Nominated for both a BAFTA and an Independent Spirit Award,Robert Salernoproduces prestige films. Salerno has helped bring critical smash after smash to the silver screen. He is one of the colossal creative forces behindTom Ford’s spectacular outing,A Single Man, as well as his sophomore effort,Nocturnal Animals.He’s also fosteredLynne Ramsey’sgut-droppingWe Need To Talk About Kevin,Charlie Kaufman’spoignant adaptation,I’m Thinking of Ending Things, as well as fan-favorite horror franchise,Smile.Now, Salerno has swapped out his producing cap for his directorial debut,Here After.
The supernatural thrillerHere Aftertells the story of Claire Hiller, played by the exceptionalConnie Britton, and her talented daughter Robin (Freya Hannan-Mills). After a piano recital, Robin is in an accident, and Claire is confronted with the possibility that her daughter may not survive. Overjoyed by Robin’s miraculous revival, Claire’s relief turns to dread as she notices changes in her daughter, suspecting something dark has followed her back from near-death.Here Afteralso featuresGiovanni Cirfiera(Ford v Ferrari) andTommaso Basili(Ferrari).
Collider’sSteve Weintraubwas thrilled to sit down with Salerno after Collider’s early screening ofHere After. Together in front of a live audience, the two discussed the immense influence of independent producing on Salerno’s directing craft, what it’s like to receive notes fromMichael Mannon your film, and the excruciatingly refreshing style of shooting a movie in Italy. You can watch the full interview in the video above or read the transcript below.
Robert Salerno on Independent Producing
“You have to find the materialandfigure out how to maneuver and put it together.”
COLLIDER: Before we get intoHere After, you have produced a ton of things. What do you think would surprise people to learn about being a producer in Hollywood?
ROBERT SALERNO: Surprise? I don’t know. It’s never easy. [Laughs] I started my career in New York as an independent producer. It was kind of scrappy from the get-go, so it was just about figuring out a way to tell stories. Actually, I wanted to be an actor initially when I got out of school. I started on that trajectory, and started doing some commercials and working in that genre. I quickly saw that there was more, I felt like, interesting stuff happening on the other side of the camera — for me.I was just actually probably not that good of an actor, is reality.
It was just more intriguing to be a producer — putting the pieces together and being able to figure out how to tell a story, how to make it engaging, how to put all these different elements together from every step of it. So in New York, working in the independent film world, you sort of had to do everything, from finding good material, finding a script to work with, and the filmmaker, but also making a deal for catering, getting the equipment, and then putting the money together. Putting all these pieces together is not really surprising,but it’s what it is to be a producer.You have to nowadays, I feel like, especially, know a little bit of everything, the way that the whole industry works and the way the industry is going. I think it’s no longer good just to be able to know how to find the material, but you have to find the material and figure out how to maneuver and put it together, and make it into something that is entertaining.
As I said, you’ve produced a lot of things. Which film or films went through the biggest changes in the editing room in ways you didn’t expect?
SALERNO: Oh, good question! For the most part, I think the core of each film was always there from the beginning to the end. I think what happens in the editing process, having gone through it as a producer for many years, it’s a lot of fun because the next phase of directing your film is in the post-production, in the edit. I think the core of what has always been there is still there. It’s just maybe not exactly as it was scripted at times. There are different elements and beats that help. There are sometimes things that you find aren’t needed, so things get pulled out. Then maybe there’s something more that you do need. There are just different elements of everything. I think every film starts one way, and by the time you get to the edit, there are a bunch of different changes and elements to it.
Is there one film that really went through some serious changes compared to what you thought?
SALERNO: I don’t remember anything changing dramatically from what we thought we were doing or what we started with. I’ve got to think. I’ve made way too many.
Actor-Directors Inspired Robert Salerno’s Directorial Debut
“I think there was a more intimate relationship with those filmmakers just by the nature of who they were.”
You produced Tom Ford’sA Single ManandNocturnal Animals.Tom Ford needs to make more movies. What do we need to do that?
SALERNO: [Laughs] I think Tom is eager to make more movies. You’re gonna have to ask him. Not to reveal his dirty little secret, but I think he loves filmmaking almost more than fashion at times. He’s a filmmaker, and he loves creating his world in those movies. I’m sure he will again very soon.
I like the way you’re talking, and I really hope that he is directing something soon besides doing real estate.
Jake Gyllenhaal on Tom Ford’s ‘Nocturnal Animals’, Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Okja’ and Daniel Espinosa’s ‘Life’
He also talks about why Ford was so great to work with and what we all can do to get him to make more movies.
WithHere After, this is your directorial debut. How much did you debate what you wanted your first film to be? Were you thinking, “Do I wanna do this kind of genre? Do I wanna dothis?” What was in your head?
SALERNO: Having produced for so many years, and I also started my career in my early 20s, I was producing for actor-directors, with Billy Bob Thornton acting-directing, I produced for Al Pacino. He acted and starred in a film,Chinese Coffee.I’ve had the really good fortune of working really close and intimately with some amazing actor-directors— John Turturro, acting and directing. Then, through that process, I think there was a more intimate relationship with those filmmakers just by the nature of who they were and how they worked, and then the auteur filmmakers afterward that I got to work with from an early age.
So it’s always seemed normal to me from my 20s on that storytelling was something that I wanted to do, and I really enjoyed doing it as a producer, butIwasreadyto find something that was my own story to tell.What I wanted to do was really explore interpersonal relationships. Something in this story that I felt was meaningful is the idea of forgiveness, the idea of guilt, and the idea of what repressing that for so long does, and the demons that can come out of it. I wanted to try to make something, also, that isn’t a horror film. It’s a horror topic, but it’s not necessarily your genre of a horror film. There are genre elements that I wanted, and I wanted to try to keep it accessible to an audience and have people come and see it, but really explore a little bit more of the dynamic of what it is to keep something so bottled up and repressed, as Claire did, and explodes.
How much did you debate the title? Was it ever something else?
SALERNO: With the script, I was very fortunate. One of my producers introduced me to Sarah Conradt, who was the screenwriter and who was amazing. We did have another title initially at one point, but there wasn’t too much debate. We discussed it, and Sarah and I both agreed this other title —Here After— would work. I guess I debated it at times, coming back and forth throughout the process, but ultimately, this is what it is. It’s here in theHere After.
Italian Film Productions vs. American
”You stop, you sit at a cafe, and you have a little espresso.”
This doesn’t work without the lead, without Connie. Talk a little bit about getting her and those initial conversations.
SALERNO: Connie is absolutely spectacular. She’s an amazing person, actress, and performer, of course. I sent her the script, and she responded, thankfully, to it. We met early on, and I think connected on the same level. She’s a mother, she has a young son, and she related to this as well. Somebody who’s had her years of experience and her talent, she brings something to the table that is just really helpful. Then, you can work together to develop the story, seeing what she brings with her character and conversations about what it was like to be in this isolated experience. I think that was one of the things I loved about her being an American woman, her character, in Italy. She’s a little bit more isolated. I know that she’s talked about this as well, herself being an American actress in Italy. I think Connie and I were the only two Americans there. Everyone else was Italian or Freya [Hannan-Mills], the young girl, her daughter, is from the UK. The rest of the entire crew was Italian. So there was an isolation aspect to it for her and for myself, as well, actually, as the filmmaker with all this Italian around you.
I’m sure the food was very good on set.
SALERNO: It was very good. The Italians are amazing because they love to take a break. We’d be scouting, and every three hours or so, they would need to, “Oh, Robert! I found the most amazing biscotti in all of Italy. We have to try.” And so you would be like, “Oh, okay.” Everyone had their “perfect” biscotti or Italian pastry shop there, so we would stop, and there was something quite refreshing about it.
As an American filmmaker, it’s stressful because you want to keep going — “Let’s go. We gotta go, we gotta go.” But we stop, and they think it’s ridiculous to drink coffee from paper cups.You stop, you sit at a cafe, and you have a little espresso.You sit, you talk. It takes 10 minutes, 15 minutes. You sit, you talk — can’t talk about work. It’s gotta be life, family, social, and then it’s like, “Okay, let’s go back on.” And I’m like, “Oh my god, we’ve gotta go." They only wanna shoot and work nine-hour days, also, when Americans are used to these 15-hour days. I appreciate the Italian way, but I need, like, 50 days to shoot then. [Laughs]
Connie Britton Keeps ‘Here After’ Grounded in Reality
One of the things that I really enjoyed is that Connie plays very realistic, very grounded. Talk a little bit about how you guys figured out her tone in certain scenes whenshe could be reacting much bigger and more physically. How did you guys discuss the way to play it?
SALERNO: For me, there’s more power in that, and I know Connie for sure believed in that, as well. She is a strong, independent woman and I think that is what Claire is, and that is who Claire, to me and in our discussions, was in her past, as well. This accident has completely reshaped her. This traumatized her. She needs to continue on and live. Part of it is her coming to terms with this was something that I think was meaningful to the storyline keeping it insulated. That’s what it was for me. It was an interior thing that was going on that she had suppressed for so long, this secret, and tried to put it out of her head. That’s where the Catholicism came in, as well. I think there’s a blurred line of: Was she praying for God? Was she praying for help? Or was this something where she was praying for her own excuse? That’s part of what the crucifix we see toward the end, what it represents to her in something else. She’s kind of giving up on the aspect of religion in some ways, as much as she’s using that as a crutch.
Like all movies, I’m so curious about where and when you reveal information. So you’re in the editing room —talk about where and when you decided to reveal stuff? Was it ever different than what we see in the movie?
SALERNO: There are different times. I feel like with this, with the flashbacks, it was always structured in a way to have these flashbacks and be able to go through it. That was a place where I guess I could maneuver and manipulate a little bit the conversation that she was having in the present day, in therapy with Ben, the near-death therapist, in the restaurant, and then in the flashbacks in her apartment. Those were places where I did play a little bit. What had happened initially in an early cut revealedtoo much, I felt, early on.
Really, it’s just a process. You have to screen it and hopefully screen it for some close people that you trust and keep going on. It’s a back-and-forth. You start to feel it. You start to feel the vibe and the idea of it. I thought it was more important to piece some of the flashbacks out. There was more revealed early on, it might even be scripted that way, and it works amazing on paper that way. It is what attracted myself, attracted Connie, and attracted people to it. But then, once you put it on-screen, at times, there is a little bit of manipulation to do and work with that wound up holding back a little bit more of the flashbacks into different pieces and ends. There are a few different reveals in this. I feel like the audience might catch on or think they catch on early, and then there’s still another element that they haven’t gotten at all — is what I hope we’ve achieved.
Michael Mann’s Advice for ‘21 Grams’ – “Cut Everything Out”
Who do you trust for honest feedback? What feedback did you get after that first friends and family screening? Did you realize, “Oh, I need to tweak this or I need to tweak that?” Because with everyone I’ve spoken to, for the first cut, there’s still way more work to do.
SALERNO: Oh my god, for sure. A couple of times, I’ve worked with filmmakers as a producer who have let me in to see the assembly and the first cut. But most times, they don’t like you to see the first assembly or the first cut, and I completely know why. I almost threw up watching the initial [cut]. I gotta say my editor, John Lyons, I love and adore. I made a short film, and he cut that, so I already had a shorthand with him, which was great. He kinda showed me an assembly, but then he was just like, “Let’s screw the assembly.” We didn’t go through a full official assembly. We just started working with it because even watching the beginning, you’re tormented and tortured.
What I would say, for me, was really helpful is, as an independent producer in New York City, I had another group of independent producers. We get together. We realized that in Los Angeles, the agents all have their weekly meetings, and they get together; the executives have their weekly meetings, and they get together. We were just a couple of friends. We were like, “You know, us independent producers are struggling. We’re all on our own, by ourselves.” And so we did. We got a group of us, and we get together for breakfast once a week. There were a couple of them who really gave me amazing, great feedback and information on early cuts. There are just a couple of friends, a screenwriter is a close friend, and there are a couple of key people who gave me some really helpful thoughts and feedback.
One of the things I remember working with filmmakers in the past is, even on — I don’t know if it’s revealing something or not — but on21 Grams, we had screened it for a bunch of other directors at the time. One of the directors, Michael Mann, gave really amazing feedback on that. We were done, and he’s like, “This is genius. This is amazing. This is brilliant.” He loved it, but he said, “Now just go through and cuteverythingout. Cut like an hour out of the film.” He’s like, “But know this movie is perfection, and you can release this.” What we did release on that film ultimately was kind of what Michael had seen initially, but it does give you a way of you all of a sudden strip stuff out that you know that’s not how you’re gonna release the film. You just get to see pacing and ideas and how that works. There was a longer version of this film. Then stripping things out, we came to a different middle ground that I felt propels the story forward in a more engaging way. It’s kind of experimenting, I think, and playing with stuff, which is what’s amazing and intimate about the editing room. It’s a very intimate process in there at times to be able to do all that.
The reason I keep on talking editing with everyone is because one scene omitted can make or break a movie. Editing is everything.
Robert Salerno Made ‘Here After’ in 25 Days With $5 Million
“Working in Italy is amazing and exhausting.”
So, you see the shooting schedule in front of you–
SALERNO: Have a heart attack. [Laughs]
What day did you have circled in terms of, “I can’t wait to film this!” And what day was circled in terms of, “How the f are we gonna film this?”
SALERNO: Every day. I think it’s what I did and how my career moved forward as a producer. I always took big swings and big risks as a producer in what I was gonna do and how I wanted to work. I obviously did that with this. This was anenormousscript.We had just about 25 days to shoot all of this, and I had $5 million to make this. So, this was just one of those films that every day was like, “Oh my god!”
Working in Italy is amazing and exhausting. It’s just a bunch of different things all in one, and they work in a different way. I’ve learned this now, but they don’t ever want to tell the director, “No,” Sothey “yes” me to death. Anything I want: “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” They just don’t want to say “no.” But the problem is, then you show up sometimes, and that “yes” they gave you, they really can’t do it, so it’s a “no.” I was like, “If you just told me no, you’re able to’t do it, I wouldn’t have been mad. I would have regrouped and figured it out.”I had to re-figure out a lot of things on the fly.It was all good intentions. I think it’s just the Italian culture and how it works, but we worked a lot of things on the fly.
Of course, the underwater stuff was monumental. The Italians, in their Italian way, didn’t have a water tank until the week before. There were no water tanks available. They literally found a public swimming pool, and they emptied it out — you wouldn’t believe the circus we made. They put tarps all over the pool, there are tarps all over the top, and they made a tank out of a public swimming pool in Italy. Then we made this hydraulic with the car on it, and all of these aspects were just absolutely mind-numbing because I’m petrified it’s not gonna actually be ready. A week before, you would think these things would be there and be ready. The whole “Nether World” sequence, they just started building that when that came up, and that was built days before. Again, another amazing production designer. He and his art director, Luca [Merlini], I don’t know how they did it, but they just made things appear.
It was espresso. And wine.
SALERNO: They have a lot of espresso and a lot of wine. It is amazing. They have the freedom to do stuff just the way their culture works at times to do all these things. But there were a lot of nerve-wracking things. One of the things I would say I was petrified for a long time to shoot was actually — and this may be weird, it could be weird how it comes out — the scene where Claire’s asking Robin [Hannan-Mills] about what it was like in the afterworld, and she’s in the kitchen. That scene, I had nerves about it because I had worked on a bunch of different things with Freya. Freya and I had talked, we had worked together, and I was afraid of how the “fuck you” would play. We had a couple of different versions of it. It was really great and amazing once we got on set, and then we were working. Connie and Freya talking, I don’t think we had a chance to rehearse that one particularly together. So when Connie came into that, and we started playing it, it just made sense. It all played beautifully. Freya did an amazing job in that, as did Connie. They both were very real, natural, subtle, and really believable.
But every day was that chaos. The other thing is, also, in Italy, we did this the Italian version way because we just didn’t have the money. There’s an American way to shoot in Italy, as well, and that is that they just pay higher rates, and you can work a 10 to 12-hour day, and then they’ll do that. But if you’re not, and doing the Italian way and the Italian rates, they wanna work nine hours and go home. Part of that idea is that they want to be able to have at least one meal with their family. Either the lunch or dinner has to be able to be with your family, and so work nine hours. Then, when we wanted to do a 10-hour day, we would sometimes, but we kinda had to plead and beg. They get a nice overtime for that extra hour, but they also have to agree to it. They don’t always want to even do the overtime.
Sometimes, they’d rather just say, “I just want to go home and have my meal.” Doing the 25 days, doing nine-hour shoots, it was just a lot. Then everybody’s speaking Italian, and I’m not really good with Italian. I had little girls, five-year-olds, who also only spoke Italian because the best performance I got was out of the little girls that only spoke Italian. So I had a translator helping me and working with me. That was another challenge. And I had birds! I think I put every challenge possible on this.
Invaluable Producing Lessons Robert Salerno Brought to Directing
What’s really funny about all this is you’re a producer. You knew what you were getting yourself into.
SALERNO: I did, and I didn’t! I feel like I did jump in, head first, for sure. My DP, Bartosz Nalazek, is also another amazing, amazing partner on this. He had worked as Janusz Kamiński’s camera operator for years, but he’d been a DP on his own for many years now, too. He’s worked with a lot of first-time filmmakers, and he said as we were going through all these pieces, “We never would have gotten through this. Another first-time filmmaker would probably be a puddle at this point because the amount of stuff that we have had piled on top of us is just so immense.” His feeling, and I think he was right, in hindsight, wasthe only way we were able to get through it was I had the foresight to understand to pivot.
I knew the schedule was 25 days. I knew I wanted to shoot something a certain way. I had it blocked. I had a storyboard. I had it figured out the way I wanted to do it. When we got there, and it wasn’t working, I tried, I tried, I kept trying, but I didn’t end up spending six hours trying to make that work. What I would do is regroup in the moment, pivot, and be like, “Okay, this is the beat, this is the point, this is what needs to happen. What do I need to do to make that happen now?” So I would just re-pivot.
His explanation, working with a lot of first-time filmmakers, was that the first-time filmmaker will sit there and spend six, seven hours trying to do that specific setup they had dreamed of, not realizing that they’ve screwed up the rest of the shooting day, and you’ve missed out on a whole bunch of other key elements and scenes that need to work. Sometimes, you need to do that, and other times, you just need to be able to pivot. I think my experience as a producer and having worked on so many sets was that I understoodwhenI needed to say, “This isn’t gonna work this way, and I’ve gotta regroup.”
This is your first feature behind the camera. What big lesson or two did you learn that you’ll take with you if you direct again?
SALERNO: I certainly hope to direct again. I’ve got a couple of other ideas.
Let me rephrase:whenyou direct again.
SALERNO: Thank you. I’ll be honest with you, one of the big things I’ve learned from directing is, as a producer, I’m very passionate and very intimate with the stories that I’m telling and wanting to be involved with, but also, I’m okay with, my mind as a producer goes to, “This actor passed. Let’s go on to the next one. This actor passed; on to the next one,” or, “This thing isn’t working,” or, “This designer, I can’t get, and this isn’t happening.” On to the next one.I found, as a director, a lot more vulnerability than I had as a producer.It’s what life is, but if an actor passes, it really justhurtson a more personal level than it does with an actor passing to a producer.I need to take a little bit more of the producing-head mindset to the directing with some of these things.
The other element is, me as a person and how I’ve always worked, I’m not a yeller. I’m not a screamer as a producer. When there was a problem as a producer and the chaos is happening right here, I tended to take a step away from it. Take a step back and watch the chaos, so that I could have a second to process it and figure out, “What’s the way out of this chaos that everyone’s yelling and screaming about?” Then step back into it and come up with the path forward. As a director, it’s nonstop. I would probably put some of that same producing energy into directing and attempt to handle things.
To tell these stories, for me anyway, personally, I just can’t be mechanical about it, and it’s not an impersonal thing. For me, filmmaking is a very vulnerable activity. I think that’s how you make films that are hopefully touching and emotional. A lot of this film we shot almost at the beginning. It wasn’t in sequence, but a lot of this stuff early in the film is what we shot the first few days of the shoot. Then, toward the end, is really all the end of the movie. That was one of the Italian-isms,as well, that happened. March 20 was the first day we were supposed to start shooting. Then somewhere, like mid-February, they came to me like, “Oh, Robert, I’m so sorry. Listen, we have to start shooting on March 1 in order to qualify for the tax credit.” And I was like, “Wait, what?”
And they were like, “Don’t worry, just one day!” I’m like, “Okay, we’ll do some second unit thing on March 1.” Two days later, they came back and said, “Oh, sorry, it’s gotta be consecutive.” So all of a sudden, my prep was ripped out. I had three weeks, all of a sudden, of prep, just ripped away, and I had to get up and get going. My lead actress wasn’t even available on that first day, so I was shooting — and there’s not a lot without her — every possible thing that she wasn’t in on these early days, and trying to get her earlier.
You’re just in a constant battle in filmmaking. I can make a ton of excuses for a ton of different things, but at the end of the day, none of it matters. There’s no bar that comes up here saying, “Oh, you had 25 days to make this! Oh, they lost the crane, and they couldn’t do this, and they couldn’t do that!" Whatever it is, you just have to figure it out in that moment — I realize as a producerandas a director — and make it still something that works, and hopefully the audience can respond to and relate to and make entertaining.
I don’t think a lot of people realize the behind-the-scenes. Everyone thinks it’s very organized and together, and it’s like, “Oh no, you had that actor for five days, and you have to shoot everything in those five days.” Or, “The two actors that are in all these scenes, they were never in the room together!” You gotta make it work.
SALERNO: Oh, yeah! There are plenty of those different elements. I think one of the things is you just have to have a thick skin and not be afraid. Just keep going forward and make it happen. It’s not for the faint of heart, for sure.
Here Afteris available to purchase digitally.
Here After
Claire is overjoyed when her daughter Robin is miraculously revived after a fatal accident. But her relief turns to dread as Claire notices changes in her daughter, suspecting something dark has followed her back from the brink of death.
