Fernando Meirelles is the Academy Award-nominated director of films like “City of God,” “The Constant Gardener,” and “Blindness,” among many others. His mixture of authenticity and flash made him a fascinating match for “The Two Popes,” his latest film starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. Centered on the 2013 exchange of power at the top of the Catholic Church, the film is also a story about the ongoing struggle between ideas. Beyond the text, however, the film was a considerable practical challenge because the bulk of the drama takes place within the hallowed halls of the Sistine Chapel. Production Designer Mark Tildesley and his team had their work cut out for them as filming at the famed sanctuary was out of the question. Learn the secrets of how the design team built the interiors, reproduced Michelangelo's famed frescos and more on this week’s episode of “The Call Sheet.”
Fernando Meirelles is the Academy Award-nominated director of films like “City of God,” “The Constant Gardener,” and “Blindness,” among many others. His mixture of authenticity and flash made him a fascinating match for “The Two Popes,” his latest film starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. Centered on the 2013 exchange of power at the top of the Catholic Church, the film is also a story about the ongoing struggle between ideas.
Beyond the text, however, the film was a considerable practical challenge because the bulk of the drama takes place within the hallowed halls of the Sistine Chapel. Production Designer Mark Tildesley and his team had their work cut out for them as filming at the famed sanctuary was out of the question. Learn the secrets of how the design team built the interiors, reproduced Michelangelo's famed frescos and more on this week’s episode of “The Call Sheet.”
KRIS TAPLEY: I’m Kris Tapley and you're listening to The Call Sheet, a show that dives deep into the craft of your favorite Netflix films and series with some of the most talented artists and artists in the game.
We’re gonna be getting our hands dirty this week, and before I show you how, let's go ahead and hear from our guests.
FERNANDO MEIRELLES: I’m Fernando Meirelles and my craft is directing.
MARK TILDESLEY: My name is Mark Tildesley and my craft is production design.
KT: Fernando Meirelles is the Academy Award nominated director of films like City of God, The Constant Gardener, and Blindness, among many others. He brings to his work what LA Times Critic Kenneth Turan once called “a potent and unexpected mixture of authenticity and flash.”
He's the kind of artist who is always [00:01:00] exploring, always learning, always curious about, and above all sensitive to, the characters he depicts in his work. That made Meirelles a fascinating match for his latest film, The Two Popes, a once in many lifetimes tale centered on the exchange of power at the top of the Catholic Church.
It's also a story about the ongoing struggle between ideas, specifically: conservatism – the belief in something which is true today and true tomorrow, that isn't relativistic – and progressivism: the push for change, for growth, for breaking through the barriers that impede… well, progress.
Beyond the text, however, the film was a considerable practical challenge because the bulk of it, a sort of tête-à-tête between the exiting Pope Benedict and the current Pope Francis, takes place within the hallowed halls of the Sistine Chapel. Production Designer Mark Tildesley and his team had their work cut out for them, because filming at the famed sanctuary was obviously out of the question – but where does one even begin reproducing one of the greatest achievements in art history?
We're going to hear about that and a lot more. [00:02:00] So let's get into it.
Let's start with the pre-production on this film, which was obviously considerable, because you knew going in that you weren't going to be able to shoot in the Sistine Chapel. So that means you've got to build it.
What was the research period? What was the intensity of it like? How deep did you get? Probably very deep. And then what was the Church’s involvement at that time?
MT: Well, my memory of it was the production period wasn't that long. And because we were – basically, the film is split across two countries. Mostly in Italy, in Rome. And then in Argentina. Buenos Aires. We had sort of half the prep because we had to use different teams. We weren't traveling the entire team right through the process. So we split the work into two.
FM: And of course, in Argentina we had to create all the sets, but in the Vatican we had to replicate, which I mean… from my point of view makes it a bit easier [00:03:00] because Michelangelo had done his part already.
So it was a matter of how to recreate that in the most efficient and beautiful and similar way, right?
MT: Yeah.
FM: This makes it quicker, right? Because you don’t have to create a Last Judgment.
MT: The thing, the challenge for us really was, for me as a designer, in Rome, was to manage how on earth in the time that we had, would we get ready to produce the Sistine Chapel, which is central to the story, and... that set some challenges for us. How, what process would we use to recreate that and where would we do that?
KT: And what's interesting to me is, you know, for instance, the papal conclave and all of that rich detail.
You are depicting something that no one outside those walls has seen before. And Mark, you and I spoke number of weeks back. We talked about how, what was important to you and your team was to tell the truth. But in this case, you had to research and [00:04:00] discover what that truth even was. The sort of Bressonian minutia of that detail. Talk to me about that.
FM: Actually just to add something: this was not scripted. In the script, it says: “They go through all the process.” So it was really the art department who taught me how it would work. I mean, we have consultants, and Mark told me how to do it.
MT: Yeah, it was a little bit of a detective process. As Fernando will explain it, obviously the Vatican were not negative ever, but they weren't very forthcoming with information stuff.
But we did eventually get some advisors, and in fact, we met an amazing historian Enrico Bruschini, who's written The Treasures of Rome, and is an amazing historian on the Vatican and everything has gone on inside it. And his grandfather was a sacristan that actually worked inside the Sistine Chapel. So he dressed the Popes. So he was a very great source of information for [00:05:00] our team.
The set dec team led by Véronique Melery, they did a big investigation into that, sort of across the table, with the people from the Vatican to find out, you know, what actually happened. So all details you see in the film with the sewing of the thread. I mean you just think, “Wow, this is extraordinary, isn't it?” It's like medieval. But those are exactly what's happened and it hasn't changed. And the wooden balls that indicate that each Cardinal has voted.
I’d like to say to Fernando that I think he did an amazing job with that. Because it's actually, in the end it's quite nice to see, but it could be a boring process.
FM: Yeah. But I don't have the credit. I remember going for the first time to visit, you know, because I was going to shoot the sequence. So going to the art, with Véronique, with yourself, and we would go through and you would explain to me what would happen, so I could shoot. It's funny because this a script written by the art department. That's true. That's how it happened.
KT: That's a good [00:06:00] point. Yeah. As you were researching all of this, what kind of a color palette was emerging and how did that speak to how you wanted to use color in the film? What you wanted color to mean?
FM: Well every time you watch a film on popes or castles or church, you imagine the dark light of the church, and then the light coming from above, from a window and with the footprints of God coming down. Because this is always…
KT: Chiaroscuro, maybe.
FM: Always based on oil painting and Renaissance and all that. But César [Charlone], he decided to go, “Why?” While we were shooting in the Sistine Chapel and it’s all fresco, to use the frescoes as a reference.
And in fresco you don't have light. It’s the color, the shape that defines the shape of things, not the light. So that's what we did. The whole film's very flat. The light was very flat and very colorful wardrobe. So if you see there, that image, it really feels like a fresco, not like [00:07:00] an oil painting. And we’re very used to see this oil painting kind of lighting and say, “Oh, what beautiful photography!” Because it's a convention. And he just reinvented the light for churches.
I mean, well, he just won the Silver Frog in Camerimage because he's really reinvented a way to photograph church.
KT: This is César Charlone, your DP that we're talking about.
MT: Yes. César Charlone, the DOP from Uruguay, and a long time collaborator with Fernando.
FM: Actually it’s his third Frog now. He's collecting Frogs.
MT: He’s got lots of Frogs.
FM: A Gold and Two Silvers now.
KT: I thought that was so great. I was just talking to Anthony [McCarten] about this, how that just showed how refine the judges were to understand that what was going on. I mean, obviously they would be, it's Camerimage, but it was just, it was so wonderful that he got recognized for this work because it's, you know, two guys talking about religion. And making it visual storytelling has to be… it's something you have to really think about and figure out how are we going to elevate this and lift it up off the page.
[00:08:00] MT: We were lucky enough to get escorted by Enrico Bruschini through the Vatican, and he was quite surprised to arrive. Because when you arrive in the Sistine Chapel – when you look at all the books, you tend to see a lot of older pictures – and actually when we arrived it’s like effervescent, bright, you know, these restored colors.
And I love the idea that we decided to try and recreate that in the film in that sense, as you say, like Fernando says, like a wall painting. So it was like the first day that the people – when it was first revealed, you saw it like that in the film. And that was quite exciting.
And as you say, it’s a very brave decision from the creative team, you know Fernando and César, to head in that direction because, you know, many people would say that was super flat and, but it was a really brilliant tableau. Yeah. So you know, when those two popes stand there in their costumes, they always feel like they're in one of those paintings on the wall.
FM: Yeah, that’s what I like.
MT: And it's not like they're separated. [00:09:00] They're in. They're almost against the wall of the Vatican.
KT: It’s brilliant because they're situated within the backdrop of centuries of history, of art history, of church history. They're figures within this kind of landscape. So it'sfascinating.
How did all of this material, the color palette and whatnot, how did that compare and contrast when you went to Argentina and what you were looking for there and what you were discovering there?
FM: We have a period in Argentina which is in the 50’s so that's black and white. And then when we jump to the 70’s, we have a specific look that is not the same in Rome. Which I mean, we tried to reproduce a bit of the films from the 70’s.
MT: I think when we looked at the, the footage from the 70’s, it has a real tone and color palette that we represented in the costumes and the wall coverings and stuff.
They're in this language of [00:10:00] browns and creams and sort of ochers and stuff. So it sort of naturally has that flavor. So it sort of feels slightly, and some of the footage looks slightly, like sort of not Kodachrome soft, but there's a color to it that gives it that period from the sort of 70’s, 80’s.
FM: Yeah, and one thing that we explored a lot in Argentina was when you walk in these areas in Argentina, there's a lot of murals. The paint is a tradition. I mean, it's something that they’ve been doing forever. And the film in the Sistine Chapel, it’s frescoes. So we were playing with this thing that the Argentinean graffitis are the frescoes of the other world.
So we have a lot of walls and frescoes and graffitis because became like a theme for us. It's like an internal thing, but a big thing.
MT: It was a revelation as we wandered around the, as we followed the path of Bergoglio into the favelas. In Buenos Aires, there were all these amazing, as you say, wall paintings, [00:11:00] they’re like all their superheroes and their own stories up on the wall, which is –it's the same in the Vatican. Those images at the time when they were first revealed that make great pieces of storytelling.
KT: So moving out of pre-production, you've got your game plan, you're moving into production, you've got to build this stuff, I guess. Let's start there. Have you come to a way to explain the process by which you duplicated The Last Judgment? It’s such an intense, deeply involved process. What's the best way to describe how you did this?
MT: Well, one of the challenges was that, obviously we looked at the idea of scenically painting it, because we wanted to represent the fresh color that's existing now and not the old Sistine Chapel, which is what you have in a lot of photographic work and prints.
So we looked at the painting version, and decided it would take too long to do that, and take 17 weeks with 10 painters, and then we're not sure even that they're all quite good enough, the [00:12:00] painters, to reproduce that work. So we took the photographic plates that we had and realized that they were obviously too dark.
So we then tried to reproduce some of those, you know, photographic process to try and lift the color back up to this brightness, which we could manage. So then in the end, we decided that the best way was to paint a smaller version of the Sistine Chapel, let's say The Last Judgment.
We painted that out, one third scale, so a third of its size, so that it was expedient and quick to do. And we employed some of the greatest painters from Italy to come and do that, scenic artists and restorative people. So we painted that. Then we photograph that. And then what we did was we used the process from a company called Tattoo Wall.
Which basically, in easiest, sensible terms, it's basically exactly like an old children's tattoo that you put on your hand and you peel off the backing. You get the ink into your skin. That's what they did. [00:13:00] They printed a photographic version of our artwork, and then they put it onto the walls like wallpapering, and they use a substance, which then let the ink sink into the plaster wall.
So that that turned out to be a brilliant way to achieve that in the time. They took three weeks, three or four weeks, to wallpaper our set, which took seven weeks to build. So we managed them.
KT: Wow.
FM: And we had to paint because there were some clearance issues. The company who cleaned up the Sistine Chapel, they had the rights of the clean image. So it was very complicated.
KT: That’s weird.
FM: We had the Vatican rights and the company who cleaned. We couldn't clear, so we had to repaint it. Right?
MT: Yeah. So Sony, our Japanese company. who sponsored the cleaning of the Sistine Chapel, they now own the rights, the Vatican sold the rights to them.
KT: How’d they [00:14:00] manage that?
MT: Well, I'd love to know.
KT: That’s quite a coup.
MT: Yeah. It’s the Italian way.
FM: The image that we see nowadays, I mean, they came up with that image.
KT: Wow.
FM: I mean, very dark and now we can see. So they have the rights.
MT: The only thing that was rights free was this old footage that we had. Old stills, which were super dark because they'd had hundreds of years of the candles burning in there. Yeah, so one of the issues was we didn't have the material.
KT: Crazy.
FM: We had this company, Union, from London. They're great. I mean, you watch the film and it feels a bit like – very simple, like a documentary, but there's so many CGI. Most of the St. Peter’s Square image with the crowd and all that. This is all CG because we couldn't shoot inside the St. Peter’s Square. Or when they're talking in the garden. You see the lake behind. There's so many CGS that we don’t – I mean that’s a good quality [00:15:00] CG. I mean, you watch and you’d never expect it.
KT: Totally.
FM: Union is the name of the guy. Adam.
MT: Adam Gascoyne at Union Pictures. Plug.
KT: Now, there was also a considerable amount of woodworking to duplicate inside there. You brought in a crew of local artisans for much of this. I would love to hear more about that crew, the artisans that you were bringing in locally, and obviously this means a lot to them. So tell me about them.
MT: Yeah, no, so there's no greater place to build a piece of classical artwork than in Rome because they have great artisans and you know, because of the amount of buildings and restorative work that goes on in Rome and Italy, they are past masters at it. So there is a wealth of brilliant craftspeople in and around the Cinecittà Studios.
The studio, to be honest, has seen better days and is recovering from its past glories. So now, [00:16:00] like in a lot of things, the artisans are people that work on restoration of churches and chapels and things like that.
So they're not within the studio. These are companies that live in and around the Hills of Rome. So they built the High Altar in the Vatican, in the Sistine chapel. And they built the rood screen, which is very ornate. That crosses halfway, a third all the way through there. So they crafted that.
They sculpted that in clay and you know, produced all of those sort of candelabras, all the things, you know, very high quality replication of the real things.
KT: Yeah. Now there was an interesting mistake or something in the building of the Sistine Chapel? Yours was bigger than the original. Right. What happened there?
FM: Yeah, I don't know, Mark should tell it. It was like five centimeters bigger.
MT: Yeah. No, I wasn't wishing to get into the copyright issues. Right. But now we've got into it. We might as well get stuck in. [00:17:00] So in our Sistine Chapel, I mean the curtains and the floor – we redesigned them. And so they are slightly different.
And that actually was because at that time we were not sure we were going to get the rights to use the real thing. And that hadn't been agreed at the time. And we had to move quickly. So when you look at the Sistine Chapel floor that we built, it is mildly different from the original, as are the curtains.
If you see the curtains that swayed around, there's nine panels instead of seven. And, so there were certain things, strangely, as you say, certain things that the Vatican owned and some things they didn't own and some things we could get cleared and some things we couldn't get cleared.
So one of the things we decided to do as a sort of safety valve was to build our Sistine Chapel slightly bigger as well. So we could clarify that, obviously we weren't just making a replica or a copy. So in the end, [00:18:00] we like to say that we built it 2.5 centimeters bigger all around so that we could say we built the biggest Sistine Chapel, but sadly it was to do with…
FM: Lawyers, as usual.
MT: A lawyer situation. In the end, it was all good. Thank you, the Vatican.
KT: But for a moment, you had the largest Sistine Chapel in the world.
MT: Yeah, we own that. That's fantastic.
KT: Qhat was the overall thought behind positioning these characters within this environment? Because it's notable how they're situated in front of centuries of art history and religious history, and particularly the sequences with Benedict when he's alone.
Like, he's dwarfed by this environment. Anything, any visual ideas that you had there?
FM: Yeah. When you read the script, all the conversation inside the Sistine Chapel is just the two of them talking. I mean, it was no… I had to think how to make this 15 pages a part of the film. Be more cinematic, more…
[00:19:00] There's like a choreography. They start walking in and they talk standing up, then they sit in a part of the chapel. Benedict says that he’s going to resign. The marble where he’s seated is cold, so he stands up and so he goes to the other corner. This is just so they could keep moving and I could show the amazing sets.
Then he'd sit in his chair and we found this watch. He has a watch that makes him work out. The watch beeps. And he has to walk, which I thought was a very good joke. I mean, the guy working out in the Sistine Chapel. I have to walk, you have to make some exercise inside the Sistine Chapel.
So he walks. But all that was an excuse for to use different parts of the set.
MT: In fact, we were always talking about the use of these tableaus, and I think you see it in the film that we cut to some of the storylines. We cut to The Last Judgment. And the Last Judgment is basically Christ surrounded by [00:20:00] people on the right who are ascending into heaven and people on the left who are descending into hell.
So in a way it was a sort of analogy of that, the struggle that these two men were dealing with in this space, which was that they were dealing with, you know, the future of the church and their own inadequacies. We do cut to occasionally just a real close up some of the agonized faces that Michelangelo produced as an idea.
FM: Yeah, this is something that nobody will ever get – that when do they have friendly conversation they’re in the right side, and then it goes to the other side and then that's when we know about Francis’s past.
KT: Alright, let's talk about post-production. I know, Fernando, this is one of your favorite topics.
FM: Post-production!
KT: Post -production, the edit. How did you reshape or sort of rewrite the project in the editing room? Like, what did you discover that wasn't hitting you as hard [00:21:00] maybe when you read the script or when you made the film, but in the edit you realized you discovered this or that. Tell me about that.
FM: At first, the film was much more on Pope Francis, the first draft.
We had his childhood and we had his relationship with his family and all, but this we cut, before I start shooting. But we shot much more in Argentina, it was much longer there than the flashback. And then when we cut and we first screened. I mean, the relationship between the two actors are so strong that, whoever watched it, wanted to go back to the two actors and not –
KT: Yeah.
FM: It was like another film was starting. And I like that. That was my plan. I mean, you're watching the film and some of you are in a different film in a different period of time in Spanish. But because they're so good, everybody said they understand the idea, but I mean, I want to go back.
So we start trimming the Argentinean part and coming back and forth in intercutting [00:22:00] between the Sistine Chapel and the past. So the film was really shaped in the cutting room. And all the final sequence of the film, it was really invented while we were cutting the film. I mean, we had so many possible ways to finish the film.
Even scenes that I shot and I didn't use – in the first version after Francis is elected, was almost the end of the film. But we needed – I wanted to put more, I mean, a bit of the trajectory of Francis today or the Francis we know. So we came up with this idea of not only mentioning that it goes to Lampedusa, but actually go to Lampedusa.
We found the lines, the speech that he says in Lampedusa about, we're living in a soap bubble that is lovely, but unsubstantial. Yeah, he has a beautiful speech. This is what he really said in Lampedusa. And then to cover this [00:23:00] speech, he was in Lampedusa because of the refugee crisis, so we decided to use a lot of images of refugees.
And decided to shoot some refugees in the Vatican. Walking. Pope Francis touring some refugees, was a lot of improvisation. We just call some real refugees to the set, and we did that. So we had a lot of material that I didn't know exactly how we're going to use it.
And we found the end in the cutting room. The film had too many endings, you know? He's elected, that was the end of the film. And then he goes to Lampedusa with that beautiful speech. That was another ending. And then there was the football match, which felt like third ending.
And I had shot even a fourth ending. Which was Pope Francis visiting Pope Benedict to take some croissants, some Argentinean croissants to him. Something that had really happened. So we had four endings and [00:24:00] we had to reshape the whole…
KT: Yeah. Is that a painful process for you?
FM: No, I mean it's, it's lovely because it's so different.
It changes so much. I usually say that I shoot a lot just so I can play in the cutting room, it’s the best video game ever. We rewrite the script cause we cut lines and sometimes we add lines and then we ADR the lines that we want to include. There's a lot of ADR lines that were brought after we had the film cut.
We would put my voice and then replace. We did a lot of that.
KT: Yeah. Interesting.
FM: Fernando Stutz, the editor, he’s a very young guy and he really, I mean, he shaped the film. He worked on the script, on the acting, he changed lines. He changed all the back and forth that you have in the film.
This, of course, doesn’t come from the script, it’s him playing around. The end of the film, it was all built in, in the cutting room. This guy is really brilliant. And the music, I mean, almost all of the [00:25:00] music we have is his input. Yeah. So I hope somebody realizes how brilliant is the editing of the film.
KT: Alright. Final segment here. I just want to ask a couple of quick random questions for you. What's the most impressive movie set you've ever seen on screen? Your own work aside.
FM: Well, nowadays, I mean with CGI, everything is impressive, right? But real sets. So difficult, I’m trying to see.
MT: That is a killer question.
KT: I like hearing that.
MT: I'm drawn to the simplest things in life actually. So, I'm always trying to sponsor films that have no resources. All the awards and all the things, all the glory comes to those that have huge budgets. And quite honestly, as a designer, it’s easy if someone gives you a big fat budget, you just get loads of people and manage it.
What's really tricky is when you make something out of nothing. And make something really [00:26:00] simple. And those types of designs or sets are not venerated that much. But I'm thinking back to a set in the Mike Lee film. I’m trying to remember the name of it. It was the one about the girl who was doing the abortions. Vera Drake.
KT: Vera Drake, Yeah.
MT: Yeah. And they built this set. And what I loved about the set was – Which is a classic thing in film. They always build grand because they think the camera has to be able to move and be everywhere. But they built tight and really small, so he gave you this real sense of claustrophobia, which was so brilliant for the film.
So I'm just off the – I mean, there's probably a million sets I could discuss, but just that I'd say the house in Vera Drake was a real masterpiece.
KT: Good answer. Anything come to mind for you?
FM: So many. But it's funny cause I mean all the films that came to me are not sets built, it’s like images that, [00:27:00] like Weekend. Godard’s Weekend. That long shot of the traffic jam.
MT: That’s not a set, is it?
FM: I’ll say, an installation.
MT: It’s an installation, yeah.
KT: In what way are you most like Francis and what way are you most like Benedict?
FM: I like Francis because of his politics. Because he understands that we live in one world that is a common, like he says, a common home. And we have to think whatever we do, I mean, implies in the life of all the others.
And he understands that we need to think globally. Now there's this wave of populism, which is really, it's not going to get right. I mean, he's the guy who's building bridge while everybody else is building walls. So I like him very much.
KT: Yeah. Do you share any qualities with Benedict?
FM: With Benedict? No, but I mean, when I started the project, he was the bad Pope. And I [00:28:00] had the good Pope. And in the end, there's more gray areas. I mean, I understand his point. I understand the idea of traditional church trying to create an institution for you to relate with God, not with the society.
It's about looking up, not looking around. So I understand this point. I don't agree much, but I understand. It makes sense.
KT: Yeah.
MT: I was trying to think of something really intelligent, but actually what came to my mind was I share a love of Fanta. But Fanta Zero because I'm diabetic. I also would love to think that I had a fashion sense that was in the same vein as Benedict, but beauty's in the eye of the beholder.
What do I share with Francis? I'd love, I would love to be able to say that I share a lot of values with Francis. We met him. Fernando and I, and Tracey [Seaward], the producer, we met him very briefly. And the really brilliant piece, [00:29:00] he came towards and I was really preparing what I was going to say to him, and he just held me and he said, “Mark, pray for me.”
So he completely turned the situation on its head. I was ready to ask him about stuff. But no, there was a sort of humility.
FM: His main theme is mercy, which I mean, forgiveness and mercy. And I like that very much as well.
MT: The, the whole process of the film was a real eye opener.
I'm from the Catholic tradition and, you know, my mother was more excited than ever, and she tried to keep the entire large clan of my family involved somehow. But actually, the process of making the film was really engaging for me, to see the impossible task that it would be to manage the Church. And that day that we stood up with Francis, we looked out across St. Peter's Square and the immensity of different cultures that were there.
There was an [00:30:00] African group that were going wild. There was a Polish team that were very reverend and praying, and there was a South American team that were like a football team, and you just look at it, and you think, “Wow.” This is, as you said earlier, Fernando, it’s managing the biggest company on the planet. And it's a task and a half.
KT: Where do you turn for that extra spark of inspiration when you hit a creative block?
MT: I have a deep love of books. And images. So I think for me as a designer, information is power. You know, so knowledge of the subject is power. Before you leave the subject it’s best to understand it. So I often try and head back to a book or some research. That sort of refocuses you back and you think, “Oh, now I see it.”
FM: Yeah. For me, oddly enough, when I need to have ideas, I have to be very busy, because the idea comes when, when I'm not thinking, you know?
Like I'm really busy with [00:31:00] something else. And then [snaps fingers], and I learned to trust in my clicking process, you know, ‘cause I used to have to prepare myself and now I know that on the day it will come. And it does come. I mean, the ideas just, I don't know why, they come to me, but they come. Like in the film, the pizza. The pizza wasn't scripted. We decided to have a pizza like two days…
They just come, you know, and just trust. I learned to trust my instinct more than my rational side. It took me years. I mean, it took me like decades to know that I don't need to control everything. Trust your instinct, on the date will come. So I feel myself like a jazz director. I like to see everybody's doing their work and just talk to people.
And the things happen naturally. I don't – I try not to control the processes.
KT: Good advice. And then last question here. What's the movie that [00:32:00] made you fall in love with movies?
FM: I have one. Very clear. I remember the day and the time. And what happened. It's a film called Iracema. It’s a Brazilian film by Jorge Bodanzky, and it's about a girl in the Amazon.
It’s a mix of documentary and fiction. She’s fiction, but she's real at the same time. It's the story of this girl. 14 year old girl, 15 year old girl. And an actor, Brazilian known actor, and they're crossing the Amazon when they opened the first road.
And so it's about what we were doing with the Amazon. But it's so brilliant because it's mixed – you're watching a documentary, but it's not a documentary. I was fascinated not only by the content, but by this – I didn't know what was real and what was not.
And I remember finishing the film. I was blown away and walking down the stairs where I watched it, it was in a film school [00:33:00] and I said, “That's what I want.” I was trained as an architect, so I was there just by chance. I knew they we’re going to screen this film, it was a film that was prohibited in Brazil because of dictatorship. So I was just sneaking in to watch it. I remember coming down and saying, “That's what I want to do with my life, films like this.”
KT: Oh wow. Mark?
MT: I was just going to say that I remember we were in a big family and we didn't go to the cinema that much, but my dad took us all to see Ben Hur. I couldn't believe it wasn't the real deal. I was just, I thought it was the real thing. That memory of being with all my family, watching Ben Hur at the cinema.
But as I go on in life I prefer, the films that I love and that inspire me are things like Babette's Feast, ‘cause of my love of food and wine and company and families and celebrations.
KT: Awesome. Well, what you guys achieved here, getting back to the production design on this project, is [00:34:00] phenomenal. So, hats off to you. It's a wonderful film. I was just telling Anthony [McCarten], I keep saying the word sublime about this film, watching these two guys have this intense debate.
It's just a sublime piece of work, so congratulations on it and thank you for talking to me about it today.
FM: Thank you very much.
MT: Thank you for having us.
KT: Clearly this was an achievement. Numerous individuals building something like this from the ground up and with such expert precision and detail. These are often the unsung players of a film production. Those in the art department are the first ones in the door and the last to leave, they are frequently responsible for gargantuan, eye-popping feats and The Two Popes is no exception, clearly.
Indeed, it's a testament to movie magic. When you see this film, if you haven't already, tell me it didn't feel like you just took a trip to Vatican City. The Two Popes is in select theaters now and will be available to stream on Netflix December 20th.
[00:35:00] The Call Sheet is a Netflix podcast hosted by me, Kris Tapley. The show is produced by Noah Eberhart and the team at Blue Duck Media. Stuart Park created all the original music in this episode and a special thanks to the team at Netflix.