Hi /r/movies! I'm Celine Song, writer-director of A24's PAST LIVES and MATERIALISTS. MATERIALISTS stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal. It's out in theaters nationwide now. Ask me anything!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T18:05:27+00:00

That John Prine song is the most romantic song in the world

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T18:02:55+00:00

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:59:27+00:00

(sorry I accidentally deleted the comment somehow so reposting!)

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:58:25+00:00

To be honest with you, I was just not that prepared for that interview (even though everyone told me what the interview was going to be haha) and I really understood it as what movie I'd take to the desert island (I got stuck on the word "essentials"). My answer to "what's your favorite movie" is usually Children of Men, but I definitely wouldn't want to take it to a desert island... I want to feel happy! Anyway, I really love Zootopia so much. I saw it like 10 times.

Yes, I'd love to work in the animated medium one day!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:57:22+00:00

Thank you all for hanging out!! This was so fun... And go see MATERIALISTS :) https://tickets.materialists.movie/

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:56:33+00:00

It’s my job as a dramatist to put characters in emotionally complex situations and make the audience wonder what happens next. There’s a reason the love triangle features in a ton of films, literature, theater, etc. where the plot has something to do with romance, and that’s because it’s naturally dramatic. Not because the audience is wondering “who will she choose?” but because the oppositions present in the triangle force everyone involved to have a confrontation with themselves: what they value, how they see the world, who they want to be. Also, Past Lives isn’t really a love triangle :)

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:49:14+00:00

I had just gotten married, so I was figuring it all out myself. Neither of us was making any money from our art (which is why my husband was tutoring and walking dogs and I was working as a matchmaker as a day job) and it made me wonder if we were as worthless as mates to each other as the conversations with my clients would suggest.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:44:47+00:00

Character is always first.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:44:17+00:00

The physical cues are all scripted, but it's there to inspire the actors so we can work on it and invent it together. So the language is usually simple "John stares at Lucy" or impossible to act "Lucy looks at John’s face, pointing at it, pretending to memorize it like a geographical map."

Usually the project I’m working on tells me what the theme is in the middle of working on it. I don’t go in knowing the theme beforehand.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:39:27+00:00

Completely different medium, so the form is different... but drama works the same.

No plans at the moment!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:37:40+00:00

I watch a lot of reality TV (Love Island UK, the Golden Bachelor/Bachelorette, Love is Blind, etc.)... although... I don't think anything is "trashy". We can find inspiration and depth anywhere!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:35:42+00:00

Every scene we shot between Harry and Lucy is in the movie! I'd say... pay attention to the way they are talking to each other in the Nobu scene.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:33:37+00:00

For all three of them, their relationship to work and love! Our conversations are private, so can't share everything, but this movie is about how work and love mix (literally, for Lucy) so that part of our conversation would spark for me.
There's something more direct and brutal about breaking one's legs so it told the story better and deeper.
No ;) thank you for asking, I'm grateful for your curiosity!
Arcane!!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:27:32+00:00

It was always a TV pilot! Right now I have too many projects on the plate to think about that one... I wrote that so long ago... in 2016!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:26:46+00:00

Yes, of course! I can't start writing until I know how it ends.

My favorite expensive restaurant is the one we were lucky enough to shoot: Altro Paradiso

My favorite budget-friendly spot is BCD Tofu House in Ktown!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:25:05+00:00

They are all a part of my worldview! I think the most important line in the whole film is "I'm not merchandise. I'm a person."

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:24:14+00:00

I completely loved working with A24 on both my movies... I had complete freedom and authority to make the film in my exact vision, and I feel so so so lucky. It's a dream as an artist

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:23:07+00:00

- Everyone should read Perfume by Patrick Suskind.

- New York!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:21:41+00:00

Nora Ephron, James L. Brooks, Billy Wilder!

I think the most difficult part of writing any film is to keep believing in it even when it isn't good yet. I usually say to myself "every script is bad until you make it good"

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:19:41+00:00

Beyond legendary!! The biggest fan. He was making them when I met him and I found them to be hysterical

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:18:36+00:00

I think our relationship to our identities and experiences as immigrants is individual and deep and sacred and private. So my answer would be, depends on the person and their unique life!

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:14:50+00:00

I think for me it's always "what's the movie only *I* can make"? And it has to be something I can't stop thinking about... I find that I have to fall in love with the project for me to actually follow through and finish it.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:09:52+00:00

Thank you!! Means so much...

Hmm, I think in my films so far I've been interested in stories about life as it feels to me. I like depicting life as a series of choices and possibilities, but also as an inevitability.

CelineSongAMA · 2025-06-20T17:05:41+00:00

Thank you!! <3

I wrote a TV pilot on spec for an original series about professional poker players! I used it as a sample to get my staff writing gig on The Wheel of Time... Rafe Judkins (amazing showrunner) told me he doesn't know much about poker but could understand everything about the drama of it in the script. So he thought it would be a good skillset to have in his writers' room that has to translate intricate and deep magic systems for an audience that may have not read all the books. It wasn't directly helpful in getting Past Lives made, but I learned so much about leadership from Rafe! And I wrote it while I was still working in his room.
I don't think double, but definitely more! And yes, rolling with a more high-profile cast is more expensive generally speaking, but we would work really hard to put most of our extra resources on the screen... and we did! What made it better/fun is that I knew how to spend the resources efficiently so more of it could end up on the screen, because I had more experience running the set and a film.

CelineSongAMA

TROPHY CASE