I Was That Cliché Divorced Guy, and I Knew It
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What early experiences shaped Joe Swanberg’s fascination with messy relationships?
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Hey, everyone. It's Anna. Before we get into today's show, I want to tell you about another show we have here at The Times called PopCast. It's our pop culture chat show hosted by critic John Caramonica and reporter Joe Coscarelli. PopCast is now weekly in audio and video, and I got to tell you, I love it. If you like conversations on our show, you will like PopCast. They've got interviews with people like Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, A$AP Rocky, Anne Hathaway, and so much more. You can find PopCast in the New York Times app, which, by the way, if you aren't a subscriber yet, your first month in the app is free. All right, on to the show.
From
the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love, and today I'm talking to director Joe Swanberg. Joe has spent pretty much his entire adult life and his career making movies about messy relationships. You might know his movie Drinking Buddies or the Netflix series Easy. And these are all about how complicated love can be. Someone says one thing, they actually mean the total opposite. You wake up one day and you feel differently about your partner, you don't know why. Someone's keeping secrets and everything spirals out of control. It's that kind of mess. Joe's life got messy after he and his wife separated after more than 20 years together. And pretty soon after, Joe started seeing a younger woman.
That is, of course, quite cliche. But the thing is, Joe knows it's cliche. And throughout our conversation, I was really surprised by how open he was about the mistakes he made and everything he learned from them. So today, Joe and I discuss how all of this inspired his new movie, The Sun Never Sets. We get into his divorce, his midlife crisis, and how much you can surprise yourself when there's love on the line. Joe Swanberg, welcome to Modern Love.
Thank you very much. Happy to be here. A little nervous to be here. Happy to be here. No
nerves whatsoever.
We're just
chatting. Joe, you make movies about the gray areas of relationships, the messy stuff, the uncomfortable stuff, the complicated stuff, the real stuff. I want to ask you, what is it about mess that is so interesting to you?
Yeah, I think that it, from a young age, I always felt that movies had the power to make me feel less alone in the world or maybe connected to strangers in particular ways. And it was always the weird, complicated, messy stuff that I felt was most impactful. I love seeing a movie where the characters say or do something that I thought I was the only person in the world who had that thought. And I think also with the mess, you know, sometimes you can look at your own life and just think, oh, my God, this is a disaster. Like, how did I? Oh, I've
never done that, Joe, actually.
I've never done that.
There's power seeing it in a movie. There's this feeling of like, oh, okay, this might not be great, but I'm connected to humanity. I'm one with the universe, and I'm not the only person who's dealt with this situation or who has screwed something up in this particular way. So I think by being real and trying to dive into the mess, there's some sense of reaching out and a desire to connect still from the other side, you know, from the maker side.
Yeah, we're kind of all in this muck together. Can I ask you, like, do you feel like you have messier relationships than the average person, like on a scale of... want to mess, are you really high up there?
No, I don't think so. Well, I married the person I lost my virginity to and had my first kiss with. So from the age of 18 to 38, I was in one single relationship.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What early experiences shaped Joe Swanberg’s fascination with messy relationships?
0:00–7:59
2
How did Joe’s 20‑year marriage end and what did he learn from the divorce?
7:59–14:14
3
Why did Joe start dating younger women after his divorce and what boundaries did he set?
14:14–20:23
4
What was the love‑triangle that inspired *The Sun Never Sets* and how did it unfold?
20:23–26:51
5
How did the chaotic love‑triangle affect Joe’s personal boundaries and emotional health?
26:51–33:14
6
What creative decisions did Joe make when turning his real‑life drama into a film?
33:14–39:37
7
How did making the movie help Joe understand his own behavior and future relationship goals?
39:37–45:56
8
What does Joe envision for his love life moving forward after the lessons of his midlife crisis?
45:56–53:44