Alexander Payne talks ‘The Holdovers’, Paul Giamatti is the ‘Greatest Actor’ and teases future Western and French-language projects – Thessaloniki

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, to two parents of Greek descent, two-time Oscar winner Alexander Payne received Greek citizenship last year around the time he was working on his latest feature film. The survivors.

To do justice to this honor, Payne returned to his adopted home to present the award The survivors as one of the main screenings at this year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

“I’ve shown almost all my films here,” Payne told the crowd at a print shop in Thessaloniki this afternoon.

the survivors, Payne’s eighth film is a ’70s comedy about Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a grumpy New England high school teacher who must stay on campus during Christmas break to watch over the handful of students who aren’t going anywhere. . Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them – the damaged, wisecracking troublemaker Angus (Dominic Sessa) – and the principal (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

The picture was written by the author David Hemingson, best known as the creator of Whiskey CavalierThis is the second film directed by Payne that was not written by him. The director’s two Oscars both fall in the Adaptive Screenplay category. Asked if it was difficult for him to direct a script that wasn’t his, Payne wryly replied with a joke.

“If AI could write a script for me, I’d be so happy,” he joked. “I was trained as a director, not as a writer. As a filmmaker, you write, direct and edit. But I prefer directing to writing. Writing is hard and I’m slow at it.”

Payne added that he thought about it The survivors as his first experience directing a writer when he commissioned the script.

“I found the author. I gave him the premise and we created the story together. He showed me many designs. I participated in the writing despite no credit, and the result was personal for both of us.

About his leading actor Paul Giamatti, with whom he reunited in this photo after the 2004 Oscar winner SidewaysPayne said that without Giamatti, there would be no version of this feature in his head.

“The character is not called Paul for nothing. “I told the writer from the beginning that we were writing for Paul Giamatti,” Payne said. “I called Paul and said: ‘We’ll write something for you’.”

Payne described Giamatti as “the greatest actor”.

“There’s nothing he can’t do. “If the role is generally good for him, give it to Paul Giamatti,” he said. “It’s like giving Meryl Streep or Laurence Olivier a role . They’re just excited to see what this great actor is going to do with the role. He’s that good.”

The survivors is currently in limited release in the United States and opens Nov. 10 through Focus Features, which acquired the picture for about $30 million at the Toronto Film Festival last year. When asked what he wanted to work on, he agreed the survivors, Payne said he plans to work with Hemingson again.

“We’re thinking about a Western,” Payne said of himself and Hemingson. “I’ve always wanted to do a real western. There is another project I have. The script is not quite finished yet, but it takes place in Paris and is in French.”

He added: “I still only think about films and not about TV series.”

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival runs until November 12.