Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 761: Reality Check: What Really Happens After You Win an Oscar® for Screenwriting with Tom Schulman

Transcript

IFH 761: Reality Check: What Really Happens After You Win an Oscar® for Screenwriting with Tom Schulman · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the ifh podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indie Film Huscle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sixty one. Carpe DM, my Friends, Karpe DIM, Seize the
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  Speaker 1: Day Dead, Poet Society.
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  Speaker 2: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
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  Speaker 2: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
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  Speaker 2: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
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  Speaker 2: the film biz.
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  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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  Speaker 1: episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
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  Speaker 1: humble host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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  Speaker 1: into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before
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  Speaker 1: Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Well, guys,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: today on the show we have Oscar winning screenwriter Tom Shulman.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I know Tom's work from the masterpiece that he wrote,
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  Speaker 1: Dead Poets Society along with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,
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  Speaker 1: and What about Bob starring Bill Murray, just to name
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  Speaker 1: a few. Now, Tom and I had a wonderful conversation
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  Speaker 1: about not only his process, his craft, but what actually
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  Speaker 1: happens when you win an Oscar for Best Screenwriter, and
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  Speaker 1: the answers might surprise you a little bit. It was
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  Speaker 1: a really eye opening conversation. So without any further ado,
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  Speaker 1: please enjoy my conversation with Tom Shulman. I like to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Tom Schuilman.
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  Speaker 3: How you doing, Tom, I'm very good. It's nice to
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  Speaker 3: meet you.
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  Speaker 1: A pleasure to meet you as well, my friend. I've
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  Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, I want to say thank
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  Speaker 1: you for being such an instrumental part of my youth
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  Speaker 1: growing up in the nineties.
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  Speaker 3: I hope you like the results.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, I mean from I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 1: obviously the Poets Society, but what about Bob Hoyes, Drunk
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  Speaker 1: the Kids? So many great films from that from what
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  Speaker 1: It's What About Bob is one of my favorite insanities.
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  Speaker 1: I wish it. I always always, anytime I talk about
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood and the way it used to be, I always
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  Speaker 1: use what About Bobs as an example. I'm like, they
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't make that movie today, Studios wouldn't make it What
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  Speaker 1: About Bob? But my god, isn't it an amazing thing
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  Speaker 1: that at least it existed at that point? But I
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  Speaker 1: wish they would make these kind of smaller films they
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  Speaker 1: used to make, the ten or fifteen films and one
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of two or three tent poles and like kind of
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: throw them all out and one or two would take
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: care of everybody. But now it's just like.
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  Speaker 3: They don't have that love of movies anymore, you know,
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  Speaker 3: as executives, they're just it's all bottom line.
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  Speaker 1: It's all ip, it's all superheroes. But you know, like,
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  Speaker 1: I think that's Spielberg said it best. I think, just
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  Speaker 1: like the Western, it will play itself out the superhero
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  Speaker 1: genre eventually.
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  Speaker 3: It's been around for a long time. But I think
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  Speaker 3: he's right. I mean, certainly I never argued with Steven
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  Speaker 3: Spielberg about that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, well, obviously you can't because if not, you know,
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  Speaker 1: there's there's things that happened. Lightning comes down, it's crazy,
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  Speaker 1: go black, yeah, black accounts, just drain of Bunny, like
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  Speaker 1: what happened like right.
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  Speaker 3: Exactly, just totally uh you know, but.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly see that was that was Stephen right there that.
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  Speaker 3: I didn't touch my screen. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So my first question to you is how and why,
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  Speaker 1: god screen that did you get into this insanity that
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  Speaker 1: is the film industry?
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  Speaker 3: Boy, that's a good question. You know, I grew up
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  Speaker 3: in the South, I grew up in Nashville, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: I later found out that that the South was kind
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: of a dumping ground for horror movies a I P. A,
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  Speaker 3: American International Pictures and all those companies. Those movies didn't
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: perform outside the South. But so I grew up, you know,
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  Speaker 3: every set going downtown with my friends on a bus
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  Speaker 3: and going to two or three really lousy horror films,
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  Speaker 3: you know, and and it really I liked movies, but
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  Speaker 3: you know, that was just kind of a jump form
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  Speaker 3: of entertainment. But then in college they had a film
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  Speaker 3: Society and they started bringing really interesting movies in, you know,
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  Speaker 3: things from Corrosawa and Fellini and Bergman and you know,
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  Speaker 3: just stuff that I had no idea what movies could do.
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  Speaker 3: And I just was fascinated by that. And senior year
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  Speaker 3: in college, I had a chance to either write a
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  Speaker 3: term paper about one of the novels we were reading
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  Speaker 3: or make a short film. So of course everybody in
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  Speaker 3: the class made a short film. I made a little
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  Speaker 3: Super eight film and it's terrible, but just fell in
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  Speaker 3: love with the process and thought, this is what I
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  Speaker 3: want to do.
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  Speaker 1: Well. The thing that's interesting is that when you were
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: coming up, it wasn't a cool thing to be a director.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't even in the zeitgeist. It wasn't a thing
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  Speaker 1: that it was even and possible. Honestly, there was very
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: few people doing it, you know, compared to today where
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  Speaker 1: you know, I remember growing up in the only behind
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  Speaker 1: the scenes I saw was a Star Wars documentary and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: narrators of the Lost Ark documentary that was, and whatever
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  Speaker 1: books I could find at the library. There was no
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: other information about the filmmaking process that trust, so that
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  Speaker 1: you that you jumped in and like, you know, I
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  Speaker 1: think I'm going to give this a go. Is amazing great.
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  Speaker 3: In hindsight, so stupid, but you.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Know, well that's isn't it. Isn't it amazing?
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  Speaker 2: Though?
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  Speaker 1: The the delusion of the filmmaker and the screenwriter is
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: it's his his or hers best friend and worst enemy
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: at the same time, because you need delusion to do
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  Speaker 1: what we do.
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  Speaker 3: You did, It's so true, But at.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: A certain point the delusion becomes a handicap when you're like, well,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I'm the greatest or I'm going to see you at
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  Speaker 1: the Oscars, or Steven Spielberg's going to produce my next film.
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  Speaker 1: This insanity it starts to come.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Out the Meglomania comes with it. You know for sure,
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  Speaker 3: you know the same little power you have in the
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: in your world of creating it on the s page
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  Speaker 3: or you know, if you're directing on the set, suddenly
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: you're just you know. I have a friend, I want
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: a director. And he says, after he gets through shooting
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a movie, he finds himself running it, people running into
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: him on the streets of New York. And it's because
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: on the set, when you walk from the monitor to
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the to the actor, everybody moves out of the way.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: But you know, after the movie, nobody's moving. You know,
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  Speaker 3: they don't know who you are.
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  Speaker 1: You mean, you mean I have to get my own coffee.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: What do we savages?
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, friend says he just loves to put his hand
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: out in a diet coat comes in.
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  Speaker 1: You know, just it is a It is a strange, strange,
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  Speaker 1: carny kind of lifestyle, isn't it. You know I always say,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: I always say we're carnefolk. Uh, you know, we're carnival
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  Speaker 1: folk because it's you We ran away with the circus
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  Speaker 1: essentially to do what we do as filmmakers, as the
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  Speaker 1: screenwriters at any level, whether it be Oscar winner or
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  Speaker 1: just be working filmmakers. Uh, it's it's the circus, really,
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  Speaker 1: it really really.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Is it really is? Yeah, yeah, and yeah, you just
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: hope you don't end up in the you know, with
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: the within the deformed area of the.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: You know, yes, we're all the freaks where the freaks
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  Speaker 1: and let's just say we don't want to end up
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: in again adult Toro Carnival.
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  Speaker 3: That's for sure, Yeah, or any of the cardivals in
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  Speaker 3: those horror movies I saw as a kid.
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  Speaker 1: You know, Oh good lord s all right, so you
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  Speaker 1: make you make the decision to like, okay, I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: go to go go be a writer. And as insane
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: as that is, I'm assuming it didn't just use work
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  Speaker 1: your first script and all of a sudden the door
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: swung open, the money just started tossing at you, all
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  Speaker 1: the opportunities went. I'm assuming there was a time period
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: where you were trying to hone the craft getting slapped
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: around by the town.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So how long was that? How long was that wouldn't do?
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  Speaker 3: That window was about I mean, I mean, I guess
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  Speaker 3: ten years. I mean in the sense I mean I
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: started getting work basically after about four four and a
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: half years, I started getting enough work to not have
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: to I mean, I still kept my day job, but
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: I you know, didn't mark. You never know. You just
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: you're working from one one, you know, uh to another.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: But it was I was thinking, Wow, I'm saving some money.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: This is I seem to be getting steady work. Nothing's
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: getting made, but I'm getting paid to write. So okay,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: you know, stell optioning some scripts, telling a script or two,
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: and then so that was about four or four and
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: a half years, and then another five years of you know,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: a couple of tis getting made for television, but they
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: bore no resemblance to what I had written, you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: that kind of thing.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So you just you mean the Gladiator wasn't your original vision.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: Sir, I don't think so. Yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: No, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show. So yeah, I've heard
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I've heard stories of and for the youngins listening, there
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: was these things called TV Movies of the week back
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: in the eighties and early nineties, which which was a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: really fertile ground for a lot of filmmakers because that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: was where they they they got the foot in to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: show people what I mean, Spielberg got duel TV movie.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Still it's a great movie, and yeah, yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. So during that time, what did you do
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: to keep going? Because there was no indication at least
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that you were going to be able to make a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: go of this.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: It's it's really hard because you know, you're just there
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: is no bottom wrong of the ladder where you go ooh,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: I'm on and now I can, I'm I'm on my way.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you're just you're always jumping for it until
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: you suddenly, you know, as they say, you can't make
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: a living in this business. You could only make a killing.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: And that's kind of true. There's just no in between.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: Particularly back in the old studio days, you know, there
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: were indies getting made, and you know, I think I
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: think my world opened up a little bit when John
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: Carpenter made Halloween Again because I was writing, you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: low budget horror films. At first that was my you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: what I'd grown up with, and and uh so people
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: were suddenly and maybe even before that, we're buying you know,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: indies were made, were horror films.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the the oh God, Easy Rider
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: was the kind of thing and yeah, yeah, but that
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: was the seventies and eighties. But yeah, I mean I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: think it was when John actually did that was the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: first really truly like full blown indy. Yeah, out of nowhere,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: didn't have Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda in it like
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it was. Yeah, no, but it was still but it
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: was still it was still not it was still not
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: what it was in the nineties. The nineties is won
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the independent movement as we know, it really exploded. So
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: how do you go from the Gladiator TV Movie of
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the Week to Dead Poet Society? How did you write? Like,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: how did you come up with it? How did you
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: get it out there? It doesn't seem I know, like
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in today's world, you put out that Poets Society, it's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: gonna be a it's gonna be a tough sell because
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: of it's a drama and this and that and b BP.
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  Speaker 1: But in those times, late eighties, early nineties, they were
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  Speaker 1: still making films like that, so I guess it was
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  Speaker 1: a little bit more open to that. But that's still
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: not a slam don't by any stretch of the imagination,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: not at all.
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  Speaker 3: I mean interesting because I think it just tells about
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: the times Dead Poets opened with the first Batman, which.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, yeah.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: And you know, little do we know at that point,
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: and Batman did really well, but little did we know
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: that that was going to be the trend that started
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: to you know, take Hollywood away and and but yeah, no,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: it was. It was a very hard I mean at first,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: I can't really remember why I decided to write it.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: I've been I've been being paid to work, you know,
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: not getting movies made. And I think a lot of
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: the stuff I was writing were just things I thought
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: would sell, and you know, they sort of did, but
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I don't think I was that good at that stuff,
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: you know. And then just I had been telling this
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: story about the basic dead poet story to a girlfriend
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: for a while and she was going, God, that sounds
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: so good. You got to write that. She and I
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: broke up. I got married, my wife saying the same thing,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: and I finally just said, Okay, I've got a couple
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: of months here, I'm going to just sit down, clear
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the room out, and do it. And I did it,
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: you know, and my agent at the time read it
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: called me up at two o'clock in the morning saying,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: this is the best script I've ever read let's talk
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: in the morning. I'm okay, great. And also I went
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: into his office that day and he said, you know,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I've been thinking about this. It's a great script, but
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: I will not be able to sell it. And you know,
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: if you want to get this made, if you want
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: it to be any more than a writing stample, I
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: hate to say, you're going to have to get another agent.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, you know, I understand all the
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: deficits of this script, but yeah, so I left, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: I you know, I think took five agents before I
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: got another agent to say yes. And that agent said,
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I've only read half of it, but there's some clients
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: here at are in our company that, you know, actors
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: that I think might be good for it, some young people.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: And I remember thinking, boy, what if he ever reads
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the second half and drops the project?
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You know that's yeah, that ending was a bit uh,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you know, it was an interesting ending to say the least.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So and then uh, Stephen Half, who who
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: had read the script just maybe a month after I
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: got that new agent and a year and a half later,
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: called him back and said, you know, I just can't
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: get that script out of my mind. Let me I
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: want to option it. I think I I've got some
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: some connections that might be interesting. Little did he know
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: every studio had passed. I mean it was just you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: as dead as dead could be, right, yeah, I mean
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: the people at Disney, and it was touched one at
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Disney that eventually bought it. You know, they did. I
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: did get a meeting there and they said, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: it's a strong story, but poetry, you know, dead, poets, society,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: the three. You know, any one of those words in
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: a title is is death. But this is all on
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: the same one. They said, why don't you make it
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: about you know, making a dance teacher, because of course
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: what had just come out.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: But dirty dancing?
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so right, yeah, And then out of nowhere,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: you know, maybe three years after I wrote it, Stephen
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: half gave it to Jeff Katzenberg, who read it and
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: bought it immediately. And you know, we had a meeting
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: two days later and he said, we're making this movie.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: Let's let's cast didn't go so my god.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So it was so it was Jeff Cazenberg who got
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it and yeah, and took off with it. And then
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: then Robin and Pete Peter Weir, I.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Like I had seen Witness. The day I finished the script,
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: my wife and I went out to Witness and I
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: just said, God, if I could get him, you know,
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: and she said, we'll send him the script. So when
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I polished it up and so forth, I did, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: of course they passed. That was that I didn't, you know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: so that, you know, a couple of years later to
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: get him was amazing.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: That's that's that's so interesting for for a script of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a film that was so well received obviously, uh and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the script that eventually won the Oscar. I love hearing
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: these stories that it was not this that the town
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: knows nothing, William Goldman said, is the town knows nothing.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: It takes one person with just a slight bit of vision,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: just and a little bit of thejone's to roll the
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: dice and and obviously some power and some power.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, it's it's a me too situation. You know.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Somebody always tell me you can learn everything you need
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: to know about executives by watching two three year olds
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: on the in a sandbox. You know, if there's an
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: object that's like an old bucket that's sitting in the corner,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: is if nobody will it'll sit there for weeks, but
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: as soon as one kid gets it, they all start
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: fighting over it, right, and at that age kids can't
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: their next won't go like this, so they answer to
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: everything is no. So you know that's those that's the
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: executive mindset.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's actually a brilliant and I've never heard
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that no or that's actually brilliant and very very true.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Get out you get you know, you get Robin Williams,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: who at that point Robin was Robin. I mean he
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: was still Robin Williams. He wasn't Oscar winning Robin Willis.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: That was a few years away, but he was still
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Robin Williams.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: And by the way, that title Dead Poets Society only
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: title worse than that Shawshank Redemption uh only title.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: Wor Yeah, but when we stunk, you know, so what do.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: You in that movie? Who's even heard of that movie?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: Right? Exactly?
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So when you when you what is it like working
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: with Robin and Peter? Were you on the set? Did
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: you know? How would that whole I mean, you must
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: be again coming from TV Movies of the Week to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that was the first big one, right, that was the first.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I had sold it. Strangely enough,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: on the same day that that that Katzenberg bought Dead Poets.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I sold another script, a thing called Love at Second Sight,
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: to Laura mar and then Warner Brothers took it over.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: But and you know, that just turned out to be
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: a disaster and being made basically at the same time.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: They finished that first, and my parents had come to visit,
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: and we went to see the finished version of that
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: movie and my dad it was like middle of the day,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: and my dad afterwards said to me, You've got to
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: find something else for a living, you know, And then, uh,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: I know, I know. But then we went over to
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: Disney and looked at I got them to screen a
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: few dailies for my parents of Dead Poets, and they said, Dan,
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: and said, well, maybe you got a chance after all.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: We'll see. But yeah, it was it was, you know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: it was I don't know, I kind of all I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: was concerned about at the time was that they're going
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: to make what I wrote, you know, So it was
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I wasn't playing defense by any means, but but you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: I was in there sort of fighting for my you know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: for and didn't really have to because those you know,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: we all had the same basic vision of the movie.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: So it was it was amazing and Peter We're I mean,
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: it's funny because his first question to me was, why
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: aren't you direct? Why didn't wy aren't you directing this?
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I can sort of feel from the way you write
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: it that that that's what you want. And I said, Peter,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: first of all.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: No one's given me that.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: If I were directing it, I would just step aside
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: for you number one. But two, you know, are you
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: crazy nobody? This thing is barely getting made, you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: And he goes, heah, I understand that.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: And then he said, well, you know, I would like
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: you on the set, and you know, if if it
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: gets boring, you know, if that's I'll understand. But you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: since you wanted direct, he said, I've made eight movies.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm happy to sort of help any way
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: I can. He was so generous. You know, So so.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You shadowed Peter Weir essentially the whole time.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we just had you know, he would always
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: say to me, just feel free to I mean the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: first day he said, just anything you're thinking, feel free
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: to just talk to me about it after a take,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: you know. And after about two takes, as soon as over,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: I'd walk up to him and go, but what And
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: he said to me, you know what, just count to
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: ten before you talk and then then say it to me.
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: And I said, you know what, I'll just go home
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: and he said, no, don't get offended. Just please give
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: me a chance to have my own thoughts and then
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: you can talk, you know. So I said, okay. So
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I did that, and maybe on the third or fourth
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: take of the first show, he said, well, why don't
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: you go direct the shot the scene? I said, Peter,
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm talking to him. I said, no, no,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: I mean you have an idea. Go. So I walked
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: out on and Rob I see Robin look over at
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: Peter and Peter nods, okay. So I give Robin something
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: to do and come back. And he does it, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Peter said what do you think? And I said it
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: didn't work? And he said I don't think it works either,
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: but nice try and okay, we'll try that again some
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: other time. And he was amazing, absolutely amazing, And I said, well,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: what if I screw this up? He goes, I'll fix it.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, such a couch, so much confidence in
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, comfortable. He's so comfortable in his own skin
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: at that point, he doesn't even have an ego, not
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: even threatened by you in any way shade a form.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: He was just so generous to you. That's wonderful.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah he was. He was fabulous.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: So okay, So I have to ask, because I've had
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: multiple people on the show who've worked with Robin, and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: what is it like seeing Robin on the set? You know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just me he riffed.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: He had Oh yeah, Well, interestingly enough, the first he shot,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I think we shot for three days and then he
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: had to go off and and he was in a
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: play on Brian. I think he was Welcome Waiting for
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Godeau on Broadway with Steve Martin, so he was kind
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: of going back and forth. But the play was two
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: weeks away from the end of its run. So we
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: got him for three days and then he came back
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: and we had him for the rest of the shoot.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: And you know, the first three days he was so
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: on book so perfectly that there was it was a
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: little bit dead and I was saying to Peter, this
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: is I'm worried, and he said, I am too, but
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: don't worry. And I said, well, what are we going
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: to do? He said, well, we got two weeks to
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: figure it out. So when he got back, it was
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: kind of like that. The first take again, we were
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: in the classroom for the first time and he said,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Peter said, all right, I got an idea. Let's do
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: an improv. He said, Robin, if you were just teaching
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: these kids, what would you teach them? And he goes, oh,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I might read to them, might teach them a little Shakespeare.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: And Peter said, we're going to roll cameras, just come
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: in and do it. And Robin immediately came and he
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: saw that teaching. You know, he had no scripts, so
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: he started connecting with the students and the way he's
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: so good at as a stand up but also as
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: an actor, and he realized right away, oh, this is
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: a dialogue, even if the students aren't saying anything. So he,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: you know, that improv stayed in the movie. We've got that,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: we had that, and then you know, from that point
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: on he completely got it, felt absolutely free to do
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: whatever he wanted and it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Was great and imagining that young cast who turned out
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: to be a couple of heavy hitters came out of
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: that cast.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: They must have been, you know, like I'm improvably.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know they were up to it though, you
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: know they were they He was really such a kind guy,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: so nice to everybody. It was just never any sense
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: that you couldn't you know, he just he was so encouraging.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Why not, you know, you just pretty soon you relaxed
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: and you just said whatever you wanted. And that's what
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: they did.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So what was the biggest lesson you learned from Peter
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: watching him on that set As a director or as
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a storyteller in general.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Stay as little as possible to the actors unless you
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: have to, you know, really give them a chance to
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: do what they've brung to to the party, and then
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: intervene if they're off, you know, but don't overdirect, don't
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: walk up and go okay, you know, this is the
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: moment and this is what just happened and all that.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: See what they bring because ninety nine or eighty nine
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: percent of the time, their instincts will be right. And
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: if you tell them the other thing was always answer
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: a question with a question. They say, well, what's happening here,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: and he'd go, what do you think? And then they
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: would you know, he knew, we talked through all this stuff,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: but that allowed them to own it. You know, they'd say, well,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: I think this and that that puts it into the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: actor's body. So very simple, deceptively simple, you know, but
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: very effect.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Now, the one thing, and for everyone listening, this is
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: going to be a spoiler alert. So if you have
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: not it's not our fault. It's like what thirty two
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: years old or three years old at this point in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: this movie, it's not our fault if you haven't watched it.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: If you want to skip this part, we're going to
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: talk about a spoiler alert here. The ending of that film,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine it ever getting made today. Just ever,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: how did you how the balls of Katzenberg and we
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: are and yourself to put this out there in that way,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: because that is such a touchy subject. Suicide is such
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: a touchy I mean, obviously it's a minefield to touch in,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: but it's perfect for that film. It is, it's necessary
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: for that film. You can't you can't move that. You
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: can't end that film without it at least being satisfied,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you know, how did how did you guys approach that,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: How did Peter approach it? How did Robin approach it?
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: How did you approach it? Like, because it's such a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: touchy thing, And at what point did you say in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the writing process, I'm gonna this is what's going to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: have to happen in this film.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Well, when I wrote it, I was too naive, I think,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: to think that it was anything difficult. You know, just
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: see was part of the story. It's where the story
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: had to go, and that was that, you know. And
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: when Peter and I met and started talking through things,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: you know, at one point, I don't know, we kind
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: of avoided the suicide for a while, but finally we
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: got to it, and I brought it up because I said, Peter,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: you know, frankly, now after I see people's reactions and
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: talk to people, I'm worried about this. He said. You know,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: I had the chance to meet Ingmar Bergmann once and
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: Bergmann told me that the only thing you could do
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: that would absolutely destroy a film was killed have the
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: main character kill himself. And so I said, oh my god,
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: and I said, what are we going to do? He said,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to hope Bergmann's wrong, and I said, okay,
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: So that was kind of it with him, And we
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: never had debates at the studio about it.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: It was really Yeah, it's because because Catomper's a filmmaker.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think I'm sure they thought about it,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: but they never said anything to me about it, because
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: I think they saw that you couldn't have this. It
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: just wouldn't be a good story without it. Story wouldn't work. Certainly,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: the ending of the movie, the very ending of the
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: movie wouldn't work without it. And and but and there
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: were you know, anything short of that would have just
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: to be kind of whip out, I.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Think, right exactly. But the soul, the soul, the soul
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: of the script of the God.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they you know, they wanted to change the title
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: of them that.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, to be fair, Yeah, to be fair. Let's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: let's tell what what were some other names that you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: could do? You remember?
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they asked the marketing department and the distribution to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: people to all eat. They made each of them come
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: up with twenty alternative titles to the story. So we
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: had like this thick, you know, piece of paper, double
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: on both sides, with just hundreds of names, and they
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: picked Keating's Way and on us. I know, on the
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: for the first few days of the shoot, on the
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: slate at the studio's insistence was Keating's Way, and Peter
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: was a little bit worried about it. I remember we
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: went to a video store and Peter loved to whenever
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: somebody would recognize him and say what are you doing next,
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: He'd said he really want to know, and they would
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: go yeah, and then he would pitch them the whole
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: story of the movie. Take them, he and because he
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: loved to tell the story, that was the way his
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: way of, you know, really getting into it. And I
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: remember one guy said, Robin Williams and that was not
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: a comedy, is it? And it kind of chilled Peter
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: a little bit because he realized people are going to
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: come of expecting Robin to be in a comedy which
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: just wasn't. But it just sounded. So he said, I'm
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: a little bit worried about the title. But after about
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: three or four days of seeing that on the slate
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: at the he called he called me and said, I'm
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: I'm we're going with Dead Poet's Society. The hell with
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: Keating's Way. I've told the studio that's the title, and
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: just that's it. And I said, what are they going
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: to do? So are they going to take it? Or
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: they're going to fire me? So I said, okay, so wow, yeah, yeah,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: that's the Eating's way.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: For gods.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I know, I know that that was a TV movie title, right,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: I mean that.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: That was a TV movie, But Robin was that Robin's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: first dramatic, like deeply dramatic role.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Bizarrely, he had made a movie about two years before
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: for PBS in black and White called Seize the Day.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: No yeah about it. And when I heard that, I mean,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: not having anything knowing that Robin would ever even be,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: you know, a possibility for the movie, I went, oh
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: my god, somebody's made a movie called Seize the Days.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: It's exactly like this, But I I it's always my
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: paranoid and because you know, you sort of assume that
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: once an idea hits you, it's hitting forty other people
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: at the same time. That guy's works that way.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: But anyway, it was not that. It was a very dark,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: very grim film about it. And Probab plays an insurance
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: agent who does anything but sees the day. He just
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: lives a very small life. And so that was a
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: very dramatic role and kind of walking dead. I hate
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: to say it, and I mean, maybe I should see
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: it again, but but no, he had done I guess
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Garp he had done Yeah.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: World one of the garb and stuff, but it's still
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: but none of those are hits, and it was still
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: pretty good Wold Hunting, so you know he had This
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: was the first time they showed his chops. But by
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: the way, before we walked, before we did this interview,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I went back to watch that trailer just just to
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: kind of like remind me of having seen the movie
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in a while, and.
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: They the first sixty seconds it's set up almost as
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: a comedy. Yeah, Like it's set up as a comedy,
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: like when I'm I'm like, my god, they're setting this
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: up as a I mean, they kind of get a
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: little bit more serious at the end, but it's.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Really an uplifting trailer.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: I know, I know. Well, you know, then the marketing
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: department does what it does.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Right exactly, So all right, so the movie comes out,
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's a hit. It's definitely hitted in the video stores.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: For sure, because I was working at the video stores
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: when that came out in the nineteen nights in high school.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So I remember recommending that film constantly to people and
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the people coming back, like you did tell me about
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the ending, but it was beautiful. So you go and
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: it gets nominated, You win an Oscar, and now you're
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, you've basically you've hit the dream
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: for all screenwriters pretty much. You've won an Oscar. How
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: does the town treat you? How do you deal with it?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: Because I've heard out of the Oscar winners on the show,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: it varies on how the accolades, how the town treats you,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, all of that stuff. How did you how
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: did you handle it? And what was it like?
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: It was it's you know, I mean I by the
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: time the Oscars came around, I'd already had to barely
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: you know, hit movies in the theaters. Honey, I truncked the
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: Kids and Dead Poets both came out with it a
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks of each other. Right, it did really
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: good business, so you know, I was getting offers and
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: stuff that just put it up to another level. And
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: then it's it's hard because people start saying, you know,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to give you notes, and you kind
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: of go, what does that mean? I just don't. I
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: would never want to tell an Oscar winner you know
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: what to write, and you kind of go, you know what,
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I'm no better now than I was when I wrote this,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: and you know I need input, I need feedback. I don't.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: I need your honest feedback or you know, that's just you.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: You thrive on that. It's not always pleasant, but that's
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: that's what you do. So it was hard that way,
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: and you know, also just to be deluged with so
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: many offers. Literally, if I had been diligent about it,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: which more more diligent about it, which I should have been,
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I would have been reading you know, a script or
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: two a night for a couple of years.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Because it want not just written.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Right, direct, right and direct. But you know, I put
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: it out whatever you want to do well, you know,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: really it's it's crazy. And so I don't know that
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I handled it well because I still really wanted to.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: I had my own ideas of things I wanted to do,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: so I kind of kept putting those offers aside in
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: a way, and you know, looking back, I turned out
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: some really good things, and it was you know, just
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: go they hit and you know, to their credit a
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: lot of times, you know, I would read the book
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: that was offered and I did not see what the
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: movie that they made in that book. You know. So
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: some very excellent people got a hold of it with
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: a better grander vision than mine. But still it was
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: it was hard, and it just you know, you kind
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: of go from from you know, your own your own house,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: you know, getting the mail and taking care of your
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: family to this thing where you you know, you could
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: literally eat lunch and dinner on somebody else. For five years. Honestly,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: it has never stopped. People want to take you out,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: wanted to end.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's it's the golden ticket in many ways.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But just like lottery winners. Uh, some people deal with
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it differently. Some people that destroys them right. Some people
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: don't take advantage of the situation when it's presented to
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: themselves and it's look that you have there's no book
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: on it. There are some more interviews like this out
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: there where I asked this kind of questions of Oscar winners.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, how did you deal with this?
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Right, you know, but it's it's a it's a small club,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the Oscar winning.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it is. And I mean for me it
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: was the luck of it was is that the you know,
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: five or ten years of of working you know, basically
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: in my basement, you know, alone doing it prepared me
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: because I had written a lot, so you know, I
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: felt I'm never confident, but I felt pretty good that
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: I could, you know, about delivering what you know, that
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: that if I got a job and liked a project,
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: that I could give them something that you at least
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: they wouldn't hate me.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: Did you? Did you after you won the Oscars? I've
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: always fascinated about this. You still were insecure as a writer.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, but the expectations go up right
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: now your winner. They expect everything you turn in has
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: got to be genius because you're a winner. Yeah, at
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: least I felt that. But you know, it didn't take
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: long to shake that. You know, you can you just
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, mainly fortunately for me. The day after the Oscars,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: I had to get up on a plane and go
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: and have some meetings with Bill Murray over what about Bob?
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: So it was just immediately back to work, you know,
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: what about Bob was kind of you know.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: That was that was? That was a that was a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: pretty big hit as well, if I remember, yeah, yeah,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: it wasn't I can't remember, but yeah, no it was.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: It did well and uh but it but I had
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: that work to do, so it was I didn't have
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: you get a.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: Chance to overthink things. You were just not really working.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: And so with with Honey, they shrunk the kids. Uh again,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: did you did you were you brought in on that?
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Was that an original idea or you were brought.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I was brought in? I mean uh, I would say
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: ten days before the anticipated started production, before the first
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: day of production, they fired the entire group. They fired
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: the writers, they fired the director, they fired the producers.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: I think I had heard that Rick Moranis had boughted
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: that it was had been sold that it was a comedy.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a comedy. And my agent called me and said,
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: you're starting this rewrite tomorrow and you got you know,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: eight days to to turn into to turn it into
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: a comedy, and I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: So he sent it to me. I said, I know,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: I can't even get through this. It's a drama. What
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: are you talking about I've already committed, you're doing it.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a meeting tomorrow at eight o'clock. Be there,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: you know. I'm like, oh my god. So that was
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: like a Wednesday, and I went to the studio and
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I said, you know what, I got to think about this.
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: I don't I can't just start writing. I gotta have
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: a take on it. I said, no, no, no, no, you
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: don't understand. A week from Saturday. This is going in
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: a pouch to Rick moranis he's reading it on Sunday.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: If he's doing it, he's going to be in Mexico
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: on Tuesday starting to shoot. If he reads it and
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't like it, we're scuttling. I'm like, oh my god.
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: And they said, so start to my I said, no, I'm
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: going to start on Monday. I'm going to think about
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: it for three or four days. And they just every
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: two hours, Katzenberg would call me and go, you're ready
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: to start, come on, start, just start writing. Just put
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: some words down. That's all you gotta do. And I'm like, no, I'm.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Remember when that movie came out again, this is this
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: is prime video store time during when that movie came
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: out Oh my god. That was such. That was a
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: monster hit, if I remember it was. It did a
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: lot of business theatrically. It destroyed in the video store,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: spawned a sequel, spawned a ride or a show a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Disney World ye.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Ride, and a series too, you know, yeah, that's right. Yeah, no,
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: it was. But you know, it was the idea of
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: the previous team that was you know all, I mean.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: It's genius. It's a fairly genius idea.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So yeah, so that that part is you know,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: but but yeah, it was, and it was a surprise hit.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: I mean it actually was released along with Batman Against Batman.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I remember that actually, I remember that weekend. I was like,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: what's this, honey, I shrunk the kids? Genius by the
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: concept is fairly genius, especially for the time period that
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: it came out, And yeah, it just was perfect, perfect
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: for that time. But I mean, and you look at
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: you go back and you look at that movie, You're like,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: you know, the visual effects just weren't ready yet.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I know, I know it's time. They at the time
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: they were, but you know, I mean I can remember,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: you know, because I always saw those Flash Gordon Saturday mornings.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: You think they made in the thirties and you kind
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: of wonder, will Star Wars ever look like that? And
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: it kind of did after.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: A while, you know, until he polished it up a bit.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, you know, but when you first see it,
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: it's so amazing. You just it feels like that is
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: as real as it's ever going to get, and it's perfect.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: It didn't bothered box office. Let's just put it that way.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: And what it came out. Yeah, the sort of fake
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: grass and weeds and honey didn't either. But Antad Yeah, yeah.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was like it reminded me of that
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that movie in the fifties. Was it them? Is it
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: called them? The Giant ant movie?
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be right back after a word
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I think that what had happened was is that the
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: previous team had told Disney they wanted to do all
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: the special effects kind of analog old style, that the
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: bee would be a man in a b suit he
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: you know, that kind of thing. So Disney had them
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: shoot a test. They saw it and they just said, goodbye,
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: that's it. We're not doing it that way. We're getting
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: other people. So they got Joe Johnston, who was a
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: model maker. Yeah, and you know that's that's.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: They called Joe. I remember, I think I saw that
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: in the ILM documentary or something on Disney Plus he
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: was like yeah, and then they called me for this, honey.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I shrunk the Kids movie and they just needed someone
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: who could do some effects. So I got the job right, right, right,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: And it was George. It was George Lucas who who
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: gave him the out of boy like the Donnie Brasco
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: he's he's hey, could do it.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think Jeffrey called George and said who you got,
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: and George said, I got this. You know he's a
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: model maker, but he's brilliant and he can do it.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Said okay, you know, so.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Those things don't happen today, like unless it's unless it's
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: a Stephen or or somewhere from the old guard making
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: those calls. But I think once that generation is gone,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: these the new general there's just nobody who has that
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: kind of juice anymore or has that power to even
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: do that. Not one of Disney other than maybe Iiger.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Right could Eisner was part of that. I mean, of
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: course the first I had made it because I had
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: gotten sick every time I went to Mexico. I made
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: it because they said, you know, you're going to be
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: on the set and I said, Nope, not going to
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: Mexico to be on the set of this movie that
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I'll watch dailies. Heater not gonna CROs no. So they said,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: you know, at that point they I had them because
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: it would deep into into a seven days, you know process.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: But the first day the dailies came back, I was
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: there and and something happened and Jeffrey looked at me
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: and said, did you write that? Little kid said something?
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: He said, did you write that line? I don't remember
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: that in the script? I said no, but I like it,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: and he They stopped the dailies and they said, get
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: Joe Johnston on the on the on the phone. So
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: they got him on the phone. I remember David Hoberman,
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: who has had a production, was talking to him and
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: he was saying, you know, we're not gonna improvise. We've
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: worked really hard on this script. And then he hung
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: up and Isner said, what happened? He said, he hung
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: up on me, and I was like, oh, oh, so
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Eisenberg goes, what do we do? Katzenberg said, well, we
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: can fire him, or we could make his life miserable,
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: or we could go along and see what happens. And
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: iSER said, what do you want to do? And I
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: can't some well, let's go along see what happened. And
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: you know, that was the moment Joe's career was on
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: the line. I don't think he ever knew it. But
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: but and you know, he did a great job.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: So that's amazing. That's amazing.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Yea.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: So, by the way, do you outline when you work.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Extensively? I mean I outline. I take notes for months
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: or hover long I have and then you know, to
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: the point where I'll have one hundred and fifty pages
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: of just notes. Sometimes I've written the same scene twice
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: and don't even remember it. But and then I go
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: through and I organize them. I make sure there's space
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: between them. I print them out. I slice every idea
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: and paragraph or whatever scene into a separate thing. I
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: put them in a pile. I pick it up, and
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: I go, oh, this is act too somewhere, and I
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: leave the floor open. So I lay this whole thing
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: out along the floor and there at the point that
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: I start, there's there are places where I don't know
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: how I'm going to connect scenes. I might I don't
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: even know how this whole section is going to work.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: But while I'm figuring out what's going on with all
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: the other stuff, those little aha connection moments happen, you know.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: So it's a it's a really good process and I
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: just stumbled on it.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Do you do you when you're writing? Are you trying
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: to tap into the ether? Are you trying to do
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: that thing that that kind of flows through you or not?
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: Because no, you're just what.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: I'm just into the story, completely into the story and characters,
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: They're the ones driving it, So you're not trying to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: like waiting for inspiration or the muse to show up.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: No, no, they are the muse, and it'll show up
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: if you work with them, you know, if you're just there.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: The ether to me is a kind of place of
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: self criticism, of thinking, oh my god, nobody's ever gonna
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: make this. Okay, I just you just read it. Somebody
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: just told a little horror film for a script for
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: fifteen million dollars. Anybody gonna buy this piece of crap?
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: I'm you know, this is this thing I'm working on.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: No chance that all those things come in, you got
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: to leave them out, you know, that's the So just
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: stay with your story, you know, get through the first draft.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: Maybe at the end you'll just go, ugh, this was
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: a bad idea, You've wasted a couple of months whatever,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: but probably.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Not something comes out of it. You're a better writer.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: You're a better writer.
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: You're better absolutely, you know.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Now, how do you do? How do you do with
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: studio notes?
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: I kind of figure that the people giving the notes
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: have the same pride of authorship that I have, So,
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: you know, their job to give notes, right, So I
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: want to encourage them to give good notes. And I
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: do the same thing to them that they do to me,
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: which is they if they're good, they'll always start and
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: I going, wow, we love what you did. Da da
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: da da da. Of course they're going to shred it,
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: novisceerate it. But by telling me how much they love
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: it and giving me all that support, I'm open. And
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: I do the same thing to them when they're giving
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: me the notes. I go, oh, that's interesting, really good, huh.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: I write everyone down is if I love it, and
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: they feel very good about my response. And then when
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: I come back and go, yeah, you know, I love
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: this note. I love that one, but this thing, you know,
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: I'd like to do it, but it doesn't work because
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: of this. They listen because they know I'm on their side.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: If I'm defend in the room, you know, which I
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: did when I was early going, They're just like, oh,
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: we got a defensive writer, and they're not going to
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: listen to anything you say. But if you're if you're
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: open there, you just you form a great relationship. And
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: then they go, yeah, you know you're right that that
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: wouldn't ruin the whole rest of the movie if you
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: did that, So you don't.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: You don't drop because I've heard some writers do this,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: is that they'll put something in so ridiculous just to
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: give them some meat. You don't do that.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: Now. I never do anything that I think would would
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: be any.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: Because it possibly might get stuck in there. If if
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: you're not.
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: Too care absolutely you know, don't don't ever write anything
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: you don't want shot, you know, And.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Did you ever did you hear the story of what
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: good Will Hunting? What they did with the script? In
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the middle of the script, they put this massive orgy
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: sex scene with Will Hunting and his friends, and there's
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: this giant thing, and I forgot who it was. I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: think it was either Chris Moore or I think Chris
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: Moore told us, told me this story on the show,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and it's like he gave it to the studio, which
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: was I think that was touchdown as well. It was
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: a touchdowner Hollywood, one of those Disney arms, if I'm
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: not mistaken, or Merrimax. It was a Marri Maxwielm at
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the time.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: And then I think it was somebody who read it
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: and they're like, you know, we love the movie, but
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that that orgy scene in the middle, this seems a
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: little out of place, and they go, we want to
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: make sure that you read the entire thing, So we
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: stuck that entire scene in there. And that's how we
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: know if you actually read it or if you did it,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: read it, because if you read it, you're gonna say.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Something that's great, that's so smart. Yeah. The interesting thing
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: to me is most people, and I'm guilty of this myself,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: when they hit something that really bumps them and bumps
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: them badly, they don't read anything after that. Really. They
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: just they think they have they will finish the script.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: But you know, you get in a meeting and eat
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: a boy. That thing. You know, they'll start. You can
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: tell something's really wrong, that thing on page twenty. What
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: did you do? You fix that? And you come back
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: and they go and God, all that stuff you fixed
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: in the second half of the script, it's amazing. Where
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: did you get How did you do that in just
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: a day? And you know it's been there all along.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: They just couldn't they couldn't process it. Yeah, So it's
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: it's interesting now.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I've heard even I've done this on it
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: a couple of jobs where I'll just write the same
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: I'll just I'll just send it to them again after
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the notes, and they'll go, oh, it's so much better
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: this time. I'm like, I think that's great. I'm grabbed.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Your notes are fantastic.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Is there is there anything you wish somebody would have
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: told you at the beginning of your career, a little
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: bit of a little nugget of something. You're like, man,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you know when you win the Oscar? Well, besides that, besides.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: That, people told me so many things. I got a
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: lot of good advice.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: Most of the advice was, if you can do anything
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: else with your life, get out you know, because no
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: matter how talent you are, this movie's gonna eat This
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: film isn't gonna eat you a lot. And and people
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: told me that, you know, but I was too stubborn,
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: and you know, to listen, that's not gonna happen to me,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: you know, me, everybody else, you know, they ever ever
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: picked up a pencil. But you know, I don't know. Uh.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, people have told me, you know, just only
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: fight the important fights, don't you know? And I don't
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: agree with that. I actually think you do better, you know.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: I mean I've had people say why why don't you know,
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: come on, can't we just do that? And it's like, no,
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: why would I agree to do something? Why would you
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: want to do something that's not right for the movie?
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: Every little detail we have no idea what's going to
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: bump this audience and throw them out. So let's not
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: let's not make any mistakes. If we can help it.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna make plenty, but let's not consciously
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: do something that you think is just okay. You know.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: No I got I think, I think I can't think
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: of anything, and maybe I'm just yeah.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Now tell me about your
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: new film Double Down South, which you wrote and directed.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: I was telling you I saw the trailer and it's
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: so refreshing to see with Fred. The trailer is great,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: it's well put together, shot gorgeously. But I'm really intrigued
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: by the story because I've never seen a film about
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Keno and in the South which is like this. Normally
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it's in a big city, like Color of Money or
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: something like that, hustling bars. But tell me about that film.
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: I grew up, as I told you, in Nashville, and
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: you know it is part of a misspent youth. Would
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: go to this pool hall called twentieth Century pool Hall,
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: which was in a fairly shabby then shabby part of Nashville,
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: and three guys named Nick ran it. They were uh
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Nick Nick Nick, old Nick, middle Nick, and young Nick
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Young Nick. In that play was about thirty. I guess
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: old Nick was just crotched. The old guy middle Nick
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: was a genuinely mean person, you know, and you just
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: you'd never want to ask him one question. You never
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: talked to him again. He was so dismissed him. And
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: I was you know he hated kids there, but he
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: let us come in because you know, we spent money
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: on And in the corner they had this game called
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: Keno Pool, which was this board you put on the table.
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: There air holes in the board their numbers for the balls,
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: and there's this double hole and if you make a double,
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: you get to shoot again, and the bet doubles. So
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: if you and I are playing for five bucks, and
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: we both put five dollars on the table and I
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: make a double on the break, you have you are
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: now on me ten bucks and I get to shoot again,
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: and the BET's now ten bucks, and if I hit
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: the double hole again on the break, you owe me
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: twenty bucks. So people that are good at doubling up.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: And you know, the first time I played, I made
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: the mistake of not quite understanding that, and you know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: almost lost my watch and never got to shoot. Because
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: if you shoot and missed, it's the other guy shot
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: and he gets to keep going until he missed. So
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: it's it's a diabolical gambling game. And there was this
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: really good looking woman. I have no idea how old
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: she is, but I mean I was fourteen. She would
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: come into this place every now and then and would
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: be back there with the guys playing Keno, and you know,
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: we'd sit back there, my friends and I just galk
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: at her and she never gave you know, even glanced
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: at us. But it stuck with me because it was
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: a rough crowd and she seemed to she was. I
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: never saw her smile. She was a tough, tough mbree,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: you know, and so she was kind of the For years,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: I thought, I want to make something a story. I
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: want to write a story about this, but it never
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: just kind of went away. I couldn't figure it out.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: And then maybe I don't know, a year a little
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: over a year ago, I just went, oh my god,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: I know what that is supposed to supposed to be.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: Because I had a friend whose brother ran a poker
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: game in Accounty, near outside of Nashville, and it was
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: kind of a He was really smart about it because
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: he I mean, it was illegal, but he paid off
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: the cops and he would bring star poker players from
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: all over the United States in advertise them, you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: kind of underground, and poker players from all over would
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: show up to see if they could beat these guys,
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: you know, and he took a cut of the pot.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: That's all he did, just cut the possible. Yeah, so
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: that that those two things were sort of the inspiration
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: for this plantation house where this game of keino is played,
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: is a kind of you know, high stakes quino.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm dying to see it. I can't wait
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: to see it. It looks, it looks I said, it
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: looked really closs like it's an original idea. Just haven't
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: seen that before. And that's such a rarity in today's
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: world that you just because everything has been made, everything is,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: every story has been done. But this is just a
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: unique placement for it. So so this is I think
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: this is an independent film at this point. Study So
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: how'd you get how'd you get the cash off the ground,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: because it's not easy nowadays.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: My friend Rick Wallace, who is we've been friends since
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: the late seventies television directors, worked for Botchko for years.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Ransom of Botchko shows great guy. Just dear old friend
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: read read the script and he's moved near outside of Seattle,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: and he said, you know, there's a whole group of
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: people up here that every now I meet them now again,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: they say, if you've got any any you know, movie
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: ideas or whatever. You know, we've been invested in some
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: low budget horror films blah blah blah, And I said, sure,
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: give them the script, and you know what, it just
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: they just came through. Couldn't have been any easier. You know,
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: the budget's very low, so you know, uh, and they
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: were just like the day the money was supposed to
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: be there, it was there. What what I know, I know.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean the money dropped on the day
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: was supposed to.
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Everything was just you know, as easy as as could
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: be that way, you know, and we still had to
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: go off in the middle of COVID and you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: make the movie in twenty two days. But but you
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: know we did.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Everyone everyone listening, this is not the way things happen.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: It never never the money never is there ever, ever
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: never comes. Yeah, it's always that hell tomorrow, but we
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: have to pay people. Well, we'll just start shooting now
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and we'll pay you. We'll get it to you on five.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: So that it's just unless you're studio based, it's that's
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: just the way it goes there.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's it's a shock, and you know, I
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: just hope they get their money back.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: So but it looks it looks great. I can't really
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: am looking forward to see and it comes out in May.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: You said yes, and to be released in a minimum
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: of ten cities in theaters in May, and then right
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: after that it'll be on all the digital platforms. And
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: then after that I was streaming somewhere. It'll find a
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: home somewhere, Yeah, a final resting place.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: So let me ask you. You know, as directors, there's
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: always that one day on set that is that you
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: feel the entire world's come of crashing down around you.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, and it's generally every day, but there's that
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: one day unless you're Peter Weir and then you're just
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: a cool cucumber. But for the rest of us mortals,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: what was that day for you, either on this project
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: or or any of the other projects you've worked on,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and how did you overcome it?
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Well, that day for me was probably about fifteen days
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: into the shoot, maybe a little less, maybe twelve to
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: halfway through. I was shooting a scene that's about two
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: it's basically the end of that too, and you know
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: it in there and seem good for you know the However,
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: many months it had been eight months since I'd written it,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: and hundreds of Eyes had seen it a shot to
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: scene it felt good. Woke up at two o'clock in
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: the morning and went, oh my god, that scene. The
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: movie does not work from that point on. It's this
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: I've made a huge mistake. And then the character that's
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: talking about this would not be concerned about what he's
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: talking about. The whole movie falls apart at this point,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: and I just it's like, oh my god. And I
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: you know, I just thought I can't say this, it's done.
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to go in. But to call the investor,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're screwed. So and then I thought, okay,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: you're a writer. Just put on the tee and see
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: what you know. Think this through. And by five in
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: the morning, because I had to be on the set,
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: that'll leave it's five thirty for the set. I had
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: figured out the whole how to rewrite this, and the
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: movie not only was it was going to work better
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: because of the new the way the scene was going
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: to be. And I went to the set and I said,
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: we got to reshoot that scene from yesterday. No, we
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: don't have time. Why would you do it? It was a
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: great scene, we all love it. I said, listen to
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: me and I told them what was wrong with the scene,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: and they're like, oh my god, you're right, and here's
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: how we fix it. Oh my god, okay, great, great,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: we'll figure out how to reschedule it. And we did.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: So it was but that was a terrifying Oh my god,
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: you know, it was. It is.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: There's always that day. I mean, it's you know, filmmak
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: We're insane. This is an insane proposition. It's art at
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: a level because you could be an artist, to be
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: a writer and just write, and that's fine. There's there's stakes,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: but they're not that big in the sense that they
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: gets you in your time. You could be a painter,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: you could be a musician. They're very solitary. But when
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: you're working as a director, Yeah, you've got millions of
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: dollars and people's careers and every second that is going by,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: all you hear is chi ching.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Chi ching exactly. Yeah, It's just it is so crazy
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: to be spending money at the rate we spend it normally,
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: at the in the way we do. You know, it's
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: just it's always baffling to me. I mean, I rehearsed,
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: we rehearsed before this movie. We had a couple of
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: readings before Dead posted it. Most people never rehearse and
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: it's like, what, you don't ever even have a read
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: through the script? I mean, come on, you gotta, you
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: gotta at least, I mean, every one of those those
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: exercises gives you a big clear picture or a clearer
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: picture of what's working and what's not. And yet people
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: and by the way most stuff works, it's not like
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: it's it's insane. Yeah, so but but you know, to me,
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: the process is it's baffling, you know, But that's the
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: way we do it. So that's what we did.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show. Now, I'm going to
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: ask a few questions. Ask all my guests, what advice
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: would you give a screenwriter or filmmaker trying to break
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: into the business today.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: Well, today it's easier in a way because you can
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: go out with your cell phone and your friends and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: you can make something. You know, you can write it,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: you can direct it and then shoot it, and you
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: know you can and it won't cost much. So that's
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: what I would do. That's what I would advise anybody
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: to do. And if you don't want to direct. You know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: find somebody who likes your script and you know, somebody
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: your age, preferably who will listen, and you know, and
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: make your stuff because there's huge opportunity out there now,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: you know you can get your stuff. I mean, agents
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: won't read anything anymore. It's hard to get them to watch.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: If you're going to make something. Even if you make
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: a short. You need to make the trailer for the short.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: Why your thirty second trailer? They will not watch your
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: eight minutes short?
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: You know, so amazing, isn't it?
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: Isn't it? I know? I know, so you know we
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: made the trailer. The part of the deal is you're
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: gonna make a trailer for the movie just to sell it,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: you know, because the sales agents do not want to
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: watch the movie. They they'll watch the If you tease
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: them with the trailer and they like the trailer, then
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: they'll watch the movie. Call them up and say you've
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: got a movie. They'll go, okay, we'll see it. You know.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: Two months later it's like, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: Show them the good trailer. They'll watch it. That not
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: in the movie that night. I mean, you just you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: know the short attention spans are something we just all
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: have to deal with now, so you know, make sure
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 3: you you cater to that.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: to learn, whether in the film business or in life.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know, trust trust my instincts. I did it
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: when writing, you know, when I'm sitting down, I'm alone,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: and I just you know, I just try whatever. I
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: don't spend a lot of time, you know, questioning my
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: own instincts. I just if I think this is a
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: bad scene, it is, and I just redo it. Or
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: I feel like something's wrong, I fix it. You know,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: I don't. I don't ask myself should I fix this?
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: I just do it. But when I get with people
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: as a director and you know, and meetings, I'm less
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: likely to sort of just lay out who I am.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: And that's a mistake. You know, You've got to get
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: comfortable just sometimes being the dumbest person in the room
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: or the you know, the like or like Tom Hanks
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: in Big Going, I don't get it, you know, And
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: even if everybody's going, what do you mean you don't
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: get it? Come on, you did you know you're going?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: You know, you just got to you got to be
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: completely honest with people, and if you are it, you know,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: I after two or three movies getting made, and I
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: just somehow I got more or let's say, less likely
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: to be to rock the boat a little bit, you know,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: just in some ways less less confrontational than I had
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: been before, you know, Disney. When I started there, I
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: had a reputation being a writer killing the studio. You know,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: the writers would just complain. I'm like, god, I you
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: know I was. I wrote for a month and you know,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: summarily fired the other line. I didn't really know that,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: so I just spoke up, I thought sometime. I mean,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: I just was just like, I don't think that works.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: And then the people would look and you'd talk and
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: then okay, all right, well what do you got? What
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: good work? Well, you know that we had a real
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: dialogue all the time. I was less likely to do
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 3: that at other places, and I frankly don't know why,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: but it was a mistake, because you just you have
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: to fight the fight. Maybe maybe I was aware that
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: the other places had had shorter refuses, you know, and uh,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: and had come to trust that Katzenberg wasn't going to
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: fire me no matter how obnoction. We had some shouting matches,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: big ones and in front of other people, you know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: But and I, you know, just we just trigger each
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: other like that, and he never you know, most of
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: the time he would cave. If you fight hard enough,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: he will ca you know, And that's we would back then.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: But I don't know, I got I pulled back from that,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: and I don't think it helped the movies that I
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: had made later.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: Fair Enough, fair enough.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the opposite of most people will tell you, you know,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: try to try to please. But I don't think that's
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: the answer.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: What are three screenplays that ever screenwriter should read.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Uh, Well, for sure, Cosablanca, for sure, Chinatown. I think
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Groundhall Day.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's one of the best. It's one of
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the most brilliant scripts ever written.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I and I've I've said it so many times.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: It's the most spiritual film I've ever seen.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: It's amazing.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: It is it's literally the most it's it's the journey
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: of a soul reincarnating again and again until he gets
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: it right and he learns lessons along the way that
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the end he is liberated. I mean, it's literally that.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's one of my favorite movies of all time.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: You know, it's incredible.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and then what are three films? It's three
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: of your favorite films of all time, three of.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: My favorite films. Well, god, that's so hard today today today,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: if I had, you know, I guess the Two Godfathers.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: That counts as one. That counts as one.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, that counts as one. Probably ekoru ever seen that?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Of course? Of course I love Yeah.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, I guess Casablanca. I would have to say.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: The message of that movie is just one of the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: most you know, it's it's humanity's best moment. You know,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: I think that that what happens in that movie.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: So, you know, Tom, it has been a pleasure talking
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: to you, my friend. Thank you so much again, Thank
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: you so much again for all those amazing filmmaking moments
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: you gave me coming up. And I'm dynasy your latest
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: movie when it comes out. But I appreciate you, my friend.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you again for all the knowledge and the wonderful stories.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: It's the real pleasure. I enjoyed it. Thanks.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Tom so much for coming on
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: the show and sharing his journey and knowledge with all
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: of us. Thank you so much. Tom. If you want
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: to get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: head over to the show notes at any film uscole
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: dot com, Forward slash seven sixty one, and if you
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: have it already, please head over to filmmaking podcast dot com.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: so much for listening. Guys, as always, keep that hustle going,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: talk to you soon.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle Podcast at
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: indiefilm hustle dot com.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: That's I N D
• 1:07:00
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• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: l E dot com.