Celine and Johnson talk about the film and falling in love

Before Celine Song was an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, she was a playwright in New York who needed day jobs to pay rent. That’s how she found herself as a professional matchmaker. What may have begun as a purely transactional gig, a way for her to keep making her art in an expensive city, taught her more about people’s wants and needs and the true contents of their hearts than she could have ever imagined. “I always wanted to write something about it because there seemed to be a story in it that is massive and very epic in proportion,” Song said.

“It affects every human being on Earth.” And while waiting for her breakout film “Past Lives” to debut, she did. That film is “Materialists,” a modern-day New York love story starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans that’s heading to theatres this weekend. Johnson is the matchmaker presented with two different types of men for herself — one a poor struggling actor and ex-boyfriend, the other a wealthy “unicorn” — and the internet has already been drawing battle lines. But, like “Past Lives” wasn’t really about a love triangle, “Materialists” is about something more than the question of which guy is the “correct” choice. Song and Johnson spoke about the film, falling in love and the modern marketplace of dating.

How did you find each other?

SONG: We met up thinking that we were just going to get to know each other and be friends and I walked away from that conversation — this is just from my perspective — but I think I was still sitting there when I texted my producers and the studio being like, “I think I’ve found my Lucy.” That’s how casting works for me, it’s always about falling in love. It’s very connected to what we talk about in the film.

JOHNSON: I knew you had this movie that you were about to start making. I was basically told it was too late. I was like, but I really want to meet her because she’s so smart, and I’ve seen interviews and obviously had seen “Past Lives.” I just wanted talk and get to know her as an artist and a person and so I went into this being like there’s no chance that I’ll be in this movie, but maybe she’ll make another one. We just had such a good time talking,

Where do we meet Lucy in life?

JOHNSON: She’s sort of at the top of her game in her work and is very disconnected from her heart and focused on being a perfectionist and getting people to get married. On the surface, you see her as a very transactional person and not really invested in people’s souls, but she actually is and really does want the best for them. She’s also on her own journey of trying to figure out what it is she wants for herself in this life, and, essentially, do you fight for the thing that you think you want, or do you fight for that thing that you know you need? Is that right, Celine?

SONG: That’s so good.

What are you trying to say through the two men in her life?

SONG: It was never going to be a conversation about which flavor of a person. It’s actually so much more about this marketplace of dating that all of us live in if you’re single, and also the marketplace that Dakota’s character is navigating. She knows the math better than anyone else in the film. She’s an excellent matchmaker. Pedro plays somebody who is probably, in straight dating, someone of the highest possible value.

JOHNSON: Celine speaks so eloquently about the marketplace of dating and I glitch at those words because I’m like, you can’t explain love that way. But that’s actually how people are. Marriage used to be a business deal. It was like, my father wants your cows and my mother needs your wheat and whatever.

Associated Press