Two days of press had produced the same questions over and over, and then somebody opened with the Indonesian love song he taught himself on a guitar as a boy, and the first thing out of his mouth was how do you know that.
Joe opens up about the instrument he buys in whatever city he is shooting in, and about the thing he does with it on the last day of every production, which has nothing to do with taking it home. He talks about the question he wishes interviewers would ask instead of the one they always do, and about what he thinks action is actually for in a story. He gets candid about a childhood where his family could not afford the equipment for the sport he wanted, and the free one in his neighbourhood he took up instead, which turned out to set the whole course of his working life. Joe walks through his late father’s lesson, delivered from a bench at ringside when he was fourteen and losing badly, and repeats the exact words, which are the reason this conversation opens where it does. He also describes the retirement he genuinely wants, and it is small, specific and involves a room where other people can play the instruments.
An essential watch for anyone who has only ever been asked about the wrong thing.
