Director Celine Song Answers All Our Questions About the “Coke and Beer” Thing From Materialists

In order to come up with a passport [prop] and things like that I needed to provide where these characters are from. And where Lucy’s meant to be from is Olivette, Missouri. That’s how specific it was. So it’s possible that maybe it is something that her family kind of got into, or her community kind of got into it briefly, and now that’s just her drink.

Have you ever had a Coke and beer?

Yes, I have. I wrote it before I had it, and then of course, on set, everybody was interested in the drink. The crew, the cast, everybody was like, “What is that like?” So of course we tried it.

I was going to mix one on this call, but it’s a little early in the day for me. But I looked it up—in Spain, they do Coke and red wine. Argentina does Coke and Fernet Branca. But Coke and beer was a new one on me.

It’s how easy it is. It’s the complete effortlessness of it. That’s the thing they’re talking about [in the scene], about how love is easy, and of course [Chris Evans’ character] John eventually goes, “It’s the easiest thing.” So [the drink] needed to be something where it’s like, ‘Yeah, you can get that drink anytime, you can walk into any grocery store, any bodega, any gas station, and you can get it.”

And John is kind of a Coke-and-beer type of guy, too. Whereas she could have ordered something fancier and it would have identified her more with Harry’s side of the universe.

Of course. And you’ll see her later, on dates with Harry, where she’s ordered something else. But I think she orders [Coke and beer] there because she wants to make it clear that she’s not hitting on him. The thing is that she’s actually, at that moment, being like, “This is me,” right? It’s like, “I’m not the kind of girl that you’re going to actually go with, so I’m just going to give you my real drink order.” But then of course, that provides an opportunity for John to show off a little bit.

She’s kind of rebuffing Pedro a little bit.

Yeah: “You’re a client. You’re so valuable in the marketplace. You’re a client.” She’s not, like, “Ooh, maybe I’ll date him.” She doesn’t feel that way. So she’s kind of saying, “This is me—Coke and beer.”

So it’s not you trying to signal something about her eccentricity in that moment. It’s her trying to signal something…

To Harry. Yeah. And then, like magic, perfect timing, in between them, this piece of history, right? What’s John got to offer in his catering jacket, his apron? Well, he knows her drink order. That’s what he has to offer. And I think about this so much—our relationships that have come and passed, people that we used to know, it’s always so touching when there’s some piece of yourself that is odd or strange, that that person remembers. There’s a nostalgic feeling that comes from this person knows your drink and it is a weird drink. And he brought it.

He’s the one guy in that room who really knows her.

Exactly.

I forget, do we see the Coke and beer before we see Chris’ face for the first time?

Yeah. Well, he’s in the two-shot. The volume of [Evans’] footsteps, him walking, was a big conversation in my sound design. But in the two-shot, when they’re talking about what it’s like to live in luxury, about her job, at some point John walks by and he clocks her—so that’s the first time, but he’s out of focus.

Right, so if you weren’t looking for him, you wouldn’t see him.

I always wanted them to be having a conversation in a closeup and then hands come in front of her.

There he is.

Coke. Beer.

It’s funny—I was a little worried that you were going to be like, “Why does he only want to talk about this one tiny thing from my movie,” but it seems like actually the whole movie hinges on this. It’s all contained within this moment!

Well, it’s the first scene that I wrote in the movie. That’s usually a good indicator for me of where the primary problem of the film lives, that needs to be solved in the film. It’s a matchmaker, and the cater waiter comes, and it’s her ex, and the Coke and beer. So that whole sequence is the first thing that I wrote. And the reason why it was like that, and I think I was thinking about this so much, because doing what I do, being an artist, something that happens a lot is that I’ll go to these fancy events, a donor event or something like that, where I know the person who is paying for the party, who is somebody who is very, very, very, very wealthy, who is running the whole thing, usually sitting next to some CEO or something, trying to get them to raise money for the theater I’m working for. And then I look up—and this has fully happened—sometimes my friend who is a theater actor is working the job. Working the event, right?