Jim Jarmusch: The subject is not coffee and cigarettes — that’s just a pretext for showing the undramatic part of your day, when you take a break and use these drugs, or whatever. It’s a pretext for getting characters together to talk in the sort of throwaway period of their day.

iW: Why would viewers find that interesting?

Jarmusch: Well, I think our lives are made of little moments that are not necessarily dramatic, and for some odd reason I’m attracted to those moments. I made “Night on Earth,” which only takes place in taxi cabs, because I kept watching movies and where people, like, say, “Oh, I’ll be right over,” and you see them get out of the taxi, and I’m always thinking, “I wonder what that moment would be like.” The moment that’s not important to the plot. I made a whole movie about what could be taken out of movies.