There was a bit of a buzz about this script.
I had time to read, and so I readMay December.
It was a completely singular endeavor that really made an impression on me.
From left: Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore inMay December.Francois Duhamel/Netflix
DEADLINE: How did it come to you?
HAYNES:It came through Natalies producing company, with me in mind as director.
Like, pushing people pushingviewers into places that were not comfortable.
She relished playing around with that.
DEADLINE: How did you move it along?
HAYNES:Basically, we talked to Samy, which was all, of course, done remotely.
Natalie was still in Australia, working at the time [onThor: Love and Thunder].
I loved talking to Samy.
So bright, so excited about having it be in the hands of Natalie Portman and myself.
She did another draft really quickly, based on our thoughts.
Very quickly after that, I started to sort of court Julianne on the sly for the other role.
Then, when I felt like I could count on that, I shared that idea with Natalie.
She was completely exhilarated by it.
So we had a really compelling package, but we didnt know when we were going to do it.
DEADLINE: Did you know about the Mary Kay Letourneau story?
HAYNES:I did, but I was not that well versed on it.
Unlike friends of mine, who were much more sort of tracking it at the time.
Im not quite sure why or when Im not a big tabloid consumer.
But no, I didnt know that much about it.
My feeling was, Lets start with this as a fiction, and lets really focus on that.
Yeah, I thought that was the best way to begin.
Then when the time came, the Mary Kay Letourneau research was actually very informative.
DEADLINE: How did it help?
What was really great was how clearly Julianne saw Gracie.
Youre going to freak out.
I was like, OK, I guess its time.
Was that what attracted you?
HAYNES:No, I didnt have ambitions in that regard.
I didnt necessarily plug it into established themes, or other films of mine, and find immediate correlations.
It came to me as its own strange concoction.
It was very much specific to its own time and place.
In this way, it was distinct from other films of mine about female characters.
It was really about these women whose desires and convictions and wills were driving the train in their lives.
Thats not necessarily the case in films of mine about women.
DEADLINE: Well, thats certainly shown visually: There are rhymes, echoes and visual duplications.
Was any of that spontaneous?
HAYNES:No, no, no.
Nothing about this was spontaneous.
It was all planned.
To a degree that is still incomparable to anything Ive done before.
I just was astonished by it.
Fell madly in love with it.
I said, OK, guys, this is something like what were going to need for this movie.
Itll change the way every scene is read.
The way every moment of the film is perceived will be in the contradistinction of this music.
That was the first shot we did.
I pointed to Ben, my assistant, I said, Hit it.
He punched his phone and started that first music cue.
The whole crew was like, What the f*ck?
What are we doing?
And then three takes later, everyones humming it and singing melodies.
We had an entire live chorus of vocalizing.
Everything was very, very planned and very considered.
We didnt cover the movie in any other way.
So we just went for it.
HAYNES:The Go-Betweenis an interesting movie.
It was highly regarded, critically.
I think it won the Palme dOr in 1971.
But, in the United States, it has basically fallen out of distribution, or circulation.
It fell between studio ownership or whatever.
it’s possible for you to barely find it.
You cant get it on streaming, you cant buy a version on a DVD.
It doesnt exist in the American market.
Im almost positive I sawThe Go-Betweenwhen I was a kid.
I wouldve been about 10 or 11 years old when it came out.
But, seeing it again, I just was astonished by it.
Was that always there or was that something you embellished?
HAYNES:No, that was always there.
This was a beautifully conceived, thorough idea of Samys.
So the idea of bringing an actress into that process opened up the possibilities.
Then all the boys that are being auditioned to play the Joes.
Theres just a very smart way of multiplying themes in the film.
How do you balance that?
Because its such a dark story, and yet the emotional impact comes right at the end.
HAYNES:Again, all of these decisions were made in advance.
In this case, it was just all done in a much tighter and more accelerated schedule.
I wanted to have the visual language be spare, slightly removed, austere.
It means that when you do cut, it matters.
When you finally cut, its like a percussion.
Its the punctuation of a scene.
The cinematic language works in the vernacular of the dialogue in every scene of that film.
It allows something to happen on the screen that comes alive.
It invites you to ask questions about what youre watching, but not in an accusatory way.
HAYNES:I think it respects the audience.
I think thats where the humor gets paid off, because its humor thats situational.
Its not like jokes or gags.
Youre observing life and youre observing these people who dont have a very keen sense of self-regard.
They dont really know how to examine themselves.
We are there to examine them because they cant.
They are ill-equipped to do so.
Thats the one thing that neither of them see.
They each see that in the other, but not in themselves.
Yet theyre kind of these mirror images.
Because youve been doing the promotion all by yourself.
Ive had Samy with me, which has been such a pleasure, since the New York Film Festival.
But I know how Julianne and Natalie feel, how proud they are of their work in the film.
Theres also something very moving about whats happening with Charles Melton.
DEADLINE: Final question, whats next for you?
Are you still consumed withMay Decemberfor the near future?
HAYNES:No, no.
We started to talk and share these conversations.
I brought in my partner, Jon Raymond.
Hes a writer who lives in Portland, where I live when Im home.
John and I adaptedMildred Piercetogether.
John has written most of Kelly Reichardts films with her over the last, god, six features.
It feels very fresh and new and exciting.
