“It’s Not Just Three Characters in a Room”: ‘THR Presents’ Q&A With ‘Don’t Look Up’ Director Adam McKay and Editor Hank Corwin

Adam McKay’s latest feature film, Don’t Look Up, imagines how things might play out if scientists discovered a deadly asteroid hurtling toward Earth. For a THR Presents conversation powered by Vision Media, Scott Feinberg moderated a discussion between the Oscar-nominated director and his longtime editor Hank Corwin. 

Corwin and McKay have collaborated together on several films, including the Oscar-nominated Vice and The Big Short. “I had seen Hank’s work,” McKay said. “I wanted a specific style for The Big Short, that was this idea that we capture what it’s like to be alive now, where you’re with characters, but you’re also being hit with media. Right away, you look at Hank’s track record. I mean, he’s one of the most brilliant editors ever, with JFK and The Tree of Life and Natural Born Killers, and on and on. And I was like, ‘All right, here, this is our guy.’ Then Hank had the funniest moment where he’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me see if I want to work with you.’”

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Corwin responded: “When he hired me, I did tell him, ‘Look, I’m not a funny guy, I don’t cut comedy.’ He told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll cover that.’ What I’ve endeavored to do is just do the best kind of film editing that I knew, in the most honest [way], and the comedy just sort of followed. It became a matter of rhythms. And Adam and I are now so in sync, that I think I’ve graduated, I think I can cut comedy.’”

McKay made a name for himself as a comedic director with early classics like Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. But his more recents films, while still comedic, deal with more serious subject matter (and, consequently, his last three films have all secured best picture nominations.) “The central premise is that we’re in a new era, and we maybe don’t entirely realize it, including myself, and that things are scrambled and there’s such a firehose of BS hitting us every single waking second from so many different directions,” he explained of his shift in subject matter. “So what I loved about what Hank did instinctually with The Big Short — immediately he tried to capture that. He didn’t treat it like it was five main characters. You look at his work with JFK, and you look at Natural Born Killers, probably more than anything, and The Tree of Life. Hank gets that it’s not three characters in a room. There’s always a subconscious. There’s always a media blast, there’s always a message outside. And I had been looking for that for a long time, even going back to the movies I did with [Will] Ferrell, I was always trying to capture that sense of: it’s not just three characters in a room.”

While McKay’s films are meticulously scripted, improvisation is welcome on his sets. Corwin crafts his edit into what he thinks works best before McKay gives his feedback. “Adam is an integral part of the edit,” Corwin explained. “Initially, it’s a joke between us. I feel like Hank the Conqueror because I do these beautiful structures, and I don’t have a director lurking over my shoulder. And then lo and behold, there’s a director lurking over my shoulder.”

Don’t Look Up may differ from McKay’s previous recent work in terms of general subject matter, but its themes are, McKay argues, in ways largely the same. “The premise of all of this has always been: ‘This is not working,’” he said. “And that really started with the financial collapse. So it was both really surprising to see our script come this much to life in the middle of the COVID pandemic, and at the same time, like, of course, any challenge that hits our corrupted, distracted, careerist society is not going to go well. So it was both surprising, and at the same time, I think we were all like, ‘Of course.’”

The cast of the film is one of the most A-list ensembles ever assembled: Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, and Ariana Grande are just a few of the stars featured. “At a certain point, with Francine Maisler, our casting director, we had these big names,” McKay said. “We had Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry … And there’s that moment where you check in and you go ‘Is this too much?’ I’ll never forget, with Francine, she was like, ‘Let it all fly. This is a movie that is not meant to appeal to a niche. This is a big world movie.’”

Both McKay and Corwin gushed about working with these actors. Said the director: “Cate Blanchett just smoked it. And Tyler Perry just killed it. To me, the one that really knocked me over, because I knew she was great, I knew she was funny… but I had no idea that Meryl Streep could improvise the way she could.” Added Corwin, “Honestly, I really fell in love with Leo [DiCaprio]. You know, I’ve always seen him as a movie star. This is an awful thing to say — I never really saw him as a serious actor, although, of course he is. But his image was just so huge. And he inhabited the role.”  

What do the filmmakers hope people take away from watching the film? “I think the great news with this movie is we were able to make it,” said Corwin. “I think when things have gotten so grim, and they’ve gone past the point of no return, you don’t get to make a movie like this. They just had another IPCC report come out yesterday about the climate that was even worse than the one before, and the time frame is shrinking and shrinking.” 

This edition of THR Presents was brought to you by Netflix.