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Meltdown Memories · Movie Meltdown

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Leah Thompson.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: You're listening to Movie Meltdown.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Brian, the host of Movie Meltdown. And these
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: are just a few snippets of interviews we've done with
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: some amazing guests over the years. like Nick Offerman talking
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: about one of his lesser-known roles.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: I think my work on Cursed by the great Wes Craven,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I was the dog catcher in a werewolf movie. And
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: if memory serves, the leads, Jesse Eisenberg, I remain friends with.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: I just saw him perform in a play he wrote
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: in London. He's one of those annoying talents that we
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: mentioned earlier.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Damn kids.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Smart son of a bitch uh but he um he
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: and that's where we met we became buddies and i
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: think was it him christina ricci yeah playing siblings yeah
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: so i think my role came about uh in reshoots
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: i think they had finished the movie then they decided
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: you know what this part isn't working let's reshoot part
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: of the ending or something and and i just came
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: up i think i just did one scene yeah And
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: it was on the Universal backlot on a hillside with, like,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: an animal control wagon. And it's, I mean, that's the
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: funny thing about the business. That reminds me of, you
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: just never know.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Sean Gunn discussing his immersion into film through the Troma World,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: which is kind of where we lead to, I guess,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: because you're, I mean, doing tons of theater study at
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that point, and then feature-wise you get thrown into the
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Troma World.
• 1:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah. What.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I guess what is your reaction to that? Cause it's
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: its own little world.
• 1:59
  Speaker 6: Well, I was in acting school when, when my brother
• 2:02
  Speaker 6: James was, uh, was brought on to write Tromeo and
• 2:06
  Speaker 6: Juliet and he contacted me. Um, and, and one of my,
• 2:11
  Speaker 6: my good friends, um, Valentine Mealy is still a good
• 2:14
  Speaker 6: friend and, um, you know, has, uh, he's a great
• 2:18
  Speaker 6: actor and has, uh, has some like small, but really
• 2:22
  Speaker 6: good roles. And, uh, and, subsequent movies of my brothers. Um, and, uh,
• 2:28
  Speaker 6: and he and I just went to New York to,
• 2:30
  Speaker 6: to do that movie. And we just thought it was
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: the coolest thing in the world because we were just
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: acting students, you know, and we're just like trying to
• 2:37
  Speaker 6: not get cut from our theater conservatory. Cause they do
• 2:40
  Speaker 6: that because I went to a school where they, you
• 2:43
  Speaker 6: have to be asked back. They like actually make cuts
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: at the end of each of the first two years.
• 2:47
  Speaker 6: They don't do that anymore, but they did when I
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: was there. Um, and, uh, And yeah, so we just
• 2:53
  Speaker 6: took the summer and went up and shot Tromeo and
• 2:57
  Speaker 6: it was a trip. I mean, uh, and then, you know,
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: it was a movie that people actually saw, like it
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: had a screening in Chicago for a long time. And, uh,
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: while he lived in Chicago, uh, but, um, Yeah, I
• 3:13
  Speaker 6: don't know. I think it was cool. It's nice having
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: a trauma movie be your first movie.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: It definitely gets you ready for the business.
• 3:22
  Speaker 6: It is. You don't have this shock of like, oh
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: my god, I've stepped into the big time. It's almost
• 3:28
  Speaker 6: like you're still pretending that you're making movies, even though
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: you actually made one.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: It was just Lloyd and whoever he could sucker into
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: doing things.
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: For the most part, yeah.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Basically, you and your friends go shoot a movie, only
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Lloyd got a little bit more money.
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: Well, Lloyd certainly is a mad scientist of sorts. He's
• 3:48
  Speaker 6: one of the brighter guys I've probably ever met. And
• 3:53
  Speaker 6: he's a great guy. But it was a heck of
• 3:57
  Speaker 6: a thing making that movie. There's a scene in that
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: movie where I get punched in the face. And if
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: you listen, the sound that it makes when I get
• 4:10
  Speaker 6: punched is the actual sound of my nose breaking when
• 4:13
  Speaker 6: I was getting punched in the face. Because the fight
• 4:17
  Speaker 6: choreography was not quite on point.
• 4:20
  Speaker 7: And so.
• 4:22
  Speaker 6: And it was Val, my very, very close friend, who
• 4:26
  Speaker 6: turned and just popped me. And apparently, they almost didn't
• 4:30
  Speaker 6: use the real sound because it sounded too fake. It
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: sounds like a balloon popping. It was just the actual
• 4:36
  Speaker 6: sound of my nose breaking. So yeah, that happened.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: That was fun.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I thought the hairstyle was going to be the worst thing.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Which I volunteered for.
• 4:44
  Speaker 6: I don't know why.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Did they already have that in mind?
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: No.
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: No, we were just like, what kind of? crazy hairstyle
• 4:52
  Speaker 6: can can we have because my because my brother knew
• 4:56
  Speaker 6: i would do it because i'm like i don't know
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: what it is i uh i have no problem humiliating
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: myself for that's a rough hairstyle or at least i
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: didn't used to when i was younger i don't know
• 5:07
  Speaker 6: that i would do it quite so much anymore i.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Was and again the car scene i assume that's where
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: they were going to kill you but no they'd already
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: broken your nose oh.
• 5:15
  Speaker 6: Yeah right no My death scene in, sorry for the spoilers.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: By now, let's hope. You only have 23 years to
• 5:22
  Speaker 6: see it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And it's a classical piece of literature.
• 5:25
  Speaker 6: But my death scene in Tromeo and Juliet is, I've
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: often said, the greatest scene in the history of American cinema.
• 5:36
  Speaker 8: It's drama.
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: That's empirically true. There's a group of students at MIT
• 5:40
  Speaker 6: who proved that.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Director Mick Garris talking about working with Stephen King on
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the overwhelming task that was making the stand.
• 5:47
  Speaker 9: I was totally intimidated by it. You know, the good
• 5:51
  Speaker 9: news though, was that it was one of my favorite
• 5:54
  Speaker 9: books of all time.
• 5:55
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 5:55
  Speaker 9: We had just done sleepwalkers together. And the reason he
• 6:00
  Speaker 9: came to me with it was because he really liked
• 6:02
  Speaker 9: what we had done with sleepwalkers, especially before.
• 6:05
  Speaker 7: The MPAA got old.
• 6:06
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:07
  Speaker 9: Um, And even more intimidating than that book is when
• 6:11
  Speaker 9: a 460-page script shows up on your doorstep.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, you are essentially making four or more movies.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Edited down, you're making four movies.
• 6:20
  Speaker 9: It was four movies, but you still have to shoot
• 6:22
  Speaker 9: it like one. You shoot out all the location in
• 6:26
  Speaker 9: one place, then you move to the next place. A
• 6:29
  Speaker 9: movie isn't shot in order. And especially something this lumbering.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Picking up all those shots in that location from... Yeah.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Four hours from now.
• 6:37
  Speaker 8: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: In the running time.
• 6:39
  Speaker 7: So yeah, that's huge.
• 6:42
  Speaker 9: So not only was the page count really intimidating, but
• 6:49
  Speaker 9: also the scope of it. I had only done things
• 6:51
  Speaker 9: on a small scale. You know, Critters 2 was the
• 6:54
  Speaker 9: biggest scope of anything I'd done before that.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say Epic is probably an understatement.
• 6:58
  Speaker 9: Understatement to be sure. And here we're doing like 600
• 7:02
  Speaker 9: extras on the streets of downtown Las Vegas.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:06
  Speaker 9: You know, the end of the world, basically. And I'd
• 7:08
  Speaker 9: never done anything approaching that scale. And even though it
• 7:13
  Speaker 9: was a healthy budget for a television miniseries in 1994,
• 7:19
  Speaker 9: it's still a very demanding.
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Project.
• 7:24
  Speaker 9: And, you know, CGI had just started being used. We
• 7:28
  Speaker 9: used a little bit of it there, and it was
• 7:30
  Speaker 9: still pretty primitive and all. But The only way you
• 7:36
  Speaker 9: can make a movie is to do it one day
• 7:38
  Speaker 9: at a time. It's like being a recovering alcoholic. You
• 7:42
  Speaker 9: take it one day at a time.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Actually, something like that, yeah. I guess that's the only
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: way to not be overwhelmed by it.
• 7:49
  Speaker 9: To not be overwhelmed by it is to have a
• 7:51
  Speaker 9: script that you know is great, and you break it
• 7:54
  Speaker 9: down into what the shooting schedule is going to be,
• 7:57
  Speaker 9: and you chip away at it. Literally, there was no
• 8:01
  Speaker 9: light at the end of the tunnel. All I saw
• 8:03
  Speaker 9: was tunnels.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Billy Dee Williams talking about his side career as a singer.
• 8:08
  Speaker 11: Back in those days, I worked with George Corey and
• 8:11
  Speaker 11: Douglas Cross who wrote I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
• 8:17
  Speaker 11: They were good friends of mine and they were sort
• 8:19
  Speaker 11: of gearing me up to become a chic east side
• 8:25
  Speaker 11: nightclub singer. A chanteur. And that was the period of
• 8:31
  Speaker 11: when there was People were really into lyrics and phrasing
• 8:38
  Speaker 11: and all that sort of stuff.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Director Monty Hellman on making Tulane Blacktop. Because that was
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: a very specific movement in cinema at that point was
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the car movie. Was it something that you were interested
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: in before that or is it.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Something that just happened?
• 8:50
  Speaker 12: It was just something that was offered to me and
• 8:54
  Speaker 12: it was a really kind of saccharine obnoxious screenplay. Well,
• 9:00
  Speaker 12: I like the idea.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: I like the idea.
• 9:01
  Speaker 12: I think what would appeal to me was the gambling aspect.
• 9:05
  Speaker 12: My father had been a gambler, and I felt an
• 9:09
  Speaker 12: interest in that, just kind of like born into it.
• 9:14
  Speaker 12: And then we just, as I did many times subsequently,
• 9:19
  Speaker 12: we just took that idea and made it into something
• 9:22
  Speaker 12: completely different.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner discussing when she realized she could make a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: living academically. From what little I know, your family was
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: a little different? Was the arts not encouraged for you?
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: No, no one in my family had ever been in
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: liberal arts, or shall I say performing arts, yes.
• 9:38
  Speaker 10: Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: No, Heaven Sibethi, when I went, I was at high
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: school in London, and I moved there, we all moved
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: there from Caracas, Venezuela, and it was already in my
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: mind that, you know, I wanted to act, but Of course,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: when I got to London and saw the theater there.
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: That was it.
• 10:00
  Speaker 10: I was a goner, you know.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: I think the first night I was in London, I
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: snuck out of the hotel and got a really cheap ticket,
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: you know, up in the Gods.
• 10:10
  Speaker 7: In the theater.
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: And it just hit me, well, I could make my.
• 10:14
  Speaker 10: Living doing this. I guess it never... It never quite
• 10:18
  Speaker 10: occurred to me that way before.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's, yeah, that's a defining moment for everybody.
• 10:22
  Speaker 10: We knew that we all had to make our way.
• 10:24
  Speaker 10: We didn't have any money or anything, so we were
• 10:27
  Speaker 10: all going to have to pay our rent.
• 10:28
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 10:28
  Speaker 10: But thinking, oh, my God, I can pay my rent
• 10:31
  Speaker 10: this way.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It's better than most jobs out there, I suppose.
• 10:35
  Speaker 13: I love it.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: So were you initially drawn to just, like, theater?
• 10:39
  Speaker 9: Oh, yes.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Or was it, like, growing up, were you into film
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: as well?
• 10:42
  Speaker 8: It was all theater?
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: No, I grew up mostly in Venezuela and everything, so...
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: There was very little in English. And I took a
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: couple of years to speak Spanish well enough to really
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: be able to watch films.
• 10:54
  Speaker 10: No, I've always been a reader, honestly.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: But then I moved to New York, you know, right
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: after I finished college. Well, hell, my car was packed already.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: You know, they gave me the diploma. I said, send
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: it to my mother.
• 11:07
  Speaker 10: Thank you.
• 11:07
  Speaker 8: You're ready to go.
• 11:08
  Speaker 10: I was ready.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: And then, I don't know, in the first year, It
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: took about six months to get an off-Broadway play, or
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: rather I should say off-off, and then about 10 months
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: to get a soap opera.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 11:25
  Speaker 10: And then 11 months I was on Broadway in Gemini.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: So I was racing to the studio at 6 o'clock
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: in the morning and then racing to the theater at
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: 6 o'clock at night.
• 11:35
  Speaker 10: And when you're 22, you know, you can do that stuff.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:38
  Speaker 10: It was great. It was absolutely great.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Again, there's not as much going on with that anymore,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: but that is such a training ground for actors.
• 11:46
  Speaker 10: It was good training for camera. I'd never done any
• 11:48
  Speaker 10: camera work.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Director John Waters on restoring and re-releasing his films, as
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: well as learning to shoot on those early cameras. I
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: know Criterion is doing a re-release on Multiple Maniacs.
• 12:00
  Speaker 13: Yep.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Guess how has it been dealing with them? And then,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I guess just.
• 12:05
  Speaker 13: Oh, they've been great. Are you kidding? I mean, you know, they...
• 12:09
  Speaker 13: you know, the very fact that Janice films distributed theatrically
• 12:12
  Speaker 13: and Criterion's doing the DVD Blu-ray releases is so phoronic
• 12:17
  Speaker 13: and where I've been a lifetime that's drowned in irony
• 12:20
  Speaker 13: because when I was really young in high school I
• 12:24
  Speaker 13: would go see the early Bergman movies and they would
• 12:26
  Speaker 13: always be Janice films presented and we would sip espresso
• 12:30
  Speaker 13: coffee in the art theaters and watch Bergman and Criterion,
• 12:34
  Speaker 13: you know, have such classy products. So they completely understood
• 12:38
  Speaker 13: the irony and restored Multiple Maniacs with great respect in
• 12:46
  Speaker 13: its ineptitude and in its teenage anger. And they were,
• 12:53
  Speaker 13: in the beginning, just wanted to make sure that I
• 12:55
  Speaker 13: wanted to restore it the way we did it, which
• 12:58
  Speaker 13: was to make it look as best as we could,
• 13:01
  Speaker 13: not keep every stretch, every dirt piece, every square 16
• 13:05
  Speaker 13: millimeter splice that showed. Because I didn't ever want it
• 13:09
  Speaker 13: to look like that. That was just the best I
• 13:11
  Speaker 13: could do at the time on $ 5, 000 when I was
• 13:14
  Speaker 13: learning how to make movies where nobody taught me except
• 13:17
  Speaker 13: one teamster guy that got us the equipment. So I
• 13:21
  Speaker 13: was learning how to do that completely. I mean, I
• 13:24
  Speaker 13: had never shot a lip-sync sound film in my life,
• 13:28
  Speaker 13: except the Diane Linklater story that wasn't a movie at all.
• 13:31
  Speaker 13: It was just... We rented the camera, but they had
• 13:33
  Speaker 13: to test it, and that's what we shot to test
• 13:36
  Speaker 13: the camera, basically. So I look back on it, and
• 13:39
  Speaker 13: I think, God, no wonder my parents were uptight.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: By the time you got to that movie, was that
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: your camera? Had you gotten your own 16mm?
• 13:49
  Speaker 13: No, that was a camera. I never... I still don't
• 13:51
  Speaker 13: own a camera. I, um.
• 13:55
  Speaker 13: No, we rented. I'm somehow from the film lab where
• 14:00
  Speaker 13: I got my black and white film developed always from
• 14:02
  Speaker 13: under trash. There was only one place in town called
• 14:04
  Speaker 13: Quality Film Labs. And he taught me kind of how
• 14:08
  Speaker 13: to do stuff. And he knew somebody that I believed
• 14:12
  Speaker 13: worked at a TV station that somehow I never asked,
• 14:16
  Speaker 13: got the equipment they used to shoot the news out
• 14:19
  Speaker 13: of there because this was before for videotape or anything
• 14:23
  Speaker 13: it was and so they used 16mm with magnetic stripe
• 14:27
  Speaker 13: sound on it to shoot the news every day so
• 14:31
  Speaker 13: it was a big camera with those two big like
• 14:33
  Speaker 13: Mickey Mouse ears and a big brace you wore on
• 14:37
  Speaker 13: your shoulder you were like I a Steadicam before Steadicam
• 14:43
  Speaker 13: and um He would rent us the equipment. I don't
• 14:48
  Speaker 13: know if the TV station knew that the camera was missing,
• 14:52
  Speaker 13: but I didn't care.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: He taught me how to do it, really.
• 14:56
  Speaker 13: It was really nice. It was just me and that
• 14:58
  Speaker 13: other person. And then all the scenes in Multiple Maniacs
• 15:02
  Speaker 13: that have voiceover or just music or shot silent with
• 15:06
  Speaker 13: a bow and held a kind of camera you have
• 15:07
  Speaker 13: to wind up. And they would just, that was the
• 15:10
  Speaker 13: same camera I shot Mondo Trash on, but I did
• 15:12
  Speaker 13: own that camera, yes. So sitting in my office right now,
• 15:14
  Speaker 13: I'm working on it.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: This is Peter Weller on probably his best known role.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, as far as RoboCop, I mean, when you
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: read through that the first time, was the satire already
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: there or was it straightforward?
• 15:25
  Speaker 8: No, that was already there. It was a brilliant script. And,
• 15:30
  Speaker 8: you know, I got a call from my agent Great
• 15:32
  Speaker 8: guy Rick Nesita said, hey, there's a film about a robot.
• 15:35
  Speaker 8: Maybe you want to do it, maybe not. Go meet
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: the director, Paul Verhoeven. He's a Dutch guy. He said,
• 15:38
  Speaker 8: you don't have to tell me who he is. I
• 15:39
  Speaker 8: knew who Paul Verhoeven was. I was a big fan
• 15:41
  Speaker 8: of him. Read the script. It was brilliant. And just
• 15:44
  Speaker 8: told Paul Verhoeven right up front, I want to do
• 15:46
  Speaker 8: this movie. And I know your movies. You wanted me
• 15:48
  Speaker 8: to test. I didn't test. And I conned him and
• 15:51
  Speaker 8: I kind of browbeat him into me doing it.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: How much of it did you add as far as character-wise?
• 15:59
  Speaker 8: Well, I added a lot with the help of Moni Akin. M-O-N-I-Y-A-K-I-N,
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: who's head of the movement department at Juilliard, who essentially
• 16:07
  Speaker 8: worked all that movement out. So six months of preparation
• 16:10
  Speaker 8: for that thing.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: The legendary Roger Corman on choosing talent and moving into
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: his role as producer. You picked some of the greatest
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: actors and directors and writers. Did you just feel like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: you had a knack for finding that, or is it
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: something that you had a whole structure set up as
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to bringing in new talent?
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: It was a combination of both.
• 16:29
  Speaker 14: I felt having been a director... I was better equipped
• 16:33
  Speaker 14: to judge new directors than producers, other producers who had
• 16:38
  Speaker 14: not been directors. But also we had a structure at
• 16:41
  Speaker 14: our studio where people would start and work up and
• 16:45
  Speaker 14: eventually become a director.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: When you switched over from director to focusing more on producing,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: was that an artistic decision or was it more just
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a business? Was it more work to do and you
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: found more creative in the producing?
• 17:00
  Speaker 8: I had directed.
• 17:02
  Speaker 15: I think 58, 59, almost 60 pictures in about 13,
• 17:07
  Speaker 15: 14 years, and I was just tired. I switched from
• 17:11
  Speaker 15: directing to producing, and I thought I will do this
• 17:14
  Speaker 15: for a year and then go back to directing, but
• 17:17
  Speaker 15: I started my own company, New World, and it became
• 17:21
  Speaker 15: successful right from the beginning, and I just stayed with producing.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Now this one is interesting because Yafet Kodo wasn't really
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: doing a lot of interviews in his later years. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: in fact, he even mentioned while we were talking to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: him that he was planning on moving out of the country.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: And shortly after that, he did. And then just a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: few years later, he passed away where he was living
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: in the Philippines. Now, I've only come across one other
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: print interview that was done around this time. So this
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: may very well have been his last audio interview. What
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: turned it for you that you really wanted to get
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: into that? When it wasn't something you were raised around,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: you know, being in the industry or anything, what made
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: you want to pursue at least acting in general?
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: A series of events that started with someone who was
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: born here, James Dean. I went to see a picture
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: when I was 15 years old entitled The Rebels Out
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: of Course and left the movie set of Blown into
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: Another Country. And then later on, as I was older,
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: looking for a job in Manhattan, during my time looking
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: for a job, on Times Square they used to have
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: these daters that you could do anything, go see anything.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: And one afternoon, looking for a job, I couldn't find one.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: I went to see a movie called On the Waterfront.
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: And then when I saw that, that sealed it for me.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: I said, I'm going to become an actor. I want
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: to be able to do what these guys did. Little
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: did I know, both of them are from Indiana. Marlon
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: Brando and James Dean, which is like a blessing to
• 18:59
  Speaker 5: the state to have such geniuses come from this one state.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: They always reference that era of when acting changed. At
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the time, I guess, did you feel like this was
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: something new and different? It's that Marlon Brando, James Dean,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that whole new wave of a different style of acting
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that came about.
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: I wasn't aware of the style. I only was aware
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: of the word, the active studio. And then I became
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: a member of the active studio. Didn't even realize I'd
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: become a member of the active studio. I became aware
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: of the style now that the system that created the
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: style is gone. The system is no longer here anymore.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: But I became aware of the actor's studio, and it
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: became something that the quest of every young actor then
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: was to say, I am a member of the actor's studio.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Here we have Ghost star Rose McGyver talking about her
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: acting choices. On that identity crisis, I mean, going in,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: you knew the premise, but how prepared were you for
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: how much you were going to have to throw at...
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, every week, it's... kind of a dream for
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: an actress but at the same time there's a lot
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: throwing at you were you prepared and how wrong were
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: you by the end.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Of that i had absolutely no idea which was probably
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: very lucky because it could be very intimidating um yes
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: it is a dream it's like you know going into
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: the sort of tickle trunk or whatever you call it
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: do you guys know that word where it's like costumes
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: i think you do yeah i think it's a canadian
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: thing that's what they used to say out there a
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: lot but um But being able to go in and, like,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: pull out a different costume each week and play this
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: different thing, it's really fun, but it is definitely an
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: intimidating prospect. So I was quite happy that we moved
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: so quickly. I didn't have time to think, really, or
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: get too intimidated by it. And, yeah, I don't think
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: they knew either going into it quite how much because
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: it wasn't something from the comic that was very heavily
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: focused on and it just became a device that worked
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: so well for the show.
• 20:56
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: And one other thing I would say is that we
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: have been so supported by Chris Robertson and Michael Allred
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: who created iZombie the comic. And that has been just
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: the biggest blessing because when the person of the original
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: property gets behind all the departures you've made from their
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: material as well and recognizes that it needs to work
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: differently in order to work as a TV show but
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: still have the heart or some of the concepts from
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the thing, it's just been like such a blessing and
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: kind of rare by the sounds of things that it's
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: championed by those people.
• 21:25
  Speaker 7: So I'm very grateful to them.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: This is Malcolm McDowell talking about director Lindsay Anderson.
• 21:31
  Speaker 7: The fact is, they're all Lindsay Anderson movies. And he
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: is the star, he is the motivator, and he is
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: the manipulator, if you like, in all of them. But
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: of course, the great thing about Lindsay Anderson was that
• 21:48
  Speaker 7: he was also a poet. So they have this majestic feel,
• 21:53
  Speaker 7: this picaresque quality, which you It's so hard to do,
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: you know. It's such a beautiful style that he had.
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: And funny, amusing, and just really beautiful. And, you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: I'm so lucky that I was part of his movies.
• 22:15
  Speaker 7: He also made a movie before, called This Sporting Life,
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: which is one of the great films based in a
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: sport environment. that's ever made. It stars Richard Harris. It's
• 22:28
  Speaker 7: Richard's greatest performance, in my opinion. That's a really beautiful film. And,
• 22:35
  Speaker 7: you know, we were very lucky, really, to have worked
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: with such a great man.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Here we have makeup artist and director Greg Nicotero talking
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: about getting involved in the business and meeting Tom Savini.
• 22:46
  Speaker 16: So that's kind of how we became friends, was that
• 22:50
  Speaker 16: I was just like, George Romero needs this movie. I
• 22:52
  Speaker 16: have to make it for him immediately. And then, of course,
• 22:56
  Speaker 16: just one thing led to another. And I stayed in
• 22:58
  Speaker 16: touch with him. And then when they started shooting Creepshow,
• 23:01
  Speaker 16: they called. And they're like, hey, we're doing this movie.
• 23:04
  Speaker 16: Do you want a PA job? And I was like, well,
• 23:07
  Speaker 16: this is 1981. And I said, well, the only issue
• 23:13
  Speaker 16: is that I'm graduating from high school. And I'm going to.
• 23:17
  Speaker 8: Go to college. But thank you. And they said, well,
• 23:20
  Speaker 8: you should come visit.
• 23:22
  Speaker 10: Maybe it was 1980 actually it.
• 23:23
  Speaker 16: Wasn't 81 it was 1980 and they said you should
• 23:28
  Speaker 16: come visit so I went okay so the first time
• 23:30
  Speaker 16: I went to visit I it was they were shooting
• 23:33
  Speaker 16: at an old abandoned factory in Monroeville like 10 minutes
• 23:38
  Speaker 16: from the Monroeville mall yeah and I pull up and
• 23:43
  Speaker 16: I walk into this giant warehouse and they had built
• 23:46
  Speaker 16: all the sets for the crate remember the episode where
• 23:48
  Speaker 16: they go in the basement of the university and the
• 23:50
  Speaker 16: crate's under the steps So they built all that. It
• 23:52
  Speaker 16: was all a set that was built in a warehouse.
• 23:54
  Speaker 16: So I remember walking in and I walked through. I
• 23:58
  Speaker 16: walked onto the set. There were no security guards or anything.
• 24:00
  Speaker 16: It was just this kid like, hey, well.
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: It's Monroeville.
• 24:03
  Speaker 16: And I turned around and walked back out and in
• 24:07
  Speaker 16: the corner of that warehouse was Tom Savini's lab.
• 24:11
  Speaker 8: And that's when I met Tom. And we got to
• 24:14
  Speaker 8: be friends.
• 24:17
  Speaker 11: Very, very good friends.
• 24:19
  Speaker 16: So much so that we spent a lot of time
• 24:22
  Speaker 16: just hanging out and I would go and visit and,
• 24:24
  Speaker 16: and he would let me.
• 24:25
  Speaker 8: Come and watch while they were building everything.
• 24:27
  Speaker 16: I would just hang out. And so of course, a
• 24:31
  Speaker 16: couple of years go by, I stay in touch with
• 24:34
  Speaker 16: George and Tom and I stay in touch and.
• 24:37
  Speaker 8: Day of the dead comes up.
• 24:39
  Speaker 16: So it's now July of 1984. And I go to
• 24:44
  Speaker 16: visit George for lunch and he's like, Hey, we just
• 24:45
  Speaker 16: got a green light on the day of the dead.
• 24:47
  Speaker 16: Do you want a job?
• 24:48
  Speaker 8: And I was like, okay.
• 24:49
  Speaker 16: I already made this fucking mistake once. I'm not going
• 24:53
  Speaker 16: to make it again. So I said, yes. And at
• 24:57
  Speaker 16: this point, I had been in college for three years
• 25:00
  Speaker 16: because it was three years. Yeah, it was three years
• 25:03
  Speaker 16: between four years between the two. And I was pre-med
• 25:07
  Speaker 16: and I had one more year to go before I
• 25:08
  Speaker 16: was going to graduate and go off to college. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 16: I went to my folks and I said, hey, so
• 25:13
  Speaker 16: funny story. I'm going to take a semester off school.
• 25:16
  Speaker 16: I'm going to work on this movie. And then I'm
• 25:18
  Speaker 16: going to go back and finish. I'm going to be
• 25:19
  Speaker 16: a doctor, so I don't have anything to worry about.
• 25:21
  Speaker 16: And then I called Savini, and I said, listen, I
• 25:23
  Speaker 16: just got hired on Day of the Dead. I want
• 25:24
  Speaker 16: to be your assistant. I want to be your apprentice.
• 25:28
  Speaker 16: And George and the producers loved that idea because that
• 25:32
  Speaker 16: allowed me to order all the supplies, sift through the resumes,
• 25:37
  Speaker 16: break down the scripts, sort of kind of coordinate the department.
• 25:41
  Speaker 16: And it left Tom sort of free to just be
• 25:43
  Speaker 16: Tom Savini, which at that time he was really fucking
• 25:47
  Speaker 16: good at.
• 25:48
  Speaker 8: He's still good at it. He's still Tom Savini. So
• 25:51
  Speaker 8: that's how I got hired.
• 25:52
  Speaker 16: It was kind of a complete sort of fluke that
• 25:56
  Speaker 16: it happened. And, you know, the rest, I never went
• 26:00
  Speaker 16: back to school.
• 26:01
  Speaker 8: Your parents are still upset.
• 26:03
  Speaker 16: My parents were never upset, which is interesting because my
• 26:07
  Speaker 16: parents were more like, listen, he's a smart kid. He's
• 26:10
  Speaker 16: got a good head on his shoulders. whatever he does.
• 26:13
  Speaker 16: I ended up dating a script supervisor who was 10
• 26:17
  Speaker 16: years older than me. I moved to New York when
• 26:19
  Speaker 16: we wrapped Day of the Dead and then within a
• 26:20
  Speaker 16: year I was in Los Angeles. So my parents were
• 26:23
  Speaker 16: never like, oh my God, we've lost him. My parents
• 26:26
  Speaker 16: were like, he's a smart kid. He's got a good
• 26:29
  Speaker 16: head on his shoulders.
• 26:30
  Speaker 8: He'll be fine.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And finally, director Alex Cox talking about finding movies that
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: he responded to. I guess at what point did you
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: start like, seeking out different films and like from that
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: point on where you're already looking for stuff that was
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: sort of not the norm maybe I mean we all
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: kind of find our weird little sub-genres and everything as.
• 26:51
  Speaker 17: Soon as I could as soon as I could pass
• 26:53
  Speaker 17: for 16 I started going to see like adult films
• 26:56
  Speaker 17: you know because I was hoping to see naked girls
• 26:58
  Speaker 17: of course that's how all kids get started I'm pretty
• 27:00
  Speaker 17: sure and but instead I found myself like going to
• 27:04
  Speaker 17: see like Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and Dementia 13
• 27:11
  Speaker 17: and endless Italian westerns. And even occasionally, weirdly enough, sometimes
• 27:18
  Speaker 17: a quality foreign film would somehow get distribution in England. Accidentally.
• 27:24
  Speaker 17: Melville's The Samurai with Alain Delon, dubbed in English in
• 27:28
  Speaker 17: our local cinema.
• 27:28
  Speaker 7: That's weird.
• 27:29
  Speaker 17: I don't know how that managed to sneak through. But yeah,
• 27:32
  Speaker 17: so that was it really.
• 27:33
  Speaker 11: So it was sort of.
• 27:36
  Speaker 17: gradual, you know, immersion in films. And I really, I
• 27:42
  Speaker 17: loved films. I thought they were just marvelous. It was
• 27:44
  Speaker 17: the most fun I could imagine was like watching a
• 27:46
  Speaker 17: film or going to a film or being part of
• 27:49
  Speaker 17: a film somehow. But I never expected I would.
• 27:51
  Speaker 8: Films.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: They were the most fun I could imagine. That kind
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: of says it all.
• 27:56
  Speaker 8: And that's what we.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Usually come back to here on Movie Meltdown. A genuine
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: love of filmmaking and the way that we all connect
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: through the movies that we love. Thank you for listening.