Reminiscence, out in theaters and on HBO Max on August 20, is Lisa Joy’s feature film directorial debut after co-creating Westworld. The simultaneously romantic and dark exploration of sci-fi and memory is underscored by the innovative technology she used on set to bring the story of Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) to life.
Joy spoke to Screen Rant about the inspiration behind writing her new film and explained why star Jackman makes the perfect antihero.
Screen Rant: You might have one of the most innovative minds in the entertainment industry. This movie blew me away. I know this is your directorial debut, but where did the idea for Reminiscence come from?
Lisa Joy: Well, I have to thank unemployment for allowing it to happen. I had a lot of free time and, during that free time, I got myself knocked up. I had a lot of morning sickness and was writing between puking bouts.
In all seriousness, though, it was the first time I was allowed to write in my own voice. Because I'd been working for other lovely people before, emulating and learning from their voices. But it was something about being pregnant and all that anticipation.
Plus at that time my grandfather passed away. He lived a long time and lived a very full life, but it unlocked a little mystery for me that made me really contemplate memory. Because he lives in the north of England in this very modest house, and he has this plaque on his house called Sookie Lynn. He would never tell me what the name stood for, but when I went there to tidy up his belongings, I found an old photograph that said Sookie Lynn on it. I realized, "Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, there was a memory in which she was very important."
And it just made me start thinking about how well you know someone when every moment in their minds, every moment of memory, is its own kind of bounded infinity.
I know that you wrote the character of Nick Bannister for Hugh Jackman, or that you couldn't get him out of your head. What did Hugh bring to the role of Nick that wasn't necessarily on the page?
Lisa Joy: Hugh is so good-looking that you almost don't notice that he is the consummate character actor. He really is. It's like somebody forgot to tell him that he's good-looking, and he can take it easy. It's the way that he commits to a role, and has no vanity whatsoever.
And for this film, from the very beginning when I talked to him, I was like, "You are a leading man and a hero, but this is an examination of a character in all his different aspects." And the idea of what a man is and what a hero is, I think we have to look deeper than that. We have to say, "You're not perfect." That you can be vulnerable, that you can pine, that you can be blind, that you can cry, that you can hurt - and that you can be wrong. You can do evil things, and you can find yourself the villain of your own story.
We need to tell a story that really almost deconstructs what a traditional hero is supposed to be. And I knew that for that kind of nuance and update on traditional male hero tropes, somebody as daring and lovely as Hugh would be the ultimate collaborator.
One thing that I don't want to go overlooked here is the technology used for this because it blew my mind. Hugh told me about it, and I thought it was all CG. Can you talk to me about the technology?
Lisa Joy: Yeah. When we started the film, I knew I wanted the memories that he saw in this hologram to be done in-camera. We've seen beautiful depictions of holographic images before in film, and basically, a lot of it is VFX when you look at it from one plane. But what I wanted to do was to dimensionalize it, and to make it so that Hugh's performance could be very realistic and visceral, and he could actually see a real hologram while he was acting.
The way that we did that was we basically created this circular viewing podium that he uses. And every memory that he saw, we had to film in advance - and it was this intricate dance because we didn't have fancy techno cranes and stuff. This is an original film, they give that to the Marvel movies.
I had to kind of intuit where Hugh would go, what the character would do, where he would look, and the pace at which he would approach and circle these images. Then my amazing steady cam operator, Chris Haarhoff, would basically be Bannister's gaze. We would look at, okay, well, Banister's six foot two. His eyes are here. He would go this way, he would walk closer, he would dip down to look under the bureau, he would go this way - and I would hold onto his jacket behind him, and I would walk, imagining that I was Hugh Jackman.
And then later, Hugh would also intuitively flow through the scenes. It was like a dance done through time with different partners who were imaginary, and we would project the memories that we filmed in advance onto the screen. Hugh would be able to see them as he walked, and the memory dimensionalized.
Reminiscence is available in theaters and on HBO Max on August 20.
