You are listening to the winning To Talk With Oscar podcast.

And this is our conversation with Peter Sam Vargas and Miguel O'Dron, the writer, director and the star of the film.

Some Nights I feel like walking.

I feel like the film is divided into two halves, you know, like the physical reality of, like, these characters.

We really start the film, you know, getting to know them in like, this very immediate, physical, almost like very aggressive and violent way.

I think just the pressure, like the furnace of everything that was happening created this very bizarre magic that I think would have been really hard to replicate.

Pretty much to begin with.

How is life treating you guys?

How has the reception of sun nights?

I feel like walking in.

Do you want to start, Miguel?

No, I don't know.

I'm just.

I feel like reception of Some nights.

I feel like you should talk about that for me.

I feel like as an actor, we're just kind of like floating and seeing what we need to do.

So what do you feel?

How do you feel about the reception?

Yeah, I actually have been to, like, the Asian premieres of the film back in early December.

Miguel was in the world premiere.

Unfortunately, I was not, but it's been fun.

It's been fun from that, you know, like, premieres that had, like, a succession of, like, more screenings in different parts of the world.

And the best thing about it is Letterboxd exists.

So for each festival that we couldn't attend, we would at least get, like, a glimpse of how people would receive it in those parts of the world.

As for the Asian premieres, I was really eager to go to them because I feel like, I mean, it's a very Filipino story and I've developed it alongside a lot of Southeast Asian collaborators.

So it was very special for us to really be there to be present in those screenings because we feel like those were the parts of the world where we feel like we are most connected.

But surprisingly, like, we've just, you know, had our UK premiere in Glasgow and the reception has been wild.

I've been messaging Miguel a lot of screenshots from letterboxd and how the reactions have been, how the UK audiences have been experiencing the film.

And I feel like there was something special in the air during those screenings because they seem to love it a lot.

And we're so excited because I think in two days time we are opening in BFI flair with sold out screenings.

So we are looking forward to hopefully even equal reception.

Absolutely.

And yes, for you, Petersen, as someone who started his career by making indies, but also since then tried himself in and made bigger budget movies.

How does going from one system and mindset to the other compare?

I mean, I think I'm very lucky as a director to have, you know, have like my roots in independent filmmaking.

Well, first and foremost, I really would like to devote all of my passionate energies into making queer stories happen on screen.

And unfortunately those will never happen within the studio system, especially here in the Philippines.

But you know, like, I think generally the film industry has been dire since the pandemic happened.

So I understand that the risks being taken into like making studio films have really become riskier and riskier as the years go by.

But I'm still happy that I get to make the kind of stories I really want to make on the independent side.

Because aside from local grant giving bodies, there have been a lot of Asian and Southeast Asian collaborations happening that make these films possible.

So I like that the world is opening up to these kinds of collaborations and I'm excited where it could take us.

And hopefully me participating in the commercial studio system in the Philippines, I could also be like maybe one of the few people that could open the gates into making, you know, queer stories happen as well in the mainstream.

Because I strongly believe it could happen.

It could, it, it happened in our neighboring countries.

That's what I've been hearing when we were in Taipei, right, Miguel?

And you know, like when you were in Taipei, like Miguel was like treated like a superstar by, you know, like Taiwanese audiences.

So I really believe like by thinking, you know, like there's an audience, you know, bigger than, you know, just our local audiences, that these stories could like really happen more frequently than we hope it could.

Yeah, yeah.

And to use this as somewhat of a segue, just like independent filmmaking, the story you tell, the fate, the fortune of the characters is all about vulnerability and yeah.

The close knit relationships.

So.

So with that in mind, could both of you talk a little bit about intimacy in film and how you speak and act to it both behind and in front of the camera.

Especially the intimacy that you can create on an indie set like this.

Oh, wow.

We could talk about this together, Miguel, because I think even prior to filming we spent two years trying to build like this sort of comfortable, vulnerable relationship with each other.

So I don't know, do you want to talk about how this all happened?

Going on shooting, then seeing the film itself?

Very, very bizarre.

I mean, this is my first film.

My first, my first film.

So I didn't really know what to expect.

But from the get go, I think Peterson and I kind of like latched on to each other in a really unique way.

And so I was able to kind of, like, pick Peterson's brain about what this film meant to him and what these individual scenes meant to him.

Quick aside, like, remember because.

Because the auditions happened during the pandemic, Aaron.

So, like, a lot of the additions was not, you know, like your usual reading, just the lines.

It was actually sort of like a very intimate interview, like, trying to get to know who these, you know, actors are in real life.

And yeah, that, like, you know, like Miguel's story resonated with me because, you know, when he was talking about himself, it was as if, like, I was seeing the character I wrote, like, just in the flesh.

So.

Sorry.

Sorry to just.

Yeah, you always say you cast me because I had a sadness in my eyes or something.

Something like that.

And.

Yeah, yeah.

So, like, Peterson and I latched on to each other very early.

And I was always kind of afraid because at that point, I think Peterson had already, like, come up with a final cast.

And then, like, a few months later, he decided that he would recast the whole cast except for me.

So I was never really secure that I had gotten the role until I told Pete, I'm not going to believe anything you say until the cameras are literally right in front of me.

So.

So the question was about intimacy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There were really only two compasses for me for the film, and the most important one was always Peterson, because I felt like out of all of the characters, Zion is.

Pete is Zion.

So I just tried to have as many conversations as I could with Pete, but also as a first time actor with no experience of how to really.

With no awareness of how I look on camera or how to really execute.

Okay, this is what it is on the script, and then this is how I envision it in my head, and this is how it's gonna be on screen.

I think I had to force myself to kind of make Zion as real as possible to myself because I didn't have those tools that a seasoned actor has.

I had to make Zion as real as possible.

So actually, when.

When I was watching the film in Tallinn and then.

And then we watched it in Taipei and we watched it in Singapore.

By the time we got to Singapore, I had watched the film for the third time.

And then I asked Pete, I was like, pete, am I ever gonna feel comfortable watching myself on screen?

Like, I feel like.

I don't know, I just feel so uncomfortable.

And then he says, are you, like, are you unhappy with your performance?

And I think at the time I had said something to the effect of, well, I could have done this better.

You know, I could have done that scene better.

But I think a few weeks after the festivals, I realized that, okay, actually I was pretty happy with my performance.

And that wasn't what was making me uncomfortable.

What was making me uncomfortable was watching myself back and realizing that I had injected so many parts of the young versions of who I was into this character.

And that's what was making me uncomfortable watching back.

Because, you know, like, consciously, like, we.

We try to, like, be very kind to our younger selves, but I think subconsciously a lot of that cruelty is still there.

And that's what I was realizing.

Like, when I was watching Zion, I was watching younger version of myself that had experienced physical abuse.

The younger version of myself that was very scared of male physicality, you know, those parts were making me uncomfortable watching back.

So I'm really curious now to see the film for the fourth time in the Philippine premiere and see how I respond to it, knowing that, because that was like, a huge, like, revelation for me.

And so.

So maybe like, like intimacy wise, that plays into it as well.

Like, I feel very connected to Zion because I have injected so much of, you know, really painful parts of myself into the characters.

Wow.

That's the first time I'm hearing all this, Miguel.

Yeah, right.

As for me, Aaron, when I was still in the process of writing this film, it was of course, like just this very, very intense reaction to what was happening in the Philippines.

Miguel and I were also talking about how, you know, like, I started thinking about this film all the way back in 2017 when, you know, like, Rodrigo Duterte, our past president, got seated and, you know, like, started, like, a lot of these extrajudicial killings.

And, you know, like, a few weeks ago, he was already, like, arrested by the icc.

So, you know, like, it feels like just this ongoing thing that has been happening within our nation and within the streets of where the city I live in.

But when I was writing it, it was already very clear to me that I was going to make obviously, like, a city film because I've spent a lot of years, you know, like, in Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

And I wanted to make a city film.

Not just to show the city, but to show what the city is like and what the city's conditions are through, like, the bodies of, like, these characters.

It was like a cinema of, like, bodies, you know, like, confronting each other and confronting the city and what these bodies might mean to whoever sees them.

And So I think, you know, like, the idea of intimacy has always been, like, one of the core things that I really have to approach with a very, very clear and wide eye.

And so I think even at the very start, we had to define what intimacy was to these characters.

And that was like, such a.

Like a.

Like, it provided me with a lot of, like, rumination and like, just, you know, like a lot of exploration on just that question.

And I think through a lot of the drafts that have been revised, there was a lot of the big idea of how this film might climax, how these characters might find their ideas of love and connection.

It always came back to what intimacy meant for them.

And I just like this idea of showing different kinds of intimacies between these male characters, because the film starts with, you know, like, the intimacy that you might receive from an actual stranger or the intimacy that you might receive from, you know, like, brothers that you just, you know, like, not bound by blood, but bound by the experiences of, you know, what they experience on the street.

And eventually, like, you know, the intimacy that you receive from someone that you might love.

And I think the film is just like, all these versions of male intimacies that I just, you know, like, I feel strongly that it has to be shown blown up on the big screen because they matter, especially for these kinds of characters that we created.

You know, like, a lot of films have been made about, you know, the killings that these very dark regimes have, you know, enabled.

But I feel like it's rare to see, you know, also, like, the.

The magic of connections and intimacies that are being formed out of, like, just mere survival and, you know, just mere.

No hunger for connection.

Yeah.

So.

And I'm glad that, you know, like, watching the film, we shed light more on that aspect of what was happening all throughout these years here in the Philippines.

Sorry, that went in so many corners, but I feel like synthesizing.

I love it.

Yeah.

On that note.

And how timely the stories and how that resonates with different aspects of it and hopefully with audiences as well.

To me, another dominant characteristic or feature of the film is, of course, the road trip or odyssey that characters are taken on.

And something that's incredibly fascinating to me is that I believe the film's plot pretty much takes place in real time.

So I'm sort of curious, what did that mean for both the script and the production itself?

Oh, wow.

What an interesting question.

Thank you for that.

I feel like it was also very clear to me that the film has to happen in one night because the Film is more interested in, you know, like evoking this feeling of the aftermath of one's death resulting from, you know, like the brutal situation of the society that these characters live in.

Because when all these extrajudicial killings happened, it's as if like every night you hear like a different name, hear like a different story that you almost get desensitized, you know, hearing about like certain deaths happening around the city.

And it was just, you know, like it took like a couple of months until you hear like a name like Kian de los Santos, who is a teenager who just wanted to know, to take his exams next week.

Pleading from a policeman to not, you know, like to be killed because he wanted to take his exams.

That was his primary concern as a teenager.

And so I think I really wanted to blow up like this one night that it's not just something that passes you by, like it's.

It's something that you know, like that you have to experience with them what it means to like see your friend die at your very hands.

And what it means to like, you know, like to not just to sympathize with him but to also like know what it's like that you could be next and what that might mean to these characters.

And so I think story wise it was very clear that I would like work hard to like, you know, like get all resources happen just for this one night to be blown up on the big screen.

Because that's what.

Yeah, that's what I feel like the story should be like in terms of production.

I didn't think too much about that because it suddenly like when we're talking about production so.

Oh like so everything happens outside in the streets of Manila.

It's a road film and it has to happen in the dead of night.

So at the very beginning we knew that we had so many limitations.

Like once the sun goes down, everyone has to be prepared.

Doing the first scene of the day.

And we always had this running joke that when it was around 4 or 5am because the sun comes up pretty early during those days we were singing a song, right?

Miguel, our cinematographer Russell Martin has.

What is that song again?

Like what was that song again?

Do you remember?

So when someone sings that song, we knew that we just had to finish whatever we were shooting because we were, you know, like we were so like subjected to those time constraints and of course especially like due to budget constrictions.

That's where the idea of like doing the entire third act in one long take happened.

Because I only had One, you know, shooting day to pull the entire third act off.

So I think maybe you want to talk about this, Miguel.

Like, we kept talking about how that became such, like, a crucial.

Not just like a logistical decision, but more of, like a creative choice that allowed, like, you know, these characters to experience everything in real time and how that became, like, you know, like your source of, like, your emotions during that time.

We were shooting the end of this.

Film, I think shooting at night and shooting in these very, very real, very organic, very Filipino, like, settings.

There's something about it that I didn't predict how much it would allow us to click as actors in the moment.

Because when you're reading the script right, it's like, it's a totally different thing, but then being in these actual spaces.

There was one scene, for example, that was actually cut out of the film, but we were shooting an airport road, whereas it's like a traditionally, like, where a lot of prostitution happens.

And it was so, so real.

And actually there were.

There were some sex workers that were cast as extras, and I got to interact with them.

And it was just so immersive.

I think the world that Peterson and production were able to build, that for me, that was like 50% of the acting.

Yeah.

I think it was important for us to really look for, like, if we were shooting, like, on the script, it was supposedly a cruisy cinema.

I remember when we were doing location checks of that actual cinema where we shot the film, cruisers were actually there suddenly sitting in the space.

So, yeah, I think it was important for us to bring these actors, you know, like, to the real spaces.

Yeah.

Because I feel like that adds truth, the energy to what we were shooting.

Yeah, the energy of Manila, just, like, especially in certain scenes, just added to the sense of urgency that the film needed.

And then there were certain scenes that, like, for example, in the.

Is it still Victoria Court?

Or, like, was it.

Right.

It was a love hotel.

Yeah, like a love hotel scene where it's just.

You could.

Yeah, you could just really feel as an actor the ebb and flow of the script.

Like, and when you're shooting, it was not, like, entirely closed because production could not close the entire love hotel.

So people were actually checked in just, like, the next street across.

It was very real.

Yeah, it was very real.

At the same time, when authenticity is such an important part of the process and the whole film, there is the.

Yeah.

What I would call magical realism parts of it.

Yeah.

These dreamlike, infused sequences.

So how do you avoid those becoming a distraction, a diversion in Such a rose story.

Yeah.

I think it was also very, very clear to me that it would eventually lead to that kind of.

Kind of realm.

I think it was important for me that, like, when my editor, Daniel Hui and I talk about the structure of the film, I feel like the film is divided into two halves.

You know, like, the physical reality of, like, these characters.

We really start the film, you know, getting to know them in, like, this very immediate, physical, almost like very aggressive and violent way.

And I think for us, it was important that, you know, like, Daniel and I leading the audience into, like, a territory that does not feel very, very familiar.

I think it was important for us to access a certain feeling that was not, you know, explainable by just the physical journey of these characters.

And I think that's what separates us from a lot of films here in the Philippines that was made, you know, because of.

Also a reaction to what was happening around that time is that our film came much, much later and we were able to kind of, like, make sense of what we were feeling.

And I wanted to also show that cinematically, you know, like, how we made sense of this feeling of not just like, this personal grief, but like, this collective national grief that everyone experiences.

And so I think that's why I resorted to painting the experience of the second half into, like, this almost spiritual, dreamlike territory.

Because now it was more about these unexplainable feelings, and I don't regret them.

Even if I've read a lot of reactions where they are, as you've said, it could distract from the physical journey.

And the film does end up going back to the physical concerns of these characters.

But the reason why I don't regret it is because it was part of the truth of my experience going through all of these things, happening where I am.

And I don't think the story would be complete without, you know, like, without it.

Oh, for me, it absolutely worked.

And, yeah, pun intended, it worked magic.

So.

As for you, Miguel, can scenes like this, on the contrary, give you a more beneficial distraction from how naturalistic, true to life the setting and the whole story is?

These are really good questions.

Thank you.

That's a really good question because actually, like, the whole filming of the movie was so surreal to me.

And obviously, like, we don't film things in chronological order, right.

So even as an actor, like, you don't even really get a full sense of what the film like, you don't get the full scope of the film as an actor.

And the real and the, I guess, the magical realism parts Kind of blurred for us in the moment of the shoot because.

But I'll just talk about the one scene in the dream sequence where Zion is like setting his ex lover on fire because that was a very challenging scene for Peterson and I to film because there were so many like, environmental distractions.

Looking back at it now, wasn't that amazing that the only time.

Because it, you know, like when you say yes to the challenge of shooting everything in exterior locations and then like we never got like, you know, like natural phenomenons intervening the shoot until that day.

Like that was the moment when suddenly there was like rain that we just had to embrace.

And then like all of the.

Yeah, yeah, like a lot of like natural intervention.

It was like 4am at that point.

Right.

And so we were like chasing the sun or we were like trying to wrap it up.

And I was having a lot of trouble with that scene in particular.

It was the first time, I think Peterson had like gotten to the set from behind, wherever he's hiding and he's like, what's not clicking?

What's not clicking?

And then I think just the pressure, like the furnace of everything that was happening created this very bizarre magic that I think would have been really hard to replicate without all of those.

So, yeah, back to your question of, no, I couldn't tell what was real.

That's incredible.

It was all surreal to me.

Completely understandable.

And.

Yeah.

But before we wrap, there is one thought I just can't shake regarding something you've said, Miguel.

So many actors talk about how they can bear to watch themselves.

And you also mentioned how it was to see yourself on the screen for the first or the second or third time.

And even though you're a first time actor, you're a successful singer, musician.

So like, for example, I don't know whether you've tried this, but if you were to close your eyes and just listen to yourself acting on the screen, does that make the experience more familiar for you?

Yes, actually, that's such a good question because I feel like when I was studying the script, it's the voice.

Zion's voice is what I started with.

That was what I clung onto the most that made him real for me.

And so everything was kind of built around that about the way that Zion speaks.

The way.

Yeah, yeah, so.

So it's really curious maybe like as a singer, because it's so natural to me to hear my own voice then that's where I would naturally start with.

But yeah, no, I haven't tried like shutting my eyes and it's like, not a horror movie.

So I'm just, like, listening to my voice for the whole film.

I don't know.

I'll try it.

Maybe I'll try it.

You should.

Which, yeah, absolutely.

It would be maybe not as beautiful as seeing or experiencing the whole thing, but, yeah.

Yeah.

Once again, guys, thank you so, so much for your time and the film.

Thank you so much.

It's amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Aaron.

It was a very beautiful conversation.