We Need to Talk About Oscar

Áron Czapek

5.0 (4)
TV & FILM
UPDATED WEEKLY

We Need to Talk About Oscar offers in-depth interviews with filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals. Although inspired by titles you expect to be represented at the Oscars, our conversations extend to buzzy indie projects and TV shows, exploring both the technical aspects of filmmaking and the personal stories behind them.

5D AGO

Madison Young faces her younger selves in 'By the Roots'

Writer-director Madison Young adapts her memoir 'Daddy' into 'By the Roots,' her feature directorial debut. Madison traces the adaptation process and the stages the script went through in transforming such deeply personal material into cinema. We explore the casting process, from how much Madison overthought who would play her to the challenge of putting different stages of her life on screen together. Madison opens up about casting both her kid and teenage selves, navigating the complexity of seeing multiple versions of yourself embodied by other actors, and how those different ages and perspectives fit together as one continuous story. Coming from over two decades in feminist porn as a director, performer, and advocate for ethical representation of sexuality on screen, Madison examines what intimacy coordinator Maya Herbsman brought to the table on a film where the physical is so central to the story. She considers how her background shaped her approach to depicting sexuality and intimacy, and what shifts when bringing those principles into narrative filmmaking about her own life. (Photo: Courtesy of Empress in Lavender Media)

20 min
APR 17

Chandler Levack on distance, exposure, and doubling down in 'Mile End Kicks' and 'Roommates'

Canadian filmmaker Chandler Levack follows up her critically acclaimed debut 'I Like Movies,' with not one but two films releasing on the same day: 'Mile End Kicks,' her most personal work yet, and 'Roommates,' her first time directing someone else's script for Netflix. She reflects on whether there's a recognizable signature that shows up in both regardless of whose story she's telling or what the budget looks like. We explore the distance Chandler found through gender reversal in 'I Like Movies' versus the raw exposure of 'Mile End Kicks,' where Barbie Ferreira wears her actual SPIN Magazine T-shirts from her days as a music critic. She discusses navigating the casting process when the character is essentially herself, and whether there was a moment that felt too exposed. Having written the script a decade ago, she shares how making 'I Like Movies' first transformed what 'Mile End Kicks' ultimately became. Turning to 'Roommates,' Chandler explains what drew her to directing someone else's words for a studio after building a career on intensely personal films. She examines how directing without the full backstory of every line requires developing a different kind of ownership, and whether the leap from microbudget indie to Happy Madison Netflix production altered her approach in practical ways. With three feature films now in her filmography, she considers where her work might head next. (Photo: Courtesy of Jeremy Cox)

22 min
APR 10

Katarina Zhu and Daisy Zhou on seeing and being seen in ‘Bunnylovr’

‘Bunnylovr’ is out in theaters today. Premiering at Sundance in January 2025 as part of the US Dramatic Competition, writer-director-star Katarina Zhu’s debut feature follows Becca, a Chinese-American cam girl in New York navigating a toxic relationship with a mysterious client while quietly trying to reconnect with her estranged, dying father. This is our conversation with Katarina and her cinematographer Daisy Zhou, their first collaboration together. The admiration between them is palpable throughout, two people who clearly found something rare in each other on their first project. We open with how they connected and what drew each of them to the material, before getting into what it means to direct and perform simultaneously and how that shapes the set from both sides of the camera. From there the conversation moves into the heart of the film: how Katarina built Becca as a character who moves between very private digital spaces and the more grounded textures of everyday life without ever splitting into two different people, and how Daisy translated those shifts into a visual language where each space carries its own feeling while still belonging to the same film. (Photos: Courtesy of Katarina Zhu)

28 min
APR 3

BriTANicK is turning from sketches to features

Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher, the comedy duo known as BriTANicK, brought two feature films to SXSW 2026: 'Pizza Movie,' which they wrote and directed, and 'Over Your Dead Body,' which they adapted for Jorma Taccone to direct. They reflect on their sketch comedy roots and whether anything they'd done before approached narrative filmmaking, plus how they regard sketches within the broader realm of cinema. The pair also share how their festival weekend turned out, juggling two premieres and a live comedy show. Our conversation explores how their dynamic as performers translates behind the camera, and the mechanics of escalation in 'Pizza Movie,' a film that constantly heightens the stakes. They discuss whether that comes from instinct or structure, and how they think about audience experience now that it's heading to Hulu after theatrical screenings. We turn to 'Over Your Dead Body,' examining what writing for someone else to direct feels like versus helming their own work, and how they approached "Americanizing" a 2021 Norwegian film while navigating what to touch and what to leave alone. Having been candid about their creative differences over the years, they consider whether the partnerships depicted, roommates in one film and a married couple in the other, mirror anything about how they actually collaborate. (Photo: Courtesy of Disney and Brett Roedel)

24 min
MAR 27

Matthew Shear explores the personal and cultural in 'Fantasy Life'

Writer-director-star Matthew Shear took home the SXSW Audience Award for 'Fantasy Life,' with Amanda Peet earning a Special Jury Award for her performance. Matthew reflects on what this double recognition means for a film drawn so directly from his own experience, and whether the script could have been directed by anyone else given how personal it is. Drawing on his acting background with directors like Noah Baumbach and M. Night Shyamalan, Matthew identifies where he consciously chose his own path versus where he unknowingly broke from what he'd learned. He tackles his frustration with mental health narratives that sensationalize crisis rather than depicting the reality of living with mental illness. Matthew shares his approach to working with an intergenerational cast of Jewish New Yorkers including Bob Balaban and Judd Hirsch, letting their natural rhythms and comic instincts surface. He also examines how the film explores a particular vision of Jewish American success and what he's learned about that ideal through making and sharing this deeply personal work. (Photo: Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment)

20 min
MAR 20

Aisha Evelyna lives between roles in 'Seahorse'

Writer-director-star Aisha Evelyna builds on her 2024 short 'Nola' with 'Seahorse,' expanding the story of the same titular character to feature length. Aisha reflects on the jump from short to feature and her evolving collaboration with Natalie Remplakowski, who co-directed the short and now produces the feature. She shares how they navigated dividing responsibilities as their partnership transformed. We explore the challenge of balancing roles in front of and behind the camera. Aisha discusses how she reconciles her presence as both director and star, and who makes the final call on whether a take works when those two roles might disagree. She addresses capturing authentic restaurant kitchen atmosphere on a low budget in an era when audiences have become familiar with that world through shows like 'The Bear,' and her deliberate approach to using flashbacks as a storytelling device. Aisha gets candid about how work-life balance functions when your life and feelings are embedded in the work itself, revealing the complex reality of transforming personal pain into cinema where the boundaries between artist and art dissolve entirely.

23 min
MAR 17

Will Ropp and Matthew Pothier on anxiety, authenticity, and the harder path in 'Brian'

Director Will Ropp and cinematographer Matthew Pothier stob by to talk about 'Brian,' a character-driven teen comedy with a dramatic edge that feels almost extinct in today's IP-driven landscape. Will opens up about recognizing his own high school anxiety in the script and what it means to make a film about a kid whose inner life operates at a volume the rest of the world can't hear. Our conversation explores how Will invited collaborators into such a personal world, and how Matthew entered that space constructively without overstepping. They discuss shooting in Oklahoma City, how location scouting informed Brian's journey, and the visual strategies Matt employed to translate teenage isolation through framing and composition. Will reflects on pushing comedy to the edge of discomfort, honoring the moments where humor and pain overlap. Matt also shares his experience working with first-time feature directors and what draws him to those collaborations. We close by examining what it means to make a film about someone who keeps choosing the harder path, and how that mirrors the choices they made as filmmakers. (Photo credit: Ryan Orange)

19 min
MAR 13

Brian Tetsuro Ivie on faith, celluloid, and the leap into ‘Anima’

‘Anima,’ premiering at SXSW this week, is Brian Tetsuro Ivie’s narrative feature debut. An acclaimed documentarian, Brian now turns to a sci-fi road movie following an impulsive young woman and a reclusive older man on a cross-country trip to preserve his failing consciousness at an experimental facility. We open with what the leap from documentary to narrative actually feels like and what each form demands that the other doesn’t, before getting into the decision to shoot on film and why the logistical weight it carries is more than justified by what it gives back. From there Brian talks about working with Sydney Chandler and Takehiro Hira, and how their casting shaped not just the performances but the characters and the entire film around them. We also get into something that runs quietly through everything Brian makes: his faith, and how it finds its way into a story that on the surface seems to sit in direct tension with it. We close by looking at what making ‘Anima’ means for how he thinks about both forms of filmmaking going forward.

19 min

5

out of 5

4 Ratings

We Need to Talk About Oscar offers in-depth interviews with filmmakers, actors, and industry professionals. Although inspired by titles you expect to be represented at the Oscars, our conversations extend to buzzy indie projects and TV shows, exploring both the technical aspects of filmmaking and the personal stories behind them.

Creator

Áron Czapek
Years Active

2024 - 2026
Episodes

166
Rating

Clean
Copyright

© 2025 We Need to Talk About Oscar
Show Website

We Need to Talk About Oscar