Nicole Holofcener Talks Ben Affleck, Reese Witherspoon, and the WGA Scandal

Nicole Holofcener (Walk and talk, Friends with money) entertained attendees of a Czech film festival on Wednesday, discussing in a question-and-answer session his collaborations with stars such as Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as well as Reese Witherspoon's failed directorial effort in Revenge of a Blonde.

In recent days, Holofcener has been spending a very active time in the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary. The 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF) is paying tribute to him with a retrospective of his career, with the screening of three of his films: Please give, that's enough And You hurt my feelings.

Speaking at a KVIFF panel at the festival's Thermal Hotel on Wednesday, she said she felt honored by the invitation and the festival's decision to screen three of her films. “I'm not even dead yet,” she joked.

Asked how important box office success is to her, given that she is known for her work in independent film, Holofcener said: “It means a lot to me. It means that people are seeing my movies. I’ve never lost money. So that’s, I think, what keeps me going. And some movies have made quite a bit of money. But I never know why, or which ones do and which ones don’t.”

She also discussed the state of the independent film industry in general. “Right now, it’s really hard to see movies,” the filmmaker said. “And then when they end up on streaming platforms, there are too many small images. You don’t know what you’re going to watch or why. So even though You hurt my feelings (with Julia Louis-Dreyfus) was released in theaters for a very long time, it didn't make any money, which I don't understand. Maybe someone is getting rich. But it's really disappointing. Of course, I want to make money doing what I love doing the most,” even if it's not his priority.

His television work provides him with a living. “I actually make money by making TV shows and writing stuff, like adapting books or rewriting something,” Holofcener says. “Three weeks of writing a Marvel movie earns him more than he makes three movies. It’s obscene!”

What was it like rewriting a Marvel movie? “It’s fun because I’m hired to make the female characters better. Because men don’t understand women or anything,” she said. “So, Black WidowI worked on the characters of Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, making them more human, giving them a little more depth. And that's not difficult, especially when they're written as cardboard characters.

There are other perks to this kind of job, too, she noted. “I get to meet all these new people and see these crazy scenes, like on The Last Duel “When I wrote the role of Jodie Comer, I would never have had the opportunity to see battles in France in real castles. And I might not want to make a movie like that, but to witness that was a wonderful and really cool experience.”

So how did Ben Affleck and Damon work together? “I knew Ben before, because we were mutual fans. He wrote me a letter and I visited him on set,” Holofcener said. “He’s one of the smartest, funniest people I’ve ever known. He may have romantic problems, but he’s really one of the smartest, funniest people, and I respect him so much. I didn’t know Matt, except that my son dated his daughter in high school. And I was jealous. ‘You know Matt Damon, and I don’t?’ They’re great guys. And they were very generous to me. They acted like they worshiped me, so I felt very comfortable. And I wrote this part for her. In the end, we all collaborated on everything, because it had to be a cohesive story. It was very collaborative and a really great experience.”

Holofcener also drew laughs when she recalled missing out on a collaboration with another big star. “I've had scripts sent to me that I regret not taking,” she said. “After Walk and talkI met Reese Witherspoon, and she said, 'Do you want to direct this movie? I'm doing it.' Revenge of a Blonde'When I read it, I thought, 'This is so stupid, I didn't know where to start.' So I gave up. And you know what? It turned out to be a really good movie. And I think [Robert Luketic] “I did a great job. I probably would have done a worse job. I would have made it less broad, less funny, more real.”

Asked about her experience as a director, Holofcener suggested that it was sometimes harder for men to follow her advice as a director. “I think men often have a hard time trusting me because they’re usually not the lead actors,” she said. “And I think men have a hard time not being the lead actors, or not being likeable on screen. I’ve had actors say, ‘Oh, can I just be a little nicer or not do this,’ and I’m like, ‘I can’t do that, I … [no]. And then they see the movie and they get it. They say, “You were so right. I was trying to make my character something else. And you were right.” So they end up apologizing. But it's never been very frequent. It's always been manageable. The sets I have are fun and we laugh and we laugh and we don't take things too seriously – except the words on the page.

Later, the issue of the film industry in the streaming age came up again. Holofcener suggested that many of the films that are streamed “should be seen … in theaters.” And she recalled: “When I started, in the ’90s, independent films were really exciting and open, and studios were willing to take risks with me — weird people. I was at Sundance with Todd Solondz and Quentin Tarantino. Everybody was starting at the same time, and now, I think, everybody’s scared. And there are usually six actors who can get you the financing you want.”

In the age of streaming, she’s also seen theaters close. “A lot of theaters in New York where my films were showing have closed. It’s very sad for me and for new filmmakers coming up. It’s really different now. But I survived the strike. I had a job as a writer, I got paid the day before the strike, and I felt good. A lot of people were really in a very difficult situation.”

What about other challenges facing writers and directors, as well as the role played by the WGA’s recent labor agreement with studios? “I don’t think they’re hiring robots to write screenplays yet,” Holofcener said. “I think they will. It will happen. But a lot of people had smaller writing rooms.” [Yet] someone like Mike White, who wrote every episode of The White Lotusyou know… has to have a writing room. He has to pay writers to work on his project. So they just sit there.

She concluded: “From what I understand from the deals we've made, it's good that writers are getting more work, but at the same time, some of these deals don't make sense. It's a real disaster. A lot of TV writers I know are really struggling to make enough money and find work.”