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IFH 673: How I Wrote Ant-Man with Joe Cornish · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Indie
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filmals A Podcast Episode number six seventy three. It's better to write a bad
0:17
first draft than to write no draft at all. Anonymous broadcasting from the back
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alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie Film Hustle podcast, where we show you
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how to survive and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of the film
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biz. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
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episode of the Indie filmals A Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex
0:41
Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of the Film Entrepreneur. How to
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www dot film bizbook dot com. That's film Bizbook dot com. Well,
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guys, today we are in for a treat. We have writer director Joe
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Cornish. Now Joe is not just a very accomplished screenwriter, but he's also
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an extremely accomplished director. He bursted on the scene in twenty eleven with this
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film Attacked the Block, And during that time he also was writing a little
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project with two directors, Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg called The Adventures of Tin
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Tin. And during that time also he was writing Aunt Man with his dear
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friend Edgar Wright, and as many of you know, Edgar left aunt Man
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over creative differences, and Joe stayed on the project and continue to work on
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the show. And I really wanted to kind of dig in to see what
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actually happened there behind the scenes, and Joe honestly was extremely forthcoming and transparent
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about what happened and what it's like to write inside the Marvel machine. And
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we also discussed his craft, how he is as a director, how he
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likes to approach his writing, his early days as a comedian in Britain on
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his show Adam and Joe, what it was like writing for two legends like
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Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, his latest film The Kid Who Would Be King,
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which I highly recommend everybody watch, and much much more so, how
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much you guys to sit down and get ready for a hell of a ride,
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because this is a great conversation. So without any further Ado, let's
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jump in with Joe Cornish I'd like to welcome to the show, Joe cornish
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Man. How are you doing, Joe, I'm good, Alex, good
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to be here, good to see you. Thank you so much for coming
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on the show. My friend, I really truly appreciate it. You are
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across the pond, as they say, right now, Yeah, on the
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other side of the pond, beyond a couple of ducks and the water feature
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and some lily pads, and yeah, it's nice yo, having a picnic
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by the pond. But we're all that out, so that's good. It's
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all good. So so how did you start? You a fairly remarkable career.
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And I know you don't I don't want to make you blush, but
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you've had a pretty great career and I just wanted to know how did you
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get started? What's your origin story in this business? But my origin story
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is weird because I started out well, I started out as like a runner
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in film companies in London. So I went to film school. Then I
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was a runner and then a friend like, there's a long version and a
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short version. I'll do the short version. So I started out in TV
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in British TV comedy in the mid nineties with a TV show called The Adam
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and Joe Show. I'm the Joe from Adam and Joe and that was a
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late night comedy show that was kind of homemade. TV was like comedy skits
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and songs and sketches and animation. And then that's how I met Edgar Wright
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because he had a show on British TV called Space while the Adam and Joe
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Show was on. We were on the same channel, so we became friends,
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and so Edgar, I'd always wanted to make movies, So Edgar,
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Edgar invited me to write ant Man with him, and he invited me to
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write Tintin with him. And then at the same time, I've been you
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know, reading and learning about screenwriting since I was a kid, and so
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I ended up writing and directing a film called Attack the Block ten year about
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ten years ago. Yeah, and then I made another movie called The Kid
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wh would Be Killing a couple of years ago. Yeah, So that's um,
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I've had a weir and then I did a bunch of radio as well.
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I had a radio show on the BBC. So I've done all sorts
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of different stuff over my very very long and very important career. Obviously,
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Sarah, obviously, now I see on your IMDBA see a lot of special
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effects and you know, I'm like Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and
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a lot of those projects with Edgar. What did you do on those projects
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because you don't have a specific credit, and when the ever say special things,
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it could be as much as helping me write the screenplay, or it
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could just be I was there for the day. Well it's kind of I
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was there for the day, like I was. I was a zombie and
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Shaun of the Dead. So I get hit, I get gunned down when
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the military arrived and that big truck drives towards the camera. I'm one of
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the guys that gets gunned down. So I was there for a day.
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I'm in Hot Fuzz as well. I'm one of the CSI people with Kate
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Blanchet at the very beginning of that movie. And and then I just hung
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out a lot with Edgar, So I ended up doing some behind the scenes
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stuff on Sean and I and I did some behind the scenes stuff with the
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UA the US press tour of Hot Fuzz. There are some videos of me
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and Nick Frost flushing cakes down the toilets of American hotels on YouTube. Yeah,
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so that was that was I was just a friend of Edgar and Eggar's
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a very collaborative friend, you know, he always shares drafts and gets notes.
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And because we were working on at Man all through that period. That's
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why he's kind enough to give me thanks fair enough now. According to your
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filmography, you also were a PA on a film called Blue Juice, yes
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back in the day. And I always love asking these questions when you're first
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starting out. What was the biggest lesson you learned working on that set as
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a PA, because I know when I was a PA on my first sets,
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I learned it was like so much stuff was coming at me. I
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was learning lessons like by the minute of what not to do, specifically,
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we're not to stand, who not to talk to, things like that.
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What did you pick up? I wish i'd been on the set. I
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was in the office. I was there too, copying, I was making
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tea. I was like, I was just doing dog's body stuff and I
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was never really on set. I went to pick up some rushes. I
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flew to the Canary Islands to pick up some rushes one time. I bought
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a couple of cans of film with me on the plane. What did I
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learn? I don't know. It just made me really really hungry because I
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felt so close to what I wanted to do, but yet a thousand miles
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away, like I was holding in my hands all the facts is from the
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studio bosses, and that was a Mirrimax movie, a very like an early
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nineties Mirrimax movie, so you can see it all happening, and it just
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made me like ravenous to do it myself. And also secretly I was like,
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I could do it better than this. I could do this better,
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said every pa ever. Yeah, I know it's terrible, not like if
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from my films, Like I'm now imagining what's going on in the minds of
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everybody else on the set. This is a load of old shit. I
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could do much better than this. Yeah. So the other thing I learned
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was not to lie. Like one time I told one of the producers that
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I could assemble the trims and i'd basically I'd learn how to do it at
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film school, but I forgotten this was back when trims were physical and you
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know, lace them up and stuff. So I was put in an editing
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room with a bunch of cans and the mag that this magnetic soundtrack, and
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I had to sync them all up. I didn't know what I was doing,
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and I had a massive anxiety attack, and I had to call up
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the producer and said, I'm sorry, I do not know how to do
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this. That was a good lesson. That was that was a fantastic lesson
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because you've got to have a bit of chutzpa, right, You've got to
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big yourself up and you've got to be confident. But there are limits when
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it comes to actually telling people you can do things that you actually can't do.
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That's not a good line to to cross. No, absolutely. And
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I remember my first my first PA job was on a Fox TV show and
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I had the exact same experience that you did. Was just like you're you're
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there. I was in the others office PA, so I had all I
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was seeing the producers and all that kind of stuff coming in and you're just
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like so close. But yeah, and I could do it better obviously,
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But it's a really useful experience, extremely extremely experience. But then you also
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realize that that um, we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
10:37
and now back to the show. You don't necessarily have to climb the ladder
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that way. And actually what's more important is to be creating stuff because you
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can, I guess. I mean there's a traditional old school route of becoming
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a first a D and but also there are people that, especially in this
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day and age with technology so accessible, they're people that just make brilliant stuff
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and then you can jump the queue, right, you get write something brilliant
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or make something brilliant. You get maybe to have a go at all the
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toys without going through the process of graduating, you know. Yeah, I
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mean I remember when I was when I was a PA and I started going
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start to investigate that route, and like I went to the d GA.
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It's like, okay, so oh, you need you know, a thousand
11:26
hours as a PA or whatever that number was before you can get in the
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union. And then you start working as an a third assistant director and I'm
11:33
like and they're like maybe in ten years you'll you'll get a first a D
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job. And I'm like, this, this doesn't this doesn't make sense for
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me. I can't. I can't, I can't do this. But but
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there I agree with you. And that was also the time when the technology
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was not as cheap. This is the mid nineties, so it was still
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it was still filmed. Yeah yeah, but now I think you know,
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if you if you create something that gets people's attention, there's lots more ways
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in I think as absolutely, which brings me to your next My next question,
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which is Attack of the Block. How did you come up with this
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amazing idea? Because you were the writer and the director of this film,
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and I remember when it came out it was kind of like it was like
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a mini Adam bomb going off. People were like talking about and it was
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like, you know, this year's District nine and all this kind of stuff.
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How did you come up with that idea? It was just brilliant.
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Oh, that's kind of you to say. Um, it was based on
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a bit of personal experience. Aliens. Aliens attacked you. Yeah, an
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alien invasion that happened to me. Now that is from my imagination, I
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guess so. So the story is that I was carjacked outside my house by
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a gang of kids who look very much like the kids in the movie,
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and it not thing like that had ever happened to me before. I think
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they were local neighborhood kids, and it felt very very cinematic. They looked
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really cool, like ninjas they were. The other interesting thing was they were
13:13
clearly scared as scared as I was, and it felt like a piece of
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role playing theater. It felt like any other time of any other day.
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They could have been playing football in the park, you know, I could
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have been walking through the park. But for this moment, they were playing
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that role of being the aggressors. I was playing the role of being a
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victim. And it just made me think about, Okay, what would happen
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if a media came down and an alien came out? How would my relationship
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with them change? How would this skill set that they were using for street
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robbery, how would that switch up and become a skill set that would would
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actually be a potentially positive set of attributes. So yeah, so I thought
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that was an interesting and then I was kind of fixated on the character of
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the of the kid, the leader, and what would what would cause basically
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a child to find themselves in a position where they were doing that, you
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know, on the streets. So it was a comment and plus there's a
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long answer, but my favorite movies are combinations of social realism and fantasy.
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So I felt that it was it could be my version of the kind of
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film that I really liked. Yeah, and when it came out, I
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mean, it garnered you a tremendous amount of attention. I'm assuming you became
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the the the it the girl you were that you were the you were beautiful
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girl that everybody wanted to dance with that at that point when that came out,
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how was it? What was it like? And were you still in
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England when and you were in London when that was still going on? Did
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you did you come over to the States during that time? Did you do
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the water Bottle Tour here in La? Well, weirdly, I've been you
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know, I'm no stranger to La, like I've been visiting since I was
15:03
a kid. And then I'd actually written started the process of writing ant Man
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and finished the process of writing Tintin before Attack the Block came out, So
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I'd worked with Marvel, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson before Attack the Block.
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You know, kind of incredible and ridiculous, but that is what happened.
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So it was all a bit bit back to front, and yeah, it
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was weird, like I really didn't know what the reaction to the film would
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be, and it was kind of what's the right word, befuddling the level
15:46
of response because it was like I'd been waiting for doors to open my whole
15:50
life, and then it felt as if every door opened at once, and
15:52
that was in a way kind of paralyzing because you don't know which one to
15:56
go through, And suddenly all of the shit that you've read, all of
16:02
your anxieties, paranoias, suspicions, every story about how indie directors you know,
16:08
get crushed by big movies, every story about you know, Hollywood,
16:15
you know, superficiality or being seduced, and then you know, all those
16:21
things is suddenly real for someone like you and me who's sort of lived in
16:26
the dream world and read magazines and interviews with our favorite directors and behind the
16:32
scenes books and making of books, to find yourself with this period of opportunities.
16:40
Should you direct your own things? Should you direct a big franchise?
16:44
Should you write a franchise? So basically, I I met everybody and took
16:52
refuge without the writing, and man I simultaneously wrote a screenplay for Kennedy Marsha
17:00
based on a book called Snow Crash. So I basically just stepped away.
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Really, yeah, You've got to remember I was forty I'm fifty early fifties
17:08
now, and I'd had a career in TV, and I'd had a career
17:12
in radio, like I'd been like a minor TV personality in the UK.
17:18
So I think if I was twenty something, it probably would have been different.
17:22
I probably would have been ravenous and would have just taken something by the
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throat. But I was quite cautious, and really I felt like, well,
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I don't need to churn out of film every two years. I don't
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need to make you know, Godzilla versus Obie connect or whatever. By the
17:45
way, I want to see that movie. I want to see that movie.
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Okay, I'm working on it, you know, I don't know.
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To be honest, I'm still conflicted about it. It felt, it felt
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very difficult to navigate. So my reaction was to go to ground kind of
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thing and just just go back into working into writing with with Edgar and screenwriting
18:04
is quite a safe place to be. You can make good money. Um
18:08
you know, uh yeah, so I did that for a while. But
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you were but you were offered, you know, you were offered big studio
18:15
jobs. I'm sure you were offered, you know, ten pole films,
18:18
because that's the way, that's the way the town works. You gotta hit
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like attack of the block. All of a sudden, they just give you
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here's one hundred million dollars and you're like, whoa, WAITA I was talking.
18:29
I've talked to so many directors on the show who've had that that moment
18:34
that they had that the the indie hit and then all the doors open and
18:38
they just figure out. A couple of them went down the road and got
18:41
destroyed, literally destroyed, and others were like, you know what, We're
18:47
not ready, We're too young. We've done four muic we've done four music
18:52
videos and one two million dollar movie. We're not going to take on Batman
18:56
like like literally, um, but it's really fascinating to hear um. Well,
19:00
Well, first of all, the key element in that story is that
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you were forty and there's a big difference between forty and twenty and only only
19:08
the gray hairs that are on my chin and I'm assuming somewhere underneath your beautifully
19:15
shaven facer is the is that experience that like, when you get hit with
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that kind of opportunity. I mean I would have been destroyed at twenty five.
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Can you imagine you would have probably been You're just not ready, You're
19:30
just not ready for that kind of success or opportunity. Even sometimes Yeah,
19:33
some some people are good at it. You know some people are and and
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really, you know, I'd experienced the production of a big, you know,
19:45
motion capture movie on Tintin, so I understood what happens to screenplays,
19:51
what happens to what the processes, and what the machine machinery is. We'll
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be right back after a word from our sp answer, and now back to
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the show. And then I thought, well, well, look, I
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mean, I'm co writing a big Marvel movie like already ant Man, you
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know, with a with a director who's who's a genius and is a good
20:18
friend of mine. So let's just sit here and observe what what happens the
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processes. And you know, maybe just because of what happened on aunt Man,
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that made me think, okay, well is this is this the right
20:33
way to go? And you know, there were there were peers of mine
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who are friends of mine who had hits around the time of attack the block
20:41
who who did go and make blockbusters, And you know, all we all
20:48
know each other. Directors all talk. They don't share it, but they
20:55
you can, you know, you can call up a friend who's and say,
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well, what actually happened? And no one rightly because it's they have
21:04
respect for the industry and the process and the producers and as massive amounts of
21:08
money involved and huge creative risks. So it's not it's not like it's not
21:14
really artists making art, you know, on that level. But at the
21:18
same time, some of the stories you hear are give you pause and you
21:23
think, well, actually, I'd rather make fewer films, but they those
21:27
films be exactly what I want them to be than um, you know,
21:37
be a small part of a big franchise, you know. So so since
21:41
you've brought up ant Man a couple of times, let's jump into ant Man
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um. You know, I've always wanted to ask somebody who's been inside the
21:48
machine, you know, what's it like, because i mean we've spoken on
21:52
the show too many directors who've been in you know, two hundred million plus
21:56
dollar films and you know, big you know, blockbusters and things like that.
22:00
But I've never spoken to anyone who's been inside the Marvel machine. And
22:03
I know ant Man has a lured history, like it is definitely a you
22:08
know, there was some issues. I mean obviously Edgar left the project for
22:12
creative differences and things like that. What can you tell us about what's it
22:17
like? Without you know, throwing anybody under the bus obviously, what's it
22:21
like working on not just a Marvel movie, but on a franchise like that,
22:25
because you're you're you're playing in some it's like working in Star Wars,
22:27
like you're you're walking into an established universe. Um, and arguably one of
22:33
the more ridiculous characters in the Marvel universe who I love, by the way,
22:37
I mean at even And that's what I love about the script too,
22:40
and the and the movies, like they call it out to themselves like ant
22:42
Man, that's a ridiculous name. Um. But when they made when you
22:47
guys made ant Man work. When I saw it finally in the theater,
22:48
I was like, well, okay, then it made it work. So
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what was it like? What was it like being in that machine? Well,
22:57
I'd have to say, like the Marvel cinematic universe wasn't what it is
23:04
now then. So we started working on that movie in I think I've got
23:11
the I dug some stuff out here, mum. So this is a treatment
23:18
from two thousand and two for Animal Okay, the very first treatment that Edgar
23:23
and I wrote, and so we've been working on it since two thousand and
23:29
two. So Attack the Block was two thousand and eleven. It came out
23:36
in twenty fifteen. This is on and off. We both made lots of
23:40
other movies in the interim, But you've got to remember back in two thousand
23:44
and two, like what were the Marvel movies in two thousand and two,
23:47
Like Iron Men? Iron Men had already come out, but they were still
23:51
play well. One of the first meetings we had we went to Edgar and
23:56
I went to Lucas Film in Marin County and we went and met John Favreau
24:00
and sat watching the final assemble of the first Iron Man, and John Favreau
24:07
had read our draft and he gave notes, and Edgar gave him some notes
24:11
on Iron Man. But that was really the first you know, Marvel was
24:17
still handing its big characters to orte directors in order to fuse that perspective with
24:26
comedy. Would they were finding the formula right. So really, the story
24:30
of Us An ant Man is the story of a studio that changed its agenda
24:37
and really really no longer had the headroom for a writer director like Edgar who
24:48
who needs to have written every element of his movies. That just wasn't what
24:55
they would do. By the time we came to make the movie, that
24:56
wasn't what they were doing anymore. And that's why the final movie has elements
25:02
of the MCU that were not in our draft. So that's just a story
25:06
of the history of the evolution of the marketplace and you know, the story
25:11
of of of Kevin finding out what worked, you know. So so it's
25:18
not as dramatic or maybe you know, as sort of you know, thrilling
25:25
as you might think. It's just a question of of times, times changing
25:30
and what Marvel wanted changing and what Edgar wanted not really fitting in. So
25:34
in the end it was, you know, a pretty gentlemanly parting of the
25:40
ways. Um. Yeah, and there, but there was is there a
25:42
decent amount of what you and Edgar wrote still left in the script because I
25:48
mean you can you can smell it. You could smell it. It's there.
25:52
It's not shann of the Dead, but you can definitely smell the the
25:56
energy of you guys, without question. Yeah, there's a there's a bunch
26:00
of stuff, you know, there's a bunch of stuff that I think people
26:03
think is Egar That isn't that's Peyton read digressions during Lewis's speeches that were quite
26:11
stylistically similar to some of Edgar stuff actually aren't, weren't in our draft.
26:14
But yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. I mean, as you know,
26:17
a lot of the design and previews of action sequences happens while you're writing,
26:22
happens very early, so often that stuff is pretty much nailed down before
26:29
other writers came in. So yeah, there's some there's a bunch of dialogue,
26:33
a bunch of action sequences. Yeah, I wouldn't want to put a
26:34
percentage on it, but there's stuff there. So so when and I've heard
26:40
this from other directors that when you're working inside inside that the MCU and the
26:45
machine is like the action stuff is kind of just directed and previoused out,
26:52
like almost by itself. Now like this this is the screenplay the lead on
26:56
that, or is someone else the lead on that? As far as just
27:00
building out the action sequences, because I've heard mixed things from different directors,
27:04
well, I can only speak about my experience, and in ant Man,
27:08
it was all it was all on the page, okay. But on Tintin,
27:14
when we came onto Tintin and a lot of the action sequences were previous
27:19
already, but they can be tweaked, you know. I mean it's an
27:22
interesting thing, isn't it. Like a Pixar who you know, when they
27:27
have a slam dunk. There's a sort of level of perfection every single element
27:33
of a good Pixar film. Yes, and that's because they can test run
27:37
them. They're working in animation, so they can do rough versions and they
27:40
can make the film a thousand times before they release it. And now the
27:45
movies are so visually of visual effects driven they could they can. They're almost
27:49
doing the same thing where the movie is made in a previous form and tested
27:56
before it's shot. So it makes a lot of economic and creative sense to
28:00
dry you know. It's like people used to do with animatics back in the
28:03
day, right, storyboard versions and simple animals like the more you can test
28:07
something before you shovel money into actually hundreds of millions of dollars, Yes,
28:14
of course. So I don't see it as like this negative thing necessarily.
28:18
It's just when movies cost that much to make, you've got to have proof
28:22
of concept in a low cost ways as much as you possibly can. Yeah,
28:29
I mean Finchers, you know, famous for pre visiting every frame,
28:33
every cut prior to every shooting. Very hitchcock, very hitchcock in in that
28:37
way. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. But then like there's
28:41
stuff in Attack the Block action sequences that I storyboarded to the nth degree,
28:47
and I scouted locations before I wrote, so I wrote to particular locations.
28:52
But then there are scenes, dialogue scenes, dramatic scenes where I deliberately didn't
28:56
do that and I just covered it with handheld cameras. So it depends.
29:02
And I think often Marvel movies split split up like that, or those big
29:04
action movies, like the action sequences will be done in a more collective fashion
29:11
and then the director will come in and deal with the dramatic moments. You
29:14
know, I don't know, but you know, we left ant Man before
29:18
it started shooting. So my experience in terms of the actual production process is
29:23
zero, got it. So that's just from from that point. From that
29:26
point on production production. Now, let me ask you when you start,
29:33
when you write, and you're beginning to write a story or a script,
29:37
do you start with character or you start with plot? I start with the
29:41
concept personally, Is it an idea that people can wrap their heads around in
29:48
a simple way, and then I usually start with I just usually start with
29:56
cool stuff that I would like to see, the moment, a series of
30:00
moments, a sequence and image. We'll be right back after a word from
30:07
our sponsor, and now back to the show and build out from there.
30:17
But yeah, you have to start thinking about character pretty quickly. It depends
30:22
on the idea. There's something I'm writing at the moment that the character came
30:29
late, and I wrote a couple of drafts, and then my brilliant script
30:33
editor said, look, you've got to dig into the lead character because this
30:37
is just about moments. So we then a bunch of work and there's other
30:42
stuff that where the character offers itself more more clearly. But yeah, I
30:49
don't know. I think that I start with moments. So it's kind of
30:53
like aliens attacking a bunch of street kids. Yeah, exactly, that moment,
31:00
that kind of you know, moment that felt like from it was from
31:03
a Western, The confrontation on the streets, of aliens climbing up the outside
31:10
of a tower block, the notion of like putting finding sci fi in an
31:17
urban environment, all that kind of stuff I like to sketch, you know,
31:22
draw images, draw frames. I like to I like to think of
31:26
a poster. It never turns out to be the same poster, but but
31:34
yeah, I like to draw a little poster image. I'm just seeing.
31:37
I've got the original sketch for Attack the Block I made. This is the
31:42
Attack the Block. That's what I made. That's a really great sketch.
31:45
That's a great image reference. So I do a little pretend poster for myself
31:51
because, like, you know, I don't know about your Alex. I'm
31:53
an eighties kid, so I grew up when movies were hyped and you just
31:59
had the Ghostbusters logo or the Batman logo. You didn't know what it was
32:02
like. I grew up in that period where movies were so marketing lead and
32:07
there was a single that came out in the charts with little clicks from the
32:10
movie in the video. Oh my god, a movie in two or three
32:15
lines, and everything was original, so you had no idea what the fuck
32:19
it was. You know, it wasn't nothing was a franchise. So I
32:22
was like, what Ghostbusters, ghosts Busting, or that's Bill Murray. This
32:27
sounds really good, This sounds it songs really good. That logo is brilliant.
32:30
I need to learn to sketch the logo's like by the soundtrack album.
32:34
I bought the soundtrack album and so by the time the movie actually came out,
32:37
Oh my god. But so I'll go back us. Yeah, you
32:42
and I are a similar vintage, similar vantages. I remember when Ghostbusters came
32:47
out and I did everything you said. I watched it. I'm not exaggerating.
32:54
I think the record was twenty three times in the theater or something like
32:58
that. I mean, I loved Ghostbusters. It was at a really specific
33:01
time in my life. I think I was. I don't know what great
33:05
it was or how old I was, but it was a specific time.
33:07
I just loved it. I wore out my tape, like wore out the
33:12
tape. But did you ever call the eight hundred number that's in the movie.
33:16
No, I was in London, it wouldn't. I told you,
33:21
so I actually called it. It's a fake number. I didn't. It
33:23
was a five five five number, but I didn't know. But that's how
33:25
insane. I'm like, can I call the Ghostbusters? I mean, let's
33:29
let's call the Ghostbusters. It was a different it was such a different time.
33:31
I mean, do I remember eighty nine, it was such an amazing
33:37
year for films where Lethal Weapon to Batman. I mean you couldn't walk anywhere
33:43
anywhere in the world and not see the bat logo like it was. It
33:47
was such an event, you know, can you tell, like, what
33:52
did it feel like for you growing up around that time to just kind of
33:55
tell people who are listening, because now everything's an event, and there's hundreds
33:59
of millions of dollars at marketing and and there's the Internet and all that stuff.
34:02
But before in eighty nine minute there was that logo that's and then it
34:08
maybe a glimpse of a news and Entertainment Tonight or and access Hollywood like behind
34:14
the scenes, set interview or something was just nothing. What did you What
34:17
was it like for you growing up around that time? I was really exciting,
34:22
I don't know, is to find my whole life because here I am
34:25
doing and yours as well. Here we are doing what we're doing because it
34:29
feels so it just was incredible. I don't know, it's hard to put
34:35
into words, like with Batman's specific The other thing you have to remember is
34:37
there was a six month gap between movies coming out in America and in the
34:42
UK, that's right. So so friends of mine would go on holiday to
34:45
the States and they'd see these movies and they'd come back and they tell me
34:50
about them as if they'd been to another planet or some mythical country. And
34:54
then that you had you would like desperate for this to you had to wait
34:58
another six month, so you'd buy the novelization, you'd buy the photo novel,
35:02
comic book. You'd scour the radio. They'd be there'd be like features
35:07
on TV about the new hit film in America, and they'd have like thirty
35:12
seconds of it that you'd scour. I mean for a kid going to school,
35:20
those imaginative worlds of that scale, with that much like just completely all
35:25
consuming, right, Especially, there was sort of something entrepreneurial about eighties movies.
35:31
They wanted you to be in them. They wanted you to be a
35:35
Ghostbuster or be Luke Sky, like they really invited them into invited you into
35:40
their worlds, like as a kind of playground. Yeah, is it different
35:45
now? I'm not sure that it is. I think modern kids maybe have
35:49
the same excitement, same level of sense sensation. It's definitely more of an
35:53
industry, right, but they have act but they have access though, they
35:58
have access to it like we were scouted, Like you was think scouring anything,
36:01
any image, any thing, any poster or whatever. Now you're just
36:07
like it's all out there. It's like it's all set up six months ahead.
36:10
There were loads of movie magazines you could read, Oh yeah, one
36:15
or two little TV shows. There was still ways you could get your little
36:19
hit. But you're right, there were fewer of them, yeah, so
36:24
it felt more momentous. And there weren't action figures for every movie. It
36:29
was very select only the ones that hit big. Yeah, So it did
36:34
feel like there were these momentous moments every year or two that dwarfed everything else
36:40
around them, whether it was like the first Superman movie or Ghostbusters or Raiders
36:46
or Know or Batman. Like Batman for me was actually a disappointment really the
36:52
first Batman read I think I'm a little like you. But you but you
36:57
also built it up, probably so much in your head that it can it
37:00
could never live up to it. It was shot in the UK, so
37:02
there were photos in the tabloids, helicopter spy photos of the set and of
37:07
the Gotham City set that were published in the tabloids. But what disappointed me
37:13
when I sat down to seek Batman in Leicester Square in whenever it was was
37:17
the curtains opening and it being sixteen by nine, and I was ship,
37:22
I wanted it to go to three to five. Yeah, And I was
37:27
immediately a little disappointed that it was sixteen by nine. And then it just
37:30
was too it was too campy for me. I don't know, it didn't
37:36
what I was becoming a little cynical, you know, I was an older
37:38
teenager inner critic was starting to evolve. I wasn't just like shoveling junk food
37:46
down my throat. By that point, I was like, I'm not sure
37:50
I believed Jack Nicholson. Oh that Prince song isn't one of his better songs,
37:54
and oh the pretension of being a teenager. Yeah, so I'm sorry.
38:00
I like I like this. I like like the first half of the
38:04
second one. I think is fantastic. I actually think is one of the
38:08
best bits in like the opening forty five minutes and it's it's it's Tim unleashed.
38:14
That was that was like I think the first time they gave Tim a
38:16
lot of money and really kind of let him do whatever he basically he could
38:21
do whatever he wanted. That's why that one's if you look at the both
38:23
of them next to each other, you're just like the kind of in the
38:27
same universe. One's a little bit weirder, without question, which brings me,
38:34
which brings me to my next question. And arguably your greatest role in
38:38
the film industry Resistance, Resistance Trooper and last Jedi. Thank you your work
38:46
there. How it did not get an Oscar is beyond me. I agree.
38:52
So as you can see, I have a life size Yoda in my
38:54
background. So I am a Star Wars geek. The audience knows my affection
39:00
for at Star Wars. What was it like? How did that come about?
39:04
I'm assuming you just like called up, called up Ryan and just say
39:07
can I can I just be a Stormtrooper? No? Ryan, and Ryan
39:13
invited us. Ryan is a good friend and a very very good guy.
39:17
And I met him through Edgar, and he invited Edgar and me and Edgar's
39:22
brother Oscar to be in the movie. And he deliberately put me in a
39:27
shot with John Boyeger because you know John Maker's movie debut and Attack the Block,
39:31
and JJ saw him and Attack the Block and cast him in Star Wars
39:38
because of that, and so Ryan wanted to put a little easter egg for
39:44
people who would know that connection and put me behind John. So I'm in
39:49
new shots. I'm one of the most lush resistance fighters there is. I'm
39:54
holding a my blaster in quite a sort of andy Ish manner. But it
40:02
was crazy, you know. We went to Pinewood and it was actually the
40:07
day the Brexit, the result of the Belts announced, Wow, we'll be
40:14
right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the shelf.
40:22
Incredibly stormy. There were massive thunderstorms and this lightning and thunder were booming above
40:29
the the big sound stage. Um, so it was. Yeah, it
40:36
was weird, and I egar and I sat with Katy Kennedy and chatted about
40:38
British politics and what it meant, what the Brexit vote meant, and it
40:43
felt like quite a dark day weirdly, but it was very exciting. It's
40:49
an honor to be in that movie. And you're right, like, what
40:52
would that film be without me? Obviously, I mean obviously you're I mean,
40:59
you're You're face alone gets at least one hundred million overseas automatic by Yeah,
41:05
that's true. No, but in the inner geek in you. I
41:08
mean you must have been geeking out a bit. I mean, did you
41:13
see Mark Hamill was market around? Did you like you had to have you
41:15
had to kick that a bit. It was Oscar Isaac John Carrie Fisher was
41:20
there that day. You know. One of the nice things was the two
41:27
guys that operate BBA puppeteers that the worked in British TV and they and a
41:36
lot of the stuff I did on my comedy show involved puppet trees. So
41:38
I ended up just talking to the BBA guys a lot about you know,
41:44
the Animal Joe show, and they did a puppet on Breakfast TV. So
41:51
you know, it's it's it's crazy like being British and and all these movies
41:55
being made here, Like since I was a kid, the notion that Superman
41:59
was shot here and The Empire Strikes Back was shot here, and Raiders was
42:02
shot here, like that was an incredibly surreal fact for me to learn,
42:08
Like it feels so exotic and foreign, but yet these this shit's happening an
42:15
hour and a half out of away from my house, you know. And
42:19
it's the same when you go when on the set of the Last Jedi,
42:22
A lot of the crew, I knew a lot of the costume people I
42:24
knew, So yeah, it was, it was, it was, It
42:30
was fantastic. Yeah, Like if you told the seven year old me that
42:34
that was going to happen, my tiny head would have exploded exactly exactly.
42:39
Now, you also brought up Tintin a bunch. I mean, how how
42:45
does it work with not only Steven Spielberg but also Peter Jackson? And what
42:49
is that process of working in that machine? Like you were saying, that's
42:53
a completely animated film, so that's a completely different way of working then Joe
43:00
normal, just traditional live action. So what was two questions? What was
43:05
it like working with Steven and Peter and being inside of that machine? Well,
43:09
I wouldn't have the first thing to say is I would not have been
43:12
there without Edgar. So Steven Spielberg called up Edgar to see whether he was
43:17
interested in rewriting Stephen Moffett's draft because Stephen Moffette was leaving to become the showrunner
43:22
on Doctor Who, and Edgar knew I knew Tintin. So he called me
43:28
up said did I want to do it with him? I said, yes,
43:31
I do want to stein with you, Edgar, please, thank you,
43:37
Edgar, thank you so so I was just kind of incredibly sort of
43:45
excited and honored to be there, also a little bit get clinging onto Edgar's
43:52
coat tails in terms of having the creative authority to be there. And and
44:00
it was it was you know, a massive, massively educational and they were
44:05
extremely gracious really to invite me, as Edgar's friend, into right into the
44:13
middle of that process. And it was fascinating. You know, I was
44:16
on conference calls between the head of the studio and Peter Jackson and Stephen sometimes
44:22
I'm not sure they knew I was on the call, but it was just
44:27
amazing to listen to how the business operates at that level. And what's impressive
44:35
is how courteous and respectful and how there's not a sense of you know,
44:42
even though these are you know, incredibly successful, you know, like God's
44:46
to you and me, they behave like with yeah, with a level of
44:52
humility and respect for the process and the money and the and then and then
45:00
with amazing skill. You know, yeah, there's no short answer to that.
45:05
You know, there were there were amazing experiences every day, like like
45:08
James Cameron walking on and trying out the the motion captured technology. Um,
45:15
this is this is this is pre pre Avatar, post Avatar. Well that's
45:21
a good question. What year was Avatar? I think that was oh nine.
45:27
Yeah, so it's being concurrent. Okay, it was oh nine.
45:30
I think it was when it got released, but he had been working on
45:34
it for a bit. I think it's nine because it was around the time
45:36
when I moved to La So it was like oh nine or ten around that
45:39
area. Lots of directors, lots of famous directors came in to look at
45:45
the technology, to see Stephen operating with it, and you know, and
45:50
and he says in interviews how it kind of made him feel like a kid
45:53
again because you could go, you can you could kind of operate in a
45:59
way maybe you wouldn't. He wouldn't operate in a live action movie by holding
46:04
the thing. I forget what it was called. Um, yeah, so
46:10
so it was, yeah, it was, it was. It was.
46:14
I just hesitate to use cliched, hyperbolic words like incredible and amazing, but
46:19
it kind of was an every day different respect. And then on all sorts
46:24
of levels, like the seeing stars and meeting famous people, getting to actually
46:30
hand in script pages to Spielberg and him either liking it or not liking it.
46:36
Uh, you know, yeah, it was Well, let me ask
46:40
you, let me stop you there for a second. What is the note
46:44
process from Stephen? Like, when you hand in pages and he likes it,
46:46
I'm assuming he keeps moving forward. But if he doesn't like it,
46:50
what is that process? You know, I've never I've never heard the story
46:53
of getting notes from Stephen and working on those notes and getting them back.
46:57
What's that process like for him? Well, I can only tell you what
47:01
it was like for me. And sometimes they would be written notes. Sometimes
47:08
there was a phone call, and sometimes I would go into Amblin and sit
47:14
at a big conference table underneath the sledge from Citizen Kane in a glass case
47:21
on the wall above me, with Steven sitting across the table, and I
47:23
would hand the pages and he would we would sit in silence while he read
47:29
them, and then he would tell me that must I mean seriously, that
47:32
must be terror like, that must be just terrifying you. You're a screenwriter.
47:37
You're handing pages to Steven Spielberg and then you sit in the room while
47:42
he reads it. That must be nerve wracking. Yeah, well, nothing's
47:45
ever going to be good enough. It's so like, so I just resigned
47:50
myself to like, Okay, I'm gonna leave today, like I'm going to
47:57
be gone in a few minutes because this is fucking Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson
48:02
and I'm me. So every day was a gift, right, And like,
48:07
the only story I can tell you that sort of succinct is one time
48:13
I handed in some pages and he and he liked a bunch of stuff,
48:16
but there was other stuff he didn't like, and he's he said, Joe,
48:20
this has gone backwards. And I felt felt like really terrible. I'm
48:27
like, okay, well, and then we discussed it and I felt terrible.
48:30
But then the phone. His assistant came in and said, Stephen,
48:32
there's a call for you, and he went next door and he was on
48:37
the phone and I heard him say to another writer, oh, this has
48:44
gone backwards. He used the same line and I won't name names, but
48:49
then I realized it was quite a high powered writer he'd said that too,
48:52
so I felt better. It's like he said that to him as well,
48:58
Okay, it's like sure my work had gone much further backwards than the other
49:01
guys. So we're good. So it's not something he just pulls out,
49:06
unlike the really really bad writers. He pulls it off for all writers,
49:08
and you're in the back of your mind, Rob. If he got it
49:12
too, then I'm okay, okay, good good. I feel better.
49:15
The thing the thing to say is about both of those filmmakers is how generous
49:21
and normal and relaxed and friendly. You know, very very hard workers,
49:28
very businesslike. But they're like you and me, if we were extremely so
49:35
good at what we did that we were humongously successful. They fucking love movies.
49:42
Yeah, and they get as seriously as you would if you were able
49:45
to do the thing you love at the highest possible level. But also there's
49:50
a sense of joy and pleasure in in everything they're doing. You know,
49:54
I love Tintin. You know, some people people often talk about the uncanny
50:00
al nus of it, and that may or may not be true, but
50:01
there's so much other amazing craft in that movie. From the way he moves
50:08
that he's unbound from physicality with the camera and his spielboats came replacing per se
50:15
is and blocking is like no one else's so to see his cameraplacing and blocking
50:21
without the limitations of dollies and reality and is phenomenal, you know. And
50:30
we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
50:37
the show. Yeah, so, yeah, it was. It was an
50:44
amazing, incredible experience, if you if you shall be a cliche now.
50:49
And by the way, I've spoken to so many different and it's fascinating how
50:53
many you know, accomplished filmmakers Stephen has touched in one way, shape or
51:00
form. And I've had and I've never heard one bad story off air or
51:05
on air about Stephen. He's everything you just said. It's exactly what everybody
51:10
else has. All these other directors and writers that I've I've spoken to have
51:15
said the same thing. He is so gracious, he's humble, he is
51:19
um like you said, He's a guy. He's a guy. He's one
51:21
of the gods in Mount Hollywood. He comes down from you know, Mount
51:23
Olympus, if you will, and comes down and talks and works with us
51:28
mortals, um not us you mortals like yourself. And and he could be
51:34
a complete everything that you've you've heard about from big guys like that, but
51:38
he's not. He's the complete opposite, which is in a in a way,
51:44
um makes me feel good. Yeah, I think it's it's generally the
51:52
case, because I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions, but certainly all
51:55
my experiences have been I mean that they you have to work hard, You're
52:00
expected to work really hard, but people generally want to want to work with
52:07
people who are not insane. That's fair enough. Now, you often write
52:16
by yourself, but you also write with Edgar or other partners as well.
52:20
What is your process when writing with a partner. We take all our clothes
52:24
off, we smear our bodies with butter. Is a peanut butter, almond
52:30
butter, or just straight up butter, unsalted, organic butter. Fantastic.
52:35
Then we get down to business. I need to I need the visual.
52:37
Okay, no, we what do we do? Well? It depends who
52:43
I'm writing with. Edgar. So, Edgar was my first collaborative experience,
52:50
and he'd made Short of the Dead Hot Fuzz maybe just Short of the Dead
52:55
when we first started writing out Man, So he'd made a movie I hadn't.
53:00
So he was the guy, the boss, and he I was in
53:04
a position where I was gonna follow his lead and so uh like do you
53:13
want to know actually how we actually go about writing? Is it one of
53:15
those questions like yeah, like actually like like yeah, I don't like what
53:20
I mean. The butter was fairly very visceral in my mind, and that's
53:24
an image I can't actually get out of my head. So thank you for
53:28
that, but um or not? Um no, just like the I'm asking
53:31
the question more for writers who are working with other writers and just to kind
53:35
of see what, you know, writing partnership looks like, because a lot
53:38
of people want to get into a writing partnership and I know as well as
53:43
you do, you know, working with another creative I've heard sometimes you know,
53:47
you bump heads occasionally, not all the time, occasionally, So what
53:52
is that process, especially when you're working with, you know, someone like
53:54
an Edgar Edgar Wright, who is you know, so creative and you're also
54:00
created? How does that mix when you get together? In my experience,
54:05
what helps is to know kind of who's in charge. Okay, so whose
54:09
idea is it? Whose vision are you serving? So so with ant Man,
54:15
I wouldn't have been there without Edgar. I'm tint and I wouldn't have
54:20
been there without Egar. But then Agar left so I worked on it on
54:22
my own for a while. But then you're serving the books and Steven and
54:27
Peter as much as you possibly can. And your job is to offer ideas
54:35
just then, and have you ever as for dialogue, ideas, for character
54:40
ideas, for setups, payoffs, connections, themes. To offer ideas and
54:45
to keep them coming, and to listen and be sensitive to what the other
54:52
person needs. And then to fill the blank space, you know, with
54:57
as many ideas, and then to be patient and tolerant and available. And
55:07
you know, because it's writing is tough, isn't it. It's like holding
55:10
your breath and going on the waters, and there's so many things to distract
55:17
you. And it's so much more fun just to go to the movies.
55:22
I mean. The funny thing about movies is, of all art forms,
55:29
the experience of making them is is so far from the experience of consuming them.
55:36
It's so when you consume them, you're completely passive. You're sitting in
55:40
a comfy chair, you're shoving candy into your mouth. You're just criticizing them
55:45
and to come on, like do something wrong, like please me. And
55:51
when you're making them, especially writing them, you have to shut the whole
55:54
while out and focus on one thing and be complete completely the other way,
56:01
right, spill everything out. Even writing a novel, the difference isn't that
56:07
great because reading is you know, takes effort, doesn't it a little bit
56:15
takes effort. So what I'm trying to say is that is that to be
56:19
patient with the other person is quite important and to you know, sometimes be
56:23
happy to work around their schedule if they're in charge. Yeah, and on
56:30
the movies, I like, so i I've written something with I'm working with
56:34
a writer called Brian Duffield at the moment, who wrote Love and Monsters and
56:38
Spontaneous and who's a really great guy and and and it's my idea we're working
56:45
on. And what's fantastic about him is he's to me, like I hope
56:47
I was to Edgar, just this incredibly incredibly generous, fond of ideas.
57:00
And you know the bottom line is to have just to have another brain somebody
57:05
else to say stuff out loud too, is so helpful. Um, that's
57:09
a very long answer to your question. Fair enough, fair enough. No,
57:13
that's that's a great answer. Um. Your your latest film, The
57:16
Kid Who Would Be King? Yes, that was a you know a fairly
57:22
very fairly big. It looked like a big budget. I'm not sure if
57:24
it was or not, but there's a lot of visual effects in it.
57:27
I love the story. I love the way it came up. How did
57:30
you? How did that come to life? Because that's that was you.
57:32
You were the writer and the director of that. I'm assuming you came up
57:36
with a story on that I did. Yeah, that was That was an
57:39
idea I had when I was a kid. Actually, I had when I
57:43
was that eighties kid. So I was so obsessed with movies and designing the
57:47
posters and thinking of the catchphrase and stuff. I just used to do them
57:52
as a kid. I used to make up movie titles and attempt to write
57:55
scripts when I was like fourteen, fifteen, thirteen years old. That was
58:00
an idea I had when I was when I was a kid. And really
58:05
it connects to your question about what I did after Attack the Block. So
58:09
after a while I figured, Okay, I've got the opportunity to make a
58:12
bigger movie. Why not make one of my dream projects, you know,
58:16
come hell or high water instead of making someone else's dream project, you know.
58:22
So yeah, but yeah, so that was an idea I had when
58:25
I was a kid, but it took a while before that got made.
58:30
I mean, that wasn't it was? It did. Yeah, So we
58:31
finished on ant Man in about twenty fourteen, and I started writing I started
58:38
making The Kid who would be King in twenty sixteen. So so yeah,
58:44
so I took Yeah, so there were two years when I was trying to
58:47
get another couple of movies off the ground that didn't that didn't make it.
58:52
But yeah, and yeah it was pretty big budget, not as big as
58:55
it looks. It looks twice as big as it was. But yeah.
59:00
Now, and and do you have any tips on directing children? Because I
59:04
have directed children, and that's that's, that's that's a journey. Well that
59:12
my tip on directing children would be get as many takes as you can,
59:19
and then work really hard in the edit. And even if you get the
59:24
most superb performance from a child, you're likely to get little bits of good
59:32
stuff in in lots of different takes. Interesting, So use the audio from
59:38
one take and the picture from another take. Build the performance from lots of
59:45
different takes. No when to use a reaction rather than beyond them when they're
59:50
talking. So so so for me, like a performance from a child is
59:54
more likely to be elevated in the edit. You can use all the same
1:00:00
techniques on adults. But but I've really you know, attacked the block and
1:00:07
the kid who would be king of both had kind of young actors in them,
1:00:09
and it just creates a fantastic atmosphere on the set. I don't know
1:00:13
whether you agree, but there's such a sense of opportunity and happiness going to
1:00:19
work. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
1:00:28
back to the show. And it makes the adults on the crew not curse
1:00:35
and raise their game and behave really well. The grips, the grips,
1:00:38
the grips are a little bit a little less, Yeah, exactly, So
1:00:43
I really enjoy it. But yeah, that would be my tip. Awesome,
1:00:47
And I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I ask all of my
1:00:50
guests, what are three screenplays every screenwriter should read? I would say,
1:00:57
read something by Walter Hillah so good, so good in terms of minimalism and
1:01:04
knowing that you don't have to put everything down on the page, and that
1:01:07
sometimes the punchiest description. You know, they're so readable and they're fast to
1:01:14
read. So anything by Walter Hill. I would say die Hard is a
1:01:21
really good movie to study because die Hard is a really good example of rewriting
1:01:28
and how often necessity could be the mother of invention. Because Bruce was Willis
1:01:35
was making Moonlighting at the same time he was shooting that movie, so he
1:01:38
wasn't available. So different writers came in and beefed up all the subplots so
1:01:43
that they had stuff to shoot and Bruce wasn't available. And the way that
1:01:45
our guile works and the way the FBI guy works, the way those through
1:01:50
lines work to support the main story is so incredible. And in fact,
1:01:54
Simon Kimbo, the producer, gave me a copy of die Hard that he
1:01:59
had that's actually annotated with all the different writers and draft so you can see
1:02:05
where because he'd studied it and pulled it apart, and little stuff just like
1:02:08
the fact that one of the one of the last writers to come in spotted
1:02:13
that Rickman's character and Willis's character never met and that was quite the eleventh hour
1:02:19
and created that incredible scene where they meet on the rooftop. So I think
1:02:23
that's a really good example of how rewriting can really enhance a story. Did
1:02:30
you want three, Yeah, a third one if you have one, a
1:02:32
third one, Well, I must say I go back to et quite a
1:02:40
lot because I think if there's a movie you know inside out, and there's
1:02:45
a movie you saw as a child, Like if there's a movie you saw
1:02:46
as a child where you didn't understand the craft at all and it had and
1:02:52
it felt like you lived it when you were a child, to look at
1:02:54
it on paper and realized that that thing that felt you'll actually came from these
1:03:01
particular words on a page. So Melissa Matheson's draft of the you know,
1:03:07
the original, and you've always got to try and get the pre production drafts
1:03:12
because often there are drafts that are just transcripts of the finished movie. You've
1:03:15
got to try and the versions that have all the shit that they didn't put
1:03:20
in, you know, that didn't make the final cut. I think the
1:03:22
other fantastic document to study is that that script meeting transcript of Raiders between Lucas
1:03:30
and Yeah, I'd say that's a must, just to see the amount of
1:03:35
ideas and the way that creative people start formulating a story that's as tight as
1:03:42
Raiders. You studied that, right, of course, Yeah, we've posted
1:03:46
it on the on the website because it's it's available out there, and I
1:03:49
wanted everybody to read it because it's just the you're right, like you talk
1:03:52
about three masters, you know, you know, so they come up with
1:03:57
they come up with ideas that aren't that good. It happens. That's really
1:04:00
liberating as well. You know, you you have to be in a space
1:04:03
where there's where there's room to make mistakes, you know, and no one's
1:04:08
judging you for saying something you know that doesn't quite fit. So to see
1:04:15
that masterpiece come from, to see the meeting that masterpiece came from, you
1:04:19
know, it's pretty, it's pretty. This is incredible in it. Lucas,
1:04:25
you know, the ideas Lucas comes up with a phenomenal and how those
1:04:30
like we were saying, how you can write from moments, How he has
1:04:32
just nine or ten really solid notions in his head for character, beats,
1:04:39
a moment, a piece of costume, and then they're building out from those
1:04:43
nuggets. And yeah, so that's four things for you. And Lucas has
1:04:50
done okay for himself. I think he's he's he's okay. That would like
1:04:54
I would like to see some works I would love to have seen, Like
1:04:56
I think Coppola said it that he goes it's a shame that Orge get stuck
1:05:00
with this whole Star Wars thing, because I would really like to see some
1:05:02
more experimental stuff. And I hope, I hope he I know, I
1:05:06
hear he's doing some experimental stuff that no one's seen. I was there was
1:05:12
me and one other person in the theater in Los Angeles for Red Tails on
1:05:15
that opening day, So I will see anything he makes, you know,
1:05:19
and yeah, he's yeah, he's amazing, amazing, amazing. Now what
1:05:26
advice would you give a filmmaker or screenwriter wanting to break into the business today?
1:05:31
Oh well, I think my answer to that is is really just to
1:05:39
make stuff. Next to what we were saying earlier about being a PA and
1:05:45
looking at the ladder you have to climb and feeling it's impossible and realizing that
1:05:50
the creativity is your way up so and you can, like particularly my generation,
1:05:59
like I made videos on the weekend with my best friend Adam Buxton.
1:06:05
We would comedy skits and animation and that got us our own TV show on
1:06:12
British TV. Around the same time, Trey Parker and Matt Stone were making
1:06:17
animations out of cup or cutouts, and that turned into, you know,
1:06:24
their incredible career. The people that produced my TV show, the Adam and
1:06:29
Joe Show, were a company called World of Wonder, and they managed a
1:06:32
drag queen called Rue Paul at the time, who was kind of underground and
1:06:38
hadn't broken out, and people thought was a bit freaky and it felt very
1:06:42
countercultural twenty five years later as one of the most famous and successful people in
1:06:46
the world. But these are everyone's creating. They're creating and creating them making
1:06:51
stuff. I'm sure they've got other other jobs on the side or you know,
1:06:58
but you're you're producing stuff, even if it was with little bits of
1:07:00
cobbled paper like Matt and Trey or soft toys as puppets that me and Adam
1:07:06
were doing. When someone says what do you do, you can say this
1:07:12
is what I do. You can give them something, a script, a
1:07:15
short film, just make shit. And sometimes even the low fi stuff is
1:07:20
more impressive. But the stuff without the production value, whether it's our puppet
1:07:27
movies or Matt and Trey with like the first thing I saw of theirs was
1:07:31
called was this was it called the spirit the spirit of Christmas. That was
1:07:34
That was the construction card, Papa. It was going around bootleg VHS.
1:07:41
I saw it in a comic bookstore I had. I walked into a comic
1:07:43
bookstore and the guy's like, you want to see something cool. I'm like,
1:07:46
you know, yes, and it was cool because it was it was.
1:07:51
It looked kind of crappy, but it was still fucking funny. Actually,
1:07:56
the fact that it was crappiness shone a light on their talent more than
1:08:00
it would have if it had had super duper production values. So don't sweat
1:08:04
the production values. Just show your show what you do, show your rawness.
1:08:10
And that's what I'd say, because that's the way to jump that jump
1:08:14
the queue. Yeah amen, brother, Amen. What is the lesson that
1:08:18
took you the longest to learn, whether in the film business or in life.
1:08:24
Mum, let me think, what is the lesson that took me longest
1:08:30
to learn? Oh? Man, that's such a toughie. I don't know.
1:08:41
I just think I'm you know, like it's it's a cliche, but
1:08:44
it's always true. I'm still learning everything. Um, I don't know.
1:08:50
I mean to okay, here, to finish things, m finish it.
1:08:56
Finish it like that's the most important thing, regardless of the quality of what
1:09:00
you finish as you perceive it. Finish it. Finish the draft, finish
1:09:05
the cup, finish the project. Don't let it just sit there unfinished.
1:09:11
It'd rather be finished and bad than unfinished and with potentially it could have been
1:09:15
a work of art. Yes, finish it. That's what Edgar taught me.
1:09:20
Interesting. I had a million half written screenplays, and he taught confidence
1:09:27
to push through to the end. He'd just say, keep going, man,
1:09:30
keep going, don't stop. Keep going. Man. I'd be working
1:09:33
on aut man, he'd be off shooting. I tell him I had some
1:09:36
ideas. I tell him, I'm not sure about this. I'm not sure.
1:09:40
He said, just put it down, just do it, just do
1:09:42
it. Just keep going, keep going, man, that's great. Keep
1:09:44
going, Sega, that's awesome. And last question, and the toughest of
1:09:49
the ball. Three of your favorite films of all time? H okay,
1:09:56
Well, so it's a toughie. I would say, I really love The
1:10:04
Black Stallion. Yes, look at that beautiful um. That was a big
1:10:13
that was a big movie in the in the early eighties. I remember when
1:10:15
I was a kid, when that came out. It was like it was
1:10:18
everybody was talking about it, like it was just like the biggest thing ever
1:10:21
back then. Yeah, it's a beautiful film. I guess I guess to
1:10:26
ask this question, I have to go back to like gut like non intellectual
1:10:30
stuff, like gut stuff that we'll be right back after a word from our
1:10:36
sponsor and now back to the show. And then I would say, die
1:10:46
Hard probably the greatest Christmas movie of all time? Right, yeah, arguably,
1:10:53
But it feels like that was the first movie I saw that made me
1:10:58
think about writing and structure and craft because it's literally like a design for story
1:11:06
structure turned into a building, do you know what I mean? Like the
1:11:12
actually physical architecture of the movie and the plot lines and the positioning of the
1:11:17
characters in the space is almost like someone drew a chart about how to build
1:11:23
a story of the hero's journey, like as they're like going up and then
1:11:26
they got to go back there, the model of how to run a story
1:11:29
that would be here. I never thought of it that way, but you're
1:11:31
absolutely I never I can't believe I've never thought of that. But literally they're
1:11:35
positioning in the building where they are it's kind of where the hero's journey,
1:11:41
it's kind of coming. And I saw it in New York. I didn't
1:11:44
know nobody when it first came out. Nobody knew, like they were like
1:11:47
Bruce Willis and oh, apparently it's really good. It doesn't look good,
1:11:50
no, but people say it's really good. And the only the only seats
1:11:54
we could find are in a downtown cinema were we smoked a bunch of weed
1:11:59
and everybody else in the cinema when people went insane. Yeah, it was
1:12:04
like, it's like that movie picks up your your puppeteering rod and just puppeteers
1:12:11
you. And yeah, so that's a really good movie. And then what
1:12:17
would I say? And then I'd have to I'd have to throw in like
1:12:20
a European movie, because like something really like, say, have you heard
1:12:26
of a movie called Obi while is en form by Louis mal I have not.
1:12:31
Okay, Well, it's a really good movie about a Jewish kid hiding
1:12:38
out in a Catholic boarding school in the Second World War in France. And
1:12:42
there's just something about a European movie where none of this screenwriting shit, none
1:12:47
of this Hollywood industrial shit is part of it, it's and the people aren't
1:12:54
even speaking your language. Sometimes, especially in a world of massive franchises that
1:13:00
don't really connect with humanity, Often those European movies can really just I find
1:13:06
them really elevating and nourishing in a way that Hollywood movies are less and less
1:13:14
I fear. Yeah, and that was when I saw as a kid and
1:13:16
loved and it's stuck with you apparently still stuck with you. Yeah, yeah.
1:13:23
Now. I want to thank you Joe for being on the show and
1:13:26
helping, hopefully helping some screenwriters and filmmakers out there get to the next level
1:13:30
of what they're trying to do. But I really do appreciate you being so
1:13:33
raw and candid about about your journeys and misadventures in Holly Weird. So thank
1:13:40
you so much. Good to see you, Alex, Thanks for having me
1:13:43
on. I want to thank Joe so much for taking the time and dropping
1:13:47
his knowledge bombs. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about
1:13:50
in this episode, head over to the show notes at any film muscle dot
1:13:54
com Ford Slash six seven three. Thank you guys so much for listening.
1:13:58
As always, Keep that Also for Owen, Keep that dream alive, Stay
1:14:01
safe out there, and I'll talk too soon. Thanks for listening to the
1:14:04
Indie Film Hustle podcast at Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D
1:14:10
I E F I L M h U S t l E dot com.