Upon accepting his career achievement award at an intimate Zurich Film Festival ceremony, beloved U.S. auteur Richard Linklater was swiftly asked for an update on his musical film, Merrily We Roll Along.
Based on Stephen Sondheim’s 1981 show, Linklater’s movie is set to shoot over a 20-year period, similar to his Oscar-nominated Boyhood, with stars Paul Mescal, Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein aging in real time.
Before a screening of his iconic Before Sunrise, Linklater sat for a 45-minute discussion with Zurich Film Festival CEO Christian Jungen to reflect on his entire career, from his early interest in cinema to making Dazed and Confused with Matthew McConaughey and later, School of Rock with Jack Black.
Toward the end of the conversation, an audience member asked for a status update on Merrily We Roll Along, to which the American filmmaker responded that it’s proving a little trickier to be discreet compared to 2014’s Boyhood (shot over 12 years). “When I was doing Boyhood, we worked in complete anonymity. No one knew about the film. This one, on the other hand, because it’s a Stephen Sondheim musical and it’s very public, I have to answer this question for 20 years while we’re making it,” he laughed.
“But my progress report,” continued Linklater, “is it’s [shooting] nine sections in 20 years. And in a few months, we’re filming the fourth section. So see you in 2040,” he added, the room applauding.
Linklater also dismissed concerns about “tempting fate” with such a long shoot. “It worked on Boyhood, […] and that’s just the way the film should be made and that’s the only way to tell the story. And people were like, ‘Well, what if someone died?’ There’s always an extreme thing that would prevent it from being made. But I was like, ‘Well, that usually doesn’t happen,’ and you gotta believe in collaborating with the future of some kind. So definitely got lucky [with Boyhood] and hoping to get lucky this time. But it’s been so fun so far. It’s very different. I have music already — it’s a great score. We’re adapting it step-by-step. I’ve always made music films. … But it’s fun to be making a full-on musical. But it’s about friendship, long-term.”
Merrily We Roll Along is based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, follows Franklin Shepard, a talented composer of Broadway musicals that abandons his friends and career to become a producer of Hollywood movies. The story begins at the height of his Hollywood fame and moves backwards in time, showing important moments in Frank’s life.
Naturally, Linklater was probed on how he came to cast Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in the cult Before trilogy, and regaled the audience with anecdotes about making the Vienna-set romance. When Jungen cited an interview with Delpy where she said she’d been “only made a third” of what Hawke was paid, Linklater responded: “That’s not true. I actually remember fighting for it because I knew how hard the actors were going to have to work. And I did have some producers saying, ‘Oh, Julie has no American credits. We don’t have to pay her that much. We can get her for scale. ‘ And I was like, ‘Let’s get them closer.’ It was definitely the most she’s ever made, but it was a little less than he did. But not [by] much.”
Upon receiving his career achievement award, Linklater, director of Hit Man, Nouvelle Vague and, more recently, Blue Moon, told the crowd: “I feel so lucky to be in this world, to work with people in the film culture — not just filmmakers, but the film culture that we all live in too. Film festivals, curators, teachers of film, just film lovers everywhere, film societies,” he said, alluding to his launching of the Austin Film Society in 1985.
He continued: “I’ve been so lucky all these years now to awaken every day in that world where it’s optimistic, because film is optimistic. It’s people who want the best, who want to see something great, who want to make something great, and we try to help each other in that. And it’s the best people, too.”
The evening was celebratory from the moment Linklater walked in to his picking up Zurich’s Golden Eye Award. He joins 2026 honorees Julianne Moore, John Turturro and Naomi Watts. The 22nd edition runs Sept. 24-Oct. 4.
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