2017 deserves credit for spurring one of the rarest of all events in modern filmmaking: an Oscars ceremony where there is more than one deserving entry for Best Picture. The Academy Awards have a long, aggravating history of giving top honors and nominations to thorough mediocrities, good movies, and outright travesties mostly, with one or at most two great movies sneaking in. In 2017, however, three great movies - Lady Bird, Get Out, and Phantom Thread - made it into the big category alongside the good (Dunkirk, The Shape of Water, and Call Me By Your Name), the bad (The Post, Darkest Hour), and the ugly (Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri). In a year that saw no shortage of tragedies and political horror, this is something to be celebrated.
Though I'd say that Get Out was undeniably the year's biggest movie, P.T. Anderson's Phantom Thread has enjoyed the most positive press following its release on Christmas Day and not just because it features Daniel Day Lewis in his last and best performance to date. In fact, it's been Vicky Krieps, his astonishing co-lead, that's been getting quite a lot of the attention alongside the film's director on the awards circuit. And during a recent talk with BUILD, Krieps was joined by her equally stunning co-star, Lesley Manville, and costume designer Mark Bridges to talk about making the movie with Anderson, the characters, and the extravagant look of Anderson's latest masterwork. You can check out the full 36-minute discussion below.
It's notable that all the insights that Krieps, Bridges, and Manville give in this discussion are coming on the heels of what has been a series of revealing interviews with Anderson and a wildly open awards season. The director has spoke extensively about the roots of the film, involving his marriage to the great Maya Rudolph amongst other elements, but also about his love for his fellow nominees, whether being knocked out by Get Out or being in disbelief of the technical ambitions and mastery at hand in Dunkirk. It's so rare that you get to hear the movie nerds that still live inside some of today's best filmmakers, thanks at least partially to a false sense of competition fostered by the studios. And hearing Krieps, Manville, and Bridges speak so naturally about their love for the process and for Anderson and for the film itself gives a similar thrill of hearing oft-private artists speaking intimately about why they love what they do and what the work of that art actually looks like.
Here's the entire 36-minute interview with Krieps, Manville, and Bridges:
