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Behind The Film: Trust Me, I'm a Doctor with Thane Economou · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Indie Film Weekly.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Behind the film, I'm Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm Jason Connell.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_02: Today we're going behind Trust Me, I'm a Doctor from writer-director Fane Economo.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: Cal Penn plays Anna Nicole Smith's Doctor, caught in a criminal case and a tabloid frenzy.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Linda Hamilton and Abby Cornish also star.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: I really love the way the film lets Kapoor tell his story and then has his lawyer interrupt whenever he gets too comfortable.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's really funny.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It keeps us wondering how much of his version we should really believe.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: So let's meet Thane Economo and go behind Trust Me, I'm a Doctor.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thane, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So every film starts somewhere.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Where did Trust Me I'm a Doctor start for you?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This one started when my producer, Ryan Hawkins, put this memoir in my hands and said, Can you make heads or tails of this?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a take on it?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked at the book, and honestly speaking, I'm looking at the cover, my life before and after Anna Nicole Smith, and a picture of the doctor and Anna on the cover.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Is this gonna be something salacious?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is this something that I'm interested in?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I get about 30 pages into the memoir, and it's heartbreaking.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Anna Nicole Smith has passed away, but I'm 30 pages in, I'm looking and I'm saying, Well, what's the rest of this book gonna be?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I did not know this story, I did not know about this trial or Dr.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Kapoor.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I found myself just utterly just transfixed by it and just pulled in.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I was getting fascinated by the rabbit holes I was going down in terms of research and everything.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I returned back to my producer and I said, This is interesting, but it's interesting, I think, for reasons people normally wouldn't think, which is that Dr.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Kapoor is not at the center of like a great conspiracy.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's not at even at the center of this story.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is about what it feels like when you have like a tangential brush with fame, and then you just get sucked into the whirlwind.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I think that's I think that's an interesting way into the story.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he's an interesting character that we can follow.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: And what made you take the dark comedy route, which I love, but I mean, it was that always like right there, like, oh, that's the style.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how did you find that tone?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: That was me reading the memoir.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was in my head from the moment I was reading it, where I was having these, yes, moments of like heartbreak and despair, but then there's also moments later on in the trial where I'm chuckling to myself that I can't believe what's happening.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe the evidence that's being presented.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the character of Kapoor himself, which is filled with a lot of self-deprecation.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I sometimes refer to him as like a Cohen Brothers-esque protagonist, the kind of guy who makes like one fatal error, and then everything spins out of control, and he keeps tripping over his own feet into holes that he's digging.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then the kind of the final thing with the tone is when you kind of look at Anna Nicole Smith, this was a life that was full of fun, and she was funny and it was full of love, and to feel like what it was to be like in her presence, which is what I really wanted to get that feeling, especially in the first part of the film, that has to be light and airy and funny and fun.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to be able to capture the highs and the lows of her life and Kapoor's journey.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: So going back to the beginning, Kapoor starts with a story about saving a woman at Denny's.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Ellen immediately interrupts to ask what this has to do with Anna.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Was that how you showed us how he wants to present himself?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, true story from the memoir that I'm having the same reaction when I'm reading it is saying, Why are we talking about saving someone's life in Denny's?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the movie wants you to question why Kapoor is presenting this to you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: He is, in many ways, an unreliable narrator.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He is someone who is kind of very flawed, but he makes mistakes.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: He covers up things that he shouldn't cover up.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: He lies about things, he hides things he shouldn't hide.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think in a lot of ways, I was gifted just the perfect title via the memoir and also the words on the t-shirt he wore when he partied with his patient at the Pride Parade, which is trust me, I'm a doctor.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, in many ways, I do want my audience questioning if they can, in fact, trust him.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: It is a great title, I have to say.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: Love it.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so, what movies would you say, like, you know, it's this meets this, or what came to mind is inspiration, the style?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: You spoke to the tone, but did you have anything that stood out?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I kind of want to do this, but deviate and make it your own, of course.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've always loved this sort of sub-genre of tackling a true story with every tool in the arsenal because perhaps the story is very complex emotionally or in terms of the fact.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Social network was an immediate one that jumped to mind to me.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love Itanya, I love Wolf of Wall Street.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a fan of these films that are willing to break the rules, break the fourth wall, in order to really immerse you into the story.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And perhaps the ultimate like load stars, Goodfellas.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all kind of are always trying to trying to make goodfellas.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Great references theme, by the way.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: All those movies are fantastic.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if we if we can nerd out a bit, I mean, those are my more the conversations I would have with department heads and especially about the visual style.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to get into thematics, there were two movies that I did play for department heads, which was the first one was Quizhow, which I think is perhaps one of my favorite films, and a film that really deals with the same kind of ideas of the intersection of the justice system and entertainment and government and the ways in which culture is changing at a faster rate than I think the people in the story are realizing.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's also Quizhow about a story of people making very human mistakes that snowball.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, underrated, by the way, that movie.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly making people watch Quisho.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one, little scene, but one of my favorite films is Shattered Glass.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh good.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is an excellent film about the ways that lies can snowball and the ways in which culture kind of can mediate outwards.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Shattered Glass and Quishow, huge for me.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: I saw Shattered Glass in the theater and I have been singing its praises ever since.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you want to revisit it all the time.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's these types of films that you just kind of want to, did I miss something?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you go on the journey again.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: So those are great, great references.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you have the memoir, but how did you research events that he didn't witness himself?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Was that some of that in the memoir?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or did you have to kind of go beyond and investigate?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I went well beyond.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: I went well beyond the memoir.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: For one, just because the memoir is very straightforward.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's told chronologically, it is the events of the trial as Kapoor saw them.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So beyond that, the first thing I wanted to do is I wanted to, as best as I could, understand and give a full three-dimensional view of Anna Nicole Smith.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: That involved reading a stack of books this tall.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's a podcast, but this tall, I'm doing twice the size of my head, and watching everything I could have heard, her entire filmography, everything from skyscraper to exposed, all the Ray Martino pictures.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: I also found it important to watch documentaries, watch the Anna Nicole show, go deep into the internet archives and find old TMZ TV.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what would they have been reporting on in the days surrounding this?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I even went down to the LA courthouse.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'd get in court documents related to this case.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: To me, I wanted to always be able to fall back on the truth whenever I could.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if I'm approaching something like this, where I do believe that the truth is crazier than fiction, I wanted to use as much as possible of the truth as I could.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever there was an opportunity to take the easy route and fictionalize something, I wanted to dig in and say, like, yes, but this actually happened, and I think there's a way that I can put this on screen that will make this far easier.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Now, how did you go about getting Cal Pen and Linda Hamilton in the film, which were great choices?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: With Cal Penn, I had producers that had worked with him before and felt that this was the kind of project that he would love.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It script got into his hands.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's he was the list.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's exactly who I wanted.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um the thing I always say with Cal Pen is I do love his comedic work, but I really like his dramatic work, especially in the namesake.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I knew he could do it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He could obviously do it.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's such a talented actor and such a bright guy.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I always felt that Cal Penn has a very comforting screen presence.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a reason that audiences like to watch him and like to follow him.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to set the movie on the right first foot of having someone that the audience won't mind getting into his head, especially if he starts to make decisions that they themselves start to question.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of how we got it to Cal.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he came on board and was instantly wanting to be as collaborative as possible.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he said, if I come on board day one, I need to fly to Los Angeles and shadow Dr.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Kapoor for a day.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I need to like get into his head, I need to speak to his parents.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that was great.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then with Linda, you know, you have to credit our incredible casting team.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Is they pretty quickly put together a list and I saw Linda's name and I said, I think that's it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's in terms of like I need a very, you know, someone who is comforting and has, you know, a human side to them, but at the same time, also can turn on that intimidation.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like really put the fear of God into you.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I found with Linda, and it worked out great.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Especially the two of them together.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I find that their chemistry is like nothing I I would have thought in pre-production.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, really fireworks.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd like the diary scene.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when they're reading the diary, it's very different when he reads it aloud versus when they read it aloud.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: How did you direct Cal through the embarrassment of hearing his private words being somebody else's evidence?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: We spent a tremendous amount of time on that scene, really digging into what was Kapoor thinking, not only in that room, you know, when it's being read aloud by his own lawyers, but also what was he thinking when he wrote it and what was he thinking on the day when he was experiencing it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about how the embarrassment of having those words read out loud was even worse because of how good he felt during the parade and how free he felt during the parade, and the way that this has come back around onto him.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that came up was that Cal brought up is he said, if this is being read in the lawyer's office, he knows it's being read in the prosecution's office.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he knows in some way that it's going to be read by everyone in the world.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's also a sense of dread to hearing those words start to creep out and to get an idea of just what the prosecution's case is going to be against him and using his own dang words as the evidence.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: So was that the toughest day, the production day, or was there another day that comes to mind that was like, oh my gosh, we got to get through this?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, there is a production day that was harder than just about anything I've ever done, which is the Pride Parade.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna ask if that was a lot to handle.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Pride Parade, you're reading the book, you say, Well, this is kind of an essential moment.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is a huge moment in his life, in the case, in the story of his relationship with Anna, where he's invited to ride on the float in the 2005 Wii Ho Gay Pride Parade, alongside Anna, that ends up leading to a night that ends up leading to many mistakes.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: But we wanted to show it, and there were these early conversations of do we use the volume?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are we going to use a lot of CG?
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Should we fake it, you know, in another country if we're shooting somewhere else?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And because I'm an insane person, I said, well, why don't we shoot it in the actual Pride Parade?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that started a conversation.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And to their credit, the Wii Ho Pride Parade was very encouraging and welcoming.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we booked ourselves afloat.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we got a 2005 Erasab and put Cal and Abby in costume and rode them through the Wii Ho Pride Parade.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's awesome.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in terms of production design, the things you can't buy are hundreds of thousands of extras and laurel hardware and out of the closet in the background.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was so important to give that sense of space and that real LA bright feel to it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, like conversations with Cal and Abby is they were like, that felt different.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: That felt fundamentally different.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'd have been on a process trailer or if we'd have been in front of the volume, because we could feel what it felt like to be them that day.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: For Abby to hear people screaming out, because they don't know who's in the car and who's going by, Anna, Anna, Anna.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for Cal to be this guy who Cal himself is not the type of guy to be riding through a parade and to feel those emotions of people screaming at you, that all just added to the performances.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I was wondering because that's where he starts imagining that those cheers are for him as well.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so, how did you stage that change so we feel the appeal of the attention as well as his bad judgment?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it was performance that Cal is giving that via voiceover, via the performance.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was important to me from the cinematography working with DP Bobby Shore.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said he was handling the camera that day.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I think I know how to kind of get in.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna completely change.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've been doing a lot of Dolly, we've been doing a lot of tripod, we've been on sticks, but for those shots, kind of getting into his world, we went, he went handheld, he's on the sob, he's getting close to him.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it really starts to feel like you get into Kapoor's head like you've never been before.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was again, I always go back to the truth.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was blessed with a lot of very interesting, very revealing lines from the memoir.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So those cheers and adoration and rock hard abs, I started to feel they were for me, is a direct quote from the memoir.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's fantastic.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I could see how that was your most challenging day for sure.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was fun, though.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to imagine with something like that, is the entire crew had to be in dress as well.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because if any of us got caught, so that day I'm looking fabulous, I'm in a tank top.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: We had created 2005 era pride shirts that the entire crew, AD, director, DP, everyone's wearing.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: So at times Ellen interrupts challenges and sometimes takes over the story.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Did you establish rules for who controls the narration, or did you find that rhythm in the edit later?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: I found as best I could that rhythm in the script.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was fairly important to have an understanding of how I wanted to present this non-chronological order.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so we really tightened as much as possible it at a script level.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the final cut of the film is shockingly close in terms of even jumping around non-chronologically to what we had in the script.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to get lost in the kind of the murk and bog of not having a handle on how I wanted to do this chronologically, or in this case, non-chronologically.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so those conversations with the actors, with the AD were intensely important to understand who is talking to whom and at what time.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I needed everyone to be able to understand that from get-go.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was important to have that at the script level to say, at this moment, Kapoor's talking to Ellen.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: At this moment, this is a VO to the audience, and just try our best to tighten it at the script level with the understanding that then once people are in the theater, they could just kind of feel it and not have to overthink it.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, as we transition out of the production into distribution, I do want to ask, because music is always a key component in movies.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: What was it like working with your composer and just the entire music team?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had a great time.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: I worked with two composers, Daniel Stockdale and Niles Dwar.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Niles also goes by the name DJ Kashmir.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a fan of his.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was something that I wanted a bit more of an electronic sound.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted someone who could give me that feel of 2005-2007.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Niles is actually the producer and he wrote like a G6.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is a guy who knows how to make it sound like 2007.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel, on the other hand, is an excellent composer that I worked with early on to talk about our inspirations for more of the kind of the orchestral score.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept bringing us back to things like Philip Glass.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I really wanted something that gave us a propulsive energy.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the relationship between Daniel and Niles, and they worked together quite often, was great because they were passing back scenes back and forth to each other.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we needed something that was more electronic, we needed something that was more poppy.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Niles was on it.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Daniel was taking the more emotional scenes, and then the three of us were working in collaboration with a lot of the music actually completed before we rapped.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I was able to go into the edit with a lot of their music.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: I love that you were going after a 2005 and 2007 timeline, which to me is crazy.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's 20 years ago.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's just nuts, but it was a different time.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, though, the conversations I had with even like my prop department to be like, hey, is there any way you can get your hands on an iHome?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, yeah.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I go to this antique store and they've I can get one.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, as someone who grew up in that time, it was fun.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was fun to see it on screen and just to see people's eyes light up when you brought out an original edition iPod, you know, and and uh stuff like that.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or those giant.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: If you've have you heard different reactions from people who remember the original coverage and people who are just like for the encountering these people for the first time.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: For people that remember it, I'm constantly getting just a shock.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what it felt like to watch television in 2005-2007.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was something we wanted to capture.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I did the research, I wanted to get it right, I wanted to get it totally right with our performers.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: The actor of the police, Harvey Levin, Elon Gold, is giving like an eerly Harvey Levin performance, like that was weird being out in those days.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, yeah.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: But also from a visual perspective, um, my my DP Bobby and I were like kids in a candy store playing with all the different cameras from the era.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So anything TMZ, we're shooting on betacam, but we're also using a mixture of Super 8.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And for the films, we're using 16 mil, and we're just we're using everything at our disposal to really try to visually put you in that that place.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: That is fantastic.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: I love that the realism, and you actually get to do it.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: You're by geeking out the whole time.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's like so much fun.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, we were having a great time.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I I see that Blair Cliff is releasing this film in theaters October 16th.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Now, how did that partnership come together?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were fortunate to be have the film repped at UTA through their independent film division, and it did early on the decision, these are people above my pay grade, but they were like, I think this is an entertaining film.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a film that's going to connect with audiences.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We feel that this should be in theaters.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what we want to do is we want to go directly to distributors.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't really go the film festival round.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: The decision was made, said, doesn't feel like that kind of movie.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like the kind of movie we want to get in front of people as soon as possible.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was put in front of distributors, and there were more than a handful of bites.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: But Briar Cliff came to us, and the thing that I love about Briar Cliff is this is a distribution company that is not afraid of risks.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Briar Cliff famously released The Apprentice when no one else wanted to release it.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: They've released films like Sovereign and magazine dreams that have various degrees of controversy, you know, surrounding them.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sovereign, especially, was a big sell for me.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Nick Offerman Sovereign Citizen movie that I adore.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they were able to say to us is say, listen, this is a film, it might pick up some controversy.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's about real people, some of whom are still alive.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: You have a character at the center who is at times unreliable, at times untrustworthy, but we have full faith in the art of the film, and we think that audiences are gonna gravitate towards us, so we want to put it in theaters.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, as a filmmaker, as an indie filmmaker, in 2026, someone says theaters, and um I get very adamant, and so they put their weight behind it, and we are gonna be on 600 screens nationwide.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you're making a film, everyone thinks about a film in terms of watching it on the largest screen possible.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also an independent filmmaker in 2026.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know the vast majority of the time my film is watched is on a television set, God willing, and not someone's I watch.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they had faith in the product, and I've been beyond pleased with how the rollout's been.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's great.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: And The Apprentice is actually a great comp for you, I would think.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_02: Which I really enjoyed.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it was something we thought about.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was something in terms of its use of mixed media, it's a film that's willing to put, I mean, sometimes unsavory at the center of its story, but it's also a film that is unafraid to poke the bear, you know, so to speak.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So totally, absolutely.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the the fact that they had taken that on put a lot of faith in me into them.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Have the early viewers differed on their sympathy level for Kapoor?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like the film invites you to sympathize with them, you know, without treating every choice as he makes it sound.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: How are you finding that?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finding that we're getting a lot of people talking about conversations on the drive home.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where people are leaving the film, couples, and then a Talk to them a few days later, or you know, and they'll say, you know, we got to talking, and I thought he was far more innocent than my wife did.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a response to the film is inviting you to ask those questions.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is actually an important part of the film.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's called Trust Me, I'm a Doctor.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to ask these questions.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: The best kind of read that someone said to me about it is he said after watching the film, I believe Dr.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Kapoor is guilty of a great many things, but not the crimes he's accused of.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never want to tip my own hand on this, and I want audiences to get in there, but I think that is coming closest to what I want the audience wrestling with as they come out of it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: That this is a guy who has pulled into this media circus trial well beyond anything he could have ever imagined, with forces going all the way up to the highest government in California and including tabloid culture at the height of its power.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And yet he is also a person who made very, very real mistakes.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: But also the flip side of that is, and I have him question the audience uh would you have done the exact same thing in the exact same position?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are these just what happens if you're a flawed human being who is, as Cal puts it, Cal has this great thing that he says about the character.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says there's a yin and yang with Dr.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Kapoor between his deep insecurity and his deep love of attention.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the vacillation between the two is where the mistakes get made.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Than that is fantastic.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell since this was given to you to read, you've just been consumed by this project, every single aspect of it, you know, from the music to the casting to the research.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've been living with it, so probably exciting to finally see it come out.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: And super excited.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: I cannot wait for it to hit the theaters and beyond and all the success.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: But we're gonna pivot now to the theatrical experience, which you spoke to, which is so spot on and is a big part of this podcast.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: So these are called quick cuts, 10 rapid fire questions, nothing to do with your film, just the theatrical experience.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, after all that, after all that courtroom testimony, we have these 10 questions shouldn't require you know as much preparation at all.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Jason, go ahead with the first one.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, popcorn or candy?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Popcorn, butter or no butter, butter.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nice aisle seat or center seat, center and how many trailers are too many?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Let's not go above six.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's fair.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they repeat.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: You're just like, wait a second.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Matinee or late night screening.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Matinee.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And favorite movie theater either now or when you were growing up.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: The Vista.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Quentin Tianantino owns it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's some handprints out front.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: I gotta just do a little sidebar here.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was responsible for getting four of those handprints done.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like really Carl Gottlieb did Jaws.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: I had John Landis there, Velmos Zygman, rest in peace.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: I ran a film festival at the Vista for many years.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I love the Vista.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a beautiful theater.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it's always had the balance.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is to me a theater palace, but it also is a neighborhood theater in the ways that the other theater palaces aren't.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so now in its modern era of everything on film, it's even better.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's even better.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: No parking lot.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: You just gotta wing it.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I mean, yes, that is a problem.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's also, by the way, a problem that the good luck bar isn't open next door anymore.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was a great before the movie, after the movie, the good luck bar.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So many drinks.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And our plan was always we would have a drink in the good luck bar until the line for the movie reached the door of the good luck bar, and then now we're in line.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's so great.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's awesome.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, what was the first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Hook.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_02: Silber hook.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's the movie you've seen the most times in a theater?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is embarrassing.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is embarrassing, but it's a fact.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's the room.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Tommy Weiss knows the room.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've seen I think maybe 14 times.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is when I first moved out to Los Angeles with my buddies, it became our thing.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we went about once a month for a year.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were dressing up in costume.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've got pictures of myself dressed up as Tommy next to Tommy.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was just billboard on Highland forever, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: The billboard was still up.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: This was the old Sunset V days where Tommy would sell out all five screens of the Sunset V once a month, and there was an energy to it, and it was just a way.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I met friends through it, and then by the end of that year of watching it, I discovered one of my roommates in his room watching it alone and practicing things to yell out.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Time out.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've done our pull the plug on the room.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, um, and then the other I do have to give a very special shout out.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: If we're talking about watching a film in a theater too many times, yes, again, nothing's gonna top the room at way too many.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I did see my Big Fat Greek wedding eight times in theaters.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're wondering how that movie made that much money, you're looking at you, Thane.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: You understand?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was me and my Big Fat Greek family going to see it over and over again.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so I am the kind of person to revisit films and theaters more than once for sure.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Thane, that's probably the greatest answer we've gotten for that question.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: But so glad.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: What was the last movie you saw in a theater?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Other than your own?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Odyssey.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about for me finally getting a chance to see it in proper IMAX.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um thumbs up or thumbs up or thumbs down?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thumbs up, thumbs up.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the Odyssey, I had a great time.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great experience.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have a couple quibbles with the script, but I think it all kind of comes together and it's such a singular vision.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: I also, by the way, have an I have a one-year-old, so it was hard for me to get to the theater this year, but that was very much a I need to carve out time to make sure I saw the Odyssey.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we heard your one-year-old.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: So cute.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I got a one-year-old and a five-year-old, and they are up and around and running the wall.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: You've done amazing thing to miss this along.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Thane, you have years ahead of you of going to see Disney and Pixar movies.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a 10-year spread where like that's pretty much all I saw in the theater for a decade.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: It has started with the five-year-old.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things, you know, being a film nerd and a parent that was very important to me is as best as I could curating what she's watching.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I do have to say, I'm very proud to say that I might have the only kindergartner in her class that's watched silent films very early on when she was about two.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was going through a Buster Keaton phase, and um, I was like, this is appropriate.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she can watch this with me.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's great.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll set her down.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: She can watch her black and white, she can watch her 2D animated, and I'm proud of how her movie watching.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Future filmmaker, right?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's well, I was gonna say let's hope so, but then sometimes sometimes I wonder, you know, a doctor would be really nice.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: A doctor with uh yeah, an interest in film.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a doctor who eventually wants to invest in film.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think there you go.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: An investor, an EP, the all the ultimate fantasy, yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we have one more question.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's called the Final Cut, and Glenn, take it away.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: So Kapoor struggles to be honest with his father, with his family.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was curious what did those family scenes reveal to you about him?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And is there any pulling from your own family, your own experiences with regard to that?
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, just to go macro, I mean, this is a story about the intersection between private and public lives.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you on the one hand you have Anna Nicole Smith who lived perhaps the most public life of any public figure of her time.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And on the other hand, you have Dr.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Kaboor who starts off as well, a kind of a nobody, just a doctor in the valley who doesn't really want attention, and then he gets sucked in, and slowly his life gets exposed, and he starts to maybe like it and dislike parts of it, but his journals get leaked to the press.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is a person who is keeping uh his true self a secret, even from his own parents, that he's incredibly close to.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's closeted at the time.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: His parents don't know that he's gay.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I was reading the memoir, I knew that that had to be a part of the narrative.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: If we're telling this story about the secrets that we tell and the difference between our private and public lives, then part of this journey is we need to get him to a place where he can talk about this with his father, which it's also in the memoir, but not in intense detail.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had many conversations with Kapoor about what those conversations with his father were like, about revealing his true self, about coming out to his father, as did Cal.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Cal had great conversations talking to Kapoor about the ways in which their stories are the same but different.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And together Cal and I were able to write this version of the scene that was pulled from, you know, the experiences that Kapoor had.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was through the conversations that Cal had had with him.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then for myself, I think all of us keep things to ourselves.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all of us have a fear of having our true self seen.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I certainly pulled from whatever was inside of me when I was writing it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly pulled from an element of that scene as he talks about his fear of letting down his children or losing his children.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, had one child, but she was awfully young about the age of his children in the film.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so between all of that, it was a matter of everyone kind of putting together those emotions into that scene.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it bears out totally.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's fantastic.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: So I know I said this earlier, but you can never remind people enough.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thane, where can people see Trust Me, I'm a Doctor?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: They can see Trust Me I'm a Doctor in theaters nationwide.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're on about 600 screens.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're pretty much everywhere.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you go online and search for it, it's probably in your city.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming out on October 16th.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Go see it, see it early, see it often, buy popcorn, get yourself a nice large soda, enjoy the theatrical experience and indie film in theaters, which I think is so important that we have a variety of films in theaters and not just two films taking up half the screens.
• 32:48
  unknown: Yeah.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Here, here.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Thane, thanks so much for joining us and thanks for taking us behind your film.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you guys so much.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: This was really great.