Hello and

Welcome to Little Gold Men, the award season podcast from Vanity Fair.

I am delighted and proud to introduce him as Academy Award winner.

And the Oscar goes to. And the Oscar goes to the winner, it's a tie. And any little girl

who's practicing their speech on the teller you never know

Ma I hit this one in Oscar I'm Richard Lawson filling in for David Canfield who is on vacation, but even though he's all the way in Norway, we're still going to hear from David because he has a wonderful interview with the great Vigo Mortenson. Mortenson, of course you know from a variety of David Cronenberg films Captain Fantastic, The Lord of the Rings movies,

but recently he's been trying his hand at writing and directing.

His most recent film, The Dead Don't Hurt, is a really interesting fresh take on the classic Western.

What did you go to St. Francisco? To see the end of the world. This is it? The place you chose of all the places you have seen

No flowers, no garden at all. You live like a dog

Happy dog.

The great Vicky Creeps who who you know from Phantom of Thread and Berkman Island, gives a really great performance as an outspoken and independent woman named Vivian Lecudi.

Mortenson's character is a Danish immigrant who goes by Olsen and he falls in love

with Grapes character before he decides to enlist in the Union Army during the Civil War.

The movie breaks from a lot of conventional Western genre trappings in really interesting ways that David and Vigo get into,

but I also really appreciated hearing Mortenson's really candid perspective on the challenges of modern filmmaking.

I don't know if you've heard this,

but it's hard to get movies made these days.

He had some strong words to say about studios in particular,

and he definitely doesn't hold back in this interview so you're really going to want to listen.

Beagle Mortenson, welcome to the show.

Hi there, thanks for having me.

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