David Lowery, director of Ain't Them Bodies Saints is bringing back the duo of Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck for his new ominous film about grief, A Ghost Story. In the latest Hot Press, Lowery tells Roe McDermott about how the film came together, much earlier in his career as a film maker than you would think. He explains that the first movie he ever made, at the age of seven, wasn't too dissimilar. "I made it with my brother, in a sheet! So I've not only been making movies since I was seven, I've been making the same movies since I was seven!"
Lowery's brother wasn't available for the filming of A Ghost Story, so he had to rely on the skills of Casey Affleck instead. How did Affleck feel about an acting job where he'd be spending most of the movie hidden under a white sheet?
"He was totally onboard," Lowery says. "There are scenes where Casey and the ghost are on screen together and we had to do some pick-ups, so sometimes there was someone else under there, but he was genuinely upset about it. He didn't like to hand that role over to anyone."
While the soundtrack for A Ghost Story leans more on atmospheric tracks from bands like Dark Rooms, Lowery says his writer's playlist is a little more pop. "It's stuff that people wouldn't expect me to listen to while writing a movie like this- a lot of Beyonce and Kesha! But there's a lot of value to be found in listening to things that don't feel like your movie, because while you're working, it allows you to keep outside of the conventions you may fall back upon."
Read the full interview in the Electric Picnic issue, available in stores now (August 17)– or you can order it now direct from hotpress.com.