Edward Berger Conclave BAFTA Oscar Nominee on awards race

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline did the first interview with director Edward Berger, after the Telluride premiere and the start of a long Oscar race for Conclave. We close out the season with a bookending final interview, on a day when the film takes the stage at the BAFTAs tonight, with 12 nominations including for Berger and stars Ralph Fiennes and Isabella Rossellini, to go along with eight Oscar nominations. Shot on a modest $20M+ budget with a near $100M gross for Focus Features and now playing on Peacock, Conclave has proven a worthy follow to Berger’s Best International Feature Oscar winner All Quiet on the Western Front. Though Berger perplexingly did not get Best Director Oscar noms for either film, the one-two punch has positioned him to step up to the bigger theatrical canvas, the track that Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan have taken. He discusses that here, along with the climax of a wild Oscar season.

DEADLINE: I rewatched your film, and when we first spoke at Telluride, it was about how the struggle between an ultra-conservative Italian cardinal and more moderate and inclusive opponents who get knocked out by scandals reflected the presidential battle between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. This time, the twists and turns and falls from grace reminded me of the current Oscar race, where you were excluded from a Best Director nom. How are you feeling as this long awards campaign comes to a close?

EDWARD BERGER: People have said to me that this Oscar thing is like Conclave. Something gets uncovered and suddenly this or that candidate falls away. It has never felt like that to me. I read it all and go, oh, that’s interesting. In my head, it doesn’t work that way. I want people to see and enjoy our movie, which they have. I think it might look like how you describe it, from the outside. When you’re in it, I don’t think of it as a race or a competition. That would take the joy out of it.

It’s not the Olympics. No one will have the best time in the end, in the 100-meter sprint. It’s just a subjective thing, or a timing thing. All these movies are great, they all have a point of view. None of them is the best one. That is for the Olympics. It comes down to the voters in the end, but I don’t go around on these Q&As thinking. I’ve got to convince voters. I go around saying, I want to show the movie. I want to bring it into view. That’s the perspective from inside, rather than likening it to a conclave where, oh my god, this candidate has fallen over that development. I feel bad when another movie that I really like has problems in their campaign. I don’t want them to have problems. I want them to be seen as the movie that they are. Some of the problems like this AI conversation, it’s not even an issue. You guys need something to write about, but that shouldn’t even have been an article. Because that was just a tool like many we use to make a movie that are available to us.

DEADLINE: Emilia Perez has suffered from the resurfacing of polarizing social media posts by the actress who played the title character, but the AI conversation on The Brutalist, using AI to coordinate delivery of different languages by cast, feels like it will become common in a couple years and not worth discussing.

BERGER: Absolutely. When new technology comes around, it will always be used in movies. We did it with sound, we did it with color, we did it with VFX, all these things. And people probably said, look, how can you use computers to generate VFX? There’s an uproar and then it just becomes…progress. Technology and progress in film go hand in hand. We’re all under pressure to make movies for a certain budget. If this helps the actor, if it helps get the movie done under ethically correct conditions and we make sure we don’t have people losing their jobs left and right? There’s going to be many more of these things in the future.

DEADLINE: You didn’t shoot in the Vatican, but your sets made the storytelling feel so real, the enormity of the paintings on the ceiling of that closed room where the cardinals vote. I don’t know if you watch back your film, but I would be saying, how did I do that on such a nominal budget? What was the biggest challenge in creating a believable version of where they shut these cardinals up to battle it out and elect a new pope?

BERGER: First of all, I never re-watch my movies. That would be torture. I’ve seen it 700 times and now it’s for the audience to watch it. I meet so many people that go, I’ve seen Conclave three times, five times, and one woman said 13 times, which I couldn’t believe. It’s a pleasure to hear that, but I don’t want to do that. I handed it over to the audience so I don’t have to watch it again.

The biggest challenge, you really put your finger on it, is the locations. It was very difficult because we didn’t shoot in the Vatican and I’m very demanding and particular about location. I treat the location like I do casting an actor. It has to be perfect for the role it needs to fulfill. You walk into a room and it’s, I get this room and how the scene will play out here. If you don’t have that feeling, you shouldn’t be shooting there. You look for a long time to find those locations. I don’t know what it looks like, where they sequester those cardinals, and those alleys in between. You can guess and you want to recreate your own version of it. It’s a massive puzzle and you find this location at that end of Rome, you find a garden here. Everything you see in the film is a different location.

DEADLINE: One of the signature visual moments is glimpsed from above a courtyard, where it’s raining and the cardinals are coming in for the final vote. Umbrellas open, and it’s quite something. Do you have that shot in your head as you look for locations, or do the ideas come after you have secured the location?  

BERGER: When I read the script, I thought this is actually just one shot and it’s probably from above, this endless sea of cardinals. How do you shoot that? I looked for locations that would offer an opportunity to potentially do it. And as it’s one shot, it’s got to be somewhere where you’re shooting anyway. You’re not going to drive three hours for one shot then move locations. The challenge is to make it logistically and aesthetically sound, and to fit into the rest of the film. But it was really was the first image I saw when I read the script. It’s the give and take between locations and your imagination. Sometimes the locations inspire you, sometimes the script inspires you.

DEADLINE: A plot question: when John Lithgow’s character’s candidacy crumbles on the revelation he brought a nun whom a rival had slept with and had s child with, Lithgow’s cardinal admits he did summon the woman to the conclave, but said he was carrying out the orders of the Pope on his deathbed. Did the Pope set him up because he didn’t want Lithgow’s character to succeed him?

BERGER: He did. The Pope manipulated the vote from the afterlife.

DEADLINE: Wow.

BERGER: That’s the chess game in the end. It’s not obvious and you only get it probably when you watch it a couple times, like you did. To manipulate the chess game after he died, the pope puts the pieces into place.

DEADLINE: He took two aspirants for the job off the board in one move.

BERGER: He also did that by making Benitez a cardinal from Kabul, thinking this guy would be great if I put him into the race. In this case it’s a race, which I really don’t think the Oscars are. It’s made by others into a race, but not by us. The pope also put Ralph’s character into his position of running the conclave because he knew he would be the most impartial. The pope played his pieces like any politician does, when they put Supreme Court judges into place to make sure that your policies will go through for the next decade.

DEADLINE: When I watched it again, I fixated on Fiennes and the emotions he gives off with those eyes. I thought, he would have made a heckuva silent film star. What most surprised you about that performance?

BERGER: I was hoping it would be that way. That’s why we cast him in this role. He is so emotive in his face that he can express with every muscle anything he thinks or feels. I’d seen him do that in other movies. That’s why I imagined he would be great because the role is so withdrawn and held back and subdued and minimalist and…restrained. You don’t know until you’re on set. Watching him actually do this thing, I really forgot the script and I just looked at his face. I’m like, he’s thinking this and he’s thinking that, and now he’s making this plan. You just know it, without him saying anything. The script guides you, but his interpretation is wonderful. It’s just so expressive while not doing much, keeping his emotions inside as they boil to the top.

DEADLINE: In our first interview, we discussed Ralph’s opening speech, about saying the next pope needed to have doubts. You said it was vital to your own progression, and helped you decide when it was time to leave Good Machine before that became a comfortable living, to stop making German TV shows, which allowed you to build where you are now. Coming on the heels of All Quiet on the Western Front, Conclave has positioned you to do whatever you want and you are mentioned for all these mainstream franchise jobs. Do you still doubt, is that still an ally?

BERGER: Wasn’t it Francis Coppola who said, if you’re any kind of serious artist or filmmaker, doubt’s going to follow you around everywhere. Do I doubt now in my life every day? No, because I just made the movie and luckily it has been embraced by audiences. But will I that with the next film? A hundred percent. It’ll come again. You start from zero. Yes, you can fall back on a little bit of experience, but you don’t know if the movie is going to work or not. No one knows. No one knows. It’s all a big mystery, a gamble, a magical thing that just happens. Sometimes you can do everything right and the movie still doesn’t work. It’s just so how can you not doubt? If you were sure of yourself, at every turn, you would be ignorant. People who say they don’t doubt, I don’t believe them. They’re imposters.

DEADLINE: Observers see awards season as ruthless competition, but over the many years of our signature Deadline Contenders events, I’ll meet someone like yourself and they’ll say, is that Ang Lee? I have to meet him. Can you introduce me? What’s the best thing about that opportunity to congregate with these other artists?

BERGER: That’s exactly the reason I don’t believe it’s a race. I’m excited to watch Sean Baker’s movies and meet him. I’m actually happy when he wins the DGA Award. I was genuinely happy for him. I think he deserved it. I like meeting Coralie Fargeat because she’s a discovery for me with The Substance. Jacques Audiard, who hasn’t loved his movies for 25 years? At the DGA Awards, Ang was sitting there. I told you the story of how 30 years ago I started working for him and now, 30 years later, I’m in the same room with him. He’s getting the Lifetime Honorary Achievement award and I’m one of the nominees. What a great journey. I was super excited about that journey. Like what a great ending to turning down that [Good Machine] job to sitting with Ang Lee in that room, where we were both being recognized.

DEADLINE: You were a peer, not an employee working for him?

BERGER: I was there, as a peer. I wasn’t working for him anymore. And he was surely genuinely happy for me and I would be genuinely happy for him about his next movie. I just don’t think other directors look at me like, oh, that guy’s a contender. I got to beat him. I don’t think we think that way.

DEADLINE: The highlight of this awards season journey?

BERGER: Meeting Francis Coppola. I was introduced to him via email and he was so generous and saying, I’ll be Toronto for Megalopolis. Why don’t you come and see me at my hotel? I walked over and we had basically a glass of water, and for two hours we just talked about movies, about family, about the wine business, but mostly about movies and his kids are all super interesting.

DEADLINE: You said in our first interview that Apocalypse Now was a North Star film for you…

BERGER: It has been the North Star every time I’ve made a movie.

DEADLINE: What’s the most valuable bit of advice he gave you?

BERGER: I don’t know if he gave advice or that he’s a person who gives advice. He’s the person who says, what do I know? And I think maybe that’s the advice. He’s the person who says, I’m a student. I learn every movie. I start afresh and I don’t know anything. And I’m in doubt of whether it will work but I gamble everything on it. And I think that’s great. Just by seeing him and hearing what he says. I think that’s the advice you can follow. Just stay focused on what you do. Stay humble, stay curious. Continue to be a student. Don’t think you’ve mastered it, even if you’ve made The Godfather or Apocalypse Now. That doesn’t matter. Stay curious and try to do better next time. That’s what he is to me, from the outside.

DEADLINE: He has told me his most challenging movies gained favor over time because the subject matter proves prescient. There was much turbulence over Megalopolis, but its core and the reason Coppola invested over $100 million of his money making it is the idea that if you have to rebuild after a cataclysmic event, do you do the same thing again, or does the rebuild evolve? Los Angeles is dealing with that very issue right now after fires ravaged parts of the city and so many are trying to figure out, how do you rebuild in a way that might withstand another blaze spread by the high winds. Unfortunately, Coppola proves prescient again…

BERGER: Absolutely. But you know what the great thing about America,  looking at it from the outside? These fires are horrific; it’s so terrible and horrible what happened in Los Angeles. What I admire so much, and it has to do probably with the very recent history that this city was built basically in comparison to Europe, the lack of history. How old is it? Like 150 years old? What comes with that is the mindset that you rebuild, you stay nimble. The day I got a call [about the DGA nomination] was basically the day of the fires. And Lesli Linka Glatter  called me and said, I want to congratulate you. I know it’s a terrible day for Los Angeles, but I’m so happy to tell you that you’ve been nominated for the DGA awards. This was just before the press release. I’ve been trying to reach you all day. Congratulations. And I said, A, I’m so sorry, I heard about the fire. I hope you’re okay. She says, no, I’m not okay. I lost my house. But that’s fine. I can give you great news. And that makes me happy. I mean, what a way to get up again, to move forward, to not dwell in the past. In Europe, I think people are much less flexible. They’re much more attached to the past, the history of things, to the building that’s been there for 500 years. If we had lost those, to get up again would be very difficult. Los Angeles is just…I bow my head to the resilience, to the positivity, to looking ahead in the future, and it’s not only the film and the film industry. But those people have faced with new problems every day. We as filmmakers, as directors, you learn to be flexible to invent something because the problem was put in front of you. You can’t shoot it here, the weather’s bad, whatever it is, the actor is sick. You have to rethink. And so the Los Angelino/film community, the way they deal with this tragedy, it’s just admirable. I really bow my head to the way Los Angeles has been just staying positive and help each other. And the community that has come together to help each other is absolutely singular and unique in the world.

DEADLINE: I suppose the ultimate for Conclave would be to get two things up from Pope Francis. What affirmation about Conclave meant the most to you?

BERGER: We were on Obama’s film of the year list. That was pretty good, don’t you think? Mike Fleming loved the film enough to watch it again, that is pretty good. Wait, let me think. I was in Rome at the festival and we premiered it in front of 1,200 people last October. I had shot in Rome, so it was kind of a homecoming. My mother, two brothers and my sister were in the audience, and a lot of them had two thumbs up in that audience. That meant a lot.

DEADLINE: During this run, you’ve been mentioned for bigger movies, from 007 to the Ocean’s Eleven sequel. It won’t be either, but do you long to play in that sandbox?

BERGER: It is definitely a sandbox I covet, because, why not? I want to change my pace from movie to movie, make a small independent movie, make a big movie that reaches a global audience. Denis Villeneuve did that so beautifully while staying true to his vision and his voice. He reaches hundreds of millions of people around the world. I want to do that. I think that’s fantastic. Why not try that out? Having said that, it is very difficult to find these type of projects that do that, where you think this can be commercial and especially it can be commercial with me.

Probably there’s a director out there for those commercial projects that is just right, but not everybody is right for it. Because you still need to feel that personal mission to make that film commercial while also staying true to yourself. Otherwise, if you just make it to reach people and you have actually no inner drive to tell that story, the film will fail a hundred percent. It doesn’t work to say, oh yeah, I want to reach a global audience, but actually I don’t care about that story. It’s not going to work, unless you love it and breathe it. With Denis, Dune comes from the heart. If he saw it as a job, it would never be as good. I don’t have that project yet, and the last time you wrote about one, you were utterly wrong. And I tried to warn you, but hey, who cares?

DEADLINE: That was the Ocean’s Eleven. Hey man, there were talks, and there is a lot of coal to be shoveled here…

BERGER: It’s okay. I’m definitely reading things. Could this be for me? No. Could this be for me? No. So I don’t quite know what to do next because I’m editing Ballad of a Small Player with Colin Farrell. I think I’m going to be proud of the film. I want to take it to one of the fall festivals and come out with it and while posting that, busy promoting this one. So I didn’t really have the headspace or the heart, to say what’s going to be next.

DEADLINE: Around the time JJ Abrams relaunched the Star Wars franchise, I asked Ridley Scott what George Lucas’ original meant to him. He saw it with David Putnam while they were prepping a movie. Said he got angrier and angrier watching, that George Lucas got there first. In the lobby after, he told Putnam he would not make their movie, he had to find one in space. That led to the search that resulted in Alien. Villeneuve found his Dune, Christopher Nolan found Oppenheimer, and it sounds like you want to take a big swing, but you’re trying to be patient and wait for the right pitch to swing at?

BERGER: Denis and Chris Nolan are the best examples of this. They made massive commercial successes while never once betraying themselves or selling out. Those two guys, I would say are total heroes and total contemporary idols of where I hope to go.