Watch: Actor calls Columbus ‘a bit of an emerald city’

As the release of “Columbus” gets closer, we’re reupping The Hollywood Reporter interview at Sundance with director Kogonada and the main cast of the movie. From lead male actor John Cho to supporting actress Michelle Forbes, they gush about a small city long known for its big stature in the architectural world.

The Washington, D.C.-based American Institute of Architects has ranked Columbus sixth in the nation for architectural innovation and design.

“It is block after block of just fascinating buildings,” Cho said. “It is a kind of wondrous place. It is a bit of an emerald city.”

“It’s extraordinary,” Forbes said, joining the chat.

The director, who became fascinated with the city originally from a National Public Radio story, later visited with his wife and took the architectural tour. That’s when he got the idea for the movie and the story.

“We live in a modern society,” Kogonada said in the Hollywood Reporter clip at hollywoodreporter.com. “And that means we’re divorced from a lot of things from the past provided by religion and other kinds of things.

“So we are kind of wrestling with what meaning is. And then you’re in a town where there is this Modern architecture that emerged … as this great hope that art could change the world, that design could alter us.

“There’s a story in the town itself.”