If it's getting badly reviewed and no one's going to see it, it's something you have to accept, you know, is a reaction to what you've made and it can't always be good.

I'm Sean Fennesy, Editor-in-Chief of The Ringer, and this is the big picture, a conversation show with some of the most interesting filmmakers in the world.

17 Movies

33 Years, Two Oscar nominations

Box office hits in a spot in the Art House Hall of Fame

There isn't much that Gus Van Sant hasn't accomplished in his filmmaking career

From his early independent triumphs like Drugstore Cowboy and my own private Idaho to mainstream successes like Goodwill Hunting and Milk

Van Sant has made modest but powerful movies about outsiders living on the fringes of society that have become etched into the culture

His latest, Don't worry, he won't get far on foot, tells the story of the cartoonist John Callahan

Joaquin Phoenix, who got his big break from Van Sant in 1995 into Die 4, reunites with him to play Callahan, an alcoholic who has rendered quadriplegic after a car accident at 21 years old.

Van Sant's movie traces Callahan's simple but amazing story

I talked to the writer director about reteaming with Phoenix, the role his late friend Robin Williams played in the film, and where to go after you've accomplished so much.

Here's Gus Van Sant

Since you're honored to be joined by Gus Van Sant, Gus thanks for coming in

Gus, this is your 17th film and I'm wondering what it takes for you to decide to choose a project at the stage of your career

So why this movie, why now?

I think probably all of them are chosen because they're things I don't know about, things that I'm like sort of

They're worlds that exist as worlds that I haven't ever been in them, so I sort of in this case, the world of John Callahan, his quadriplegic has an alcoholism, his cartooning, the 12 steps were all sort of things that were mysterious and interesting at the same time.

Do you think of them as an opportunity to just dive in deep and then do a lot of research into those worlds? Is that why you choose them?

And so what goes into that, what do you do, where do you start?

Or that you're building the world from scratch because you don't really know about it, so you're following leads and you know like sometimes the person next to you knows all about it.

So you're listening to people talk about it and creating that needs to be really faithful to that.

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