Dancing With Death: Mike Flanagan on “The Life of Chuck” | Interviews

Mike Flanagan is no stranger to telling stories about death. However, his latest film is something quite different in how it dances with existential questions about the boundless beauty of life, the terrible agony of loss, and, ultimately, what it all means as our lives inevitably come to a close. 

In “The Life of Chuck” (in theaters June 6), the titular Charles “Chuck” Krantz (played at various ages by Tom Hiddleston, Jacob Tremblay, Benjamin Pajak, and, briefly, Flanagan’s own son Cody) is an ordinary man who, like all of us, contains an entire universe. Taking us back in time through Chuck’s life, we see him when he is eerily appearing on everything from massive billboards to people’s homes as the world nears a catastrophe, when he experiences an unexpected moment of joy in his adulthood after breaking out in spontaneous dancing with a drummer busking for money, and when he is in his childhood as he grows to face the reality of his mortality. All of this is to say, it’s a film that is about the vibrant everything and haunting nothing of not just one life, but all life. 

It’s another Stephen King adaptation for Flanagan’s, his third after 2017’s “Gerald’s Game” and 2019’s “Doctor Sleep,” faithfully capturing the short story of the same name just as it’s a deeply heartfelt, openly personal work that reflects on how we find meaning in life before the end. In addition to feeling like the culmination of his career up until now, “The Life of Chuck” reunites Flanagan with many familiar faces. This includes his creative partner and wife, Kate Siegel, who plays a teacher who captures the soul of the film in a single standout scene, and his longtime collaborator Annalise Basso, who gives life to the showstopping central dancing scene alongside Hiddleston. The film, already a profoundly personal one for Flanagan, also closes with a dedication to his late friend Scott Wampler, who unexpectedly passed away this time last summer, just before the film premiered at TIFF a few months later, where it won the Audience Award. 

Before the film’s release, Flanagan spoke with RogerEbert.com about his relationship to death, making his latest feature as something to leave his kids after he’s gone, the craft of editing as his way of dancing, and why life is a game of being wrong about when we’re going to die. 

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Mike Flanagan, horror auteur, are you scared of death?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Profoundly. And I have no idea what could possibly happen beyond it, if anything. And so yes, I am, I think, very appropriately afraid to die. Very much. 

Was “Chuck” a cathartic experience to make in processing that?

Yes, it was, because the other thing that I’d add to that is that I don’t feel anxious about death. Of course, I’m as scared of it as anyone, but that isn’t my experience in my day-to day-life. I very much connected to this short story when I read it because I read it in April 2020, a month into the lockdown, when it felt like the world was ending, and I was awash in despair and anxiety and uncertainty, as so many of us were and may continue to be. At first, it was too uncomfortable to keep reading, and I thought I couldn’t finish it. It hit too close to home. But when I got to the end of it, I was crying out of a sense of joy and optimism and a deep kind of nostalgic appreciation of my life up to that point and that’s what I loved about it. 

I think the process of making it has helped refocus me and remind me to seek out those moments of joy and the opportunities for them when they appear, because so many of us, myself included, walk right past the drummer and go about our day. So many of us have a hard time imagining walking up the street and beginning an earnest and open conversation with a stranger. I don’t think that’s the world we live in anymore. 

And so all of that came to bear for me in this and it really helped me feel gratitude that this movie and this story on the screen would exist for my kids when I’m gone. Because the thing that makes me the most afraid to die isn’t what will happen to me. The thing that hurts me is imagining all of the experiences of my kids that I will miss, of my friends, imagining, you know, my wife and my sibling, navigating that world and not being part of it anymore, not being of any help. This was something that I wanted very much to be available to my kids when I’m no longer there in person, to try to comfort them when they feel like their world is ending, which I know they will, and probably even more acutely than I do. So that’s why I wanted to make it, and it was probably the most personal project I’ve worked on because of that. 

I know everyone is going to ask you about the dance scene, and I will too, but I wanted to first ask about Kate’s monologue (watch above). It feels akin to a personal message to a child struggling to make sense of the beauty and terror of the world, and a culmination of your work as collaborators, as partners. What was the conversation between you about that scene?

It was very much, to me, the heart of the movie and the message I most wanted to be delivered a certain way. I knew from the beginning that I wanted Kate to deliver it and there was no one I trusted more with that moment. We talked about it when I was working on the script and then when she was preparing the scene, what did we want to say? What would we say to our children? Kate made the choice to reach up and kind of hold on to Benjamin’s head and his face there, because she’s like, that’s what I would want to do with [our son] Cody. 

This was a particularly interesting collaboration for us, because we’ve worked together for over a decade now, and we’ve collaborated on our life and our homes and our existence and our children. This was really neat, because we were both aware that someday our kids would be able to revisit this particular moment of this particular movie and watch their mother deliver this message, frozen in time, forever in this ray of sunlight, and hopefully help them feel that peace and wonder of the universes that they’re building. 

So yeah, it was a very important thing to us both. I remember Kate tried that out a few times and did a few runs at the monologue before we ever left for Alabama to even get into prep on it. I remember hearing it in her voice when it really locked in, and I said, “I don’t want to hear it again ‘til set. I don’t want to mess with it. You know what this is, you’ve got this. Let’s see it on the day.” And she did. But yeah, that’s one of my favorite parts of the whole film. I know people, of course, want to talk about the dance, because I love that so much myself. But I find Kate’s scene to be very meaningful to me.

Because it’s about these smaller moments too. Like yes, stopping to do the dance, but also this moment of connection, when everything may seem lost and that there is no hope to be had, it’s in other people. It’s in someone reaching out to you. Was there anyone in your own life, other filmmakers or artists, that have ever been that for you?

Oh, yes. Oh so many, and some of them didn’t even know it. I’m very lucky in that I have a wonderful relationship with my parents, who are both still alive, and who have been this for me my whole life, wonderful friends, Kate, of course, my most trusted guide through life, and we’re in it together. In the industry, though, and in other industries, and I’m not just saying this because of where you work, one of the reasons I was able to get sober was I read Life Itself by Roger Ebert. I never met Roger Ebert, but I was watching Roger on TV, and I was reading the reviews, you know, from my childhood. I learned about cinema listening to Roger Ebert and I learned about his journey to being sober at a time when I really needed it. 

Stephen King, also without ever knowing, was a huge driving force in my life. I got sober while shooting “Doctor Sleep,” in no small part because of the stories that he’d written that dealt with it, but because of his own experiences, and On Writing, which I read. Then I think about an art teacher I had in high school who shaped the way I saw the world and art and humor and collaboration. I think about a priest that I had in my parish growing up when I was an altar boy. You know, my life has changed radically. I’m a secular humanist, I’m an atheist these days, but I had a priest growing up, who was wonderful and who made me contemplate life, death, eternity and forgiveness in a very specific way. I don’t necessarily think I have an internal universe like the one that’s on screen. I love the one that Stephen King designed. But if I did and it could truly be populated by my impressions of all of these people through my life, what an incredible place to visit that would be. 

While I was waiting to talk with you, I was rewatching “Midnight Mass” and the final episode of that, facing the rising sun of the end without regret and with the people that you love by your side. How has your relationship to a lot of these very existential ideas evolved from that to this and where you’re wanting to go next with your art?

It’s always been there. And that’s kind of the thing I think is true of Stephen King as well. I don’t think he would say he’s trying to be a horror writer. He’s always writing about other things and the horror is either the wrapper that he’s put it into or it’s the natural expression of his characters and their circumstances. But yeah, I have been obsessed with what it means to be alive, what it means to be a human being, how we react and relate to each other, morality and cosmic spirituality. I had one of the most profound spiritual experiences of my life reading Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” a few decades ago and it still is echoing through so many of the things that I make. 

Any story I’m lucky enough to tell, I want it to be seen by a lot of people and yeah, I want to have a career in motion pictures and television. So yeah, there are times where it’s like, “Yep, I’m making “Ouija 2” right now.” But even making “Ouija 2,” I’m only doing it because I want to talk about something else, and I’m trying to find a way through that particular story to learn more about it myself or to get something across. This is not only no exception, but the two examples in my career that I would say are the most obviously kind of what they are is “Midnight Mass” and this. “Midnight Mass” is my favorite thing I’ve ever worked on for television and “Chuck” is my favorite feature film I’ve ever gotten to do. It’s because they’re just both really about these ideas and this search for why we’re here and where we’re going, if anywhere, and what is important in the meantime. I hope I’m able to continue to explore those questions in my work. If there isn’t a chance to really talk about something that’s real, I tend not to gravitate toward a project at all. I’m never going to stop wondering ‘til the day I die, so I hope the work always leaves room for that.

I want to ask you about craft and this is partly the dance question. There’s the staging and there’s the bringing it to life, but then when you are editing your films, that is an immense undertaking in and of itself. How do you know when to cut? Is it by feel? Is it the rhythm of the scene? Are you thinking about it when you finish shooting, and then also throughout the film, all of these moments where we cut back through Chuck’s life in brief moments that have as much impact as the drum being hit? What is your process?

I don’t get to talk about this nearly enough, but I grew up as an editor. That was my job. Before they ever let me write or direct, I was editing, and I was doing it for more than a decade. So I have never had confidence in myself as a writer and director. I have relied on myself as an editor every time. The answer to your question is yes, yes, yes and yes. When I’m on set, I frequently have an idea of where the cut is in a take. I commonly tell an actor if they’re worried about a moment or a line that, “Oh no, we’re on another angle for that. This only lives from here to here.” I don’t shoot for coverage. I never have. I shoot for a very specific editorial shot sequence. I’m only really serving myself in the cutting room. 

To that end though, when confronted with something like the dance, I saw what they had choreographed, Mandy Moore had built with Tom and Annalise and Taylor Gordon, the drummer. I knew it was my job to capture it thoroughly so that I could be the invisible third dancer and that would be entirely in the edit. It’s the most difficult sequence in my career from an editorial standpoint, and if I’ve done it well, no one will think about the edit when they watch it. Until this moment, no one’s ever mentioned it, so that makes me feel good. You know, I hear a lot about the dance and the choreography and even the cinematography. I spent so much time on that sequence [laughs] not knowing where to cut. We would shoot the dance in duration takes. There was no stopping and starting, except for little moments like his hand, where we knew we were high angle. Otherwise, it was start to finish. And it was about, how can I invisibly underscore and emphasize the joy and the fluidity of their movement? That was about where the rhythm for the cut felt like it wanted to be. 

It was nothing I could plan ahead of time and there are 50 different versions of that dance that I could show that are all very different. It took that many iterations to get to what’s on the screen and combing through so many hours of footage. We shot it for four days of every little beat and every little move of the foot and every little moment and every little smile. Watching every take and just making sure that the one that’s in the film is the most exuberant and honest expression of the joy that Tom and Annalise were channeling when they did that dance. I viewed myself as a hopefully invisible dancer. The closest I can get to dancing is the rhythm I find at the Avid because if I were to do it in life, I look like a Muppet flailing left and right. It just doesn’t work, but that’s my dance, and no one asked me about the editing, so I’m really grateful for that, thank you.

I had seen the new Kelly Reichardt film, the heist film, where it’s very much edited like a dance. So I’m always curious about wearing that additional hat. 

We watched a lot of movies to get ready for this. We went back to the silent era and just watched famous dance numbers and even obscure dance numbers through the years. The moment where I felt the editing become a dancer for me was when we got to Fosse. That was when it broke it wide open for me. I don’t think there’s a better edited film in the history of movies than “All That Jazz” which is one of the reasons why we underlined it in the movie. And the moments you’re talking about, there are these non-diegetic cuts in that movie that are so brilliant and that I was shamelessly trying to emulate. Musical editing is a rare and beautiful thing, and when it’s done well, like you’re describing, it’s pretty amazing. 

The film concludes in this very beautiful moment, and then you also dedicate the movie to Scott Wampler. Reflecting on your memory of Scott, who was such a wonderful person to so many people who knew him, how was it that that final beautiful tribute came to be, and what does it mean to you? 

Thank you for that and for shining a light on Scott. Today is the first anniversary of his death. I was speaking with Eric Vespe this morning, who is his co-host on The Kingcast and appears in the movie, as you can see Scott behind Tom at the fountain with Eric present. You know, a year ago today, a few hours from now, I think by now, we knew he was dead. I was in Austin; I happened to be there. I was supposed to meet up with both of them for dinner, and was texting with them in the morning. By this afternoon, Scott was gone, and Eric and I still went out to dinner anyway. We went to the restaurant where Eric had pitched Wampler the concept of The Kingcast for the first time, both in shock, you know, me, nowhere near the level that Eric was completely in shock. I told Eric that night that I would be dedicating the movie to him. It’s a movie about someone who dies way too young. 

Scott, I’ve known over the years. We met because we shared an intense love for Stephen King. That was what brought us together. Scott was on set every day that Tom and Annalise did the dance for this movie. We had teamed up on podcasts together. We had a lot of meals together. We toured Bangor [Maine] together for this big Stephen King thing, “Banger in Bangor” that we did years ago. If you had told me that he wouldn’t live to see this film, I wouldn’t have believed it. When I think about how, to your point, about what you shared at the beginning, we all know someone who should be here and isn’t, and we’ve all had to deal with that revelation that comes with realizing that whatever amount of time we think we have, we’re wrong. The whole game is about how wrong we are. Are we wrong by a couple of days? Or is it way more dramatic? 

My time with Scott Wampler centered around Stephen King and the way Scott approached life, which was really, talk about someone who puts down the briefcase and dances to the music. You know, that was Scott. He danced to a tune that was entirely his. A dedication at the end of a movie can just be a gesture towards someone’s memory. The loss of Scott Wampler is forever entwined with the meaning of the film for me, and so it meant a lot to me that he’s in it, that every time I’ve seen this film, I’ve seen his face, I’ve heard his voice in it. So it was more than just a dedication for me. It really is kind of a very small moment captured in time, where he always is, and I wish he had been able to see the film. Because he never will and never could, it felt right to make it his in whatever way I could.

“The Life of Chuck” opens in U.S. theaters June 6, via Neon.