James Gray wants to set the record straight regarding Scarlett Johansson rejecting her FaceTime call during the six-minute standing ovation at the premiere of his latest appearance at Cannes. paper tiger Saturday night. (The director shrugged dramatically as the call cut off as he and cast members Adam Driver and Miles Teller stood under floodlights in front of the entire Grand Theater Lumiére audience — in one of Cannes 2026’s great comedic moments.)
“I want to be fair to Scarlett, I didn’t tell her I was going to FaceTime with her! I thought I’d be lucky, but she works and it’s all in New York.” Gray said with a laugh at Sunday’s news conference.
The absence of the film’s biggest stars, and perhaps one of the biggest movie stars, at this year’s silent festival was a huge disappointment to the screaming crowds outside the palace, but Johansson is busy filming the sequel. The exorcist.
In Gray’s thriller, set in Brighton Beach in the 1980s; Gowanus District of Brooklyn; and Great Neck, Long Island, two brothers (Driver and Teller) encounter Russian mobsters in a rapidly transforming city where high-stakes riches opportunities also come with high risks to life and limb. Johansson spends the film in a blond wig and glasses, and with a thick Long Island accent, as the streetwise stepmother of Teller, who unwittingly puts a target on his family’s back.
Johansson, having recovered from the FaceTime debacle, sent Gray a message to read at the beginning of the press conference, calling the experience of working with him and the crew “one of the great joys of my professional life.”
She continued, in one of many references to the political climate at the press conference, “Cinema has this rare and wonderful power to connect us to each other through a shared experience… This collective empathy is something we could definitely use more of right now, and I hope that by making films like this, we can feel even for a few hours in the dark as part of the shared human experience.”
In general, though, the actors and Gray have stayed away from controversy and overt political statements. A response has been sought to the allegations in Lena Dunham’s memoir about his erratic behavior during filming. girlsThe driver replied, “I have no comment on any of that. I’ll keep it all for my book.”
As the moderator moved on to the next question, Driver added, referring to the reporter, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Allegations that the driver was verbally aggressive have been the subject of several articles over the past month.
When asked why the film was set in the 1980s, Gray pointed to a trip he took to the “shattered” former Soviet Union in 1984 and then witnessed how the market became king there and in China shortly thereafter, with what he believed was a devastating effect on human safety.
“The reason I set the film in this time period is…it was the beginning of the moment when the market became a god,” he said.
He continued: “Now, I am not defending socialist dictatorships.” But he added that that moment led to our political climate today, and young people who feel like failure if they don’t achieve financial success. “What happens is when you have someone like the current US president come to you, which is a symptom of what I’m talking about: completely transactional. You know, ‘How can I make the most money?’
As for the conflicts in the film, Teller cited filming in an intense New York heatwave with no shade. “James shot an entire movie in the Amazon and said it was just as physically challenging,” he said. Driver remembers filming the film’s best scene, a chase scene in a reed field outside LaGuardia Airport, during a thunderstorm where they had to shut down production every 30 minutes.
But mostly, the actors compared size. Height, that is. When asked how they felt about each other as scene partners, Teller replied, “Well, Adam is taller.”
“I mean, I’m a pretty good size. I’m 6’1,” 190 [pounds.] “I’m usually the biggest person in the group. My hand felt so small when Adam shook it,” Tiller said.
“Fitting doorways is a challenge. Fitting shoes is a challenge,” the 6-foot-3 driver confirmed.
“Remember when you almost sent me to the hospital?” Teller asked, in a moment no one would explain.
The driver said he didn’t do it and joked that they shouldn’t talk about it.
“Well, I have a scar,” Taylor said, laughing. And he dropped the matter. I think it should be put in the driver’s book.
