#the film industry makes a huge amount of money I'm sure the least they can do with that is humanize the environment for people to work in

[niji-translated]

“Hold Your Breath” – tst-movie Interview

Translation by me (niji-translated)

[If you wish to use any of my translations, please ask]

Link to original interview:

Hulu Original ‘Hold Your Breath’ Episode 3, Murakami Nijiro Interview

The one thing that cannot be missing when getting married.

Reporter A: Shinpei and yourself seem to be people very different from each other to me, but were you aware of any similarities?

Nijiro: I’ve known Director Nakagawa Ryutarou a long time, so he know a lot about me. I thought “you know me, and you’re making a parody”. Therefore, him and myself are not that different, I feel that just the world changed. Even if it’s like I’m playing myself, if it didn’t look like that, I feel that we succeeded.

Reporter A: Shinpei isn’t accepted by society, but aren’t you accepted by society?

Nijiro: I rarely think I’m accepted by society. I’ve always been a social misfit, everyday I live with this thinking. When I can have a normal conversation with you like this, I think I’m doing well, and yet when I get home I’ll think “I knew it,  I'm still not doing this right" And I’ll go right back. (laughs). It’s a fleeting feeling.

Reporter A: That’s unexpected.

Nijiro: Is it really? When I’m home alone, I can’t help thinking ‘where are your social skills?’ I can have a conversation like this, but I’ll keep thinking ‘what was I doing then?’

Myson (main interviewer): I thought it was interesting that it was a short story this time. Do you have a different approach when you play a role that starts off with a lot of information compared to a role where you can let your imagination run wild?

Nijiro: Pain, suffering, crying and so on, of course there is always a lot of space, meaning to them and the amount of time you put in doesn’t change. I think it’s less difficult for me to show bigger emotions, that’s been with me from the start. I don’t think I’m very good at it now, but when I look at my early works, I think I’m more like myself when I say something like “Ahhhh!!”

(laughs). “Good morning” and “by the way”, and so on, those are the most difficult. Since this work is the latter, it was a challenge for me (laughs). Especially from where I was a few years ago, I couldn't have done this, I’m not changing my approach at all, but for me this kind of work has a higher level of difficulty.

Myson: Performing the everyday is more difficult, did you start with the "what is natural?" approach, then?

Nijiro: I think there is also that, because you’re depicting something the norm, I think performing something universal is difficult. Universal, I mean, by majority, which means it’s the majority that will be observing and judging, there’s a feeling that it’s more demanding. (laughs)

Myson: Certainly! (laughs). However, during the quarrel scene, when you’re very angry, it’s like there’s a half smile, I could see the excitement in your eyes. I thought it was very realistic

Nijiro: Is it? But, I also have a huge complex about the universal. I may be completely misunderstanding this, but when I’m talking to people, eating meals, when going out on site with new people, sometimes it’s like there’s some kind of tension and pressure points are very different, mostly they don’t match. This is my own experiences and feelings, I often feel that I enjoy things differently to everyone else, I have a huge complex about others (laughs). I don’t mean that in a bad way, you saying ‘ it was realistic’, that makes me happy.

Myson: This work is about people who live along the Tama-gawa, but if work and corona have nothing to do with it, what city or what kind of place would you want to live in?

Nijiro: I really like the city, but I want to live with animals. I was born in Tokyo, and I believe my roots are in Tokyo, but I grew up in the countryside, I was in the wilderness for a lot of my time, especially during my adolescence. At that time I lived with goats and birds, cats and so on, therefore there’s a feeling that living with animals is natural. It’s not like ‘Princess Mononoke’ but I love big animals, I want to live with something extreme, like bears or something.

Myson & Reporter A: Ehhh!???

Nijiro: Looking at social media, aren’t there a lot of animal videos? Overseas you can see men playing with bears, and I really like when fierce animals like tigers or something are cute when they’re babies. I also like squirrel monkeys and cats, birds and other small animals, they’re cute, I want to live with all of them. But, I love Tokyo and I love the city therefore, seeking the two extremes you’d definitely need a lot of money, right. I’m an actor who films away from home, so I’m not really suited to that kind of life. Desires and work don’t match, what can I do? (laughs). It’s not like I’d have a sitter raise them. If I’m not there, then there’s no point.

Myson: Certainly! (laughs)

Nijiro: Like learning asset management, I think it’s not that easy (laughs). This might be a bad way of putting it but, in my mind, I think of marriage as a contract that the partner will keep animals as well. It’s not a contract with a woman, it’s a ‘contract to raise animals together’.

Myson: Hahahaha!

Nijiro: If not that, then I won’t get married, or at least have a de-facto marriage.

Myson: That’s the most important thing in order to marry!

Nijiro: It is important, isn’t it. How did we get talking about this? (laughs)

Myson: We were talking about where you want to live. (laughs)

Nijiro: Where I want to live, well I'm not wrong then!

Everyone: Hahahaha!

As a child I felt a distance from the entertainment industry

Myson: As a small child I guess the entertainment industry felt close to home, but how did you become interested in actors and the job itself? Did it feel natural that you would become an actor?

Nijiro: Maybe it was the reverse. By my school and my parents I was banned from all media, so my intake of drama and movies, compared to people who grow up in a world with normal TV, it was about a tenth of that. I used to watch “Rookies” in secret, but I knew very little about it, so I couldn’t admire it. I did have manga and games though. So instead this world was rather far away. I have opportunities to meet various people close to my parents, but those kind of people are so over the top, there are a lot of people who look the opposite of celebrity (laughs). In that sense, my generation, and the generation below my parents is still fresh. Because I was born during my parents busiest time, I was raised by my grandmother, and even though I was small, I had a vague thought of “why ain’t ya around?”. In that sense, I vaguely didn’t like it. When I was still a small child I didn’t know how great my dads performance is, but before I realised it, I started to understand. Now that I’m an actor I think I understand it more.

Myson: I don’t know if this is the right way to ask, but,  do you enjoy being an actor?

Nijiro: I don’t know anything else, in that way it’s painful because it’s the only thing I know. Makes me wonder if there’s something more fun than this, you know. Because we want what we don’t have. Therefore, I don’t know how fun it is as an average, but I think I’m still continuing because I’m still enjoying it.

Myson: How about acting overseas? Do you have any interest?

Nijiro: Not that it isn’t possible at all, but I don’t think it’s possible to speak slang like a native in a film. I’d be happy to have those kinds of opportunities, like voice acting in Wes Anderson’s films, like Nagase’s role in Jim Jarmunsch’s ‘Patterson’, of course I’m interested. But, if I was going to spend all that time on English, I think I’d sooner be reborn. Of course, I’d study more if I had if i get that kind of opportunity.

Myson: I see. How do you usually choose the films you watch?

Nijiro: What is it, huh, it has a shine, doesn’t it? All the information I want to get now.. That’s a bit of a sparkly statement. (laughs).

Myson: No, no, no, hahaha! Do you watch both Western and Japanese films?

Nijiro: That doesn’t matter at all, I’ll watch anything including dramas and documentaries.

Myson: It’s like buying the jacket visuals and watching it.

Nijiro: In other words, I’m very influenced by the visuals. No matter how good the cast is, if I’m not attracted to the poster I’ll put off watching it. The visuals are the most important. I think this is good and bad though. After I started acting, I always had a natural appetite to watch things, even if it wasn’t something I needed to know or feel right away, if it may or may not be useful right now, lately that’s changed little by little. That’s not a good part of it, since there’s no guarantees, and there’s a feeling that you can’t afford to spend too much time on something that you get nothing from. It’s right to get what you need most, but I haven’t surprised myself much recently, it’s like I’m not surprised at all anymore, I think the reason is because I don’t touch anything I’m not sure of. Right now it’s not easy to go for a drink but, for example, when I go out of a drink and I think ‘I’m 80% likely to not enjoy myself if I go there’, then I won’t go, but the remaining 20% is very important, isn’t it? There’s the possibility of that roughly 20% could make me think ‘that was really fun!” I think I need to do more with that small percent.

Myson: Thank you very much!

[itsclydebitches]

How do you feel about derivative art? I'm guessing you approve since you're big into fanfics. Is art that's derivative as good as original art? Could a well made video critique of a film be better then the film? Or a fanmade rewrite be better then the original book? And yes I know nothing "original" exist, but that's not the same thing as art that is obviously derivative. And the big question. Should artist be allowed to make money off derivative art?

For me it’s an all around “Yes.” I’ve read fics leagues better than published novels. I’ve seen fanvids far better than films. Granted, when you get into the subject of visual media you run into things like finances and access to technology. Anyone can craft a story with words, but only a few have the budget and tools required to re-create the sort of Blockbuster films we’ve grown used to. But why in the world would that very specific style be the only “good” art out there? Obviously it’s not. If anything, we value limitations in our art. Six second vines shot on cell phones are adored and can lead to lucrative careers. Films like the Blair Witch Project want to mimic an armature cinematography, like these people really were just shooting what they could while running for their lives. Amateur does not in any way equal lesser. To say nothing of the fact that fans have shown time and time again that a passion for the material and a huge amount of work ethic is more than enough. As the recent Loki logo abomination attests, all the money and resources in the world doesn’t guarantee taste---or success. Outsiders to fandom love to criticize the “horrible” fics they found when they dove into AO3 for all of ten minutes, but fail to acknowledge that you’re just as likely to find a terrible book when you pull one randomly off of B&N’s shelves. If derivative art is somehow lesser than we need to re-evaluate the comics industry. And every formulaic western, rom-com, police procedural. And every great author (there are a LOT) who wrote “classics” based off of other’s characters and worlds. Art is art. Mainstream art is in no way superior to fan art, no matter how much people still want to convince us of that. 

The money question is, admittedly, waaaaaay more complicated. For me though it’s still a “Yes” simply because of how fandom functions. That is, we need the canon. Even if it becomes outdated, or is considered offensive, or is absolutely terrible compared to what the fandom has now produced, people will STILL consume that material (and more importantly buy it) in order to get access to all the good fan stuff. I’ve simply never bought into the argument that derivative works are a threat to the livelihood of the original piece because they depend on that piece. All my friends are in a fun discord for TV Show X. They’re producing all these fics I want to read. I’ve heard that Show X is actually pretty bad, but I’m going to watch it anyway because that provides me with the context that produced all this other stuff. It’s the foundation, the blueprints, the golden ticket to get inside the fandom. Will every fan do this? No, some do bypass the canon and just dive right in, but the majority of them will. Meaning that rather than posing a threat to the original author’s livelihood as most people assume, fanworks help keep mainstream content alive. Adding a price to that doesn’t change anything. If someone offers me a fic for free I’m gonna tackle the canon book first. If someone offers me a fic for $10... I’m still gonna tackle the canon book first. Either way the author gets paid and are likely to get more if fans use their work as an entry point into the fandom. “I wouldn’t have read/watched your stuff at all, if it weren’t for the fact that I want to read the stories my friend is now producing.” Giving that friend some rent money is the least we can do. 

(There are obviously other arguments against making money off of derivative works, two of which boil down to “It’s against the law”---which funnily enough we create and control and can change if perspectives change---and “They’re my creations and I don’t want you messing with them, let alone making money off them.” I’ve got a lot of feelings regarding that one and in an effort to save a bit of space I’ll boil it down to a very unkind response: Too bad. Transformation is at the heart of human interaction with art. If you didn’t want that you shouldn’t have given it to the public in the first place. Authors don’t get to police how fans interact with their work: “I love it when you take the time to write me glowing reviews! .... oh, but not when you write another story. Please continue making awesome fan posters that promote my work! ... but not one with those two characters kissing ew.” Authors don’t get to dictate how fans interact with the art they’ve put out there; how much of it is active and in what ways.) 

We also have to consider that we’re already in a world where those lines are irrevocably blurred. Why does E.L. James or Anna Todd get to make a fortune off of their barely changed fics? Why do artists get to sell their fanart but fic writers are still largely terrified of lawsuits? Fans are already making money off their work---always have, really---and I doubt that’s something we can reverse. Whether or not it continues to grow is the real question. 

Personally, I wouldn’t want to see derivative works commercialized, not because fans don’t deserve to earn money for their labor (we do), but just because that would irrevocably change fandom dynamics. We’re a gift economy and we’re built on that. Fandom has always been about progressive acts: be it writing about queer identities, providing accessibility accommodations decades before mainstream art did, or (and this is the kicker) helping to level out class differences. Meaning, mainstream art is often for the rich and the elite. Broadway shows are insanely expensive and impossible for most to get to. Movies prices have skyrocketed. Every company is creating their own streaming service, requiring that you pay three or four $20+ monthly subscriptions instead of just the one. It’s all about money and fandom is one of the few places where we still exchange art for praise and more art, rather than a paycheck. Fic is free. Fanvids are free. You guys want a cute drawing of this couple? All you have to do is send in a prompt ask and I’ll draw it! Sure, I’d also love it if you paid for a commission, but I’m going to keep creating free drawings on the side. When was the last time we saw a mainstream author go, “Please continue to buy my last story, but in the meantime here’s a free novel I’m putting up on my website. Hope you enjoy!” I mean yes, we do get things for free (especially when it comes to many games, apps, and some short stories), but not like in fandom. There’s a culture of giving that I never want to lose. Are we already doing commissions and con sales? Yes. Do we often ask for donations and payment? Yes. Should we be able to continue doing so without fear of legal action? I think so. But I don’t want a general sense of “I should be allowed to earn money off of this” get turned into “Well if I can earn money off of this why wouldn’t I?” I never want our work to exist fully behind a wall where the key in is your credit card number. Fandom is unique in its, “I made this thing because I wanted to and I shared it with you because I wanted to do that too, no strings attached” and that, I think, is worth protecting. 

[glitterandrocketfuel]

I can never soothe @earlgreytea68's HMT wounds, but the HMT was probably the best thing that they could have done in the pandemic years here. It was a good idea when it was just an ambitious stadium concept tour plugging on a certain amount of nostalgia nearly guaranteed to drain the wallets of the disposable-income set digging back into their youth (our youth--I freely admit as a GenXer that I unloaded a WAD on this and it was worth every penny for three huge bands--two from my own youth/college, and one from my early adulthood whom I largely missed the first time around).

When the pandemic hit, it hit everyone, but the live music industry took it in the teeth. An ambitious, high-level, high-concept, high-dollar effort like HMT ended up not only being proof-of-concept for how to get big names out there and cross-pollinating their fan bases (an idea Pete Wentz is not at all unfamiliar with), it also became a model for how to safely adapt live touring music to a (still not quite entirely) post-pandemic world. And it did so in such a big way that it served as a life raft to an entire industry desperately trying to keep the heads of thousands of regular support folks above water. That, in my view, would make up for any ego hits that came from being a support act. Hella Mega also either introduced them or re-introduced them to a lot of potential new fans from a targeted "warm" pool of audience members.

Although to be honest, post-hiatus, since the members of FOB have basically agreed that if it's not fun, they're not doing it, I think their attitude about HMT was, "Hey we get to play with these amazing bands who were basically the reason we started our band AND we get to make money, too? And Pete clearly volunteered to take care of ALL the publicity? WE ARE IN!" And at the Chicago show, there was zero doubt that they were ALL--even Patrick--super stoked to be playing their hometown. Patrick honestly looked so excited to be out on stage--I imagine the pandemic gave even him enough time to get a little tired of his own studio slash entire marching band storage closet.

Pete has said of Patrick, "He writes a hundred songs a day," while Patrick has said of Pete, "I'll go to bed and wake up the next day and he'll have texted me a hundred ideas and done about twenty of them that morning before I woke up." I'm sure pandemic slowed them down and so did having little kids, but I don't see them *not* at least noodling around and stockpiling demos. They didn't just pull that "Under Pressure" performance out their asses twenty minutes before filming. And while they could conceivably just bum around, enjoy their money, and play shows for the Realtors Association or a hockey team for fun, they've said that they didn't want to be a nostalgia band.

It might not be an album per se, given the way music keeps changing, and having the freedom to just drop a single when they're happy with one would be the kind of consistent new content that people respond to and if there's one thing Pete Wentz understands, it's picking out things that people will respond to.

Loved your take on patrick's new(ish) song! I think a lot of it probably has to do with the movie it's from, but it's fun to speculate and I love reading lyric analysis like that (and I totally lean toward it being "know" instead of "no" I was thinking that as I listened). I also like that it seems like Patrick's taken influence from Pete's lyric writing too. (Side note but I wish fob would release some new stuff because I feel the lyrical analysis of some new stuff would be so fun haha)

Patrick's definitely been influenced by Pete as a lyricist. It always makes me think, like, from the age of 17 on, the person who taught Patrick how to write lyrics was Pete. Of course he sounds inevitably a little like Pete: Pete's the one who taught him almost everything he knows about words in songs. The way Pete plays with words, the way he seeds ambiguity into his statements and layers meanings onto phrases, this is what Patrick learned. I don't think he's as good at it -- Pete is really very, very good at writing -- but it's so sweet to me how much he clearly absorbed Pete's lyrical style. Patrick was writing lyrics before Pete, of course, but I think Pete's approach gradually altered the way Patrick's head thinks about lyrics over the years.

And yes, presumably the song is really about the movie, whatever the movie is lolololol

I have, like, this entire ~~theory about the hold-up on new stuff out of FOB. It involves the fact that we're in this confluence of truly irritating circumstances for them as a band. Hella Mega Tour made total sense for them as a thing when it was going to be a quick summer tour as a reset after getting out of their record contract. Instead we had a pandemic and the quick summer tour has dragged out into three years of their band. They're essentially an opening act on HMT, with a very short set and an audience that's not exactly theirs. That makes it a difficult place to try out or promote new material. So there's not a lot of incentive to release anything new while they're still in the middle of the HMT commitment, because they can't actually properly promote it.

And then there's the fact that they *are* out of contract. This means they have no record label demanding an album out of them. Which is probably a good thing since they're still stuck in the HMT commitment and, again, don't have the time/space to add in their own tour right now. But it also puts them in a curious position. Like, if Pete Wentz is thinking about his band, and I assume at times he still is, he's got to be wondering if a new album even is the way forward, or if albums are dead and they should try something else? Idk, the Pete who lives in my head would be thinking about these things, but the real Pete Wentz is probably just playing tennis and enjoying his money lol, who knows? But I don't know what anything new out of them would really look like at this point when they have no contractual obligations.

I assume they are not done making new music. But I guess who knows about that, too? Pete and Patrick are both compulsive creators, they have been since childhood, Patrick is always writing songs and Pete is always writing poems, and I doubt either one of them will just stop at this point. I'm sure the pandemic slowed them down the way it slowed down many people (except Taylor Swift) who just couldn't find ways to be creative in the middle of the crisis. But Patrick clearly has been composing all along. And learning sixteen new instruments to play, or whatever. And I find it difficult to believe Pete suddenly stopped writing when he's written his whole life and has been on the record talking about needing creative outlets. Maybe things like tennis and his radio show satisfied that creative outlet need for him, but again, from the POV of this writer, writers gonna write, most of the time.

And so then, again, I find it less likely that they would stay creating *independent* of each other. Even during the hiatus when they weren't speaking, Patrick was writing songs for Fall Out Boy. And Pete is usually very vocal about how Patrick is the creative partnership that works best for him, so I doubt he'd want to start over with someone else. And also they're on the record that they don't hang out without writing together, because of how Patrick is, so I've got to assume that some kind of writing has happened at some point or will happen in the future.

Andy is always up for anything, of course. And I think Joe would be happy to put some stuff together (assuming his absence from the hockey thing was just a scheduling conflict or something, which I don't think we really have reason to think anything different).

So all of this is massive speculation and who knows what any of these people are actually doing but I would like to think that there is a possibility they will write new music at some point.