“The Basics of Philosophy”, interview with actors Bill Pullman and Dana Delany

Presented out of competition at the Venice Film Festival 2026, The Basics of Philosophy follows John Jorissen, a philosophy professor in the American Midwest writing a book on Spinoza, whose quiet life is upended when the sudden reappearance of a young man at his estranged father’s funeral forces him to confront a past he has never accounted for. Dana Delany and Bill Pullman, part of the film’s cast, talk about working with director Paul Schrader, on set and off it.

A Master at Work, with Barely a Word Wasted

Both actors describe Schrader as economical to the point of near silence. For Delany, now working with him for the third time, that only sharpens with each collaboration. “I just have seen him get cleaner and cleaner and cleaner,” she says. “He just knows what he’s doing. And with this film, no waste of time. He was editing as we went. Hardly any direction. He just knows what he wants.” She compares him to an artist late in his career: “It’s like seeing an artist in his older years, like Picasso or Matisse, and how they got simpler and simpler and simpler.”

For Pullman, working with Schrader for the first time, the pull had started years earlier, with one of his films. “I liked his movies very much, and I think it was First Reformed that really set into me, just settled into me,” he says, describing Schrader as having “a kind of inspirational will, directness about how he goes about the work.” He found the director’s method matched what Delany describes: “It’s very simple, it’s bared down, and he allows the actors to do their work with very simple directions, but a very sublime sense of storytelling.”

A Script Handed Over, and a Director Who Nearly Played the Part Himself

Schrader’s casting process, both actors say, left little room for discussion. “He didn’t explain very much, actually,” Delany says. “He just said, ‘I have a role I think you’d be right for, and can you be here next week?’ Basically.” She shot her scenes quickly, in Kansas City, without ever meeting the actor playing her on-screen husband: “I didn’t even know who my husband was at that point because we didn’t have any scenes together… it was kind of like just do your job, it’s all in the script, and if he needs to explain something, then there probably is a problem.”

When she finally met Pullman, she told him who she had pictured instead: “I actually was picturing John Huston. So you’re much younger and much more vital.” Pullman’s own casting came together just as suddenly: he shot his scenes in Los Angeles, opposite Jack Huston, only after the rest of the film had already wrapped. For a while, Delany reveals, the search for a lead very nearly went in a different direction altogether. “At one point Paul was going to play the part,” she says, “because there had been issues finding the big actor.”

The Writing, Never the Money

Asked how they choose their roles, both actors point to the page over anything else. “It starts with the page, don’t you think?” Delany says. “Not the money,” Pullman adds. “Certainly not this film. No money,” Delany agrees. Pullman puts it more bluntly still: “I can actually proudly say I’ve never taken a job for money, ever. It has to be the writing. Starts with the writing and then the people.” For him, the test is what lingers after the read: “It becomes one of those things where you read it and then you’re washing dishes or something and the dialogue is still in your head, and that’s always a sign that I should do this.”

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