Richard Linklater Doesn’t Believe In Hit Men, but He Does Believe In Patience

You filmed Blue Moon this summer. What’s going on with this movie?

Since Hit Man, I’ve shot two films. One’s my French film, Nouvelle Vague, set in 1959, and then Blue Moon, set in ’43, in the New York world of musical theater. Two portraits of artists, I guess.

Blue Moon was something you’d been sitting with for a while as well.

Both of these are 10-year gestations.

That seems to be thematic for you.

Yeah, I’m not afraid to sit with something and just wait until the time is right. Some things have happened kind of quickly, but that’s not the way it rolls out. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have someone giving me money, like, “Oh, you finished the script? Here, go do it.” It’s like, No, you’re gonna think about this in 10 years and have to fight to make sure the time is right. But I don’t mind a long gestation period, because then by the time you’re actually shooting, you’ve really answered all those questions.

With Boyhood and now Merrily We Roll Along, where you’re actually doing the filming over many, many years—

In both of those, it wasn’t a 10-year thinking and starting. It was kind of starting, and then you’re kind of parceling out the thinking over the years. It’s a jump-in rather quickly at the beginning.

I actually wondered if, after Boyhood’s success, if other people would try to do something similar. If you’d have a few copycats out there. But I think you’re the only one who’s done it.

It’s such a weird ask. There’s reasons no one does that. It’s wildly impractical; there’s a lot of things that can go wrong. And then [for] filmmakers, who all are control freaks, it’s giving up a certain element of control to the unknown. You can’t control the future, so you have to be okay with collaborating with a big unknown partner, which I like. It doesn’t scare me, but it still doesn’t make much sense on paper.

Do you consider yourself a naturally patient person?

It’s a combo of energized and driven. I have a lot of stories I’m trying to tell. And the only reason I’m okay with 10 years of that is because I’m doing other things. But I think I am patient. I’m patient with actors. You know that thing, “they don’t suffer fools”? I do suffer fools. But I’m still persistent. To get in the ring with me is to work.

Are there any up-and-coming filmmakers you’re really excited about?

You show your age when you say, like, “up-and-coming,” and then you say someone that’s 47; they’re not 28. It’s like, “but compared to me.” [Laughs] I don’t pretend to have my ear to the ground in that way, but I am in contact [with some], just through the Austin film society. We help along films in our own way, with workshops and stuff. I’m constantly around young aspiring filmmakers, and I find that both inspiring and kind of a little sad to me too, unfortunately—just knowing that those opportunities that were there when I was their age, I’m not sure where those are now.