I don’t actually want to do a podcast. We don’t need more podcasts.
I’m trying to think of certain third-eye memories. So, do you remember the first time you saw “The Matrix”?
DK: Yes. I was in my living room, I was in middle school, my sister had gotten a bootlegged VHS from a friend, because we couldn’t get one ourselves. I was so uncomfortable because of how scary it was, philosophically but also the violence was too much for me.
DS: When Morpheus gets caught, that’s upsetting.
DK: When he gets beaten up, I was so upset. The whole thing made me so uncomfortable because I was being pushed out of my comfort zone. And then when I was done, I was like, “I need to see this again.” And so for a while, that was all I watched every day with my family. I learned every line, I learned every piece of it. The structure of that movie is in my bones now. Obviously. [laughs]
It’s definitely here.
DK: Whether it was intentional or not, it’s all there.
DS: I am positive I watched it in my basement, which is where I watched all my favorite movies growing up. But my brain goes to watching “Princess Mononoke” for the first time, which I’ve been thinking about lately as a movie that explores nonviolence and nuance in a really cool way. And definitely influenced the second half of this movie.
DK: But the opening starts with a guy getting his arm shot off by a bow and arrow. It’s pretty intense.
DS: But I remember that movie ended, and then me and my best friend Stuart went to his house, which is like five houses down. And we just ran up and down our neighbors’ yards like Ashitaka, like “AHHH, I want to live in that movie! I wish it was real!”
DK: But that was the movie that made me really uncomfortable, because of the moral ambiguity. There was no good guy, or there was no bad guy.
You guys have been thinking about violence in your work for a while now.
DK: That’s everything, right? Talking about Oscars, right?
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” is expanding to theaters nationwide on Friday, April 8, and will probably be playing in the most theaters on Tax Day.