John Krasinski and Anna Kendrick in The Hollars.
The KCET Cinema Series continued its fall season at the historic Aero Theatre on Tuesday, August 23 with a screening of The Hollars. The acclaimed comedy-drama stars and was directed by John Krasinski (The Office). The ensemble cast also features Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins and Sharlto Copley as a family who must come together under trying circumstances.
Following the screening, Krasinski appeared for an insightful Q&A session led by film expert KCET Cinema Series host Pete Hammond. Below is an excerpt from the conversation.
The KCET Cinema Series is generously sponsored by the James and Paula Coburn Foundation.
John Krasinski on how he ended up directing The Hollars.
About six or seven years ago, I was sent the script. I dont know if Ive signed onto anything faster. There was something so special about this script. It was so real and honest. Theres a whole lot of family movies out there and I had seen most of them and didnt love all of them. Then, this one came along and I said, this is as good a script as you can get in any genre, so I jumped on it. It was so special to me.
And then about four years into it, as happens with a lot of small movies, the financier at the time called me and said, I cant get it made, would you ever want to buy the script from me. I thought, you made the wrong call. Im not George Clooney and then after I thought about it for a split second, I said, I cant pass up this opportunity. I cant not let this movie be made. So, I did buy the script and, I think two days later, called Margo Martindale because my whole idea was that if Im going to make it, I have to make it with the perfect cast. She was my first call.
On casting The Hollars.
John Krasinski: I actually didnt have a casting director on this. This was one of those things where, because I bought it and I was in total control of it, I thought, how often do you get the chance to call every single person you want for the role and talk to them about it? And every single person I wanted signed on, which is insane. Richard Jenkins, I wrote him an email and he said, Yeah, I like the script -- Margo Martindale, if you can get her, Ill do it. I wrote back, Ha, ha, ha! And he wrote back, Im not kidding. So, as soon as Margo signed on, we had Richard. It was a twofer. Everybody else is so phenomenal. Sharlto was really somebody that people were surprised by. I had loved him in District 9, absolutely loved him.
Pete Hammond: Hes a South African actor. Hes got an accent.
JK: Yes, a very strong accent. Hes here right now. Its a real, real accent. Its a beautiful accent, but when you think about how he got an American accent, it makes no sense. Its acting. But, I saw him in District 9 and he was doing all these action movies and, when we were writing Promised Land, I went to meet Matt [Damon] and Sharlto was on set. He was in some robotic uniform and when I met him, he was so sweet and loving and such a puppy dog spirit and I said, thats who should be playing my brother in this movie.
PH: You know who I love in this movie too is Charlie Day.
JK: Hes fantastic, isnt he? Charlie, I made one call and he read it and I said, What did you think? And he said, Yeah, I like it, um, youre sure you want it to be me? I said, Yeah. And he said, Alright! He was in the movie. It took one question and he was in.
John Krasinski and Margo Martindale in The Hollars.
John Krasinski on the scene where he swings on a tire over water.
Yeah, you just go for it. Down in Jackson, Mississippi. Im from Boston, so I was completely ignorant. I was like, all these ponds have crocodiles in it, I know it. So, I was terrified for my life. Everybody down in Jackson was, like, nope, no crocodiles. I was like, Yeah, right. So that was my biggest terror and my biggest worry, swinging out, but we rigged it with a stunt rope that these guys came up with that was fantastic, so I got a tiny button in that moss on the rope that clicked it whenever I was ready. The guy said it was a really sensitive trigger, so that definitely made me nervous.
Yeah, that was one take. The one you see in the movie is one take and then the DP, Eric Edwards, who is amazing, said, I think I need one more just so we can have something to cut away to and Im pretty sure he didnt need that. He just wanted to see me go in again.
On the scene where he shaves Margo Martindales head.
What that looks like, what it should look like, is a third of our budget, which it was. That was an amazing scene. She couldnt shave her head. Believe it or not, she did say she would have shaved her head, but she was on one of 84 television shows so she had to go right back to work after our movie and our amazing hair and make-up woman, Kelly Mitchell, who is a good friend of mine, she said, You cant do a bald cap, you have to go and get this. Theres this genius artist, he basically did a prosthetic, so thats a full head cast, the whole deal and every single hair was hand-stitched. It took him about three months to make. So, even though its not her real head, we still only had one shot, so it still felt very intense to do that scene. What was amazing was that Margo had a transformation in that scene because she said there was no moment where she thought it was fake. She just saw her hair falling off and she was looking right in the mirror and she said, Thats as vulnerable as I ever felt in my entire career.
On the scene where they sing an Indigo Girls song.
Those are two great examples of how, like I was saying, this is a great script, but I truly, if you gave me all the time in the world, I would have never come up with this specificity of how to show true love between a mother and a scene like that head-shaving scene. Theres something about that gesture that is so loving and so unbelievably powerful.
And then, the Indigo Gir
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
John Krasinski and Anna Kendrick in The Hollars. 
