Charlie Kaufman: ‘They told me Being John Malkovich would never

Published: 30 October 2025. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online.

Standing before the Roman Baths in Bath years ago, I felt a sharp awareness of how fleeting human existence is. Surrounded by ancient stones that had witnessed countless lives, I thought of those who had once stood there centuries before—people with hopes, dreams, and daily worries that, in the vastness of time, had faded into insignificance. That same sense of existential wonder came flooding back as I watched How to Shoot a Ghost, the latest short film directed by Charlie Kaufman, which premiered last week at the AFI Fest in Los Angeles.

Charlie Kaufman, celebrated for his surreal yet deeply human films such as Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York, has once again delved into themes of mortality, memory, and meaning. This time, he directs from a script written by the Canadian-Greek poet Eva HD. Their collaboration has produced a lyrical meditation on life’s impermanence—a film that feels both haunting and intimate.

How to Shoot a Ghost follows two recently deceased characters in Athens: a translator, played by Josef Akiki, and a photographer, portrayed by Jessie Buckley. Both have died in unrelated circumstances, but in the afterlife they find themselves wandering through the city’s ancient ruins, surrounded by the ghosts of history. As they drift through time, Kaufman weaves together scenes of modern Athens with archival footage, street photography, and home videos, creating a collage that blurs the line between memory and reality.

“[Buckley’s] character is trying to hold on to life,” Kaufman explained after the screening. “That’s her motivation in photographing everything—and she can’t. No one can, but certainly after you’re dead, you can’t.”

Meeting Kaufman and Eva HD in Los Angeles the following morning, one is struck by their easy camaraderie. Sitting side by side, both are dressed casually—Kaufman in a loose blue T-shirt, HD in denim. Their natural chemistry is evident; they share an intellectual rhythm and a shared fascination with mortality and time. They met at the MacDowell artist residency in New Hampshire in 2017, where Kaufman was then working on his complex debut novel, Antkind. They became fast friends, bonding over early breakfasts—“one an insomniac, the other an early riser,” Kaufman jokes, refusing to say which was which.

Their creative partnership began during the production of Kaufman’s 2020 Netflix film I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Needing a poem to be recited by the film’s protagonist, also played by Buckley, Kaufman discovered Eva HD’s poem Bonedog. Its haunting tone fit perfectly within the film’s psychological landscape. Three years later, the pair collaborated again on Jackals and Fireflies, another short based on Eva’s poetry, set in New York. How to Shoot a Ghost marks their third collaboration—this time born from Eva’s desire to explore Athens through her poetry and Kaufman’s visual storytelling.

Eva explains that Greece evokes for her a unique sense of time’s fluidity. “When you’re somewhere where people in history were not doing historical things—they were just falling in love, having bad days, or washing their clothes—you transcend the veil a little bit,” she reflects. “You realize how small you are within the continuum.”

Kaufman nods. “It’s not only that these people lived long ago and are gone,” he says. “It’s that even I, from 40 years ago, don’t exist anymore. I’m just an iteration of that person who once visited Bath with no money, wandering around as a tourist. It’s touching to think about how that earlier version of me has vanished.”

This deep awareness of impermanence has been a recurring theme in Kaufman’s work—and in his life. He recalls a childhood moment on Long Island in the 1960s when he asked his mother if he was going to die. “She said: ‘Yes, but not for a very long time,’” he remembers softly. “It was actually comforting. It felt kind to me.” Eva interjects, suggesting that his mother’s words were part truth and part protection: “She couldn’t tell you, ‘You might die tomorrow.’ She needed to protect herself from that fear too.” Kaufman nods thoughtfully. “It was a good thing she did,” he agrees.

Before finding success as a screenwriter, Kaufman’s early career was far less glamorous. He spent years writing for obscure television comedies, including Get a Life and The Edge. His big break came when he wrote Being John Malkovich, a bizarre and brilliant story about a man who discovers a portal into the mind of the actor John Malkovich. But even that script faced rejection after rejection.

“I’d go into meetings where executives would say, ‘It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever read, but no one will ever make it,’” Kaufman recalls with a wry smile. “I heard that at least 10 times. It seemed strange—if it was really that funny, why not try to make it?”

Eventually, Being John Malkovich did get made, directed by Spike Jonze, and became a landmark in modern cinema, earning Kaufman an Oscar nomination and cementing his reputation as one of Hollywood’s most inventive storytellers. Yet, even after decades of acclaim, Kaufman remains deeply introspective and wary of Hollywood’s formulaic tendencies.

He admits that How to Shoot a Ghost may not appeal to mass audiences, but he’s comfortable with that. “I’m not trying to make something that fits a particular market,” he says. “I just want to explore what it means to be alive—and what it means to disappear.”

The short film, with its quiet melancholy and poetic framing, seems to embody Kaufman’s lifelong preoccupation: the futility and beauty of trying to preserve fleeting moments. Through the wandering ghosts of Athens, he reminds us that life, memory, and art are all acts of resistance against forgetting.

As the interview winds down, Kaufman glances at Eva, smiling. “We’re both just trying to make sense of things,” he says. “You write a poem, I make a movie—it’s all the same impulse. We’re trying to hold on to something that’s already gone.”

Eva nods in agreement. “Maybe that’s what being alive really is,” she says. “Trying to capture something that can’t be captured.”

Their collaboration, steeped in poetry and philosophy, offers something rare in modern cinema: art that embraces vulnerability. Kaufman’s How to Shoot a Ghost is less a film than a reflection—a mirror held up to our longing for permanence in a world defined by transience.