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2026-08-28
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The actor explains what makes DEFENDING YOUR LIFE a master class in writing and directing, shares how SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE exposed him to a new world
Hi, I’m Adam Scott
and I’m very excited
to be here in the Criterion Closet.
I am a longtime Criterion fan.
I even
sent away for the Criterion baseball hat,
independent of visiting this Closet.
And
it was too small for me
because my head is
abnormally giant,
but I just keep it hanging next to my desk.
I’m going to start with
Defending Your Life.
Now, this movie,
I know a lot of people pick it,
and rightly so.
There’s, like, three movies I did this with,
where I went and saw this movie
and then I went back the next day
and saw it again.
I think it’s incredibly moving.
The performances are great,
but Albert Brooks,
his…
he’s such a beautiful writer
and such a disciplined, simple director
that he leaves all of this room
for the comedy,
but while he’s leaving room
for these big comic moments
and set pieces,
he’s also ushering in
all of this emotion
and all of these big, big questions.
This is an incredible movie.
It’s one of my very favorite movies.
The Irishman.
Okay.
This is one of the other movies that
I went back the next day and saw again.
Certainly one of Scorsese’s
most underrated,
I feel like it’s underappreciated.
I mean, it’s about death and it’s about
coming to terms with…
with your life ending.
One of the great De Niro performances.
That phone call he makes at the end is…
is heartbreaking.
And it’s a Martin Scorsese
mob movie with no rock and roll in it,
and
I think that is significant.
And there’s no movie that feels like this
in his filmography.
And I’m not joking, I’ve probably seen it…
I saw it those two times, like I said,
but I’ve probably seen it
at least 12 times since then.
I think it’s an extraordinary movie.
sex, lies, and videotape.
I would say this is in
my top three movies ever, probably.
This blew my mind when it came out.
I grew up in the ’80s,
so it was all, like, Amblin and…
Still is, those are…
Temple of Doom is my favorite movie.
Those are the movies
I grew up on and love.
And then when I was around 16,
this came out,
and this and Do the Right Thing
came out the same year,
and then from those I was, like,
Scorsese – I kind of discovered
this whole new world of movies.
You know, this is when I realized
people in a room talking is all you need.
And James Spader’s performance
in this is…
I’ve
stolen from him so liberally.
On that note,
Do the Right Thing.
Incredible. I remember
I used to read Spike Lee’s journals.
He would publish them
for each movie back then,
he wrote a journal
while he was making the movies.
And Giancarlo Esposito
had those glasses
that made his eyes bug out,
and I remember reading that he had
contact lenses to reverse
the glasses’ prescription
so he could actually see,
and just thinking that was
the coolest actor move ever.
The Big Chill.
Again, child of the ’80s,
so when this came out, I was
a pretty little kid, and just watching
the adults in my life react to this movie
and watching the movie,
not quite understanding
what these grown-ups were talking about
and what their problems were,
but
loving their clothes
and their cars
and not understanding their
sorrow and all the stuff
they’re talking about and feeling.
So I feel like this movie
had this weird influence on
how I put the world together
for a while.
You know how you kind of…
when you’re too young for something,
you kind of reach for it
and sort of put your own version
of why this is happening together.
Anyway, as I got older
and understood the movie,
as I was watching it, I realized
just what a great movie it was.
And I can say that
I do understand The Big Chill now.
Incredible
group of actors here.
Yeah, Blue Velvet.
I love the David Lynch-Kyle MacLachlan
kind of mind meld
they had for a few years there.
There’s a certain amount
of audience surrogacy
a leading man needs to do,
and Kyle MacLachlan did that really well,
but he also
left enough room for
weirdness.
He wasn’t particularly weird,
but he was able to
really carry a movie
that was ushering in kind of a new era
and showing the audience
a lot of new things
that they hadn’t seen much
in American movies before,
in a new way.
Oh, His Girl Friday.
I did a reading of this once,
like a live reading
in front of an audience.
I played
the Ralph Bellamy role, I believe.
The script for this movie
is, like, 200 pages.
It was so long,
we sat down and started reading it,
they talk so fast.
The movie is, what?
92 minutes.
I remember when I got
a small role in The Aviator,
the Martin Scorsese movie,
I went up to…
to Montreal to shoot the movie,
and when I landed,
someone picked me up at the airport
and they said,
“Mr. Scorsese would like you to
see something
in a screening room
before we take you to set.”
So from the airport
they brought me to a screening room and
I watched His Girl Friday by myself
in a movie theater,
in a screening room.
And then it ended
and they brought me to set
and took me to video village
where Scorsese was,
and he was like,
“Do you see…
You watched the movie? Did you like it?”
And I was like, “Yeah, I love His Girl Friday.
It’s so good.” And he’s like,
“Great. Yeah,
talk like that. That’s…
Get it? That’s good, right?”
And I was like,
“Yeah, sure. That sounds great.”
And he’s like, “Okay.”
And so that’s kind of
what I did in that movie was
this.
It was simple enough.
Okay, I love this movie so much,
The War Room.
It’s a documentary about the 1992 election.
I watch this every election season,
every single one,
because it’s just people in a room
with a white erase board
trying to figure it out,
beating their head against a wall,
and you watch them, little by little,
just hack away, just,
“Okay. Cross that off. Let’s try this.
Now let’s try this:
‘It’s the economy, stupid.’”
Just trying everything they can.
And they win the fucking election,
they win the presidency.
Just a great movie.
Always worth watching again.
Oh, yeah, The Before Trilogy.
I love these movies so much.
I remember when the first one came out,
Before Sunrise,
it was 1995 and I went to see it
by myself
and loved it.
And Ethan Hawke was so important
to me in that era
because I was just getting started
in LA, trying to audition for stuff,
and Ethan Hawke was
just, like,
becoming a giant star
and was really good and really…
I just started trying to emulate him
because I was searching
for an identity and not knowing–
I was doing background work
and then trying to get guest spots,
and Ethan Hawke was– it was like,
“That’s what I want to do.”
But now looking at them,
and them as a trilogy, it’s
timeless,
and we’ve kind of moved through…
through the decades
with these three people,
and I would love to see another one.
I hope they do another at some point.
This is a really important trilogy.
The Wes Anderson Archive.
Holy cow.
I love Isle of Dogs so much.
It’s one of my favorites.
My son,
he was a little kid when that came out,
and we used to
listen to the soundtrack.
It’s kind of a sad soundtrack, so,
he always wanted to listen to it,
and it worried me, like,
“Is he sad? Why does he want
to keep listening to this music?”
But I think it’s just because
it was beautiful
and because the movie is beautiful.
And the movie,
if you’re a dog lover, the movie
is really a joyful experience,
but also an emotional experience.
I love these films,
as does anyone
with a head on their shoulders.
All right.
Okay, my eyes are closed
and I’m just picking at random here.
Two Days, One Night.
Marion Cotillard.
I know that this movie is beautiful
and she’s
always incredible.
I look forward to seeing this.
I have not seen this movie
and I am now the owner of this movie.
Thank you very much.