The Secret to a Happy Marriage is Sausage Ragu

Plus: Lots of links and the new Julia trailer.

Hey Thursday friends,

When I started ramping up my Thursday paid subscribers-only newsletter, a Substack adviser named Christina (hi Christina!) said that my Monday newsletter should be like a concert — the main event — and that my Thursday newsletter should be like going backstage. As in: your general fans just want to go to the concert, your die-hard fans want to go backstage. So welcome die-hard fans to the backstage of my life, here in Concord, Mass, where I’m playing the role of emotional support cook for Craig as he surfs the waves of being in pre-production for a big studio comedy.

It’s funny, most people think of directing movies in the artistic sense: Stanley Kubrick’s crisp imagery, Robert Altman’s overlapping dialogue, Jane Campion’s simmering subtext. But so much of making a film — and I’ve been in a relationship with Craig over the course of four, now five, features — is crisis management. Imagine ten pots and pans on a giant stove all simmering, searing, frying, and sautéing at once (as in: casting, locations, budget) and you’ll get the idea.

When Craig was doing the movie Wilson in Minneapolis, his parents flew in to celebrate his father’s 70th birthday. That day was one of the biggest shoots (it was at an amusement park) and just when Craig was breathing a sigh of relief to be finished, he got news that the next day’s location fell through. So instead of joining his parents for dinner at Spoon and Stable, he spent that evening location scouting into the wee hours.