Brit Marling on How to Push Through Difficult Times

I don't want to be an actress as a, like, marionetted, puppeted doll baby in some other narrative, the same old narrative we've always been telling. I don't want Alien and Thelma and Louise to be the most provocative things when so much time has passed, you know, you want something else to keep pushing it forward.

Thank you for joining us on the Inbound Studio. Thank you everyone, for being here. This one's a little different. We're not actually streaming it, but we're gonna have a nice chat about storytelling.

Cool. One of my favorite subjects with Brit.

Marling, the creator and star of the oa. One of my favorite shows this year for sure.

That's lovely to hear. Thank you.

So let's actually start there. DOA was probably part of the reason I loved it so much personally, was I've never seen a story like that, a show like that. It was just such a unique story. Was that important to you to sort of produce a show and a story that isn't the typical, you know, plot line that's out there or subject matter that's out there?

Yeah, I think. I think part of what's really complicated about storytelling right now is that we're all consuming so much story. I mean, if you think about it, I was having a conversation with my grandfather and he was like, when I was growing up, you know, we went to the cinema every three months. You know, they were consuming a few big stories a year. Now it's like we go to the cinema maybe once a week, or we certainly watch movies on our laptops while we're also texting people and typing something and then binge watching. It's like you're consuming 8 hour, 12 hour stories a couple times a week. And so I think what's happened is the average audience member has an incredibly sophisticated sense of story. They know what's coming. They know all the things that screenwriters traditionally do. The tear that happens in the beginning and then the first plot point and then the midpoint failure. And all these things we can predict now. We almost feel them coming in our bodies. So part of what we felt when we wanted to make this show at Netflix is we asked them from the beginning. We were like, we don't want to do chapters that are of a set length. We want to tell a chapter and we want it to end when it feels right to end. And we want to do the credit sequence, 50 minutes in which when you're at a company like Netflix, they get really excited by something like that. But you're breaking a lot of the tradition. And I think that's actually important because it's the only way to sort of shock the audience into paying attention again. And I think that's when you manage to smuggle something across. You know, it's like if a story really has something to say, sometimes if it does it in a structure that's traditional, the viewer's not awake to it. But if you can have elements that kind of catch the viewer off guard and they're sort of on the back foot or they're leaning back in their chair, and then, you know, you manage to smuggle something across while the guard is down. Otherwise, at least for me, I've got my guard up, you know, I've got my arms crossed. I'm like, I know what's happening. What's this person gonna show me? And they have to kind of, you know, they have to shock me in some way before I'm really gonna listen.

Is television and movie creation, is that something you always wanted to do?

I didn't think. I mean, this is gonna sound strange, but when I was a kid, I didn't know. I mean, I thought movies were made in, like, a cloud factory. I didn't think real people had jobs putting together films. It felt like when you watched a film, you were in the cathedral of the cinema, and it felt like they must have come from the sky, you know, these magical creations with these characters that were larger than life. And no one in my family was an artist or had anything to do with the entertainment industry. So when I moved out to la, I was very much on my own and, like, just trying to figure it out. So it wasn't something I had thought about really until college. And then I started making short films with a group of friends in college. We all moved out to LA together and really kept making films there in the manner that we'd made them at Georgetown, which was just run and gun it, beg, borrowed, steal locations. And that was sort of our way in.

Have you always considered yourself a storyteller? Has that been a part of you?

You know, I wouldn't have thought so necessarily. And then recently, my mom was reminding me of this, of how I went away to summer camp, and apparently at night I started telling this series of ghost stories to the other girls in the bunks. And I made up this very elaborate thing about how the knots in the wood above were actually the eyes of ghosts. Apparently, I forgot about this until now. I got called down to the office, and they were like, your parents are here to Pick you up and take you home. Because so many kids have called their parents terrified of these stories and. And they're like, kick that girl out of the cabin.

So now we know where a little.

Of Ellie came from, I guess in one way or another. I have been telling stories for a while, but you don't think of yourself as a storyteller. Then you think you're just trying to entertain your bunk mates and then you get sent home. Hopefully I become a better storyteller in the interim.

You mentioned Netflix earlier and working at Netflix and the sort of opportunity that's there with the shows that you're creating. How difficult or not difficult or enjoying is it to create? You know, to be. To know that you have to create in a way that all parts of your story are coming out at one time. You know, they've sort of totally changed the model for television shows in that way. And it's a totally different way to consume that type of content. But it must. You have to think about that as you're putting together the whole piece.

Totally. I mean, we were really thinking about that a lot in the beginning, and we wanted to create something that was an eight hour film. So we had even asked Netflix, you know, is there a way that we can sort of go right from the ending right into the chapter card of the next one? And we were kind of part of helping them think about how that might work. So you could have a cohesive eight hour experience, but also stop at any moment and be like, I've done four chapters and now I want to put this book down. The thing I think I've realized, and what we're trying to do this year in the writers room is think about. I think we thought most people would do what I do with a novel at night, which is like, I pick up the book and like, I read chapter one and chapter two, and then I'm like, okay, I gotta go to work tomorrow. I'll put this down. It turned out that a lot of people were watching it.

That's what I did.

Yes, Watching it.

Started it at 9 and then didn't get off the couch until 7pm Because I couldn't help it.

That's amazing. That's amazing. And I think we didn't anticipate that. And I think now we would try to build into the design of the story more like sort of lulls to just let you breathe and calm down for a second before it like takes off again in a twist and turn. So I think we're all learning as the Medium evolves, like, how much story can an audience stand? You know, where do you need to take a break for them so that they can catch their breath, fix a snack, and not have to be so engaged in thinking all the time.

You mentioned the writers room and moving into the second season of the oa. And so, I mean, you know, for you, but for anyone creating a television show, how much are you? How much were you thinking about the prospect of a second season and what the continued story would be while developing the first season without knowing how it would take off?

We did a very insane and possibly stupid thing, which is we thought of everything from the get go. We really planned out the architecture, the labyrinth of a mystery that could go on for 40 plus hours. And we designed every turn in it, and we thought about the thing that's going to be in the center once you arrive at the very end. And we did all that up front before we even wrote the first script, the first chapter. And we wrote that script and then we pitched it around town. And I remember this moment where Zol and I were sitting there waiting to hear how these pitches has gone, and it suddenly occurred to us, oh, my God, what have we done? I mean, we've spent the last three years dreaming up this entire universe, hours and hours of storytelling, and if nobody buys this, it's like we've just walked on a limb and it broke. You know, I think sometimes you have to take risks like that. I think we felt like the long format space is a great place for a mind bender. But usually because of how television works, you know, you make this pilot and then you get greenlit for the whole thing. You can feel that the Mindbender hasn't been taken for a real test drive because people sort of like, set up a pilot and then they just sort of, like, write their way out of the holes, the various holes they're in, or they try to. We were really like, well, we want to solve everything up front. Which is, of course, it's a huge risk and you don't know you could be done after one season. But thankfully, a place like Netflix at least is being like, we're green lighting this first round. And so, you know, at least you're going to get to tell a full arc of the first part of the story. And then, thankfully, they decided to go for another season. Hopefully we'll get to the end that we intended.

I'm looking forward to it. You say we. So this process for you is collaborative. What does that look like? What is, you know, how do you. How do you bring in your own creativity and your own thoughts, but also work with others to get to the old, you know, to the final product?

Yeah, you know, I was really fortunate. In college I met two young, very talented filmmakers, Zalbat Manglage and Mike Cahill. And I really, at the time I was an economics major. I mean, I was planning to go work at a bank. I had like a very different life set for myself. We started making these tiny films together and we really liked doing it. And then Zahl got into film school out in the afi and later Mike and I had made this documentary and ended up out there. The thing that I think was really effective about our beginning is that we never thought we could do it alone. And we always had each other. And so we got to sort of make stuff in a really handmade way based on, you know, okay, we have the camera, we've got our laptops, we're going to put Final Cut Pro on the laptops and we're going to just make this stuff ourselves. And I think that let us sort of like leap out of, I think, the traditional thing of like, well, I'm going to go intern here, I'm going to go intern on this set and I'm going to be a PA and then I'm going to learn this. Or I'm going to go audition for these really bad horror, horror films or I'm gonna try to get a space on this car commercial. I think by being collaborative and working in a group, we got to sort of take the reins of our lives back from being sort of told, like, yes, you're okay, you can do this. Instead, we just made this stuff. And we made it because we loved working together. And I think if anything, that's the thing that I, when I talk to young people about making stuff, this culture's, you know, very about the individual. And I think that sometimes works against creating new beginnings. I think if you can find people who are like minded, passionate, want to try stuff that's different, you can carry each other through that very hard period of self doubt when everyone's telling you you've lost your mind and you should go get a real job, whatever that even is now, you know, this is a real job. This is a real job. These are real jobs. Yeah, but I think you need to have a community because it's tough. You know, I don't know what it was like for you, but there was a good stretch of like seven years in which everybody around me was being like, you've Lost your mind. You're a bright, talented person. You could do any number of these things, like, what are you doing? And in that moment, if you don't have other people around you who are also trying to do something out of the box, it'd be very hard to catch yourself. You know, it'd be very hard to keep believing if you didn't have a sort of community. I think, yeah.

What is it about storytelling, about creating? Like, what do you get out of that? What is that fulfilling for your, like, person? Because you said you were thinking about going into banking, economics. These are very, you know, different. Those completely different worlds. So what is it about what you're doing now that's ultimately fulfilling?

You know, I think about the job of being an actor as a kind of extreme emotional anthropology, which sounds sort of nuts, but it's basically like, how many strange situations can you put yourself in inside of one lifetime and really experience them deeply? And I have found that the more time I spend trying to become a better actor, the more open I am. The more I listen to people in real time instead of thinking, I know what they're gonna say. The more empathic I am, the more present. You know, they're all really good qualities. And I think I found that when I was in the world of banking, I didn't like the qualities I was taking on as much. And so for me, what I think storytelling does is it lets you live a great many lives in one. You know, even as a writer, I was writing on the plane right over here. I, like, sat on the plane. We're working on chapter seven right now. I, like, literally maybe went to the bathroom twice, but otherwise was just there pounding at the chapter. And it's like being in a completely different world. I mean, you don't notice that the plane is touching down. You don't even notice the food as it's going by. You're just sucked into this other space. And I think storytelling, whether it's acting, writing, composing, any version of it, I think is about living inside many worlds, inside one.

I believe I've read this about you, and it may even have been a part of your conversation with Issa. But you got into writing to be able to act in the roles that you wanted to act in and that you didn't see out there. So talk a little bit about that and, you know, the lack thereof of roles and why you felt the need to create your own, I think.

You know, it's funny to me. I watched the original Alien with Sigourney Weaver recently. And it blew my mind because I was like, wow, that is still a more provocative, balanced, complicated female role than most of what we see. Now there's this new version of feminism that's like, well, let's just take every male script and change the gender and put a girl in it. And that's supposed to be balanced. Yeah. Now we've checked the box of, like, this is balanced and we're showing women. And to me, it's more complicated than that. It's about how are we going to excavate what a female narrative actually looks like? I mean, we talk about this in the writers room all the time. The hero's journey is a very classic thing. You know, the hero's there, there's a call to adventure. He ignores the call to adventure, then he accepts it. He goes through a series of trials and tribulations, acquires something, and comes back to the real world with a new understanding. It's a very classic linear journey. Maybe the female journey doesn't look like that. Maybe it's not a straight line that ascends. Maybe it's more elliptical. Maybe it doesn't involve a rejection of the call to adventure. Who knows? But it feels like we're all trying to dig that out together in real time. And everyone's watching each other's work, you know, Like, I watch Issa Rae's work and I'm like, ah, that's a fresh take on what it means when your ex boyfriend comes to your apartment and you want him back and you don't know, you know, like, she's doing stuff inside those scenes that I've never seen before because I've never seen them written and performed from the perspective of a woman. So it's a really exciting time to be in because we're all digging it out together. Nobody really knows what it is, but I know that. I used to think I just wanted to write as a means to an end. In the end was acting. And now I don't think that anymore. Now I think the writing is the most critical part because the writing is how the writing is how you're giving the audience a potential map for what it might look like. And that's exciting. Like, I don't want to be an actress as a, like, marionetted, puppeted doll baby in some other narrative, the same old narrative we've always been telling. I don't want Alien, Thelma and Louise to be the most provocative things when so much time has passed. You know, you want. You want something else to keep Pushing it forward.

Where do you hope to see, like, what do you hope are the next steps in Hollywood, or I mean, really any industry? But since Hollywood is the one that you're in and movie making and filmmaking is the one that you're in, what do you hope the future holds for the industry rather than just your. Your own personal.

If I think about it, I think the thing that's really challenging inside the industry is that as some women manage to break through, how does it not become tokenism? Because that's a really dangerous way for the status quo to maintain itself. It's like, well, we let this girl speak. So now we've done our job and all is fair and equal. And the truth is, I mean, I just know this from trying to create a writer's room for part two is very complicated to make it balanced in terms of gender, because for all the pool of scripts you're being given to audition candidates, 70, 80% of them are male. And the women don't have as much experience. They haven't been offered jobs as often, so they're sometimes not in the same skill set. Then it's your job as a female show creator to be like, okay, I'm going to take this younger woman who hasn't had as much experience, that's going to be my job, to catch her up on that, to help her inside the room, to show her the ropes in order to make the room balanced. And I think that that's the place that we're inside of in almost any industry, which is how do we take it away from the token girl who makes us feel we've made progress and instead actually create a situation and a system of balance. And I think that really relies on the women who have been given a foot in the door to turn around and help other women in, which isn't usually what happens.

Oddly, unfortunately, I am really disappointed right now because we're out of time. Oh, that's fun. But this is so lovely. But I want to ask you one question before we leave. Now that you've been here and you've been on the main stage, you've been up here with us, you've seen a bit of the event. What does inbound mean to you?

It feels to me like a place of genuine, open discourse where there's an audience that's really excited and receptive and wants to hear new ideas and hopefully people come and bring some to the table. It feels like a really unusual tidal pool of energy. And I'm excited to have been a part of it this year. Every element has been wonderful, awesome.

We are so excited to have you and so thankful. Thank you for being here and thank you for doing this with us.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks.

Thank you, guys.