Interview: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME’s Luca Guadagnino and Michael Stuhlbarg
“I like your shoes.”
Those were the first words that Luca Guadagnino, the director of Call Me By Your Name, one of this year’s biggest critical hits and Oscar favorites, said to me as I sat down to interview him. Truth be told, I did wear my red sequined Converse so I might have been fishing for that. Guadagnino himself was sporting fabulous red suede shoes so, of course, I returned the compliment.
Both Luca and one of his film’s stars, Michael Stuhlbarg, were in town for the Napa Valley Film Festival. Stuhlbarg was receiving a Spotlight award and had two films at the festival – The Shape of Water and Call Me By Your Name. A fascinating duo, as Guadagnino was verbose and gave detailed and long responses to questions and Stuhlbarg came with a more methodical approach to answers.
Throughout the interview we talk about the journey for the book to get to film, getting Sufjan Stevens aboard and even a casting scoop the upcoming sequel (hint: it’s someone from A Bigger Splash).
Sony Pictures Classics will give Call Me By Your Name a limited release on November 24th and wider throughout the season.
This interview runs 36m 13s with intro and outro.
Intro: Call Me By Your Name trailer featuring “Mystery of Love” by Sufjan Stevens
Outro: “Visions of Gideon” by Sufjan Stevens from the Call Me By Your Name Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (copyright – The Orchard Enterprises and ℗ 2017 Sufjan Stevens)
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He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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