David O. Russell on The Treatment

Go over to KCRW and listen to Elvis Mitchell's interview with David O. Russell, who's on the award circuit for The Silver Linings Playbook.  In truth, I've gotten out of the habit of listening to this podcast of intimate interviews with actors and filmmakers, but this episode touches on why this show is so great.

Mitchell is able to book some of the more powerful players in Hollywood because he knows their careers. With Russell, he notes that the director has been coming on his show for 11 years, each time he has a movie out. Then they talk about how Russell struggled as a director (after the charming, if odd I Heart Huckabees). And how he's been able to rediscover the craft in his last two movies, starting with the Fighter. The interview then talks about how Silver Linings Playbook came together, notably with lucky happenstance on the casting of Cooper, Lawrence, De Niro and Tucker.