud piercing boom shatters glass and everything gets weird, scary weird. We know how humans fare when they feel frightened. Well, whatever is threatening them out there and humanity, or will humans do that all by themselves? Leave the World Behind is a sharp commentary on polite society, gender, and race. As a review in Vanity Fair said, "Leave the World Behind Feels terribly possible as if the order of our lives really could unravel in this way, noticeably only after it is too late. The thing that has happened is happening. Just take a look around outside." Joining me now is its director, co-writer, and Hoboken's own Sam Esmail. Nice to meet you.

Sam Esmail: Nice to meet you. Hi. That was such a great elevator pitch. I'm going to have to take you around anytime I ask what movie's about.

Alison Stewart: I always say the only A-plus I got in college was argumentative and persuasive writing, so I put it to work.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: This book was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020. Big bestseller. When did you first read it, Sam?

Sam Esmail: It was early days pandemic. In fact, we had rented an Airbnb. I was in an Airbnb when I first got, I guess the early manuscripts so it was a PDF file. I read it in one sitting and I was completely taken by it.

Alison Stewart: There was a huge bidding war for this property. Why did you know that you needed to have it, you needed to be a part of it?

Sam Esmail: It's so funny. The disaster genre is one of my favorite genres of film. I had been wanting to find my way into that. I'd been noodling around this sort of idea of a cyber attack because I think cyber attacks, even though it's out in the public conscious, it's equal parts ominous and mystifying. I thought dramatizing it would be interesting. That had been in the back of my mind. Then I read this book, which was so beautifully written and I immediately got excited because what Rumaan does in a very clever way is put the disaster elements off in the distance and really make the characters front and center. That is not typically done in this genre.

Then he explored the themes of tech in the opposite way that I did it with Mr. Robot, where instead of being with the professional who's narrating what's going on and the consequences of everything, you're with a bunch of people that have no idea how to run their life without tech. I just thought, "Okay, this is all a great foundation for that disaster film that I desperately wanted to make."

Alison Stewart: I interviewed Rumaan when the book came out, and he described his conversations with you as, "so Rich and so lovely." When did you begin having those conversations with him about the book? What questions did you have for him as the author of the book?

Sam Esmail: Well, the number one question I had was, do you need a faithful adaptation of the book? I philosophically do not understand this notion that when you're adapting something from another medium that you have to do this one-to-one copy. In this example, if it's successful in the literary medium, it will not be successful in the cinematic medium without a translation and a recontextualization.

The first conversation was, "Are you okay with me making changes?" I illustrated some of the big changes but then we got into the conversation about tone and what kind of movies excited us. Rumaan and I are basically the same age, and we kept bringing up Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf which is one of my favorite films, and the way Mike Nichols fixates on behavior and psychology. Then these power plays and shifts between those two couples was literally how I felt reading the book and what was part of my excitement in adapting it. I think without saying it, with just having casual conversations about our likes and dislikes in film, we understood that we were on the same page about how we saw this as a movie.

Alison Stewart: When this book came out, it was fall of 2020. The Pandemic was not over by any means. As you started to work on the project, where did the pandemic factor in creatively for you? Did it inform it? Did you say like, this is not going to be, we're just going to make a movie?

Sam Esmail: No. 100% it informed it. I was actually shocked that he had not written it in light of the pandemic because it felt like he was touching a nerve this idea that we could easily lose sight of our common humanity in the face of a crisis and that was literally playing out in front of us. In this time where we needed to come together, we were literally going into our corners and pointing the finger at one another. I think it's uniquely modern in that way. I really do. I feel like the pandemic manifested in that way because of tech, because of social media, because of Zoom, and in a lot of ways, Rumaan's book and me adapting it just was trying to channel that anxiety that we were all feeling in the moment. I would say it's a major influence for sure.

Alison Stewart: What was the major difference for you writing something from pre-existing work rather than from scratch?

Sam Esmail: I think the major difference is finding, I guess it-- When I read the book the first time I read it as a fan, when I read the book the second time I started to see the movie. The movie with the changes that I would make to the book. I think that's very different than writing from scratch because you don't have that playbook. You can't envision the whole movie right away. At least the way I work, you do it one scene at a time or maybe two scenes at a time. Here I had the whole movie. I could watch the whole movie. I did basically as I was reading it that second time. To have that going into then writing the script, it's a major headstart. I already have the film in my head.

Alison Stewart: My guest is director and co-writer Sam Esmail. The name of the movie is Leave the World Behind. It Drops on Netflix on December 8th. Julia Roberts plays a passive-aggressive, sometimes aggressive-aggressive, blatantly racist lady, Amanda. What is important to Amanda in her life when we first meet her?

Sam Esmail: That's such a good question. I think for me, what I really wanted to I guess dramatize about her humanity was this disillusionment she has with people and this disconnect that she has that really-- She's not apathetic about it. It really hurts her. It really bothers her and she feels almost trapped by it. I really appreciate that because I do think a lot of people when we see the divisions in the world or the chaos around us, we can go into apathy. I think there's somewhere deep down inside Amanda can't settle for that.

She's in fight-or-flight mode. She wants to run away, but if she doesn't run away, if she's going to have to stick it out, she's going to fight. That to me is the spirit that I think Julia and I anchored Amanda on. She's going to fight for her family. She's going to fight for the people in this home. She's going to protect them as much as she can. It was obviously complicated, but it was that duality that I think Julia nailed in her performance.

Alison Stewart: Yes. You've worked with Julia Roberts on Homecoming. How are you able to use Julia Roberts Julia Robertsness to good use in this character Amanda, who's she's like--

Sam Esmail: We, listen.

Alison Stewart: She's the person you come home and tell your family about you worked with like, "Oh, Amanda at work."

Sam Esmail: [laughs] Exactly. That's the power of Julia Roberts. If you have a character as prickly as Amanda and as flawed as Amanda to channel that sliver of humanity that's within her, not only do you need a brilliant actor, but you need someone who's got the undeniable charisma to draw you in and keep the audience hanging with her. Julia just has that in spades. There are so many moments throughout the film where I was like, well, this is just going to turn off the audience. After screening, after screening to hear people say, "I see her point of view. I see what she's talking about. Maybe I don't agree with the way she's handling it, but I do see her point of view." That's what heartened me. I attribute that to Julia. That's what she's able to pull off to take a character like that and get people to empathize with her, that's just a hat trick that she can pull off.

Alison Stewart: Ethan Hawk plays her husband Clay, who's sort of a, hey, whatever makes the day go by kind of a guy. Is he genuinely laid back or is he as worried as everyone else?

Sam Esmail: I think Clay is optimistic in the truest sense. There's that scene in the-- I don't want to spoil anything, but there's a scene in the beach where he really just hangs on until the very last second hoping or at least really believing that someone has got this handled. I guess that just makes him very trustworthy. Ethan, what he brings to it. I have to say because a lot of what Clay does, he's the patriarch of the family. He's typically the guy that is heroic and saves the day and protects his wife and kids, but he doesn't do that. He fails his family and himself throughout the film, but he does it in such a relatable way.

There are moments where I just watch it and I'd love to think that I'd be the hero, but there are moments where I'm like, man, that's exactly what I would do. I think, again, just to give credit to Ethan, he was able to find that relatability and accessibility that makes you love him despite all his failings.

Alison Stewart: We're discussing the film Leave the World Behind, which Drops on Netflix tomorrow. My guest is its co-writer and director, Sam Esmail. The big change from the book is the Scotts are-- In the book, they're an older Black couple. In this film, Mr. Scott is a younger version, very handsome, played by Mahershala Ali, and the female Scott in this case is now a daughter Ruth. She's a bit of a pot stir. What did having this young privileged, super woke daughter open up creatively for this story?

Sam Esmail: I just thought if you're going to do a disaster film about something as topical as our reliance on tech, that I would be remiss not to include the Gen Z, millennial point of view. It's not only that. To add that into the mix and those interactions between Ruth and Amanda it just added a different dynamic that I wanted to explore. I just think it fleshed out the dimensions of those interactions in a really playful way.

Alison Stewart: I want to play a clip from my interview with Rumaan Alam who wrote the novel. I asked him about that moment that the Scott knock on the door because this is really pivotal to the story in the film and in the movie. Here's what he said.

Rumaan Alam: I think it's a little disorienting when you first understand that you're inside the consciousness of characters you have not met yet. I wanted the reader to be able to understand as much as possible, but also not tell her too much. I think the book tries to have it both ways. Initially when there's this stranger knock at the door, you're primed for confrontation. You recognize a trope that you've seen play out in films. We've seen this in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. We've seen it in Six Degrees of Separation, the arrival of a Black person destabilizing the harmony of a white person's existence. I think the book offers you this faint, that it's going to be a book about this collision of people from two different races. I think it is, but I'm also think it's more than that.

Alison Stewart: How did you talk to your actors about that moment, that knock on the door scene? Because it's really important.

Sam Esmail: Yes, the thing about that scene, what's so great is you have these four characters, and they're all on very different pages. We really spoke at length about what everyone's fears and motivations are at every given moment. Obviously, Clay giving the most generous interpretation of the situation wants to hear these strangers out. Amanda gets into very protective mode. I know Rumaan speaks about the racism aspect of it, but that is her default protective mode goes into the ugliest instincts. That's what bubbles up for her. She's in sort of Mama Bear. My kids are upstairs. What is going on? It's the middle of the night. Something's not adding up.

Surely, she is sensing something accurate, because we reveal later on that there is something more going on. Then you flip over on the side with G.H. and Ruth, where Ruth again, changing the character to being the daughter, she has almost an entitled point of view on this. Well, wait a minute. This is our home and now I'm sensing an undercurrent here of racism and she is outspoken about it. She is letting her know, I think she lets her know multiple times throughout the scene. This is their house and they're entitled to be in their own home. Whereas G.H. because he is older and of a different generation, G.H. is doing the tactic where he's trying to not alarm the white folks as much as possible, keep the peace so he can appeal to their better instincts. The collision of all of that is what makes this juicy drama come out in this really fantastic way.

Alison Stewart: I want to talk about sound design and soundscape because the movie sounds scary a little bit. I'm going to play a minute of the trailer which has got some of the motifs that reoccur in the film. Let's listen to about a minute of the trailer for Leave the World Behind and we can talk about the soundscape on the other side.

[Leave the World Behind trailer]

Speaker 1: There's something wrong with the TV. It's all messed up.

Speaker 2: What that means?

Ruth: Or what could it mean?

Amanda: It could be over in a couple of hours.

Clay: You know something?

George: I'm sure this will turn out to be a big nothing.

Amanda: We'll look back on this one day and laugh. I guarantee you.

Speaker 3: I think that ship is heading towards us.

Speaker 4: Holy.

Amanda: What does that mean?

George: We shouldn't speculate.

Danny: Haven't you been picking up on what's going on out there?

Amanda: I don't want to panic over nothing.

Ruth: I don't think this is nothing.

Amanda: We're in this together until things get back to normal.

George: There no going back to normal.

Amanda: Get in the car.

Clay: Whoever is pulling the strings wants us to finish it.

Speaker 5: We're going to be okay, right?

Amanda: Yes.

[laughter]

Allison Stewart: Ngu, ngu, ngu, ngu. What were you going for sound-wise? What were your conversations like with Mac Quayle?

Sam Esmail: Well, Mac who's my composer, what was interesting about my experience with that, typically, and I'm guilty of this, is when you shoot something, you edit it, you use temp music, and then that becomes the guide for the composer, and they score it after the fact. Even in back in the day, even if there wasn't temp music, they would typically have a cut of the film before the composer then watches it, and then comes up with some ideas.

Because I love music so much and because I literally sometimes will shoot with music in mind, Mac and I had those conversations at the script stage, and he was writing pieces of music all throughout production. I was literally playing music on set with the cast. In fact, that one shot where it's over the car as it started going around the turnabout to the beach, again, Mac was just creating all this beautiful music and I will just play it while we're shooting the shot, and that ended up being the score that's in the film now.

Yes, we really talked about tone and I just created a whole playlist of these weird experimental, sort of French instrumental music that I discovered, very avant-garde. The idea was, is just to create something very unique to this film. As much as my influences, I kind of wear them on my sleeves with the Hitchcock and the Palmer and the [unintelligible 00:22:07] references. I really wanted the music to be uniquely birthed on its own with the film. Mac without any lifeboat, just went out and created this amazing score.

Alison Stewart: It's really interesting to look at the house that you chose to shoot, and not only because it's a great looking, but if you look really carefully, there are hints that it is actually in fact, the Scott's house. An artist that we've had on the show, Racquel Chevremont, who is an art consultant. We talked about the importance of a part of her which, her work is placing black art in films and on set and you worked with her. How did she come aboard this project and what did she add to the visuals of this home?

Sam Esmail: For me, production design it's so central to the tone of the movie. Like you said, it adds a layer not just the tone, but to the characters. One of the things things that I have a real strong belief in, much like when you work on a scene, the actors are given lines, and the lines are not supposed to be the text. They're the text, but there's a layer of subtext, and we talk about what's really going on. You could be saying a line, but you could be feeling something completely different. Those two things are constantly there, and that tension is constantly there. I really apply that same belief to production design.

Anastasia White, my production designer, and I spoke a lot about, not only is set but specifically the art and what it's supposed to symbolize and how it's reflecting the home of G.H. and the home of Ruth. Really, again, this tone, this undercurrent of racism and classism that we're going for. I don't want to spoil too much, but there's things about the art. If your listeners pay close attention to that they'll notice that that reflects the collapse of not just the society, but the deterioration of the characters as they start to unravel throughout the story.

Alison Stewart: Big part of the story, big theme is how dependent we are on tech and how everything just really goes to hell when something we take for granted, like satellites gets knocked out. Has working on this film and being in this space with your other projects changed your relationship with technology at all?

Sam Esmail: No, I've always been paranoid about tech. I don't know if I'm making it worse by telling stories like this. I do think that even with all my paranoia, I am completely still reliant on it like everyone else. There's a line, it's from the book, but it's also in the movie where Clay says, "I'm a useless man. I couldn't do anything without my GPS or cell phone." I'm with them there. [chuckles] As much I'm paranoid, I am equally dependent.

Alison Stewart: The name of the film is Leave the World Behind. It Drops on Netflix tomorrow, Friday, December 8th. My guest has been its co-writer and its director, Sam Esmail. Sam, thanks for spending some time with us.

Sam Esmail: Thank you. This was so much fun. Thanks.

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