'Wake Up Dead Man' | Anatomy of a scene

“My name is Rian Johnson. I wrote and directed “Wake Up, Dead Man.” “Well done everyone!” This is a scene that is about halfway through the movie. And Father Jud, who is Josh O'Connor, is the prime suspect in the murder of Monsignor Wicks, some sort of local priest who was his colleague. And all the parishioners you see here have suspected it. Jud, I've given him a lot of bullshit and he's finally reached his limit and teamed up with Benoit Blanc. And they're going to get to the bottom of this. “And let's start with what happened that night right here in this very room.” “You mean the time Jud admitted to all of us that he had killed a man.” “Okay, no, that was the boxing thing.” So these movies really rely on scenes like this, where they round up all the suspects and then have them all bounce off each other in sometimes terrible and abrasive ways. And it's about the relationships between everyone. It's Glenn Close and Cailee Spaeny in the same frame. Then you have that great moment where Glenn screams. “Ahh!” “Jesus!” “It's a miracle!” “I can walk, Martha. It just hurts.” We're getting movie stars who were all number ones on the call sheet for their own movies to come and be part of a real ensemble. This scene was one of the first ones we shot, because I thought it was very important to have everyone in the same room. And then you can see these actors, some of the best actors working today, walk in there and you can see the joy they get from watching everyone else's performance and seeing where everyone else is pitching, especially on the first day and all kinds of find their level. And I don't do it for myself, it makes my job a lot easier. But it's amazing to see them, to see them work. “Who wants to go first?”