SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Sarah Grant is a scientist working on a genetically modified strain of wheat for a major corporation. She finds documents showing that her employer has buried tests that reveal that their product can have dangerous side effects. Sarah takes those documents, and we meet her as she's seeking help from a law firm.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RELAY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As lawyer) Ms. Grant, I commend you on your intentions here, but we're no longer looking for this type of business. There are a number of highly regarded whistleblower support organizations much better prepared.
LILY JAMES: (As Sarah) No, it's not whistleblowing support I need. It's the opposite. I just want to give everything back. I promise to keep my mouth shut and get on with my life.
SIMON: But can she really do that? Are things as they really seem? "Relay" is the film that stars Lily James and Riz Ahmed. The film is directed by David Mackenzie, whose previous works include "Under The Banner Of Heaven" and "Hell And High Water." David Mackenzie joins us now from our studios in Culver City, California. Thanks so much for being with us.
DAVID MACKENZIE: Hi there.
SIMON: I gather the screenplay has been around for a while. What drew you to it?
MACKENZIE: I liked the material. I thought there was something very interesting about the sort of world of urban espionage and the sense of a lonely character in New York trying to kind of fight the system. Yeah. Look, I came across the script in 2019 and then worked a little bit with the writer Justin Piasecki, and eventually, we were able to make it.
SIMON: Tell us about the two main characters around whom the film is built. There's Sarah and, I guess, a man we'll call a fixer whom she ultimately turns to for help. He's played by Riz Ahmed, and he goes by many names.
MACKENZIE: He definitely goes by multiple disguises and multiple names, and he tries to live below the radar. And one of the things in particular that he does is he uses this old technology for the deaf - the relay system, where you would speak to an operator. An operator would relay the message to the person who was hard of hearing with some kind of text using a device called a TTY machine. And then the person who was hard of hearing would relay it back using the machine, and then the operator would relay it to the person using their voice.
And that system is still in place today. It's becoming increasingly redundant because of newer technology. But the - his analog kind of version of getting through there - the operators are not allowed to disclose any of the information they're seeing or they're hearing. And so it's a way of communicating with people that is below the digital radar, which is how he is able to kind of exist without being noticed by the corporate kind of henchmen security people who are on the tail of Sarah and trying to harass and intimidate her. And that's why she finds Riz's character in the first place.
SIMON: Well, tell us about Riz Ahmed's character. Without revealing too much, we see him at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and he feels that he's been a coward.
MACKENZIE: Yes. Riz's character is himself a former whistleblower. And he decided to succumb to the harassment and intimidation and, finally, the kind of offer of a paycheck for his silence and has regretted that ever since, and feels that he needs to help people who are in this turmoil as whistleblowers. You know, the life of a whistleblower is a hard thing. They're left sort of isolated and lonely and questioning whether they did do the right thing, which is sort of sad. So that's the kind of the basis of his character. You don't reveal that until quite a lot later into the story. The first half hour of the film, Riz's character doesn't actually say anything.
SIMON: Want to play another clip now. And this is conversation between Sarah, played by Lily James, and the character played by Riz Ahmed. And they, you know, try and stay separate from each other, right? But that's not always easy.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RELAY")
RIZ AHMED: (As Ash) I recommend we keep communication to a minimum.
JAMES: (As Sarah) Well, you stuck around to listen to all of my last message. So are you? Go ahead.
AHMED: (As Ash) Am I what?
JAMES: (As Sarah) Lonely. Go ahead. It's strange talking to someone who knows so much about you and you know so little about them. May I ask you a question? Go ahead.
AHMED: (As Ash) Depends what it is.
JAMES: (As Sarah) Has it ever gone wrong?
SIMON: Do I have this right - Lily James and Riz Ahmed were never in the same place at the same time?
MACKENZIE: For the scenes where they're communicating through the relay operators, they're not. That scene that you've just played was originally written as another relay operator call. And something that Riz and I kind of evolved was - when we were kind of rehearsing and working through the film was the idea that it - that he was reaching out a little bit further than his professional distance should allow. So he decides to pretend to be the relay operator and make the call himself. It's a - it's almost a romantic scene. It's got a sort of crispy, unresolved, you know, romantic tension in there. You know, there's something really beautiful about him actually speaking to her and she assuming that he's the operator.
SIMON: Tell us a bit about their relationship. What kind of feelings develop?
MACKENZIE: Together, they - there is a certain sense that they share a bond of isolation and loneliness. They start to build something which is arguably slightly more than professional.
SIMON: Yeah. One thing I noticed repeatedly in the film - that there's a level of tension. And your characters notice every detail - necessarily, 'cause it might be a matter of life or death - and that once you notice everything, you begin to suspect almost everything, don't you?
MACKENZIE: That's the interesting thing about that - is that there's a world where it's all a hall of mirrors. And, you know, I think, you know, as we live in a sort of - I guess an increasingly conspiratorial world, in some way, you start looking at things and you're going, is that what it really means or is that what it's pretending to mean? And we're playing a bit of that game with the film.
SIMON: Have you seen much of what AI, artificial intelligence, can do in film work?
MACKENZIE: Yeah. I am - I'm working on a project that A, is about it and B, is involving it at the moment. And I think recorded reality - that's no longer to be trusted anymore. One can affect images so easily now that the things that we used to rely on as sort of self-evidential truth that you see are no longer so easy to trust.
SIMON: Yeah. Do you have any concerns about what it might do to film?
MACKENZIE: I have concerns about it, but I also relish the challenges of trying to work with it. What it does to the industry, you know, who knows? It's almost certain that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs. That's an - a place of great anxiety. But creatively, the - you know, it would be a shame to be entirely negative about it 'cause I'm sure there are exciting opportunities to explore for filmmakers.
SIMON: David Mackenzie. He is director of the new film "Relay," which is out in theaters now. Thank you so much for being with us.
MACKENZIE: Thank you very much for talking to me and for some really interesting questions. Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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