Warning: This story contains spoilers aboutKajillionaire.
“The two things were inherently married, like they weren’t at odds.
In fact, the emotional sense of being conned was my way in.
Credit: Matt Kennedy/Focus Features; Inset: Rich Polk/Getty Images
They were one energy for me.”
“The movie’s calledKajillionaire,” adds July.
“It has to do with, if not money, at least transactional love.”
Would you say that was influencing it in some way?
Intuitively, I was always looking for ways to show that she was good at what she did.
The writing of it made it make sense to me, more than the actual doing of it.
And it’s the one place I go to often as a break.
With a friend, I choreographed a move to get into the post office one day.
How did you walk that line and why was that line the space you wanted to live?
I was interested in outsiders, but righteous outsiders.
You just have to let go.
You’re never going to convince these people.
You’re never going to outsmart them.
It’d be easy to do that with normal characters.
It just seemed more complex to have the outsiders be, in a way, the emotional oppressors.
Did you write it with her in mind or what inspired that choice?
I generally don’t write with people in mind.
She’s not trustworthy; she’s not warm.
I knew Debra Winger would bring all this depth.
But mostly we did a lot of talking about family.
She put herself through hell to play a character who’s that craven.
The foam coming over the walls into the sort of cubicle where they live is hideously specific and sad.
Where did you get that idea?
Like it doesn’t have a bathroom or something.
I remember trying all different things and wanting something that you couldn’t fix.
Because I wanted to show how you might get used to anything, you might normalize anything.
Then I thought like, “Well, how far can I take that?”
And with a movie like this, there’s not a lot of ways to get beauty in there.
It’s not a beautiful, good thing.
It’s a beautiful drag at best.
[But I asked,] “Ok, Miranda, what’s beautiful to you?”
Why did you choose a hot tub?
It just seemed so ridiculous to me as something to steal and plan on returning.
That made me laugh.
It’s like if there’s a gun in the scene, it’s going to go off.
If there’s a hot tub, you know that something inappropriate is going to transpire.
I liked it for that loaded gun quality.
The last thing I wanted to ask you was about Old Dolio’s connection to Melanie.
Did you know from the beginning that you wanted it to be this connection of romance and attraction?
Did you play with a more sisterly bond?
How did you arrive at what it became?
Initially, I wasn’t sure.
I remember being quite surprised like, “Oh, this is it.
This is the romance.”
It was such a pleasure for me to write.
Sometimes you’re like, “Am I going to get away with this?”
Then I realized, “No, actually, this is very, very important.
It’s not just to make me happy.”
It’s really the heart of the movie, ultimately.
