Maud Tenda Hi , nice to meet you ! So before talking about your career and work, I just wanted to start talking a bit about BYNWR, the media platform, and production company you created in 2018.

Nicolas Winding Refn Oh, cool !

MT I wanted to know, what was your intention in creating that platform ?

NWR My wife asked me that question every day (laughs) I think that I was interesting by what the digital revolution has brought, such as the new opportunistic way to share contents. Any artist needs an audience, just like an audience need an artist to create, it’s like a chain reaction. And it’s even more inspiring if you can communicate with the audience directly without being forced to deal with the system of obstructions that we’re so used to. The digital age has made this possible ! I wanted the platform to be a collective experience, it needed to embrace everything. I didn’t want the platform to be just cinema or television or, you know, installations of photography or music or news. So in way the platform is everything and none, it’s like a museum, an archival, a digital archival space, where things exist forever and can be represented and repurposed for everyone in the future.

MT Can you explain why The Nest of the Cuckoo Bird was the first movie on your platform?

NWR At the time I was workin on a movie posters book with one of my editors, Jamie McDonough, who’s a wonderful writer. And through various internet opportunities, I connected with a collector who was selling posters. One day, The cuckoo birds came up and I remember going to Jimmy asking him if he knew it and he sais : « Oh my god this is the holy grail of the fringes of cinema ! ». So I bought the poster for $20, and a year later it came up another copy for $8,000 on eBay. I thought that this must be a very valuable piece of art because the only thing that I could find about it was an old promotion newspaper. I also knew that The Cramps have done a song about it. And then, I was in Texas just by accident, and a post production facility came up and said : « We know that you’re interested in this film and we actually have a print that we’re scanning » I thought that if I could have the print, I l’pay for the scanning and restoration, and The Cuckoo Bird became the first diamond on the platform !

MT Are you a collector in your life? Do you collect things?

NWR Well yes, I have phases, one of the things that I still collect is Japanese toys for my youth, I place them all around me. Also I love being around with obsessive people that collect because it’s very interesting. It’s like you’re hanging out with Indiana Jones and finding the strangest things you can ever imagine. That’s always so exciting.

MT How do you finance this platform?

NWR Oh, self financed ! Working ! (laughs) But that’s how it had to be in the beginning, because I wanted to have the control. Over the years, it’s gotten more easier to get support. Obviously it’s now the intention. Everything has to become a business you know.

MT Some director as Werner Herzog thinks that is better to not watch too much movies to make ones, because it’s easier to create something new without a great cinematic culture. What do you think about that ?

NWR I don’t really know if I have an opinion on what one shouldn’t do or do, but I’ll say it like this, I think not knowing can be incredibly important and inspiring but at the same time, all the enormous amount of knowledge and information is also a big part of creativity. We all stand on each other, and that’s what evolution is. When you think of all the great artists in the history, they all had an extreme knowledge of the past.

MT Do you consider yourself as a cinephile?

NWR I don’t know if I’m a cinephile, but I think I very much like the moving images. Because of my dyslexia, I had this big fascination for television, because that was a means of expression that suited me. I don’t think that I discovered movies, I think movies discovered me, and that was through television first of all.

MT How did you starts your career ?

NWR I was very fortunate to begin my career with a phone call, and that led to getting my first film finance without having any knowledge of how to make a movie. My family comes from the film industry you know, so I grew up on sets. I was very lucky, and I’m forever grateful for that. But it’s a big difference between suddenly having to make decisions. I just seen a lot of movies, but I didn’t know anything about making ones.

MT As a director you always have to think about money issues during your creativity process, how do you manage with that ?

NWR Through your career, you obviously begin to understand that money and art have an equal importance. Making art is to be free to make exactly what you want to do, and If you really want to control your life, you have to understand money and financing. Every dollar you get, is a headache or an obstacle. So how many headaches and obstacles do you want in your life in order to be completely free? You know, the less your movie costs, the more freedom you have, not just in making the movie, but also afterwards. Art is always dependent on a financial reward in many ways in order to continue and putting yourself. I think that the financial pressure can be very healthy creatively, because the more desperate you are, the more you can exercise your muscle of instinct, it’s like to create a brain lies in your stomach and therefore not in your head. So you also have to use tricks to put yourself in situations where you have to navigate through all the obstacles.

MT How did you find your identity as a director, is it conscious?

NWR I started making films because of my interests in reality. At the beginning of my career I tried to turn reality into fiction, but then I became less interested in reality, because I didn’t want to be documentarian. I wanted to make fantasy, to make imagination. And so I decided to work more with the unreality but with the same authenticity and the same emotions. I’m now more interested in the unreal world than the real world. I find it more liberating. You know, it’s more freeing?

MT Are you influenced by your childhood, in your creative process?

NWR I think it’s important that you never allow your judgment. I always believe that you must never let the inner child disappear, because it’s like never forgetting who you were. At the end of the day, that’s who you’ll become.

MT I noticed a very interesting development in the writing and treatment of female characters during your career. On this point, there’s for example a big gap between movies such as Bleeder (1999) and production like Copenaghen cow boy (2023) ? Do you agree? And can you talk bout that ?

NWR Well, I’m sure you’re right, at least that’s what everyone tells me. But I don’t think so much about what I do. I’m surrounded by women, so I guess that has something to do with it. I guess I always set out to make films about women, and end up making it about violent men. Creativity is also to constantly move and never stay in one place. Creativity is like liquid, like water. It always has to flow, and it’s transparent because it’s not what you see, it’s what you feel of the water that really affects you. So for me, creativity is like a stream of conscience, and it evolves as you evolve, as you grow. It grows how you lived your life. It’s affected by those decisions. And as long as you keep yourself open to whatever comes to you and not think about it so much, but just create, then you are free, and that freedom can never be taken away from you.

MT What is your method of actor’s directing ?

NWR I went to acting school myself. When I was 19, my mother had given me a book about John Cassavetes. I’v got passionate about it and went to the Cinematheque in Copenhagen to see The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. I remember thinking : « God, that’s the kind of acting I would like to have if I made a movie. » And then I discovered that John Cassavetes had gone to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. So I wanted to follow in his footsteps, but I was kicked out after a year… I think directing styles are so enormous and can have so many variations. I don’t think there’s a correct method or a wrong one. But what I’m always trying to do as a director is simply to inspire others to give their best. Being a director is like being a shrink psychologist. It’s being a military operator and a kindergarten teacher at the same time.

MT You have also a very particular approach to sound, and a real sound identity, which is quite rare. How do you work with sounds ?

NWR Because of my dyslexia, I had to always rely on not necessarily having words, so everything had to be approached like a silent movie. And obviously sound and music are very becomes my best friends. Again it’s like liquid, it’s transparent, so you can’t see it, you can only feel it. And I think one of the powers of creativity, if it is to sustain longevity, is that it has to surpass the experience of understanding into the experience of feeling.

MT Is there a soundtrack that influenced you particularly?

NWR Funny you asked that ! I was 8 when I moved to New York with my mother and my stepfather, so I had my formative years in the greatest city that ever existed in its best years. My mother had the soundtrack of Once upon a time in the west, and I remember loving to listening to the music and looking at the cover without having seen the movie. I guess that was my introduction to the power of film music. I actually still have that exact vinyl in my collection.

MT What advice would you give to a young director?

NWR I would say a very simple advice, in three words : Do it your way ! … Is that three words? my wife just corrected me that it was four words, but see, that’s why I was not very good in school, I can’t even count to four ! (Laughs)

MT Do you ever watch your own movies?

NWR No, I don’t watch my own films when I’m done. They just become, you know, that space. I get high on it’s the creative process, but the result is essentially no longer really mine. The experience of making the movie is mine, and the experience of seeing it is to the audience, and both are equally important. It’s like having children you know, they’re yours until they’re 18, and then you gotta let them go.

MT What was the last movie you saw that really stood out for you ?

NWR Well, my eldest daughter, who’s 21 was going to travel around Asia. Before she left, I showed her The Deer Hunter of Michael Cimino. And I was just again amazed by this magnificent filmmaking. She also very much liked it by the way, and I was very happy about it.

MT My last question, can you talk a bit about your next project.

NWR Well, I would love to tell you about my next project, but it’s difficult because I haven’t made it yet. I am planning on shooting something, but I still have to make it first before I can tell you what it is. I just I don’t know what things are until I’ve made them. It’s a bit like being a child, you know ?