Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 289: How I Built a Blockbuster Career Off of an Indie Film with Craig Brewer

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BPS 289: How I Built a Blockbuster Career Off of an Indie Film with Craig Brewer · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFAH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
• 0:13
  Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number two eighty nine. I've been trying to squeeze a
• 0:18
  dollar out of a dim and I even got a cent. DJ Hustle and
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  Flow broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be
• 0:27
  working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the
• 0:32
  craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:37
  And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
• 0:43
  the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now,
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  today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script
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  coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are
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  in the goals of the project you are, so we actually break it down
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  by three categories micro budget, indie film, market and studio film. There's
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  no reason to get coverage from a reader that used to reading tempole movies when
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  your movie is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars, and we
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  wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have worked
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  with Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott
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  Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if
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  you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers, head on over
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  to cover my screenplay dot com. Well, guys, Today on the show
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  we have writer director extraordinaire Craig Brewer, and Craig is the director and creator
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  of the film's Hustle and Flow, Blacksnake, Moan, Dolomite is my Name,
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  Footloose, the Remake, and Coming to America, to just to name
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  a few. Craig has been in the trenches hustling for many, many years.
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  I've loved his work ever since. I was at the same Sun Dance
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  that he was at with Hustle and Flow, where I met Terrence Howard for
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  five seconds before he blew up, and for the whole movie blew Up.
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  And the story is about how Hustle and Flow got to get made, what
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  happened with John Singleton, the legendary great Late John Singleton, and so much
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  more. Such a great conversation that Craig and I had. It is frank,
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  it is raw, and it is entertaining, to say the least.
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  So without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Craig Brewer. I
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  like to welcome to the show, Craig Brewer Man. How you doing,
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  Greig. I'm doing good, doing good. Thank you so much for coming
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  on the show, man, And I appreciate you having a good mike,
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  a beautiful background. I appreciate that, sir. It's all for you.
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  It's all for you, now, you know, I have one of these
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  pandemic per just says this Amazon mike that I'm sure microphone enthusiasts would say is
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  not superior. But it worked for that whole press junket that I had to
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  do for coming to America where I couldn't be in the room with anybody.
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  So it's it's it's fine for me. But listen, I've been following you,
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  like I was telling you earlier, and I was following you since Hustle
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  and Flow days. I was at Sundance. I had a five I think
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  a ten or fifty second conversation with Terrence as he was rushing pre screening of
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  them, because after they you couldn't even touch him screening pre screening. I
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  caught him on the street and talked him for a few seconds. Um,
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  but yeah, I was there with that, and I was wild wild.
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  Well, well, we'll definitely talk about But first question to you, my
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  friend, is why God screen Earth did you decide to go into the film
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  industry? You know, it's so funny because, um, so not only
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  am I now like I'll be turning fifty two at the end of this year,
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  but my daughter is now fifteen, and I think that for the and
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  and I'm very pleased to say that. You know, it's Friday and she
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  holds these um screenings with all her friends here in my office space, which
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  I have like a big it's kind of like a little mini theater here,
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  and she's showing John Carpenter's Halloween, and I was so proud that. I
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  mean, she loves the David Gordon Greenway, but she I'm so proud that
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  she's showing the original to all her friends who haven't seen it. And it
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  made me think back on my when I was you know, probably about like
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  twelve through fourteen. For my generation, was a very unique time, because
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  and I was trying to explain this to my daughter that you know, there
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  was a time where you couldn't just see movies if you wanted to see them.
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  There was like four channels, and you know, maybe on the weekends
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  you would get like, you know, some Westerns or something like that.
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  But there was this explosion that happened with my f in the eighties of going
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  down to a video store and him going like, oh my god, Okay,
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  you get um, you know, you get Raiders, Lost Dark,
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  but I'm gonna get Bridge on the River Quai. And so yeah, we'd
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  watch Raiders. But then like dad would watch his movie and I could watch
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  it, you know. And so a lot of my love of movies really
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  came from that. Was the equivalent of me and my dad like throwing the
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  ball around. You know. I wasn't really that still, I'm not athletic
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  or anything like that. And uh, but he loved he loved movies,
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  He loved talking about movies. He loves showing movies to me. And I
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  think that's where it was. It was like, at first I wanted to
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  be an archaeologist because I saw Raiders and loved it. Yeah, but then
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  I saw the making of Raiders, which, by the way, it was
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  one of the few making of videos other than Star Wars that was available about
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  filmmaking in the video store times. I mean, because that was rentable.
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  It was, if I remember, was making Raiders of the Lost Ark,
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  and then the second part was like a stunts The stunts of Raiders of the
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  Lost art right right and amazing. And around the same time, you know,
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  was the making of Thriller, which ultimately financed Thriller. Like Thriller was
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  one of the biggest music videos of all time, and the way that the
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  label justified it was like, Okay, we'll get in the movie business.
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  We'll make this movie called the Making of Thriller and that that'll offset it.
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  And it became a huge kit for them as well. But it got me
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  in the habit as a young person to go like, okay, well wait
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  a minute, there's this guy named Spielberg and he made Raiders the Lost Dark.
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  And then here's this guy George Lucas, who I know is the guy
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  at the beginning of Star Wars that I would watch see up until then,
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  I think, especially when I was younger, with Star Wars like it still
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  was that place of fantasy. You just went into a movie theater and these
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  things just appeared. But then with the making of Raiders, I was like,
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  oh, that guy, And then like the making of Thriller, it
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  was like, oh landis this guy. And that was the beginning of like
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  truly being like I guess a centophile, where you you begin to say,
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  well, who is this filmmaker and what is their next film? And I
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  remember my father and I standing in line knowing that we were going to see
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  Steven Spielberg's new movie called Et like it was up until then it would have
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  just been Et, but to us, we were seeing that guy, Steven
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  Spielberg's new movie. And so I think that because I went into theater and
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  I was acting a lot as a kid and writing a lot movies, was
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  the dream. It was that thing. It's like, off, one day,
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  I can maybe make make some movies, you know. I mean that
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  that I just didn't think that there would be anything cooler on the planet to
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  do, and because I just didn't have all the means, immediately I started
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  just writing theater and writing and directing plays, which completely completely informed directing movies
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  for me, um staging, working with creative people, but also working with
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  people who are probably cranky and different personalities and trying to get actors comfortable and
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  all that kind of stuff. I think was because of those early days of
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  theater. But yeah, where I tell people all the time, like when
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  you're part of that crew, that that growing family of people who who love
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  movies, Um, you know, we take everybody, you know. That's
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  the That's the great thing about about the movie club, you know, is
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  that you can be the popular kid. You can be the you know,
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  overweight kid like I was, where you just wanted to kind of like be
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  a part of something, to be a part of a big conversation. That's
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  that's awesome. Yeah, it's it's it's it's pretty insane. And I worked
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  at a video store. So I which one you mind me asking which one?
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  I was a mom and pop and down in South Florida it was a
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  mom and POPU and Blockbuster had I was working with pre Blockbuster, so Blockbuster
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  was just getting up. But I was there for four years, five years,
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  and that's where I got my start. Like I just I would just
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  considerably consume movies and play Nintendo. Consume movies and play Nintendo. That's all
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  I did, and it was you were right. It was a time that
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  are for people to understand now that weren't growing up at that time, But
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  you just didn't have access to movies like well. And I think the thing
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  that I worry most about with um the generation today is, I mean,
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  even though there's an argument that not everything is accessible, but because things are
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  so accessible, it's almost blinding. It's almost like it's two. It's two.
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  There's just too many things to see. And but back in the day,
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  there wasn't a I mean, yeah, you could, like you you
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  had your hbos, you had like you know, things like that, but
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  but really like you had what was coming out on on VHS. We'll be
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  right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
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  Like I just some movies like like Blue Thunder, you know, and
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  uh and uh and then you and then suddenly you'll get one where you just
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  go like, oh, this cover is so great. But then you're watching
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  like Roger Corman's Humanoids from the Deep and I'm watching like a creature explode out
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  of it or the external. Well that was like the big deal. Like
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  that that was the equivalent of like you know, um no excuse me not
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  Exterminator. Reanimator was the movie that almost was like was passed around like porn.
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  It was this thing that like, oh my god, it's so crazy,
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  like don't let your parents know that you're watching this. And well that's
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  Faces of Death if you remember that. Oh yeah, well that's like that.
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  That was important. That was like that was like snuff that was like,
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  oh my god, I hope God has watch watch did that get five
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  five sequels? Like, well, it's where we are now. I mean,
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  it's just I mean, I mean Faces of Death is where I mean
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  that that's live leak, that's a that's that's that's basically you know, when
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  people are going online and they can look at something that they probably shouldn't be
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  looking at. Uh. That was the early days of that. That was
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  like, oh, I'm gonna watch that woman get hit by a train,
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  you know, and god, it's crazy stuff, man, is really crazy.
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  And I saw it young too, like it probably wasn't right. It
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  really wasn't right for us, But I think I watched Scarface and then Faces
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  of Death. You had a that's a that's a bang bang like a gut
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  punch, and then one to the face I was like, what fourteen fifteen
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  at the time or something like that. Crazy. Yeah, yeah, but
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  you know, but it's interesting though that you're saying that there's so much content
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  in the world today, and you know, when we were coming up,
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  you know, the movie star was the movie star. You know, it
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  was it was there was a thing called the movie star, and it drew
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  drove everything, and to a lesser extent today it still does. But the
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  movie stars that are driving things today, our legacy movie stars that have been
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  around for twenty five years, like the Leo's and the brad Pitts and the
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  Tom Cruises, you know, and those kind of but the new generations that
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  I don't think that. I think because there's so much more to watch,
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  it's harder for somebody to become a movie star, even if even in a
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  big, giant blockbuster kind of thing, like even the Girl from Wednesday,
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  which if Wednesday would have hit in the eighties, she would be a household
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  name, making Julia Roberts money every time she would walk up. Oh yeah,
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  yeah, you know. It's it's interesting because I have these debates with
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  myself about that, like, Okay, are we are we leaving the movie
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  star era, but maybe we're just leaving the movie star era that that that
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  I knew where even though I'll still like, okay, if Tom Cruise,
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  I always feel like, if Tom Cruise is going to put out a movie,
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  then I need to go see it. And and I feel like everybody
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  should do, because I feel like there's few people out there that I think
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  are still have his work ethic where he is saying like, Nope, I'm
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  making movies for those people that like actually work for a living and need to
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  go out to see a movie theater. They're going out with their kids and
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  and and damn it, I'm going to let them know that I'm working my
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  ass up for them. That's kind of rare that that you have someone who's
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  like, yeah, I'm going to hang off the side of a jumbo.
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  Did you just see do you think he like flew his his his motorcycle up
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  in the air. And then and you see it. You see Chris,
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  You see the director, Chris just sitting there like is he gonna what is
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  the shoe? Whe's the shoe popping? I'm telling you, until until you
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  are a director, there's even a there's a moment where you see you know,
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  uh, Christopher Quarry, like like someone is like like holding them after
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  they said, because until you have a stunt, until you do a stunt
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  as a director, oh you don't. I mean the terror that you have
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  that someone is going to get hurt or killed is so real. And because
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  you're almost with every movie that you're doing, you're tempting fate for like you're
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  inviting bad things to happen. And then you have someone like Tom Cruse who's
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  like, you know, yes he's a he's a professional, and he's got
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  like the best stunt team around and he's preparing for these things for months.
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  But that's just terrifying. And so I think that when audiences see that,
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  they know that, they recognize that, they go, Okay, well,
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  thank you for that. But I think the same could be said. I
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  think that what we have now is you know you have like, yeah,
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  you have we are in our We are undoubtedly in the super hero I mean,
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  there will be a tashion book one day where we are in this era
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  of superheroes, like this will be the book that's like, okay, it
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  kind of started here with I would say that it really started with Superman,
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  like the original Christopher Reeve like where they go, no, we're gonna get
• 15:05
  good actors. We're gonna get like even Academy Award winning actors to be in
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  this. It's like really in the in the comic book thinging like but they
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  but even back then with with with Richard Donner, like there was this sense
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  of like, no, we want to we want to make like if the
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  Godfather too is if the Godfather is to mafia gangster movies, then we want
• 15:26
  to do a Superman like a comic book movie in the same way. And
• 15:31
  and really, so you're you're and I know it's been said, it's like
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  spider Man is the star, right who plays him is going to change,
• 15:39
  but spider Man is the star. But now I've also found that what also
• 15:45
  is the star and which is kind of cool on a storytelling, what element
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  is the high concept of it is so so you may not have like huge
• 15:58
  stars and get Out, but everybody was talking about get Out. It's like
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  and I mean, yes, you have Sandra Bullock, but I mean I
• 16:07
  remember when bird Box hit and like you're now being hit with everybody going like,
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  oh my god, did you see Birdbox? And it reminded me of
• 16:14
  kind of like you know, just movies back in the day where you know,
• 16:18
  to be honest with you, Terminator was this because Terminator came out was
• 16:21
  not like that big of a theatrical hit. We discovered it on VHS because
• 16:25
  people were like, have you seen this movie about like people are going back
• 16:29
  in time to kill the mother of the person's big buscle bound dude, and
• 16:33
  like, yeah, it was the concept of it that there was no stars
• 16:36
  in it that we were going like, oh my god, I gotta go
• 16:37
  see Michael Mean's new movie. And it was like, this concept is driving
• 16:41
  it. And I feel that that we're now here with Megan and in horror.
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  You know, I just don't. I hope that people will still do
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  it with comedy and drama as well. But we're in a very unique time
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  right now, no question, no question. So let's get let's go peep
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  a little bit into your past or Um, your first film was Poor and
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  Hungry, which, yeah, which, how did you get that? Yeah,
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  that little guy made because I was the first feature, right, that
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  was the first first thing you ever did. It was I still feel it's
• 17:17
  my best. Actually, wow, that's amazing. Yeah, good stuff,
• 17:21
  sir, thank you. But it's well and The reason why it's my best
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  is because of what it meant to me. You know, my I had
• 17:30
  moved all my families from Memphis, but I lived a lot of my life
• 17:34
  in California, and then I moved back after both my granddads died here in
• 17:40
  Memphis, and I moved into the house that my dad grew up in,
• 17:41
  and my grandmother was you know, she had suffered from a stroke, and
• 17:45
  so I was kind of like helping out with that. But I really wanted
• 17:48
  to make a movie in the South. And what it happened was I just
• 17:53
  really failed a lot. Like I I did what everybody did in the nine
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  es, or what we were encouraged to do, which was, you know,
• 18:03
  spend your credit cards and make that movie. And yeah, I'm glad
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  I did it, but it's still I didn't really know what I was doing.
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  I was shooting on sixteen millimeter and it just I didn't even have the
• 18:17
  money to finish it, really, and so I was really kind of depressed.
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  And I was hanging out at this bar called the PNH Cafe, which
• 18:22
  stood for Poor and Hungry, and I started writing this movie about car thieves
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  and Memphis, and it was a love story, and I wrote this.
• 18:33
  I wrote it, and I sent it off to my dad and who was
• 18:37
  always really supportive of me, and he read it and he just gave me,
• 18:41
  like this break, you know, hey, get back in there.
• 18:45
  You know, don't be afraid of not having money. Celebrate the fact that
• 18:48
  you don't have any money, and just get one of these like nineteen ninety
• 18:52
  seven ninety eight. So he was like, get one of these like small
• 18:53
  digital cameras, and then and then edit it yourself on a computer. And
• 19:00
  and I suddenly was inspired, and I went out and I didn't go to
• 19:04
  film school or anything, but I did have a Barnes and no. I
• 19:07
  worked to Barnes and Noble, and I had a discount there, so I
• 19:10
  got all the books I could on digital filmmaking and um. And then I
• 19:15
  came home and and found out that, you know, my guy from my
• 19:18
  dad's work called and said, your dad was complaining of chest pains. And
• 19:22
  we rushed from the hospital and he died of heart attack, very unexpectedly,
• 19:26
  like we didn't know there was he was. He wasn't really like a you
• 19:30
  know, he was a pretty healthy guy. So but it rocked me a
• 19:33
  lot. It rocked me that that, uh, he was forty nine,
• 19:37
  and I was, you know, I was like, you know, in
• 19:42
  my in my I think it was thirty and I I it just kind of
• 19:49
  rocked me on a on a mortality level, you know that I always thought
• 19:53
  there was time, you know, and I got about twenty grand of inherence.
• 20:00
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
• 20:07
  to the show. And my mother told me you should really make you should
• 20:11
  try to make that movie that your dad was talking to you about. And
• 20:15
  so I went out. I just had like my brother in law and my
• 20:18
  wife at the time and my sister in law, and we all lived in
• 20:22
  this teeny little crappy house in Memphis, and we were making this movie with
• 20:26
  everything we had. And I cut it together all myself on Adobe premiere and
• 20:32
  learned a lot about filmmaking from that movie. But then then that you know,
• 20:38
  that movie not only opened the door to Hollywood for me, because it
• 20:45
  played the Hollywood Film Festival and it won an award. And then I got
• 20:48
  an agent, and the agent asked, well, what do you want to
• 20:49
  do next? And I was like, well, I made a sequel to
• 20:52
  Poor and Hungry called Hustle and Flow, and it was going to be it's
• 20:56
  in the same crime world in Memphis, but it has the same kind of
• 21:00
  heart that was in my first movie. And then Stephanie Elaine, who is
• 21:03
  the producer of Hustle and Flow, and then John Singleton Um read the script.
• 21:08
  But then they watched Poor and Hungry and and John was very much like,
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  well, this guy's a regional filmmaker. He's from you know, he's
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  he's he's doing a movie about Memphis and in Memphis. And if if this
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  movie Poor and Hungry just had money behind it and stars, you know,
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  or or or at least name actors, you know, it could probably you
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  know, go somewhere. And so when you watch Hustle and Flow, it's
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  really about me. And I mean it's a it's it's us making that first
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  movie in that crappy house, no air conditioning, doing everything we can.
• 21:47
  Yeah. Yeah, that's basically what it is. And from you know,
• 21:51
  because I remember when Hustle and Flow came out, I was coming out with
• 21:52
  my first film that was going through the first Civil Circuit and doing all of
• 21:56
  that stuff as well. It was two thousand and five, and I mean
• 21:59
  when Hustle and Flow hit because I was at that sundance and in the insanity,
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  I mean, this is sundance, oh oh five is a very different
• 22:07
  sundance than twenty twenty three. Like it's right, it's it had more power.
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  Back then. The market was different. There was still DVD sales,
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  There was all sorts of stuff that was happening back then. But I mean
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  it's one of those you know, in the nineties, every week there was
• 22:23
  a new you know at John Singleton, Robert Rodgerie Guesst, Kevin Smith.
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  So in the early two thousands, Hustle and Flow hit, and it was
• 22:33
  it was an explosion in the indie space. So there was a lot of
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  talk about it. And I remember when because John, you know, the
• 22:38
  late grade John Singleton, when he was doing the rounds, I was I
• 22:44
  was like, looking at how this Craig guy get this thing made? How
• 22:48
  did he get this task? How did John Singleton get involved? And then
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  I remember and correct me if I'm wrong. In one of his interviews,
• 22:53
  he's like, well, the studio wouldn't give me the money, so I
• 22:56
  put up the money and he actually, which is one thing you never do
• 23:00
  as a filmmakers put your own cash in at that level. And he's like,
• 23:03
  no, I'm going to write a check because that's how much I believe
• 23:06
  in this, and and he gave you a shot. It was pretty remarkable.
• 23:10
  It's unheard of. It's really unheard of in the Hollywood. Oh it
• 23:12
  is. I bring up all the time, like he And it's interesting you
• 23:17
  bring that up about just the culture of Sundance at the time, because you
• 23:22
  know, I was reading all those books that were about like the you know,
• 23:26
  there was there was even this one book and I can't remember, but
• 23:29
  it was kind of like tracking the growth of Sundance and then the growth of
• 23:33
  Oh Mirrormax, I believe at this and and then And it's really interesting because
• 23:38
  and this is what I have to give myself credit for for like trying to
• 23:41
  just read all the books that I could, because I learned a lot about
• 23:45
  how it worked. And I'll never forget. We were in There's like three
• 23:51
  am in the morning and John is the bidding War is happening. After the
• 23:56
  first screening at Hustling Flow, Oh God, that was amazing, and I
• 24:00
  mean to watch that go down was crazy. But I'll never forget the moment
• 24:04
  where this guy, Richard Klubeck, who was one of the agents that was
• 24:11
  negotiating for John Singleton, and he turned to me and he was like,
• 24:15
  so, what's important to you? And I said, well, I only
• 24:17
  have two requirements. One that nobody changed the cut. The cut is the
• 24:22
  cut. That's the movie. We won't be changing that. And I want
• 24:26
  no options. And they were like, wow, how do you know about
• 24:32
  options? And it was because I'd read these books. And what I knew
• 24:34
  about these books was that like right around the time of like like late nineties
• 24:38
  into the two thousands, Harvey Weinstein had figured out a new model where he
• 24:44
  would buy these movies, but he was kind of buying the filmmaker. So
• 24:48
  he would buy the movie and then he would make you sign. You would
• 24:52
  be happy to sign it, but you would you would sign basically and negotiated
• 24:57
  what your next three film for Harvey at a negotiated price that was or a
• 25:03
  set price. Excuse me. So, even if you suddenly were Germo Dotro
• 25:07
  and you became like Germo de Toro and you had no movies that Harvey Weinsey
• 25:11
  wanted to make, and you want to go to somebody else to make a
• 25:14
  movie, then Harvey would make a deal for himself to get him out of
• 25:17
  that contract. And so I had read about that and I was like,
• 25:21
  I don't want that, and and then you know, John put his house
• 25:26
  up for collateral. We made the movie for under three million. I mean,
• 25:33
  we made the movie for about a million nine. I remember I shot
• 25:36
  it in about twenty three days. We did like six day weeks here in
• 25:40
  Memphis. And we even had like it was called modified low budget scale,
• 25:45
  which means that if you had more than than a certain amount percentage of actors
• 25:49
  or actresses of color, or if they were handicapped, then you got to
• 25:52
  be in a different bracket. And so we really made it for very very
• 25:57
  little money. And then John had this big, you know, sixteen million
• 26:02
  dollar deal that he got out of it. And I always tell people,
• 26:03
  it's like, yeah, but that's what risk rewards you with, you know,
• 26:07
  because everybody tells you don't put your own money in these projects. And
• 26:11
  John put put his house up for it. You know. He joked with
• 26:15
  me every day, you better make a good movie or my kids aren't are
• 26:17
  are going to go back to public school. But I really have to give
• 26:23
  it to him, because it's not only that he took a shot with me,
• 26:26
  but he really mentored me. I mean he really was. He knew
• 26:30
  that I had filmed a movie just all by myself with like a video camera
• 26:33
  in my hands. But then he would he would really kind of like come
• 26:37
  over to me and just go like, we're gonna make our day. So
• 26:41
  if you really had to shoot this next scene with three setups, what would
• 26:44
  you you know, what would be those setups? And and that that's when
• 26:49
  I started to learn how to how to marshal a day, you know,
• 26:55
  right, That's the thing that they don't teach you very often in school or
• 26:57
  if you're doing your own Indians, like you can't make your day if you're
• 27:00
  like half a quarter page out, third of the page out after day one,
• 27:06
  after day three, the whole thing is going downhill. Do you won't
• 27:08
  make the movie? The movie's done. You have to make your day.
• 27:11
  You have to make your day. You have to make your day. And
• 27:14
  it's and it's always compromise, isn't it. Like you show up with like
• 27:17
  this beautiful shot list of like I'm going to do these spielberg at shots with
• 27:19
  some Sorcese and some Coppola and maybe throw a little hitchcock in there, and
• 27:23
  at the end of the day is all right, we're gonna get this in
• 27:26
  a one er. We're just gonna put it on sticks. Yep, everyone
• 27:29
  act five minutes, let's go. Oh it's so stressful and so stressful.
• 27:34
  And you think and you think we'd learn, you know, you think that
• 27:37
  we'd get better at it. You think that it eventually go away, but
• 27:41
  it doesn't. It just I mean, I've heard so many stories of like
• 27:45
  really like accomplished filmmakers that still weep, you know, on set because they
• 27:51
  just couldn't get that last shot that they think that they needed. And it's
• 27:53
  so crucial, you know. I always love I always love going on it.
• 27:56
  When I'm on a set, first day with my first day da I
• 27:59
  used to I love bringing this like it's stupid shot list, like stupid,
• 28:03
  It's like it'll never happened. But they don't know me, so I'll give
• 28:07
  it to them. And then there's that awkward conversation. They're like right before
• 28:10
  the first shot, They're like, can I am, Can I just talk
• 28:14
  about a couple of things the first ad. I'm like, we discussed the
• 28:18
  work. I mean, so there's one hundred and twenty eight setups here,
• 28:22
  Um I go. I know, they're just there and I'll pick and choose
• 28:27
  as we go, but they're there just in case. You know, I
• 28:33
  have to say I I don't do shot lists. Oh you don't like I
• 28:42
  don't. I'm sure, I'm sure I could and should and and but I
• 28:48
  I find that you really do have to show up on that day and find
• 28:52
  out what the day is bringing you. And yeah, really all that prep
• 28:57
  that you did the night before really could go right out the window. And
• 29:00
  you really do sometimes go like, oh, I think I am going to
• 29:03
  have to do this in two shots? And what would I have to do
• 29:04
  in two shots? Because you're marshaling the day and I've there's there's been a
• 29:11
  few times where, you know, a studio head saying like I remember,
• 29:17
  they always send someone else, They send some minion to say like, well,
• 29:19
  you know the the this studio head was wondering if maybe you could make
• 29:25
  some shot you know, if you did your shot list the night before,
• 29:27
  And I'll say who suggested that, you know, and they get all nervous
• 29:30
  and everything like that, and so, M I understand it. I'm a
• 29:37
  very agreeable guy, but I just find that that unless you're doing like a
• 29:40
  stunt sequence, you're doing something definitely something like that. But otherwise I kind
• 29:44
  of like just to get there with the actors and figure out how we're going
• 29:47
  to do it right then and there. And I would agree with you too.
• 29:48
  Early in my career would be I had a little bit more gusto in
• 29:52
  me, and I would do all that kind of stuff at that. Later,
• 29:53
  as I started directing more and more, you just kind of get an
• 29:56
  instinct for it. Well right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 30:06
  now back to the show, Yeah, come on set, and you just
• 30:10
  go, oh, yeah, I just put it over here. Let's get
• 30:11
  this over here. Yeah, you give me a thirty two here, let's
• 30:15
  and you just start. You just figure it out on the fly. Yeah,
• 30:18
  but if there's something special you want, like you know what, I
• 30:21
  really want to do this this kind of fun way, and I'll bring maybe
• 30:23
  a few shots that I'll talk to the DP prior to it. That kind
• 30:26
  of set it all up for it. But yeah, having a I don't
• 30:30
  do the hundred as much anymore because whenever we know yeah, it's like you
• 30:36
  know, it's going to go right out the window. Really um, but
• 30:38
  I do feel that. I mean, I'll tell you when I really felt
• 30:41
  like I learned how to direct was I had already made let's see four features,
• 30:48
  and and then I started in on Empire, where like directing television like
• 30:52
  I had done it, I've done like about three pilots and and one episode
• 30:55
  of the Shield. But to go into like episode after episode episode on Empire,
• 31:00
  I understood Spielberg better, like because I'd read everywhere that like Spielberg really
• 31:06
  cut his teeth on television, early television. And that's when I felt like
• 31:11
  I for the first time I was a director because there was a there was
• 31:15
  a sense of me not being important. I mean, I know that sounds
• 31:21
  a little contradictory, but like you know, you can't say like, well
• 31:25
  I want it this way. They're like, well, okay, have it
• 31:26
  your way. But you know if you're not done, you know we're going
• 31:30
  to get someone in here that'll do it because you have eight days and that's
• 31:33
  it. And that really I started thinking differently, like as something as simple
• 31:38
  as extras, you know that, which is never simple. But like when
• 31:41
  I'm on a feature, sometimes I'll be like, well, I gotta have
• 31:45
  three hundred extras obviously for the scene, and then you argue and argue and
• 31:48
  argue and are you and it's funny, right and then you but in television
• 31:52
  there's no discussion. They're like, no, you have twenty that's that's what
• 31:56
  you're getting and you need to figure it out. And so then it starts
• 32:00
  exercising these different muscles in you. Then you're like, okay, well,
• 32:01
  wait a minute, what if we just do this, like with a long
• 32:05
  lens kind of pointing down this hallway and we just packed this hallway with the
• 32:07
  twenty people and we don't really see that we just have twenty people, and
• 32:12
  then that's how we'll create a cluttered space or you know. And I don't
• 32:20
  know if I would have felt that way or done that if I just got
• 32:22
  what I wanted and it just had a bunch of people in there. And
• 32:25
  so I when I went to do Dolomite is my name after all that,
• 32:30
  and everybody was so like worried that, like, man, you're gonna be
• 32:34
  working with Eddie Murphy and are you scared? And I said, actually,
• 32:37
  I'm really not. I really feel like Empire has prepared me for this moment.
• 32:43
  And I already made a bunch of features, you know, so I
• 32:45
  felt very confident going into that movie. Let me ask you, what was
• 32:49
  you know, working with someone like John on hustle and flow and him mentoring
• 32:52
  you, what was like the biggest lesson you learn about filmmaking or writing from
• 32:59
  John? Because I mean, John's just such a legendary filmmaker. I watched
• 33:01
  Boys in the Hood, I mean thousands of times. It was just such
• 33:06
  a masterpiece. Oh a piece of work. John. John said something I
• 33:09
  still I will still hear John in my head on set. And one thing
• 33:17
  that he said to me that I really took to heart was and he punches
• 33:22
  when he says, He's like, shoot the meat, Shoot the meat.
• 33:25
  Man, shoot this scene. Make your master, not just some little stupid
• 33:32
  crawling across like you know that that slow kind you see it a lot in
• 33:36
  TV. It's like it's like a master that's kind of moving a little bit.
• 33:39
  But he believed that you needed to make your master, like Spielberg does
• 33:45
  his his wonders that if and I'll never forget what he said. He said,
• 33:51
  you gotta shoot the meat. You gotta shoot it, you gotta shoot
• 33:52
  it good because you never know what may happen. You may lose half your
• 33:58
  day because an actor like you know something, it may hurt himself or like
• 34:01
  you know, the thunder comes along or lightning, and now you've got to
• 34:06
  shut down and you want to be able to know that if people turn the
• 34:13
  lights off on you, you've got you've got your scene. And that that
• 34:20
  was a that was a big one for me. That was like he's still
• 34:24
  he was still of that. He really loved cinema and so he if you
• 34:31
  look at John's movies, um from Four Brothers, every movie he does,
• 34:37
  he is a classic filmmaker now. And what I mean by that is that
• 34:42
  there's a lot of filmmakers today, and god knows, I'm I can be
• 34:45
  just as guilty of it. Where it's kind of like you're just kind of
• 34:46
  shooting heads. You do your master, you do your medium, and then
• 34:51
  it's just like you're just hoping that the editor kind of like creates the rhythm
• 34:53
  of it because you're gonna cut to that person, and you're gonna cut to
• 34:55
  that person and cut to that person. Where John was very much like,
• 34:59
  no, how do we how do we stage this within the within the single
• 35:02
  um where everybody you know, you you you get the story told and people
• 35:07
  are moving within the frame. That's like John Ford, that's you know,
• 35:13
  that's that's Wells, that's that's that's Wilder, that that's all those films that
• 35:16
  he watched and studied and and I still every time I sit with my director
• 35:23
  photography, I do kind of go like, Okay, I know I'm going
• 35:27
  to pop in for some singles here and there, but if we had to
• 35:31
  shoot the meat, how would we shoot it? And so it's so John,
• 35:37
  it really is. But yeah, I think that that was probably the
• 35:42
  biggest lesson. And then you know also to just trust that that. It's
• 35:51
  funny because so much of our advice usually comes pre post right, right,
• 35:57
  all the advice that everybody wants, like how do I get a movie?
• 35:59
  Ma? And then like how do you direct? Right? But no one
• 36:02
  ever really gives you advice about the whole editorial process, right, And John,
• 36:12
  I was just I remember I saw the first edit of Hustle and Flow
• 36:16
  that just the editor you know, cut, and I'd never seen anything like
• 36:22
  that. I'd never That's the that's the first heartbreak of a filmmaker is when
• 36:25
  you've been you've been dreaming of your movie. You've been watching dailies, and
• 36:31
  now you're watching a very rough, raw assemblage of your movie. It doesn't
• 36:37
  have the music cues that you think it needs to have, it doesn't have
• 36:39
  a pacing. But worse than that, it's now real. The rubber is
• 36:45
  hitting the road. It is no longer in fantasy. This is what you
• 36:47
  have, and now you need to make something out of this. I pulled
• 36:52
  over on Olympic Boulevard and I sobbed so hard that snot was pouring out of
• 36:58
  my nose. It was it is so bad. And then like and John
• 37:02
  calls me up. It's like, what's wrong. It's I've just a just
• 37:07
  totally messed up this movie. Man, I just you know, And he's
• 37:08
  like, you just want to edit assemblers? Like shut shut up, man,
• 37:12
  you know he's just go home, go to sleep. You know everything's
• 37:15
  gonna be good. You gonna get in there and everything. He always kind
• 37:17
  of just kept me in this perspective that I think when you get older,
• 37:22
  or when you've made more films, you begin to see like, Okay,
• 37:25
  I'm about to go in, I'm about to I'm about to watch this cut.
• 37:30
  I know it's gonna drive me insane, but relax. And that's that's
• 37:35
  the other big lesson that he gave me. Marty still does that. Marty
• 37:37
  still after the first cut he goes, this is horrible. This is crap.
• 37:42
  He walks out like this is garbage. This is absolute garbage, and
• 37:45
  like and then Filma has to bring him back in and it's okay, Marty,
• 37:47
  it's fine, it's fine. It's all that kind of stuff. Now.
• 37:51
  I always wanted to ask you this question, man, how in God's
• 37:54
  green Earth did you get Black Snake Moan made? Like that is the most
• 38:00
  same concept, you know? It? Just wow? How who put money
• 38:06
  up behind that? I know you had a little eat from Hustle and Flow
• 38:08
  and that probably helped, But man, that's still a pretty risque film.
• 38:14
  I would like to really give credit where credit is due. And the reason
• 38:17
  that movie got made was because of the late Brad Gray, who who ran
• 38:23
  Paramount. Now Brad his first order of business at Paramount. This was before
• 38:31
  he took over at Paramount. It was like what Sundance was like in January,
• 38:37
  and he was taking over like in March. But John was very smart,
• 38:40
  and John had two prints of Hustling Flow made, so he had one
• 38:45
  at Sundance and he had the other one playing simultaneously in Brad Gray's private screening
• 38:50
  room, and knowing full well that he kind of wanted the movie to be
• 38:54
  a Paramount right, So before Brad even became official, like on the clock,
• 39:01
  so to speak, he was watching Hustle and Flow and he told everybody
• 39:06
  like, I think you should you should try to go buy that movie because
• 39:08
  you know MTV and b ET, you know, we could really use the
• 39:12
  Viacom machine and all that kind of stuff. So then what happened was is
• 39:15
  that they made a deal with John Right and the John deal was for see,
• 39:21
  the purchase price of Hustle and Flow was in two categories. It was
• 39:23
  they purchased the movie for nine million dollars. But then they made a deal
• 39:29
  with John Singleton where he got two what are called put pictures, which means
• 39:35
  like kind of no matter what, he can make a movie as long as
• 39:37
  it's under three million dollars. And he had two of those because he brought
• 39:40
  Hustle and Flow to Paramount. We both we brought it to them numerous times
• 39:44
  and they passed on it, and we just wanted three million dollars. And
• 39:46
  now they paid nine for it, and so he was like, hey,
• 39:52
  I want to make more of these, and later he made one called The
• 39:53
  Illegal Tender, where he just wanted to have complete control over his movies.
• 40:00
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to
• 40:07
  the show. When they bought that movie and they made that deal with John,
• 40:14
  they thought that I was a part of it. But remember what I
• 40:17
  said earlier, no options, right, I didn't want anything on it.
• 40:22
  So I will will never forget this moment where because I wrote Black Snake Moan
• 40:27
  before Hustle and Flowed was made. And while we're flying back to LA from
• 40:34
  Sundance, I saw two people reading Black Snake mom and I thought, Oh,
• 40:40
  this is that heat I've been hearing about, Like this is that thing
• 40:45
  that maybe I have a shot there. So John really loved it and Stephanie
• 40:49
  really loved it, and they knew it was crazy and they and yet they
• 40:52
  also saw what I wanted to do with it because it was very much about
• 40:55
  like connection and anxiety and there was a heart behind it. It wasn't just
• 41:00
  exploitation, even though it you know, it was kind of like a blues
• 41:02
  fable. But we started meeting with other studios, and then we got Sam
• 41:08
  and then Brad Gray was like, well, wait a minute, why is
• 41:12
  he going off to make a movie somewhere else. We just bought Hustle and
• 41:15
  Flow and it's going to be coming out. So uh. They go,
• 41:19
  well, you don't have a deal with him. He's like, oh,
• 41:22
  so, I'll never forget going over to his house. I'll never forget this
• 41:25
  the ivy. There was an IVY wall. I was like calling this assistant,
• 41:30
  going like I think I'm at his house. I just can't see anything.
• 41:31
  They're like, no, we see you. And this wall of IVY
• 41:35
  moves, and when it moved, it revealed this just really muscular African American
• 41:40
  guy in a black armony suit with black sunglasses and an earpiece and he had
• 41:45
  a Rottweiler that was right next to him. That was just it was like
• 41:49
  it was it was like you were entering like a cartel, you know.
• 41:52
  And and I come in and Brad comes out and he goes, Okay,
• 41:58
  you want to make this Radiator movie, that's what he called it. And
• 42:02
  I said, and he goes, are you sure you don't want to do
• 42:06
  something else? I know that like we can you know, there's all these
• 42:07
  kind of properties that we have, and we can put you on it.
• 42:10
  And I said to him, I said, well, I've read a lot
• 42:13
  of books about about filmmakers in my position, and the way I see it
• 42:19
  is that I think that the second movie always is kind of a risky thing,
• 42:22
  you know, um. And I'm pretty confident that I could probably get
• 42:29
  a job as a director doing you know, franchise stuff or other stuff later
• 42:34
  on. But I really feel like I should use this time to get something
• 42:39
  made that normally wouldn't get made. And he said I respect that, and
• 42:46
  he goes, well I am. He goes, I don't. How do
• 42:50
  you put it? I don't bet on races. I bet on horses.
• 42:55
  And he goes, so, we're gonna make Black Snake? Moan? Is
• 42:59
  that is that? Finally? Just is it? Can we just say right
• 43:01
  here that we're gonna make it? And I go, if you want to
• 43:02
  make it, sir, then absolutely. And he made it, and he
• 43:06
  was proud of it, and and people were were telling him he was an
• 43:09
  idiot for doing it. Why are you going to do this? No one's
• 43:13
  gonna come see it? And nobody came see it. Um, But I
• 43:16
  always think about there's that day that Paramount called and said, look, we've
• 43:22
  got foot Loose and we really want to do something with it. Do you
• 43:23
  think you could do it? And I was like, yes, sir,
• 43:27
  because I felt like this was this is me going like I told you guys,
• 43:30
  I'll be there for you on something that maybe, you know, uh,
• 43:35
  may not be about changing people to bluesman's radiators and and uh and that's
• 43:43
  that's how we that's how we did it. I'm so proud that it exists
• 43:46
  in the world because I now I now just feel like I don't I just
• 43:52
  don't. I mean, I definitely don't see a world where a theatrical release
• 43:55
  would have been attempted on something like that. I can see like maybe Black
• 43:59
  Snake being at a stream or something like that, but even then it's going
• 44:02
  to be a little bit wild to get that done because you know, you
• 44:06
  would get the kind of studio notes like oh what is this? What kind
• 44:08
  of tone is it? But that movie doesn't get made today. There's no
• 44:12
  way that movie gets made today. Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's
• 44:15
  definitely volatile. You know, there's no way that that movie gets made today.
• 44:21
  I'm so and I'm glad that there's certain movies like that that I'm glad
• 44:23
  to exist. I think Tim Burton's Mars Attacks is one of those films.
• 44:29
  For me. Yeah, I'm like, I can't. When I walked out
• 44:31
  of there, I'm like, man, I don't know what just happened,
• 44:34
  but I'm glad it exists, you know. I just I'm glad that that
• 44:37
  movie got made. And there's a handful of those throughout cinema, but Black
• 44:40
  Snake's Moans one of them's like, there's just no way that gets made today.
• 44:44
  There's just no no amount of heat allows that film to get made in
• 44:49
  today's environment. And it was tough and that you know different years ago,
• 44:53
  well, you know, and it came out. It was such an interesting
• 44:57
  year because no one really like the movie movie business, the movie industry was
• 45:00
  changing. It came out in two thousand and seven, and that was like
• 45:04
  a real pivotal year for what was happening on a global level. So,
• 45:09
  you know, you were making movies that China had to play, and South
• 45:13
  America had to play, and even Russia. It's so funny, how like,
• 45:16
  you know, the very people that now are so much in the news
• 45:19
  right now, two thousand and seven was all about trying to make movies for
• 45:22
  them and uh. And so you know, you had Carnahan's movie, I
• 45:27
  think Smoke and Aces was coming out at the time, you had you had
• 45:30
  Death Proof at the same time, along you know, with Robert with Forbidden
• 45:36
  Planet and um and it none of us did well in the audience, like
• 45:44
  none of us Like it was a bad it was a bad move for win
• 45:46
  the well Joe. I mean, I've talked to Joe about Smoke and Aces
• 45:51
  and he still says that's he makes more money off of Smoke and Aces now
• 45:52
  than he's made on anything. It's so funny that that worked out. So
• 45:58
  so here's what's interesting is that the head of Paramount Home Video like called me
• 46:02
  up and just said, we want you to know something about Black Snake Moan.
• 46:06
  I was like, oh, great, Like Black Snake Moan not only
• 46:09
  did double our expectations, it not only tripled our expectation, it quadrupled our
• 46:15
  expectations, which means to say, and I go, yeah, people probably
• 46:19
  don't want to go out to a theater to see this movie, but they're
• 46:22
  dying to watch it at home. And that's and so I've I've always felt
• 46:25
  good that I've yet to really make anything that like cost a studio money.
• 46:31
  I've I've at the very least broke even and uh and so uh yeah,
• 46:37
  I'm proud that I have that that movie behind me. Yeah, and in
• 46:40
  a time where you you know, it came out at a time when there
• 46:43
  was still home video. Yeah that was that was a real revenue generator.
• 46:47
  And now what's so strange, what's so strange is is now there's that meme
• 46:55
  of Sam from Black Snake Money where he's just kind of yeah, blinket like
• 47:00
  looking like with a white hair and the and and that gets sent around.
• 47:06
  I remember talking to a class of my daughters and I brought that up and
• 47:10
  they're like, oh, yeah, we you know, we used that all
• 47:13
  the time. That's from your movie. So so they're just looking at a
• 47:16
  frame or like a series of frames because he's blinking and moving a little bit,
• 47:22
  and they don't know what it's from. But it has its own life.
• 47:25
  I mean the same thing to be said for here in town. You
• 47:30
  know, our Memphis Grizzlies are our basketball team. Whenever we go out of
• 47:34
  the playoffs and we're like really in the mix, they start playing that song
• 47:37
  from Hustle and Flow, Whoop that trick, And twenty thousand people start chanting,
• 47:42
  Whoop that trick. And I found out that like my daughter and all
• 47:45
  her friends, they didn't know that was from Hustle and Flow. They just
• 47:49
  thought that was the thing you said at basketball games. And it's that's so
• 47:52
  interesting about about the generations to They'll get a clip of something, or they'll
• 47:55
  get a little bit of it, but they don't know that it's got this
• 47:58
  history that it's connected to. It's it's literally like visual hip hop, you
• 48:01
  know, right? No? Absolutely? Yoh yeah, dude, that's that's
• 48:06
  remarkable. Now, listen all the times you've been on set. What is
• 48:08
  the craziest thing that ever happened to you on set? How did you overcome
• 48:14
  it? As a director? M Well, what are the ones that I
• 48:19
  want to talk about? I was a publicly Yeah, publicly. What can
• 48:22
  you say when we when we stopped recording, you can tell me the other
• 48:23
  ones before? Right now, I got too, I can tell you by
• 48:27
  that. Well, you know, I let's see, what is the craziest
• 48:30
  thing that's ever happened? Um? Oh man, you're stumping me there.
• 48:37
  I mean I think there's always been there. There hasn't been something that uh
• 48:45
  uh, of course, that I can talk about that would be like completely
• 48:49
  uh like derailed a production or something like that. It would always be um
• 48:55
  uh like happy accidents or something like that. So I'll tell you just the
• 49:00
  craziest night I've ever had on set was um In Hustle and Flow, there
• 49:09
  is a scene at as it's a roller skating rink here in Memphis called the
• 49:15
  Crystal Palace, and it was outside and it had this glorious like you know,
• 49:20
  neon sign that up, and I really wanted to do kind of like
• 49:23
  a cruising scene where everybody's out there with their cars that I'd sometimes see on
• 49:27
  the weekend where they're like, you know, they're hopping there, you know
• 49:30
  there they're pump you know, they're pump cars and everything like that, and
• 49:34
  just hundreds of people there, and basically everybody said like, you got to
• 49:37
  figure out another way to do this because there's no way we can afford all
• 49:39
  these extras and there's no way we can get a car like this, and
• 49:44
  John Singleton was like, absolutely not. So John went on four different radio
• 49:50
  stations that day. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 49:59
  now back to the show, and said, hey, we're making a movie.
• 50:05
  You want to be in my movie. Then you come out to the
• 50:07
  Crystal Palace, you bring your ride, you bring a car. And hundreds
• 50:12
  of people showed up. That that's a furious stuff. That's and furious stuff,
• 50:15
  totally fast and furious style for no money. Like we didn't, we
• 50:19
  didn't, we didn't pay for those cars. Those cars just showed up.
• 50:22
  People just wanted to show off their cars, all those extras, all those
• 50:24
  people. And as the nights started going on, and then the weed smoke
• 50:29
  started like just getting thicker. At a certain point, John was getting so
• 50:31
  excited. But I remember like grabbing John. And at a certain point I
• 50:37
  like grabbed him by the shoulders and I was like, am I in South
• 50:40
  Central right now? He goes, No, I go where am I?
• 50:44
  He goes, You're in Memphis? I go, No, you're in Memphis.
• 50:47
  You're now in my community. And I'm telling you we got half half
• 50:51
  an hour before something pops off right now, because it's getting like way too
• 50:54
  unhinged, and people are like starting I'm seeing like a couple of arguments having
• 50:59
  here and John, we've got one security guard because that's all we could afford.
• 51:05
  And like we weren't we weren't. We weren't that big of a movie.
• 51:07
  But I swear to God, like that was the night that I thought
• 51:09
  that everything that was just going to explode. And every time I see that
• 51:15
  shot, it looks like we have so much money, it looks like we
• 51:17
  can't remember that shot. I remember that it was so reckless and so amazing
• 51:22
  that John just went on all these different radio stations said you want to be
• 51:23
  in the movie, show up, And I mean we had like people down
• 51:28
  the block trying to get into the movie. And it was a scary night.
• 51:32
  But that was like the night that I felt like, man, I'm
• 51:36
  I'm running and gunning as like a filmmaker. You know, it's a it's
• 51:39
  it was. It was scary but exciting. So there's another movie you made,
• 51:44
  um that I absolutely adored, and I didn't even know it was you
• 51:47
  until the credits rolled. I'm like, oh my god, Dolomite, Dolomite,
• 51:52
  Dolomite is my name? What an amazing Every filmmaker needs to watch that
• 51:58
  because it is you just smelled hustle of an independent filmmaker. Doing things at
• 52:05
  a time when they just weren't done. And he controlled his he controlled his
• 52:08
  content, he controlled his his ip he just and he was making bank back
• 52:15
  then. He just figured out the hustle. He just fogured out the hustle.
• 52:17
  It was Ray Moore, you know. And I gotta say, like
• 52:21
  it was around this time, you know, in Dolomite. I remember,
• 52:30
  I don't I don't. I don't fault the producers for this, but I
• 52:31
  remember I was on a location scout four Dolomite is my name, and an
• 52:36
  article came out announcing all the movies that Netflix was doing and we weren't on
• 52:42
  it. And so I called up the producers and I go, you know,
• 52:46
  everybody on my crew just read this article about all the movies that Netflix
• 52:51
  is making right now and we're not in it. And and you know,
• 52:55
  the producer said, well, I told them not to put us in there
• 53:00
  yet. And I said why and he said, well, I just wanted
• 53:06
  to get us filming because I'm I'm I'm worried about the fact that you're not
• 53:08
  African American and that and that there's a and and that there's um, you
• 53:14
  know that the climate right now is going to kind of take you to task
• 53:16
  on that. And I remember getting off the phone and it was the first
• 53:22
  time I felt bad. I felt like, because I gotta be honest with
• 53:25
  you, Like after Hustle and Flow, I felt like a lot of the
• 53:31
  a lot of the movies that I was wanting to make, a lot of
• 53:34
  the stories I was wanting to tell h Charlie Pride story and and and other
• 53:39
  scripts that I wrote had, you know, just like the city I live
• 53:43
  in just a lot of African American characters. And there I felt like I
• 53:50
  was I mean, this is back in like two thousand and six and everything,
• 53:52
  but I felt like it was a time where I was saying like,
• 53:54
  well, these more of these movies should be made and they shouldn't be put
• 53:58
  in boxes. And I felt like I was trying to do this kind of
• 54:02
  content. But then now now in the Dolomite is my name Era, which
• 54:07
  is now in like what was it like, uh, seventeen, twenty seventeen.
• 54:13
  Oh yeah, we were. We were in a time now where you
• 54:19
  know, you had to you had to have a you. You you had
• 54:23
  to It wasn't enough just to have an African American cast. You needed an
• 54:30
  African American voice or a director, which I always want to be an ally
• 54:36
  for that, but it's it's weird for me where I live, where I
• 54:39
  want to tell a story UM that I feel like I have a connection to
• 54:45
  UM. So I called Eddie and I was like, listen, man,
• 54:50
  I I I there's I'm worried about this because I don't want to I don't
• 54:55
  want to feel like I'm taking away an opportunity for someone to have a voice.
• 54:59
  And and Eddie was like, I mean, he's very considerate about it.
• 55:02
  But he said, well, listen, I feel like I should be
• 55:07
  able to work with whoever I want to work with. And I said,
• 55:09
  I understand that, and he goes, but Craig Rudy ray Moore is a
• 55:15
  Southern guy who came from Arkansas, came to Los Angeles and put together a
• 55:23
  rag tag team of people to make a movie even though they didn't really know
• 55:29
  what they were doing, and then he had a career that started from that.
• 55:32
  He goes, can you name me anybody who's done that in their life?
• 55:37
  And I was like, well, other than me, and he goes,
• 55:39
  yeah, name me another filmmaker that has that story. And I was
• 55:44
  like, I hear you. And after that talk, I felt like,
• 55:46
  well, wait a minute, I know this story. I've lived this story,
• 55:52
  and the best thing that I can do is and this is what John
• 55:57
  Singleton and this producer great produce are Dwight Williams, who made a Hustle and
• 56:01
  Flow with us and and Black Snake, like you know, they put to
• 56:07
  me that you know, when you make movies, you need to you need
• 56:09
  to that. They were blunt. They were like, you need to hire
• 56:10
  black people. You know, you need to put you need to you need
• 56:14
  to um, you know, make opportunities any anywhere you can. But now
• 56:19
  we're in an era where now studios have come around to that um and and
• 56:25
  and now the best thing I can say to you know, people who are
• 56:30
  not of color who are making content like that, is you've got to listen
• 56:35
  and you've got to be as responsible as you can. UM. But you
• 56:38
  got to ask yourself. You got to have that moment where you you go
• 56:42
  like, well should I be telling this? Should I be? Should this
• 56:45
  story be mine? And and recognize that uh if if, maybe it shouldn't
• 56:51
  be. And and I found a reason in a way that I needed to
• 56:55
  and I had the trust of an actor who really wanted to work with me,
• 56:59
  and so I felt I felt okay with it, you know well,
• 57:01
  and and thank you for putting that out there, because you know, I
• 57:05
  think I think we're we've overcorrected just a slight bit on some of this stuff.
• 57:09
  Because like even in the Heights when that came out, and they were
• 57:13
  just like, oh, it's an Asian director. He's not He's not.
• 57:15
  Like I'm Latino, so I've been, you know, been Latino all my
• 57:17
  life. Uh And and I looked at that, I'm like, great,
• 57:22
  And I'm from New York. I know those streets, I know all of
• 57:25
  that, and I'm like, is he the best person to tell the story?
• 57:29
  Well? And I think that, you know. And another thing on
• 57:31
  in the Heights that I've had to experience this firsthand with the Latino community in
• 57:36
  terms of acting, is that there have been so few roles right and for
• 57:40
  for for and I had done a pilot of Urban Cowboy and for and it
• 57:45
  didn't go, but I said it in the whole Tehano world like it was.
• 57:52
  I mean, it was Mexican and Texan, right, and to go
• 57:58
  forth and try to catch asked a show um with uh, Latino or and
• 58:09
  and and you always during the time, I remember saying like, okay,
• 58:14
  well, what is the proper way? Because then you you you find that
• 58:16
  that some people have a problem with Latino somebody because you're well, I guess
• 58:22
  you know, but but but but there was, there was there was It
• 58:25
  was around the time I was doing this pilot. There was this question.
• 58:28
  And so I would have actors that would come and I'd be like, oh,
• 58:30
  he's great, and then someone would say like, yeah, but you
• 58:32
  know he's not Mexican, right, He's actually Cuban. And then you're like,
• 58:37
  oh, okay, well maybe that doesn't work. But then you realize,
• 58:39
  like, okay. Then then then a a swath of people who normally
• 58:45
  would not even get an audition for something because there wasn't really roles now just
• 58:50
  got a lot smaller, right, And I understand I totally get representation when
• 58:57
  people go like, that guy's not Mexican, you know what I mean,
• 58:59
  if you're from Mexico and you go like, okay, that guy's obviously not
• 59:02
  for what for whatever reason. But in the heights, the same thing,
• 59:06
  the same criticism was coming around, which is like, well you know,
• 59:09
  that's not what and I and I understand it because the world is getting larger
• 59:15
  and the microphone is getting more specific, where a collected voice can say,
• 59:19
  hey, represent us right, But there's realities to it in the in the
• 59:23
  movie business especially, you know what I mean. And and so you sometimes
• 59:29
  can shoot yourself in the foot trying to do to do right. And I
• 59:31
  remember when all the criticism was coming out on that, I was like,
• 59:35
  damn, like you're really gonna take lin Manuel, you know, to task?
• 59:39
  You know, serious? Right? Right? I mean, like I
• 59:45
  totally, I know, I totally Like when poor Rita Marino, you know,
• 59:49
  they said what do you think about that? She was like, let
• 59:51
  him leave him alone? What's going on? And then they and then they
• 59:53
  hopped on her. She had to apologize. So it is a time of
• 59:57
  sensitivity that I think you still need to listen and you need to understand.
• 1:00:02
  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to the
• 1:00:09
  show. But I know what you mean by an overcorrection. But I just
• 1:00:15
  think that the world now is just is more. More microphones are in people's
• 1:00:20
  hands to say this is what I want, and you should listen. We
• 1:00:22
  should listen and try to do better. Well, listen when they did Narcos,
• 1:00:28
  you know, um Narcos, the you know, Pablo was I think
• 1:00:32
  Brazilian, right right, right, but but he is Pablo. He looks
• 1:00:38
  like Pablo. He did amazing job. And there's Colombians travel and my wife,
• 1:00:44
  my wife is Colombians. So when she hears accents, she's like,
• 1:00:47
  oh, that's a Mexican. Oh right, that could you could hear the
• 1:00:51
  accents slightly, but you and I can't. I couldn't. You know.
• 1:00:54
  He's like, oh, but Pablo, he got his Colombian accent down so
• 1:01:00
  perfectly. She's like he's he's at a whole other level, like he's really
• 1:01:04
  there. And you know what, there's gotta be a balance. There's gotta
• 1:01:09
  be a balance with all. Oh and like I said, like we're you
• 1:01:13
  know, as art as artists and and in the and the industry, we're
• 1:01:16
  moving forward into new territory. And that's what I'm saying, Like I mean,
• 1:01:21
  I I think that we all need to listen. I mean, I
• 1:01:23
  remember I can't remember if it was like on where it was where I saw
• 1:01:28
  this, but it was like some some some Latino guys learning that Vasquez from
• 1:01:35
  Aliens was not Mexican that she was a white Jewish woman actress, and and
• 1:01:39
  and you saw it. They were almost like defensive, like, well,
• 1:01:43
  we don't care, it's vasques, like you don't know what it meant to
• 1:01:45
  us to have a Latino character. They were a character just about But but
• 1:01:52
  you kind of go like, okay, well that is you know, probably
• 1:01:53
  the darker you know, makeup on an actress. I mean, okay,
• 1:01:59
  okay, we're older now, maybe we would make different decisions right now,
• 1:02:01
  but don't necessarily like you know, dog a moment in time that was actually
• 1:02:07
  meant a lot to a lot of people, you know what I mean.
• 1:02:09
  And so they always and they always show they picture her and Titanic. You're
• 1:02:13
  like that fastba like are you what? Like how is that the same?
• 1:02:16
  The same lady? You know you can't go back and you know, try
• 1:02:20
  to cancel you. We're moving forward, moving forward, and we gotta listen.
• 1:02:23
  That's that's the big thing. I think that's the big thing is that
• 1:02:27
  is that everybody I think sometimes gets like really stealed up and then they want
• 1:02:30
  to like fight, and that is the case for diversity. I've loved Swarm.
• 1:02:37
  I don't know if you've watched Swarm on Amazon Prime, you know,
• 1:02:42
  Donald Glover and please forgive me, I just don't have it in front of
• 1:02:45
  me. But the other showrunner, um uh who she worked on Atlanta.
• 1:02:51
  Um. But it's it's a gloriously creative and yet at the same time,
• 1:03:00
  there can be criticism for it, uh, you know, from people saying,
• 1:03:05
  like, you know, your protagonist as this African American woman, and
• 1:03:07
  why are you why are you not showing their showing a side to her that
• 1:03:14
  that humanizes the fact that she's essentially a serial killer, you know. And
• 1:03:17
  so we're moving forward constantly in so many different directions, but there's always going
• 1:03:22
  to be uh complaint or or valid, valid criticism, And I think we
• 1:03:30
  just all got to take a breath and go like, we're artists. It's
• 1:03:32
  not the best we can. Yeah, we're doing the best we can.
• 1:03:36
  And also it's art, you know, so sometimes it's just gonna be messy,
• 1:03:39
  you know. And uh, the thing I just try to do is
• 1:03:43
  just try to get a bunch of really good artists that also listen and talk
• 1:03:46
  and think, and my job is just to make sure that they're comfortable doing
• 1:03:50
  their thing. You know. That's a that's how I justified as like,
• 1:03:53
  can I just be the guy that that is working in service of all these
• 1:03:59
  artists? And then sometimes you chain up a lading to a radiator and that's
• 1:04:02
  okay. It is it is as this beautiful poster behind you state, I
• 1:04:08
  know I had the radiator actually right over here, and mind you don't you
• 1:04:11
  do actually got the radio that I do? That's amazing. M And one
• 1:04:15
  last movie I want to ask you about Man is Coming to America. I
• 1:04:18
  mean, arguably, in my opinion, the greatest comedy ever made in my
• 1:04:25
  personal one. I quote that I can quote every single line in that movie.
• 1:04:28
  It is a masterpiece and everybody every level. So how did you approach
• 1:04:32
  attempting to make a sequel to a masterpiece like that? Because it is absolute
• 1:04:38
  masterpiece the first one. You know, It's funny because I'm far enough away
• 1:04:42
  from coming to America too that I can kind of like think about the whole
• 1:04:45
  experience because it was. It was really wild first of all, like I
• 1:04:49
  did him back to back, like I did Dolomite as my name went right
• 1:04:53
  into coming to America, and um, I remember I remember he asking me
• 1:05:00
  to do it, and of course I was like, well, how do
• 1:05:02
  I not do that? Because I mean, I mean, I'm such a
• 1:05:05
  huge John Landis fan. I think I mean like everything, like like the
• 1:05:11
  Blues Brothers, and I mean, I I can quote every line from Three
• 1:05:15
  Amigoes to you. But I remember talking to h Jody, the director of
• 1:05:20
  photography on it, and we're we're we were I can't remember, we're We're
• 1:05:27
  in a van, like a like a locations van, and we had made
• 1:05:30
  like ten episodes of Empire together, so we were we were close, right,
• 1:05:33
  and and Jody's black and and I kind of leaned into him and I
• 1:05:39
  was like, you know what we're doing, right, We're we're kind of
• 1:05:44
  doing Black Star Wars, and uh, he goes, That's exactly what we're
• 1:05:49
  doing. And it was like it was like this moment that we kind of
• 1:05:51
  like had to say and and and what we meant by that was coming to
• 1:05:59
  America so much to everybody that uh that it's it's really going to be held
• 1:06:06
  to this this uh, this standard. That's very tricky to navigate with it.
• 1:06:14
  And so every time we would come to decisions about coming to America,
• 1:06:17
  because it's the first time I've ever actually I've usually developed movies or like or
• 1:06:23
  or or written a movie and it was it was the first time really that
• 1:06:26
  I've ever come on to direct something that had been moving for like probably about
• 1:06:30
  five years or something like that. And um, and I remember just thinking,
• 1:06:38
  like you would talk to people about, you know, Coming to America's
• 1:06:41
  coming out, and everybody would say like, well, it's like, is
• 1:06:44
  are the are the barbershop guy is going to be in it? Are you
• 1:06:46
  know, is um you know Randy Watson going to be in it? Uh?
• 1:06:49
  They would just constantly come at you would like, well I better have
• 1:06:53
  this, A better have that? And absolutely, you know, and so
• 1:06:56
  you realize that you're tied to people want to have that experience again. They
• 1:07:02
  want to see those characters again. And that's when like I began to kind
• 1:07:05
  of relax a little bit more with the daunting nature of like doing a sequel
• 1:07:11
  to to something that's so perfect. It's just going like, you know,
• 1:07:13
  I'm not here to replace Coming to America. I'm here to like make a
• 1:07:17
  movie that everybody can come to have some fun seeing these characters again and have
• 1:07:25
  a good time. And what was so strange about it was I I just
• 1:07:30
  couldn't wait for a theatrical experience of it cut to it's a pandemic. And
• 1:07:38
  now the very age group that would probably lead the ticket sales is my age
• 1:07:45
  group. And and and you're and and so and and and we're the ones
• 1:07:48
  that are, no matter what, not going to a movie theater, you
• 1:07:51
  know. And so one day I get a call that Paramount has now sold
• 1:07:57
  it to Amazon. And Amazon did this enormous campaign for it. I mean
• 1:08:03
  it was that they were they were wrapping airplanes and flying flags all over the
• 1:08:08
  world. And so it launched on a Friday, and and I remember getting
• 1:08:15
  this call from Amazon saying, you gotta get on the phone right now.
• 1:08:18
  We're having an emergency meeting. And I was like, oh damn it,
• 1:08:21
  now here we go. What's wrong? And they get us on the phone.
• 1:08:25
  They said we had a thirty day goal and we we achieved it in
• 1:08:30
  less than eight hours. I mean viewership, you mean viewership? Yeah,
• 1:08:34
  of course, because everybody wanted to go see that movie, everybody and I
• 1:08:39
  And what I found out was that like not only were everybody watching it,
• 1:08:43
  but then like kind of what Jody and I were talking about on that day
• 1:08:45
  is like, and what we really want is that see Coming to America is
• 1:08:49
  this movie that's just been playing on TV and and and actually like some and
• 1:08:54
  and and you know mass TV meeting like all the swearing had been taken out
• 1:08:58
  of and everything. So you have kids kind of watching Coming to America.
• 1:09:01
  So you had like three generations of people watching Coming to America during a pandemic
• 1:09:06
  where they just wanted to kind of like have a good time. So people
• 1:09:09
  were having watch parties with the people that they felt comfortable with. And it
• 1:09:13
  was and and for one weekend in my life, the globe was watching this
• 1:09:17
  movie, like the entire world was just watching it. And so I felt
• 1:09:23
  good about that. I felt I felt like, Okay, well we had
• 1:09:25
  like a good time with with Coming to America and we and we had some
• 1:09:28
  good entertainment and we made Amazon's you know, biggest hit at the at the
• 1:09:31
  time, and uh um, and then just try to like you know,
• 1:09:35
  keep in mind that there's going to be haters with it, like like everything.
• 1:09:39
  Like that's why I meant about like Black Star Wars. It's like it
• 1:09:42
  was it was this thing that people are so precious with it that um that
• 1:09:46
  you're you're you know, you're gonna get you're gonna get people kind of hating
• 1:09:49
  on things, but I just didn't. I didn't let any of that affect
• 1:09:53
  me or anything, and just a good time. We'll be right back after
• 1:09:58
  a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. But you
• 1:10:05
  also had a little bit of experience with that with Footloose, because when you
• 1:10:09
  redid foot Loose, I mean, that's a precious eighties movie. It's like
• 1:10:12
  it is classic. And I remember because I was in the Ellen screening room
• 1:10:15
  because I was at Ellen that day for whatever was with my wife, and
• 1:10:18
  they're like, hey, you guys want to watch foot Loose. I'm like
• 1:10:20
  cool, And so we went off and watched Footloose for two hours and you
• 1:10:25
  came out and the first words you said were, why would anybody want to
• 1:10:29
  remake foot Loose? Like it's perfect? Like I said the same thing everybody.
• 1:10:32
  But then you're like, well, I did this, and I did
• 1:10:34
  that. It's a little bit different here and there because but I wouldn't want
• 1:10:36
  to try to remake Footloose. Yeah. Here's so funny about foot loss is
• 1:10:44
  it actually got It got a lot of really good reviews, and the audience
• 1:10:49
  scores were always really really high on it. But I understood people going like,
• 1:10:55
  why would you, how dare you remake foot Loose? Because I am
• 1:10:58
  a huge fan of the original. But now here's what's kind of interesting,
• 1:11:01
  Like, within the last couple of months, Miles Teller became this it's a
• 1:11:11
  phenomenon on TikTok with thirteen year old girls. I don't know what Miles did
• 1:11:18
  in I mean, he's been around for a minute, you know, but
• 1:11:23
  something happened in this TikTok world where every one of my daughter's friends are like,
• 1:11:28
  oh my god, Miles Teller. And I was like, are you
• 1:11:30
  talking about Miles? And they were like, oh my god, Miles Teller
• 1:11:31
  and they could not get enough of Miles Teller. And then I started kind
• 1:11:35
  of like hearing from all my daughter's friends just going like, yeah, you
• 1:11:39
  know, Dad, no one ever watches the original Footloose. And I was
• 1:11:42
  like, well, that's sad, because you gotta watch the original Footloose.
• 1:11:45
  It's the it's it's so when I grew up on it's what it's it's it's
• 1:11:48
  Kevin Bacon, it's John Luco, you know, it's Diane Wee. You
• 1:11:51
  know, you gotta see it. They're like, no, but it doesn't
• 1:11:54
  have Miles in it. It doesn't have you know. And so Footloose is
• 1:11:58
  having like this wild naissance right now, and the soundtrack is being sold and
• 1:12:03
  and and it goes back to like that Kevin Smith bit of advice that I
• 1:12:10
  still think is the best bit of advice for every filmmaker, which is every
• 1:12:15
  movie has its day, and it may not be the day that the studio
• 1:12:19
  wants it to land on. Like he has this great conversation that he always
• 1:12:24
  talks about Mall Rats, that like he made Clerks and then he made Mall
• 1:12:27
  Rats and not only did nobody come to see it, but critics always crapped
• 1:12:30
  on it and everything. And but but then now he you know, many
• 1:12:34
  years later, there's these kids that come up to and just like, oh
• 1:12:38
  my god, you know you made Mall Rats and it means so much to
• 1:12:41
  me. And he's like really because like it was really kind of like a
• 1:12:44
  thing of pain with me back in the day. And I know that with
• 1:12:46
  like Black Saint Moan, and I felt it like I wish Footloose maybe was
• 1:12:50
  like a big big hit. It did, okay, but like you then
• 1:12:54
  later, like years later, so you know, something will just kind of
• 1:12:59
  like connect a sudden, all of a sudden, and so I'm very I'm
• 1:13:03
  I'm very very happy about about all of my daughter's friends like they That's the
• 1:13:12
  poster I'm signing. I'm not signing Hustle and Flow. I'm signing my remake
• 1:13:15
  of Footlots, which I find hilarious. It's amazing how this world works sometimes,
• 1:13:20
  my friend, it's really amazing. Now I'm gonna ask you a few
• 1:13:24
  questions, ask all my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker wanting
• 1:13:28
  to break into the business today. I mean, I'll tell you the hardest
• 1:13:32
  thing, um is. I mean, first and foremost, the hard thing
• 1:13:39
  that we all just struggle with, which is truly like a discipline, like
• 1:13:43
  to to to every day. Treat it like it's a job, even though
• 1:13:46
  no one's paying you, um to. How can I learn more about the
• 1:13:51
  business? How can I you know? I think you should read trades if
• 1:13:56
  it helps you know who to go to. Um. You don't want to
• 1:14:00
  pitch all your movies to one place this place. May you know today a
• 1:14:06
  twenty four is going to want to hear one pitch and fuck Searchlight may want
• 1:14:12
  to hear something else, like you need to know where you're going, and
• 1:14:15
  sometimes that means like really being informed, reading as much as you can,
• 1:14:18
  and writing every day if writing is a part of your world, which I
• 1:14:20
  think it should be, because I think if you really want to break into
• 1:14:24
  the business, you got to write your way in. That's the that's the
• 1:14:26
  leverage that you have, and it also just informs you as a director.
• 1:14:30
  You you learn about storytelling more through writing as well as directing. Um.
• 1:14:40
  But really, like the hard one, the really bit of hard advice is
• 1:14:46
  do you really know who you are yet? And I think for young filmmakers
• 1:14:51
  that's always a little bit nerve racking, you know. And what I usually
• 1:14:57
  do is I'll show them like, um, you know Spike LEAs, you
• 1:15:02
  know we cut heads, right, I'll show um Sophia Coppola's short film Lick
• 1:15:10
  the Star, right, and then I'll show following by Christopher Nolan, and
• 1:15:16
  I'll or Pie from Baron Aronovski right, and just ask questions of like can
• 1:15:25
  you see their later films here? And usually you can, you know,
• 1:15:30
  I mean, even that fifteen minute short that Sofia Coppola made with these girls
• 1:15:35
  in high school where they've got the star on their you know that they've drawn
• 1:15:41
  on their their hand and they say lick the star and it's like the girl
• 1:15:43
  says, what does that and she's like, oh, it means kill the
• 1:15:45
  rats, you know, backwards. But she had like cool pop and punk
• 1:15:49
  music in it. It was fashion forward. You saw that. You saw
• 1:15:54
  like if you turn the lights out on Sofia Coppola after that short, you
• 1:15:57
  could go like, oh, she's into fashion. She's into this particular type
• 1:16:00
  of music. She's into this dynamic of narrative. And I think that's hard
• 1:16:04
  for young people who are hungry to get into the business to allow themselves the
• 1:16:10
  time and the effort to find what those elements in themselves are. You look
• 1:16:17
  at an Ariaster movie and you go like, oh, I think I know
• 1:16:20
  this is an Riaster movie, right, But that's him finding it, you
• 1:16:27
  know what I mean. And I think that the mistake a lot of young
• 1:16:31
  people make, and what I mean by young is not necessarily young, but
• 1:16:34
  like young in the business trying to get into it is they want to get
• 1:16:39
  in and get paid, you know, they want to get in and get
• 1:16:41
  financed. And I sometimes say like, do you because you know, really
• 1:16:45
  the best way to be a filmmaker is to step in crap every once in
• 1:16:49
  a while, and that's when you learn, and you don't want to be
• 1:16:54
  doing that with like a bunch of money hanging over you, where this town
• 1:16:58
  may say like, hey, we shouldn't have hired that person. You need
• 1:17:02
  to make some crap, And that's the where the flowers grow out of,
• 1:17:06
  you know, and that's where you learn like, oh, okay, you
• 1:17:10
  know what, I think, I don't really do these wonders that I'm seeing
• 1:17:14
  and all these things. Oh you know what, I think that maybe slow
• 1:17:17
  motion isn't my thing. I mean, I know that's cool in that action
• 1:17:20
  moment that I saw on like three movies that I wanted to copy. But
• 1:17:24
  maybe my thing is this thing that I do and and I think that that's
• 1:17:29
  that's the biggest bit of advice I'd give to somebody, because that doesn't require
• 1:17:33
  people giving you a bunch of money and you knocking on doors. That may
• 1:17:36
  be you going like, okay, well, what are the movies that I
• 1:17:41
  feel like army and what is my life experience about and what are the what
• 1:17:45
  are the stories that I feel that I want to be that I want to
• 1:17:47
  tell and like kind of like my dad dying. I think that's why that's
• 1:17:51
  why that movie was so important to me, is that is that for the
• 1:17:55
  first time I was thinking about, Okay, well, what if this is
• 1:17:59
  my last movie, not my first, it would be my first and last
• 1:18:03
  movie. So what do I want like my son to know about me from
• 1:18:06
  this movie? What's the soundtrack of it? What's the look, what's the
• 1:18:11
  where's the heart and soul of this movie? And where does it land?
• 1:18:14
  And And I think that that that is something that people can figure out without
• 1:18:20
  some sort of like door opening for them into Hollywood, and they'll respect that
• 1:18:26
  you more if you know who you are once you get into the business.
• 1:18:30
  Very much, so very very much. So. Um, what is the
• 1:18:33
  lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film, Biggestiness
• 1:18:35
  or life that uh that uh, this too shall pass? Um. You
• 1:18:45
  know it's just hard, you know. Uh, you you experience something,
• 1:18:51
  uh and it's it's harmful to you on that day, and you just think
• 1:18:56
  that you're done and you're destroyed. It's all and and and you've you know,
• 1:19:02
  the gig is up. They know you're a fraud, you know,
• 1:19:05
  And that's a given, isn't it. Though, isn't it. We don't
• 1:19:10
  we always think we're a fraud. I mean every absolutely, if you're a
• 1:19:12
  good artist, you do we're making make believe. How can we not feel
• 1:19:15
  like a fraud? But but I think that that um, uh, you
• 1:19:20
  know, I'm lucky that like Hustle and Flow is right when Twitter was happening,
• 1:19:27
  But it wasn't at the point of Twitter where people could like crap on
• 1:19:30
  you with such virtuosity as it's done today and with anonymity to some extent.
• 1:19:35
  And I think that, uh, that that really Like now I'm finding like,
• 1:19:41
  no, no, no, I'm I'm I'm good. I'm gonna move
• 1:19:43
  onto the onto the next I saw um a documentary on the on the Stage
• 1:19:49
  director Help Prince and and and he does something that I was like, oh,
• 1:19:54
  I'm doing that, which is on his opening night of his musicals,
• 1:19:57
  which is on a Friday, UM schedules a breakfast the following Saturday with his
• 1:20:02
  collaborators to discuss his next show. We'll be right back after a word from
• 1:20:09
  our sponsor, and now back to the show. And I was like that
• 1:20:18
  that's a mac move, because that that shows you that you are in the
• 1:20:23
  you are in the flow of being a creator and your worth is not completely
• 1:20:29
  based on the success or failure of what you just made. You're in an
• 1:20:32
  arc that is going beyond, that is going over decades. You're not in
• 1:20:36
  an arc that's going over a weekend and whether or not people are going to
• 1:20:40
  go see your movie or go see your show. And I think that that's
• 1:20:45
  that's probably the one that as I as I come into my fifties is like,
• 1:20:47
  you know what, that I'm a little bit better with handling. Okay,
• 1:20:53
  now I gotta I gotta deal with judgment and opinions that seem to be
• 1:20:58
  everywhere. Oh yeah, oh kayh. And toughest question of all three of
• 1:21:02
  your favorite films of all time? Well, I know my favorite, which
• 1:21:12
  is Purple Rain. Oh so good Purple Rain. I mean, I really
• 1:21:16
  think that Purple Rain for me has now surpassed Star Wars and Raiders in viewing,
• 1:21:23
  meaning I usually show it to my casting crew before I start a picture.
• 1:21:29
  I do tutorials sometimes on the first eight minutes of Purple Rain. I
• 1:21:34
  think the first eight minutes of Purple Rain is brilliant. It's all set to
• 1:21:41
  let's go crazy this extended version, but you get you really know who your
• 1:21:45
  protagonists. You know that there's going to be a love story, you know
• 1:21:47
  that Morest Day is going to be a villain. You know how everybody feels,
• 1:21:50
  and you kind of even know what everybody wants. And the music never
• 1:21:54
  stops. But but the editing and the and the visuals that you see,
• 1:21:59
  I think like three tongues within the first minute, Like you know that sex
• 1:22:03
  is going to be a part of this. And it's kind of got this
• 1:22:05
  interesting look with these very like quick little shots of just people in a frozen
• 1:22:11
  state, like they're not freeze frame. But it's just so creative and inventive.
• 1:22:15
  And I know that people go like, oh, Greig, like the
• 1:22:18
  acting and all, and I was like, yeah, but it's kind of
• 1:22:20
  largely let's kind of it's kind of opera, you know, and and and
• 1:22:27
  you've got to just kind of like go into it with that opera feel.
• 1:22:30
  So if I were like on a desert island, it would definitely have to
• 1:22:32
  be purple rain. But um, I I still think that Godfather is just
• 1:22:40
  it's it's hard to deny that those themes of family and how much you're going
• 1:22:45
  to sell your soul um to uh, you know, to to um,
• 1:22:53
  to to protect your family and to thrive. Uh, those themes are just
• 1:22:58
  so universal, you know, and they and I showed it to my daughter
• 1:23:01
  recently and she loved it and I was like, man, that's just that
• 1:23:05
  it's it's funny that this movie still can can move people. And then the
• 1:23:12
  third one is um. John Sales made a movie called Mate jan It is
• 1:23:16
  just a perfect movie that I really try to urge as many people to see
• 1:23:21
  and that I can. And I had a great, great honor to be
• 1:23:27
  able to work with James Earl Jones, where I got to tell him how
• 1:23:30
  much his character A Few Clothes meant to me when I was a young man
• 1:23:34
  and his mom. He has a great monologue and it that begins with him
• 1:23:39
  saying, you shut your mouth, peckle Wood. Yes, it's just the
• 1:23:43
  best best delivery of just smacking down some white haycy that's calling him you know,
• 1:23:48
  that's being a racist, and it's just power. But and it's like,
• 1:23:53
  you know, Chris Cooper's like I think it's his first movie really and
• 1:23:56
  you know, uh, so many people in it that I just wonderful.
• 1:24:00
  But those are my three. And I'll tell you when I had John on
• 1:24:02
  the show, and it was like having a masterclass listening to him talk about
• 1:24:06
  story and directing, and he gives some of the best directing advice. Oh
• 1:24:13
  God, like he would just just a beautiful little little little tweaks, just
• 1:24:17
  little nuggets that you just go, oh, that would be you know what,
• 1:24:21
  I'm doing that next time. Oh, I'm doing that next time.
• 1:24:24
  Oh. It's so funny how film film people, and especially film directors,
• 1:24:29
  we still just need to collect all those those little gems we you know.
• 1:24:32
  And and the one thing that I always try to urge, you know,
• 1:24:35
  the the newer crop of of centophiles that are coming. I was like,
• 1:24:40
  you know, you gotta look back. You know, it's gotten glad.
• 1:24:43
  I'm glad that you you love you know, I know that that you think
• 1:24:46
  that Dark Knight is a classic film in a And I'm not saying it's not
• 1:24:53
  ro Roger. I'm not saying it's not it's I love Dark Knight. But
• 1:24:58
  but actually, um, I'm show you this movie called Heat. Oh don't
• 1:25:00
  you read in my mind? You know. And by the way, there's
• 1:25:04
  probably plenty of people that will be like, Okay, but I'm gonna now
• 1:25:06
  show you this movie Craig, we're fiefee like or thief right or thief which
• 1:25:13
  is so I just watched that recently. But but yeah, it's like it's
• 1:25:16
  endless how much cinema there is that we have to learn from. That's just
• 1:25:19
  further back then then necessarily what is what is now? You know? And
• 1:25:26
  uh and and I would love to have been in the room with John Sales
• 1:25:30
  and learn all that. I mean, no, it's it's well, you
• 1:25:32
  could watch it at anytime. I'll send you a link. It's it's just
• 1:25:34
  a it's a ninety minute tour the force of him talking about Loan Star,
• 1:25:39
  how he did the one er in Lone Star, like you know, just
• 1:25:42
  the scene switched midway. I'm like, John, how did you do that?
• 1:25:45
  And he's like, wow, oh, well we had this guy and
• 1:25:46
  they fell down and jumped out of this because it's just in the one shot.
• 1:25:49
  It just is a transition of like you know, three decades or something
• 1:25:53
  like that. And and I'm like, how'd you do that? Because it
• 1:25:56
  was low budget, there was no CG. And he's like, oh,
• 1:25:59
  yeah, well did this and then we had the guy run around and he
• 1:26:01
  did that. I'm like, oh, and I'm not sure it was John
• 1:26:03
  Wood told me this, but I've read I heard this somewhere. It's like
• 1:26:06
  when you when you just about the yell cut hold on for three more seconds,
• 1:26:12
  you know what. I learned that from editing my own movie, because
• 1:26:15
  you want to and and it just takes one time for you to learn it.
• 1:26:18
  And that is like I wanted to just do a really slow dissolve,
• 1:26:24
  but I noticed that like I had somebody holding anim holding the thought. And
• 1:26:28
  then you could see as the slow dissolve was happening, you could see them
• 1:26:31
  go like like they you I called cut two soon right, And you just
• 1:26:36
  never know what they'll do too. Sometimes it's just a little magic happens.
• 1:26:40
  You leave that time for the magic. Greig. I could keep talking to
• 1:26:42
  you for hours. Brother. I appreciate you having this conversation with us,
• 1:26:45
  and hopefully it helps some young cinophiles coming up behind us. So I truly
• 1:26:50
  appreciate you and thank you for all the amazing work you've done and continue.
• 1:26:54
  I can't wait to see where you come up with next. My friend,
• 1:26:56
  Oh, thanks so much, it was great great to be on with you
• 1:26:58
  today. I want to thank Craig so much for coming on the show and
• 1:27:01
  sharing his knowledge bombs with all of the tribe. Thank you so much,
• 1:27:05
  Craig. If you want to get links to anything we spoke about in this
• 1:27:08
  episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Ford
• 1:27:13
  Slash two eighty nine. Thank you so much for listening, guys, As
• 1:27:15
  always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:27:19
  Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.