Before was an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, she was a playwright in New York who needed day jobs to pay rent. That鈥檚 how she found herself as a professional matchmaker.
What may have begun as a purely transactional gig, a way for her to keep making her art in an expensive city, taught her more about people鈥檚 wants and needs and the true contents of their hearts than she could have ever imagined.
鈥淚 always wanted to write something about it because there seemed to be a story in it that is massive and very epic in proportion,鈥� Song said. 鈥淚t affects every human being on Earth."
And while waiting for her breakout film to debut, she did. That film is 鈥淢aterialists,鈥� a modern-day New York love story starring , and 迟丑补迟鈥檚 Johnson is the matchmaker presented with two different types of men for herself鈥攁nd the internet has already started drawing battle lines. But, like wasn鈥檛 really about a love triangle, 鈥淢aterialists鈥� is about something more than who she ends up with.
Song and Johnson about the film, falling in love and the modern marketplace of dating. Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: How did you find each other?
SONG: We met up thinking that we were just going to get to know each other and be friends and I walked away from that conversation 鈥� this is just from my perspective 鈥� but I think I was still sitting there when I texted my producers and the studio being like, 鈥淚 think I鈥檝e found my Lucy.鈥� That鈥檚 how casting works for me, it鈥檚 always about falling in love. It鈥檚 very connected to what we talk about in the film. Like, there鈥檚 no mathematical anything. It just the feeling that you get talking to someone and you鈥檙e like, oh I just know.
JOHNSON: I knew you had this movie that you were about to start making. I was basically told it was too late. I was like, but I really want to meet her because she鈥檚 so smart, and I鈥檝e seen interviews and obviously had seen 鈥淧ast Lives.鈥� I just wanted talk and get to know her as an artist and a person and so I went into this being like there鈥檚 no chance that I鈥檒l be in this movie, but maybe she鈥檒l make another one. We just had such a good time talking, I didn鈥檛 even know that I was someone she was thinking about. A few weeks later we spoke. It was very romantic.
AP: Where do we meet Lucy in life?
JOHNSON: She鈥檚 sort of at the top of her game in her work and is very disconnected from her heart and focused on being a perfectionist and getting people to get married. On the surface, you see her as a very transactional person and not really invested in people鈥檚 souls, but she actually is and really does want the best for them. She鈥檚 also on her own journey of trying to figure out what it is she wants for herself in this life, and, essentially, do you fight for the thing that you think you want, or do you fight for that thing that you know you need? Is that right, Celine?
SONG: That鈥檚 so good.
AP: What are you trying to say through the two men who come into her life?
SONG: It was never going to be a conversation about which flavor of a person. It鈥檚 actually so much more about this marketplace of dating that all of us live in if you鈥檙e single, and also the marketplace that Dakota鈥檚 character is navigating. She knows the math better than anyone else in the film. She鈥檚 an excellent matchmaker.
Pedro plays somebody who is probably, in straight dating, someone of the highest possible value. Chris鈥� character, in the spectrum in the marketplace of values of dating, is someone who is of the lowest value possible. I find them to be such adorable characters, very worthy of an adoration.
Lucy knows exactly where they fall in the in the stock market of men. It鈥檚 actually about the way that the math around that is going to blow up.
JOHNSON: Celine speaks so eloquently about the marketplace of dating and I glitch at those words because I鈥檓 like, you can鈥檛 explain love that way. But 迟丑补迟鈥檚 actually how people are. Marriage used to be a business deal. It was like, my father wants your cows and my mother needs your wheat and whatever. It was a trade-off. But now there鈥檚 all these books about how we expect our partner to fulfill every single aspect of our needs. And the world being dominated by social media, people don鈥檛 meet in real life anymore. They don鈥檛 behave normally in public.
People are in a very strange place in evolution, and I think the difference between these two characters and these two men, sure they are different ends of the spectrum in terms of like technical value, materialistic value. But also each of them have the opposite in terms of psycho-spiritual value and emotional value and what they can offer the other person in terms of soul evolution and growth.
Perhaps because she works in this world of trying to understand people and what they want, she鈥檚 forced to go more inward and really interrogate herself and say, what do I really want and what is actually important in this life? Is it how much money I have or is it how truly loved I am?
SONG: To me, it鈥檚 about this contradiction, right? It鈥檚 this thing of how we talk about what we want in our partner, when we鈥檙e asked to use language to describe it, and how we literally, spiritually fall in love. The gap between those two things is terrifyingly big. To me, 迟丑补迟鈥檚 where the mystery of the film is.
___
For more on this year鈥檚 summer movie season, visit:
Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press
