ESQ: Wait, you're drinking tea?
JJ: Yeah, I stopped drinking coffee in 1986. I used to drink like 12 cups a day, and then I'd be a nervous, depressed wreck. Now I drink only tea. And usually only one cup a day.
ESQ: You're still clearly a smoker.
JJ: I like coffee and cigarettes. Nicotine and caffeine are very strong narcotics, and we don't really give them respect for how strong they are. We even have little breaks in the day so we can get these drugs. But mostly the idea was making a movie about something that is the least dramatic part of your day.
ESQ: The scenes are all self-contained, but there are a couple of through lines, like when RZA repeats Tom Waits's earlier speech pretending to be a doctor.
JJ: Yeah, Tom pretending to be a doctor came out of the blue. It wasn't even in the script. We were shooting, and he started in like, "It's been a busy day, you know -- four-car pileup. I had to perform a tracheotomy with a ball-point pen." I was riveted. And one of my favorite things is Iggy Pop's reaction, because it's real. He was like, "What're you, a doctor, man?"
ESQ: How did you decide to pair up Bill Murray with the Wu-Tang guys?
JJ: Man, I don't even know what the idea was. I called Bill Murray, and he said, Well, how long will it take? I said, One day. Okay, then just tell me where to be, what to wear, when to be there, and don't bother me again till then. He's very cagey. He drove Sophia Coppola nuts, he drove Wes Anderson nuts, and he loves them both. But if you can gamble and it works, you get Bill Murray.
ESQ: Do you take pride in your yellow cigarette fingers?
JJ: I don't, man. I'm smoking a lot less than I used to, but -- are they yellow? A little bit, right? That's bad.
