Jennifer Lawrence and Timothée Chalamet kiss; the film’s intimacy coordinator imparts some wisdom. Leonardo DiCaprio helps choose the soundtrack to the end of the world. Adam McKay discusses last suppers and last-chance questions. And Don’t Look Up finds more than one natural end.
Jennifer Lawrence and Timothée Chalamet kiss; the film’s intimacy coordinator imparts some wisdom. Leonardo DiCaprio helps choose the soundtrack to the end of the world. Adam McKay discusses last suppers and last-chance questions. And Don’t Look Up finds more than one natural end.
Narrator:
It's February 2021, and the Don't Look Up production has managed to remain free from a COVID outbreak, despite rising cases in the city. This is because Jennifer Lawrence and everyone else in the bubble has lived by strict rules: no going out, no shared dinners after work, no germ swapping of any kind, except...
Jennifer Lawrence:
It blows my mind that I'm going to be open-mouth kissing somebody in the next week. I'm just like, "How does that work?" I haven't even shared a water bottle with somebody.
Narrator:
Jennifer's about to share more than a water bottle with co-star Timothee Chalamet. It's day 52 of the shoot, and producers Jeff Waxman and Staci Roberts-Steele are prepping for make-out day. Unfortunately, the internet has also been tipped off to the scene, and fans have arrived at the production's outer perimeter to try and capture their own footage.
Jeff Waxman:
We're at the Berg'n Crown Restaurant.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
We sure are-
Jeff Waxman:
Home of the... What does it say? The king-
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Home of the King George Burger.
Jeff Waxman:
Jen and Timothee are on top of the roof. We're looking around the neighborhood, there's about 200 people watching us, even though they're on top of the roof and no one can see them.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
No. But they're definitely trying to film Timothee Chalamet and Jen.
Jeff Waxman:
Yes.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
They got their cameras out.
Jeff Waxman:
Yeah. And they got to make out in the scene, so we gave them the special mouthwash, the COVID prevention mouthwash, which they both were glad to use.
Narrator:
Yes. There's prescription COVID mouthwash. It tastes better. Shortly after the shoot, the Rutgers School of Dental Medicine reported that Listerine also works fine. I'm not a doctor and can't confirm their conclusion, but their findings are worth sharing just in case you ever need to kiss Timothee Chalamet. On camera, the kiss looks fine, but in person, Jennifer Lawrence is mortified.
Jennifer Lawrence:
I lost a veneer in the first month of shooting, so I had a straight up hole in my teeth. They'll never see it. They'll CG it, but I got so used to it that I stopped telling people, "Oh, by the way, I have a hole in my mouth."
Narrator:
One person she forgot to tell, Timothee Chalamet. But they got through it. For Jennifer and Timothee, kissing in front of hundreds of people and a movie camera has been part of their job since they were teenagers. And as weird as kissing each other during a pandemic feels, in a way, it's a return to normalcy. Soon, this normalcy will end. There are just two weeks left until production wraps. This is The Last Movie Ever Made, Episode 6: Apocalypse Vows.
Narrator:
Years have passed since Adam McKay placed a book called The Uninhabitable Earth on his bedside table, a book that gave him nightmares and an urge to do something about his fears of climate change. And it's been 13 months since he transformed those fears into a screenplay called Don't Look Up. Now he's almost done shooting it, and the film's meaning has mutated beyond his control. It's still about the climate crisis, of course, but it's also unavoidably about the United States' response to pandemic, and he didn't have to change a word. Adam is now even more certain that humanity cannot come together to handle these crises. So, how does this story end?
Adam McKay:
So, we've been watching thousands and thousands of movies and TV shows for decades and decades. And almost without exception, it's guaranteed that, in the ending, it's going to be a happy ending. And I just started wondering, do we all just take that for granted at this point? Do we forget that, in real life, to get that happy ending, you actually have to do stuff?
Narrator:
Adam wrote a comedy where he put a comet-shaped gun to the planet's head. Today, after everything he's seen during the making of the film, the politics, the misinformation, the insurgency, he knows that, to tell the truth, he has to pull the trigger.
Adam McKay:
I heard a lot of people just say things like, "Ah, science will figure it out when it comes to the climate. It will be fine. We'll come up with a solution." So, I just felt like we had to show that a happy ending is not guaranteed, that all is not automatically fine at the end of a movie and that there would just be a simple power just doing that with this movie.
Narrator:
He has made a tragedy, a film where hope turns to grief. Adam has channeled his own grief into his characters, who passed through the stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the last weeks of filming, Jennifer Lawrence's character is deeply in the depression stage. She tries to find comfort at her parents' home, but they won't let her in.
Jennifer Lawrence:
Oh, that scene was really sad because she has just been kicked and just turned inside out, going on this journey to try to get the politicians to do something. And nobody's listening and then she's detained. And I think all she wants to do is go home and be embraced by her parents. And then she gets up to the door and politics have prevented them from even connecting as a family anymore.
Adam McKay:
Kate Dibiasky, Jen's character, goes back to her Southern Illinois town and chooses the road of getting high and just listening to hard music and tuning out, which is certainly a choice people have made. And maybe it's not a wrong choice. And she meets this skate punk, local kid who's shoplifting at the store she works at, named Yule.
Narrator:
Enter Timothee Chalamet.
Yule :
You're that girl from live TV who said we're all going to die.
Kate Dibiasky:
No. What's your purchase?
Yule:
What the fuck? No, that's you. That's definitely you.
Kate Dibiasky:
Yep, that's me.
Yule:
Holy shit. You are a stone-cold legend. Word is bond.
Yule's friend:
I have a picture of you on my board.
Yule:
A picture on his fucking board.
Adam McKay:
Kate and Yule will connect because they're both outsiders. And they're different kind of outsiders but their through line is that they've both not been accepted by normative standards, Kate on a much bigger consequential scale and Yule on his local Du Quoin scale.
Narrator:
Yule arrives late in the movie, so late that one can imagine Timothee's fans checking the time and wondering if they're ever going to lay eyes on him. This is unusual for an actor of Timothee's stature.
Timothee Chalamet:
The reference that Adam gave me in this film was a movie called Nashville, which I'd never seen, a Robert Altman film, for a reference of something that doesn't have a lead in it as much as a world that's built by the characters within it. And I like this flavor of a guy, particularly when all the other characters have such consequence in their actions and decisions. Not to say Yule doesn't, but his consequences are felt to him, basically. He is not making decisions that affect the world on a global scale.
Narrator:
However, when Timothee met with Adam, his questions about exactly who Yule is did affect the film.
Adam McKay:
When I was talking with Chalamet before he committed to the movie and he was like, "This is good, but it feels like something's missing here," I was like, "Yeah, I know what you mean. There's one more thing with the character." And then I was talking to Ron Suskind, who's a producer on the movie. And he was saying one thing the movie is missing is religion or God. And I thought, "Oh, wait a minute. What if Yule was raised by evangelical parents and still, even though he had a falling out with his parents and his church because of some corrupt shit that went on... What if Yule still does very much believe in God?" And so, we ended up adding that to the script. And Timothee loved that, and he's been kind of running with it. And it changed the direction of the character.
Narrator:
Now, to change Timothee into this character. As with Meryl Streep's presidential transformation, the first step was the hair.
Patty:
Timothee did not want to look like he always does. And he's got that very distinctive hair because he's got such beautiful hair, massive amount of hair, right?
Narrator:
Hair department had Patty Dehaney was in charge of Timothee's look. She took in his vulnerable face and hair like a halo. And so, that hair would be the key to turning him into a Midwest punk rock saint.
Patty:
The modern mullet. It's the modern mullet. We did start out with skater looks. I know some of the original ideas were shaved heads with things shaved into it and big Hawks and things like that. And then Adam was instructed by his daughters that, that's not very cool anymore.
Adam McKay:
So, once we found out he was kind of evangelical but he listens to harder music and he skateboards and shoplifts, then it started being filtered through that a little bit. So, our idea was he's not up on every trend and he's like a half-formed guy, so he's not clearly one thing or the other. So then, with his look, there was this idea that he would have longer, less fashionable hair and would be a rougher-edge and less-defined.
Narrator:
Yule is a familiar character to co-producer Staci Roberts-Steele.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Maybe it's just because I'm from Des Moines, but I know guys like this character. It's like punk rock kids who are also growing up around conservative politics. There's this fine line between libertarian, that sort of thing where it's like, "Fuck the system," but it bleeds into almost a right-wing kind of world. And that's what Timothee's character is. But yeah, he definitely reminds me of one of my high school boyfriends.
Narrator:
And now, time to take Timothee's mullet on a road trip.
Adam McKay:
And action.
Narrator:
Adam is riding with a small crew, surrounded by cops on an empty highway in Massachusetts. Ahead of them, in a car, are Jennifer, Timothee, and Leonardo DiCaprio. The cops are barricading traffic. They will not do this for long, so the casting crew have just 15 minutes to shoot this driving scene.
Adam McKay:
Because we're making a movie, God damn it.
AD:
[inaudible 00:10:41].
Adam McKay:
We're getting the helicopter shot ahead of you guys. It looks great.
Narrator:
Adam is directing from a van that the crew has nicknamed The Command Van. All the seats have been removed from their usual front-facing position, with one row bolted along the side wall, like a low-rent limousine. Adam is sitting on that row, facing a wall of screens that allows him to see what's happening in the other car, which is where the real action is.
Adam McKay:
We have the actors, Leo, Jen, and Timothee in a car. So, we're looking at them on monitors with side cameras on a process trailer towing the car. And we're also looking at a monitor that's our helicopter shot of the highway that they're driving on. And then in post, we'll remove all the cars so it'll look like it's completely empty, with them just driving down an empty highway because everyone's watching the BASH launch or taking shelter.
Narrator:
Those other cars are on the opposite side of the highway, rubbernecking as though they expected to see a grizzly accident. Luckily, they're not, although the mood in the actors' car is grim. If Adam had made a typical comet disaster movie where Bruce Willis or Morgan Freeman were in charge of saving the world, the mood in the car might be optimistic, exhilarated even. But Adam is not, and so Jennifer, Timothee, and Leo are quietly listening to music.
Leonardo DiCaprio:
All our characters knew that we were doomed, and we were going back home to have one last, final supper. And Adam asked us, because the scene was so short, if we had any ideas for what we wanted to improvise.
Adam McKay:
And then Leo just... I didn't know this about him but he is a fan of 1940s music. And we decided it fit the character of Randall, so he's playing this Mills Brothers song, Till Then.
Leonardo DiCaprio:
This very poignant song about this soldier that's going off to war, that's trying to speak to his loved one because he's going off into the unknown.
Adam McKay:
So, now he's playing it in the car for them. And it's a pretty haunting song.
Leonardo DiCaprio:
Till Then, this is the song. It's about the soldier who's going off to World War II and thinking about home. And this part. "Although there are oceans we must cross and mountains that we must climb, I know that every game must have a loss, so pray that our loss is nothing but time."
Leonardo DiCaprio:
I think the sequence has a very profound emotional impact and takes the shift away from the dark comedy of the movie into a much more somber tone, which is always what attracted me about the screenplay.
Adam McKay:
We'll do one more. Print that, for sure.
Adam McKay:
I love this scene.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
I do too.
Adam McKay:
So strange with the Mills Brothers' song, really specific and kind of beautiful. And the helicopter...
Narrator:
That surprise in Adam's voice is because he hadn't been sure that Leo's song suggestion would work until this very second, when he sees it in action on the monitors.
Adam McKay:
We just came up with it. I was like, "Maybe play some music." And he's like, "Could I play The Mills Brothers?" And I was like, "Yeah." It was little spur of the moment.
Narrator:
Adam tells the actors to do the scene again. This time, he tells Timothee to improvise a marriage proposal.
Adam McKay:
Confess love. You hardly know her, you haven't gotten that much time with her. After a little bit of Mills Brother, or maybe the music moves you. And starting with the dialogue. And action.
Yule:
Okay. I got to ask you something.
Kate Dibiasky:
What?
Yule:
Dr Mindy, can I be vulnerable in your car?
Dr. Mindy:
Yeah, go ahead.
Yule:
I've met a lot of people, and I've never met anyone like you. And I feel a connection to you on a level that, I don't know, I haven't felt with anyone else. And I'm going on a limb, but do you want to spend more time together, like maybe even get engaged or something?
Jennifer Lawrence:
To Kate, Yule is much-needed distraction and a flicker of joy in the time where there isn't a lot of it. And so, I think, when he proposes to her, it was light because it's another flicker of hope. We're thinking about the future. I think, for so many weeks, she had just been thinking about the end of the world. And now, there's this guy that is still positive enough to think about a possible future. I don't think that she would actually marry him, but I think that she felt it was nice to be asked.
Yule:
Wow. Are you laughing?
Kate Dibiasky:
I'm not.
Yule:
No?
Kate Dibiasky:
Smiling. Sure.
Dr. Mindy:
This is sweet.
Kate Dibiasky:
Why not?
Dr. Mindy:
This is pretty sweet.
Narrator:
After a break, the last supper.
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Narrator:
It's February 9th 2021. For the next three days, the shoot will be headquartered in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, population: 72,308. They've taken over a neighborhood to shoot scenes in an actual house, not a set. This is not typical for a film production of this scale.
Adam McKay:
Usually, you would've built this on stage because there's a lot of scenes here, but we, without exaggeration, could not get construction crew to build it. I think now there's a lot of productions going on here
Narrator:
When Don't Look Up began filming in November 2020, it was an outlier. Movies, especially of this size, were getting shut down due to COVID outbreaks. But this film managed to survive the skyrocketing winter months of the pandemic without one, inspiring other productions to resume and, in this case, inspiring themselves out of being able to hire carpenters.
Adam McKay:
So, it's a strange setup right now where we rented out people's garages all around the neighborhood. So, it's like the neighborhood has become a neighborhood of film production. And so, we're in a van next to the house right now. And there's, of course, safety rules about COVID, as far as how many people could be in the room.
Narrator:
Since the cast will be interacting in close quarters, producer Jeff Waxman stands guard on the front stoop.
Jeff Waxman:
So, the guys are inside. I'm literally standing with Staci by the door. I'm not letting anyone in. There's snow outside, and it's supposed to snow today again. We just changed the order of everything because Adam doesn't want snow in every shot. So, Thursday night, we're going to remove about a foot and a half of snow. We have a COVID table set up to the right, masks, gel, everything, people cleaning. And we're opening all the windows. Ventilation is very important. We're parking Adam's Command Van around the side. He won't even have to be inside. And yeah, it's just about limiting the people in the house to what we call our purple zone. The actors, camera, the first AD one, special effects, and a couple of grips to run the dolly and sound.
Narrator:
This house plays the Midwestern home of Leo's character. Inside, he's joined by Melanie Lynskey, who plays his wife, and their sons. Jen and Timothee are also in the scene, as is Rob Morgan. The idea in the script is that the comet will soon destroy earth. There's nothing any of these people can do, so they gather for a last meal. There's turkey, salmon, and fingerling potatoes, stuffing and wine, and even an all-American apple pie. Adam directs the scene from inside his Command Van.
AD:
Now, Adam, would you like another rehearsal?
Adam McKay:
Another rehearsal, please. Yes.
Jennifer Lawrence:
Okay. We go.
Narrator:
Inside this real house, with only a small handful of crew, it's easy for the actors to forget that they're filming a movie, like Conor Sweeney, who plays one of Leo's sons.
Conor:
We were sitting there, I, think the first day we were shooting the dinner scene. And Leo just looked at all of us and he was like, "I just figured out why I'm enjoying this so much, and it's because I have not been able to sit down with people at dinner for over a year."
Narrator:
In that moment, once again, the real informed the unreal. The lives in nightly solitude with lonely dinners gave way to collective communing for the camera.
Rob Morgan:
We went through this four or five-month journey together, laughing and crying. And then we come and do this last supper meal, and it was very tense. At the same time, it was very warm and loving because we all realized that this was going to be our last supper together and our last moments. But at the same time, we sprinkle in some levity and humor, so it was a trip.
Narrator:
And with the shoot winding down, it did feel like a last supper, both for the actors in the characters they were playing.
Jennifer Lawrence:
The dinner scene was really lovely and poetic because we had done everything that we could do and we knew what was coming. And we just wanted to spend it with each other and not think about it and not talk about it. And there was something really peaceful about that.
Narrator:
At the end of the world, these troubled people find that piece. And while this movie does not espouse religion as the cure for the world's problems, for one character, thoughts of a higher being bring comfort. "I believe that somewhere, someone is in charge, who loves people more than money or power."
Adam McKay:
Yule's a very important character. He represents faith and God which... Once again, everything's politicized now, so even religion has gotten caught up in tribal boundary lines. But Yule's great because he takes us back to the root of what having a simple, abiding faith is all about. And I certainly have moments like that, where I think about God and larger plans. How can you not when you look at what's going on?
Narrator:
Adam's direction for Timothee was simple.
Adam McKay:
The only thing I told him was: 100% sincere. There's nothing about it that's a joke. The audience is going to think we're going to do a joke with it but it's not. This is why you're at this table. This is why you became a part of this group, is for this moment.
Yule:
Dearest Father and Almighty Creator, we ask for your grace tonight, despite our pride, your forgiveness, despite our doubt. Most of all, Lord, let me ask for your love to soothe us through these dark times. May we face whatever is to come in your divine will with courage and open hearts of acceptance. Amen.
Rob Morgan:
Amen. Wow. Yule's got some church game.
Narrator:
The prayer is how Yule says goodbye. And Leo had an idea about how his character would do the same, inspired by a classic post-apocalyptic television episode from the 1950s.
Leonardo DiCaprio:
I remember telling Adam that I really remember the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last, with Burgess Meredith, written by Rod Serling. And I just remember his character saying, "The thing of it is... The thing of it is, though..." And I wanted to incorporate that with Randall's last line, which is, "The thing of it is: we really did have everything." And I remember going to Adam's trailer and suggesting that for the final line of the movie, because I think Randall really does realize that all our characters and humanity, for that matter, really lived in heaven on earth and it was all about to disappear.
Dr. Mindy:
The thing of it is: we really... we really did have everything, didn't we? I mean, when you think about it.
Adam McKay:
And when we were shooting it, we were all very emotional because you realize that's what it would be. That is what you would do. I mean, you would gather with family, you would start to feel really sacred, powerful, beautiful, quiet feelings that, usually the day-in-day-out life makes so much noise, they're hard to get in touch with. And you realize that's probably what would emerge. And everyone could feel that there was some truth to it.
Narrator:
Adam is not a religious man. He's got that kind of walk-in-the-woods version of spirituality. To him, this moment at the dinner satisfies the poetic optimist side of him. The cynical realist writes the other ending.
Brad Ricker:
Adam's idea was that the rich and powerful would always find a way to escape.
Adam McKay:
With every movie I've worked on, we've always tried to mess with the endings a little bit to not them clean, formulaic endings. And that's certainly the case with Don't Look Up, is that the movie is structured like a traditional comedy, but in the end, you realize it's actually a horror movie or a tragedy. But then still, there's a few laughs after that too.
Narrator:
For the billionaires and politicians who enrich themselves during the apocalypse, they escape earth, cryogenically freeze themselves, and over 20,000 years later, land on a new planet to make the same mistakes again. Meryl Streep's President Orlean is there, so is the tech mastermind played by Mark Rylance, along with dozens of their closest tycoons.
Peter Isherwell:
Hey, oxygen is actually higher than on earth by 9%, so you might feel a bit lightheaded. The cryochambers were 58% successful, which is much better than anticipated.
President Orlean:
No, we only had 47 dead and...
Narrator:
And due to the cryochambers, they're all naked, which means, to shoot the scene, Adam McKay must also bring along Marcus Watson.
Marcus Watson:
I am an intimacy coordinator for film and TV, and I also do intimacy direction for stage.
Narrator:
Intimacy coordinator is a relatively new Hollywood job. For most of movie-making history, scenes that involve nudity or sexual intimacy focused on protecting the actors' bodies with pasties and mark-ins, while paying scant attention to protecting the actors' emotional comfort. Recently, this has begun to change. Intimacy coordinators like Marcus are on set solely to advocate for the actors' inner wellbeing, to ensure that everyone agrees on what will happen and how. As this scene has a spaceship full of naked people, Marcus has a lot of elbows and knees and chests and butts to intimately coordinate.
Marcus Watson:
We had 41 background, and then we had body doubles, and then we had Meryl and Mark.
Narrator:
Meryl Streep and Mark Rylance will not actually be getting naked, hence the body doubles.
Marcus Watson:
There were over 40 people of different ages, from younger end to... I know we had people in their 80s. I talked with every single actor beforehand. And we roughly had a 15-minute conversation. Some of them were a little longer because they also had questions about intimacy coordinator and things of that nature. I mean, when else do you get to talk to 41 different actors about nudity and being on a set like this? It was just a lot of fun. I think I'll remember that.
Narrator:
In the scene, the dazed and naked elite emerge from the ship, eager to stretch and pet some new outer space animals. Imagine Adam and Eve traipsing through the Garden of Eden, except that Eve is the former president of the United States, who no longer has to cover her lower back tattoo. On set, Marcus wants his actors to feel that liberated.
Marcus Watson:
And I feel like that's just what this is. They're being on this new planet and they are just living in the wonder. And there's not this fear or anxiety about body image. It's not even commented on, which I think is amazing in that we are just allowed to be in this moment and not worry about our bodies or our anxieties around our bodies, which I think is fantastic and needed.
Narrator:
In the film, these titans of industry and government have been reborn. And if you're not happy for them, good, because frankly, it's depressing that they survived while literally everyone else died in what is supposed to be a comedy.
Adam McKay:
Netflix, understandably, I mean, they were quite collaborative and open to this movie, even though it's a pretty wild movie. But understandably, they were very concerned about the ending. But at the end of the day, I did know that you can play the exact same story beat but change the music, the edit pattern, change the tone, and it can play completely differently. So then I did want to have some other beats for the end, which is why we end on the new planet with President Orlean and the Bronteroc. I always thought that was a great little epilogue to the movie.
President Orlean:
I wonder, are those feathers or are they scale...
Character:
That's disgusting. What is that thing?
Peter Isherwell:
I believe that's called a Bronteroc.
Adam McKay:
And then I love, at the end of the credits, Jonah being the last man on earth.
Jason Orlean:
Mom? Mom!
Adam McKay:
Actually, both those endings were ideas that we came up with while we were shooting or right before we were shooting. I'm a big believer in, when you write something, your best day alive, you're only going to be right about 70% of the time as far as how it plays. So, I didn't mind getting alternate little epilogues or endings. I was definitely worried about the ending because you don't normally do that kind of ending. But I knew we had moves in the edit room, so I wasn't that freaked about it.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Whatever day it is. Day 62 of filming. February 18th, last day of walking up to the van to meet Cate. Good morning. How you doing?
Cate Hardman:
Good.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Good.
Narrator:
Co-producer Staci Roberts-Steele and script supervisor Cate Hardman share a final masked van ride to set. Production on this tragic comic satire about the end of the world has come to its own end. It's been a hard shoot for everyone, but especially so for costume designer Susan Matheson, who was diagnosed with cancer in the middle of the movie and decided to continue working while getting treatment. Living in this fictional world has been a valuable distraction.
Susan Matheson:
Because of COVID, we Started the movie in February of 2020. And now we're in 2021. So, it's being a huge chunk of our lives. It feels like a passage now. It feels like a transition, and we're moving on from one part of our life to another. And we've lived through COVID, so it just feels monumental and that it's bigger than us. I always get really, really depressed on the last day and I tend to want to go into an igloo and disappear because it's really sad, because you get so used to shooting and the intensity of it that you can't imagine life any other way. And so, I spontaneously start bursting into tears about every hour on the hour. So, Elaine can vouch for me. How many times have I already cried today, Elaine?
Elaine:
About three times.
Narrator:
And the emotions keep flowing as Adam yells, "Cut."
Adam McKay:
Cut. [inaudible 00:33:45]. Well, I want to thank everyone for a great shoot. That was amazing, everyone. You all know you went above and beyond, did incredible work. And I'm just so grateful and it was also amazing experience working with all of you. Thank you.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
And that's a wrap.
Narrator:
They finished. Only now can Jennifer Lawrence celebrate what they've accomplished.
Jennifer Lawrence:
Dude, the fact that we can actually say... I refused to say it, obviously, up until wrap. But the fact that we did not shut down one day due to COVID is crazy.
Dia Donnelly:
It fucking worked. So, on the last day, I'm just going to say, "I'll see you in the next one."
Narrator:
Everyone commemorates the end with their own wrap ritual. For COVID coordinator Allie Wolff, it's this:
Allie Wolff:
I'm not going to lie. I love that moment where you add the project to your IMDB. And I usually save that till the end.
Narrator:
The literal end. Allie's literally the last name on the IMDB page. Though, without her work, none of this would've been possible. As for Jennifer Lawrence's ritual...
Jennifer Lawrence:
Ideally, before you wrap, you should be an organized enough person to figure out wrap gifts for everybody and little thank-you notes so that you're not overwhelmed on the last day. I have yet to ever do that in my life.
Narrator:
Until this movie. Let the record show that Jennifer Lawrence did remember to give out Don't Look Up wrap gifts, on time. As Jennifer Lawrence and pretty much everyone else heads home, a few remain, like co-producer Jen Madeloff, who's responsible for packing up all the mess and will be the last one to head for the airport.
Jen Madeloff:
We have to wrap up the departments, get rid of the equipment and then all our purchases. We have a lot of COVID purchases. It's a big movie in four different states. We have our production office, we have our art office, we have our [inaudible 00:35:44] stage, we have our set deck and special effects space. So, it's just cleaning everything up and getting it out. And it does usually take longer than you think. But everyone's pretty motivated to go home. And new jobs are waiting, so hopefully, it will move a little quicker than normal.
Narrator:
Back in November 2020, Don't Look Up genuinely felt like the last movie that might ever be made in this way, out in the world, on location. As spring dawns, as vaccinations expand, the cast and crew are now able to look forward to making other movies. But this one will forever be special, not just for how and when it was made but for what it said.
Susan Matheson:
Don't Look Up is a metaphor for the fact that we have stopped looking around us. We no longer see that we have this incredible world and it's going to shit.
Taura Stinson:
If you have your eyes to the ground, you're not seeing anything ahead. I feel like so many people just haven't been looking the right way. And so, I hope that this, just even in the slightest way, changes the perception when it comes to politics, social and racial injustice, when it comes to the pandemic.
Rob Morgan:
It's going to have some people thinking, I think, on another level about how important it is to be grateful for what you have, who you have, and to value your really short-lived time on this earth. At an instant, if things were to go, can you say you were happy with the life you led?
Narrator:
Like Susan, song lyricist Taura Stinson, and Rob Morgan, Cate Blanchett hopes they've made a film that matters. But after people sit still for two hours to watch the movie, they'll get up and do something.
Cate Blanchett:
In the end, it's about a comet that is hitting the earth and the ramifications. It's not just going to affect the Coast of Mexico or Taiwan or California. It's going to have a global impact. And so, I hope it makes them think about what they value and think about what connects us all.
Narrator:
At the end of this dangerous, wild journey, the question of whether it was all worth it, whether audiences will take the movie's message to heart, remains. Adam is both hopeful and realistic.
Adam McKay:
As far as the message being understood of the movie, I think people are going to perceive it a lot of different ways. And that's okay. You're just hoping that 10% of the audience, 20% of the audience takes it how you intended. And that would actually be wildly successful if that happened. So, I don't expect it to be universally understood or perceived the way I intended, but if I get like 10%, 20%, that would be pretty great.
Narrator:
And so, here we are in late February 2021. Shooting is complete. And although it's technically not the end of the road, they're still editing, visual effects, and scoring to be done, this milestone calls for a toast.
Jeff Waxman:
To a great experience and victory and making a great film.
Kevin Messick:
To a pseudo last day of filming.
Jeff Waxman:
Yes.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Pseudo last day.
Jeff Waxman:
Pseudo last day, because tomorrow we got to do VFX.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
[inaudible 00:39:14].
Jeff Waxman:
Do VFX, then we got to do the street-
Staci Roberts-Steele:
And then we got to fucking edit the movie and then it's got to come out and then we got to get reviews and... Oh, my God!
Kevin Messick:
We got to edit a podcast.
Narrator:
Others were on to the next thing. Jennifer Lawrence went to New Orleans to play a war on terror veteran. Leonardo DiCaprio went to Oklahoma to shoot a 1920s crime drama. Tyler Perry went to the Academy Awards, where he was given an Oscar in honor of his humanitarian work. Timothee Chalamet went to Cannes, where his shiny suit became a meme. Meryl Streep went home to her three Oscars, one of which she once forgot in a bathroom stall. Jeff Waxman and Jen Madeloff went back to work producing a trio of action films. Kevin Messick went with Adam McKay to produce a TV series about the Los Angeles Lakers. And Susan Matheson is, of course, doing the costumes for said Lakers show. And she's bringing her velvet paintings of John Wayne and The Wolf. She continued her treatment and is now cancer-free. And Staci went back to LA, where she reunited with her three-year-old daughter Frida.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Here we are, going to pick up Frieda. I'm so excited. Hey, [inaudible 00:40:43]. Yay!
Frieda:
[Inaudible 00:40:44].
Staci Roberts-Steele:
Yeah. Now we get to hang out all the time because I'm just back for good. Isn't that right? Oh, Frida, this is so exciting. Frida, you got so tall. Look at this. You're all the way up to my waist. You're so tall. I'll get on the ground.
Narrator:
Composer Nicholas Britell went on to write the score of Don't Look Up and will soon be collaborating on more songs with lyricist Taura Stinson for a musical revamp of Carmen. Caretaker Eugene Moore is still in Ireland, enjoying the great outdoors. Perhaps when pheasant season ends, Eugene will pour himself a whiskey and watch the movie that Adam wrote under his watch. And after four decades in the business, script supervisor Cate Hardman finally retired, for real this time. She's back in Texas, where she's used her earnings from the film to build her dream garden.
Cate Hardman:
This little airstream is the casita in the fountain. Raised beds so don't have to bend over as far. Citrus trees. And that's what I did during the pandemic.
Narrator:
And when she sits down to watch her final film, Adam has one last surprise for the woman who's been by his side for 15 years. As the opening credits come up, Cate will see her own name there, as a producer.
Adam McKay:
I sit next to Cate all day long. We talk about the shots, we talk about what we're getting, we talk about the edit of the movie. Through the years, we laugh, we come up with jokes. I mean, that is a fully deserved co-producer credit, and probably long overdue. But I'm so glad that she got on this movie. It's so appropriate, most difficult, crazy movie we've ever done together.
Narrator:
As for Adam, there's a new book on his bedside table.
Adam McKay:
I'm actually reading War and Peace. Tolstoy is very enjoyable. People think of him as a dusty old writer, but he's a really fun writer. And I just realized I'd never read War and Peace, so I've gotten into that. And then I'm also reading that book Reign of Terror, that's about how America came undone after 9/11. And then I'm listening to a podcast called The Fall of Civilizations, which I love. That's all about the collapse of different empires throughout history. So, that's my reading I got going right now. And then I think my phone charger and then a pack of nicotine lozenges, that's what's by the side of my bed. How grim is that? Jesus. I sound like a worker at Chernobyl a month after the meltdown. And all I'm missing is a bottle of vodka and a handgun.
Narrator:
What do you get when you mix together 19th-century Russian, post-9/11 America, and the ghosts of old empires? I have a suspicion we'll find out.
End Credits:
The Last Movie Ever Made is a production of Netflix Film, Hyperobject Industries, and Pineapple Street Studios. It's produced by Emmanuel Hapsis, Gabrielle Lewis, Staci Roberts-Steele, Danielle Waxman, Sophie Bridges, and Alexis Moore. Our editor is Darby Maloney. The show's narrated by Emmanuel Hapsis. Our theme song is by Nicholas Britell. Mixing, sound design, and original music by Hannis Brown, with additional music from Epidemic Sound. The show was written by R Roosevelt. Fact-checking by Charlotte Goddu. Executive producers at Hyperobject Industries are Adam McKay, Harry Nelson, and Claire Slaughter. Executive producers at Pineapple Street Studios are Bari Finkel, Jenna Weiss-Berman, and Max Linsky. Don't Look Up is streaming now on Netflix. Follow @NetflixFilm on Instagram and Twitter.
Narrator:
Oh, you thought there won't be a post-credit scene? Come on. Of course, there is. You might remember that Staci was working on a song during her time inside the Don't Look Up bubble. Well, she finished it. And here it is.
Staci Roberts-Steele:
(Singing).