I didn't have a title or a finished script when I started on Waking LIfe. I'd become interested in the idea of lucid dreaming, where you enter a dream state but are still fully conscious - and able to participate in some pretty fascinating conversations. The experience can be intensely dialogue-heavy.
I'd been thinking about this for years, but it never quite gelled in my head. It was only when I saw what Bob Sabiston's animation software was capable of that I thought 'That's the way this film should look.' He's way ahead of the curve. We shot it on video, edited it and then his artists painted over the images in a way that gives them a floating, dreamlike look. It would be hard to find such a perfect marriage of form and content again.
The film has several themes. What is an individual? How free are we? What's the difference between waking and dreaming? And how do you define reality? I was trying to replicate the intensity of that time when you think there might be answers to fundamental questions. As you get older, you find those answers don't exist - a new horizon just opens more fields of enquiry.
This film is like my own cinematic dream, featuring characters from my previous work. There's a taxi driver like the one at the beginning of Slackers, and Wiley Wiggins role is similar to the one he played in Dazed and Confused. Ethan [Hawke] and Julie [Deply] came in as a favour - I'd worked with them on Before Sunrise. It meant something to me that I could allow character who still had something to say to come back in this movie.
Waking Life
Cert: 15
