The script was a collaboration between O'Farrell herself and director Chloé Zhao.

It felt like a very organic process.

She's a very earthy person.

She's interested in the land, the earth, the body, the things not just like spring and beautiful, but also decomposing and what's hidden underneath.

Director Chloé Zhao tries to remember where her Oscars are.

One of them is in China somewhere.

The other one I think is in storage.

[laughs]

To get myself into nature.

Um, and the second part of, to, to answer that question is that in my 30s, I was much more like a pioneer, like a, um, going west, going into, like, finding treasures.

I wanted to go as wide as possible, chasing horizon after horizon so I can come back with the treasures.

The camera's insatiable.

It wants to capture everything, and I wanna move.

I'm always on the move.

W- were you, were you taught Shakespeare there? Was that your first encounter with sort of his actual texts?

... and their relationship before the loss?

Mm.

They're very different, um, and that, and that...

And they're, they're different in a way that you understand why they needed each other, right? So sh- he was a-all about structure and order and control.

He w- you know, you meet him, he's, he's inside a frame, and he's wild animals locked away.

You know, he grew up in an environment, uh, that's violent and not accepting of who he is.

He has to only be a certain way to be safe.

How did that help you with the relationship and creating those characters?

And a lot of you.

And I, I agree.

If it's, like, three takes, four takes, and my actors are not there, I don't- I think something's wrong, something else is wrong.

You know, it could be the writing, it could be the lights, it could be the blocking, and I try to look at the whole, uh, ecosystem first before tr- forcing them to keep going, unless, unless they really feel like they have something else they want to try.

But my biggest challenge has always been, how do I know that it's not right? You know, well...

And that is, the, the more films I make, the more I am, um...

It feels like it's a very internal process.

And then when we went to look for those homes, and I did find something-

It

was the best year in the sense that it was the most life-changing year because you Because 1999 in downtown LA, LA had just gone through some pretty big events right before that.

And you can still feel the tension in the city.

And I came, had such an ignorant point of view of what America is.

And so to be dropped right in the middle of that and looked around and go, this is not what I saw in the movies.

Because the movies back then, it's not like it has the variety as we have today in terms of representing all walk of life.

And then I lay high.

At what point did you, as you say, became obsessed with the American Western?

And what kind of things would you, if you remember, would say to see what would happen? Do you remember some of them?

Sometimes, like, I mean, he's smart.

Really, I mean, he was, like, manip- [chuckles] he was, like, negotiating, a little bit manipulating, crying, laughing, threatening, getting angry.

He was giving everything at me.

And then I would sometimes suddenly, uh, just in the middle of a sentence, stop talking, or I would, I would suddenly shout at him, or I would start crying myself, and just to see what, what he's got.

You know, the thing with child actors is that if they've learned a habit, if they learned that in the morning, "I gotta figure out everything, I must know everything, 'cause that's where I feel safe," this is not the right project for them.

There's plenty space for that.

And I'm curious how that applied, if it did, in terms of rehearsal before you or, or on set with your actors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so, so it is be really nice for the audience to associate the emotions of a color with the character as their circumstances change.

Um, so Agnes in the book felt like, you know, I mentioned the word heartbeat.

It felt like there's a lot of heart.

Um, there's, because when you l- are, have more connection with, uh, with nature and when you are a bit more body, body based, you know, soma- live somatically, you are lived heart, you live heart-centered, right? Uh, not mind.

So the idea of her, uh, looking like a bleeding heart feels right to me.

Mm.

Can you share with people, just so they can understand, What was the moment when Lee essentially died and Songs My Brothers Taught Me was born?

Thank God Lee died.

It's all for the better.

Something's got to die for something new to be born.

When I was in film school in senior year, again, I felt very lucky that I, you know, Chris Columbus had a grant there and he gave me money to make Lee.

And then Sundance Labs had accepted me to do the screenwriter labs, the director's lab and all these things.

Different labs.

Do

[laughs]

I think, I feel, right, again, I know very little.

Uh, I won't claim I know, but my, my instinct makes me feel that they were students of great mystics, and then for whatever reason, they seem to be leaving out of, the mystery part out of a lot of their teachings.

Instead, they did keep it for themselves, you know, but the bedrock of Western civilization became about rationality and, and reason as opposed to mystery.

You know, so I feel because of that, suddenly only certain people have access to the divine, to the unseen, to the underworld, however you want to name this realm where great messages comes from.

You shouldn't have to pay money to feel you're connected to some kind of bigger thing because a pop star is the only person who has that connection with, with the divine.

Actually, you yourself waking up in the morning has those tools to feel that kind of aliveness and enchantment.

I have, yeah.

So

I do think as women, we value... collaboration and the gang community more than what I think sometimes the dominant culture are saying like you gotta do it on your own and I have always been you know collaborating not just with my crew and cast but the places I go into yeah you know when I went into the Pine Ridge Reservation That whole community opened themselves up to me.

And when we couldn't get funding, we tried for two years.

We couldn't get funding for the film I had in mind.

So we ended up with like $100,000 shoestring budget.

And so was the writer.

The first film, Songs My Brother Saw Me.

a mother to us all.

How did you work with Jessie in those scenes? How did you bring her out of it? Like, what happens on set when you're in such an intense environment? You know, first of all, having

the right ecosystem around her.

We carefully pick our cast and crew.

And one thing is to start and end the day as if it's a container.

And ritualistically, in the sense that in the morning, it's about taking it slow.

It's about playing music, letting people know that you're allowed to have a profound experience.

You're allowed to be silent.

Is it true that you and Jessie bonded over a breakup? No.

... and their relationship before the loss?

Hmm.

They're very different, um, in that, in that - and they're, they're different in a way that you understand why they needed each other, right? So sh- he was all, all about structure and order and control.

He would, you know, you meet him, he's, he's inside a frame, and his wild animal is locked away.

You know, he grew up in an environment, uh, that's violent and not accepting of who he is.

He has to only be certain way to be safe.

Her wildness is on full display, um, and yet could be very chaotic and out of control, because she had no structure around her when she lost her mother at a young age, and she knew the structure that Je- uh, Joan, her step-mother provided is going to, is going to turn her into someone else.

How did that help you with the relationship and creating those characters?

(laughs)

So (laughs) after Nomadland and Eternals, it was a very intense, uh, well, a really intense 10 years when I made those four films.

And then 40 is about a time, you know, if you're lucky, it starts.

Uh, and I, I had four years of, of, um, you know, if you look at my earlier film, it's about chasing as many horizons as possible.

I feel like a pioneer, just wanted to capture all the treasures, you know? "My, my, my, I like this, I like this, like this, this is exciting." And then, but I was running.

I was running from myself.

I was afraid to stay still.

Right.