'Disclosure Day' star Josh O'Connor received a 'genius' late-night text from Spielberg

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is actor Josh O'Connor. Many of us first came to know O'Connor as a young Prince Charles in the Netflix series "The Crown," as a charming, washed-up tennis player in "Challengers" and the young priest in the latest "Knives Out" film. But for a significant portion of his career, he's also worked in independent film, including the British drama "God's Own Country."

This summer, he turns up somewhere different as the lead in Steven Spielberg's latest blockbuster, "Disclosure Day." It's Spielberg's return to the question that gave us "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and "E.T." - are we alone? O'Connor plays a cybersecurity expert who gets hold of the government's proof that aliens are among us and decides the rest of the world has a right to see the evidence. In this scene we're about to hear, O'Connor's character, Daniel, has just shown the woman he's seeing, played by Eve Hewson, video proof.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DISCLOSURE DAY")

JOSH O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) There's more. Seventy-nine years more. There have been retrieval programs of exotic craft, interrogation of non-human biologics, reverse engineering and technology exploitation. All of it, run by Wardex, the Department of Defense and the defense industry. It has the highest level of military and private sector classification in American history. They've run it since the early '70s without government funding. Too many tax dollars to try and hide and off-world artifacts too profitable to leave in the hands of appointed officials, especially after the Nixon thing. Presidents are civilians again after eight years, so there is no longer a reason to read them in on any of this. I was a part of all that until I saw what you just saw. This all stops now.

EVE HEWSON: (As Jane Blankenship) What are you going to do?

O'CONNOR: (As Dr. Daniel Kellner) Full disclosure to the whole world all at once.

MOSLEY: "Disclosure Day," which also stars Emily Blunt, Colman Domingo and Colin Firth, builds on the very real folklore of a government cover up - Roswell, crop circles and people who say they've recovered memories of UFO encounters.

Josh O'Connor, welcome to FRESH AIR.

O'CONNOR: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

MOSLEY: The details of this film, as I mentioned, kind of like cloak and dagger, even for you when you received the script. There's this funny story that you tell. What's the story?

O'CONNOR: Well, yeah, I mean, I suppose, you know, it's - I imagine this happens an awful lot in kind of big, blockbuster movies, certainly with the likes of Spielberg and George Lucas and those greats. But for me, it was the first time I had experienced this level of secrecy. And, I mean, I met Steven - Steven and I met sort of three or four months prior to me actually receiving the script. But when it came, it was like - I was shooting "Knives Out," and I just remember there was a kind of - a motorbike turned up. There was an envelope. I had to read the script and then hand the envelope back to the guy on the motorbike. Thankfully, for the motorcyclist, I read it really quickly. Normally, I'm a very slow reader. I have dyslexia. But I managed to get through it pretty speedily, and that's down to David Koepp's brilliant writing, Steven's great storytelling. But it was terrific. Yeah, and the secrecy around it is bizarre. Not being able to tell anyone that you're doing a Steven Spielberg film is difficult.

MOSLEY: You mentioned maybe this happens for all blockbuster films. But you - this is your first real blockbuster film. You've...

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Spent most of your career in these kind of small, quiet films. What was it like to walk on a set - a Spielberg set of this size?

O'CONNOR: Well, you know, the strange thing is the - I suppose the trappings of a movie like this. And again, you know, this is from limited experience, obviously. But the trappings are different. But the reality is the actual - the day-to-day making of a movie, the collaborative nature of making a movie is pretty much exactly the same. And I think that's - I don't know if that's solely a Steven thing. I mean, I think he - ultimately, he is the filmmaker's filmmaker. You know, he's always been around cameras and storytelling. And so I think at the heart of his process, it's just - it's the same method. It's, you know, how do we emote? How do we look at the empathy? How do we portray this story in the best possible way? And so, it's really strange. I think he kind of keeps his set small. It feels like a sacred space to - for performance. And he really cares about actors and performance. And so, yeah, he's kind of adopted that atmosphere that feels honestly the same as making, you know, a quiet indie somewhere remote, you know?

MOSLEY: You know, what's interesting is so many of your characters are quiet characters. They live in what's not said. It's what you bring out. You pull off restraint so well. And...

O'CONNOR: Thanks.

MOSLEY: ...Spielberg has this reputation - not every film, but many of his films - of being a maximalist. There's the wonder and the awe and this feeling of being out front. How did those two sensibilities meet in a room?

O'CONNOR: I think, like, you know, I started in the theater, and that was really my - my love of acting of performing was - came from the theater. And the theater, really, as an art form, you know, you can tell a lot, of course, with your face, but really, there is an element of, like, your language is your body, and your language are the words. And so, for me, the voyage of discovery of film came when I started making them, and, you know, I didn't necessarily have a language or an understanding or a way of articulating film growing up. So that language was, like, something I learn through doing. And one of the things you learn is that it's such an intimate art form, you know, working with a camera. You can tell so much with your eyes in a way that you maybe can't on stage. And so I guess that sort of happened naturally. And also, I think I now appreciate quiet films. I think they're sort of my - that would be my taste at the moment. I like a contemplative performance. I enjoy that. But I think Steven has that, too, as you rightly say, he's interested in wonder, and he's interested in the kind of childlike curiosity to a subject.

MOSLEY: This character, I mean, he is the hero, but he's not a traditional lead man in a blockbuster.

O'CONNOR: No.

MOSLEY: You build men you portray so specifically. I read that you actually make a scrapbook for almost every character. Did you make one for this particular character, Daniel?

O'CONNOR: Yeah, I did. I mean, it took a slightly different form. I mean, the scrapbook thing comes right back from when I made "God's Own Country." So it was good, like, 12 - maybe 12 years ago now. And the director of that film, Francis Lee, was really kind of formative for me in terms of what my method was, how I wanted to work. I think I was still figuring that out.

And one of the things that we did together was to create this sort of - you call it a scrapbook or a kind of character bible, a kind of a manual for how to access this character's memory. So if you're sort of struggling with a scene, trying to get into the psychology of this fictional character, it's like, well, let's look at this scrapbook. Let's look at the character bible. Let's choose a memory that we've created together that we can - that can kind of help us access something. So I've used it for pretty much every character I've played since. But the form of this one was slightly different because I - we were shooting here in New York, and I had an apartment in Manhattan. And the day I moved into the apartment to start preproduction, I had this huge wall, and I just started sketching images. I mean,

I had this idea that Daniel had a sort of memory somewhere lodged in the kind of recesses of his mind of visions he'd had when he was a child. And so these charcoal drawings became a kind of obsession and in no small part kind of inspired by the character in "Close Encounters," you know, someone who uses art to understand their minds in some ways. And so I did a lot of that, and I put them up on the wall. And then I think I invited Eve Hewson over for dinner to meet her and to chat about the film. And she walked in, and she looked so mortified by this quite alarming wall which had string. It looked like a crime scene.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

O'CONNOR: And so we - I sort of very quickly took that down. So it is in a scrapbook, but it wasn't supposed to be a scrapbook. It was supposed to be a kind of, like, crime scene wall.

MOSLEY: Yes.

O'CONNOR: But, yeah, it exists. I mean, they sort of live and die with the film.

MOSLEY: You talked about getting a note from Spielberg that unlocked this whole role for you, except it turned out that he hadn't actually meant...

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...To send it to you. Will you tell us what happened?

O'CONNOR: Yeah. I've been telling the story, but I feel bad telling it because in some ways, it plays out - it was the perfect - it was one of the greatest notes I've ever received, and I feel bad it being an accident because it makes Steven sound like, you know, the greatest note I ever received was by accident. He also gave fantastic notes on purpose, so I'll just preface it with that.

MOSLEY: Yes.

O'CONNOR: You know, Steven and I would have these conversations every day, really, about the scene, you know, in front of us but also looking ahead in the schedule and going, OK, we've got this moment coming up. Like, let's talk about that. Let's try and analyze that. And Steven makes himself so available for those conversations, which is tremendous and really helpful. And so there was a scene coming up, you know, in - I think it was, like, in two weeks' time, we were away and we were texting. And I was looking at the scene, which is essentially Daniel Kellner being vulnerable in a way that we haven't seen up until this point in the movie. And my question to Steven was, like, how vulnerable do we go? Like, how much is he willing to show? How repressed is he, and how much are we willing to show his emotion, what he's really feeling? And we were kind of back-and-forthing it, and, you know, in my head, it was like, this will continue every day up until we do the scene.

But just as I was going to bed, I received this text from Steven saying, the door is on the latch. Just push. And it unlocked the whole scene for me. I was like, that's it. It's like the emotions - like, the door is on the latch. The emotions are raw. They're there. Just push the door. Let it out. I was like, it's genius. It's beautiful. It's poetical. I, like, came in the next day. I was like, Steven, you're a genius. I already knew you were a genius, but this is incredible. It's inspired. And he looks so confused. And bless him, he could have just claimed it.

MOSLEY: Right.

O'CONNOR: But he's such an honest man that he then looked at his phone, confused, and explained that it was meant for his wife, and it was an instructional text.

MOSLEY: (Laughter).

O'CONNOR: He was going to bed and he was letting her know that the door was on the latch and just push. But he was - he killed two birds with one stone. And he doesn't mind me telling the story. He likes the story, so it's OK.

MOSLEY: Well, because it broke through for you.

O'CONNOR: Right.

MOSLEY: It got you to the place you needed to be.

O'CONNOR: It worked. It was great.

MOSLEY: My guest is Josh O'Connor. He stars in the new Steven Spielberg film "Disclosure Day," and he won an Emmy for playing a young Prince Charles in "The Crown." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, my guest is actor Josh O'Connor. He's one of the stars of "Disclosure Day," the new Steven Spielberg film about what happens when the world learns that aliens live among us. O'Connor broke through in the British film "God's Own Country" and won an Emmy as Prince Charles in "The Crown," created by Peter Morgan.

OK, let's talk about "The Crown" for a moment, because for many Americans, the first time we really saw you was as a young Prince Charles. And this man is petulant. He is self-pitying. He is awful to Diana, and you played this role so well, Josh, that I kind of hated you for a minute.

O'CONNOR: Sure. Fair enough.

MOSLEY: I sure you've heard that.

O'CONNOR: Yeah, yeah.

MOSLEY: I've heard that. But you have said that you kept returning to this one idea that Charles underneath everything was basically just a lost boy, and I want to play a scene that gives us that sense. So in this scene, he has just been made the Prince of Wales. He gives a speech in Welsh about how no one wants to be overlooked or ignored. And he's referring to the Welsh people's relationship with Britain. And the Queen reads this translation, and she has a few words for him in a private conversation. She challenges him about it, and Olivia Colman plays Queen Elizabeth. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE CROWN")

OLIVIA COLMAN: (As Queen Elizabeth II) People will always want us to smile or agree or frown or speak. And the minute that we do, we will have declared a position, a point of view, and that is the one thing as the royal family we are not entitled to do, which is why we have to hide those feelings, keep them to ourselves. Because the less we do, the less we say or speak or agree or...

O'CONNOR: (As Prince Charles) Think or breath or feel or exist.

COLMAN: (As Queen Elizabeth II) ...The better.

O'CONNOR: (As Prince Charles) Well, doing that is perhaps not as easy for me as it is for you.

COLMAN: (As Queen Elizabeth II) Why?

O'CONNOR: (As Prince Charles) 'Cause I have a beating heart, a character, a mind and a will of my own. I am not just a symbol. I can lead not just by wearing a uniform or by cutting a ribbon, but by showing people who I am. Mommy, I have a voice.

COLMAN: (As Queen Elizabeth II) Let me let you into a secret. No one wants to hear it.

O'CONNOR: (As Prince Charles) Are you talking about the country or my own family?

COLMAN: (As Queen Elizabeth II) No one.

MOSLEY: Oh. Ah. This is a scene where this show just quietly asks us to love Prince Charles, right before Season 4 kind of asks us to despise him. How important was it to you - 'cause I feel like it was - for us to kind of be won over, knowing the Charles that we will encounter later?

O'CONNOR: I haven't heard that in so long, and it's quite nice to hear it. I mean, it's sort of such a moment in my life, playing him. But also, I think that scene is so important in terms of the journey of the fictional character of Prince Charles in the show.

MOSLEY: And you make a point to say fictional because so much of this...

O'CONNOR: Oh, yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Had to be written. We don't know it.

O'CONNOR: For sure.

MOSLEY: Yeah.

O'CONNOR: But I think what Peter Morgan does so well is he takes the kind of paradox of power and family in "The Crown," and he tries to pull it apart and empathize and understand it. You know, right at the beginning, I had a phone call from my agent saying that they'd like to meet you to play Prince Charles in "The Crown." And my initial reaction was, no, thank you. I - and that was a kind of personal feeling. And it came from the fact that I'm a republican in a - in the British sense, not the American sense. I don't fully - you know, I believe in a more equal society, and the construct of a monarchy makes that very difficult.

Having said that, I actually have - you know, I had - I really had very little interest. I didn't have an interest in the royal family. I didn't necessarily read much about them. So I guess my first - like, where I started from was, like, this isn't for me. But Peter Morgan said this thing to me which really helped and unlocked a lot for me, which was that he said, see this philosophy and this paradox and this difficulty, which is here is a character who is waiting for his mother to die in order for his life to take meaning.

And that was kind of enough for me. That was like, OK. That's enough for me to get my teeth into. And then from there, it was about constantly coloring everything he does with the same sort of textures that you or I might feel around family, which is, how do you get the respect and the acclaim of your parents? How do we please our parents? And so in this - in that particular scene, you know, he's desperately wanting affirmation from his mother. And at the same time, he's very aware that he's in a kind of holding bay. He's the prince. He's the - he's in waiting. And in order for him to take that responsibility, to take up his meaning, his mom has to die.

MOSLEY: Our guest today is actor Josh O'Connor. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF JULIAN LAGE'S "LOVE HURTS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is the actor Josh O'Connor. He's one of the stars of "Disclosure Day," the new Steven Spielberg film returning to the question that gave us "Close Encounters" and "E.T." - are we alone? O'Connor plays a cybersecurity expert who works on the inside of a government secret - proof that we are not alone - and decides the world has a right to know about it. O'Connor has spent most of the last decade in independent film. He broke through in 2017 as a sheep farmer in "God's Own Country." But many people first came to know him from the Netflix hit series "The Crown" in a performance that earned him an Emmy and a Golden Globe for portraying a young Prince Charles.

I read that you found Charles through his body first, that you started with his posture. How did you build a man from that - from the outside in like that?

O'CONNOR: Yeah. You know, I studied a lot of footage of young Prince Charles and how he maneuvered and how he walked around and - but I think after a little bit of that, it was like, OK. I've got the basis of that. Let's try and understand what an exaggerated version of that might look like, where - but more importantly, where that comes from. Is there a sense of him protecting himself? Is he cowering because, you know, he's got the weight of the world on his shoulders?

MOSLEY: Did you have any issues with your back after you were done?

O'CONNOR: I had issues with my back before I started, so they...

MOSLEY: All right.

O'CONNOR: ...Were just worsened by playing Prince Charles.

(LAUGHTER)

O'CONNOR: Yeah. But I think - 'cause there were a couple of years where I - you - I was trying to get out of that physicality. But that happens with every - there's always this buffer period after I play any role where I'm kind of half in, half out, and it's a little strange. And I - you know, I had it - I did this movie in Italy a few years ago which was very meaningful to me. And a great friend of mine was talking to me about it recently, and she was like, you know, you wore the suit of the character for a year after you finished that film. And I - in my head, I just liked the suit, so I was wearing the suit out and about.

MOSLEY: Oh, the literal suit? What is...

O'CONNOR: Yeah. The...

MOSLEY: What movie...

O'CONNOR: It was, like...

MOSLEY: ...Was this?

O'CONNOR: It's a movie called "La Chimera." It's an Italian movie.

MOSLEY: Oh, "La Chimera."

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Yes. Yes.

O'CONNOR: And the suit was beautiful, but I just couldn't take it off. And in my head, it was 'cause I just liked the suit. Now, with a bit of perspective, I can look back and go, that was actually just I didn't want to say goodbye to that character. And there is a - you know, there is a grief associated. Even when I was a kid doing, like, school plays, I'd finish the play, and my mom would always be like, you know, he'll be sick. He'll get ill. And I did. I'd always get ill.

And I - pretty much without fail, every job I've done in my career, I get sick at the end. And I think there is - I'm learning that there is a grief that happens. You have to fall in love with this character, and you have to combine a bit of yourself and a bit of this fiction. And then you live as that character for two, three months, sometimes six months. And then it ends, and there's a kind of buffer period. And so the sort of - the funny side of it is, like, you know, dressing up in a suit for a year or having a sort of weird, stooped back with Charles. But the reality is that there is something spiritual going on or, like, a kind of sadness.

MOSLEY: I want to talk a little bit about "God's Own Country" because a lot of your characters come from a visceral place. But you play Johnny, a young Yorkshire farmer. He's gay. He's closed off. He's getting through life on drinking and casual sex until a migrant worker arrives and something opens up for him. And to prepare for this, like so many of your other roles, you get really deep into it. I want you to take me to that - what you were actually doing out there day to day playing this role as a farmer, but you're really being a farmer.

O'CONNOR: Yeah. Well, and, I mean, I'll go back to the fact that Francis Lee, who directed that movie and is a friend of mine and still has had a huge, perhaps the biggest impact, maybe, on my - on the way I work. Francis and I discussed very early on that this felt like a film I didn't want - you know, a character I didn't want to fake. I wanted to do things for real, and I wanted to feel what he felt, and I wanted to understand his world. And so Francis helped facilitate that.

And that - what that looked like is that I moved up to Yorkshire in the north of England, and I worked on a farm and - the farm that we were going to shoot on. I don't know that I was massively helpful to the farmer, but he's - we've become - remain friends to this day. But he - well, I spoke in the accent. I tried to eat, as far as I could, as he would have eaten and drink as he would have drunk. And look. You know, I was young. And I think probably, or certainly, I would do things differently now, or the way I'd approach a role like that.

MOSLEY: You're being...

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: ...Too modest. You were fixing fences. You were riding tractors.

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: You were mucking out.

O'CONNOR: Sure.

MOSLEY: I mean, you were working between takes. And you were birthing lambs.

O'CONNOR: Yeah. Yeah. The funny story was that there was a day the film crew turn up, and I'm no longer his farmhand. I'm an actor. I'm doing - I'm playing - I have a job to do. But that didn't stop John. You know, John - as far as John concerned, he was like, look at these annoying film guys who've just taken away my farmhand. And so there would be days where I would be filming, you know, shooting a scene. And then they'd call, cut, and John would be sort of waiting at the barn door, kind of a little hacked off that he'd, like, lost his guy. And he was like, get back to work. And so then I'd, you know, birth a lamb and then wash my hands and do another take.

O'CONNOR: So it was, like - it was a confusing, beautiful thing that happened, and a rare thing. And I - it's probably the thing I'm most proud of. As a performance, it felt vivid and real and felt. But, no, it was intense. I mean, you know, you grew up with these - I always think of, like, the actors that I looked up to, like Daniel Day-Lewis and...

MOSLEY: Which you've been compared to.

O'CONNOR: Well, yeah. I mean, I think - I sometimes think the comparison is partly influenced by the fact that I'm talking about him all the time. So that's why it's...

MOSLEY: The fact that he's - and you're talking about him. Yeah, what is it about his - because he's a method actor? I mean, he really gets himself deep into the characters in the way that you seem to.

O'CONNOR: Well, yeah, and I don't know that he would describe himself as a method actor. And I certainly don't describe myself as a method actor. I'm not - far from it. But I think what's more interesting to me nowadays, rather than the method of it - and it's not just Daniel Day-Lewis. I think of Philip Seymour Hoffman, Gene Wilder, Meryl Streep, you know, people that I really look up to, there is an - there's a sort of magic that happens. And it's very hard to articulate. And I don't know that I have the tools to articulate it, really, but I think that there is a kind of a level of the spiritual in terms of a character that is accessed by performers like that. And I don't know - it - that sounds kind of highfalutin and pretentious, but I don't know how else to describe it.

MOSLEY: And it's a place that you're trying to get to in your work.

O'CONNOR: Yeah, for sure. And by the way, like, rarely have I achieved it. Maybe never.

MOSLEY: You don't think so?

O'CONNOR: No, no, I don't, really. But it's less about an arrival. It's more about the pursuit. And I think I can see that with other performers, as well. You know, I think one of my great friends, Jessie Buckley, who just gave this extraordinary performance in "Hamnet" you know, Jessie, has that similar quality, I think, of someone who's pursuing the spiritual, the kind of - the spirit or the soul of a character rather than just replicating something.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is actor Josh O'Connor. He stars in Steven Spielberg's new film "Disclosure Day." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF TRENT REZNOR AND ATTICUS ROSS' "CHALLENGERS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I am talking with actor Josh O'Connor. He's a star of the new Steven Spielberg film "Disclosure Day." He won an Emmy for playing Prince Charles in "The Crown," and he starred in "Challengers," "God's Own Country" and the latest "Knives Out" film.

You mentioned your dyslexia a little bit earlier, and I've heard you talk about how school wasn't always easy for you as maybe it was for some of the kids around you. When did you come to understand that you process information differently than those around you?

O'CONNOR: I remember struggling with reading. I found reading harder than - you know, when you're 7 or 8, and you're reading in class, and everyone's taking their turns to read a sentence or two, and I just remember I was struggling with that in a way that I could see other kids weren't. I certainly remember at the age of 11 - 10 or 11, I went and did a test, and they ran this test. And I remember saying to the person who ran the test - at the end of it, they said to me, so, Josh, what do you think dyslexia is? And I was like, it means you're stupid. And at the time, the person that ran the test was like, no, no, no, it does not mean you're stupid. She actually said, it actually means you're intellectually challenged, which, by the way, I think, is worse than stupid. That's by the by.

MOSLEY: Gosh.

O'CONNOR: But at the time, that was the kind of - the understanding of it was, like, this is a roadblock, and it's - things are going to be harder you. And so that was my kind of notion of what it meant to be dyslexic. I had this great teacher in my secondary school who once said to me, the gift of dyslexia is someone without dyslexia who needs to get from A to C would go A, B, C, and someone with dyslexia might go A to E to D, back to B and then to C. And it's going to take them longer, but they get to see D and E in a way that the person without doesn't. And that really unlocked a lot for me in terms of, I guess, a realization that whilst things might take longer, there is a process and often a very artistic process that means that I might - it might take me a longer period of time to get to the end goal, but I'm experiencing much more. I'm learning much more, and I'm seeing much more. I'm making it hard for myself, but that's just the way my brain works. And also learning that so many artists and scientists and brilliant people are - I mean, Einstein was dyslexic. So, you know, it doesn't - it definitely doesn't mean you're intellectually challenged. It can be a great superpower, and I think that's what I've learned.

MOSLEY: I want to talk a little bit more about your childhood. You were born and raised in Cheltenham, and it's in southwest England.

O'CONNOR: I had a really great upbringing in that town. And my dad was an English teacher at my school. My mom was a midwife in the NHS, National Health Service, and I had two brothers who were great, and we got on. I mean, you know, as much as any...

MOSLEY: And you're the middle child.

O'CONNOR: And I was the middle child. And so, yeah, and we had my grandmother around, it was kind of great.

MOSLEY: Your grandmother, she sounds like quite a lady. She was an artist, herself, a ceramicist, and it sounds like you two were really close.

O'CONNOR: She was a powerful figure, I guess, in our family. She was a brilliant ceramicist. I wonder if nowadays, she might have been more celebrated because of social media or - I don't know. But at the time, she was a sort of - it was a different time for women in art, for one. And - but also, I think ceramics was maybe seen as a craft rather than an art form.

MOSLEY: Did you spend time with your grandmother while she was making pottery? Did you, yourself, as a child, also participate in that?

O'CONNOR: Well, no, actually, strangely. That's something - a great gift I've received from my grandmother is I'm fascinated and I have a love for pottery and ceramics. I also - I make things, but I'm not very good, but I enjoy the process of making things.

I mean, I sat in a studio many times and would witness her making these figures. I remember the smell of the clay, and I remember the smell of the kiln and the heat from the kiln and the smell of the paint that she used and the glaze that she used. You know, the - it felt - like, there's a sensory memory of those spaces, and those spaces felt exciting as a child. And so I'm sure there's no accident that I have that interest now.

MOSLEY: You have said, though, that you are looking forward to spending time at some point in the near future at home, doing all of those things - photography, ceramics.

O'CONNOR: Yeah.

MOSLEY: Is that a real - are you feeling more settled now, or are you feeling that that is something you actually want to take for yourself?

O'CONNOR: That is something I actually want to take for myself, for sure. And it's - yes, it's about being at home, making ceramics, doing my 65-year-old-woman thing. But it is also - it's genuine. I think it's been a busy 15 years or whatever it's been since I became a professional actor, and I love it. I love my job. But I - you know, I'm 36 years old now. A lot of my friends are married, having kids, which is great. But I think there's a part of me that's like, you know, maybe I want to - not necessarily married or kids. But I think maybe I want to be Josh for a little bit and feel what that feels like, and that includes gardening. I love gardening. I'll do work on my garden, and then I'll jet off and not see the fruits of my labor.

So there's a little bit of, like, I want to be in my garden for a bit, or I want to really work on my practice of making ceramics, or I want to see my friends or my family. You know, I think there's - or, like, there's just a feeling of excitement around being me for a little bit, and I think that's a nice thing.

MOSLEY: This has been such a pleasure - to get to know you. Josh O'Connor, thank you for your time.

O'CONNOR: Thanks so much.

MOSLEY: Josh O'Connor stars in the new Steven Spielberg film "Disclosure Day," in theaters starting Friday. After a short break, our TV critic David Bianculli reviews new documentaries on veteran entertainers Lorne Michaels and Martin Short. This is FRESH AIR.

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TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Two new documentaries focus on veteran entertainers and are directed by prominent filmmakers. "Lorne," which premiered in theaters in April and is now streaming, looks at Lorne Michaels, creator of NBC's "Saturday Night Live," and is directed by Morgan Neville. "Marty, Life Is Short," streaming on Netflix, is a biography of comedian Martin Short, directed by Lawrence Kasdan. Our TV critic David Bianculli finds that they have a lot in common.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: Lorne Michaels and Martin Short both entered show business in the early 1970s - Michaels as half of a stand-up comedy duo, Short as a cast member of a Toronto stage production of the musical "Godspell." Michaels moved to LA, wrote for "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" and some Lily Tomlin TV specials, then launched "Saturday Night Live." Short joined the Toronto Second City improv troupe, then joined the cast of "SCTV," a TV sketch comedy show just as brilliant as "SNL."

Eventually, Martin Short joined "SNL" for a year, but that was during the five years Lorne Michaels had walked away from the show. Yet their lives intersected soon after, when Martin Short starred as one of the three amigos in a comedy film alongside Steve Martin and Chevy Chase. That movie was written by Steve Martin, Randy Newman and co-producer Lorne Michaels.

In "Martin, Life Is Short," Lawrence Kasdan, writer and director of "The Big Chill," tells Martin Short's story with full access and an easy intimacy. They've been good friends for decades. Morgan Neville, whose documentaries include intimate studies of Fred Rogers and Paul McCartney, finds Lorne Michaels a more elusive subject, so gleans most of his valuable insights from Lorne's friends and "SNL" cast and crew.

Both films are loaded with celebrities - the movie "Lorne" with interviews and "Marty, Life Is Short" with a lifetime of personal family film footage where every holiday seems to turn into an all-star comedy and music fest. But there are plenty of interviews here, too, including a rather serious vintage one with late-night TV host Tom Snyder that explains the movie's title, "Marty, Life Is Short."

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TOM SNYDER: You had to handle tragedy when you were a lad. You...

MARTIN SHORT: Right.

SNYDER: You lost a brother. He died.

SHORT: I lost my brother David when I was 12, my mother when I was 18, my father when I was 20.

SNYDER: Tough, being the youngest in the family as well.

SHORT: Right. At that age or at any age, when you lose someone in your family, you have a choice. You actually have a choice. How do I handle this? This is a life lesson.

SNYDER: Right.

SHORT: And so do I collapse? Do I become defeated forever? Or do I actually kind of learn that life is short and have a glass of wine and laugh and fun and appreciate these people and never let them go? See, that's, I think, the great secret. If you never let them...

SNYDER: Yeah.

SHORT: ...Go from your life, then they're always with your life because before you know it, you know, you'll be with them.

BIANCULLI: There is indeed a lot of tragedy in this film, but there's also a constant river of joy. The get-togethers held by Martin and his wife, Nancy, seem absurdly overpopulated - kids running everywhere, celebrities in every lounge chair, but also a ridiculous amount of fun. Short photographed many of these home movies himself, but others joined in, too.

One frequent guest, Steven Spielberg, brought his camera and filmed Martin Short and another party regular re-enacting a famous scene from "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid." You know the one - Butch and Sundance are trapped on a cliff, cornered by a posse, and figure their only escape is to jump into the river far below. But in this version, they're on a big boat, and Butch and Cassidy are played by Tom Hanks and Martin Short, in character, respectively, as Forrest Gump and Ed Grimley.

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STEVEN SPIELBERG: Marty and Tom got this idea. Hey, let's do that scene from Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid."

(LAUGHTER)

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) Oh, this is very sad, I must say, 'cause we're going to be killed, you know?

TOM HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) Just get ready to shoot the bad guys.

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) There's only one way out. So we should jump, I must say.

HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) I know. We'll get shot.

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) So let's go.

HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) Mom always said jumping off cliffs is like a box of chocolates...

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) Oh, yeah.

HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) ...You never know what you might get.

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) Might get - yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Come on, Forrest.

HANKS: (As Forrest Gump) I can't swim.

SHORT: (As Ed Grimley) Oh, that's very funny. For heaven's sakes, the fall will kill us, I must say.

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BIANCULLI: "Marty, Life Is Short" gives you a sense of his love of family and his work ethic and perspective as a longtime comic and actor. In vintage clips and in new interviews, he's very open about his personal life and feelings. But there also are so many clips here that prove just how versatile and original Martin Short was, as when he portrays the famously overweight, underprepared celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick and hits his subject - in this case, Mel Brooks - with the most unexpected of questions.

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SHORT: (As Jiminy Glick) What's your big beef with the Nazis?

MEL BROOKS: What's my big beef?

SHORT: (As Jiminy Glick) Yes, it seems like you're always...

BROOKS: What's my big beef?

SHORT: (As Jiminy Glick) You're always knocking the Nazis. Oh, let's - it's time for Mel Brooks to knock the Nazis, it seems.

BIANCULLI: "Lorne," the movie, has less of its subject at dead center. Even amid all the hoopla and TV specials about the recent golden anniversary of "SNL," Lorne Michaels largely avoided the spotlight. Morgan Neville actually gets him to talk a bit about comedy, as when Lorne defends the traditional midweek all-nighter endured by the "SNL" writing staff.

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LORNE MICHAELS: I always say, fatigue is your friend. Through exhaustion and through people just being so depleted, the unconscious takes over, and suddenly, you take way bigger risks, and you start to make yourself laugh.

BIANCULLI: There's also clever use of animation to tell some parts of Lorne's story and an understandable reliance on current and former "SNL" staffers to tell their own Lorne stories. Almost everyone takes part, from Chevy Chase to Chris Rock, like this one from Mike Myers that explains the strengths of Lorne Michaels with one simple allegory.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LORNE")

MIKE MYERS: You know, there's a story that Lorne always talks about, which is he was in somewhere in Europe, and he was driving through pumpkin fields. And he came across a guy, and you could get out at any moment and load your trunk full of pumpkins, and nobody would see you 'cause it was all these little back roads. But then he came across somebody selling pumpkins in the middle of these vast pumpkin fields. And so Lorne was curious. And so he got out and he said to the guy, why should I buy your pumpkins? I could have stolen 7,000. He goes, what am I paying for? And the guy selling pumpkins says, you pay for my eye. I picked the good pumpkins.

BIANCULLI: "Marty, Life Is Short" and "Lorne" are very different documentaries, taking very different approaches. However, they have at least one thing in common - I really enjoyed watching them both and learned some things, too. Like how Martin Short came up with Ed Grimley's very particular look and voice, and how a Tennessee road trip Lorne Michaels took with Paul Simon ended up inspiring Simon's "Graceland." Watch for the details and for a lot of laughs.

MOSLEY: David Bianculli reviewed "Lorne" and "Marty, Life Is Short." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, comic Josh Johnson, one of the anchors of "The Daily Show." Johnson gets millions of views on his YouTube comedy channel, where he posts his comedy club performances, and he has a new HBO comedy special called "Symphony." I hope you can join us.

MOSLEY: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram, @nprfreshair.

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MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman, and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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