Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 356: From James Cameron to Steven Spielberg, the Life of Lance Henriksen

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BPS 356: From James Cameron to Steven Spielberg, the Life of Lance Henriksen · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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  Episode number three fifty six. There is nothing more terrifying than an actor
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  who comes up with an idea, Lance Hendrickson broadcasting from a dark, windowless
• 0:25
  room in Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's
• 0:29
  the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching
• 0:34
  you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am
• 0:44
  your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now. Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script
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  Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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  on the kind of project you are in the goals of the product you are,
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  so we actually break it down by three categories micro budget, indie film,
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  market, and studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
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  reader that's used to reading temp pole movies when your movie's gonna be done for
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  one hundred thousand dollars, and we wanted to focus on that At Bulletproof Script
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  many many more. So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered by
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  professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well, guys,
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  today you are in for a major, major treat. We have acting legend
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  Lance Hendrickson on the show today. If you don't know, if the name
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  doesn't sound familiar, maybe his insane filmography will. He was Bishop in Aliens,
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  he was in The Terminator, he was in Dog Day Afternoon, The
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  Quicken, The Dead, Near Dark Stone, Cold, Close, Encounters of
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  the Third Kind, and just many many more. He has fought on screen
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  Terminators, Aliens, Predators, Pinhead, Bigfoot, Superman, The Autobots,
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  Mister t and even John Claude von Dam. He has worked with some amazing
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  legendary directors like James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Catherine Bigelow, Simi Lamette,
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  Francis Truffau, John Houston, Walter Hill, David Fincher, John Wu Jim
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  Jarmish, and Sam Raimie, to name a few. I personally met Lance
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  over ten years ago when he and I worked on my short film Red Princess
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  Blues, when he was so gracious to lend his remarkable voice to one of
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  my characters in that film. He has been in over three hundred film and
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  television projects in his career. He is a wealth of information as well as
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  some remarkable stories along the way. So sit back and get ready for a
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  hell of an entertaining conversation with the legend Lance Hendrickson. I'd like to welcome
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  to the show, Lance Hendrickson. Lance, how are you, my friend?
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  I'm good, Alex, very good. I remember your name. Yeah,
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  before, Yes, we have we have worked before. We worked years
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  ago on my on my short film Read Princess Blues Genesis. I reached out
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  to your people and you were kind enough to bless our project with your voice,
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  your remarkable voice. Uh and uh. I never forgot it. I
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  was still just fresh off the boat, maybe a couple of years in LA
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  and it was just such a thrill to to work with you and say Olcox
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  Hotel. I was right when you first got to La, where you were
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  staying at the Will Cox Hotel. I was lucky enough to get an apartment
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  in North Hollywood Wetside Hotel. You leave your friends on the ceiling. What's
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  what's those what are those apartments by Warner Brothers that everybody used to go live
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  live out when you first get there. Yeah, I don't I remember the
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  name of it, but there's that. Yeah. So when I first tell
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  I couldn't afford anything. So so last tell me, So tell me how
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  did you get started in this business? Man? You've been around for a
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  few years New York? Okay, yeah, I already had done theater in
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  New York and stuff, and I did one movie, you know, and
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  I liked it. So I thought I'm going to get in there and do
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  it out, you know, see what happens. And then and then you
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  arrive in l A and l A back in those years, we're a little
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  different than la nowadays, not as not as much competition. Well, there's
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  a weird thing. I got a job as a desk clerk in a retirement
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  home called I forgot the name of it now, but it was all real
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  old people, you know, like like this kind of old people, and
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  they were always coming up the desk saying did I get any cards or pictures
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  or anything from my kids? And it was pathetic, it really was.
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  So I started writing them cards. I'm putting boxes, you know, like
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  hi, you know, because I get there, I get the name of
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  their kids who never called them. Oh my god. Yeah. So that
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  was a good setting of beginning for what it feels like to be in the
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  business. I didn't want no one calls you. No one calls you,
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  that's for sure. You know, a useless as you can get. So
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  when you so when you first started out, you know, one of your
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  first projects was a little film called Dog Day Afternoon with a little with a
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  little director. Yeah, with a little director, mister sitting La Mett.
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  What was it like being on that set? That energy of that set seemed
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  to be I knew them all the actual studio people from New York. Sandney
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  Lamett said, I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it.
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  That's the only direction I got from him, really, that was just like,
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  just keep doing what you're doing now. Is the energy on that set
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  was it seemed so like kinetic? Was it like that behind the scenes as
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  well? Oh yeah, oh we were real, you know, everybody was
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  real. You know, John Cassals was one of the great guys in the
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  world him. Yeah, and I remember I had to shoot him and we
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  said. John said to me, look, let's let's rehearse it because we
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  don't know what's going to happen. So I turned to him and I say,
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  sho, keep the gun pointed up because we're right at a bump.
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  You know, something will go off. And we started laughing. We were
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  in hysterics laughing, and I thought, it's a good thing we did this,
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  because when we get to the airport, you know, we're going to
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  be screwed if we do this laughing. I mean we laughed for an hour
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  while they were setting the cameras up on the hood and all over the beer.
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  And it was because I really liked him, and it's so absurd that
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  I'm going to shoot him. I mean it was like and he got the
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  same feeling. So it was like we were go faring, I mean,
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  really laughing for an hour. Wow, because it seems like almost a documentary.
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  It literally almost looked like a documentary. Yeah, it was. And
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  oddly enough, a lot of the guys that were actually involved in that,
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  they were there on the street, you know, with all the ab stress.
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  Oh so it's been weird for them. Man, Oh God, reliving
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  that from a different perspective, Yeah, totally. So. Then so then
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  you know, you've made a few other films and you and you run across
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  another you have the list of directors you worked with. This ridiculous, But
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  the next one on the list is mister Steven Spielberg and you're working on Close
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  Encounters of the Third kind? Is that the biggest budget at that point in
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  your career that you worked on. I never saw anything like it. I
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  mean it was we flew all the way to to you know, India,
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  to run up that mountain and have a thousand I think there were five thousand
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  experts there that day. Wow. We were saying, where did it come
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  from? What did you see? And they all went, they all pointed
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  out, you know, and suddenly a rabbit ran across the field with all
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  these experts and they chased it. So you got ten thousand extras chasing a
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  rabbit, which is the funniest sight in the world. Man, I mean,
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  I see the humor and shit that's and when you're working and so when
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  you're working with Spielberg, I mean that's he's fresh off of Jaws, so
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  he's the biggest director on the planet at that moment in time because he'd created
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  the blockbuster. What was it like working with Stephen at that time in his
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  career. Well, he was a kid, Yeah, he was a kid.
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  I went up to him and I said, look, I want to
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  get one of these little monsters, you know, aliens, and I want
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  to throw my coat over and go into the porta part of him. Just
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  hold him so we got proofs. We'll be right back after a word from
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  our sponsor. And now back to the show. It was when the ship
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  takes off, they're gone, and he's and he looked at me like I
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  don't know, like I just fell into his birthday cake and he looked at
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  me. Anyway, that's that's a different movie. Okay, I got it.
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  Okay, I'm good, Stephen, thank you, thank you very much.
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  Was there anything that oh, and you also have you also got to
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  work with Truffau on that. Wasn't he an actor in that correct Brents way?
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  Yeah? Did you work with him? Did you interact with truffo?
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  Oh? I was with him every day. What was it? I mean,
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  I got I've never spoken to anyone who actually knew mister Truffau, What
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  was it like? What was he like as a as a because he was
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  acting and that not directing. Dang, I mean the guy. Look,
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  I was on a movie for six months. Oh my god. So yeah,
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  getting paid scale, you know this is okay? Yes, sure,
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  the truck. While I was there, I learned to fly because we were
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  on an airport. You know, it was a big airport, hang right,
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  And I'd get up in the morning at four in the morning and go
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  do my flying lessons and then I would land at eight and walk into the
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  set. So I felt like, yeah, look at me. I just
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  landed. But anyway, they stopped me when I wanted to skydive. They're
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  sending One of the ads out there is that you can't do it, so
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  please please Yeah, now while after production do it all you like. After
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  production, you could do it all you like, but not while we're doing
• 11:52
  in production. Friends, wa, wash your phone. This is a good
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  story. He did a movie called four hundred Blow, so did Jules and
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  Jim, and he did Barronheit for fifty one and all of this stuff.
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  And I never mentioned four hundred Blows only because it was too when I saw
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  it. I was a kid, you know, a younger kid, and
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  I didn't want to talk about that. I talked about Jules and Jim.
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  I talked about Fahrenheit for fifty one and all of that. And he at
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  the end of the movie, well, he got pissed at me, first
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  of all for always going and standing on the set. He said, no,
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  you've got to read a book. You got to do something else.
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  You can't be in the hangar watching the movie being made. And I said,
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  yeah, but I never saw anything like this. So anyway, he
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  gave me a book by Josh Logan and he said, I'm going to quiz
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  you on it. That's the kind of guy is, you know? And
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  I said, okay, And I only read the Marlon Brando chapter from Tea
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  House in the August Moon. And he said, Josh Logan said, this
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  is like walking through Amaze with me. But I'm filling you in on all
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  the little truths. But anyway, he said, the first two takes he
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  did with Brando one Brando gave it everything in that take, and the second
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  take that Brando did with him, he did nothing. And he said,
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  the biggest mistake I ever made was choosing the second take. That's the truthful.
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  I got that piece of information. It was really that's amazing. That
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  is amazing. So I was kindest guy in the world. And if you
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  were a restaurant, all the women in the restaurant would like zero. And
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  on him. He had that energy. I don't know, it's French.
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  He dressed good. You know, there was that vibe, that vibe.
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  There's a thing that's it's you can't really when you've got it, you got
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  it, and you know when you got it, you don't have to push.
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  He had a lot of girlfriends along the way. Okay, I got
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  to learn from you. Tell me how to do that. So there's so
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  one of the films that I see. I saw you in that I you
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  know, I remember you vividly, and it was a Terminator And there has
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  been so many mythical stories, it's almost folklore on how that movie was made,
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  and uh, you know, did Jim did did Jim do that?
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  How did What was it like from your side, from your perspective working on
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  that film, and what are the truths behind it? He said to me,
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  go in to m Dale, you know, do the Terminator, because
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  you were originally going to be the terminator. I blew it though, because
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  Jim said going fifteen minutes before me, and I said, okay, and
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  then I'll leave. You know, I'll just give it. I'll shake him
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  up. And so I kicked the door open the Hamdale's office and the secretary
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  that was sitting there grabbed her typewriter and pulled it off into her lap.
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  She got shook because I had cut some silver teeth and all this shit.
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  Then I went into Hamdale's office and I said, and just stared at him
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  for like five minutes, and then Jim arrived and I left. You know,
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  I didn't even I didn't even think I was going to do terminator.
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  I mean I would have played it more like like a spider, a real
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  dangerous spider, right, which is different. He was like a bulldozer.
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  So that was fine, Yeah, I mean Winfield and I Paul Winfield,
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  we had a great relationship. We made each other fucking crack up all the
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  time. So it was what was great about it. It was Gail hail
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  Hurd was producing it, I think, and it was like Jim was coming
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  out of the shoot. You could tell he just just had a rhythm about
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  him, and he always does he knows. He's like an isolated animal of
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  some kind that is just so focused. You know, after we did Aliens
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  and then it was one of the most dynamic directors I ever worked with ever.
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  But you also but you also worked with him on Pirana too, the
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  Spawning as well. Right, is that where you met him. We don't
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  talk about that. No, no, we don't. Well like but it's
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  just like awful but well Jim, But Jim says it is the best flying
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  Piranha movie ever made. Yeah, it was so exciting because I had to
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  buy my wardrobe awful waiter, okay, because they had no wardrobe, right,
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  So I gave the guys seventy five bucks for his pants and his shirt
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  because I'm playing a harbor cop. Sure, sure it had a loose stripe
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  and epilepsy, but all of it. I got over that really quick.
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  So when you but do you you met Jim? You met Jim on that
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  show, right, Yeah, and about the movie, I'm sorry, that's
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  the best thing about the movies. You met you But even I saw what
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  he could do. You know. Yeah, he's up and I was buying
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  my suit off a waiter. He was up in his room making rubb fish
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  because he didn't have enough of them, you know, all kinds of stuff.
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  I mean it was I put the harbor boat up on the pier because
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  they wouldn't bring me down there let me learn how to drive it, right,
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  So by accident I come whipping in. He said, come whipping in,
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  and okay, I whipped in and put it right up on the pier.
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  Oh, different times, different times. So when you're when you're working
• 18:36
  on the terminator. Because I was a fairly low budget film, I think
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  it was. If I if I know the budget was, I think anywhere
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  between five to seven million or something. You couldn't prove it by me that
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  it was a low budget. It was, but right, I don't know
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  what the budget was, right, but it was all his friends, all
• 18:57
  the talented people were dinner. You know. It's really again once you start,
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  once the train leaves the station, somebody's calling me, oh god,
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  I have to call him back. But once once the train leaves the station,
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  it doesn't stop till you get there. And that's no matter what the
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  budget, right, because if you're going, you're going to whoever was if
• 19:26
  they go, yeah, you're in. So when you saw Arnold show,
• 19:30
  up as the terminator for the first time. And you saw him, what
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  did you what was your first reaction? He was he was sitting on a
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  on the steps of this honeywagon. Okay trailer, you got a honeywagon,
• 19:45
  sure, because the budget didn't allow for, you know, a Tiffany honeywagon.
• 19:55
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 20:02
  to the show. But he was sitting there smoking a cigar and he and
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  he was really happy. He was amazingly happy, just like greeting everybody and
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  making jokes and he was happy. And I was grateful for that. Yeah,
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  he's a big he is, and and at that time of his life
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  he was really big. I mean he was he was still he had that
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  all going you know, Yeah, and he was. And did you see
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  did you see the same thing in Jim that you saw on Arnold? When
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  you saw him, You're like, oh, this guy's going to be a
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  star. Did you see that? When you were on the set, I
• 20:47
  knew how I saw how Jim was treating him. Jim was treating him like
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  I don't know. He was telling him everything that he needed. Jim would
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  tell him that I need you to be quiet, and just look up,
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  walk that way, you know. I mean he knew what he wanted from
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  Rood. It's good it wasn't you know it wasn't the later be careful?
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  Right? Yeah? He barely had any dialogue in the first one, and
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  then he opened up in the second one a bit. Yeah, he had
• 21:29
  those lines take cover, you know, get down, get up. You
• 21:37
  know that's amazing. Now one of you, now, one of your best
• 21:47
  known characters is Bishop in Aliens, which you brought such humanity to that android.
• 21:56
  It is remarkable. I was really on purpose. I hadn't. I
• 22:00
  had made a decision that before I even got to England. You know that
• 22:07
  there was what what is android? He's a He's a protecting device, take
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  take care of human's device. He's also as vulnerable as a uh during apartheid,
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  a black child, you know who who wouldn't even dream of making any
• 22:30
  emotions or noise because they're afraid of getting snuffed out, you know. I
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  mean anyway, a lot of elements like that where I wouldn't dream of hurting
• 22:42
  anybody or anything, you know. I mean it was there was the innocence
• 22:48
  of that, you know. So and I got the role, but Jim
• 22:53
  said, in England, if you if you got to if there's somebody in
• 22:57
  England that's better, Jim told me, he said, I would have given
• 23:02
  him the part. But what you brought to the table was just exactly it
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  was good, you know, So I'm grateful for that now. You know.
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  I learned shit to do with the knives and stuff because he told me.
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  He called me before I went to London and said, remember when we
• 23:21
  used to do the knife thing, And I said, yeah, I can
• 23:25
  get good at it. When I got to England, I had all twenty
• 23:29
  knives because I know it he might pick what a difference, and I had
• 23:33
  to work with all of them. Sure, so I got there. I
• 23:37
  was good at it all. But anyway, they almost wouldn't let me in
• 23:41
  the country because the guy they saw it on the scanner that I had knives.
• 23:48
  They opened the suitcase and said step away from me back, so it's
• 23:55
  like we're going to not let me in. They thought, yeah, all
• 24:00
  right, pretty active around that time. Sure, sure, And that was
• 24:04
  eighty six eighty five, so that's not even post nine to eleven, for
• 24:07
  God's sake, So can you imagine they must have been on edge? Yeah,
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  to say the least. Now, there was so many, you know,
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  stories of the English crew and Jim and Gail having such a hard time
• 24:23
  making that movie because they were basically fighting a crew and they didn't really believe
• 24:29
  in Jim and no one had seen Terminator yet. Yeah, they were giving
• 24:34
  them. They were dragging their feet, they were taking te breaks every five
• 24:38
  minutes. They go to the bar that was that pine Wood and they had
• 24:44
  lunch. They come back and it slowed down again, you know, I
• 24:48
  mean it was those guys were all under contract so they didn't have to anybody.
• 24:55
  But they despite all of that personality stuff going on, they called him
• 25:02
  Grizzly Adams Jim because he had grown a little beard, and who the hell
• 25:07
  is he to come in after Ridley Scott? You know who is he?
• 25:11
  British are better, you know, I mean, that was their whole thing,
• 25:15
  and it was like for us, it banded us together even more.
• 25:22
  The only time I wasn't bishop was one of the ads. British ads pushed
• 25:27
  me on the chest, you know, said Hey, said stop push me.
• 25:33
  I said, you do that again, I'm gonna kick your ass.
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  I mean, I meant it. I was who I'll never forget a space.
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  When I did that, he got shot. Man, you don't fucking
• 25:49
  push me New York and New York baby. Anyway, all good, and
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  I'm assuming and I'm assuming having a work. I'm think of days, weeks
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  and months of working together, all of us. We all knew each other
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  and believed in each other. You know, that's that's a different feeling than
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  just going and all, we're gonna leave a bunch of garbage and pull our
• 26:19
  trailer out of here and we're going to go home. We didn't do that.
• 26:23
  We were there to do it, really do it. And those guys,
• 26:27
  by the way, the guys on Contract to find Wood, they were
• 26:33
  some of the best makers of props and things and sets. They were unbelievably
• 26:40
  good. If they just welcomed us, we would have been fine. But
• 26:45
  so we went through about a month of bullshit and then I guess I don't
• 26:51
  know the real story behind it, but Gail was saying, we'll just get
• 26:57
  out, We'll leave here and go do it so where else. You know,
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  you're not going to screw up this movie, I mean, and they
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  turned around, they turned around completely. Really yeah, because I can imagine
• 27:11
  that having you know, in nineteen eighty six, a female producer on top
• 27:15
  of it all was a shock because you generally didn't have female promoters. She's
• 27:22
  five five, you know, she's but tough. Oh yeah, smarter,
• 27:30
  rep. I I love her. I love her and she and and honestly,
• 27:34
  many people say this, and I say it as well as Aliens is
• 27:37
  essentially a masterpiece in the genre. They're really it really holds up. Yes,
• 27:42
  it holds up. You can watch that today. You can still watch
• 27:45
  that today. And it's not you don't you don't see the date. There's
• 27:48
  no date on this. I would get a lot more attention than I am.
• 27:52
  Now, Oh okay, now you also all right, exactly now that
• 28:04
  you also worked on another classic film called Near Dark with Mss Catherine Bigelow.
• 28:12
  I remember I was working in a video store in the eighties, late eighties.
• 28:18
  Oh yeah, I worked. I worked in a video store for five
• 28:19
  years. Oh I saw everything from eighty six movies from eighty six to like
• 28:26
  ninety three. I pretty much watched everything because anything that came out, I
• 28:30
  watched it because it was I was in a video store. I was a
• 28:33
  kid in high school, didn't have much social life, So that's all I
• 28:37
  did was just watch three four movies a day constantly. So I remember watching
• 28:41
  Near Dark. I was just like, my god, this is remarkable.
• 28:45
  And I have to say Catherine Bigelow is easily one of the best action directors
• 28:49
  of her generation, and she doesn't get the credit that she deserves in my
• 28:52
  opinion. I mean, she won the Oscar obviously for her Locker and everything,
• 28:57
  but as an action director, my god, she she holds her own
• 29:02
  with anybody. Anybody, believe me, what was it like working on that?
• 29:07
  And you know, she would do things incredible like we had to.
• 29:12
  We had to deal with sunlight, so we we improvised a whole rehearsal of
• 29:19
  how do you enter a room that's brightening that with windows and stuff. So
• 29:26
  we would improvise all the the things, and we actually used them in the
• 29:30
  movie. I mean we our instincts were already there because we rehearsed it,
• 29:37
  you know, spraying the windows, put tinfoils on the windows like Elvis used
• 29:44
  to do in Vegas. And and we would improvise even dialogue where we had
• 29:52
  we had these characters down so well, no matter what you threw at us,
• 29:57
  we'll be right back after a wh heard from our sponsor, and now
• 30:04
  back to the show. We would, we would. Billy Paxton was brilliant
• 30:10
  at the work he did, and all of us felt we were those people.
• 30:17
  The day we finished shooting it, we're standing on a road in Arizona,
• 30:22
  and we suddenly said we should start the prequel right now, because we
• 30:33
  were ready. We liked these characters, you know, and there was never
• 30:37
  a sequel, and there was never a sequel or prequel, and it's such
• 30:40
  a sad la Renus went belly up. So our first ad was as big
• 30:45
  as this, you know, and so it just lost. It was lost
• 30:52
  boys doing rock and roll vampires and it was like, come on, but
• 30:59
  they had full pay ads. So yeah, you were the cult the cult
• 31:04
  film or step Kid. But I mean, anyone listening if you have not
• 31:11
  seen Near Darks arguable one of the best man PI films ever made no question,
• 31:15
  much fun man. We picked our own wardrobes. They you know,
• 31:21
  they had some. We had a great wardrobe guy, and I said,
• 31:26
  we had to write our own bios, like how did we get turned,
• 31:30
  where did we come from? We had to write them out, and mine
• 31:34
  was that that I was sailing on an iron clad for the South during the
• 31:42
  Civil War, and we got slaughtered by by you know, counts from the
• 31:48
  shore and stuff. But we kept drifting into the marshes at night. Ah,
• 31:56
  and we started to get fed on. There a lot of vampires feeding
• 32:02
  on the dying man. And I got I got turned because my chest was
• 32:08
  blown open and then and I was steaming into the night air and it stood
• 32:15
  over me, and and instead of killing me and feeding on me, it
• 32:19
  turned me. So, I mean, I had my own figured out.
• 32:24
  That's why, you know, I had a rebel flag inside my coat,
• 32:28
  and my hair had a pigtail on a dipped in tar like sailors did back
• 32:34
  in those days. You know, we just created our own, our own
• 32:38
  ambiance, and we picked each other up along the way. That that's what
• 32:44
  the if we had done what do you call it, you know, the
• 32:51
  prequel, you would see all those people got together, the different the twenty
• 33:00
  is eighteen under is you know, that would have been That would have been
• 33:05
  amazing. You could have done. You could have done an Anna Riis thing
• 33:07
  where you go through all history kind of figure out you had dinner with her.
• 33:13
  Yeah, what does she does? She loved the film? Uh?
• 33:16
  Does she like the film. Oh yeah, now you know, you've you
• 33:25
  looks. I mean, you know, after after I did the movie and
• 33:30
  now you you've You've worked with so many directors, is there I'm not going
• 33:36
  to ask you if you have a favorite director, but is there a way
• 33:37
  that that you like to be directed and did and then did you connect with
• 33:43
  a certain director in a way from like as a collaborator, in a way
• 33:47
  that just stands out throughout your career? Yeah? I met with so many
• 33:54
  good ones, you know, I mean, it's there, there is an
• 33:59
  automatic kind of understanding. I remember. I remember certainly Sidney la Matt I
• 34:07
  love New York actors. He would hire you and say, look, this
• 34:14
  part of me last week, but I'm going to give you a run at
• 34:15
  the show because he wanted to, so you get an apartment, you know
• 34:20
  what I mean. It was like that. He's the kindest man and it
• 34:25
  was great to be around him because he was so knowledgeable. You know,
• 34:30
  you're standing on the set with the best actors in New York all around you
• 34:37
  and you're watching these guys work. And I was young then, you know,
• 34:40
  I was thirty in it, so it was like, yeah, it
• 34:45
  was my experience. I could never single out one. There are parts of
• 34:54
  all of them that I'll never forget, you know, And they influenced me
• 35:00
  about freedom and about you know, how to how to make something that that's
• 35:07
  even beyond your wireless dream by just getting on board and going with it.
• 35:13
  Get on with these guys. They they're not intimidators. They're nice. They're
• 35:20
  nice people, you know, most especially in that of your the eighties and
• 35:23
  the nineties and did you is there is there a way that you like to
• 35:30
  be directed as an actor, because I know every actor has a different way.
• 35:34
  Some people want more attention. Yeah, everything that happens in rehearsal,
• 35:40
  you know when you're when you're approaching it, when you're watching a part.
• 35:45
  I did a movie with Vigo Mortenson, who was he was probably one of
• 35:51
  the kindest, smartest people I've ever worked with. He wrote it, directed
• 35:57
  it, he's in it, He produced it, and I mean did the
• 36:02
  music for it and edited it. Jesus and never complain in a minute.
• 36:09
  We just were so busy trying to form those that relationship and those relationships.
• 36:15
  It was the greatest experience I've ever had. I mean, it's like,
• 36:21
  but that's for a very different reason, and so we're the only mechanical thing
• 36:27
  in it. I mean, the rest was shot beautifully and all of that,
• 36:32
  but by the time we started, we knew what we were going to
• 36:37
  do arrived. What advice would you give a young filmmaker or film directors in
• 36:45
  general on directing actors, because I find that they focus so much on the
• 36:50
  lenses and the gear and the how look, how many k's we have,
• 36:52
  but they don't focus on yet everybody's at them to get information right, right,
• 37:00
  that's part of the deal, you know, the camera guys, they
• 37:05
  it's all about he is the core of focus of it. It's getting less
• 37:09
  so there are more producers, businessmen, which they know the answers to everything,
• 37:16
  you know, right, It's like politicians. They talk out of both
• 37:22
  sides of their mouth and out there at first and everything you know. Where
• 37:28
  the director is responsible. I mean, he's responsible for the approach that there's
• 37:35
  so many levels. But it's also they've got a bunch of ravens trying to
• 37:40
  pick their eyeballs out, you know, which are the producers, right or
• 37:46
  the studio execs or something along those lines. Yeah, But is there a
• 37:51
  way that you would recommend directors working or approaching actors in how they work.
• 37:57
  Oh yeah, I mean just I think the only answer is just to be
• 38:04
  heard. And I think it's up to the actors not to prove, you
• 38:07
  know, not to do it at an inappropriate time. We got a guy
• 38:12
  jumping and jump off the roof onto an airbag, and you're talking about what
• 38:17
  do you think I jump in my car and try to save him? All
• 38:20
  what do I do? You know? I mean, why don't you just
• 38:23
  shut up and go watch? You know right now at this moment? Is
• 38:29
  it? Is it true? And I want to because I always tell people
• 38:31
  this is my experience as a director that actors sometimes if they don't feel safe
• 38:37
  on set, they will test the director to see if they feel if there's
• 38:42
  if this is a safe space, and if it's not, they might go
• 38:45
  rogue. They might protect themselves and they might shut down and they're like,
• 38:49
  look, I'm here, I gotta do what I got to do, but
• 38:51
  this is obviously I'm not getting the support I need. Do you find that
• 38:54
  actors do test directors sometimes just to see where they're at? In general?
• 39:00
  I don't know what neurosis an actor might bring with him. Sure, I
• 39:06
  mean I don't have any anyway, I know what I do. I mean,
• 39:12
  I I've done. Now it looks like somebody said the other day that
• 39:19
  I've done three on her movies. Well that's a shocker, because I mean
• 39:28
  that's a lot of days, weeks, months, and years on a set.
• 39:30
  Yeah. One thing, I guess one of my favorite Jim Jarmush is
• 39:37
  probably one of the kindest illuminated humans that I've ever worked with. I remember
• 39:45
  getting the part for forget the name of the movie. Know, we'll be
• 39:52
  right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 40:01
  And I walked in and I said, Jim, look, I know
• 40:06
  I might not get the part because of what I'm going to say, but
• 40:09
  but I don't think anything you wrote for this character that I'm going to play
• 40:16
  has anything to do with with acting or what it is. You know.
• 40:22
  I mean, I could improvise everything through this whole movie and make it work.
• 40:28
  It's a western, you know, with Johnny Depp and you know,
• 40:31
  yeah that one dead Man it was called dead Man dead Man. Yeah.
• 40:37
  Yeah, I'm talking so much that I'm forgetting no, but when I'm talking,
• 40:45
  I don't think fair sort of. But anyway, that's what I did
• 40:52
  in that movie. I improvised the whole role. Wow. Yeah. I
• 40:58
  remember walking I had to kill this kid, who this black kid who's uh,
• 41:06
  he's got knives and he's a nasty kind of guy and he insults me.
• 41:13
  And I remember walking into a a Native American post and looking at all
• 41:22
  the stuff, you know, the beautiful jewelry and all that. But there
• 41:24
  was a brick and I said to the guy and there was a car painted
• 41:30
  on the brick. I said, what is that? And he goes,
• 41:34
  it's a Navajo mud toy. And I said what, oh, okay,
• 41:40
  wow, right. And when I got on the set and I shot that
• 41:44
  kid, he said he said he's only My partner said, he's only a
• 41:50
  kid. He's just a kid. And I said, well, he's a
• 41:53
  Navajo mud toy. Now, oh wow. It's like, I go,
• 42:00
  you a period of gathering, unconscious gathering or what if something intrigues me.
• 42:06
  I I know I'm going to do this movie, and I'm seeing it through
• 42:12
  the eyes of the character. So so that was a great experience because he
• 42:19
  just let me fly. That must have been I wasn't acting anymore, you
• 42:24
  were being I'm just being Yeah, that's amazing. And you you also worked
• 42:30
  on one of my favorite westerns of all time, The Quick and the Dead,
• 42:35
  Quick in the Dead. I love Quick in the Dead. Yeah,
• 42:38
  that was that was a trip. That mean, the crew made a they
• 42:45
  made a thing where they said, you cannot kill a Samlin uh huhm.
• 42:51
  They wanted me to You were the like you were one of the look in
• 42:55
  in That cast was ridiculous. I mean from Russell Crowe as like a supporting
• 43:04
  actor, Sharon Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio and you and Sam Raimi's directing, and
• 43:12
  you're just like and you stood he Gene had Free Jesus and you stood out
• 43:19
  like your character was so wonderfully constructed. You played it so beautifully and you're
• 43:24
  right like when you when spoiler alert when you have to end your your scene,
• 43:31
  I was pissed. I'm like, no, I know, no,
• 43:37
  great him like that. Right before I went on, I got that little
• 43:43
  thing with the mustache one yeah, and I think I didn't know if I
• 43:47
  was going to use it, But then as Jane was talking to me,
• 43:51
  I was going, yeah, yeah, I shot one guy with my right
• 43:54
  hand. And and how was Sam? How is Sam to work with because
• 44:00
  I've heard so many wonderful stories about Sam Raimian as a director working with actors.
• 44:06
  Oh he was. He was very young man, you know, and
• 44:08
  he was he was so excited about having any camera, he wanted anything he
• 44:15
  wanted, you know, he was he was like, I remember, I
• 44:20
  said, look look at this wardrobe. I wear at embroidery all over it,
• 44:23
  and I said, I look like a showman, you know. And
• 44:29
  so I went with a buddy of mine who's a Rexta Rossi, who was
• 44:34
  one of the great ropers, you know, one of those guys. And
• 44:38
  he, in fact, he was I wanted him to be my daughter's godfather,
• 44:45
  and he did. He said, but anyway, I said, Rex,
• 44:50
  the guy's a showman. I got to have some way of shooting the
• 44:53
  cart out of this girl's hand and making it a showman, you know.
• 45:00
  So we started working on it, and we came up with that flip off
• 45:04
  the horse where I just on a turned sideways, flipped off and shot under
• 45:08
  the belly. And I showed that the Sam before we did it, and
• 45:14
  he went up, Oh, that's in the movie. He was like,
• 45:20
  yeah, that's in the movie. We did it. That's that's the thing
• 45:25
  with like, I guess that was I think that was probably the first time
• 45:29
  he was given a real budget and it was a big but I mean it
• 45:30
  was a studio project, a big budget. Yeah. He and he had
• 45:35
  like I could only imagine, like having every toy at your disposal with this
• 45:39
  insane cast, the set, everything, and that was that was one of
• 45:45
  the great sets, man, I was it was. It was absolutely beautiful.
• 45:51
  And you also got to work with another director, legendary director mister John
• 45:55
  wu on favorite. John was scared because he thought I was going off the
• 46:02
  deep end, right right. A character is so fucking crazy, man.
• 46:09
  I know now with John, I'm still friends with him. He's Champagne.
• 46:17
  I send him pottery, you know. But he's so kind, kind hearted
• 46:24
  man. He just and he does the most violent films. He's probably getting
• 46:31
  back at his ghats, you know, whatever they are. Yeah, And
• 46:35
  so for everyone listening, the movie that Lance and John worked on was Heard
• 46:39
  Target, which was a John Claude Vondam vehicle back in the nineties. And
• 46:46
  as Lance's head is twisting left and right, as I said his name,
• 46:52
  Yeah, but I was actually he's a good guy and he's very talented,
• 47:00
  you know, what I mean. You know, I did a fight scene
• 47:05
  when we kicked me in the face. He did a spinning dick and it
• 47:09
  just barely touched me. He's so controlled, you know. Yeah, it
• 47:15
  made me relax a lot more. Yeah, because I mean, and this
• 47:19
  was the first was what was that the first John wu American film? Or
• 47:22
  was a Broken Arrow? I don't remember if it was that one Broken Arrow.
• 47:28
  I think it might have been the first time he came over from Hong
• 47:30
  Kong, right, Yeah, because it was. I mean, you look
• 47:34
  at some of these editing. Yeah, he was up at Universal. One
• 47:43
  of the producers from the tower would come down and go, how's it going,
• 47:46
  John? Oh that scene? Oh what if you cut it that way?
• 47:51
  And then he would leave, and then another one would come back.
• 47:59
  He said, all them do is get out of here. They don't.
• 48:01
  They're not leaving me alone. Just keep keep coming like Juggles. Now,
• 48:13
  by the way, I have to tell you one of my favorite films I've
• 48:16
  seen of yours, which is not one of your better best known films,
• 48:21
  but it impacted me because I saw it on a date. I took my
• 48:24
  date to see this film in the theater. Yes, and we both loved
• 48:29
  it. Stone Cold, Oh that one. Brian Bosworth, Brian Bothworth stars
• 48:36
  and you are the main villain as a biker gang. I never forgot that
• 48:39
  movie. I must have watched that movie a dozen times. When I was
• 48:42
  in the video store. I was just you played that part so beautifully.
• 48:45
  Thank you. That wasn't been fun, James, is that character? You
• 48:52
  know what? I again, I do better work when I improvised, because
• 48:59
  we had script the guy. The guy. What happened on that movie was
• 49:06
  chains was always talking biblical talk, literally right out of the Bible. Not
• 49:12
  in the movie, but in the script. And he got fired his first
• 49:17
  dailies came in. I wasn't in any of those scenes, but they saw
• 49:22
  them and fired him and brought a guy who's really good, Craig Baxley.
• 49:30
  And Craig had done stunts and stunts and you know all kinds of movies.
• 49:35
  And Craig came in and I met him when he came in from the airport
• 49:43
  and I met him and I was sitting in the lobby waiting for him when
• 49:46
  he came in, and I said, Craig, can we have a beer
• 49:51
  together or something. Let's talk about this because the script you read it,
• 49:54
  it's really a piece of shit. We'll be right back after a word from
• 50:04
  our sponsor, and now back to the show. I mean it was bad.
• 50:15
  You know, I don't know how we got the job. Yeah,
• 50:19
  the director, I don't even know. But but anyway, so he said,
• 50:22
  well, what are we going to do? Because I said, the
• 50:25
  dialogue is ship, all of it. So he said, what do you
• 50:30
  want to do? And I said, well, we'll get there if our
• 50:34
  call time is six, I'll get there at five with with what's his face?
• 50:40
  A football player? Yeah, yep, yeah, I said, And
• 50:45
  we'll improvise. We'll just improvise the whole scene. We know what it has
• 50:51
  to have action wise, you know, we'll improvise it. So that's what
• 50:55
  we did. Everything it worked out really so every every every piece of dialogue
• 51:04
  almost was completely just Yeah, that's brilliant. That makes that that's a nice
• 51:10
  little tidbit about that film. No, I mean over the course of your
• 51:17
  career, Lands, I mean you've been on set, like you just said,
• 51:22
  you've done close to three hundred over three hundred projects. You've been on
• 51:24
  set so many times. What was the project or the day that was that
• 51:30
  stands out in your his in your mind. I was like, man,
• 51:34
  this is a really how are we going to get out of this? Like
• 51:37
  you feel like everything's coming crashing down around you? What was that day?
• 51:39
  And how did you get through it? How did you make it through that
• 51:43
  day? Uh? What? I try to forget those. There's a whole
• 51:49
  group of movies that I've done that are called alimony films. You said that
• 51:54
  to me, You said that to me when we work together. It's good
• 52:00
  to know that that's that's real. Yeah. A lot of actors take movies
• 52:05
  that it's the only one that's there. They need money, you know,
• 52:08
  blah blah blah. And I've done some of those that were like, oh
• 52:14
  my god, I thought, you know, you you don't want to be
• 52:17
  seen on the street when that comes out. You know, you don't want
• 52:21
  to be that right. I only see my movies once and then I don't
• 52:28
  look at them ever again, you know it. The only one that I
• 52:31
  might have watched more than once was Powder. Yeah. I love Powder.
• 52:38
  I thought that that was a really good movie, but you know it,
• 52:44
  some other political shit happened. It didn't good release, But but you know
• 52:50
  what, you got to take the good with the bad. You really do.
• 52:54
  I mean, try to do something. I have a will that's as
• 53:00
  don't give up, man, you know, just be there, be there
• 53:05
  even for a bad situation. You know, don't don't don't run away,
• 53:10
  because that then you turn to a runaway right now, is there? You
• 53:17
  have to go with it? I I would I would like to mention some
• 53:22
  of those only because they tried. Everybody tried, sure, you know,
• 53:28
  and they were stricken by a lot of different things, like look, what
• 53:32
  can happen on a set when you when you see this wonderful woman she was
• 53:38
  when I met her, she was a steady cam operator, very strong woman
• 53:45
  and wonderful and beautiful, and you know, and she gets shot on a
• 53:49
  set. That's that's the ultimate total thing. I mean, it's over once
• 53:57
  that happens. I mean, it's over right of fixing that. You know,
• 54:02
  it's going to be an ugly thing for a long time. But anyway,
• 54:07
  that's how bad it can get. I've never been heard on the side
• 54:14
  in my three hundred movies, never been heard, and I've done physical ship
• 54:17
  whatever anybody, and I don't care, you know, I'm still doing it.
• 54:23
  It's like I'm not I'll probably just drop dead quickly one day, you
• 54:29
  know, move okay, where it's a wrap, it's a wrap, And
• 54:34
  where's Lance? Lance? He's got he's got a new casting call. He's
• 54:42
  got a new casting call. Now, out of all of your movies and
• 54:50
  all the people you work with, which is the craziest story that you can
• 54:53
  share publicly? I did a movie called The Visitor. Yeah I was young.
• 55:00
  Yeah, it's like the hot young guy in that movie. There was
• 55:07
  Glenford, Shelley Winners, Oh, all these actors that we all know from
• 55:14
  the forties. They were in it. John Houston, Jesus serious, all
• 55:21
  these guys. And I got to talk to John finally one day after we
• 55:25
  made a joke and he said, okay, look I don't want to come
• 55:30
  back Lance, so let's do it. Now. You know, he's like
• 55:37
  my hero. He done, And I said, okay, let's let's do
• 55:42
  it. And I'm staring at him and he goes, you have the first
• 55:46
  lines, Lance, So I said, I'm sorry, John. I got
• 55:53
  my first direction from John Houston. So not bad, not bad bad,
• 56:04
  not a bad moment. Now, can we talk a little bit about your
• 56:07
  new film ahead The Visitor? Yeah? Yeah, I did in Rome.
• 56:15
  Okay, go to Rome. The movie turns the ship. I don't know
• 56:20
  why because because wasn't Pirana shot. No, yeah, that was an Italian
• 56:29
  producer. Yes you notice. Yes, I've never worked in Rome again,
• 56:35
  but you'll visit, but you'll visit this conversation. Now, tell me about
• 56:40
  your new film, Alpha Drift. How did you enjoyed working on that?
• 56:45
  I gotta tell you, I was impressed with him and took that movie because
• 56:53
  he started. It's almost like with a grain of sand. You know.
• 56:59
  He made a key changed with the alpharet symbol on it, and every day
• 57:05
  he was battling the budget every day and that's why that was done years ago
• 57:12
  and that it was coming out, you know, I think almost three years
• 57:15
  two or three years ago. But he was tenacious. He's a guy that
• 57:22
  will talk about I won't give up, and then he would. He would
• 57:28
  do what good movie makers do. They wangle what they want. I want
• 57:35
  a McLaren and one of his people pull some strings and they got a McLaren.
• 57:42
  That's the most expensive car in the world. There's some have sold for
• 57:45
  thirteen million dollars at least a million to drive it. And the owner was
• 57:54
  standing by the fucking camera shaking because so fast, if you just touch that
• 58:01
  gas, you're gonna fly down them. You know, you're gone. And
• 58:07
  and and again. That's an example of making do as good as you can
• 58:15
  with limited, you know, with limited choices. And he did very well
• 58:21
  with it. His location choices were were good choices because he was containing it,
• 58:30
  you know, I mean, I wanted to do it. I just
• 58:31
  felt I didn't. I didn't really understand it when I first started. The
• 58:37
  hell I was, you know, you know, it's it's it's a very
• 58:45
  it's a very almost like looking back into time in a way. They're dragging
• 58:52
  the past into the present and saying to a young man, you're genetically right,
• 58:58
  you are the next whatever. Right. I had to respect it and
• 59:04
  do the best I could, you know, I mean, with what we
• 59:07
  had. And it was and it looks like he pulled it off because he
• 59:13
  got distribution. I'm really I'm super happy for him, I really am.
• 59:21
  Yeah, And we'll put and we'll put links on where you guys can watch
• 59:23
  Alpha Drift afterwards. It does look fantastic. It's a good fits of family
• 59:27
  film, so it looks like a lot of fun. There isn't a real
• 59:30
  rough moment in it. Well there's some killings, but sure you're demons,
• 59:37
  so it's not that. Have you noticed how violent all the movies are,
• 59:43
  like on on YouTube and you know, all of these cable things. It
• 59:50
  makes it, It makes the eighties look tame. We'll be right back after
• 59:54
  a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. Oh yeah,
• 1:00:04
  there's more murders than you can imagine, right, and peak women,
• 1:00:08
  you know where you're seeing a little but not a lot, you know that,
• 1:00:13
  But it's just the whole porridge. They're like remakes of movies that are
• 1:00:19
  still out. You know. Look, look when they remade Point Break,
• 1:00:25
  I was like, stop it. That is a masterpiece of its time.
• 1:00:31
  You can't, yeah, you can't. You can't remake that. They're just
• 1:00:37
  going over to I think Screenwriters Guild and saying can I read a bunch of
• 1:00:43
  these scripts? And they do, and then they write a clone of that
• 1:00:46
  script. It's it's weird, it's it's it's because everyone because if you know,
• 1:00:52
  you know this better than most that that the whole town is run by
• 1:00:54
  fear. So you know, because it's run by fear. They're like,
• 1:00:58
  well, this is has an established audience that they think it's going to come
• 1:01:02
  out. But like perfect example, on any executives listening out there, you
• 1:01:07
  bring a movie like Point Break out there, who's the generation who's gonna watch
• 1:01:09
  Point Break? My generation, the one that grew up with Point Break?
• 1:01:14
  Really, what are we going to run out to see Point Break? The
• 1:01:16
  remake? No? And then the new kids are going to be like,
• 1:01:19
  what's that? Oh skydiving? Oh, that's not a big deal. But
• 1:01:22
  in nineteen ninety whatever it was when it came out, no one had really
• 1:01:25
  seen shit like that before. God, no, you're right, So it's
• 1:01:31
  different. The rehash a lot of stories. Even Korean movie companies are doing
• 1:01:39
  it our movies or their movies or doesn't matter. But the funny thing is
• 1:01:49
  that the era that they're mining was allowed to be creative, where you could
• 1:01:55
  make a Gremlin's, a goonies a terminator, or an alien's. You know,
• 1:02:01
  can you imagine trying to launch an Aliens franchise now without the ip of
• 1:02:07
  Aliens, Like, can you imagine just alien that? It just wouldn't it
• 1:02:12
  wouldn't be not in the studio system. You'd have to do it in the
• 1:02:14
  independent world. I think I think that's a great description what's going on now?
• 1:02:22
  Which made me feel like I never want to be a director. I
• 1:02:25
  had no insures at all. I'm a better supporter of a director right than
• 1:02:32
  you know of wanting to be one. Who want one hundred people a day
• 1:02:39
  hitting you up for answers. Who the hell wants to live like that?
• 1:02:44
  I love it. Some people are built like that. But see you maybe
• 1:02:52
  will break out into your dream so totally that it will be what you wanted
• 1:02:57
  to do. But I have no desire. I'm in the job that I
• 1:03:01
  should be doing right, and I have like I've had to act a couple
• 1:03:05
  of times in my life in front of the camera and it no, no,
• 1:03:07
  thank you, It's not what I like to do. It is terrifying.
• 1:03:12
  I have such respect. Oh my god, it's and it's it's Even
• 1:03:16
  when I was playing myself on camera for a movie, it still was terrifying
• 1:03:22
  for me. I was like, oh my god, this is horrible.
• 1:03:24
  I don't want to be in front of camera ever. Again. You feel
• 1:03:30
  a lot better. That's it. Okay. Now I'm gonna ask you a
• 1:03:39
  few questions. I asked all of my guests lance, what advice would you
• 1:03:43
  give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today. Oh boy, oh
• 1:03:49
  boy, oh god, that's hard. I just did a movie and it's
• 1:03:59
  called Artifice Girl, and a guy named Franklin Rich directed it, wrote it.
• 1:04:05
  He's even in it. It's a three act movie. I feel I
• 1:04:13
  feel like it's one of the most interesting roles I've ever done. Yeah,
• 1:04:19
  and he wrote it, he did it, and the relationship during the shooting
• 1:04:26
  and this was in Florida. This is going to come out and people it's
• 1:04:31
  so original and so good. I mean, I'm proud of it. I'm
• 1:04:36
  proud of it. I really am. I mean, I've done like three
• 1:04:41
  movies over the last year so and they're all different. They're all different,
• 1:04:47
  and I've been lucky. And there's no wood to touch you. But anyway,
• 1:04:55
  it's I've been blessed with a career, you knowbsolutely. Now, what
• 1:05:00
  is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
• 1:05:03
  industry or in life? Wait to say that again, what is the lesson
• 1:05:09
  that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film industry or in
• 1:05:13
  life. I think there's a pocket in all our brains where we have a
• 1:05:19
  fantasy world, a pocket and it's like a it's probably a different organ than
• 1:05:26
  I was born with it. I didn't know I had it, but anybody.
• 1:05:30
  But really, what it's about, I think is learning how to be
• 1:05:36
  a human, you know, a humanity. I think when I see people
• 1:05:43
  be kind to somebody else, I am, I just get a lift,
• 1:05:49
  I get a jolt. Right, we're living. There's some nasty shit right
• 1:05:55
  now. Excuse my friends, sure that we really they need to see the
• 1:06:00
  best in people and not not fucking punish them because they made a mistake.
• 1:06:08
  And even in dialog, everybody wants to punish somebody. I blame. I
• 1:06:14
  blame politicians for all of that. Yeah, I think that whole system sucks.
• 1:06:21
  Well, I think they've been saying that since politics were created. Yeah,
• 1:06:28
  they're weally people now. And last question, if you can answer this.
• 1:06:32
  Three of your favorite films of all time? Oh yeah, well they
• 1:06:39
  are the eighties films. I mean it's certainly Aliens and You're dark, the
• 1:06:45
  ones you mentioned there. And Jim Jarvis's movie dead Man. Yeah, I
• 1:06:50
  love being that character. It's a total killer, but even killers have a
• 1:06:59
  soul. Well that's the thing. You have played a lot of bad guys
• 1:07:03
  in your day, and you always bring a humanity to all of those bad
• 1:07:09
  guys. And I think that's what makes a good bad guy is that there's
• 1:07:12
  something. It's not if you're just twisting your mustache literally and going, ah,
• 1:07:15
  I'm just bad to be bad. It's boring, you know, we're
• 1:07:18
  not. It's yeah, it's not nineteen ten anymore. We're not on a
• 1:07:21
  train track anymore. Bad guys need to have depth, and you brought that
• 1:07:26
  to every bad guy I've ever seen you play. Some of the action movies
• 1:07:30
  that are on you know, like Netflix, they are really well done,
• 1:07:36
  especially the Chinese ones, South Korean ones there in terms of action movies,
• 1:07:44
  these guys, I think you're a and they're way ahead of us now.
• 1:07:49
  I mean it's like, and occasionally there's one of those movies with an American
• 1:07:55
  in it, right, I'm a ragged. They were, yeah, all
• 1:08:03
  right, kill him and make it a lot, kill him a lot,
• 1:08:09
  a lot, a lot, and then he comes back and a lot more
• 1:08:14
  and then oh no, isn't it. Frank Rillo, the actor Frank Rillo,
• 1:08:17
  he's like one of the biggest movie stars in the Chinese market because he
• 1:08:23
  just plays the American bad guy. You want to hear something. Yeah,
• 1:08:27
  yeah, the Chinese is smart. I the Macau International Film Festival was when
• 1:08:36
  Falling was shown there, the one I did with Vigo. They gave me
• 1:08:43
  Best Actor. Wow, shocker is here's the shocker. I mean I was
• 1:08:50
  done that. I got that. This wonderful actress you know, gave it
• 1:08:56
  to me and all this stuff. But what Blue away was China loved this
• 1:09:02
  American story. They loved the movie. I mean it was and this is
• 1:09:08
  our story. This is a guy slipping into dementia and a son, and
• 1:09:15
  it's it's just I was. I gave the award away. I gave it
• 1:09:21
  to the guy that worked with me when I was preparing for that movie.
• 1:09:28
  You know, he worked with me for a month. And when I got
• 1:09:31
  the award, I look up and I got a bunch of awards sitting up
• 1:09:34
  there. And my daughter when she was five, used to polish them.
• 1:09:40
  That's about what they're worth, you know what I mean. But I knew
• 1:09:44
  that if I gave it to this young young kid who was really smart.
• 1:09:48
  He studied acting in Ireland and stuff. He was really bright, and I
• 1:09:56
  needed to stir the pot. We'll be right back after a word from our
• 1:10:01
  sponsor. And now back to the show. I really needed to find a
• 1:10:11
  way to make it real. And Vigo would come over and we would we'd
• 1:10:16
  rehearse a little bit, you know stuff. But he deserved it. I
• 1:10:21
  wanted him to be happy that he had that experience because the movie speaks for
• 1:10:27
  itself. The movies is what it is. It's a wonderful movie. Lenz
• 1:10:34
  killed our release and Corona just sure Lance. It has been an absolute honor
• 1:10:45
  and pleasure talking to you, my friend. I mean, I can keep
• 1:10:47
  talking to you for at least five or six more days just to try to
• 1:10:51
  go over your career. But is Dan Lance, by the way, let's
• 1:10:58
  let's leave it with him that I think, here's a guy who inevitably will
• 1:11:03
  make movies with the budget he needs and you'll have this. But he did
• 1:11:10
  this all by himself. This is like him and as friends, it's not
• 1:11:15
  a it's not a low budget looking film at all. You know you're talking
• 1:11:19
  about Alpha Drift. Alpha Drift. Yeah, Alpha Rift. Kids will like
• 1:11:26
  it. I I I thank you for your time, my friend, and
• 1:11:30
  also thank you for your for the work that you've done as an artist throughout
• 1:11:34
  your career. It is it is has definitely affected my life over the years,
• 1:11:40
  and it was again an honor working with you on my little short film
• 1:11:43
  all those years ago. So thank you again, my friend, and continued
• 1:11:45
  health and success to you, my friend. I'll see you down the road.
• 1:11:50
  There's more to come, more to come. I want to thank Lance
• 1:11:55
  so much for coming on the show and dropping his knowledge bombs and sharing his
• 1:12:00
  remarkable journey and stories with the tribe. Thank you again so much, Lance
• 1:12:03
  for coming on the show. If you want to get links to anything we
• 1:12:06
  spoke about in this episode, including how to see his new film, Alpha
• 1:12:11
  Rift, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward
• 1:12:15
  slash three fifty six. Thank you so much for listening, guys, As
• 1:12:18
  always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:12:23
  Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.