Opus Director Mark Anthony Green Swept His Own Movie Set

Opus filmmaker Mark Anthony Green took nothing for granted on the set of his feature directorial debut.

The Kansas City-area native, who’s affectionately regarded as “MAG,” took a circuitous route to filmmaking, beginning his career as a journalist and (eventual) editor for GQ. There, he interviewed the likes of LeBron James, Donald Glover and Daniel Kaluuya. Halfway through his 13-year tenure at the men’s magazine, Green realized he could no longer suppress his longtime urge to become a filmmaker, so he put everything he had into a short film known as Trapeze, U.S.A. (2017). A couple years later, he started writing a thriller titled Opus, which is now hitting theaters on Mar. 14 by way of A24. 

Green was so elated to be living out his dream that he went above and beyond to establish an egalitarian tone on his Santa Fe-area set. This approach was not only intended for his stars, such as Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich and Juliette Lewis, but also his crew members and background artists. In fact, an Opus extra recently commented on the film’s trailer that Green insisted on helping tidy up his own set.

“When you’re making a small film, I would assume any director or leader would be like, ‘I’m in this with everybody. I’m going to help clean up,’” Green tells The Hollywood Reporter. “Sometimes, I’d sweep up the glass [from a broken window], so another person could get a little bit of a break. I would sweep a thousand sets if it meant that I could get back on set.”

Opus chronicles an album listening retreat that a seminal, yet reclusive, pop star Alfred Moretti (Malkovich) is hosting for a select group of influential people including Edebiri’s journalist character, Ariel Ecton. Moretti is basically an amalgamation of many different musicians, such as Prince, David Bowie and Elton John. Grammy winners Nile Rodgers and The-Dream, in between sessions with Beyoncé, helped sell Opus’ illusion by writing a few of Moretti’s songs for the film.

Ariel gradually pulls back the curtain on Moretti’s community of Levelists, a cult-like following that serves a number of different functions on his remote compound in Utah. 

“A lot of people want me to say, ‘I was interviewing this person [for GQ] when this thing happened, and that inspired this film.’ But Opus is really an extremely fun cautionary tale about tribalism,” Green says. “Pop music felt like a fun way into this interrogation of tribalism, which is a global phenomenon and a pandemic that stretches far beyond art and entertainment. It’s tough to find an arena where there isn’t tribalism seeped into it.”

Below, during a recent conversation with THR, MAG also discusses an interpretation of Opus that’s irked him, before explaining why he thanked Spike Lee in the closing credits.

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You were a journalist at GQ for over a decade, and at a certain point, you decided to write a feature film. What factored into that decision? 

I have always wanted to make films. I made a short film [Trapeze, U.S.A.] eight years ago, and then I started working on Opus six years ago. So anyone who knew me well knew that this is what I had been working towards and where my interest was. But for my friends and colleagues who I never talked to about it, it’s been interesting and funny to see how out of left field it is for them.

Juliette Lewis’ character pointedly asks Murray Bartlett’s character, “How’s print media treating you?” Does this moment reflect your own view on the state of print media?

I’m a magazine junkie. I love magazines. Now that I don’t write for a magazine, I follow the business aspect of print media way less, but magazines will be around forever. I am a firm believer in that. So I wrote that dig as an understanding of the civil war-ness between the different media branches. I’ve had conversations in the past with friends of mine in broadcast or at newspapers, and we would talk trash back and forth since I worked at a magazine. So it was all in good fun, but l still collect magazines. I’m not sure how many subscriptions I have, but I never throw them away. 

Toward the beginning, a LeBron James magazine cover is shown hanging near an elevator. Is that meant to pay homage to your own 2017 cover story with him? 

Yeah, and that’s a really good catch on your part. I’m also just a huge LeBron fan. Anytime I can put him in anything, I try to sneak him in. Pari Dukovic shot that [2017] cover, and I love him. So we needed a magazine cover for the film, and I just reached out to him. Everybody cleared it, and they let us use an alt photo [from that original shoot].

Overall, how much of you is smuggled into Ayo Edebiri’s journalist character, Ariel?

I thought there wasn’t a ton at first. It wasn’t until people that know me well watched the film, and so many of them started to point out all of these different things. One of the beautiful things about art is that you inadvertently put so much of yourself into it. She’s a young Black journalist at a magazine, and I approached the journalism part of this film like the basketball in White Men Can’t Jump. The basketball is accurate, but the movie is not about basketball. It’s about obsession and what it means to have a dream, and to be at the point where you need to let that dream and ambition go. So I just tried to use my experiences to get Ariel’s reporting right, and what Ariel says about making a name for yourself is how I thought when I was young. “If you interview famous people, then people will care about what you think.” So I took some of the green naivete I had when I first started at GQ and poked fun at myself.

Starting out, many aspiring writer-directors have had to sell scripts for others to direct. How many arms did you have to twist to secure the director’s chair?

It’s such a fight. I’ve had other scripts get optioned at other studios. I had one at Sony for a while. The great thing about A24, Neon and these newer studios is they pride themselves on finding new voices that they believe in. So it’s really cool that some of that fight is going away as companies like A24 take more chances on first-time feature filmmakers. As lovers of film, I think we all should want that.

John Malkovich’s seminal pop star character, Alfred Moretti, makes a comeback after 30 years in hiding, and he invites a number of influential people to his Utah compound for an album listening party. Was this story point inspired by Kanye West’s own events in Wyoming?

It was not inspired by Kanye, no, but there are a lot of real events — even since the movie has been finished — that echo the relevance of both the message and the film itself. The first draft of the script was written before his Wyoming period, but there are tons of other celebrities that have invited the media out. Kayne’s example was probably the biggest in recent memory. But, with everything that’s happening now, it seems like such a sad, deeply unfortunate story.

A lot of people want me to say, “I was interviewing this person when this thing happened, and that inspired this film.” But Opus is really an extremely fun cautionary tale about tribalism. I know tribalism is not the most fun subject, so I chose pop music because it’s so enjoyable and infectious. I also chose to craft the film like a pop record, even in the way that it’s paced and to let it build in a certain way. Pop music felt like a fun way into this interrogation of tribalism, which is a global phenomenon and a pandemic that stretches far beyond art and entertainment. It’s tough to find an arena where there isn’t tribalism seeped into it.

Yeah, when it comes to tribalism and cults of personality, I think the news ticker on the CNN footage really sums up the point of the movie. People can be so devoted to a particular person or persona that they will forgive or overlook all sorts of unflattering elements. Does this reading track with you?

Dude, it not only tracks with me, but you have made my day. Opus is a very dense film, and there is so much going on and in that moment. You’ve got Bill Burr and all these cameos, but yeah, that news ticker is the whole thing. I didn’t want to hit people over the head with it, so we placed it to not be super obvious. But you’re the first person to ask about it, and that’s the whole movie in one frame. It makes me feel deeply seen, so, thank you. You got why I made this movie.

You’re welcome. Opus also addresses something that journalists might question from time to time: “Am I telling this story on my terms? Or am I telling this story on the subject’s terms?”

Yeah, there have definitely been times where I felt like I was telling a story on my terms, and then there have definitely been times where I felt like I was telling a story on their terms. There have definitely been times where I’m reading something, and I’m like, “This feels like it’s on the subject’s terms,” or, “This feels like it’s on the journalist’s terms.” A little bit of that setup is totally fine: “I’m going to invite you into my world. I may be a public figure, but I’m also a private person, so this is what’s off limits.” That’s just part of the dance, but in some of these fields, there are outlets that are owned by the people that [their journalists] are investigating. That is an extreme example, but it’s a prickly negotiation and relationship between subject and interviewer.

Have you felt that as someone who’s now on the other side?

It’s been an interesting conversation. Some journalists who don’t know me have watched Opus, and their read on it is anti-media or anti-critic. I’m so happy for the film to be out in the world, and it’s not my job or place as an artist to try to recontextualize how a thing made you feel. But, if curious, I just want to say that, as Mark Anthony, the human and the artist, no part of me is anti-journalism nor is that my read on the film. It, for sure, is not the intention of the film to be anti-critic or anti-journalist. I did that job proudly for 13 years.

So I’ve had a couple conversations with folks who took it that way, and I was bummed by that. But the thing that the film genuinely interrogates is such an important problem to interrogate, and journalists play, if not the most important part, one of the most important parts in public discourse. Journalism is really the first line of defense, and I have an immense amount of love and respect for it. I was just a bit surprised by that. I don’t think it’s a lot of people, but there were a few and we had great conversations about it. I was just like, “That is the furthest thing from what I personally believe.”

I didn’t have that takeaway whatsoever. 

Sometimes, you inadvertently make somebody feel a certain way. As an artist, you’ve got to make the thing you want to make, but then you also want people to accurately feel how you feel. And if you’re somebody who hurts people, then I don’t mind if you’re offended by my film. But I absolutely don’t consider journalists to be that at all.

In the comment section of your trailer, a YouTube commenter, who claimed to be an Opus extra, complimented you by saying that, despite the crew’s offers, you insisted on sweeping some of the set floors yourself. Is this story true? 

Yeah, it’s true. I had the most fun I’ve ever had making this film, and despite the amazing cast that we had, it’s a small-budget film. I’ve seen reports that the film costs $20 million or $30 million, and that’s not even remotely close to how much money we spent. So when you’re making a small film, I would assume any director or leader would be like, “I’m in this with everybody. I’m going to help clean up to get to the next thing.” I had such a great crew in New Mexico; I can’t recommend them enough. So, part of my job as a director, I believe, is to be a support system, and part of being a support system is knowing that every time we break a window, somebody has to sweep up the glass. And, sometimes, I’d sweep up the glass, so another person could get a little bit of a break from sweeping up the glass. It’s that type of thing. I don’t think that a director or leader deserves a pat on the back for being human, but we all should be human. I’ve been a filmmaker for ten years now, but today is my birthday, and I’ve been a human for 37 years.

Happy birthday.

Thank you. So I’m way more comfortable as a human than I probably will be as anything else. But it’s cool that they wrote that, and we had really great extras in New Mexico. We definitely prioritized native background actors in the film because I just felt so fortunate that the Pojoaque nation were so collaborative and allowed us to shoot on their land. Making a film is the greatest gift in the world, and I cannot wait to be back on set. I would sweep a thousand sets if it meant that I could get back on set. That is the smallest price of entry to do something so wonderful. So I can’t wait to sweep on the next one.

I’m always fascinated by a movie’s thank you section. Were Spike Lee, Daniel Kaluuya, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Lionel Boyce part of your note network? 

Everybody except for Spike, but I believe that every Black filmmaker should have Spike Lee in their special thanks. Spike Lee fought for me to make Opus whether he ever sees the film or references the film. He fought to make Black films. He fought to have Black leads. Before I was even on the planet, he fought to say things with a style that is part of Black culture and the Black diaspora. So I just think that he should be in every Black filmmaker’s special thanks.

Trent and Daniel are people that I call friends, and it was such a special thing to be able to show them the film and to talk it out with them. They were so supportive during this extremely difficult, vulnerable process of putting out a film. And for me, the human, like we were talking about earlier, that special thank you section is the most important frame of this film. There are people in there who supported me when I was homeless and trying to graduate from Morehouse College. My high school English teacher and debate coach, Melissa Reynolds, was the first person to tell me I was a good writer, and she let me do special assignments so that I wouldn’t flunk her class. She was like, “You’re a great writer when you care, so I want you to write about stuff that you care about. So tell me what you care about, and I will make sure that you can write about that for school so I can make you a better writer.” So she put me in AP English despite the fact that I had bad grades my freshman year. 

I also thanked the people whose couches I have slept on and whose shoulders I have cried on, and I’ve thought about them a lot in the last couple weeks. When you’re traveling and promoting a film, it makes you very introspective when people ask you so much about the process and how you got here. I don’t really look back a ton. It’s not my nature. But I’m so excited about the future and the next film and people getting to see Opus when it comes out in a couple days. I started working on it so long ago, and when somebody asks a question about that, I remember the hard times, the rejection times. I remember bitching to my friend Warren [Chancellor] and him taking me on a walk because this person said no. So I do feel like the luckiest human being in the world to have such amazing friends and family.

In a perfect world, what would you do next? 

I know the next film I want to make. It’s an original script and an original idea. I just sent the script to my agents, and I’m super excited about it. One of my favorite quotes is by Tom Sachs: “The reward for good work is more work.” When I made my short film, this artistic format checked every box and satisfied every curiosity and scratched every itch. And despite the fact that I went into debt making it and stressed myself out, I fully dedicated myself to becoming the best filmmaker that I could be. I’ve learned so much about the craft to hopefully contribute as much as I can to this medium. So the reward in all of this is just to get back to work, and I was very excited to start writing the next script. I’ve now written something that I love. It’s very weird and different from Opus. And based on all the things I’ve learned from Opus, I’m excited to take an even more ambitious, even bigger swing on this next one. 

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Opus opens Mar. 14 in movie theaters.