Summary

Collider’s Steve Weintraub talks with Magic Hour’s Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton at SXSW 2025.

Aselton co-stars in the drama opposite Daveed Diggs, about a couple in a new phase of their relationship.

In this interview, Aselton and Duplass discuss independent filmmaking, bringing their personal reflections to the storytelling, and what’s next for the duo.

For over 20 years, the husband-and-wife team of Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton have been symbols of American independent cinema, dating back to their 2005 mumblecore dramedy, The Puffy Chair. Since then, Duplass, along with his brother, Jay Duplass, defined a subgenre of independent film with their low-budget and intimate character dramas.
While Duplass and Aselton have starred in mainstream shows and movies, their hearts lie with the spirit of independent filmmaking. With Magic Hour, the upcoming film written and directed by and co-starring Aselton, the pair have returned to their roots, all while providing Aselton a chance to prove her chops as an autonomous artist. The film stars Aselton and Daveed Diggs as a couple escaping to the desert to navigate complicated feelings in their relationship.
At SXSW 2025, Steve Weintraub sits down with Aselton and Duplass at Collider Media Studio at the Cinema Center to discuss Magic Hour, imbuing personal reflections into the story, and the struggles involved in independent filmmaking.
There’s a “Spiritual Nature” to Premiering ‘Magic Hour’ at SXSW

“Let’s make a movie that is deeply personal to us.”

Image via SXSW

COLLIDER: I am thrilled to be talking to you guys for Magic Hour.
MARK DUPLASS: We’re pumped to be here. We shot this movie a year and a half ago, and it’s the first time we’re bringing it to audiences, so that’s a cool thing.
KATIE ASELTON: That’s why SXSW is the ideal place to bring it into the world. It’s fun and dreamy and a little desert-y.
Did you actually think about, “Do we want to go to Sundance? Do we want to go to SXSW?” Did you have that conversation?
ASELTON: Yes, but it’s not like we get to choose, you know? I think SXSW was always what we felt was the right fit for this movie.
DUPLASS: There’s a spiritual nature of what SXSW was for us, going all the way back to The Puffy Chair, which was 20 years ago. I remember being at Sundance with The Puffy Chair, and we premiered very late at the festival. We were one of the last movies they accepted, for sure, and they let us know that! [Laughs] “You’ll premiere on Wednesday when everybody’s gone.” A couple of people had seen it, and it just started to whisper, but it really wasn’t until SXSW that people saw the movie. All the press and all the buyers came and saw the movie, and it started to have its moment. I don’t really believe in that sort of thing, but it is interesting that 20 years later we’re coming back here with this, which is in many ways kind of a return to the original principles of filmmaking that we started with, which was like, “Let’s make a movie that is deeply personal to us, that is not considering marketability whatsoever. It’s just about the art. And let’s do it with our cash and with no obstacles.”
ASELTON: It really does feel like a return. I think when we all made The Puffy Chair together, we weren’t in the business. We weren’t a part of it. We didn’t expect to be invited in as graciously as we were, but that gave us such a freedom of being like, “Well, if we’re not in that business, we don’t have to play by their rules. We’ll do it our way and make it up as we go along.” It gave us so much creative freedom in doing that. I think there is something to be said about the business [being] a bit in shambles. I think fewer and fewer films are being financed, and fewer movies are being bought. All the rules are out the window again.
DUPLASS: So what’s it all about now?
ASELTON: It’s now on your terms, all over again. If you’re not doing it to make anyone else happy, you’re just doing it to make yourself happy, and what a way to make a movie.
‘Magic Hour’ May or May Not Be About Their Codependency

“Isn’t that the romance of everything we read about?”

Image by Photagonist

I have so many follow-ups to this, but everyone watching won’t have seen the movie yet, so how have you been describing it to friends and family, or what do you want to tell people about it?
ASELTON: I think, ultimately, it’s a love story.
DUPLASS: There’s a simple logline that is an artful dodge of some of the plot turns in the movie that we like to keep under wraps. Shhh!
ASELTON: This is just between us, you guys.
DUPLASS: It’s about a couple experiencing a really, really rough patch in their relationship, and they head out to the desert to see if they can work it out. But it’s about a lot more than that. It was a movie that was birthed about five years ago. Katie and I do this thing where we spend lovely Christmas holidays with our kids and our family, and then we go on a vacation, and we have this big party at New Year’s, and then by the time January 3 rolls around, we’re like, “Get us the fuck away from everybody.” [Laughs] Katie and I go away for like 3 or 4 days together, and we talk about our year, talk about, “Oh, yeah, we’re married, I love you, this is what we’re doing, and what are our principles?”
Katie very squarely was just like, “I miss doing what we used to do when there were no obstacles, and we would just go make things.” We both have gotten to this place where I don’t want to say “guilty of it,” but there’s this thing that happens where because we are nearer to finances, and we have access to that, it makes you question how you should make something as opposed to 20 years ago when we made The Puffy Chair, there was only one option: go into the credit card, make the movie and go. It really connected with me. I just want to make something that I feel really great about doing as an actor and as a writer and director. We had a six-hour drive back from where we were up the coast to home.
ASELTON: It was right after New Year’s in 2020, so really anything was possible.
DUPLASS: Everything was possible for the next two months.
ASELTON: The world was our oyster.
DUPLASS: We pulled out our little notes app on our phone, and we just started talking about this movie idea. And as usual, it started more with, “What’s interesting to us? What do we uniquely have to offer? And what is that now?” There are 500 movies and TV shows in your queue right now; how can we make something that’s just not another burden for you that you feel you have to watch? That’s the first question we ask. The thing that spilled out of our mouths first was our codependency. It’s something that we talk a lot about, and we are confused by and conflicted about.
ASELTON: A lot of people had some real judgment about it real early on in our relationship.
I don’t actually know how codependent you are.
ASELTON: Pretty darn codependent! We’ve literally been making movies together for 20 years.
DUPLASS: This is what fascinates me about it. On one hand, it is a four-letter word. You shouldn’t be codependent. You go to therapy so you can stand on your own, and you elect to be with someone, but you have your boundaries up, and we’re both our own people, and that all sounds great. At the same time, like, how beautiful to be so inextricably linked with a human. Isn’t that the romance of everything we read about? Starting with Wuthering Heights. This is what I’ve always wanted. It’s my dream.

Image by Photagonist

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. You guys are happy, and that’s fantastic.
ASELTON: Is it super healthy that after five days of being apart, we’re not the best version of ourselves?
DUPLASS: That’s the hard part. I don’t want to go away for four days because I don’t want to be away from Katie—some of it is our kids and our dogs and our home and all that stuff.
ASELTON: It’s a lot about the dogs.
DUPLASS: It’s not simple, and there’s a darker side to it. We really started with that concept, and we said, “Well, how do we do this in a way that’s not just another Mike Leigh or [John] Cassavetes movie from the ’70s? That’s when we came up with this plot device that—shh!—we’re not saying anything about, but allowed us to explore it from sort of a circuitous angle.
ASELTON: It was really fun to tell a story together that was us, but it wasn’t us, but it’s also not not us.
DUPLASS: Well, you cast somebody else. So let’s face it, let’s just talk about it.
ASELTON: There were a lot of conversations in that cast.
DUPLASS: Fucking begging for roles after 20 years! It’s brutal.
ASELTON: You have been riding my coattails. It’s time I set a boundary.

17:05

Related

What’s the Difference Between Indie Film and Indie TV? Mark Duplass Explains

Duplass, Mel Eslyn and more discuss how Duplass Brothers Productions is pioneering a new form for television.

The movie takes place in the desert at this beautiful home, and when I was looking through the credits, which are pretty short and tell you it was done indie, one of the things I was wondering is, did you rent the house on Airbnb and then shoot the movie and ask for permission, or never ask for permission?
ASELTON: No, you have to ask for permission first.
DUPLASS: We have to ask for permission first because we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we have to be responsible. But if you’re just starting out, don’t ask for permission. Just go do it.
ASELTON: If your last name is Duplass, and you’re getting an Airbnb for 20 days, and there are 10 people in it…
DUPLASS: They’re like, “I know what you’re doing.”
Did they say that?
DUPLASS: They’re like, “I look at Collider, I know.” [Laughs]
So you asked them, and they said, “Yes?”
ASELTON: We found the house on Airbnb—that part’s true. It looked amazing, and it seemed very perfect, so we reached out to him personally, and I said, “Listen, we’re very responsible. I’m a middle-aged woman who loves interior design. I will love and respect your house as if it was my own.” And they were lovely about it.
You are starring, directing, co-writing. There’s a lot of emotional stuff going on. What is it like on set? How do you know you have the take that you want when you are in the middle of delivering this emotional thing?
ASELTON: The truth is, I don’t, but I spent so much time and energy creating the environment on set and picking my team and my support system, and so much time in pre-production talking about what we wanted out of every scene and in every moment. I really said to them going into this, “You need to tell me; I won’t know.” I am either going to think everything’s terrible or wonderful. It’s going to be one or the other, and you need to be my eyes, and I need to be able to look up at you after I’m like, “Charlie!” You have to be like, “No, we gotta go again.”
DUPLASS: I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. I don’t think that happened. That was some of the time in the deeper emotional moments, but there are a lot of times when you are very clearly in control of it. I get to say that as your husband.
ASELTON: All that emotion is always right under the surface. It doesn’t take a lot for me to go there.
How Daveed Diggs Won Out Over Real-Life Partner Mark Duplass

“I’m not bitter.”

Image via SXSW

Let’s talk about casting your husband in the film.
DUPLASS: Or not casting your actual husband in the film—I’m not bitter.
ASELTON: Are you bitter?
DUPLASS: It’s fine.
Was there, in your mind, a thought about casting your real husband?
ASELTON: Absolutely. We talked a lot about it.
How did you end up with Daveed?
ASELTON: I had them both read.
DUPLASS: [Laughs] Together.
ASELTON: There was a chemistry test. We talked a lot about it, and I think where we landed was, like, because it is such a personal story in so many ways that it does feel a little gross to be like, “Isn’t our love beautiful?” You know?
DUPLASS: You need to watch this love story that’s about a love so precious and dear and special that it’s going to break your heart watching all the tribulations, and we cast ourselves.
ASELTON: Puffy Chair didn’t have the largest audience in the world, but we did it in Puffy Chair, we were in The League together. I would work with Mark all day, every day, if I didn’t think people would be like [groans].
DUPLASS: I think I was like number four on the cast list. Let’s just talk about how it is. I think it was like, “If Daveed turned it down, there’s probably like two more really hot, soulful dudes,” and then maybe I would have gotten it.
ASELTON: The list was long. You were in the mix.

Image via SXSW

DUPLASS: We look at movies from an available material standpoint. What’s the sword that’s in your hand? What can you swing right away? The element of “the two of us could just go away and make this” was attractive to us at a certain point. I think we did feel like, “Let’s do something different.” We’ve been on-screen together before. If we could get somebody who is incredible, who will add a new dimension to the movie, because that’s been part of what I’ve been doing a lot as a creator lately. Maybe I don’t make every movie with Jay [Duplass], maybe I make them with new partners, so half of the art feels like me, and half the art feels like something wildly different from what we would have picked.
ASELTON: If I’m being completely vulnerable, that was a huge part of it for me, as well. I don’t want it to always appear like I can only do things with Mark. We wrote this together, so our wagons are still hitched, but that’s because we’re codependent, as we’ve established. But it was important to me to step out and show the world that I can stand on my own. There’s something that just innately happened with The Puffy Chair. I’m a trained actor. I went to theater school, and yet when Puffy Chair rolled out, they were like, “Oh, and Mark cast his girlfriend.” And I was like, “Well, I mean, I was the actor.” He was the musician when we met. The narrative became this thing of, like, “Katie’s going to be cast.” It’s all not true, but it’s just the way the conversation happened. This is the first time I’ve said it, and it is vulnerable, and now I’m embarrassed. I did want to say, “I want to do this on my own. I want to direct on my own.” I don’t want to feel like you’re in the scene being like, “Oh, we should do this.”
DUPLASS: I wasn’t on set. I stayed back with the kids at home, and Katie went away with her team and made the movie. It was really good for both of us.
How did you go 20 days without her?
DUPLASS: It was only 11 days, but it was hard, and I think she missed me a lot, but not as much as she missed our dogs.

Image by Photagonist

I actually want to bring up the dogs real quick. I love talking about animals. You have two dogs. How did you decide on the two dogs that you have? Was there a lot of debate between where you were going to adopt them from?
DUPLASS: As with all dogs, there are tons and tons of debate of why you should, and then all of a sudden, there’s this moment where you just, like, “Do it,” and it happens very quickly.
ASELTON: They’re both rescues, and they both just felt right.
DUPLASS: It seems like our family’s now going to be the two dogs that we’ve rescued, and then space for a potential third rescue to come in and hang with us until we can foster and get them places.
ASELTON: Or completely fail, and then we’ll have three dogs, and then we’ll say, “And then there’s space for four!”
DUPLASS: Well, once Magic Hour sells for eight figures, we’re going to be able to get a bigger house, and it’s gonna be fine.
ASELTON: I just need acreage, guys.
‘The Morning Show’ Season 4 Has Wrapped Filming

“We’re going to be coming out later this year.”

I’m almost out of time with you guys. I want to ask a few other things. I am a fan of The Morning Show. You guys are filming Season 4.
DUPLASS: We finished Season 4.
What can you tease fans about the series? Because Season 3 ended in such a way where you and Alex, Jennifer’s character… Things happened.
DUPLASS: Things happened. Things happened in Season 4. If I say anything more, I think Apple will somehow Cloud zap me and kill me. I will say that I think we’re going to be coming out later this year, but we don’t have a release date. But creatively, I mean, if I say anything, I’m dead.
ASELTON: I can confirm. Things do happen.
When did you realize, “Wait, this is popular for Apple? This is a hit?” By the way, getting four seasons on anything…? And that is not a cheap show to make.
DUPLASS: I realized that as soon as they greenlit Season 2 because, as someone who comes from the principles of indie filmmaking, while I don’t see the budgets of The Morning Show, I have a sense of what that show costs, and I know that a show like that does not get a second season unless it is putting in astronomical numbers. So, I think we have a huge domestic audience, but more importantly, with this big international audience that just loves to see all the big movie stars in the show.
ASELTON: I think Reese [Witherspoon] and Jen [Aniston] love the show, too. I think that’s one of those things where it’s like when you have these huge names attached to a show, but they’re not fully invested, but those women love it. So, I think that sort of breathes into the material.

Related

A ‘Jack Ryan’ Star Is Joining ‘The Morning Show’ Season 4

A star from ‘Unstable’ is also joining him.

I recently watched another Apple show coming into the studio tomorrow, and one of the things I commend them on is that…
ASELTON: Is it Government Cheese?
It is.
ASELTON: I did two episodes later in that season. It’s a cool show!
I’ve seen the first five.
ASELTON: I’m in [Episodes] 6 and 7.
That would explain why I didn’t know. Being honest, it’s really good, but the thing that I wanted talk about is all of Apple’s shows, the production design and the production value is holy F. They just drop bank.
ASELTON: The DP on Government Cheese is extraordinary.
DUPLASS: Well, they haven’t slashed their budgets yet, and they have this wonderful, beautiful store to help subsidize all the losses.
ASELTON: Those little pocket computers you guys are all carrying around.
ASELTON: It’s a form of the socialism I’ve always wanted. It’s just like, “Let’s have the money from the top trickle down and lose it and pay for the arts.” That’s great. So I’m really happy they’re doing what they’re doing. If they’re watching…
ASELTON: Wouldn’t it be so cool if they bought independent film?
DUPLASS: Do that, but also take some shots on some smaller things. Go out and buy a Baby Reindeer and go out and buy movies like Magic Hour because the marketplace is flooded with expensive things that aren’t working, and sometimes these little things light it up. Is that Apple? You guys can all take that note.

Image via SXSW

I want to ask you one other thing, which is Hurricanna, which sounds weird and interesting. What can you say?
DUPLASS: Here’s what I will say, and it’s probably controversial, and I shouldn’t say it: there’s a dark side to independent film. This movie is great, and it’s embroiled in weird politics with all the financiers and the producers, who are all infighting and being children right now. I’m hopeful that they will resolve this so this movie can get out. It has an incredible lead performance at the center of it—not mine—an incredible performance by Holly Hunter, and it deserves to be seen. I’m hoping people will grow up and put it in the world.
I’ve heard this horror story from other people, and it’s really unfortunate when people act like children.
DUPLASS: It sucks. Not to come full circle, but it is part of the reason why, in our collective 25 years or so in this business, we continue to make things like Magic Hour this way. A lot of people are like, “Why would you pay for this yourself when you could go out and get money?” It’s because of the potential of that stress, and that drag away of your soul points, when you’re like, “Oh my God, it cost me two years and a lot of my spirit to make this movie.” We don’t do that to ourselves.
ASELTON: You realize you’re just battling an ego.
More than that, you have the horror story of Warner Bros. just burying art.
DUPLASS: Just bury the movie, which is a great write-off.
It’s horrific.

Related

‘Batgirl’ Scrapped Due to Strategic Shift, Says Warner Bros.

Justice takes a backseat to revenue.

I do want to ask you, you directed something else, Their Town.
ASELTON: Yeah. Just wrapped. Mark wrote it, and it stars our 17-year-old daughter, Ora.
For people that don’t know anything about it, what do you want to tell people?
ASELTON: It’s a great YA story about two teens who, for the first time, are seen and feel seen.
DUPLASS: We wanted to do something that would give dignity to the way we see teenagers, the way that our teenager is, which is not a lot of slamming doors and “I hate you.” There’s a deep existential pain to this generation, and they’re thoughtful and really interesting.
ASELTON: I think so easily discounted by the older generation.
DUPLASS: So in the way that Before Sunrise showed us what’s going on with these people in their early 20s and why they might need to drift for a night, we do that for teenagers with this movie.
When do you think people will see it?
ASELTON: My hope would be later this year at a really rad festival.
DUPLASS: Toronto, New York, maybe Sundance. Maybe Telluride.
ASELTON: You want to do this in Toronto?
DUPLASS: Sure. It’s a date!
Did you finance it yourself?
DUPLASS: Always.
ASELTON: I’m open to other people’s money.
DUPLASS: We’re in full Cassavetes mode right now. The money that Katie and I made on The League that we invested a while back, the money I’m making on The Morning Show, and shows like Good American Family coming out on Hulu.
ASELTON: It’s Robin Hood-ing in a way.
DUPLASS: As Apple’s stores are financing their stuff, our dumb TV money is taking care of all this for us.
Special thanks to our 2025 partners at SXSW, including presenting partner Rendezvous Capital and supporting partners Bloom, Peroni, Hendrick’s, and Roxstar Entertainment.

Magic Hour

Release Date

March 7, 2025

Runtime

89 Minutes

Director

Katie Aselton