Joachim Trier is a director, writer, DJ, father, and former skater. Every new thing I discover about Trier amazes me, it feels like he’s lived a hundred lives. As soon as we started our zoom call I could sense there was a palpable connection. We instantly connected over a love for PTA but also this weird affinity between our two cities, Oslo and the San Fernando Valley. We spoke about his former life as skater, the current state of underground youth culture, his personal style, the origins of Gustav Borg, and so much more.

Hagop Kourounian: How’s it going, Joachim?

Joachim Trier: All is going well my friend, I follow you on Instagram.

Hagop Kourounian: I know! I was very happy when I saw that, thank you.

Joachim Trier: You give a lot of love to filmmakers I like. You know, Paul Thomas Anderson is my friend and I know you support him a lot and I appreciate it. That’s really lovely.

Hagop Kourounian: I’m from the San Fernando Valley, so it’s impossible to not.

Joachim Trier: Are you?

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, it’s impossible to not be obsessed with PTA.

Joachim Trier: Aren’t we all?

Hagop Kourounian: I’m sure people in Oslo can also do this with your films, but you can show me an exterior shot in a Valley set PTA movie and I can drive you to that location. That’s how close by he operates in my neighborhood.

Joachim Trier: Oh man, it’s funny actually because of him I’ve spent a little bit of time there. I’ve been to Tarzana a few times. I really love it, man. It feels like a wonderful place where you live. And I fall in love with it through his films as well. There’s this thing going on with place specificity that I think both he and I care about in our own way.

Hagop Kourounian: I’m very happy to hear you say that because we usually get crapped on here in LA. Like, if you say you’re from the Valley, people make a certain face, you know?

Joachim Trier: That’s exactly the same as Oslo!

Hagop Kourounian: Really?

Joachim Trier: Oh, yeah, because, you know, I’m half Danish, half Norwegian, and Copenhagen, it’s such a cool city, right? In Sweden, Stockholm is such a cool city and Norway is kind of the little brother country that they used to run. Denmark and Sweden used to through the centuries have control over Norway for a while politically. Now we’re our own nation and Oslo is kind of the not so cool city and I kind of love it. This is where I grew up. So anyway, there’s an alliance here, right?

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, definitely! Every time someone brings up something negative about the Valley, I’m literally quarreling with them about it.

Joachim Trier: I like that. Defend your city.

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, exactly. So you’re already familiar with the page and you know what we do… I’d love to start off by talking to you about your personal style, your relationship with clothing and how much time you kind of spent thinking about that part of your life.

Joachim Trier: Wow. Yeah, it’s the first time anyone has asked me so I get a little bit shy, but I’ll do my best, man. Thank you for caring. I guess I’m really Generation X, I’m born in the mid-seventies and I was first into hip-hop when I was nine in the early eighties. I started break dancing, that became my thing. There was a certain set of Nike shoes that I bought in Copenhagen because we didn’t have them in Norway. Then I started skateboarding when I was 12. I was a skater until I started making movies and I was the Norwegian champion a couple of times. I remember going to San Francisco to skate Embarcadero. I went to LA to skate the school yards, I was a street skater. We were the first generation to wear really embarrassingly baggy clothes in the early mid ‘90s. I was into a lot of underground music. So I guess in a way growing up being a gang of boys skateboarding, I was really attentive to sneakers. I was also sponsored when I was young. We were sponsored by Converse for a while and then by Airwalk and then by Vans. They would give us shoes to skate in because we went through them like crazy. I remember being interested in defining my outsider status as the skate punk kid with flaunt and a certain style to show off that you do when you’re a teenager. You’re like, hey, I stand by this choice. I am who I am. But it was also, of course, in a group dynamic. So however much you want to be an individual, I was very glad that all my other friends that skated also wore those baggy jeans. So I wasn’t alone, you know. I don’t want to do the bragging rights of saying that I was such a damn individual, but I was a part of a culture and felt that expressing myself within that felt comfortable somehow.

I’m not a super fashionable person. What I realized is that I come from a cold country, now jumping to the present day. So I’ve really become an expert in tech wear. I slalom a lot. I’m out in the winter and I’m the king of mid layers. I know how to have layers so you can appropriate the temperature when you walk in and out of houses all day where it’s freezing outside and warm inside. So I think more than anything I’ve become like this kind of tech wear guy that really wants comfortable clothes that are practical. Already you can see I have layers going on.

(At this point Joachim gestures to his impeccable layering on camera)

You know, it’s just who I’ve become. You live in a place where you could probably wear a t-shirt all year. I can’t, you know.

(At this point I lift my arms to show Joachim that I am in fact wearing short sleeves)

Exactly, lucky you man. I’m right now in New York, but I live in Oslo and right now it’s getting super cold so you actually have to be quite practical about it. And to be honest, Norwegians, we walk outdoors a lot in the woods and the mountains and all that stuff. So, from a very pragmatic point of view, you just don’t want to freeze. It’s beyond just being stylistic, but then on film sets, it’s the same thing. I find film people are really attentive to not wanting to freeze. But then you want to also have some style. I don’t want to get too much into brands because I feel that that’s more your job to interpret and give a precision to that. That’s me. But inside the film, I’m sorry for rambling here, no one ever asks me this stuff.

Hagop Kourounian: I love it, please keep going.

Joachim Trier: So inside of the films, I have a wonderful costume department. I work with Ellen Ystehede, and what I love about her is she has a sense of what’s happening in the fashion world, but she also knows how to play that realistically so that she’s almost like a little bit ahead of the curve, but on street level. She won’t dress all the characters the same, obviously with some characters it’s more important with sociology. Who are they? It’s not about fashion at all. It’s really expressing someone’s financial situation. Maybe they don’t have that much money and they’ve been cool about trying to find solutions that way. Like many of my friends don’t. Some of the people I know that are the best at fashion, it’s all about finding vintage stuff and cool old shit and being a bit avant-garde and later we see the fastening houses ripping that shit off. It shouldn’t be about money. It should be about style being something that you could afford and still make interesting. I find that more sympathetic than just trying to make a film where everything is expensive clothes. I would feel shit about that. But of course there are characters that are like that in a film too because that’s who they are in the film. I think the balance between style and sociology, like who they are from a social economic perspective is really important to remember when making movies so that I don’t make movies where everything is a little bit elevated sometimes. Of course Elle Fanning’s character in Sentimental Value is a star. She will have very elegant clothes. But Gustav Borg doesn’t give a shit. He’s an old counterculture kind of art punk guy who wears black jeans. So you gotta like appropriate clothes to the character and you can actually say a lot. Like you know you’re the expert on it. You can actually say a lot about people through that.

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah I actually think you can say most of what you need to say about people through what they wear. That’s why I’m so infatuated with clothing because it’s something that is so universal and I’m always fascinated by the decisions people make to put an ensemble together. I loved what you said about your costume designer because I’ve spoken with a few costume designers over the past couple years and I truly believe that they are almost like psychologists in the way they work. They work very closely with the filmmakers and the actors and get to understand who these characters are. I love that they get to tell a part of the story through clothes. You mentioned Elle Fanning’s character and I noticed in the end credits that her costumes were provided by Chanel or was it Saint Laurent?

Joachim Trier: It’s a bit of both actually. We have some costumes from each and they support it and they understood. But it’s still Ellen Ystehede who’s on top of it, because ultimately we’re not making commercials, we’re making representations of human life. But they were great collaborators, both Chanel and YSL. But you don’t want to work in a world of product placement because that takes away your autonomy creatively. You know, ultimately it’s the creative team’s control of who these characters are. I love that collaboration though and I’m grateful for Chanel for example, providing some beautiful clothes for Elle.

Hagop Kourounian: I have been reading a bit into your skating background. There isn’t that much information online about it. But I did find, if the sources are credible, two skate videos that you made in the mid ‘90s. You and your friends all look so cool.

Joachim Trier: Thank you!

Hagop Kourounian: I wanted to know what drew you to the skate world and more specifically what made you want to be the one to film your friends?

Joachim Trier: I come from a film family background. My grandfather was a film director. My dad did sound for movies. My mom directed some things. So I had access to cameras, even though I was the generation before everyone having video cameras. My dad borrowed some of the cameras that I was allowed to use. We shot some stuff in Super 8 since I was a child. So I always expressed myself that way. So when I was skating and hanging out with my friends, it was natural to start filming. We all kind of filmed and I edited it together at the end. So I also have a skate part in the videos where I skate. I looked up to all the American videos like, Powell Peralta did their stuff, the Bones Brigade movies, and then came the era of H-Street, Matt Hensley was a super stylish skater, you had the Powell Team and Mike Vallely, and Tommy Guerrero from San Francisco was super stylish. Then there was the whole Plan B era in San Francisco and Mike Carroll and all those guys. There were so many different eras. I remember someone would start wearing baggy jeans and everyone started doing that. And then there were high-cut jeans and everyone started doing that. It was like subcultural fire in the weeds. It spread around the world. I would go to Barcelona or New York and skate and suddenly we all loved the same styles or chose within the vernacular of skate style. At that time you chose your kind of... your poison. You know, like which way you wanted to go with it. It was a great time.

@nobledanceroslo

Joachim Trier on Instagram: "Lord have mercy"

It was all connected to music and culture and in the mid ‘90s it was just big. You both had punk, underground, hardcore music and you had hip-hop all blending together in this urban environment. And the skaters could kind of listen to all of that. Then through the UK scene came a lot of techno and house music into skating as well. I remember the British skaters were all about that. So to me, clothes were a part of it. But it was more about what cultural currency and the underground you were looking for. It used to mean something. I know I’m sounding like a damn old guy and I’m becoming one. But, Vans shoes used to mean something. If you had the Sk8-Hi, you were part of that culture. Now anyone can... And the classic t-shirts with band names on them or whatever. Like they used to be a code of connection outside the mainstream to say, “Hey, I see you’re okay. You don’t know how to be a jock. And you don’t abide by the rules of high school. And you feel like an outsider, but I got your back. I know where you’re coming from. I know what you read. I know what your style is. I know how to connect with you.” You know? And it became kind of a cool subcurrent of youth culture that we were all a big part of and all contributing to in our own way. And in a way that’s still around, I’m sure. It just works differently now.

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah. I’m positive there’s a new version of that. But you’re right that it used to mean something and unfortunately, those things don’t feel like they mean much anymore... Thrasher logo tees, you can buy them at like ten stores in a single mall and like 10 years ago that shirt became a trend, everybody was wearing them and you wonder if the people wearing them even know what it is or what it has contributed to the skate world.

Joachim Trier: Exactly, but I want to add something to that because I always believe in young people to find cool answers to things. You see in Norway, and I’m sure in the US too, a whole revolution of young people with thoughts about the environment, about politics, about culture. I don’t at all want to say that that’s not as vibrant as ever. I want to believe in young people’s ability and I see it in the film community where I’m a consultant to a lot of young film people around the world and there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on. But I just think the codes have shifted. I mean, I skated the ramp in San Diego at the Vans factory when they were a small company. I remember going there and now I don’t know where they’re produced. Things change and become commodified and bigger and that’s okay. But I think there are other ways of expressing yourself now. Maybe the codes have shifted. I’m seeing the reinterpretation of the ‘90s right now. There are weird things that are combined that wouldn’t be able to be combined back then because of those brackets. So there’s also freedom now of mixing and matching different stylistics. There used to be much more divide between different music genres. And you were a part of this group or that group and now I see it’s more open and eclectic. And I think that’s a good thing.

Hagop Kourounian: Yeah, I agree. I did want to talk about Sentimental Value for a second. What an amazing movie, in the best way, I feel like I’ve been depressed this whole weekend after seeing it. I read the ending as a hopeful one but still, so much of the film is relatable to things I’ve seen in my life and friends’ lives and my loved ones’ lives. I wanted to ask a slightly more silly question. I love all the inside baseball conversations about filmmaking in the movie. Movies about making movies is one of my favorite genres. So I’m curious if Gustav Borg’s character was based on any real life people, all those experiences he kind of goes through with the question about Netflix and theatrical releases, etc. Where does that come from? Who is Borg based on?

Joachim Trier: That’s a good question. We decided to make him a unique character to be freer about what he could and could not do rather than to have to tie him to a real director or something. So that’s kind of liberating. But there are generational aspects to him. Like the fact that Netflix wants to pay for his film and they work with great directors but then being shocked that there might not be a theatrical release because he hasn’t really followed the trades recently because he hasn’t made a film for 15 years. We thought that was kind of funny. You know, like the world is changing fast and these old producers are like, “Ah, we’ll see about that.” So it’s more from a humor point of view than wanting to throw anyone under the bus. It’s kind of a love letter to movies this one. We’re playing around with a lot of different styles and stuff like that. So no, that was kind of fun. But at the end of the day, I didn’t want to make a film only for film people. And I take to heart, what you’re saying about relatable dynamics and family. That’s what we really wanted to talk about, this family that has such a hard time talking to each other. But then maybe through the story, we realized there are other ways of communicating with each other.

Hagop Kourounian: The last thing I’ll leave off with, which is kinda personal, is that the Borg family reminds me of people really close to me. Without getting into it too much, I felt a lot like Ivan, Agnes’ husband. He hesitates to interject in key moments, his facial expressions say so much. I related so heavily to that character because I see myself in him.

Joachim Trier: Thank you for sharing that. I love that character by the way. There’s the moment when the father at the nine years birthday of the grandson is being an asshole. And to see how Ivan sees everyone, he’s like the observer and doesn’t get into the mix because he can’t get into those dynamics because it’ll make it worse. But I love that character. I’m so glad you identified with him.

Hagop Kourounian: He’s such a good guy and will be my spirit animal moving forward with these tough situations.

Joachim Trier: I’ll tell you that when we did casting, that guy who plays him is a great Norwegian actor, Andreas. With him and Inga who plays the younger sister, we did these improv research tests for screen tests with him and the moment the father and everyone has left, they come back into the room. That was the premise. After the party where everything goes wrong, the first thing he says is an interpretation of that moment, he says to his wife, are you okay? And he says, we should have done something. We should have stepped up for Nora. I just feel really invisible in this family. And I was so moved by his take. He got the whole character. He says, I fucking want to yell at your dad and put him in his place, but I don’t know how to. They don’t listen to me. I feel very invisible in this family. They hugged each other and it was really moving. I thought, fuck, I could have made a whole film about that couple. This thing of what’s your position inside and outside of this family dynamic when you’re in-laws and you’re kind of told to not get involved but you also see everyone. Anyway, I love that character, man.

Hagop Kourounian: That’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that too. And thank you for the film and every other film before it. I can’t wait for the next one. And… I hope there’s maybe a movie about a skater one day.

Joachim Trier: Listen, listen, that’s interesting and I know that there’s energy in terms of music and clothes and style from my youth that I think needs some sort of specific representation at some point. So we’ll see what happens.

Hagop Kourounian: I watched Reprise recently and I felt like you got very close there. Thank you, Joachim.

Joachim Trier: Thank you so much.