[Warning: The next accommodates spoilers for the Season 1 finale of We Are Who We Are. Learn at your personal threat!]
The We Are Who We Are Season 1 finale fades out on the sounds of Prince’s “The Love We Make,” as Fraser (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamón) share a kiss earlier than operating off collectively into the unknown. Caitlin has simply sooner or later earlier than her household strikes away to a different base (Fraser’s mother, Sarah, performed by Chloë Sevingy, had them relocated after the lives of the 2 households turned extra intertwined than anybody had bargained for), and the 2 have spent their final hours collectively at a Blood Orange live performance, having gone on two separate journeys earlier than in the end coming again collectively within the present’s ultimate moments. We do not see the place they are going once they hurry away, and Luca Guadagnino, the present’s director, co-creator, and co-writer, would not permit us to seek out out: His digicam pans as much as the sky, and the credit roll. It seems like an applicable ending for a sequence that by no means wished to give away all the answers.
That, as Guadagnino advised TV Information, was fully intentional. The HBO drama was his first foray into tv, however as any fan of his movies, which embody Call Me by Your Name, Suspiria, and I Am Love, is aware of, he at all times prefers to not inform the viewers all the pieces. “I like individuals to consider how they really feel,” he defined whereas discussing crafting the present’s finale.
TV Information caught up with the director over Zoom from his house in Milan, Italy, to debate all the pieces from Fraser and Caitlin’s relationship to these Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer cameos as to if there’s potential for a second season.
Why did you determine to set the present through the 2016 election? Was it at all times the intention to air it proper now, through the 2020 election?
Luca Guadagnino: I did not plan to air the final episode the day earlier than the election day. It is a ravishing coincidence, to be sincere. However we did plan to set the sequence throughout that six months earlier than and after the election of 2016. On the one hand, we wanted perspective so as to have the ability to sort out it contemporarily so we might use our data of that semester. On the identical time, there’s a form of telling fact in the truth that this passage that these characters undergo — each the characters who, being adolescent, need to undergo a passage, but additionally the adults — I feel it’s telling that that occurs in an important passage additionally for America, when the symbolic utopian risk of an Obama second time period went into Trump’s first [term].
Life has a energy, a drive, one thing so fierce that can not be tamed by the merciless politics that turns into the information on the identical time. And I like the concept the propulsion that these characters have, particularly Caitlin and Fraser, is symbolically and emotionally an antidote to the brutal realism of the aftermath of the election of Trump.
I beloved that almost all of the finale is about round, and at, a Blood Orange live performance. I learn an interview with Dev Hynes the place he mentioned he truly did do a 2016 live performance in Italy that you simply recreated for the present. What is the significance of that live performance to Fraser and Caitlin?
Guadagnino: Nicely, it is a date that Fraser created for them that all of them forgot about, however not Fraser. And it is a form of capability of full freedom — they’re free. They’re free from everybody, together with each other, as a result of they get misplaced within the live performance they usually separate, and but the vitality of that live performance, of that sense of freedom, paves the way in which to the necessity of being collectively. And I feel music has that high quality.
And the Blood Orange music, “Time Will Inform,” performs such an enormous function within the season, too. What made you select that music?
Guadagnino: I just like the music lyrics particularly. “Come into my bed room, come into my bed room,” I feel it is this plea of connection. It is lovely.
Jordan Kristine Seamón and Jack Dylan Grazer, We Are Who We Are
Once I spoke to Jack earlier than the season aired, he described Fraser as “a younger little Luca.” Do you agree with that?
Guadagnino: He is too beneficiant. I strive with my work, by some means, to seek out methods of me via all the pieces, not just one character. However on the identical time, I do not need to be that form of one that makes all the pieces solely as a result of I need to categorical a part of myself. So I like what Jack says, however possibly not.
Within the finale, Fraser tells Caitlin that Mark, this man from New York he’d been speaking about so lovingly all season, would not truly exist in the way in which Fraser mentioned he did. What was the thought course of behind giving him such a non-public, idealized crush?
Guadagnino: I feel Fraser needs to be welcomed within the gaze of one other. I feel he’s actually in want of a male determine in his life, and he tries. Additionally, I feel he is such a brilliant, younger mental that the projection in itself stimulates him. It is the form of act of creation that stimulates him. It is a testomony to his solitude, and on the identical time, it is one thing that stimulates him.
Why did you determine to have them kiss within the finale, which was one thing they each swore they’d by no means do?
Guadagnino: Nicely, as a result of Fraser realizes that that is the individual he needs to be with, and Caitlin realizes the identical factor, and to kiss is an act of religion within the different.
Whereas I watched the present I assumed so much about something Greta Gerwig said about making Little Ladies, which was principally, “Childhood is one thing you return to as a result of something is feasible, and adults have extra restricted choices.” Is that form of distinction what you had been going for if you had been creating the children’ story and the adults’ story?
Guadagnino: In a manner, it is a sense of the restrict that we give to ourselves. I am not simply within the restrict age offers you, however the restrict you give your self, given that you simply suppose these limits are wanted in your age, in your given age. So it is about the way you create your personal parameters of limits greater than anything.
Jordan Kristine Seamón and Luca Guadagnino, We Are Who We Are
I do know you are famously not on-line, however I am certain you realize that the web form of misplaced its thoughts once they came upon about these Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer cameos within the present. How did these come about?
Guadagnino: Nicely, I would been visited on set by many mates that I really like, together with Timmy and Armie, and I ask it of all of my mates: “Put one thing on and be in entrance of the digicam.” So now we have Timmy, now we have Armie, now we have Jasmine Trinca, the nice Italian actress. We now have many, many mates.
So it is simply you having nice mates in excessive locations.
Guadagnino: Yeah, it is enjoyable. You realize, to be on a film set, it is fairly tiring and never a really snug place, so at any time when you may have mates round, you need to have enjoyable.
Did you may have a favourite a part of creating the present?
Guadagnino: I preserve in my coronary heart the second by which Elliott Hostetter, the manufacturing designer, confirmed me the drawing of a lion within the library set, by which I requested him to place the identify of my companion, Ferdi. That was a candy second. It’s now bitter as a result of we aren’t collectively anymore, however I preserve fascinated by that. The impermanence of issues, and on the identical time, the testomony of issues.
Do you may have any plans to make a second season?
Guadagnino: It is as much as our great networks.
I do know you may’t give away what you are considering, however when you might describe what you envision for a possible Season 2 in a single phrase, what would you select?
Guadagnino: Hope.
We Are Who We Are is now streaming on HBO Max.
Luca Guadagnino and Dev Hynes, We Are Who We Are