David Marchese

So I wanna start with something that I think about a lot.

You're a politically involved person.

You made a documentary about Zelensky.

You help run a humanitarian aid organization.

You're fully aware of the challenges we're all facing right now.

Given that, what makes you decide to take time away from focusing on addressing those challenges to do a movie

And then do you ever wrestle with the utility of making art right now?

Can you tell me a bit about what ideas drew you to one battle after another?

Oh, Punch Drunk Love.

You know, to me, the movie has a lot of tonal variation, but I found parts of it actually quite chilling, particularly the depiction of an America that appears to be run by fascistic white nationalists.

And you're not quite sure, is this, you know, how much of an alternate reality is this really supposed to be showing us?

What's your answer to that question?

How close are we to the America that the film shows?

You know, your character in the film, Colonel Steve Lockjaw, is at least in my reading of him, he's this sort of stew of perversions and insecurities.

Can you just tell me about how you thought about him or what went into him?

There was a round table you just did for The Times with some of your colleagues from one battle after another.

And in it, you said prior to working with Paul Thomas Anderson, you'd sort of been burnt out or disillusioned with acting for the better part of 15 years.

Oh, on Daddy-O.

What was that depression about?

Why were you disinterested in acting?