EP. 159 — Zoe Lister-Jones Returns

 

[00:10:00] Jameela Zoe Listerr Fuckin Jones. Welcome back to I Weigh. Hello.

[00:10:03] Zoe Thank you. Hi. It’s so good to be back.

[00:10:06] Jameela It’s so good to see you. Jesus Christ on a bicycle. You’ve had a hell of a week. Your. Your show has come out Slip. And it is something that you have written, you have directed and you have also starred in, which is a wild feat. A feat that I’m not sure a woman has yet been able to do, especially on this scale. And so there’s a lot of, I imagine, like a large sense of achievement, but also like a huge amount of pressure that maybe you weren’t aware of until just now.

[00:10:39] Zoe Thank you. Thank you so much, Jameela.

[00:10:42] Jameela How are you feeling? There’s a lot going on. It’s finally coming out into the world.

[00:10:46] Zoe It’s always such a wild experience to like birth of an art baby, you know, It’s terrifying and thrilling. And this one in particular is so deeply personal and and emotionally exposing, but also physically exposing. We were just talking about what you’ve called my milky bum.

[00:11:16] Jameela Yeah. Excellent. Excellent bum shots in this. We’ll get I do want to actually get into the nudity conversation because I’m fascinated. But. But Will, stay off the bum for a second.

[00:11:24] Zoe Okay. Yeah. I got to stay OTB.

[00:11:28] Jameela Yeah.

[00:11:30] Zoe First actor OTB, but second act climax. We’re going straight milky bottoms. I Yeah, I’m excited. I’m so excited to be sharing with the world. I mean, I think that’s the short answer is, you know, these things live in us as artists for so long. And then the development process and the production process and the post-production process. And so to be here now, culminating all of those difficult and challenging and expansive processes into this moment is moving. I would say it’s it’s moving and exciting and terrifying.

[00:12:07] Jameela Yeah, I think that’s really fair. I, I would love for you to explain what Slip is about.

[00:12:15] Zoe Slip is about a woman who is feeling restless inside her marriage and one night ends up cheating on her husband and wakes up the next morning to realize that she’s now married to the man that she cheated on her husband with. And over the course of the season, she learns that through orgasm, she’s being transported into a multiverse and is basically fucking her way into all of her parallel lives and relationships.

[00:12:48] Jameela How the fuck did you come up with this idea? It’s such an amazing concept. The ending of the pilot is just extraordinary. Like I. How? What’s wrong with you? Why did you come up with this.

[00:13:03] Zoe Well, it’s based on a true story.

[00:13:06] Jameela Yeah.

[00:13:08] Zoe My. My pussy is a portal and.

[00:13:11] Jameela A wormhole I think you and I.

[00:13:12] Zoe Our pussy is a wormhole. Yeah.

[00:13:15] Jameela That’s quite the stuff.

[00:13:18] Zoe I Well, I had conceived of this show pre-pandemic. My ex and I were in and out of an open marriage. And I think part in part the birth of the show was me navigating the idea of multiple partners and how we. How we reconcile fantasy when we’re in relationship and what we do with that?

[00:13:43] Jameela Wait expand on that? Expand on that as in like the way that we imagine an alternative. Like I, I don’t know if I’m on the right track, but by God, am I going to try that like I call it the gig complex, right? The grass is greener, complex. And and we we always fantasize about how much better an alternative situation could be.

[00:14:08] Zoe Yes it’s exactly that it’s exactly the gig complex. It’s like and I think I think regardless of whether you’re in a relationship or not, we’re always gigging, you know, like. I think especially in our culture today. It’s so it’s nearly impossible to remain grateful in the present moment. You know, like there’s it’s always like, what’s next? How do I elevate? How do I level up? Is there something better? Is there a way to achieve ultimate happiness in a way that I’m not achieving it now, which I think is sort of this trap that then never allows us to actually be happy? But yeah.

[00:14:53] Jameela But also where we are, I guess, like increasingly encouraged with every generation. And I and I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing because God knows it’s gotten me out of some really toxic relationships in the past. But we are more encouraged now than ever to look at always the outside as the problem before ourselves. And to think it’s not that I have to do work on me, it’s only that the situation or the job or the lover has to go. And not to say that two things can’t be true at the same time, but I think that the reason that some some of my friends or myself even have ended up in like repeated patterns with a certain type of person is because we’ve changed the situation, but not whatever it was inside of us that contributed to us ending up in that situation. That’s not victim blaming at all. I just mean it’s a little bit of like protective accountability.

[00:15:45] Zoe I love that. Yes. My first instinct was to say the problem was never me. That’s just personally.

[00:15:55] Jameela You know what? I am your friend and I agree wholeheartedly as your die hard protector. I don’t think it could ever possibly be you.

[00:16:03] Zoe Thank you so much.

[00:16:04] Jameela But I don’t want to enable this.

[00:16:05] Zoe Thank you so much, Jameela. No, I think you’re absolutely right. And I think that those patterns are so difficult to take accountability for and and to really see what energy you’re putting out into the world to potentially attract back something that isn’t that isn’t allowing you to grow or elevate.

[00:16:31] Jameela Yeah. And I feel like the opening kind of relationship of the show, the one that you’re talking about, the one with the husband, I don’t want to give too much away, but like, essentially the couple has, like sort of you’re still close and you still like each other, but the sex has gone, the spontaneity is gone. The passions kind of fizzled somewhat. And I think that a lot of people can probably relate to that in any kind of long term scenario. And and unfortunately, it just does require significant effort in order to keep that spark alive.

[00:17:01] Zoe Yeah. Yeah.

[00:17:03] Jameela And sometimes you’ve just grown outgrown each other, and sometimes it’s important to never, like, treat this as anything other than a case by case basis. But I do think that the pandemic probably really exposed a lot of people, you know, as to what their relationship is really like, the situation they’re in, and how the fuck did they get there. And a lot of people broke up, but some people found like a renewed sense of love for one another via realizing, okay, we need to we need to work a little bit harder because this can’t be the area of my life in which just because I feel safe, I then don’t do anything to cultivate it.

[00:17:35] Zoe Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think. It was important for me. While it is a comedy, I am like poking fun at the malaise of this relationship in the first episode. I also wanted it to be a relationship that totally worked. You know what I mean? That it wasn’t so black and white that it was a a loving and sort of sweet

[00:17:59] Jameela It’s a partnership.

[00:17:59] Zoe It’s a partnership. Yeah. That that that wasn’t so clear needed escaping and that it wasn’t so clear that it was anyone’s fault. Right. It’s like what you were saying. That is just maybe two people who are both feeling restless and don’t know what to do to shift that both individually and together. And I think the pandemic did put those questions into such hyperfocus. And I think they put like. I think the pandemic put nostalgia into such hyper focus for me especially, and that was when I wrote all seven episodes of this series in the pandemic in quarantine, sort of early in quarantine. And it was that moment that I think then, you know, launched a thousand break ups. But but that moment.

[00:18:54] Jameela Launched a thousand divorce careers, divorce lawyers’ careers.

[00:19:02] Zoe Yeah. I mean and also and also, like you said, alternatively it made people really commit. You know, I think it did one thing or the other in quarantine. But this idea of like the what ifs that were plaguing us, that suddenly we were forced to really sit with and go, wait there were all these paths that I didn’t take in my life. And what would my life look like now if I had taken them? And those questions have always fascinated me. And I wanted to create a narrative where I could explore those what ifs and and explore like. The moments where you have some sort of cosmic connection with someone that is fleeting and that you don’t pursue. And what would happen if you got to flash forward and see what the pursuit of that person would look like, which is essentially what happens in the show.

[00:19:57] Jameela Yeah, I think I’ve spoken about this before on the podcast, but, you know, my my boyfriend and I, you know, like used to speak about this, especially at the beginning of our relationship, because neither of us wanted to be in a relationship when we first met each other, we just couldn’t stay away from one another. Ick. Sorry, but, but we also had like, curiosities about other people. And it was about like he told me that like his way of handling that and the temptation and the fact that we’re in an industry where we are surrounded by a lot of very attractive people who seem to be more frequently in a sexy mood than any other industry I’ve ever worked in, is to like, make sure to get to the end of the rainbow of the fantasy, right? So it’s like you see them, you just see them and you project onto that person. Maybe you’ve had like a minor, witty exchange. You’re like, I think they’re hilarious, actually. Like, they dress like they kind of have the same taste to me. And like, I bet they love Radiohead. I bet like. I bet they like their friends are really cool and you know that they’d probably really get on with like we project so much unthinkingly and like with such like optimism and hope like onto strangers and and he tries to like he, he would like push past that initial fantasy and then be like but the chances are their friends probably aren’t going to have that much in common with me. And the sex will eventually fizzle out and become a little bit less dirty with in time. And then so and then there’ll be all kinds of problems. And I might not like their family, they might not like mine. And then he just kind of gets the very end of the thing. Just being like everything inevitably takes an immense amount of work and, and, and it’s almost impossible to maintain that early electricity. And nobody is as they seem, including ourselves. We are not the person that we are in the beginning of a relationship. You know, we try to reinvent ourselves every time. And I think that was a the reinvention of you kind of throughout the show is something that’s really cool. It I would love to be able to have a wormhole pussy, just to like it’s a. It feels like this show is like an homage to Quantum Leap. It’s a homage to Sliding Doors. That I that, that has haunted me for the rest of my life. Anyone in this generation who hasn’t seen that film, it’s yeah, it’s an early Gwyneth movie in which we get to see two versions of her life based on whether or not she made this train right. This train journey was going to determine the outcome of her life. And so they show the version of if she didn’t catch the train and if she did catch the train. And we get to what both lifestyles lived in a parallel and it has that sliding doors element of that has haunted our entire generation about like every time I miss a lift, like an elevator or I miss a bus or any small minutae like any minor moment happens. And I’m like, I could have been everything could have been completely. I would have. What if I’d won the Nobel Prize? Like what if I never something shit that would have happened. It’s always like something absolutely amazing.

[00:23:04] Zoe I know. And that is, I feel like that did happen in in quarantine, especially like those moments, because we were like, you know, we were so trapped with ourselves and or with our partners or with whoever, you know, we were living with at the time that like I was zooming people, like from elementary school, you know, just being like. And whatever happened to. Mrs. Singer. You know, like that there was this idea of, like, our pasts as being suddenly much more open for deconstruction and discovery. I think in some ways, for better or for worse. And I think looking at those moments of like the missed bus or the missed connection or whatever those things were as these markers of maybe worlds not lived or happiness not achieved. But that movie in particular really did. I’m now I’m going to like Gwyneth trial Like what. What Sliding door led Gwyneth to ski trial.

[00:24:14] Jameela To Gwynism which is one of the great headlines of our time. But it is I wonder if making this show made you more contemplative even about about alternative like have you thought about what your alternative lives could or would have been.

[00:24:34] Zoe Well, I mean, I have I definitely have. I think the show. I think writing the show was a way for me to process those fantasies about what what other lives I had been thinking about or wondering about or questioning. And I think post divorce, I did then sort of get to explore some of those fantasies.

[00:25:06] Jameela And experience the reality of that fantasy.

[00:25:07] Zoe Experience the reality of that fantasy. Yeah. Which I think is so, like you said, enlightening and.

[00:25:14] Jameela But you have the archetypes in there, don’t you? You have like the glamorous rock star figure that you get to date. And the reality of what that exactly that’s going to be. The fact that your character has has always been queer, but has never felt brave enough to or ready perhaps to explore that and then gets to explore that within this show. Like there’s so many different types of things that I think so many people can relate to. And we’re coming to an age at which I think a lot of those thoughts are starting to come up for so many people of like, shit, should I have just seized the moment and what would that be like? And I think the I think that’s also like a very powerful messaging about just about the need for exploration. And we don’t we don’t see a lot of women’s exploration in, in art and nowhere, nowhere near enough. And when we do, it’s treated as like so anarchist and shocking and it can be like belittled and demeaned. And I feel like you have you’ve handled it in a very artful way that almost like the surreal element takes away any possibility for anyone to look at it as seedy, which is how we tend to treat women’s sexuality. This feels like a it feels like a strong like not and I think also like the way it shot and how how beautiful it is. Like you’ve done a fucking amazing job, you and the cinematographer here. But.

[00:26:34] Zoe Thank you.

[00:26:34] Jameela But, but can you talk to me about the, the, the goal to portray women’s sexuality in a certain way?

[00:26:42] Zoe Yeah. I mean, I wanted to create a show that was unapologetically exploring women’s sexual pleasure. My mom, I was raised by a real second wave feminist, and I think I was raised to look at the media through a feminist lens. And my mom was constantly whatever we would watch. She was sort of constantly dissecting and. And looking at the ways, even like, billboards we’d like. She was really obsessed with, like, posters for films in which or even albums like, in which women’s heads were cut off. It was just a body. Like, we were just if we were an object of sexual desire, we were just a body. And the idea of a woman protagonist who could be sexual and sexualized and and also not just a body was really important to me. And to push the boundaries of what the exploration of that pleasure could look like on screen. I wanted the sex scenes because I wanted the sex scenes to be a the centerpiece of every episode, because that is her means of transportation.

[00:28:11] Jameela And there I was slumming it in Ubers.

[00:28:15] Zoe But also I wanted to, like, live in the sex scenes for longer than, well, we generally do, on screen.

[00:28:22] Jameela Because normally it’s just like this heteronormative man just goes [blows] And then woman comes very fast and then it’s over. But this was like these were sustained orgasms. Like it was very explicit and, and realistic, which like, almost like at first made me feel shy because I haven’t seen that. Like, you just don’t get to see that ever. But I was so appreciative of the fact that that’s there, that’s out there, and it shows the female orgasm is something that’s so beautiful and like something that more people like I hope it’s not only women who will watch this show, like I hope all genders watch this show and and and see the beauty of that, to see the intimacy. And and and I really applaud you for putting yourself out there in such a like, such a cool way. I don’t want to say I hate the word brave. I think it’s become used so annoyingly. But like but but, you know, you’re directing yourself, right? You are you are having to run back and forth between a fucking like monitor and then go and have that explicit orgasm or do that sex scene or show cunnilingus like in a in a more explicit way than we normally get to see in film. And you there’s nudity in the show. And I love the fact that you at the helm of that nudity. That you are choosing exactly what part of your body will be shown, how it will be shown. And it’s shown in very sexual and both mundane ways, which is also like very important. But but was that was that tricky for you emotionally?

[00:29:59] Zoe I mean, yes, but I think that.

[00:30:04] Jameela It might not be, in which case fabulous. I was just curious because like it’s it’s like a it’s it’s a weird thing of like do I’d like to I think a lot of young people, especially within feminism are like is showing the body feminist is not showing the body feminist. And I don’t I think it’s really just like up to the person.

[00:30:21] Zoe Yeah it’s interesting. I mean it sort of all goes back to my mom, but like.

[00:30:27] Jameela Who is great. Who I just had dinner with a week ago.

[00:30:32] Zoe But like I remember Madonna being such a figure of contention in my childhood in between my mom and I. And it sort of she sort of was an early example of the conflict between second and third wave feminists in terms of sex positivity, you know, like what’s the line where, where a woman being hypersexual is exploitative and and when is it expansive? And obviously we’ve come a long way from the eighties and those discussions and I’m grateful for for where we are now. But I think for me there was something scary about saying well I, I want to make something that is hypersexual, you know, and that where I put my own body on the line and make my body both subject and object in some ways, you know, and what does that feel like for me as a creator and as an actor? But it was ultimately so empowering, for lack of a better word, to be in complete control of of the portrayal of my sexuality on screen and to know exactly how each of those sex scenes would be shot. And that was the most like that was most of the discussion between me and my cinematographer, Daniel Grant, because each sex scene I wanted to be a set piece and to be individuated from the previous one cinematically in terms of the visual language. And and I also wanted them to feel really sexy, you know, like, I want I want the show to turn people on. I felt that that was what I was craving. You know, I usually make the things that I want to watch and and I wanted to watch things that were erotic, that were also complex and about the nature of relationships.

[00:32:38] Jameela I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this in the podcast and if not, we’ll just cut it out. But one of my friends is in this playing, one of your lovers. And during one of the sex scenes in which she’s having to go down on you, you are having to direct him whilst like being engaged in the sex scene and you gave him the note be more generous. Which I loved so much.because again, that’s just nothing you ever hear of. And so much of the focus is on your character’s pleasure and your character’s new experience. So revolutionary. But he told me that after being like sort of like she was. She just like having to direct me guiding me to be more generous, which is maybe like, really reconsider, like, my own sex life. It was great.

[00:33:33] Zoe It was amazing. [inaudible] Patel, plays one of my partners and he is brilliant. And literally, I’ve never had more people tell me how hot, like just from the trailer people are like, So who is that? He’s the hottest person I’ve ever seen. I think directing from within scenes in general is one of my favorite things to do because it is so immediate and.

[00:34:27] Jameela But also able to execute the exact thing that you want, which a director and an actor very rarely get the the fulfillment of.

[00:34:37] Zoe Yeah, and there’s always this one like or multiple levels of distance between director and actor. That director is at a monitor that is usually not on the set. They have to run in and give a note. And this way I’m like, in this tornado of energy, both as actor and director that I get to navigate and and play with. And so that’s always thrilling. But then to do it naked in a sex scene over and over again was a totally new skill set and one that was. Wild. It was terrifying. I mean, it was terrifying. It was terrifying to so many days out of we shot the whole series over 36 days. And many of those days I had to be naked.

[00:35:28] Jameela Oh my what? You shot that entire series in 36 days?

[00:35:32] Zoe Yeah.

[00:35:33] Jameela Okay, let’s get into the directing of it all. Let’s. Let’s let’s we’ve. I can’t believe what you have done. It is such a wild feat of work. And in no way do I want to be off putting to any young, especially women filmmakers out there. But. But can you explain to me what the fuck one’s mind feels like when you are spinning that many plates at the same time? Because I directed like one one and a half videos for James music video and you have to do they’re 4 minutes long. And I wanted to like fuckin throw myself off my balcony. The edit alone almost took me out. What is it? What is it like?

[00:36:18] Zoe Well, I think I wanted to direct every episode, which is not conventional in television, usually have multiple directors over the course of the season. But I wanted to do that because of what we’ve been talking about. I wanted to be really at the helm of of how this story was being told from soup to nuts, because I felt it was too delicate in some ways to do it any other way. Also, production wise, like we we didn’t have a lot of money to make it. And so it was also a pragmatic choice for me to to direct every episode. It’s a it’s a enormous amount of work, but one that I do think and I don’t think this is this is discouraging. I think it is encouraging to women filmmakers that you can do it all, baby. No, but like that, that directing and writing and acting and any other combination of those three things, if you’re not doing all three of them, is a really amazing holistic conversation to be at the center of. Like all of those hats are in dialog in like a very organic way. And when I write, I am writing also as an actor. Like for myself, I’m I’m writing dialog as an actor, I’m writing action lines as a director. I’m picturing every minutia of every beat so that when I get to shot listing, it’s all already in my head, you know? Whereas if I was directing someone else’s script, it would be there’d be one more step that I’d have to do.

[00:38:08] Jameela It’s also a rarity that a woman can execute anything with no compromise.

[00:38:14] Zoe Yeah.

[00:38:14] Jameela And I think that’s really really cool.

[00:38:19] Zoe It’s really cool. I’m so grateful and I’m really grateful to Roku because that is never the case.

[00:38:29] Jameela In any endeavor.

[00:38:30] Zoe In any endeavor. And I handed Roku all seven scripts and they gave me a green light to shoot them without one note. And so I got to make the exact show that I wanted to. And as you said, that is such a rarity. And and, and from start to finish in post too, they just they gave me so much artistic freedom. And for that I’m just so grateful. It was really the most fulfilling artistic experience of my life.

[00:39:04] Jameela Over the course of your career, because you’ve been doing this a while now, I imagine you’ve seen what it is that you’ve not enjoyed people do on a set. I, I always like learning what, and you’re not a new filmmaker by any means, but like doing this much independently is is this is your first time taking all of these things on. Is that in your mind? It was very much so in my mind and I was directing James was like, What’s everything I hate about the set and I’m not going to do it.

[00:39:34] Zoe Yeah, well, as actors, you know, it’s I think we learn a lot, especially working on television, because on television we get a lot of directors coming in and out. And so you really it’s like boot camp to see like what works and what doesn’t in the way that a director communicates direction to an actor. So I definitely learned a lot about that as an actor, especially in television. I feel like directors who trust their actors are always going to get better performances. Directors who come in nervous and want to give a direction before they’ve even heard you rehearse the scene or want to sort of try and manage or micromanage what the performance is going to look like without giving it room to breathe over a couple of takes, like I think immediately elicits mistrust. And that’s very hard to rebuild. I think between director and actor, it’s such a delicate relationship. So that’s something that I am always really aware of. But also on a set like in any workspace, energy is so contagious and energy is learned from the top down. And I’m always just so excited to like work in community. Like it’s so cool to hire smart, interesting, cool people and then let their visions also soar like that it’s all obviously in service of one vision, but there’s so many visions at play and it’s yeah, such a cool when it’s done well, it’s like such a cool social experiment.

[00:41:17] Jameela Yeah.

[00:41:19] Zoe So that’s I like to, as best I can, foster an environment where that can be happening, where everyone feels like it’s their

[00:41:29] Jameela Empowered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are a lot of people who spoke who spoke out about your set afterwards, but in a lovely way. Really in a lovely way. Like it was. It was, it was so cool to see so many people talk about the fact that it was one of the friendliest, one of the most fun, one of the most creative sets that they’d worked on. I sometimes feel like loathe to talk to women about being a woman director, but at the same time, I think it is vital to not shut that conversation down entirely because we’re all kind of entering these more kind of, uh, these positions of more power. And it is interesting to talk about it, but in those moments in which especially when you’re on a small budget and you only have 36 days and you have to get every one of those shots because you can’t afford to go over and sometimes things do go wrong or sometimes you feel impatient. But you also have this from what I know of you like this desire to not allow that to bleed out onto not just your actors, but the people who are working really fucking hard on your set. What do you do with that? How do you. Is it okay for me to ask? It’s a personal question, but.

[00:42:42] Zoe Like with the anxiety, like.

[00:42:43] Jameela The anxiety or the frustration and and and I would ask a man this just as much as a woman, because I think our culture of filmmaking has changed. Apart from some total pricks who still somehow have jobs sexualizing teenagers on camera. Anyway. But I yeah I, I would love to I would love to know what your kind of process of of how you still are able to deliver the information as calmly and kindly as possible when you’re still a human being who still under a lot of pressure and stressed. Is it meds? For me it’s meds.

[00:43:17] Zoe It’s pills. I think it just requires a a huge amount of preparation so that. I try not to be a person who is preparing for the worst in my life, but in work I think you do have to prepare for the worst so that anything that comes your way, you sort of plan have a plan B, because in making films and television, everything is going to go wrong. There’s just no other way around it. And I think it’s also I am pretty vigilant in my interviewing process around the people just getting a read on people’s energy because as I said, it’s so contagious that and you are working in such close quarters and it’s so intimate and the stakes are so high and there’s money on the line. And and if you don’t have people around you who also aren’t going to lose their cool and also aren’t going to freak the fuck out when something goes wrong, the whole like Jenga can crumble, you know. But part of being a director is, in addition to all of the artistic responsibilities, is administrative, but also like being and caring for people’s feelings and egos. And it’s a pretty it’s an ecosystem that is precarious, you know? And so I think to be the best director I can be, I’m also. Always trying to navigate. Yeah. How people are feeling without it being draining. You know, which is also in my life.

[00:45:09] Jameela That’s what I’m getting at. But that but that’s what I’m getting at, right? Is that that balance, like, I get a lot of people who ask me about how I am a leader in my own company or I’m a leader in like not many capacities let’s be honest. I like to normally be a follower. I like to be a follower I like less responsibility. But but they ask me how I you know, how I walk that line. Because I also think that we need to be careful as women to not overburden ourselves, like with everyone else’s, like problems needs, Like it’s very difficult to execute an artistic vision under pressure whilst like treading on eggshells. So I guess I’m curious just about the process, if there is one, because I mean, you are one of the more saintly people that I know. But also I was just remembering when we were talking earlier, I was like, Oh God, I really kind of like properly met you for the first like properly met you for the first time on this podcast.

[00:46:01] Zoe On I Weigh.

[00:46:01] Jameela And we said we’d become friends, and we did. And that’s really cute anyway.

[00:46:05] Zoe I know. Thank you I Weigh for thank you for bringing.

[00:46:10] Jameela But how do you like find that line of being, like, authoritative, which you need to be in order to lead? And I know this sounds like such a simplistic question, but it’s almost been so hyper simplified that then we actually don’t give people the tools to really consider how to do that because we are humans. We do have our own like issues. We have also had sleepless nights or we’re going through personal fucking trauma on the side of the set. What like where do you draw that line between being authoritative versus authoritarian?

[00:46:41] Zoe I like to run a fascistic set, you know.

[00:46:43] Jameela Good, good, good.

[00:46:44] Zoe I like it to feel like a dictatorship. I think it’s a great question. And I think. You know, without making it too gendered. I do think it’s an important conversation to have because there is a double standard in which I think women who are not hyper focused on the feelings of the people around them can be judged more.

[00:47:15] Jameela More brutally. Like I just went through this. I worked with a with a woman who was directing and she didn’t, you know, she she wasn’t careful about everyone’s feelings. She was just like, go, go, go, go, go. Because we had a lot to do. We had a lot to execute. But she was definitely not as or more problematic than any men I’ve ever worked with, but she just had no frills. And I think there’s like this kind of extra jarring feeling of like God she’s a bit fucking blunt in a way that we would expect naturally from a man. And maybe we shouldn’t expect that from a man, but she was torn to fucking pieces.

[00:47:50] Zoe Yeah.

[00:47:51] Jameela During and afterwards, in a way that I felt was like slightly like when I, when I stepped back and looked at it, I was like that was a little bit disproportionate because I’ve worked with with true. She wasn’t doing something that was like targeting anyone or anything like that. She just had no frills or bows. You know, in a way that was definitely like, Oh fucking hell that was abrupt. But, also getting the job done and she didn’t have time. So that’s, that’s why I kind of ask is like, how the fuck do you find that balance between being someone who then I don’t know and I don’t mean a pushover, but I just mean like overburdened, like a donkey carrying everyone’s, you know baggage.

[00:48:31] Zoe Yeah, I think I I’m learning how to do that less in my life. But interestingly, in my work. There’s a I think it just it starts really at the beginning of of pre-production. I think building those relationships with the people that you’re working with from the jump in which there is trust and intimacy and

[00:49:00] Jameela Mutual respect.

[00:49:00] Zoe And mutual respect, like I think that if people feel. If you’re if people in the crew feel heard, respected, a part of the conversation, an active part of the conversation. And that’s not to say that. Also, you’re like everyone gets to see their ideas because that would be, you know, crazy if you allowed for that. But but I think if everyone does feel that their voice really matters, which it does, that you tend to avoid a lot of those issues more organically. There’s less triage to be done when you’re in the thick of it. And it’s interesting, I was out with a couple of my crew members sort of like a month ago, and we wrapped many, many months ago. So they were we were looking back at the the time we spent together and they were like, it’s so crazy. It was so amazing how you knew everyone’s name on set. And I was like, What do you mean, like, I didn’t? That seems like such a low bar.

[00:50:06] Jameela Yeah the bar is in hell.

[00:50:09] Zoe Yeah. And they were like, Well, it’s just very few directors know everyone’s name and. I just was like shocked that that was that. That was the bar that just to know a name would feel like. That that rare or that or that encouraging or that nourishing. I totally get it because there is a sense there are so many people on a set and yeah, and there’s a sense of invisibility of the labor force, I think. And there’s this distinction between what you call above the line and below the line, like the, the cinematographer and the production designer and the costume designer are all above the line.

[00:50:47] Jameela Wack the word assistant on anything. And below the line.

[00:50:51] Zoe Right. Or the camera crew is below the line, you know, on all these people who are just busting their asses day in and day out, who can feel invisible or a lack of importance. And and so I think that is a big part of it is is creating a sense of equity and community while still. When you do that, I think you you elicit trust in your crew where they are not questioning your authority because they feel safe. And then you get to have a really nice set that doesn’t require yelling.

[00:51:35] Jameela Or that’s part of the problem with a lot of sets having so many different directors is that everyone’s anxious because nobody knows each other. So it’s just this kind of like I hated it with The Good Place. It was kind of exciting that I got to meet so many different people. But some of those people, the majority of them were like nice and whatever. But like not everyone treated everyone very well. They treated us well because we’re the actors. But

[00:51:54] Zoe Of course.

[00:51:54] Jameela I have such like such intense disgust. If anyone doesn’t treat everyone the same.

[00:52:00] Zoe I know.

[00:52:00] Jameela I just I find it like it’s so it’s so appalling to me. Like it says it’s an it’s a terminal ick I have towards that because it’s terminal it’s ending only in death. And I and and there is this like insecurity in both of them as to how they’re being perceived. And the people who don’t know if they’re going to like what they’re doing or how they work. And so therefore, while it is an insane workload, there is the that continuity that you had on set, I believe carried over into filming.

[00:52:33] Zoe Yeah, for sure. I think also insecurities, an interesting thing to look at like as a leader because I think if you we’ve talked about quiet confidence, you and I, but I think that both crews and actors but I think across any industry, if you’re if you’re in a position of leadership, people can smell insecurity on you. But there’s no way to not be insecure. There’s no leader that’s like I know every answer to every question. And I think especially as women, there’s so much pressure to be perfect and to and to do it all right and to get every answer right. And I think I went in I mean, on Band-Aid, which was my directorial debut, it was a film I hired a crew made up of entirely women. And I think I did that in order to a make a point about inequity behind the camera, but also to create a working environment in which I could make mistakes without with impunity. In some ways, you know, where it could be a safer place. Because I had seen the pressure cooker that was a woman director with a predominantly male crew and the sort of questioning or condescension that that can sometimes happen. But I think that that being my first foray into a position of leadership as a director also allowed for me to really I always push myself to be a director who says, who can say, I don’t know. And I think across any industry as a leader, that’s such an important permission to give yourself, because if you can say, I don’t know.

[00:54:31] Jameela Then someone will give you the fucking answer, by the way.

[00:54:35] Zoe And it’s an invite. It’s an invitation for them to be in the conversation in a way that is exciting, like for other people on your crew or on your team. And so that I would say that’s also a piece of advice that I would give to all, all directors. But, but women especially, I think, who feel that they don’t want to direct until they have every answer. And at that’s there’s this barrier to entry that’s like but I didn’t go to film school or I don’t know all the lenses or you know, it’s like you can still do it. There’s so many ways to to, to go about it where if you are confident enough in the stories you want to be telling and the and the the way you want to be telling them, then there’s plenty of other people who can help you fill in the blanks otherwise.

[00:55:26] Jameela Absolutely. So before I lose you, I would love to know what you most hope people get from this body of work. That is a kind of an ode to to women’s pleasure and an ode to, I don’t know, self-reflection.

[00:55:45] Zoe I guess I hope that that people in general would feel less alone watching it like that a lot of these questions around, not just relationships, but feeling a sense of peace in one’s life or a sense of satisfaction in one’s life. It’s sort of quiet the the negative voices that are plaguing all of us all the time, that that that’s something that we’re all grappling with. And and so I guess I hope that viewers can find themselves in. In the characters and and their struggles. And I guess in terms of sexuality, like. I guess I hope it does stigmatizes. I’m going to be specific in terms of women’s

[00:56:48] Jameela Clitorises.

[00:56:48] Zoe Abilities. I want to destigmatize the clitoris. No, I guess I want to de-stigmatize women’s pursuit of pleasure. Sexually speaking specifically, but I think in general so that that there’s that I think in media especially and in film and television, historically, when a woman is actively pursuing sexual pleasure, there’s usually.

[00:57:18] Jameela An undertone that she’s like, fucked up her life.

[00:57:21] Zoe Yeah, and there’s a punishment on the other end of it. And I think it’s impossible not to really absorb that in a cellular way. And so I hope that this can maybe undo some of some of that damage.

[00:57:40] Jameela Yeah. The message is don’t stop till you get enough.

[00:57:43] Zoe Don’t stop til you get enough. Just keep coming, baby.

[00:57:47] Jameela Yeah, that’s great. And I think it’s about not settling and I think it’s about exploration. And and I think that that is a message that really needs to be told. And you’re so right. Whenever I. I think about this, like, how many of those people are always even when created by women presented as dysfunctional.

[00:58:03] Zoe Mm.

[00:58:03] Jameela And this is a fallible but functional human who’s just like, I don’t really want to be bored in my life. It’s the it’s they’re like it’s it’s permission to have an adventure as well. We don’t really give ourselves very often, cause we’re like, Well, we’re so lucky to have to have these morsels. So we mustn’t adventure for more. It’s very odd little twist.

[00:58:25] Zoe Yeah, I think, I think it is giving people permission to want more and to seek more and that there is more. And right now, especially in this sort of state of post-traumatic stress that we’re all collectively in. There is a huge, I think, reward in in exploring what pleasure looks and feels like.

[00:58:52] Jameela A hundred percent. Ah it’s so cool. Well everyone. Go find slip It’s on Roku. It’s available.

[00:59:00] Zoe It’s out now.

[00:59:02] Jameela It’s out now. And and and it’s it’s a it’s a a feat of so much love. You know I watched you go through that whole process via text while I was on the other side of the world. And I’m immensely proud as a friend, but also really excited about the prospect of what this means going forward, not just for you, but for for women in these roles. So well done.

[00:59:32] Zoe Thank you so much Jameela.

[00:59:33] Jameela See you soon.