As with all troubled marriages, only one parent will show up to a function.

Santa Barbara International Film Festival honored actors Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson with the Outstanding Performers of the Year Award.

In a disappointment from audiences, media and fans outside, Johansson canceled her appearance at the prestigious film festival due to an illness. Driver accepted the award on behalf of their acclaimed work in Netflix’s Marriage Story.

In the film, Driver and Johansson played a divorcing couple, who bickered over their child and court location due to bi-coastal residency. Noah Baumbach directed the project.

At the tribute, Driver skipped the red carpet only posing for photographs and answering questions to aspiring student journalists from a local high school. He sat down with IndieWire’s Anne Thompson for a conversation about Marriage Story.

He addressed the fight scene in Marriage Story that earned him industry praise.

He explained, “We were supported by a very clear backbone of what we were doing. It was carefully choreographed. We worked on it very similar to a play, because it was so well-written, blocking came really fast. When we were shooting it, it didn’t feel very dissimilar to what it’s like when you shoot a love scene with everyone naked. Our boom operator is holding the mic, but he’s kind of looking away. There’s such focus given to what we’re doing, and there’s not a lot of conversation in between. There’s two people trying to be as naked as possible.”

During the tribute, the festival played a montage of Driver’s career that included clips from Inside Llewyn Davis, Francis Ha, BlacKkKlansman and Star Wars.

During the tribute conversation, it was brought to the attention Driver’s previous career in the military.

“It’s the best acting training. The structure is exactly the same,” he told the audience. “The end result is much different. In one, you’re pretending the stakes are life and death. In the other, they actually are.”

LRM Online was on the red carpet prior to the tribute to conduct interviews with independent filmmakers attending the festival.

Watch the exclusive interviews below.

Source: LRM Online Exclusive