For a compelling and intelligent interview with the talented and charming filmmaker Nicole Holofcener, you need look no further than our own Andrew O'Hehir's column last month, in which the 46-year-old Holofcener discusses her latest work, "Friends With Money." (The movie opened last month on fewer than 30 screens nationwide but has since ballooned to more than a thousand, well exceeding the expectations for the $6 million production.) If you'd like to hear the sound of Holofcener's voice, though, check out this pair of public radio interviews.
In this selection (9:40, MP3) from a recent edition of WNYC's Studio 360, Kurt Andersen talks with Holofcener and Catherine Keener -- who has appeared in all three of Holofcener's films ("Walking and Talking," Lovely and Amazing" and "Friends With Money"). "I don't want to work with Catherine anymore," Holofcener jokes. "It's inevitable that we're not going to work together someday," Keener replies, "and I'm the one who's going to be hurt."
And in this longer conversation (21:13, Real Audio) with Euan Kerr of Minnesota Public Radio -- an edited version of which was included in a recent broadcast of NPR's "All Things Considered" -- Holofcener, who now lives in Southern California but is an alum of NYU and Columbia University's film school, talks about the hang-ups that led her to write "Friends With Money." "People will tell you [about] their experience at the gynecologist or how they had sex with their boyfriend, but if you say something [like] 'Yeah, what did you make on that job?' they'll just freeze up," says Holofcener. "It makes me want to make everyone say what they make. I want you to tell me what you make and then I'll tell you what I make and then we'll be friends. Or not." Elsewhere she discusses the constant dance of disdain and sympathy that comes with living in L.A. and that animates her films. "I have to watch my own tendency to judge and I feel that I'm kind of working it out in this movie," she says. "I'm on the freeway in L.A. and I'm driving next to a guy in a Hummer and I'm like, 'What an asshole.' ... They're proud that they're driving this incredibly overpriced car that gets 10 miles to a gallon that will kill anything it hits because it's twice the size of any other car. And I hate that person and I'm filled with rage for them ... and then I look at them and they're slumped or they've got these sunglasses that are too big or, you know, they're picking their nose. And I realize they're just some poor schlub trying to get through their day or trying to feel better about themselves."
-- Ira Boudway
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