“Gemini” by venerable indie director Aaron Katz (“Land Ho!,” “Cold Weather”), is a mélange of noir references, striking L.A. visuals, and ambiguous characters. The film follows personal assistant Jill (Lola Kirke) after she is unwittingly caught up in the murder of her best friend/famous actress boss, Heather (Zoë Kravitz). An inscrutable detective (John Cho) throws Jill’s world into disarray, and she embarks on an unprecedented adventure to figure out what happened.
The film, which makes its limited debut this weekend, has garnered rave reviews (including from our own Rodrigo Perez), particularly for its strong performances. Cho’s cameos are particularly engrossing—the “Harold and Kumar” actor has more than proven his chops in blockbusters like “Star Trek” and Kogonada’s masterpiece “Columbus.” I chatted with Katz and John Cho about Cho’s ambiguous character, the film’s unusual ending, and how “Gemini” fits into the #MeToo conversation.
How’s it going, you guys?
John Cho: It’s a disaster so far.
Aaron Katz: Yeah, John keeps saying weird stuff.
There’s a very notably diverse cast in “Gemini,” and I’m curious—Aaron, was that a conscious decision you brought to making the film, and John, did that influence your decision to be a part of it?
AK: I wanted the film to represent the really diverse nature of who lives in Los Angeles. And we’ve been talking a lot about how it’s important for the film to feel like an authentic representation of the city, and I think that comes from the cast as well. I love living in Los Angeles. I’ve lived there five years now, and if I lived there 50 more years, I would still be trying to understand what this city is. It’s just so vast—in ways that are sometimes troubling, when you think of the sprawl—but also wonderful. It makes Los Angeles such a unique and amazing place.
JC: It didn’t particularly affect my decision to do the film, but I thought that it felt like Los Angeles, and I appreciated that. I’m actually a big fan of Los Angeles; I’m a staunch defender of Los Angeles. I feel like it gets short-shrift, particularly in movies, and [this one] felt authentic to me, and that’s one of the ways that it felt authentic.
It’s definitely like a character in and of itself. The love you have for the city really comes through, even as you’re introducing these sinister noir elements.
JC: I think it’s both. As I was watching the film I realized—I mean, the movie to me very explicitly is about Los Angeles, and to some extent Los Angeles is the main character of the movie. It starts out with [a] shot of the palm trees, which is almost a thesis statement, and then it ends with the skyline of Los Angeles, rather than on a character’s face. And maybe that is the character we’ve been following.
AK: There was a moment where I thought that the last shot of the movie maybe should be the shot of Lola that precedes the shot that John is talking about—where we can see John and Lola making eye contact, and then it’s a slow zoom in on Lola. But then it felt like that actually wasn’t the moment to end on, and it was really important to end, as John said, kind of as we started, with a reflection on the city. This story [in the movie] is just one of a million stories we could’ve been following in this vast, interweaving, interconnected network of people who live in this city.
The ending is an unconventional way to wrap up a noir. John, your character Detective Ahn is really integral to that because he brings sort of a sense of mystery and unease throughout the film. Could tell me a bit more about how you played his motivation in that final scene? And Aaron, why did you choose that ending?
JC: From my perspective, the thing I was thinking about when playing the [Detective Ahn] was, accrue as much information as possible, and reveal as little of your own motivations as possible. He sort of hints at lots of things that may or may not be true, and it’s difficult to tell whether they are. Whether he did go through [a trauma], as he indicates in his introduction to [Jill], or whether he really is a fan of [Heather’s] at the end. It’s hard to know. I thought it was all designed to see what they do. I don’t know what Aaron intended from those scenes, but that’s what I was thinking.
AK: Yeah, I mean it is meant to be ambiguous. There’s a very complex dynamic going on there between our three main characters. I should say that, originally, that scene wasn’t in the movie. When John and I met for the first time, John ended up saying, “I feel like there has to be one more scene with Detective Ahn,” and I am so glad that [he] said that. I think it’s so important to have him there and to have this dynamic be between the three people in the movie who know the most about what happened, and for each of them to observe the other. And the thing to me that’s most important about Detective Ahn being there is that he is there to witness what [Heather] says. He says, “You know, a lot of these things end up on the cutting room floor, and I’d like to see the whole thing.” To me, that’s a reflection of the truth, and how the truth gets edited and shaped. Like, [Heather] can say whatever she wants, but if he is there to see it live—she can’t escape the observation of one human to another.
JC: To me, he was sort of like a doctor who was like, checking your reflexes.
AK: Right! That’s a great analogy.
JC: The point is, for him, how do they react to each of these things, and then he gets a truer picture of who they are… Wow, I feel like a really good actor as I’m talking about this. I sound like a really thoughtful actor.
AK: Got people fooled.