On a private patio at the corner of Spruce and Columbia streets, overlooking an overwhelming mountain view, Mike Mills and Gaby Hoffmann are taking it in: This is their first time up high at the Telluride Film Festival, and their years-in-the-making movie, C’Mon C’Mon—written and directed by Mills, and costarring Hoffmann—premiered to raves last night. This marked Mills’s first experience in a big screening room for about two years, and he went in profoundly nervous: For a filmmaker known for deeply personal work, this one may have been his most personal yet.
C’Mon C’Mon is based on Mills’s relationship with his 9-year-old son, Hopper. It follows the budding dynamic between Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix), a radio journalist working on a cross-country interview project, and his young estranged nephew, Jesse (newcomer Woody Norman), who’s put in Johnny’s care while his mother, Viv (Hoffmann), helps the boy’s father work through mental-health struggles. Mills takes the two characters from Los Angeles to New York to New Orleans, interspersing his portrait of an adult and a child learning from one another with real-life interviews with children in each of those cities, meditating on life and the future in contemporary America.
It’s classic Mills, in other words—an intimate story told with sweep (and, in this case, gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, lensed by Robbie Ryan) that chews on tricky, humane questions about family and connection. And while the movie’s ostensibly about Johnny and Woody, Hoffmann—in a radiant turn—emerges as the film’s heartbeat, Viv’s complex and deeply felt experience of motherhood hovering over every frame, whether she’s physically present or not.
Oscar winner Alexander Payne introduced the film at the Thursday night premiere, saying it marked a leveling-up for Mills, who was Oscar-nominated for his 20th Century Women screenplay. Mills may not agree with that, exactly, but he finds he’s changing as a filmmaker as he gets older. Under the warm Telluride sun, I joined Mills and Hoffmann—who collaborated closely with Mills on the film, from script to production to editing—for a wide-ranging conversation. After catching up on the films we’d seen and were hoping to see, we got into their work, in both Mills’s and Hoffmann’s first interviews about the film.
Vanity Fair: How did last night feel?
Mike Mills: My favorite part was Gaby’s reaction at the end. As a director, it’s really nerve-racking having the actor see the movie. I really want them to be OK with it and I respect Gaby’s opinion. That was one of the most meaningful things to me. She hadn’t seen the last version of it. It was very grounding. It was very hard to be there and to feel it. I’m so nervous.
How did it strike you, Gaby, seeing the finished version?
Gaby Hoffmann: When I read the script, I felt like it was this altered, parallel version of the story I would tell and the experiences I’m having, but through a slightly different lens. It felt out-of-body when I read it. I thought it was so beautiful, and some of it felt like I—not that I could do it as well, but I related to it so deeply. It was a dynamic, bizarre experience. Then through watching so many cuts, because Mike was kind enough to let me in on the editing conversations—
Mike Mills: —I was greedy.
Gaby Hoffmann: [Laughs] So I didn’t see this last cut, and the experience of watching the movie was just like the experience of having read the script: This is the most perfect realization of these feelings and these ideas that I could possibly imagine. It hit all the notes. I had such an incredible experience watching it. Through all the stages, I felt very involved, and I couldn’t separate everything; but last night, I felt almost disassociated completely.
You got to let go a little bit.
Gaby Hoffmann: It was an experience from having had been a part of it. I just really loved it. I’m thrilled and proud of Mike. The editing process was long, and he really found the iteration of this thing that was really meant to be.
Mike, what was that process like for you, of finding exactly that—going through these different cuts to what C’Mon C’Mon ultimately became?
Mike Mills: I have a kid and so I happily needed to be there for Zoom school. I would go into edit at 12.30. It’s a very unusual life for me, and there was no rush. Like, when is the movie going to get released, anyway? With all my movies, I finish writing the script, then I meet the actors, then we start talking about it, then I rewrite. You get smarter and better and new insights. Then you start shooting and you keep shifting and changing it. We would change scenes constantly. Then when I get to the edit, I don’t stop changing it. I do play around, I do try things that are different than the script, I do reshoot something. I’ve always done that. I don’t want to be like, cool, now I know what I’m doing and I’m just going to execute that.
Your last three films have all concerned the relationship between adults and children, of course, and you mentioned in your intro this one was especially personal to you. Beginners was inspired by your father, 20th Century Women was inspired by your mother, and C’Mon C’Mon is inspired by your own experiences in parenthood, right?
Mike Mills: It’s totally just me and Hopper. It’s everything that being a parent and being Hopper’s parent, because Hopper is a very specific soul, I wrote it sitting, like, [right next] to Hopper. [Laughs] If I write from something I’ve observed and felt and that questions me that I don’t know the answer to, it’s my best hope of doing something good, or something that will connect with people. This one is about what being Hopper’s dad exposes me to: It’s not just my relationship to other kids, but also other moms. I learned so much about moms. More than dads, to be honest. To me this movie has a very strong mom theme to it. It really feels like an ode to moms.
It’s not what I expected, just having read the logline before, but it absolutely does.
Mike Mills: That feels really true to me. Viv has a piece of [Miranda July], my wife’s spirit in there. [Turns to Hoffmann] And I also feel like it’s very you.
Gaby, how did you find Viv, then? And what kinds of conversations did you have with Mike about the character?
Gaby Hoffmann: We had a lot of fun talking about the ideas in the movie, talking about being parents. Mike had the right instinct, where we were like immediately old friends. It was weeks, on and off, of talking about what our lives are like, what we think about them. We worked with the script a little bit in the basement. We would talk about scenes and play with the dialogue. It was very casual and very fluid and organic, getting to know not just each other but the material—together. I feel like you were getting to know it in a new way, in my reading of it. Things naturally evolved within the scenes for that reason.
A lot of your richest scenes are where you’re by yourself, on the phone, but there’s this whole world taking place in the room with you, or in scenes with Scoot McNairy, who plays your husband, Paul. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Gaby Hoffmann: It’s so nice to hear you say that because I really felt it when we were shooting. I kept saying to Mike, Viv and Paul, we have our own movie going on. There was so much there between us. We’d maybe shoot those in the morning, and then in the afternoon and evening, I was in the same house, and it was still there; the scene was still lingering, and because Scoot is such a phenomenal actor, I felt like our relationship was felt. Then with the phone call scenes, Joaquin was always on the phone, either in a van outside or if we were in different states.
So you were talking.
Gaby Hoffmann: We were always talking to each other. Those scenes didn’t feel like every other phone call scene I’ve ever shot where you are alone. They felt like real scenes, acting with a real actor.
Mike Mills: And we really recorded it through the phone.
It really shows.
Mike Mills: We shot in order: LA, New York, New Orleans, Detroit. So we did half of the phone call in LA, but then we’d have to go shoot it again in New York, the other side. Sometimes we would shift the dialogue a little bit when we got to that second call.
You’re going to be asked 1,000 times over the next few months where you found Woody, who is so incredible.
Mike Mills: And he’s from England! He’s British. It’s not like he lived in the states for a bit.
Gaby Hoffmann: Super British.
With him and Joaquin, there’s a sense for the viewer and I imagine for you, Mike, a constant sense of discovery in terms of how this dynamic is unfolding and how they’re connecting.
Mike Mills: That’s one way it felt like editing a documentary. The script starts with me and Hopper, it’s a slice of me and Hopper, pieces that are played with, and then you give the keys over to everyone and they get in the car and start driving. Joaquin and Woody, by the time they’re in New Orleans, they’re just in love with each other. When Woody plops his head on Joaquin’s stomach in bed, I didn’t say that. That’s just how comfortable Woody was. They were so together by that point. It became a movie not even about Johnny and Jesse, but about Joaquin and Woody.
Gaby Hoffmann: Totally. You were literally documenting their love story in sequential order.
Mike Mills: Joaquin really loved Woody and Woody is deliciously not playing by the rules or deferential to me or Joaquin. He’d joke, “I’m carrying the movie!” and that would make Joaquin laugh so hard. [Turns to Hoffman] I think you both, having worked as a kid actors, felt simpatico in that way. Joaquin a lot. He talked about that.
Can you talk about working with Joaquin more broadly? This is the kind of performance that I love from him, that you don’t get to see as often from him.
Mike Mills: It was the most fun I’ve ever had, because he’s so immersive. A lot of actors who are so established and know what they’re doing…. But we had such an immersive, intimate back-and-forth relationship. Maybe the most I’ve had like that.
Gaby Hoffmann: Because he trusts you so much, and he wanted to please you so much.
Mike Mills: That’s fucking crazy. Joaquin has a third-level warlock business going on all the time. You never quite know where you are with him, it’s always extremely funny, he’s big-hearted but tries to pretend like he’s not, maybe. He didn’t know if he really wanted to do it, and very smartly, he saw there was an opportunity to do something very different than what people think. Doing naturalistic acting drives him nuts a little but; he finds it specious at times. So I had to do a lot of like, this can work!
When he read the script, he did Johnny, and I had to act all of the other parts—with Joaquin Phoenix. I didn’t know him that well. I’m not an actor.
You must never have done that before.
Mike Mills: Not like that. We did it for months. The things that would stop him, that he’d go, Oh, that was good. He’d read it and then go err. I’d say, What, tell me, what is it? I had to work him to tell me why he was bumping on something. We did it all the time, in the mornings. He shows up to work two hours early because he’s afraid of being late. So we’d go and do it again. 90% of the time he was completely right, and it was super smart and interesting.
Can you give me an example?
Mike Mills: Like something expositional. He’d do this Colombo thing, sort of playing dumb, where he’s like, “Well if this happened and if that happened and this happened, would that happen?” It’s like, thank you for letting me discover that what I wrote was wrong. He doesn’t want to interfere with me, as a writer-director.
Gaby Hoffmann: But he’s so smart that when he has an instinct, he kind of can’t help it.
Mike Mills: There was a line of him doing the scene, then he stops. I knew something was happening. Like, what? He asks, How’d you do that line? The line was something like, Hey, how’s it going? He asked how you’d do that. What are you talking about? He said, Do it. Mills, do it. Mills, do it. And I said, Hey, how’s it going? and he said, Fuck, how do you do that? Light stuff like that. He can so smell when you’re trying to manipulate a scene, when something’s saying too much.
Gaby, you establish this rich sibling relationship with Joaquin, largely over the phone.
Gaby Hoffmann: Joaquin and I decided not to meet before shooting. So a lot of stuff was left to be discovered later…. And we had done a lot of our in-person scenes before the phone call scenes, so we had already established our relationship as two actors in the room together. It easily translated. And he’s not half-bad. [Laughs] We met face-to-face in that first scene where he shows up at the door. I had an instinct that there would be something there and we could discover it in the moment…. It really felt like we were two 15-year-old siblings. We got into a pretty obnoxious, teasing, nagging thing that was relentless, but so fun for me.
Mike, in his introduction at the premiere, Alexander Payne said this film marked a kind of leveling-up for you. Does it feel that way to you?
Mike Mills: He said that to me before and I said, “What do you mean?” That’s a very nice compliment coming from Alexander. I don’t see that. But sure! [Laughs] As long as it’s up and it’s not down, that’s cool. I’ll say being older I find helps as a director: I feel like I’m less smart and more intuitive, and that’s nice. I can feel shit in my sternum now, right away.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
C’Mon C’Mon continues to screen this weekend at the Telluride Film Festival. Following a New York premiere at the New York Film Festival next month, the film will hit theaters via A24 later this year. This feature is part of Awards Insider’s exclusive fall-festival coverage, featuring first looks and in-depth interviews with some of this coming season’s biggest contenders.
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