In the weeks ahead, the critically acclaimed Call Me by Your Name will expands into more theaters nationwide. The movie stars Timothee Chalamet as Elio, a teenager spending the summer in the Italian countryside with his parents when he falls for Oliver (Armie Hammer), a grad student who has come to stay and assist Elio’s father. I saw the movie at Sundance last year and it held up beautifully when I rewatched it in December. It’s a gorgeous, sumptuous, heartfelt movie, and I can’t wait for more people to see it.

Late last year, I got to do a phone interview with director Luca Guadagnino. During our conversation, we talked about the film’s journey since premiering at Sundance, crafting a positive gay love story, the possibility of sequels to Call Me by Your Name, working with Sufjan Stevens, and more.

Check out the full interview below, and click on the respective links for Adam Chitwood’s review from Sundance, Steve Weintraub’s interview with Timothee Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg, my interview with Armie Hammer, and to find out when Call Me by Your Name is opening at a theater near you.

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What has this journey been like after the film premiered at Sundance and received so much acclaim and has continued to receive that acclaim over the festival circuit?

LUCA GUADAGNINO: Oh my god, it's been intoxicating. We went to Sundance in Berlin and I will never forget the experience of showing the movie to Sundance in the first place and the way John Cooper introduced the movie. That was really something fantastic for me. And since then, we went ... You know, I was busy shooting Suspiria after I went to Berlin. I actually went to Berlin, presented the movie, and stayed in Berlin because I kept prepping Suspiria and then I had the last 10 days of shoot there in March. And then finished the film. And so we left it there. In the meantime I was following the great work of Sony Pictures Classics on this film. And then we went back to show the movie in Australia. We went to Melbourne, we got the Audience award, we go to Toronto, we go to New York. I don't know, it's quite exhilarating. It’s something amazing.

You know, you do a movie and you do it with great passion, you do it with great commitment and to do my work, but you never, ever pretend that something you do reaches the kind of commitment from an audience the way this movie seems to have achieved all over the world. It's very intoxicating experience. It's humbling and it's beautiful.

One of the things that I really love about this film is it's a coming of age story and the gay love story in it isn't presented as a setup for tragedy as much as it's just an experience of growth and it's sort of a gay positive story.

GUADAGNINO: I grew up as a young homosexual boy and I grew up becoming a better person in the meeting I had with people that I wanted and I loved. And that's my personal experience. And not that I want to underestimate the power, the negative power and the crushing power of homophobia, but I think that a way to react to that is to show how human desire can fulfill the best out of people instead of the worst. And in a way we have the responsibility as the maker to use our tools to make some sort of stories that resonate in a multitude of people as a memento. And sometimes reiterating an idea that may be truthful like oppression for being gay, in a way, empowers that idea. So that's how I believe Call Me By Your Name came up to be an uplifting film because it's about being who you want to be and finding yourself into the gaze of the other in his or her otherness.

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics

Another thing I really love is this film just kind of envelops you with the sound design. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about crafting the sue of sound in this movie.

GUADAGNINO: Well I worked with major people there. My editor, Walter Fasano, 25 year editing work with him. Genius. He knows the work of sound so fondly. We both have a great communion center of how we wanted him to sound. The sound in my movies has to be always soften the realities of the film. But when you soften the reality the sound, you are also heightening that element of your filmmaking. Because if you have this approach to every minimal details of sound, you are making a sort of enveloping experience as you said, that is maybe not as realistic as being in the condition of reality.

So I like to use sound in a way that could be described as visionary, even though it starts from reality. And I think that in this movie, the contribution to our wonderful sound designer and mixer Jean-Pierre Laforce was really pivotal. He is the great sound engineer for Mr. Haneke and we worked together on Bigger Splash and on this film. And I love the way he is able to create a sort of Cathedral of sound without overwhelming the movie but actually making the sort of experience of knowledge for an audience as well.

Was there any scene in particular where you were, I don't want to say dreading, but you felt that this scene in particular is going to be a very big challenge for our actors and for this movie?

GUADAGNINO: I didn't, honestly. I shot this film with lightness and almost like dancing. It was really thoughtless for all of us. It was great to be doing this movie because it was really simple. The only thing that was going in the middle of us was the fact that we had to make a movie about summer and it rained so much during the shoot. But you know, my DP, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, is a genius. He was so calm and understated. And he confronted himself with all the complications of a rainy shoot and made it look like summer. So you know, even that was in a way an opportunity for enjoyment instead of frustration.

This film is it takes place in the early 80s and yet there's also a timeless feel to it. What was it about trying tot sort of walk that line about yes, this is very much about a time and a place but not so much that we've dated the movie and made it feel like a relic?

GUADAGNINO: Well I'm very aware that sometimes when you do a period movie, instead of thinking and trying to make sure that you're filming the movie in a place and a time and if you are in the place and the time. Often a period movie's approach is making the period look, in a way, a contrivance from the standpoint of the contemporality of the filmmakers. You know, that I don't like. I don't like when a period movie is stuffy and is in a way a comment on the period. I want to be in the period, I want to be in the place in which these characters are. And it has been a rule for my production designer, for my set decorator, for my set designer, for my makeup artist or my hairdresser, that we, all of us, we were actually kind of filming as if we were filming in 1983.

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics

In the book, you know the book sort of goes forward a bit. It's from Ellio's perspective but it's looking back. And you've spoken a bit about possibly doing a sequel. Is that something you're still possibly considering with a film to sort of pick up with these characters in the future?

GUADAGNINO: I believe that I will end up making a cycle of films about these characters because I love them so much. And I think their experience of life is ripe for many, many adventures.

Is there's something in particular about where you want to pick up with them in the future, or is it just sort of just staying with them and seeing how they grow and develop?

GUADAGNINO: I think the next chapter it will be happening right after the fall of Berlin wall and that great shift that was the end of Russia, of the USSR, sorry. And we'll see people leaving home and going in the world. That's what I can say for now.

One of the scenes that stuck with me is the climactic scene between Elio and his father. Can talk a little bit about filming that and working on that scene?

GUADAGNINO: We filmed the movie in sequence mostly so that was one that we shot almost at the end, like the day before the end I think. So I gave Timothee and Armie the possibility to go into that scene. Mark London and I and ended up finding myself into the position of wanting to make it as simple as possible. Few setups, few takes. Super small, let the actors be.

What is the experience been like, you immerse yourself in Call Me By Your Name and you're dedicated on festivals. How do you sort of switch gears and then be like now it's time for Suspiria, which is a completely different animal?

GUADAGNINO: I multi-tasked.

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Image via Sony Pictures Classics

What is it about, with Suspiria, what is it about that project that sort of drew you in?

GUADAGNINO: I wanted to make Suspiria since 30 years. When I saw the movie in 1985 I was shocked and blown away by it. So I always wanted to do. I don't know, it's very special to me.

You’ve mentioned there was a longer cut of Call Me By Your Name. Was there anything really difficult to cut from that or did the film just sort of reveal itself in the editing room as you kind of chipped away at the longer cut.

GUADAGNINO: I think the last one. I think the movie revealed itself. We have a lot of great films that I'm proud of, maybe we can use some of them as flashbacks in the sequels. I think it was very smooth to go from our first long, long cut to what we made it into the last cut.

And when it came to casting this film, Armie and Timothee are so great together. Can you talk a little bit about casting the two of them, playing them off each other, and sort of that central bond is the heart of the movie?

GUADAGNINO: I met them both before casting. I never audition. So I met them. I met Timothee when he was 17, I met Armie seven years ago. I knew Armie's work, I'm a big admirer.  And I loved Timothee when I met him. And our chemistry was the most important thing with them. I knew there was trust and affection and interest in one another. And so I was sure there was going to be the same between the two of them and I was right.

One more thing I wanted to talk to you about, you got this great Sufjan Stevens music for the film and I want to talk a little bit about what was it about his music that you wanted to sort of bring into this picture?

GUADAGNINO: I don't know, it moved me so much. It moved me. His music moved me. His voice is angelic. it really is so completely. His music is so emotional and direct. He's a great artist. I am in awe for great artists. I felt I wanted to try to see if he wanted to be part of this and he said yes, so I feel privileged.

Do you see his music as sort of the voice of these characters or sort of the voice of this one story and you might go to different musicians if you were to do sequels?

GUADAGNINO: No, no, no. I will ask him to do the sequels as well for sure.