Summary
In cinema, few voices have been as influential or as consistently boundary-pushing asLilly Wachowskis.
COLLIDER: First, I want to thank you both for your work.
I really want to start with AI, which is something that obviously everyone is talking about right now.
Image via Warner Bros.
LILLY WACHOWSKI: Oh, thats a big one.
I could spend the rest of the time talking about this.
It’s a powerful tool.
Image via Warner Bros.
Its a powerful previs tool, for sure, for doing proof-of-concept things.
But again, will it ever replace?
I think that will always exist.
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
I haven’t seen tech yet that has whole-scale replaced anything that it preceded.
Everything just keeps going.
WACHOWSKI: As a filmmaker, you always want to welcome as many tools at your disposal as possible.
Image via Warner Bros.
When I think about AI and what it does for filmmakers…
Even fluid dynamics was a form of AI, swarm dynamics.
It was like you generate these, when we’re talking about sentinel tentacles.
Image via Warner Bros.
BARROIS: We used to call them senitalia.
[Laughs]
WACHOWSKI: That’s all early versions of this.
I think it will.
The guy is handcuffing this cartoon woman.
She writes, AI is the ultimate fascist technology because it pits itself precisely in opposition to the human.
And I thought that that spoke to me in a way that felt pretty true in my bones.
BARROIS: Yes, absolutely.
Objectively, they’re horrible.
Morally, they’re worse.
WACHOWSKI: We didn’t createV for Vendetta.
We took that comic book and adapted it.
Its media and filmmaking and stories.
They’re funny when you release them into the world, how they can be turned into tools themselves.
I don’t have an answer to what an artist should do when it comes to protecting their art.
That’s all stories and art-making are.
It’s about contributing to a collective dialogue.
How you control that dialogue is beyond my capability.
I think it’s just such a masterpiece.
There are a lot of 4K editions being put out.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t.
They don’t see the fan base that’s out there for something like that, which is unfortunate.
And Warner Bros. is also… Who knows what’s going on there?
You gotta get at the head of the company.
BARROIS: There’s that part, right?
[Laughs]
WACHOWSKI: Youve got a jackass over there.
I wouldn’t hold your breath at this point.
You gotta wait for the regime change for that guy to fall out of favor.
Sometimes there are other places around the world that are releasing 4K versions.
I would love to seeCloud AtlasandSpeed Racerin 4K.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know what that is.
There’s no way.
We wouldn’t have shown a four-hour version of the movie to anybody.
Yes, I figured that was true.
WACHOWSKI: Hes a liar.
BARROIS: His pants on fire!
That is the director’s cut.
WACHOWSKI: It is the ultimate.
How did this event actually happen?
I have a lot of agency with the museum itself.
You tell me what you guys are thinking.
What would you like?
I said, Oh, shit, okay.
Well, let me see, and here we are.
Took a little prodding, but hey.
WACHOWSKI: Yes, that is true.
Why did I say yes?
I really think that connectivity is going to be the thing that keeps us all afloat.
I’m not in the Academy.
Im not going to join the Academy.
BARROIS: I’m going to fix that.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know.
I can’t believe you’re not in the Academy.
BARROIS: Its unbelievable.
When she told me that, my jaw hit the floor.
I assumed, with all the things we have.
Its like, What?
Are you fucking kidding me?
Yeah, that doesn’t add up for me at all.
No one really expected it to do what it was going to do.
Lilly, can you talk about back in 99?
What were the expectations whenThe Matrixcame out in terms of what did Warner Bros. think they had?
Do you remember what it was like?
WACHOWSKI: Yeah, it was dire.
So, you could feel the pressure building in that company among management.
I’m going to get fired.
You have to save me!
BARROIS: No pressure.
WACHOWSKI: This was oursecondfilm.
We had doneBound, and we’re like, Uh, this is a lot of pressure.
That was the thing that you’re able to’t put back in the back.
When you think of Keanu now, you automatically think, Oh, yeah, he’s fucking awesome.
Hes this cool fight guy.
So, we knew we had that.
BARROIS: I think his biggest action film at that time wasSpeed, right?
So, there were a lot of budget battles back and forth.
Why would you cut that?
We were cutting on film.
People like Joel [Silver] were suddenly interested in that.
He was always peripherally interested in it.
He knew it looked great, and the stuff we were going to do was kind of cool.
We would cut these big trailers for cast and crew.
Wed all drink beer.
Then they started previewing.
And the numbers would come in, and they’d be pretty good.
People were like, I don’t quite understand it.
And then that was it.
Then it came out.
We were coming out like right aroundStar Wars.It came out, and it just took off.
I remember seeing it in the theater.
WACHOWSKI: I remember it vividly.
Everyone knows The Matrix movies.
If you haven’t seen them, you’ve heard of them.
What is it like to work on art that is that impactful to billions of people?
BARROIS: I mean, it was a fucking blast.
Like, Holy shit, that was fucking amazing.
Then a little momentum hits, so here comes sequel time.
They want to have you up for an interview if you’re interested.
He tells me what it is, and I was like, What the fuck?
So, the parts of it that you see inReloadedand then the battle inRevolutions.
As a performance guy…
It was just that fun.
Then, working with these guys.
What are you up to?
I’m like, What the fuck?
You just don’t know the impact you have on people.
Again, billions of people on this planet know these movies.
BARROIS: I literally just got back from a business summit in Laguna this morning.
Oh, my god, tell me about The Matrix.
It just will forever resonate.
Its that, its billions of people.
WACHOWSKI: It’s weird.
Its a weird experience, but it’s funny.
I was going for painting, and nobody knew who I was.
I’m with young people, like 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds.
And I was like, What did you see?
He’s like, I sawThe Matrix.
And I was like, Oh, nice.
Did you like it?
I reached this point where I’m going on the other side of this awareness.
It reallygave me that sense of mortality.
So, in 100 years, who knows?
BARROIS: It is generational because the much younger people, they haven’t seen it.
That’s even mind-blowing to go, Wait a minute.
How could you not have seen that movie?
And then youre like, Oh, right.
Lilly, you and your sister have not really released any deleted scenes from any of your movies.
Am I wrong about this?
WACHOWSKI: Actually,Bound, our first movie that had an alternate cut, which was our cut.
We got an NC-17 from the Censor Bureau here in the United States.
So, there is an alternate cut ofBound.
WACHOWSKI: I mean, calling Warner Bros.' storage facilities a vault is generous.
I don’t know if they know where anything is, honestly.
BARROIS: They’re not even showing up on a DVD as any extras?
No, they famously do not include extras like that.
WACHOWSKI: I don’t know.
I think it’s weird.
It was like the cut that was initially in the script.
There was no voiceover.
So, you could tell that there were all these fingerprints all over the piece.
When you removed that, it was like, “Oh, that feels so much better.”
And then Ridley [Scott] just kept making cuts.
And I was like, What are you doing?
I thought that was it!
I thought we did it.
Then you have these things where George Lucas goes back and Han doesn’t shoot Greedo.
I’m just like, What are you doing?
Thats a whole other topic.
WACHOWSKI: I can turn into a libertarian suddenly, and Lilly Wachowski is going to release the libertarianMatrix.
I’m just like, No!
No, don’t do that.
BARROIS: Leave it, yeah.
The director knows best!
Some directors don’t want to show anything that’s not in the finished film.
WACHOWSKI: If we like it, it’s in.
I’ve seen some deleted scenes where movies are actually better.
Like the deleted scenes inAliens.
So, you get this funny dynamic thats like, Oh, it’s about motherhood.
There were these extra little bits that strengthened all of that stuff.
BARROIS: Yeah, much more context.
I wish he wouldn’t have done that.
Tickets start at $5 dollars!
Your Rating
Your comment has not been saved
