![\"A](\"https:\/\/platform.theverge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/08\/DSCF2879.jpeg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0.0042611215271862,0,99.991477756946,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAmy Berg at the Sundance Film Festival Robyn Kanner<\/p>\n
The Verge: Can you tell me about the first time you heard Jeff Buckley\u2019s music?<\/p>\n
Amy Berg: I was a teenager working at SST Records. And from being in the industry, I heard a copy of Grace. It just kind of cut me open. It got me right in the heart, and I fell in love with Jeff Buckley. I fell in love with \u201cLover, You Should\u2019ve Come Over.\u201d That was my song. And just anytime I had kind of a breakup or some hard time, that was my go-to. It was like he could feel my pain. He massaged my pain. So anyway, when he passed away, it destroyed me.<\/p>\n
Sitting in the audience at Sundance, it felt like an ending for some folks \u2014 Mary, his mother, and bandmates \u2014 but for others in the crowd, it felt like a beginning. They were learning about Jeff\u2019s music. How did you go about striking that balance?<\/p>\n
Because of what I was attracted to in the material, I decided to end with his death. There\u2019s a world where it could have started with his death. I mean, there\u2019s a really interesting story post-Jeff\u2019s passing. But I think that what I wanted was for people to get immersed and enveloped in his world through watching the film and then find their own journey to his music and whatever spoke to them. Because it\u2019s such a personal experience. Listening to his music is such a personal experience. So I just kind of want to encourage, especially people who have never heard his music before, to go down that rabbit hole because it\u2019s fun. It\u2019s really incredible.<\/p>\n
Biopics are having a moment of sorts \u2014 why\u2019d Jeff\u2019s story need to be a documentary?<\/p>\n
I was asked to do the biopic at one point, and they gave me this thumb drive with all the archives, and those voicemail messages just cut my heart out. I thought it was a documentary. Sometimes, as a documentarian, I kind of think about fictionalizing real people, and he just seems like a tough one to fictionalize. But then look at Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet and A Complete Unknown. That was one of the most incredible experiences of the year cinematically. So who knows? Maybe. There\u2019s still time. There\u2019s still a movie to be made.<\/p>\n
Mary had to trust me, and it took her a long time because I wanted final cut. And that\u2019s like, I am not going to do a puff piece or anything, and I\u2019m not going to be told what to say and not say. So it was important to me that she trusts me. And that took a while. It took at least 10 years.<\/p>\n
I imagine balancing the romance of Jeff\u2019s music and building a narrative wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n
It was a really hard edit, and balance is important. I mean, it was difficult because so many people look at Jeff like he walks on water.<\/p>\n
And so, there were multiple interviews with certain subjects because I wanted to get to the grit of it, too, and provide a glimpse of a real person who struggled. And I think that he was young. He was very vulnerable, raw, artistic, creative, and held his art to a very high standard. But he was also trying to sort stuff out, and that\u2019s not always beautiful.<\/p>\n
The voicemails Jeff left his mother feel particularly startling.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour big, sexy son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did you ever hesitate to include those conversations?<\/p>\n
No. Because it felt like the real Jeff. There were lots of different versions of Jeff, and I feel like the different voicemails, they illustrate that very well. And they were always part of what I wanted to use in the film.<\/p>\n
What were your conversations with Mary like about including them?<\/p>\n
She just said, \u201cHere\u2019s the archive. Do what you want with it. Tell the story however you want to tell it.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve seen some of the journalists saying that there are so many limitations because of Mary, but she didn\u2019t limit me. I wanted to tell a love story about Jeff and the women in his life, and that\u2019s the story I told.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is in select theaters August 8, 2025.<\/p>\n
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