Richard Linklater, Poet of the Hang-Out Movie, Talks About Hit Man , Netflix, His Epic 20-Year Paul Mescal Project Merrily We Roll Along , and Time's Inexorable Passage

Photographs: Getty Images, Netflix; Collage: Gabe Conte

In the 35 years of his directing career, Richard Linklater has carved out a niche as the éminence grise of just hanging out and talking. You can divide his movies into two categories: movies with a plot (School of Rock, Bernie) and, more often, movies without one (Slacker, Dazed and Confused, The Before Trilogy, Everybody Wants Some!!).

His latest, Hit Man, is very much in the former category. Based on a Texas Monthly story and co-written with its star, Glen Powell, Hit Man follows an exceedingly mild-mannered guy named Gary Johnson (Powell) who moonlights as a wire-wearing fake hitman for his local police department. People looking to hire a contract killer get unknowingly connected with Gary, who sells them on his services while gathering proof of their guilt so the cops can arrest them. All’s well and good until he meets Maddy (Adria Arjona), who wants to finish off her abusive husband, and the two of them fall for each other. What follows is a rousing noir-screwball mashup with off-the-charts chemistry that solidifies Powell’s movie star bonafides. Simply put: it’s exactly the sort of movie you want to see in a packed theater at the height of summer.

But, aside from a limited theatrical release, Hit Man is going straight to Netflix. GQ talked to Linklater about his feelings about how that went down, the so-called “death of hanging out,” the Merrily We Roll Along adaptation he’s filming with Paul Mescal on a 20-year timeline, and his thoughts on building career longevity in a fickle industry. When we spoke, he was in Paris, finishing shooting his forthcoming movie New Wave, which is entirely in French.

GQ: Do you speak French?

Richard Linklater: No, not really.

So how’s it going over there?

Oh, it's fine. My whole crew speaks English to me, as the boss. I use the same methodologies and everything. It's been fascinating. On one hand, as far as non-French speaking audiences go, I'm making what New Wave films looked like—a subtitled movie. But I care deeply about the French aspect of it. I want it to be perfect. And we rehearsed forever. We rehearsed once in English, then French. I know exactly what they're saying, but I have two people near me saying, "Oh, they got that one little thing wrong." I'm like, "Okay, we'll go again." The French speakers, and everyone I'm working with, my French editor, everyone is liking it.

The movie’s about the French art-film movement that emerged at the turn of the ‘60s. Who’s your Godard?

This guy named Guillaume Marbeck, and, man, is he good. If you don't get a good Godard, you don't have anything. I'm having a good time. It's a film I've been working on for about 10 years. It’s always a little bit of a miracle when it all comes together and you get to make the films you've been dreaming of for a long time.

Well, congratulations on Hit Man too. How did co-writing it with Glen Powell work?

It was in many phases. I get a call from my friend, Glen Powell, who I've worked with on numerous other occasions, and we're talking. He talks about an article he's read, which I, of course, had read years before from Texas Monthly and my friend, Skip Hollandsworth. It was a story I had flipped around for a long time, and it never quite worked. But Glen, to have an actor interested who had ideas, that's what started that collaboration. The whole way, we're both just working our asses off, trying to make the story work, and having a good time doing it.

Did you two have a chance to meet the real Gary Johnson before he passed?

I did. I knew Gary a little bit. Glen never met him. Unfortunately, he died two weeks [before] shooting. We were that close to shooting, and I hadn't heard from him. I had been trying to get in touch with him for a number of weeks, and we got in touch with his … oh, let's say, widow, even though they weren't married anymore. He had passed away, this pulmonary thrombosis, something. So it was really sad that he went quickly, and he didn't live to see the film. But I paid tribute to him at the very end because he really was chill.

Some people, you're making a film with their name, and they're like, "Tell me more. Who's playing? Can I read..." He was like, "Sounds good, man." He didn't care. He was so just beautifully detached. He was a true Zen master. He was a Buddhist.

Oh yeah?

He had a Buddhist funeral. So as crazy as our story gets, you can't ever say it's not based in a real guy. There was this guy. He was a Jungian scholar, he loved the mind, he taught, and then he also was an undercover guy. That is a strange combo bedrock of a fascinating character. So we definitely take it.

The article that Skip wrote pretty much ends where Gary lets off the young woman who wants to kill her husband. Our thing turns when she gets back in touch with him. That was the idea. It's like, "Well, what if she got back in touch with him and thanked him? Just thanked him for righting her ship. What if they start hanging out?”

Rewatching some of your old films all in a row, I found myself thinking that there's something McConaughey-esque about Glen Powell. Did you see that too?

I know he shares the Texas thing, but Glen, his mind's wired very differently than Matthew. That's all I can say. I mean, they're good-looking, hunky guys, for sure, but I don't really think about that too much.

I really appreciate the way both of them think very differently, but it's a good, apt comparison because I think what you're really talking about is a kind of star charisma. That star quality that Glen has, Matthew has. Some people have that. It's rare that people actually have that, so audiences respond to it. They let you get away with a lot.

This is not your first movie based on a wild character from a Texas Monthly story—there was Bernie, of course.

Let's give it to Skip's nose for a great story—a great true crime situation, a great off-kilter, funny, but weird.

Having grown up there, is there something about Texas that has a higher preponderance of these kinds of characters?

You know, I don't want to say that. I mean, we filmed in New Orleans, and they're full of crazy characters. So I think there's great characters everywhere. Maybe there's a bigger appreciation for them or kind of a storytelling tradition that includes them.

There's certain echelons of culture that don't want to look there, but Texans were always kind of bigger than life. Even our presidents. LBJ, driving his Lincoln down the back roads as President, throwing out beers, showing his scars. There's Texas big characters, so there's a history of that.

But both my stories were really about introverted Texans. Gary is an introvert. Bernie Tiede is a closeted introvert. I mean, I did a movie with Matthew years ago called Newton Boys, and those were some fun-loving, bigger, bank-robbing, train-robbing, fun, crazy, extroverted guys. That was a different gear for me, and I truly enjoyed it. But my default mode is kind of the thinking person and the sensitive weirdo.

I saw Hit Man at the New York Film Festival, and the theater was absolutely electric. I know it’s going to have a brief theatrical release, but otherwise going straight to Netflix. And I’ve talked to other people who saw it in a screening and are disappointed about this too. What are your feelings around that, and what are you hoping people will still get from it when they see it in this setting?

I mean, Glen and I wrote this on spec. No one hired us to do this. This wasn't an industry project. This was Glen and I working hard on this and hoping to make a film, and we got it made independently. And then you just put it out there in the world, and you hope a distributor likes it and wants to show your movie.

And so everyone in the industry had that opportunity. Anyone could have picked it up. Netflix had the most passion for it. What can you say? From our perspective, it just goes to the most passionate person. Believe me, if anyone would have said, "We think this can gross $100 million. Glen's a big star. We are going to put it in all these theaters..." But no one made that offer, so the real question isn't to me. It's to all the distributors.

You've got to ask them what they didn't see in this movie. What about this movie made them think an audience wouldn't show up for it? So I don't know.

That is surprising.

You know, you sit through these screenings that are electric, people applaud during the movie. I was at those screenings, and it's fun. And as a filmmaker, you love a big audience. They all laugh together, they have an experience together, and that's what filmmaking traditionally has been, and that's what you have in mind when you make a film.

But the reality is most films are seen ultimately, especially in the indie world, years later on video. That's been my whole career. I've had some theatrical releases, you make a bigger film, but mostly when someone comes up to you and says they like your movie, they saw it at home.

We did have hopes that this would be that, and it is a crowd pleaser, but that's an industry question I can't answer. We had to go with who had the most interest in it and the most passion for it.

So what are you hearing from the distributors? If not this, what do they believe is going to get people in the theater and gross $100 million?

I don't know. I'm not one of them, and I don't talk to them directly. They don't call me and say, "Ah, we liked it, but it doesn't fit in." I don't know what they're thinking. I've seen the industry change a lot. I think it's obvious a film like this, in the '80s, '90s, would have certainly been a big studio release. I just don't think they're in the business of adults. I don't want to speak for them. Again, it's a question for all the studios and other distributors who let Netflix beat them out. What can I say? They didn't step up.

Your movies can be pretty clearly divided between ones that are plot-driven and ones that are not. This one is very much plot-driven. Which do you prefer to make, and also how does your process differ?

When you're making a movie, you’re just trying to tell the story appropriately. And this one, early on, I realized, "For this to be an enjoyable experience, it has to work along these lines." But I think that even in a less plotted movie, you can't be lazy. It's still got to work. There's got to be an intricate structure to its lack of plot, or it would just all fall apart. If this film is all just kind of a conversation between two people, like, say, one of the Befores, it's got to work. It's got to be paced.

Filmmaking, it's construction. It's the engineering of a story to tell that story in the way you want. So every story is different and demands something different.

I didn't really start out thinking we were making a film noir or a screwball, but it is a fun feeling to realize, "Oh, I'm in this territory." You want to push boundaries and be original in your own way. Even though there's elements that are completely unoriginal, you’ve got to bring something to it.

Speaking of the less plot-driven ones, which are often about a bunch of people hanging out and talking, I’ve been seeing a lot of articles and charts about how nobody's hanging out anymore. Have you heard about this? “The death of hanging out.”

Oh, really? Just in social life?

Yeah, young people just aren’t hanging out in the same way they used to. What do you make of this generational shift? I know you have children who are teenagers, or young adults.

Well, mine, I notice they do hang out. I just talked to my 19-year-old twins. I'm like, "What are you guys doing tonight?" And they're like, "Oh, we're having a bonfire, and a band's playing." They're living kind of boho, hangout, as much as you can these days.

It’s a cliché to talk about, "Oh, social media has changed all that." But yeah, it's sad. I mean, I personally think you find yourself in the in-between states between boredom, passion, and hanging out. When I was hanging out, I was never hanging out. I was always studying, thinking, and reading. I was hanging out with great art, with friends. And hanging out often means you're not engaged in a productive quote-unquote "activity" that fits into the ecosystem, but you're working on yourself. You're discovering yourself and your passions, and it's art-related.

It’s tragic for humanity if people can't see hanging out with friends in those situations is so much better for the soul than TikTok or whatever. But every generation is subject to distractions. I mean, we were the generation that was supposedly ruined by TV. So it's the same argument, just wrapped around a new technology, maybe.

Even just rewatching Before Sunrise for the first time since my 20s, I did get a distinct feeling of This would never happen now.

It's a funny thing to think about. The best that would have happened on that train if they locked eyes and talked for a little bit is, "Hey, let me get your number. I'll keep in touch. Bye." It was now or never [for them]. It's never that anymore. It's the scarcity of connection and time that you had—back then, you had to kind of grasp your moment because it was fleeting, and it would disappear.

So now, I think it's seemingly all replicable. It all can be taken to other levels via technology. I mean, there's no way you could do that. It was pushing it then, even. People were online by that point. We shot that in '94, the first one, and everybody had an email account by then and all that. They could have exchanged email addresses, maybe.

You’ve been in the industry for 35 years. Do you feel like it's easier or harder to break in than when you made Slacker?

Oh, so much harder. I mean, yeah, I don't even know what it means anymore. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, there's so many films being made. The entry level to making a film is lower than ever. Ask the programmer of the Sundance Film Festival who got 4,000 features in the narrative competition. When I was there with Slacker, there were like 120 submissions, so there you go. There's a lot of films being made.

The idea that the industry would give a shit and give you an opportunity is probably harder than ever. When I talk to young filmmakers who are so passionate, I hate to be that old guy saying, "Well, you should have been born 30 years ago, or 40." It changes, but I still think there's a lot to be excited about. Again, it's easier to make a film, but harder than ever to get it seen.

Maybe the question is: What’s your secret for having longevity in the industry?

Well, first off, I don't really think I'm in an industry much. I've never thought of it in career or industry terms. I just try to make the next film. I always kind of was allergic to industry thinking, or I just try to insulate my own psyche from thinking of it as an industry.

I have to, every now and then, of course, especially when it's time to figure out how to get a film financed. And I'm not a made man. I have a ton of films I never got off the ground that I wanted to. It's always a hustle. You always cut your budget. I've always made films on the cheap, and sometimes entering into pretty uncertain territory, like doing films where you don't have a distributor. It's all on you. It's execution-dependent. It's rare I've had studio backing for the film I was doing. Maybe out of 20-whatever films, maybe five times that I had studio money, four or five times.

School of Rock is one of them, yeah? And that’s you and Mike White who, obviously is having a lot of success with The White Lotus, but seems to operate with that same sort of independent ethos.

Oh, yeah. Mike, me, and Jack [Black] were these Three Musketeers. We were punks in the system, just kind of going, "Well, can we get away with this?" We're sort of delivering the economic goods as a family-friendly enough movie, but then we had our own fun. That's kind of the history of making subversive films within the studio, kind of capitalizing on the fact Hollywood's never been much of a moral entity. It's always just an entertainment industry, and if you can deliver the entertainment, you can get away with all kinds of shit. So I've enjoyed being able to do that on these numerous occasions. I don't do it that much, but that seemed like an opportunity. I really liked my collaborators on that and, most importantly, thought I was the guy to pull it off. I'd say no to most things because I just don't think I am that interested in the characters or can bring much to it.

Have you started filming the 20-year Merrily We Roll Along yet?

Yeah, we're rolling along. We're into it.

What year are you in now?

Between two and three of nine. It’s nine sections over 20 years. So when I did Boyhood, it was pretty much once a year, 12 years. That's not the case here.

What about doing Boyhood, and shooting it over the course of 12 years, made you want to attempt something similar?

I didn't really think about it until Boyhood was over. I guess Boyhood was sort of in a way, proof of concept. I saw Merrily in the '80s for the first time. I was talking to a good friend of mine, and it just kind of grew out of a conversation. I was saying Merrily's my favorite Sondheim. I just love the score. It's always been a problematic production. Although now, it’s probably the best production ever of it, up in New York. Still, there's some fundamental elements to it that would be enhanced, and Sondheim himself agreed—some of the aging problems, if we brought that template to it.

Paul Mescal is playing Frank. And he’s really blown up in the last two or three years since you first cast him.

Shortly after we started on Merrily together, it was like, "Woooo!" Not that that has anything to do with Merrily because no one's seen it, but Paul's just Paul. He's amazing, so not at all surprised.

How do you convince someone to commit to a 20-year filming period?

Oh, you don't have to convince anybody. Anybody who's, in their heart and soul, all in on art, or theater, or this piece in particular. I just think everyone thought it's a worthwhile life project to be involved in. It’s a commitment, but make no mistake. Everyone on board is committed for life in what we love, so a little commitment within your bigger life commitment is not that big a thing, right? I mean, it is technically in the administration of your life and whatever. It would be unusual if you had to commit to something that you didn't know much about or you weren't sure about, but no one was unsure about their love of this music, or this story, or the fact that it was worth doing. So anyway, whatever. We're 17 years away.

More than any other filmmaker working today I associate you with exploring time, and its passing, even beyond Boyhood and Merrily. Outside of it being an artistic preoccupation, what’s your relationship to time on a personal level?

Well, I'm very aware of it passing. Every second, I'm just like, "Oh, here's another day." I try to appreciate all of it, but I've always been like that. I've always been very aware of where I was, and the fleeting nature of our time.

To just jump tracks completely, I always liked longitudinal studies, where they do these lifelong surveys and stuff, I always thought those were really interesting. Just the commitment that a scientist would start a thing, and someone else would take it over after they die. I liked the commitment to that and the information that can be gained over a long period of time.

We're all doing that in our own lives. Every year goes by, every day that goes by, you're building onto the narrative of your own life. That's the ultimate fascinating relationship, right? Ourselves to our previous selves over time.

Originally Appeared on GQ