Alex Kurtzman: ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’

The Treatment

KCRW

Arts

4.6 • 639 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on The Treatment, Elvis welcomes back Alex Kurtzman, co-creator, along with Jenny Lumet, of the adaptation of “The Man Who Fell to Earth” on Showtime. Kurtzman directed the film “People Like Us” and is the co-writer of several films, including “Transformers” and “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.” “The Man Who Fell to Earth” is an adaptation of the 1976 film starring David Bowie, which was an adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel by the same name. Kurtzman tells the Treatment that while he had reservations about adapting the cult favorite, he believed he and Lumet could bring something new to the story. He says star Chiwetel Ejiofor was an ideal actor to collaborate with because of their similarly cerebral approaches to the text. And he says the pandemic afforded him the time to deepen the music choices in the series.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.
0:14.3	Welcome to the treatment, the home edition.
0:16.3	Again, my guest was last with us for a film that I liked quite a bit of people like us.
0:22.7	His newest project is an adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel, which will be 60 years old next year.
0:28.7	And it's sort of a continuation of the Nicholas Stroke 1976 film.
0:33.0	Of course, we're talking about The Man Who Fell to Earth.
0:35.4	And my guest is Alex Kirstman.
0:36.8	Alex, welcome back. Thank you for doing the show. Thanks, Earth. My guest is Alex Kirstman. Alex, welcome back.
0:37.6	Thank you for doing the show.
0:38.8	Thanks, Elvis.
0:39.6	It's so great to be here.
0:40.6	It's always great to talk to you.
0:41.8	Good to talk to you, too.
0:42.7	And there's an opening line that could be an opening line from almost anything you've done.
0:47.9	It could be locking key or sleepy hollow or this.
0:52.3	How did we get here?
0:59.2	Yeah. So that opening line came, honestly, because when the project came to us, Jenny Lumet and I, she's my writing partner. You know, I was very
1:06.6	nervous about taking the job. Sarah Timberman brought it to us through Hulu. And Sarah
1:13.9	Timberman is one of our fellow executive producers. And I was very skeptical, both because
1:21.2	to stand in the shadow of Nicholas Rogue, Walter Tevis, and obviously David Bowie was just such a daunting prospect.
1:30.7	And I think that really what we were trying to figure out was we were looking around at the world
1:37.4	and I think able to make less and less sense of what we were seeing day to day.
	...

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