Q&A After SUPERMAN -Christopher Reeve Story at DOC NYC Film Fest

microphone here here we go so um floor is yours we bring up our special guests we'd like to introduce you again to Matthew and will Reed down welcome guys told you neor hug from afar awesome here's a mic we have a a little um microphone sharing we'll have to do um but uh welcome welcome guys um so um first of all I love interactivity I'm just going to ask a few questions at the beginning but then I would really like us to all have a conversation so I welcome your questions uh so just hang on to them for a minute while we we start off with a few questions that that I have um so my first question is for is for you Matthew and will so you know you um grew up with you know images of your father as a you know as a public Persona and of course then you have your own private knowledge of your father and I was wondering if you could start off by talking about the ways in which this film Bridges some of that gap for for you sure first off Jay thank you for having us here and thank you all for being here and staying for this part of it so we're not just talking to an empty empty room um as far as an answer to your question you just saw the way the world loved our dad and what he meant to the world and I think growing up for me I realized that I was generally aware of it and I'm certainly have certainly been aware of that for the past 20 years since he died because there are so many folks friends and strangers alike who always have nice things to say about what he meant to them and what he did for them or represented Etc so I always knew that was a part of who he was that was who he was when he was alive as part of his legacy now at home he was the guy who told me to eat my broccoli and go up and clean my room and do my homework and all those things he was very much just Dad but because he was so present and so much just Dad he was my hero for that reason because he was my father not because he was famous or because he was an actor or activist or author or whatever else it was my father who was doing the best he could to raise me and to raise us and there was a difference in the sense that anyone's going to be less guarded I suppose at home but the man you saw in public the man we saw in private the man you saw up here over the course of his life was consistently who he was and I think that was part of the magic of him yeah I mean just I think he in all of his I when he wasn't playing a fictional character in all of his sort of public appearances he was always genuinely him so you do got a sense of the true uh person um and uh you know I think these guys did a fantastic job of um capturing and encapsulating you know 52 years into a you know condensed hour 45 well told story that you know what you see is what it was and um pass up to you guys for thank you thank you so um Ian and Peter jumping off of that we how did you how did you approach that that balance of of you know you know giving us all our greatest hits so to speak of you know our memories of of Christopher re with with that that personal story but it's an awesome responsibility to take on but talk us through how how you struck that that balance in in the process of making the film and um discovering discovering your through life of the story well it was a I mean it was a it was a real journey for us because when we started out I mean we knew about really about your dad was exactly that the kind of the public Persona the actor on screen and um we kind of thought we were making a film very much that was going to be about uh a heroic figure in way a heroic individual um you know um from Superman to facing the huge adversity after the accident um but what happened is you know we met these three we met we met will Matt and Alexandre and um um and I think that sort of suddenly the penny began to drop with us that this was really a FM about something much much more Universal and much more personal and um and it was about family um and it was about love and you know way there a story of the family there two love stories in a sense both with your both of your ones um and that became you know when we when we started actually shooting the first things that the first shoots that we did were with the three of you because I think we had a very strong incident that that was going to be the background of the film anything add no I mean J quickly I just thought um we take always a bit of our time before choosing our next film it's actually it's almost four years since our next film came out previous film came out so I think you know when we started talking with some of the our colleague producers on the film about the story which is so there was so much there was so much emotional scale with the story in terms of um The Journey went through from you know being standing and being completely incapable of moving or even breathing on his own as a human and then the scale of being unknown actor to becoming one of the most famous fig figure in the world actually I'm sure there's not only um American citizen in here but you'd be go smacked how much tiny Villages all across the world still know Christopher reev more than any new famous American actors or or people so those those two challenge but as well those two amazing gifts for filmmaker of the scale of the carrier and the scale of the individual were amazing gifts for filmmakers because you you knew that you would have those emotional highs and lows uh if we talk technically thank you um so there's many moments in this film where I got very choked up um but I think um again you know watching the end and watching how you guys swung into activism working with the foundation can you talk about how about your memories of that of that time like you know jumping into the foundation making making it what it is today and uh how how that work continues sure so my sister and I I both joined the board shortly after Dana passed away will was 13 and um and and joined um later um and it was just sort of we didn't give it a second thought it was just a natural seeing this transition I mean the foundation been a part of our life since its um you know creation or since St since that and they got involved with it um and he talked about it so much we were so aware of its um you know activities and and its reach and how it was helping and where it was going we did not talk about it at the dinner table there was a family rule that um W attested that there was no talk of anything medical anything research related anything Foundation related at dinner but um before and after certainly um and you know it's just been a massive honor uh to be a part of it um we are by no means like the main part of it there's a lot of people who um work for the foundation day-to-day full-time a lot of other board members uh who were uh given generously both in time and uh financially to uh ensure its existence um and thousands tens of thousands of donors um and it's amazing to see the the the the results that we're getting the progress has been made and um you know but we're able to to carry it on and I would just add that to my recollection I was never told by my dad or my mom what I needed to be when I grew up or what I should pursue they I'm sure they cared I'm sure they had preferences one over the other like what field I went into um what passions I pursued but they never forced anything on us they wanted us to live our lives and explore our passions and interests and as long as we were adhering to the values that they were instilling in us as people I think they felt pretty confident that that was a great head start and wherever we decided to end up in our lives or whatever whatever we decided to try was a worthy Pursuit because we were doing it for the right reasons so in so far as being involved in the foundation as Matthew said it was natural that that's was a part of our lives and it was for a cause that had it that was directly related to our lives and we saw the power and the reach of the organization and knew that we had an opportunity there to be to to have a chance to actually carry on their legacy in a tangible way that help that helps so many people and just continues to magnify and expand and so they never said we had to or said said we couldn't do anything it was just follow your passions and one of them happens to be luckily for for the three grieve kids helping 100 people when we can that's amazing wonderful all right so what questions do you have for our group up here I saw your hand first so we'll go with you right there in the middle yeah and I'm going to you know we're going to repeat the questions here because uh we want have any here I met Chris when he was president of the creative coalition and two points of reference that I think should be thinking about is Chris was an expert on the environment happened acse you imagine how passionate would be right now the other thing was when I was coming down in the elevator to show how humble he was he said to a to us I'm tired of all these stargazers give me some real people want to work and I just wondering did he talk to you about the environment that he were growing up so the question is uh was a comment about Chris being involved with environmental causes and also wanting to connect with people who really wanted to to do that kind of work and the question was if he had talked to his sons about that absolutely um so his period with a creative Coalition and with other um environmental groups and uh Federal funding for the Arts and saving theaters um along Broadway that was more sort of my time um as a kid I remember you know sitting quietly or playing in my room listening to him on the phone uh trying to drum up support or planning an event or something but that was a he was a course he was very very passionate about and you know I think very early on after uh Superman was released and he had you know this level of Fame and attention he felt a very strong responsibity uh to use that platform uh for good and to bring attention to causes that he believed in and thought were worthy of attention so certainly I remember many many calls and faxes and meetings and you know sitting around having to do something else whilst he was busy doing that which is a wonderful thing and I think you're right you know had he not had the accient that certainly would have been something he would have been increasingly involved with um over time and uh as well as you know funding for the Nea and a whole host of of causes um so that's certainly part of it and that's interesting to hear that you met him and as for that humbleness that was always that always that was him being just thank you uh we're here go the stat anding first who is responsible for that uh statue who created it and um how did you decide that that's what you wanted that's how you wanted to approach right so can you just repeat repeat what she yes the question is really about the statues and who made them and where the idea came from um let let me start with where the idea came from because I think we always try and find something metaphorical to express the life of people that are in that are our subjects and um and we work with CG artists and Compu graphic imagery um we've done this now on three or three films um in different very in very different ways um and with this film there were a couple of things there was um this idea of outer space and Inner Space that Chris talked about you know that man has conquered the moon conquered outter space but Inner Space is still an unknown thing and he was very keen that medicine science addressed that and look inward rather than outward so that sort of that's part of the kind of D ideas of the universe and of nebula and you know and of actually how that mirrors um the internal anatomy um and cellular structure and fine and so on and so forth um and uh and then the idea of the statue no and I think we we always want to have a lot of our films have got very strong visual elements to it that's M Queen is about a very famous fashion designer which is so creative that it was really hard to create something better than what he had already done same with Superman the the imagery from the film itself and uh and The Nostalgia that people have for it we needed to use as much Archive of the film as possible though being very expensive let about the advantage of of us putting an imprint a vision imprint on the film it becomes our film it becomes our original story of Superman and we wanted to create a vision of Chris that could remind you of being Superman but at the same time Chris that could be seen in loads of different positions so we chose a position where if you look at him going down he looks he's falling and if you look at him going up if you actually swop the the the frame around or the statue around this and he looks like he's aiming at something or flying off so that's how we come and the idea of a statue we we had you statued on our previous film Rising Phoenix which was about celebrating some of the greatest athletes but which happen to live with a disability which connect very much to this film um which just felt sadly because of the accident one of the wor thing that happened to Chris is that he was trapped in his own body so he he had become a sculture and everything else about him become from his brain his speech and his eyes a lot of people tell us had those blue piercing eyes and you know even if he couldn't hug you you'll see you feel the womb and if he couldn't beat you up you'll feel the fear out of his eyes if he was angry with you so the statue became very very very easy and then obviously the what you mentioned is the cryptonite and we want it to I don't know if it's subtle or not subtle but I think it's not subtle at the end but I think it works is to use the cryptonite which was his Kryptonite in the last nine years of his life and it allowed us as well I think what we love with CGI many times in in documentaries if you don't do observational documentary and you're here with a camera and you can move around if you're a filmmaker and you do sit down interviews you very much on a 2d plan the great advantage and Matthew is very verse into uh into CGI is that you can move move into the Zed and you can move and travel and and and it allows to hopefully make documentary and non-fiction is such a spectacle that they deserve to beave with all of you around in terms of emotion but visually as well that you want to see it on the big screen so that's what we sneakily try to do it's not pretentiousness it's just how can we force force people to make us all sit in a room and that visually almost awaren the price of spending a lot of money on the ticket these days so I think it's all those elements that we try to same with the music but we can talk about thank you for that question now because it is a very beautiful glue that holds the the pieces of this film together so yeah wonderful question yeah we'll go with you right here I think it's a beautiful movie um I want to I was curious what convinced you you guys and your family that this team was the right team to help tell your family story and then I'm Al also curious about you guys and collaboration and co-directing like how do you guys chop up the responsibilities and what are your ten of collaboration great question it's a two-part question the first is for the the re Brothers about how they uh what was the the element that they just you know found the trust for for Ian and Peter to be there filmmakers and then the second part of the question is how do you co-direct and if you've seen the doc NYC Instagram Channel lately you'll know a little you'll get some some hints about that but anyway go take away one take improvised well done um stick behind the camera kid uh as you can see we have a very good relationship that we can tease each other but we as a family my brother and I and our sister had entertained the idea or of projects as maybe they they'd come along in the last 20 years never took it that seriously whether we wanted to do a documentary or whatever it might have been we never really got too deep into it because we each have our own busy fulfilling lives and we don't we're not like professional Offspring we aren't just here to exist as the children of Christopher ree we it's a huge part of who we are but it's not it doesn't Define us so we were just all living our own lives but with this year being 20 years since he passed in October um we felt if not now when and when Matthew was approached by an archist he can get into that part but we basically got an A cold email or cold call inbound saying hey do you guys have a bunch of home movies of your dad and the answer was yes we do and that started a ball rolling that led to us meeting the folks at passion pictures which are UK based and the Misfits entertainment which I still don't quite understand how they fit in and out whatever you guys can get into that but and then uh dear friend of mine Connor shell and his company words and pictures got involved here and it the team came together and it just felt like it was the perfect team the perfect time Peter and Ian came on and immediately articulated their Vision in a way that we knew that this was going to be made correctly and the way that we hoped that it would be but more importantly the way that we think our dad probably would have wanted it which is not not just a chronological retelling of a man's life and certainly not a geography um we wanted it to be unflinching and comprehensive and deeply human and that is the end result but we other than sitting for the interviews and passing off all of our home movies to to the filmmakers and then we just like took our hands off the steering wheel at that point and said go make the thing that you want to make and thankfully they did a good job because it would have been awkward if they didn't and then it felt only natural that once it was made and we brought it out to Sundance then Warner Brothers got involved and now that feels like a natural home because that was the home of the original Superman film so it feels like a full circle moment all within the family and from where I sit this could have gone a million different ways but we're thrilled that this was the way it went because we're very happy we Le it yeah it was certainly from after our first meeting with them and how they talked about the project and it was clear that they would treat it with the love and attention and respect that it deserved and then also i' say like we you know uh when we passion were sort of throwing out names for directors and and those came up I watched McQueen and I watched Rising Phoenix the series and they were both outstanding and I also really love the CG element that you asked about that um is used in that in both of those projects um not just the CJ itself but as a story telling device that does make it cinematic elevat and then of course they kind of nice guys too we got on and then how do we co-direct can I just say something one last thing about The Offspring professional you meet the three of them it's very impressive not only by the good looks and size but the smartness and the generosity and the humanity so you're filmmaker on you yeah yeah you know it's a long journey to make a film so you want they want to be with the right people we want to be with the right people otherwise you know we've all been on Project where wow doesn't feel right and I think the only thing I've learned in the last 250 years I've been making films and feels like that sometimes sorry um it's I don't I think there's many versions to make a film actually I think the greatest film there was one mm each side to be right or wrong and all the time people have made the right decision or fate have helped making the right decision or the right people have jumped into you know it's like you need the right money to make the right film with the right people about the right thing with the right team and you need the right home to show it to the right people to appreciate it to take it to the world and all those elements fell into place on this one and actually actually quite crazy how well it feel totally um as to how we co-direct how you got I the room but I mean you know we started out working together um I was Ian was more from a visual background and I was more from a I guess as screenwriting narrative background and um so we have kind of quite complimentary skill sets the obviously I mean set with the visual side Ian is Bri on on the narrative side so we cut a lot of crossover but basically we we started working together on the queen and um it was I think the toughest film that we'll ever made because no one wanted to talk to us no one wanted to give us a frame of archive and the whole thing was a struggle and I think we felt very much kind of alone in that you know um and backs against the wall and oh my God we going to deliver something what are we going to deliver um and I think that so you know in a way a friendship and a creative partnership was forged in in kind of the face of some adversity really and after that and getting something on the screen which which people seem to love um was you know got to do this again and hopefully next time it's not going to be quite so hard um and it wasn't so it's been a it's been a great sort of experience really and you know getting into the technicalities of how of how we co-direct um I mean we work with a wonderful editor of theam and we have a rule of three um so you know there's three of us and if two people like how something is or want it to be that way then the majority wins so it's very Democratic in the edit and then uh actually I should St in the interviews but it's actually very useful because when we take turns doing the interviews so you know it'll be these guys will test long um and we'll have S of like two two hour sessions or even more sometimes and we'll take turns um doing the interview and the person's doing the interview is almost like a I don't say an actor but you know you're trying to have a conversation that is very natural so that you are eliciting something that feels authentic and you know you're not putting uh the subject in the situation where they feel oh this is what I've going to say um and so one person is doing that and the other person is sitting behind the Monitor and we kind of have an idea because we write a road map um for for our films before we start on them have an idea of what we want in the film so if something is missed the director behind the monitor um can kind of like have a conversation with um say Matthew say me behind the with matth Will um and can kind of like cover what we might have missed so it's actually very extremely well I say that that's the long version the simple version he used to be my mentor was a really bad student and he decided to keep me in chance that way it's actually true look it's I believe we think films about stories but stories veal for emotions that's what we all here and that's why again being with more people you do feel and you all felt it on this film and we love that it's like music why do we go to concert and you see suddenly with one track everybody raise and all the emotion is there and I think Peter and I share a lot of emotional things together we've got a very strong sense of family we've got we've had certain amount of tragedies in our lives and stuff and we we just despite we slight age difference um anyone guess who's the only one no but in the different path to get there we we do share a lot of common values and I think we found a lot of those common values with those guys as well and then then it's just it's just you have we have massive EOS but you just leave them at the door because it's about the film you need to take care of the film the film is telling all of us a story and again I believe films obviously you you massage them and you search them and you try things and you go down wrong roads but in the end there's one right road and it just pops at you regularly and Oto is amazing and he's you know he's probably going to become a psychiatrist soon because he spends a lot of time you know with us but yeah it's it's been a really good process fantastic answer okay so I just got the signal we have time for one more question so yeah right there go ahead first off thank you all so much for sharing so much with your families we love your T-shirt for that you know in the last 20 years it's like superhero films have become a billion doll industry with like films and TV shows none of that really exists without the work that your father did especially without any type of CGI or FX or anything like that I'm just kind of curious to what you think your father would think of the the trory that's you know come from like dreams and superhero films like over the last years because it's basically his legacy you're you're the kind of audience member I like that that is a booming voice yeah I don't we don't need to repeat that yeah all right who wants to take that one well first off thank you for that thank you for coming in costume the rest of you I don't know U he's wearing a Superman shirt for those um it's I I think look our dad like had a lot of serious things in his life and he took life seriously he didn't take himself seriously and I don't he took the craft of acting seriously but I don't think he took the rest of the BS around it too seriously all of which is to say I think he would have gotten a kick out of all of this I think he would have been very proud of the fact that he was the centerpiece of a film that launched an entire genre and his performance as Superman and Clark Kent there was such a dichotomy there they are two different parts you can see him Matthew talks about it in the film about how he transforms he took it so he took that so seriously that he would have been very proud to say okay this film that I was the centerpiece of was the Genesis for an entire genre um I think that he would have enjoyed the proliferation of it all I I often wonder like had he still been around oh would he have popped up in any of these maybe maybe not he didn't want to be defined as super man so he probably would have been off doing different things but I do think he was very proud of the fact that his role defined the character and that the film defined the genre and laid the blueprint for um what we the proliferation we've seen as you mentioned over the past decades I mean for for it was his approach to any role he just wanted to do a good job and he did a fantastic job uh in that role in that film um so I think that alone would have given a great de SA action and then I think as well said you would have en enjoyed the ride watching other movies and and seeing how they they carry on and then also probably you know pointed out the fact that he spent 12 months dangling from a crane in a horness hanging by wires inste are standing in front of a green screen well will Matthew Ian and Peter thank you so much for helping us so thank you all for being here and um this a wonderful the comes out you know later this year thank you all have a great night thank you remember we're all going to go to bar for those who want to keep uh keep chatting with with our Fone makers