I cannot control what you bring into the theater when you see the film. I can't control what my parents bring in. I can't control what some random person on Twitter brings in to the theater. All I can control is the hour and 50 minutes that the movie lasts, and try to give it absolutely everything I can.
James PonsoldtBy the time you arrive at Sundance as a filmmaker, you've been living with your film intimiately, and scrutinized every frame, and probably aren't happy with - or at least I'm never happy with it - and you've seen it in the roughest of states, and you lose perspective, really.
James PonsoldtI sometimes have to think about that because if I think about these five things and think of them all, I'll drop the balls, so I really have to prioritize and use every free second I have and maximize it. I wake up early, try to get sleep, but try to write for at least three hours every day. A really nice day for me is writing ten hours. I love that. Hasn't been a lot of that recently, but every free second I have I'm doing that.
James PonsoldtA lot of things, whether it's Brexit, the U.S. election, things that are happening on Facebook Live, the way that Twitter in many cases was weaponized, obviously for good but then obviously for bad, for proxy. Governments who use it to troll and give voice to conspiracy theories, white supremacists, et cetera. I think that's not going away.
James PonsoldtWith Rodham, for instance, it has to work on an emotional level. It has to work on a character level. If it's only "Look, it has famous people," then it's a wax museum come to life and that's really boring. It's sort of like what they say about science fiction and horror where the really good ones, if you remove that element of it, it still has to work. That's the reason The Shining works or Rosemary's Baby or Blade Runner.
James Ponsoldt