As a tangent to this concept of fleshing issues out, I beloved the way you confirmed the “logistics of fame” on this movie. If individuals world wide actually did start to have recurring desires of this one individual, how would that individual’s household and life change? What prompted you to give attention to these “preliminary” moments of fame earlier than the crescendo into insanity?
I wished this sense of being on the eye of the storm, and the way these preliminary moments of virality are sometimes personal. As you talked about, there’s a public half to Paul’s fame the place he reveals up and does interviews and meets with the businesses that wish to use his picture, however I didn’t wish to overlook the very personal elements of this phenomenon taking place inside his personal home. There’s a debate between him and his household. I wished to know extra about that than the tradition of his fame exterior. Even when Paul embraces his platform, I wished to remain within the personal sphere and discover that interiority. When he’s being flown to New York to have his branding conferences, after these conferences we observe him again to his lodge room the place he’s by himself. There’s this loneliness that comes with him all of the sudden feeling like a product and feeling alienated from himself.
Seeing scenes like that made me additionally consider Signe, the primary character from “Sick of Myself”. You shared at one level how each of those characters “make themselves depressing within the absence of potential.” For each Signe and Paul, they actually simply wish to be seen and beloved for who they’re. There’s a gaping gap they’ve inside even when they’ve households, jobs, not so excellent companions and so on., and it’s from that lack that they type of go down their respective and harmful paths within the movie.
Yeah, I imply they every have their incentives for why they act the best way they do. For Paul, he by chance stumbles into every part. In “Sick of Myself,” Signe orchestrates every part. She’s the catalyst, whereas Paul responds to what occurs to him. But Paul’s response to every part that occurs to him is motivated by his entitlement. He feels he’s being robbed of educational success and has a picture of himself that does not match his picture on the earth. It’s attention-grabbing that whereas he has this midlife disaster, that’s when everybody begins dreaming about him. He’s so starved for consideration that he conflates being seen on this manner with success. Whereas he has integrity that he’s attempting to carry to, ultimately, he ruins his personal life. He loses perspective over his values and on the movie’s conclusion, you see a person who lastly understands what’s essential, however at the price of having misplaced every part.
Once we first meet Paul, he could also be nothing distinctive, however there’s an earnestness and sincerity to him. You can have simply written Paul to be extra malicious or unsavory to make the downfall simpler to abdomen, however Cage portrayed him with a bumbling heat. You paint fame on this movie as a reasonably bleak software that in a single sense can assist you get forward however it’s additionally a type of issues that slips away the extra you attempt to management it. Do you suppose the superstar and fame that comes with it’s redeemable in its present type?