Director Lee Isaac Chung shares the inspirations behind 'Twisters'

Transcript

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

Director Lee Isaac Chung is best known for his close up and understated character studies. His 2020 film "Minari" won critical acclaim and plenty of awards for its tender portrayal of a Korean American family struggling to achieve the American dream. So you are not alone if you're surprised to hear that his newest film is the blood-pumping thriller "Twisters."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TWISTERS")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Scott, whatever's in there, it's big, and it's moving fast. Drive.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Go, go, go.

DETROW: "Twisters" is a reboot of sorts of the classic 1996 film, "Twister." It follows the story of Kate Carter, an Oklahoma native and scientist who loses her nerve after a deadly encounter with a tornado. She teams up with Tyler Owens, a meteorologist/social media influencer who blasts country music from the bullhorns racked on top of his truck. She's cautious and studious. He shoots fireworks into tornadoes. Director Lee Isaac Chung joins me now. Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

LEE ISAAC CHUNG: Thanks so much. So glad to be talking with you.

DETROW: Were you a fan of the original?

CHUNG: I was. I grew up in Arkansas - northwest Arkansas. And I remember, when that came out, we were all used to tornadoes. We kind of grew up around them. And that film was set in Oklahoma, which is just right across the border from where I was living. And in a way, I thought of it as, like, a local film. I didn't even realize how big of a movie it was until I moved out of Arkansas, went to college, that it was quite a big movie everywhere.

DETROW: I know a few people, including folks who worked on this segment, said they wore out their VHS of watching "Twister" over and over back in the '90s.

CHUNG: There's something about that film. It just has this balance, this weird balance of all kinds of things that are happening within it. And it's a hard film to place what it is. Is it a disaster movie? Is it an adventure? Is it a romance? We would talk to a lot of storm chasers about their origin story. Like, where did you get started? How did you get interested? And so many people list "Twister" as that start. And also, actual weather scientists and meteorologists, they would also list that movie. So it really holds a place in the hearts of many people who are in love with weather.

DETROW: Is there anything, even as somebody who lived in that region and knows the fear of tornadoes, is there anything you learned from those conversations that surprised you or influenced the movie?

CHUNG: We were filming one scene in a movie theater where everybody's under threat from a incoming tornado, and they're all in a movie theater. And we asked the question, how many of you all - because these were all background actors that were from the area - have been in an experience like this? And all of them raised their hands. And the follow-up question is, then why are you guys doing this? Aren't you guys traumatized? Why are you here?

But they just love tornadoes. There's this interesting mix there of having experienced and being very resilient to these devastating storms, but also this deep respect and admiration for nature that is held in this tension. And I found that to be really interesting. And in many ways, that kind of guided me as I was making this film to try to have both of those elements within the film.

DETROW: Did you put a lot of thought into how you were portraying the tornadoes, since the tornadoes are kind of the monster of this movie? Like, what movies were you thinking about in terms of what to reveal when and when to show the first close-up of the tornado?

CHUNG: The No. 1 film that I was looking at was "Jaws"...

DETROW: Yeah.

CHUNG: ...By Steven Spielberg, to be honest. Yeah, I did see this as a monster movie. And that movie is about three people and three people dealing with this force of nature, this shark. And it was great to be able to work with Steven Spielberg on this film and to talk about "Jaws" and how he increased tension and all those things. How did he do a lot of these beats without even showing the shark? So, that element does creep into this film, where there are many times I'm withholding showing the tornado, and it's really coming out of my love for that film.

DETROW: Can you share anything particular he told you about "Jaws"?

CHUNG: One of the things that he talked about was how, originally, he was going to show the shark a lot more, but that shark was malfunctioning. So he had to start working on ways to show the effects of what that shark is doing. So the shark is, you know, dragging the yellow barrels through the ocean. If you notice, our film has these yellow barrels...

DETROW: Yeah.

CHUNG: ...Which may possibly be my biggest nod to that film. As I was prepping and directing this film, I was really interested in, what are the effects of the tornado? How do I show those effects?

DETROW: Yeah. And I feel like there's one particular scene where there's like this dread of this tornado coming in a surprising place, and you kind of see, you know, the early signs of the wind and stuff like that. And just like - I feel like the rodeo scene especially is where the dread really sets in in that sense. I'm thinking of it that way now.

CHUNG: Yeah. I always love in Spielberg's films those eerie details that kind of tell the story. And I love that kind of storytelling. And in this situation with the rodeo, our science adviser, Kevin Kelleher, I had asked him, what is the weirdest thing you've ever experienced in a tornado? And he told me that one time he was chasing, and before the tornado appeared, suddenly all these leaves were falling out of nowhere from the sky. And I thought that detail was incredible, and I put that into the film.

DETROW: Would you want to storm chase, given your background, at least once?

CHUNG: I went on a chase.

DETROW: Yeah.

CHUNG: Yeah, I did go on a chase during production when we got shut down by an actual tornado outbreak. I went out with our weather adviser, and I did feel like I caught the bug a little bit of storm chasing, but I'll go with the scientists on this one.

DETROW: Yeah. Whether it's that or something else, I feel like there's this whole throughline of the film of facing your fears, riding your fears, as some people say in the movie. Is that something that strikes with you? Are there things that you were afraid of that you jumped head into and worked through it that way?

CHUNG: I felt like tackling this movie was certainly one of those things. It was - it just felt like a beast of a movie to try to make and definitely very different from the films that I've been making. So that felt pretty frightening. And I tried to put that into the movie. And in general, like, what I've been leaning into with this film, and in my own life, is I really love any moment in which I can just get out of my own head and focus on things that are much bigger than me. And I feel like something like nature, incredible clouds, storms, tornadoes, these are the sort of things I want to experience and look at, things that are bigger than me that fill me with awe.

DETROW: What do you want to do next, more big blockbusters or going back to indie world?

CHUNG: I don't know. I've been trying not to think too much in those categories in some sense. But I've been generally feeling like I'd love to do more theatrical work to make sure that we really are bringing people to movie theaters and showing them that this theatrical experience is quite a wonderful thing that we have as people that we can partake in and enjoy things that can really fill us with that sense of awe that I've been chasing after myself. So I'm hoping to do that, whether that's a smaller film that can do that and be theatrical or if it needs to be bigger in scale. I don't know. But I'm chasing after getting people to the movie theaters.

DETROW: I guess big, loud tornadoes is a good argument for going to a movie theater.

CHUNG: I hope so. I hope so.

DETROW: That's Lee Isaac Chung, director of "Twisters," in theaters now. Thank you so much.

CHUNG: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.