Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 414: Billie Eilish and Truth to Filmmaking with RJ Cutler

Transcript

BPS 414: Billie Eilish and Truth to Filmmaking with RJ Cutler · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more
0:07
Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
0:12
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four fourteen.
0:16
Speaker 2: Nothing is over until we decide it is? Was it
0:19
Speaker 2: over when the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor?
0:21
Speaker 3: Hell? No? John Belushi broadcasting from a dark, windowless.
0:26
Speaker 1: Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
0:28
Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
0:33
Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
0:35
Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
0:38
Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
0:42
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
0:45
Speaker 2: I am your humble host, Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show
0:48
Speaker 2: is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script
0:53
Speaker 2: coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind
0:58
Speaker 2: of project you are in the goals of the project
1:01
Speaker 2: you are, so we actually break it down by three categories,
1:04
Speaker 2: micro budget, indie film, market, and studio film. There's no
1:07
Speaker 2: reason to get coverage from a reader that's used to
1:09
Speaker 2: reading tempole movies when your movie is going to be
1:12
Speaker 2: done for one hundred thousand dollars, and we wanted to
1:15
Speaker 2: focus on that. At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have
1:18
Speaker 2: worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney, Scott Free,
1:24
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more. So if
1:27
Speaker 2: you need your screenplay or TV script covered by professional readers,
1:32
Speaker 2: head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com. Well, guys, today
1:37
Speaker 2: on the show we have filmmaker RJ Cutler. And RJ
1:43
Speaker 2: is not only a narrative filmmaker, but he's also a
1:47
Speaker 2: very very accomplished documentary and nonfiction director as well. He
1:52
Speaker 2: has worked on films like The Oscar nominated The War Room,
1:55
Speaker 2: A Perfect Candidate, The September issue, The World according to
2:00
Speaker 2: Dick Cheney, If I Stay Belushi, and the brand new
2:05
Speaker 2: film Billie Eilish, The World's a Little Blurry for Apple TV.
2:10
Speaker 2: And he's also one of the co creators of the
2:12
Speaker 2: hit television series Nashville. RJ and I had a fantastic conversation.
2:19
Speaker 2: It truly is a masterclass in storytelling. I love the
2:22
Speaker 2: way RJ tells his stories in documentary as well as
2:27
Speaker 2: narrative film, and his new documentary Billy Irish, The World's
2:30
Speaker 2: a Little Blurry is fantastic. I knew very little about
2:34
Speaker 2: Billie Eilish before I saw this. Of course, my daughters
2:38
Speaker 2: knew a lot about them, a lot about her, but
2:40
Speaker 2: I did not, And I was fascinated by this artist's
2:44
Speaker 2: journey and RJ was able to capture that in this documentary.
2:48
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk a bunch about that, as
2:49
Speaker 2: well as his process and all the other films that
2:52
Speaker 2: he's worked on in his career. So, without any further ado,
2:54
Speaker 2: please enjoy my conversation with r J Cutler. I like
2:59
Speaker 2: to welcome to the show, r J Cutler. How are
3:02
Speaker 2: you doing? R J?
3:03
Speaker 3: I'm all right, thank you very much. All was good,
3:06
Speaker 3: very cool.
3:07
Speaker 2: I love your mic. It's much more impressive than mine,
3:09
Speaker 2: so I uh, I appreciate the audioball.
3:12
Speaker 3: You know, Mike, envy is an easily addressed issue.
3:18
Speaker 2: I won't feel too bad about it.
3:20
Speaker 3: Like Amazon can. It can take care of that.
3:24
Speaker 2: That's very true. Two clicks, two clicks, and it's done exactly.
3:28
Speaker 2: So I wanted to ask you, let's let's just jump
3:31
Speaker 2: into it. How did you get started in the business.
3:36
Speaker 3: I mean, it depends on how how thorough an answer
3:40
Speaker 3: you want. But uh, you know, I started directing plays.
3:44
Speaker 3: I think I was in first grade and I was
3:46
Speaker 3: I was forcing my my classmates to do adaptations of
3:52
Speaker 3: Charlie Brown books on the on the school the baseball
3:57
Speaker 3: field outside of my elementary school, and then we'd invite
4:00
Speaker 3: the whole school to come join in. And you know,
4:04
Speaker 3: I was always I always was was somehow I was
4:09
Speaker 3: just a kid who liked to put on plays and
4:11
Speaker 3: also loved journalism. And I pursued a career, had a
4:17
Speaker 3: career really as a as a young theater director. It's
4:20
Speaker 3: what I studied at school and and and for eight
4:24
Speaker 3: nine years in New York, I directed, you know, I was.
4:29
Speaker 3: It was James Lapine's assistant director on the original production
4:33
Speaker 3: of Into the Woods. I did the original productions of
4:36
Speaker 3: Secret Garden to productions before it went to Broadway and
4:39
Speaker 3: ran for several seasons. You know, I had, I had
4:42
Speaker 3: this wonderful life in the in the theater. But I
4:46
Speaker 3: always kind of in the back of my mind somehow
4:50
Speaker 3: thought that I would combine that passion with my equal
4:54
Speaker 3: passion in in in journalism or you know, curateiosity about
5:01
Speaker 3: world events, which is just something I always ad and
5:05
Speaker 3: then in the summer of nineteen ninety two, I had
5:08
Speaker 3: this idea to make a documentary about Bill Clinton's presidential
5:13
Speaker 3: campaign which was which was heading towards the election. And
5:19
Speaker 3: I partnered with a dear friend of mine, Wendy Ettinger,
5:22
Speaker 3: and we pursued that idea, found our ways to our
5:26
Speaker 3: way to the brownstone of d A. Pennebaker and Chris
5:31
Speaker 3: Hejudice and Fraser Penna Baker, the legendary documentary filmmakers, and
5:37
Speaker 3: pitch them this idea. And you know, as I say,
5:40
Speaker 3: there are long stories and short stories, but the short
5:43
Speaker 3: story is I produced The War Room. That was my
5:46
Speaker 3: first film, and it was not only a fantastic experience
5:53
Speaker 3: and a great success. You know, we were nominated for
5:57
Speaker 3: an Oscar and had an incredible time, witnessed the campaign
6:01
Speaker 3: from within it and introduced the world to James Carvill
6:05
Speaker 3: and George Stephanopolis. But I along the way, received this
6:10
Speaker 3: incredible education in documentary filmmaking and cinema verite filmmaking from
6:16
Speaker 3: the at the feet of the masters, you know, A.
6:19
Speaker 3: Da Pennabaker and Chris Judice, who were so incredibly supportive
6:24
Speaker 3: of me and generous with their time, and you know,
6:27
Speaker 3: I literally would sit next to Chris as she was
6:29
Speaker 3: editing on the Steambeck and ask her questions. And Penny,
6:34
Speaker 3: who was a great teacher and philosopher of Verite, was
6:40
Speaker 3: always sharing lessons. And that's how I got started, you know.
6:45
Speaker 3: And since then I've been you know, that's nineteen ninety two,
6:47
Speaker 3: so we're nearing thirty years of doing this.
6:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, you've done a couple things since then.
6:52
Speaker 2: Without question. Now, the war Room specifically, there is a
6:56
Speaker 2: visceral energy in that film. I mean you can sense
6:59
Speaker 2: it coming off. I mean, that must have been insane
7:02
Speaker 2: just being in that room, that energy. I mean, I
7:05
Speaker 2: mean I was. I mean, it's it's been thirty years,
7:08
Speaker 2: so I was a young I was a younger man
7:10
Speaker 2: back then, to say the least. But I remember the
7:13
Speaker 2: excitement around Bill Clinton and around.
7:15
Speaker 3: It was crazy this thing. Yeah, there were rock stars,
7:19
Speaker 3: He and Al Gore. They were young men. They were
7:22
Speaker 3: they forty if they were, they were barely forty, and
7:25
Speaker 3: and they had these young wives and all these young
7:29
Speaker 3: people around them, and Panna Baker, who had done a
7:32
Speaker 3: great deal of filming with Bobby and Jack Kennedy in
7:35
Speaker 3: their prime, and there you know, and there during their
7:38
Speaker 3: rise to power and until both of their deaths. He
7:44
Speaker 3: said that it hadn't been since then that he had
7:48
Speaker 3: experienced anything like this. He recognized immediately in the Clinton
7:54
Speaker 3: campaign that kind of youthful energy and vigor and vitality
7:58
Speaker 3: and passion and certain to you that that that this
8:01
Speaker 3: group could change the world. And and you felt it.
8:05
Speaker 3: You sure did feel it, man, It was you really,
8:08
Speaker 3: you really felt it, you know. And when you when
8:10
Speaker 3: you when you talk about that, Uh, it's something that
8:14
Speaker 3: the film was able to capture so beautifully, so beautifully him.
8:19
Speaker 2: And Carvell and Carvell, I mean, he's I mean, you
8:21
Speaker 2: couldn't es Central Casting couldn't have sent him.
8:24
Speaker 3: I mean it's they couldn't have and and and they did,
8:28
Speaker 3: and you know, we had to wrecka you know, Penny.
8:31
Speaker 3: First thing Penny said about James. I remember, after the
8:33
Speaker 3: first day or two of filming, we were like, well,
8:36
Speaker 3: maybe we make a film about him, And Penny was like, well,
8:39
Speaker 3: I don't know, he's kind of like the drunken uncle
8:41
Speaker 3: and won't leave the party.
8:43
Speaker 2: Uh.
8:43
Speaker 3: But then then we got the film processed and we
8:46
Speaker 3: put it up and I remember clear as day Penny
8:51
Speaker 3: watching it and saying that guy's a movie star. That's
8:54
Speaker 3: a move. We can make a movie here about him.
8:56
Speaker 3: And and he was right. And he was right because
8:58
Speaker 3: we thought, you know, I didn't. I didn't know what
9:02
Speaker 3: I was doing. And I was like, well, we'll follow
9:04
Speaker 3: these two guys. Because the first time I mentioned to
9:07
Speaker 3: Penny and Chris that you know that, I was like,
9:09
Speaker 3: I got access. I did it. I pulled it off.
9:12
Speaker 3: I got us in. We're in the campaign. And they said, well,
9:15
Speaker 3: when do we start shooting with Governor Clinton. I was like, well,
9:18
Speaker 3: not Governor Clinton, but the guys who were running the campaign,
9:22
Speaker 3: the guys who are running the campaign, what are we
9:25
Speaker 3: going to do with them? I was like, I don't know.
9:27
Speaker 3: Maybe you know, we'll we'll they'll take us to Bill
9:30
Speaker 3: Clinton and then when they leave, we'll stay. And I
9:34
Speaker 3: didn't quite know that that's not the way it works.
9:37
Speaker 3: The whole film. We thought we were making a film
9:39
Speaker 3: about Bill Clinton and one day would you like the
9:41
Speaker 3: and it just I remember being disappointed. I remember on
9:46
Speaker 3: election night we never quite got to be with Clinton.
9:52
Speaker 3: We filmed his speech to the world, We'll be right
9:56
Speaker 3: back after a word from our sponsor, and now back
10:02
Speaker 3: to the show and we were with James and George
10:07
Speaker 3: and he hugged them and we filmed that, but then
10:10
Speaker 3: the camera ran out of film and we couldn't go
10:12
Speaker 3: and we were we couldn't we we I remember sitting
10:16
Speaker 3: in a cloak room in the Governor's mansion waiting to
10:21
Speaker 3: get access to finally be with Clinton on election night
10:26
Speaker 3: and just not getting it. And into the cloak room
10:30
Speaker 3: came al Gore's daughters and they were waiting, and we
10:33
Speaker 3: were all just kind of waiting, you know, and they
10:37
Speaker 3: got brought into the party, of course, but we didn't.
10:41
Speaker 3: But you know, it was that was as everything was
10:45
Speaker 3: on that film. That was a great lesson in the
10:47
Speaker 3: fact that you know, you don't always know what you
10:51
Speaker 3: have till you look at what you have. And when
10:53
Speaker 3: we looked at what we have, well we looked at
10:55
Speaker 3: what we had. We, you know, especially in the hands
10:58
Speaker 3: of his brilliant editors as Manny and Chris, who could
11:02
Speaker 3: bring it to life and bring the humor to life
11:05
Speaker 3: and bring the characters to life. I mean, man, they
11:07
Speaker 3: used every frame we shot on that film, every frame,
11:10
Speaker 3: but they made a masterful film.
11:13
Speaker 2: It's absolutely a masterful film. Now, as a documentarian, how
11:17
Speaker 2: do you bring out the truth of your subject, the
11:21
Speaker 2: subject that you're shooting, because, I mean, human beings generally
11:24
Speaker 2: have of an ear a wall, sometimes sometimes a wall
11:27
Speaker 2: with or guns aimed at you used to protect themselves.
11:31
Speaker 2: So as a documentarian, sometimes they'll agree to do a piece,
11:35
Speaker 2: but that doesn't mean that they're allowing you in yet.
11:37
Speaker 2: So how do you kind of bring the truth out
11:39
Speaker 2: of a subject?
11:40
Speaker 3: I mean, what a great question. And really, to be honest,
11:44
Speaker 3: the only question there is about the work that we do.
11:46
Speaker 3: And the answer is you earn their trust. You earn
11:49
Speaker 3: their trust, and you earn their trust by you know,
11:53
Speaker 3: being trustworthy. You know, there's a common misnomer which is
11:59
Speaker 3: that were flies on the wall, and that's our goal
12:02
Speaker 3: is to be a fly on the wall. And to
12:03
Speaker 3: vanish into the woodwork. That's another one. And to disappear
12:06
Speaker 3: so you don't even know we're they're None of those
12:08
Speaker 3: things are our actual objective. I can't be a fly
12:11
Speaker 3: on the wall. I mean, I'm six one, I got
12:14
Speaker 3: some I got some presence to me. My camera person
12:19
Speaker 3: has a camera with them, my sound person has a boom.
12:23
Speaker 3: We're people, We're people in a room. There are only
12:26
Speaker 3: few of us, and we're not hanging lights, and we're
12:28
Speaker 3: good at getting out of your way. But we're human
12:31
Speaker 3: beings and the key is for us as human beings
12:34
Speaker 3: to have a relationship with you as a human being.
12:36
Speaker 3: You the subject, and if we have a relationship with you,
12:40
Speaker 3: we'rein yours comfortable being yourself with us, as you are
12:44
Speaker 3: with anybody with whom you trust and are fully comfortable
12:47
Speaker 3: being yourself, then we can capture that on film. And
12:51
Speaker 3: that's all we aim for. We want to earn your trust,
12:54
Speaker 3: you know, on Monday, and if we do, we know
12:57
Speaker 3: that we still have to earn it on Tuesday, and
13:00
Speaker 3: we still have to earn it on Wednesday. And as
13:02
Speaker 3: I say, the way to earn people's trust is to
13:04
Speaker 3: be trustworthy. The way you earn their trust in any relationship,
13:08
Speaker 3: you have to be who you say you are. You
13:10
Speaker 3: have to you can't say, hey, there are only three
13:13
Speaker 3: of us, and we never use lights or have they
13:15
Speaker 3: equipment or any cables, and you and I always like
13:18
Speaker 3: to leave ten minutes before you ask me to leave,
13:20
Speaker 3: and and that's that's my approach. And trust you know,
13:25
Speaker 3: you'll see you'll trust us and we'll we'll that's that's
13:28
Speaker 3: how we'll make it. You can't say that and then
13:30
Speaker 3: show up with thirty people, lights, cables, trucks and refuse
13:34
Speaker 3: to leave until you get it. You know you can't.
13:37
Speaker 3: You gotta be who you say you are, and you
13:39
Speaker 3: know what we who we say we are people who
13:43
Speaker 3: are there to observe. We just want to see life.
13:45
Speaker 3: We want to see how it happens. How how if
13:48
Speaker 3: you're Billie Eilish, how you how you're handling all the
13:53
Speaker 3: things that are going on, and how you're living your life,
13:55
Speaker 3: and how you're writing your album with your brother and
13:58
Speaker 3: what that's all about, and simply there to see that.
14:02
Speaker 3: I don't want anything else, you know, people ask me,
14:05
Speaker 3: what would would the film have not worked if she
14:07
Speaker 3: didn't win the Grammys. I don't care if she wins
14:10
Speaker 3: the Grammys. I don't care if she sells a single album.
14:13
Speaker 3: I'm there to tell the story of a remarkable young
14:15
Speaker 3: artist coming of age and a remarkable young woman coming
14:19
Speaker 3: of age. And that story, however that story unfolds, is
14:24
Speaker 3: the story I want to tell. I don't want anything else.
14:27
Speaker 3: I just want to see clearly, and then I want
14:30
Speaker 3: to be able to tell the story truthfully, as you say.
14:33
Speaker 2: In this and what's remarkable about your career is the
14:36
Speaker 2: subject matters that you've taken on. You know, some have
14:39
Speaker 2: obviously been of of of a great you know, legendary
14:42
Speaker 2: people like Jim Belushi who have passed, but a lot
14:46
Speaker 2: of John I mean John shitty sorry John, sorry, Jim,
14:49
Speaker 2: Jim still with us. Jim still, Jim is still with us.
14:52
Speaker 3: The harvesting the cannabis, yes on behalf of us all, yes, he.
14:57
Speaker 2: Is, no, So I mean, so you do subject matters
15:01
Speaker 2: like that, and that's a different kind of documentarian work
15:04
Speaker 2: as opposed to you know, Dick Cheney or the head
15:08
Speaker 2: of Vogue or Billy there.
15:12
Speaker 3: These are very.
15:12
Speaker 2: Big presence, you know, these are big people present. You know,
15:16
Speaker 2: very have heavy presence. There's shadows, especially like Dick Cheney
15:20
Speaker 2: and and I forgot her name, the head of a
15:24
Speaker 2: tour and yes having you know, they the shadow that
15:28
Speaker 2: walks in with them, and the door is massive. The
15:31
Speaker 2: trust that they must have to open themselves up, because
15:35
Speaker 2: I've seen those films and they're just I mean, they
15:38
Speaker 2: open themselves up. And you're right, there needs to be
15:40
Speaker 2: a trust. And obviously your track record does open some doors.
15:43
Speaker 3: As well.
15:43
Speaker 2: But at a certain point, I don't care if you
15:46
Speaker 2: want an Oscar or you didn't want an Oscar or
15:47
Speaker 2: whoever you've worked with. At a certain point, it's just
15:49
Speaker 2: you and me. I'm here, it's a camera. I don't
15:52
Speaker 2: care who you are or what you are, but I
15:54
Speaker 2: have to trust you. And that's the human aspect of it,
15:57
Speaker 2: regardless of how do you cut through all the celebrit
16:00
Speaker 2: in all of the other stuff that is thrown upon
16:02
Speaker 2: these souls, if you will and just get to them.
16:07
Speaker 3: I mean, it's there are a number of ways of
16:11
Speaker 3: answering that. One is that what connects the subject to
16:18
Speaker 3: the processes their desire to have their story told, and
16:23
Speaker 3: that transcends. That's a very you say. It's when we're
16:26
Speaker 3: sitting there, it's two human beings. Well, one of those
16:29
Speaker 3: human beings wants to have their story told, and the
16:31
Speaker 3: other human being wants to tell their story. So we're
16:34
Speaker 3: actually very much in harmony. And I'm there. I'm there
16:39
Speaker 3: with you, man, I get it. I know. I don't
16:41
Speaker 3: know why you want to have your story told. I
16:44
Speaker 3: don't mean to say I don't think you should. I
16:46
Speaker 3: mean to say I don't ask why. That's on you,
16:49
Speaker 3: and I trust you that you want to have your
16:52
Speaker 3: story told. It's a very human desire and I'm connecting
16:56
Speaker 3: with you on that level. And and you know, to
17:01
Speaker 3: be honest, that's really fundamentally it it's it's that's what
17:07
Speaker 3: that's what draws me to you. And and then you
17:11
Speaker 3: know there are other things that I you know, I'm
17:15
Speaker 3: an empathic person. I'm a curious person. I you know,
17:21
Speaker 3: I'm present. I'm well trained by you know, by Da
17:27
Speaker 3: Pine Baker and Gris Edjudice and all my experiences. I'm
17:31
Speaker 3: trustworthy because I know that you know I want it.
17:34
Speaker 3: These days, I can say to somebody, you know, free
17:36
Speaker 3: to call anyone I've worked with and you'll you'll see.
17:39
Speaker 3: But you know, fortunately the work you know is there
17:43
Speaker 3: and and stands for itself. But that's really what connects us,
17:49
Speaker 3: and that you know, I know that we're all you know,
17:52
Speaker 3: we're all our parents' children, We're all the little boys
17:56
Speaker 3: and girls that we were one day long ago. I
17:59
Speaker 3: know that it hasn't been all that long since then,
18:02
Speaker 3: no matter how old we are, and I know that
18:04
Speaker 3: one day is you know that we're all dust in
18:08
Speaker 3: the wind, and I'm I'm you know, so celebrity doesn't. Honestly,
18:17
Speaker 3: you know, I've made plenty of projects that aren't about celebrities.
18:19
Speaker 3: I've been I made films about high school kids and
18:22
Speaker 3: college kids, and young physicians and young men and women
18:26
Speaker 3: in the military, and and those projects are every bit
18:30
Speaker 3: as rich as the celebrity driven projects. But it's not
18:34
Speaker 3: celebrity that is as interesting, even though it, of course
18:38
Speaker 3: has been a subject. It's a subject in the in
18:41
Speaker 3: the Billi film, it's a subject in the Blushi film.
18:42
Speaker 3: There's no question, but what what What drives my curiosity
18:48
Speaker 3: or people who are you know, who are great at
18:50
Speaker 3: what they do and care a tremendous amount about it
18:53
Speaker 3: and are doing it as well as they possibly can
18:55
Speaker 3: under high stake circumstances. I'm you know, I'm I'm I
18:59
Speaker 3: as I meant. I come from the theater. I want
19:01
Speaker 3: to put on a good show, and I want to
19:03
Speaker 3: spin a great yarn, and I want you to laugh
19:06
Speaker 3: and cry and stomp your feet and sheer when it's over,
19:08
Speaker 3: you know, and leave the theater grateful that you devoted
19:13
Speaker 3: You know that you gave up your time to be there,
19:16
Speaker 3: and I want to have earned that gratitude. You know,
19:18
Speaker 3: I want to have spent your time. Well, you're putting
19:22
Speaker 3: your trust in me too, so so I'm those are
19:27
Speaker 3: my goals now with those first few projects, like the
19:30
Speaker 3: war room and the projects a few projects after that.
19:33
Speaker 2: What were the biggest lessons you learned because you were
19:35
Speaker 2: brand new to this medium, you know, what was the
19:37
Speaker 2: biggest lesson you took away from, let's say the war
19:40
Speaker 2: room because that was such a I mean you were
19:42
Speaker 2: surrounded by such amazing you know, collaborators. What was that
19:46
Speaker 2: one lesson You're like, Oh, this is the thing I'm
19:48
Speaker 2: taking away one of the big things I'm taking away
19:50
Speaker 2: from this process.
19:52
Speaker 3: It really is that you have to trust in the process.
19:56
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
20:02
Speaker 3: and now back to the show. That the principles reveal
20:07
Speaker 3: themselves or that they work out, and that the things
20:10
Speaker 3: the characters reveal themselves the if you stick very early on,
20:15
Speaker 3: I mean, the different things Penny said to me that
20:17
Speaker 3: I think about every day. You know. One of the
20:19
Speaker 3: very first things he said to me was, you know,
20:21
Speaker 3: if you want to do this kind of work, you
20:23
Speaker 3: better have a bank robber's mentality, travel light and be
20:27
Speaker 3: ready to make a break. For it at any moment.
20:29
Speaker 3: And you know, I didn't know what he meant, but
20:32
Speaker 3: I know now and and that that you gotta you know,
20:35
Speaker 3: you gotta be light on your feet. You gotta be
20:39
Speaker 3: you gotta be able to uh to adjust. Uh, it's
20:43
Speaker 3: you gotta you gotta make it if necessary, you gotta
20:46
Speaker 3: make a break for it. You know you gotta. But
20:49
Speaker 3: but he also said, you know, the first thing he
20:51
Speaker 3: does when he used to do when he walked into
20:53
Speaker 3: a room and to a shooting environment was find a
20:56
Speaker 3: table to sit down next to and take his camera
20:59
Speaker 3: apart and clean it. Because his he wanted the people
21:02
Speaker 3: who he was filming to know that he was a
21:03
Speaker 3: guy with a job too. He's no different than them.
21:06
Speaker 3: He doesn't. He's not a he's not a body with
21:08
Speaker 3: a camera on its head. You know, he's a human
21:11
Speaker 3: being who's there to connect with you on a human level.
21:14
Speaker 3: There's so many of those lessons. Uh. One of the
21:18
Speaker 3: one of the kind of lessons that that I share
21:22
Speaker 3: with others that to me is the is the in
21:26
Speaker 3: a way, the kind of er lesson of how to
21:30
Speaker 3: approach this kind of filmmaking came to me from from
21:33
Speaker 3: Wayne Gretzky. The great hockey player who never gave, never
21:38
Speaker 3: gave interviews, and and but one day I remember watching
21:42
Speaker 3: an interview with him. Between period. Somehow they got hold
21:45
Speaker 3: of him and the and the the announcer. The interviewer said,
21:50
Speaker 3: tell us, great one, how do you what is your secret?
21:53
Speaker 3: How do you do it? Tell us please tell us
21:56
Speaker 3: and and uh, and Gretzky said, well, it's it's quite simple.
21:59
Speaker 3: I just follow the puck. And I remember thinking, oh
22:02
Speaker 3: my god. Everybody else on the hockey rink is trying
22:05
Speaker 3: to get the puck to do what they wanted to do.
22:08
Speaker 3: But there's Gretzky somehow communing with the puck and letting
22:13
Speaker 3: it lead him. Well that sounds odd, but it's the key,
22:19
Speaker 3: was the key to his success. And I think it's
22:21
Speaker 3: the key to the success that that that I have
22:25
Speaker 3: in doing this, in that in that I'm following life.
22:29
Speaker 3: I'm not asking life to do something. I'm not trying
22:33
Speaker 3: to force it. I'm not trying to force the puck
22:36
Speaker 3: into the net. I'm just following the puck man because
22:39
Speaker 3: it's on a beautiful journey. And if it ends up
22:41
Speaker 3: in that goal, even even you know so much the better.
22:45
Speaker 2: Oh, that's and that's of the most amazing quotes in
22:49
Speaker 2: sports history. But I think in his in history in general,
22:52
Speaker 2: I think it was like follow. He follows the puck,
22:54
Speaker 2: and he also likes to be where the puck is
22:56
Speaker 2: going to be. And I think as a document.
22:58
Speaker 3: He tried that. That's right, all of those things, all
23:01
Speaker 3: of those things, you know, Penny, another thing which you know,
23:03
Speaker 3: we could talk for an hour just me remembering different
23:06
Speaker 3: things kinda Baker said to me at different times. But
23:08
Speaker 3: one of the things he said was that directing is
23:11
Speaker 3: what happens do You don't direct while you're in the field.
23:15
Speaker 3: You're not telling. I'm not saying put it over there,
23:17
Speaker 3: put the camera over there, pray it. I'm doing it.
23:19
Speaker 3: That's not directing. Directing, he said, is what happens in
23:23
Speaker 3: the bar at the end of the day. And what
23:26
Speaker 3: he meant by that was that after the shoot, you
23:29
Speaker 3: you sit around and you and you and you say
23:32
Speaker 3: to each other, what did you see, what did you hear?
23:35
Speaker 3: What was your experience of the day, what moved you?
23:39
Speaker 3: What questions did you have? And as long as everybody
23:42
Speaker 3: is communicating about those things, you're ready for the next
23:45
Speaker 3: day and you move along. Another thing Penny said, I
23:49
Speaker 3: remember wrapping the war Room, and uh, and I had
23:53
Speaker 3: I had been out at some event and I had
23:56
Speaker 3: I had met Riley. Riley, who at the time was
24:01
Speaker 3: the Knixt coach, and he had seen the war Room.
24:07
Speaker 3: It was out, the film was out, so we were
24:09
Speaker 3: in our kind of like, you know, we were going
24:13
Speaker 3: to parties and you know, people knew that I had
24:16
Speaker 3: produced the film. And someone introduced me to pat Riley
24:18
Speaker 3: and we had this great chat and I said, you know,
24:20
Speaker 3: we should make a film about you. And he was like, oh,
24:22
Speaker 3: you know he was he was not uninterested. And that
24:25
Speaker 3: was enough for me. And the next day I saw
24:28
Speaker 3: Penny and I said to him, well, I think I
24:32
Speaker 3: think I found our next film. I'll produce and you
24:34
Speaker 3: guys will direct and will tell the story pat Riley
24:37
Speaker 3: the New York the greatest, one of the greatest coaches
24:39
Speaker 3: to ever be in all of sports. And he's right
24:41
Speaker 3: here in town, down the road at Madison Square Gardener.
24:44
Speaker 3: And Penny said, I thought you wanted to be a director,
24:47
Speaker 3: and I was like, I do, but look another projects
24:49
Speaker 3: fell into our lab and I love producing and this
24:51
Speaker 3: has been great, and you guys are there and he's like, no, no, no,
24:54
Speaker 3: you want to be a director, you find a film
24:56
Speaker 3: to direct, because you're not a director until you wait
25:00
Speaker 3: wake up in the middle of the night screaming. And
25:03
Speaker 3: you don't wake up in the middle of the night
25:05
Speaker 3: screaming when you're producing a film, only when you're directing it.
25:08
Speaker 3: And I was like, wow, I you know it was
25:11
Speaker 3: and it was. It was generous, truthful. And a month
25:19
Speaker 3: or so later, I was at college reunion and I
25:21
Speaker 3: ran into my old friend David Van Taylor, who's one
25:24
Speaker 3: of a brilliant documentarian, and he and I started kivotzing about,
25:29
Speaker 3: you know, different stories that people would tell, and he
25:33
Speaker 3: said to me, you know, if you really want to
25:35
Speaker 3: tell a story about America and American politics, Oliver North
25:40
Speaker 3: is going to run a Ran Contra Ali is going
25:44
Speaker 3: to run for Senate, and we should tell that story.
25:47
Speaker 3: And I said, I'll do it if you'll do it,
25:48
Speaker 3: and off we went and we directed a film together,
25:50
Speaker 3: and I love that film. It's called A Perfect Candidate.
25:53
Speaker 3: It's really I'm so proud of it. It's if the
25:56
Speaker 3: war room is a celebration of the kind of joy
25:59
Speaker 3: of America politics that the the A Perfect Candidate is
26:03
Speaker 3: it's dark underbelly, just filthy, nasty, just un like I
26:09
Speaker 3: can't believe it. And we got it. We were there,
26:12
Speaker 3: we were inside it. H And man, did I wake
26:14
Speaker 3: up screaming in the middle of the night, like uh,
26:18
Speaker 3: more times than I wish to remember. But I learned.
26:20
Speaker 3: I learned what directing was, what directing one of these
26:24
Speaker 3: films was. And you know, you're dealing with powerful stuff.
26:27
Speaker 3: It's you're harnessing the you know, you're in that you're
26:31
Speaker 3: you're you're you're being given an opportunity by the gods
26:37
Speaker 3: to harvest that power and tell the stories of human life.
26:40
Speaker 3: And it's, uh, it's it's intense stuff. So you know,
26:46
Speaker 3: now sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night,
26:48
Speaker 3: I don't have to scream because I've I've been through
26:51
Speaker 3: it before. But but Penny was right, you're you haven't
26:55
Speaker 3: directed one of these films until you've until you've woken
26:58
Speaker 3: up in the middle of the night's scream.
27:00
Speaker 2: And now you wake up in a cold sweat, you
27:02
Speaker 2: don't scream, but there's there might be a cold sweat.
27:05
Speaker 3: Fortunately, my wife here isn't My wife isn't here to
27:09
Speaker 3: refute your observations. Let's let's let it stand fair enough.
27:14
Speaker 2: Now, you did this a great documentary on I mean,
27:17
Speaker 2: I'm one of my favorite comedians of all time, John Belushi,
27:21
Speaker 2: and I mean his story is remarkable. When you go
27:26
Speaker 2: down the rabbit hole of John Belushi, I mean, what
27:30
Speaker 2: was that like? Because i mean, obviously he's not around
27:33
Speaker 2: to interview, so you had to do this from perspectives
27:36
Speaker 2: of everyone who was close to them. What was it
27:38
Speaker 2: like going down that rabbit hole? Because it was I'm
27:40
Speaker 2: assuming somewhat scary and hilarious and everything.
27:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, you know, it was. It was actually
27:47
Speaker 3: a big riddle. You're again, you're asking the exact right question,
27:51
Speaker 3: because you know, how do you tell the story John Belushi,
27:55
Speaker 3: you know, dies of an overdose the early nineteen eighties.
27:59
Speaker 3: It's I'm making this film in twenty sixteen, seventeen eighteen, whatever,
28:04
Speaker 3: I've lost all track of time, and post COVID who
28:09
Speaker 3: knows what. But right in the late tid twenty teens,
28:12
Speaker 3: that's thirty years later, I'm making this. I'm making this film,
28:18
Speaker 3: and how do you capture it? How do you capture
28:22
Speaker 3: the rawness? How do you capture and my objective with
28:25
Speaker 3: this film is to tell the story of not of
28:28
Speaker 3: what it was like for John Belushi to die, which
28:30
Speaker 3: is one of the most oft told stories in entertainment history,
28:35
Speaker 3: but the story of what it was like for John
28:37
Speaker 3: Belushi to live. And that's a rarely told story and
28:41
Speaker 3: a story that Judy Belushi and John's family had not
28:45
Speaker 3: granted anybody the opportunity to do, since they felt so
28:49
Speaker 3: burned by Bob Woodward when he wrote Wired, so they
28:52
Speaker 3: just shut it down. Well, John Batsik, my dear friend
28:56
Speaker 3: and producing partner on the Belushi film, had won Judy
29:01
Speaker 3: over and had persuaded her in part because he is
29:05
Speaker 3: such a persuasive, charming man, in part because he spent
29:09
Speaker 3: a decade doing it, in part because he brought me
29:12
Speaker 3: into direct it, and in part because Judy saw our
29:15
Speaker 3: film Listen to Me Marlin, which John and I produced
29:19
Speaker 3: and shared it with her, and so she was ready
29:24
Speaker 3: to give us the opportunity to tell this story. But
29:26
Speaker 3: we still had the I had the huge riddle of
29:32
Speaker 3: how are we going to bring to the audience what
29:35
Speaker 3: it was like for John belus she to live all
29:38
Speaker 3: these decades later. And as I started to do kind
29:42
Speaker 3: of preparatory interviews, talk to people on the phone, have
29:46
Speaker 3: lunch with people who knew John, those kind of things.
29:48
Speaker 3: I was like, everyone's telling everyone's either talking about themselves
29:53
Speaker 3: as people do.
29:56
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
30:02
Speaker 2: and now back to the show, or.
30:05
Speaker 3: They're telling that they're telling the story that they tell
30:08
Speaker 3: about John when they tell stories about John. So they've
30:12
Speaker 3: told this story so many times, and things felt lost
30:17
Speaker 3: in the foggy haze of memory. They weren't present, they
30:21
Speaker 3: weren't raw, they weren't edgy. And again, if you're going
30:24
Speaker 3: to make a movie about John Belushi, you need raw,
30:27
Speaker 3: present edge, you need you need to capture the man.
30:31
Speaker 3: And the man was an exposed wire. Well, these conversations
30:35
Speaker 3: I was having was were not exposed wire. And I
30:40
Speaker 3: was concerned. And fortunately, when I went to Martha's vineyard
30:44
Speaker 3: and spent time with my team digging through the archive there,
30:49
Speaker 3: we discovered that in the wake of the Woodward book,
30:53
Speaker 3: Judy and a couple of her friends, including the journalist
30:56
Speaker 3: Tanner Colby, had set out to collect an oral history
30:59
Speaker 3: of John. They didn't know what they would do with it.
31:01
Speaker 3: They knew one day these tapes would come in handy.
31:04
Speaker 3: They did a book that was kind of the tip
31:06
Speaker 3: of the iceberg, but it came and went, and there
31:09
Speaker 3: were these dozens hundreds of hours of conversations they had
31:15
Speaker 3: had with people in the years immediately following his death,
31:20
Speaker 3: and boom, there was there was the solution because well
31:24
Speaker 3: you hear it in the film. Those our ability to
31:29
Speaker 3: capture that was a function of the great gift from
31:34
Speaker 3: the gods and from Judy and Tanner of these of
31:37
Speaker 3: these interviews.
31:40
Speaker 2: Remarkable, absolutely remarkable film and anybody who.
31:43
Speaker 3: And incredible people. You know, we're talking about Harold Ramis
31:46
Speaker 3: and dan Aykroyd and Lauren Michaels, and you know, on
31:50
Speaker 3: and on and on, and you're you're hearing from Carrie Fisher,
31:53
Speaker 3: who's who was kind of John's soulmate and addiction as
31:57
Speaker 3: well as his one of his dearest friends. Ends you're
32:00
Speaker 3: you know, you're you're you're getting into the guts of
32:03
Speaker 3: it all. And we got into the guts of it all.
32:05
Speaker 3: And that film does, you know, it definitely does, And.
32:08
Speaker 2: The family was very happy with the way it came
32:10
Speaker 2: out from what anders.
32:11
Speaker 3: I just spoke to Judy this morning, so we were
32:13
Speaker 3: just we were just uh reminiscing and and you know,
32:19
Speaker 3: expressing our you know, our mutual gratitude. Uh and and yeah,
32:25
Speaker 3: and Jim has been great about it, and uh, you
32:28
Speaker 3: know he's uh, I'm sure he'd be the first to
32:31
Speaker 3: tell you he's no easy customer. So so his uh,
32:35
Speaker 3: his response to the film is very meaningful to us.
32:38
Speaker 2: That's awesome. Now, you you you are one of those
32:41
Speaker 2: rare documentarians that get the jump in from narrative to
32:45
Speaker 2: documentary and you were able to go back and forth.
32:49
Speaker 2: How do you transit for how did you transition from
32:52
Speaker 2: documentary to narrative? And was there a little bit of
32:55
Speaker 2: because I've spoken to other documentarians who have that, and
32:58
Speaker 2: it's always a little bit like, well, yeah, you're you
33:00
Speaker 2: could tell you don't know how to tell Well, you
33:02
Speaker 2: don't how to work with actors, you don't know how
33:04
Speaker 2: to tell a story that's a narrative. You just tell
33:06
Speaker 2: these documentary stories. Is that your feeling or like, how
33:09
Speaker 2: did you like with if I Stay? How did that
33:12
Speaker 2: project come along? And did you have any any issues
33:16
Speaker 2: breaking through to get to be able to make that
33:18
Speaker 2: moment in that movie?
33:19
Speaker 3: Well, once again, remember that I am I'm a theater
33:23
Speaker 3: a theater director by training. I mean I spent twenty
33:27
Speaker 3: you know, I started working with actors when I was
33:30
Speaker 3: in first grade. I was directing my I was directing
33:33
Speaker 3: my fellow first graders, and and I and I studied
33:37
Speaker 3: theater and I directed plays in college. I was I
33:40
Speaker 3: was graduated undergraduate from from Harvard. And in those days
33:45
Speaker 3: there was no theater department, but we all did plays constantly.
33:50
Speaker 3: We just produced them ourselves. And there were theaters all
33:53
Speaker 3: over campus, and we that's what we did. And we
33:56
Speaker 3: were so passionate about it. And and and the teachers
34:00
Speaker 3: who did pass through for the kind of special classes
34:04
Speaker 3: now and then in theater practice or or or theater
34:07
Speaker 3: drama history, or any of the dramatic I had a
34:10
Speaker 3: constant my my major was dramatic theory and literature. But
34:14
Speaker 3: I had to kind of apply through the special concentration thing.
34:18
Speaker 3: We we we studied, we were we were imbued with
34:22
Speaker 3: kind of you know, the the importance of of of
34:27
Speaker 3: the message, the importance of the of the of the themes,
34:30
Speaker 3: the importance you know, making sure that the audience's time
34:34
Speaker 3: was was well spent. They you know, I can't tell
34:37
Speaker 3: you the number of teachers who who said to me,
34:40
Speaker 3: you know, you're you're asking people to come out and
34:42
Speaker 3: spend two and a half hours sitting in a dark
34:44
Speaker 3: room with you. You better have you better have something important
34:47
Speaker 3: to say, you better know what it is, and you
34:48
Speaker 3: better damn well be entertaining. And I mean so many
34:51
Speaker 3: people that I was drilled into my head. But so
34:54
Speaker 3: is the importance of how you communicate with your collaborators, actors, designers, everybody, writers,
35:02
Speaker 3: everybody with whom you're working. So those are things that
35:04
Speaker 3: I personally am trained in. Then, as I said, spent
35:10
Speaker 3: many years directing in the theater. So working with actors
35:13
Speaker 3: is a great joy to me, and working with designers
35:17
Speaker 3: is a great joy to me, and working with writers
35:18
Speaker 3: is a great joy to me. So it's not new
35:20
Speaker 3: in that way, but it's very different than documentary work.
35:27
Speaker 3: Documentary work is in a way, documentary work is more
35:30
Speaker 3: like the theater than film work because because you have
35:35
Speaker 3: time in documentary work, a lot of time, a lot
35:38
Speaker 3: of time. You have time in the theater. You spend
35:42
Speaker 3: weeks and weeks rehearsing, in weeks and weeks in previews,
35:45
Speaker 3: and you take your time. And I love that in
35:47
Speaker 3: the In the in film, you show up on set
35:51
Speaker 3: and the first thing you hear is somebody, we're.
35:53
Speaker 2: Losing the light.
35:55
Speaker 3: You're running out of time. You know, it's all day long,
35:57
Speaker 3: You're in a fricking panic. That's that's it. That happens.
36:00
Speaker 3: Not to be my preferred way of going through a day.
36:04
Speaker 3: I like to chill, and I like to you know,
36:06
Speaker 3: I like to follow the park. There's no time to
36:08
Speaker 3: follow the park. We're making a movie.
36:10
Speaker 2: You're creating the buck, You're creating the puck in that book.
36:13
Speaker 3: And maybe, and by the way, maybe in the hands
36:16
Speaker 3: of someone who's more masterful at it than I, it's
36:19
Speaker 3: different and they know how to. I'm sure that. I
36:22
Speaker 3: am certain that Scorsese doesn't feel all day long like
36:26
Speaker 3: he's being rushed. I'm certain of it. But I don't know. Man,
36:30
Speaker 3: I got on set, you know, I'm telling you. The
36:34
Speaker 3: first thing you hear is we're losing the light. So
36:38
Speaker 3: but I did love I did love making that film
36:40
Speaker 3: because I got to work with Chloe Moretz and I
36:42
Speaker 3: got to adapt this scale form and brilliant scale form
36:45
Speaker 3: and book, and I got to buy my I love
36:47
Speaker 3: my producer, I loved everybody, and we had a wonderful
36:50
Speaker 3: time and it was a great experience, and equally equally
36:55
Speaker 3: rich was the process of creating with Kelly Curry the
37:00
Speaker 3: uh uh Nashville the television series, and directing the first
37:03
Speaker 3: two episodes of that. I mean, the pilot of Nashville
37:07
Speaker 3: is one of the one of the all time great
37:09
Speaker 3: creative experiences I've ever had. And I am I I'm I'm,
37:13
Speaker 3: I'm grateful to to to all who made it possible.
37:17
Speaker 3: My work with Kelly Querry was just like incredibly incredibly
37:24
Speaker 3: uh rich and satisfying. And she's so she created these
37:29
Speaker 3: characters and it was and she was so brilliant and
37:32
Speaker 3: they kind of arrived fully formed, and and and she
37:36
Speaker 3: understood the language and the music and the air, and
37:39
Speaker 3: she's you know, she she so that was an incredible honor.
37:44
Speaker 3: And and you know, I got to direct Connie Britton.
37:47
Speaker 3: It's just like, what a thrill, what so many things,
37:50
Speaker 3: and and and and the kids who were in that,
37:53
Speaker 3: the younger actors, the whole Hayden Heavens, the air, the
37:57
Speaker 3: whole experience and the music. You know, to be on
38:00
Speaker 3: the stage at the gran Ole Opry, and to work
38:03
Speaker 3: with t Boone, Vernet on and on, it couldn't have
38:05
Speaker 3: been richer. It couldn't have been more joyful in you know,
38:09
Speaker 3: my soul was and my heart were full with those experiences. Again,
38:14
Speaker 3: the process, I like, I'm I you know, you're right
38:18
Speaker 3: to describe it as going back and forth because I
38:21
Speaker 3: went there for a little bit. And really, these days
38:23
Speaker 3: I'm super focused on my nonfiction work and and and
38:29
Speaker 3: and it's it couldn't be richer in terms of you know,
38:34
Speaker 3: what I'm what I'm trying to do with it, and
38:35
Speaker 3: the different the different projects. So it's it's it's very exciting,
38:39
Speaker 3: but it's different. You know. We like to say, well,
38:42
Speaker 3: documentary is scripted. Stuff is documentary backwards because you do
38:46
Speaker 3: the you do the script before in the in the
38:49
Speaker 3: in the narrative, and you do the script in the
38:51
Speaker 3: edit room. And it's kind of that. But there is
38:53
Speaker 3: a lot. The differences are are massive, yeah, massive, and
38:59
Speaker 3: then the similarities are thrilling. It's you're still cinema. It's
39:04
Speaker 3: still cinema. And to me, these documentaries they are not
39:08
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in in in the in I'm not
39:11
Speaker 3: actually interested in the politics of it. I'm not interested
39:14
Speaker 3: in the message. I'm not here to give you facts
39:16
Speaker 3: and information to google. Does that far better than any
39:20
Speaker 3: film I could ever. I'm here to tell you a
39:23
Speaker 3: story about the human experience, to spin a yarn to
39:27
Speaker 3: make great cinema, or to aspire to make great cinema,
39:30
Speaker 3: you know, as and to and to engage you and
39:34
Speaker 3: to move you emotionally, and to to tell you stories
39:38
Speaker 3: about the human condition. Those are those are my only interests.
39:42
Speaker 3: Others make documentaries for other reasons. They're great documentaries that
39:46
Speaker 3: are kind of you know, agit prop. They want to
39:49
Speaker 3: they're there to as there is great theater, the tagi
39:51
Speaker 3: prop as there is great cinema. The taga prop not
39:55
Speaker 3: really my thing. My thing is, uh, you know, I'm
39:59
Speaker 3: I'm I'm telling stories about people.
40:03
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
40:09
Speaker 2: and now back to the show. Yeah, very and very well.
40:14
Speaker 3: Might I add?
40:16
Speaker 2: Now I have to ask you about two subjects that
40:19
Speaker 2: you had and two of your films who are both
40:22
Speaker 2: very polarizing in their own way. Anna and Dick Cheney,
40:26
Speaker 2: very different human beings, obviously from very different walks of life,
40:31
Speaker 2: but both polarizing in their worlds. How do like and
40:37
Speaker 2: regardless of your own beliefs and either political beliefs or
40:40
Speaker 2: anything like that I know you have to be kind
40:41
Speaker 2: of you just gotta let happen, whatever happens. What is
40:44
Speaker 2: it like just juggling, you know, I mean, obviously Dick
40:48
Speaker 2: Cheney very very polarizing political figure, and then Anna to
40:52
Speaker 2: a lesser extent, but very polarizing in the world of fashion.
40:56
Speaker 2: How do you approach these two kind of you juggernauts
41:00
Speaker 2: in their space.
41:04
Speaker 3: Well, your question is in the context of the there's
41:09
Speaker 3: a presumption, not a presumption your there's an assertion in
41:13
Speaker 3: your question that they're polarizing figures. And I and I
41:18
Speaker 3: understand why all all politicians, I think are, especially in
41:25
Speaker 3: this climate. You know, I remember when I can't I
41:33
Speaker 3: remember all In Powell was was flirting with running for president,
41:39
Speaker 3: and everyone knew he was starting with running for president,
41:42
Speaker 3: but nobody knew if he was a Democrat or Republican.
41:44
Speaker 3: And his numbers were in the nineties and then he
41:47
Speaker 3: declared that he was a Republican and boom, his numbers
41:50
Speaker 3: went down to forty nine percent because that's the country
41:53
Speaker 3: we live in, and the Democrats weren't going to support
41:55
Speaker 3: him anymore. And that's you know, so of course the
41:57
Speaker 3: vice president Vice President Channey is is polarizing, and he
42:02
Speaker 3: and I don't. I do not, you know, I think
42:04
Speaker 3: he's I would never pull the switch for him. I
42:08
Speaker 3: would never pull the switch for any of his policies.
42:11
Speaker 3: I think he led us into a war that has
42:13
Speaker 3: been a catastrophe in seventy different ways, and I wish
42:17
Speaker 3: he hadn't done it. But I do know that he
42:21
Speaker 3: is as impactful a non presidential politician as this country
42:26
Speaker 3: has ever seen. And when I started pursuing him, he
42:32
Speaker 3: was His heart was in failure. He had a battery
42:36
Speaker 3: in his heart for a heart. You know, some would
42:39
Speaker 3: say he had a block of ice for a heart,
42:41
Speaker 3: but he literally had a battery for a heart. And
42:44
Speaker 3: he was frail. When I first met with him, he
42:47
Speaker 3: was weak. He told me in our first meeting that
42:51
Speaker 3: he would look in the mirror and see the ghost
42:53
Speaker 3: of his father, and he knew that he was that
42:55
Speaker 3: his time was coming, and pretty much he was sitting
42:58
Speaker 3: around waiting for one of two things to happen. Either
43:01
Speaker 3: a transplant would be available because he was on a
43:04
Speaker 3: list like everybody else, or he would pass. And he
43:08
Speaker 3: was at peace with that. This is what he told
43:09
Speaker 3: me the day I met him, And for lunch in
43:12
Speaker 3: his in his home by the way, at an address
43:15
Speaker 3: that I couldn't find on Google because they they there was.
43:18
Speaker 3: Google Maps doesn't have Janey's address. The next time I
43:23
Speaker 3: met with him, he you know, his Liz called me.
43:26
Speaker 3: His daughter called me right right after he awoke from surgery.
43:33
Speaker 3: It was literally like the day he got surgery from
43:37
Speaker 3: the heart transplant, and she said to me, I just
43:39
Speaker 3: want you to know the Vice President is doing well.
43:42
Speaker 3: And one of the things he said to us before
43:45
Speaker 3: he went in was that if he survived, he wanted
43:49
Speaker 3: to make sure that making this movie was one of
43:51
Speaker 3: the was one of the things that he did this year.
43:55
Speaker 3: So we're ready to go. I mean, it was crazy,
43:57
Speaker 3: it was It was the day and I had spent
43:59
Speaker 3: a lot of time. I'm waiting for them to say
44:01
Speaker 3: yes or no, and will we do this? And again,
44:06
Speaker 3: human beings want their stories told. And so I said
44:12
Speaker 3: all this to him when I met him, there was
44:14
Speaker 3: no mystery. I was introduced to him by Mary Madaline,
44:19
Speaker 3: who of course I knew through James and through her
44:22
Speaker 3: we filmed with her on the war room. She knows
44:24
Speaker 3: my politics. Well, I wasn't. I didn't keep it secret,
44:27
Speaker 3: but my interest wasn't in debating politics. It was in
44:33
Speaker 3: discussing politics, but my interest was in this human This guy,
44:39
Speaker 3: this guy who you know, flunked out of Yale multiple
44:42
Speaker 3: times and was a drunkard work in the lines and
44:46
Speaker 3: hanging electrical lines in Wyoming with no future, but was
44:51
Speaker 3: in love with a woman who said to him, you
44:53
Speaker 3: won't get it together. Man, You're you're too good for this.
44:56
Speaker 3: Stop drinking. I mean he was on the sleeping on
44:59
Speaker 3: the floor of it of a jail cell because he
45:01
Speaker 3: had been picked up too many times for drunk driving,
45:04
Speaker 3: and they finally threw him in the tank. And his girlfriend,
45:09
Speaker 3: Lynn Lynn, I'm sorry not to remember her name, but
45:12
Speaker 3: the woman who would become Limb Cheney said, if you
45:14
Speaker 3: want this relationship to go anywhere, if you want to
45:17
Speaker 3: spend the rest of your life with me, you're going
45:19
Speaker 3: to sober on up and get it together. And he did.
45:22
Speaker 3: He did, He got it together. He changed his life.
45:25
Speaker 3: He went to you know, he went to graduate school.
45:27
Speaker 3: He was an incredibly brilliant man. He was he was
45:31
Speaker 3: respected by all of his colleagues in Congress, he was
45:36
Speaker 3: admired in the administration. He was you know, he played
45:41
Speaker 3: this instrumental role during the first George Bush administration Georgia
45:45
Speaker 3: hw and in the Gulf War. And they were reasonable
45:49
Speaker 3: and they drew the line. You know, they didn't turn
45:52
Speaker 3: it into a long war. They got in, they got out,
45:55
Speaker 3: and they and they recognized that certain balances of past,
45:59
Speaker 3: you know, they did. There was a lot to talk
46:01
Speaker 3: about with him. Then something happened on nine to eleven
46:04
Speaker 3: and something, you know, and we tell that story. But
46:07
Speaker 3: this is a movie that I think for you know,
46:12
Speaker 3: I want people to watch this movie fifty years from now.
46:14
Speaker 3: I want them to watch it. I want them to
46:16
Speaker 3: know who this man was, where he came from, what
46:19
Speaker 3: he did, how he did it, how he defends himself.
46:22
Speaker 3: And he had to defend himself in this film. You know,
46:25
Speaker 3: he put duty versus honor and he said, you're you know,
46:32
Speaker 3: he dismissed honor as a value in this film. Well,
46:36
Speaker 3: that's a really interesting thing in a person who's leading
46:38
Speaker 3: a country to war. He had to defend torture in
46:41
Speaker 3: this film. That's a really intense thing that someone has
46:44
Speaker 3: to do. And as I say, I think he is
46:47
Speaker 3: the single most impactful non presidential politician who's ever I mean,
46:54
Speaker 3: you know, it's no mystery. George W. Bush gave him,
46:59
Speaker 3: gave him a lot of He was a he had
47:01
Speaker 3: a lot of power in that administration, and he wielded
47:04
Speaker 3: it and he did some He did some questionable things. I,
47:07
Speaker 3: as a voter would say some bad things. I as
47:09
Speaker 3: a filmmaker, left them as questionable so that he could
47:12
Speaker 3: defend them and you could hear them and we could
47:14
Speaker 3: be on the record with it, you know. And so
47:17
Speaker 3: that's how I approached that, you know, with Ana, I'm
47:20
Speaker 3: just telling a story about a great, you know, one
47:22
Speaker 3: of the world's great editors. And what does it mean?
47:24
Speaker 3: You know, this this birdlike little human who also is
47:30
Speaker 3: her father's daughter. You know, that's a big part of it.
47:33
Speaker 3: The great you know, Charles Wintour, Chili, Charles Wintour, the
47:39
Speaker 3: you know, legendary Fleet Street editor who who you know
47:44
Speaker 3: who for twenty years ran ran the most important paper
47:50
Speaker 3: in England, and who was for her very much a
47:55
Speaker 3: role model and someone who she always wanted to please.
47:58
Speaker 3: But but she sings handedly when we were with her shoes,
48:01
Speaker 3: single handedly running this global industry, this multi billion dollar
48:07
Speaker 3: global industry. And how does she do it? How does
48:11
Speaker 3: she do it? Powerful women are very interesting, fascinating. They
48:14
Speaker 3: tend to be by the way, they tend to be controversial,
48:17
Speaker 3: just because they're women in power, of course, you know,
48:20
Speaker 3: and they man, they got to you know, I'm starting
48:23
Speaker 3: a film now about Martha Stewart, talk about talk about
48:26
Speaker 3: a person in power who was kind of punished for
48:30
Speaker 3: being in power, you know, for being successful. So and
48:35
Speaker 3: there's more to say about it, but you know, look,
48:40
Speaker 3: end of the day, people are fascinating people. You know,
48:44
Speaker 3: people are remarkable. There's some extraordinary folks out there, and
48:48
Speaker 3: it's it's they've got great story stories to tell. And
48:52
Speaker 3: you know, as you point out, I've I've had the
48:54
Speaker 3: great good fortune of being able to tell a number
48:57
Speaker 3: of number of you know, fascinating, you know, complex people's stories.
49:04
Speaker 2: Now, your latest project with Billy Eidish, can you tell
49:07
Speaker 2: me a little bit about that film and how that
49:08
Speaker 2: came to be.
49:09
Speaker 3: I was invited to meet with Billy, And it came
49:13
Speaker 3: to be because I accepted the invitation and I sat
49:15
Speaker 3: with her and Phineas and her folks and some people
49:18
Speaker 3: from her team, and I mean I instantly was engaged.
49:22
Speaker 3: As I'm sure that's no surprise. She's an incredibly magnetic
49:28
Speaker 3: person who's a gifted artist and this you know, incredible
49:35
Speaker 3: young woman. And I saw in that first meeting an
49:40
Speaker 3: opportunity to simultaneously tell the story of a young artist
49:46
Speaker 3: coming of age and coming into her own and a
49:49
Speaker 3: young woman coming of age and coming into her own.
49:51
Speaker 3: And I loved that. I loved how real it could
49:55
Speaker 3: all be.
49:57
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
50:03
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
50:06
Speaker 3: And that's you know, that's the film. It's really very simple,
50:11
Speaker 3: you know. Then we just followed the pup and the
50:13
Speaker 3: pup went to some amazing place. I love that. I
50:16
Speaker 3: love that.
50:16
Speaker 2: Analogy is so wonderful. Yeah, but the isn't it true?
50:21
Speaker 2: And you've been in rooms with these kind of people.
50:23
Speaker 2: There is an energy to people, especially like to celebrities
50:28
Speaker 2: or artists like that, of there's this thing that you
50:31
Speaker 2: can't explain, like there's this energy that that they suck
50:35
Speaker 2: the energy out of the room, like all the attention
50:37
Speaker 2: goes to them. It's like you can feel when someone
50:40
Speaker 2: like this walks into the room. And I've spoken to many,
50:44
Speaker 2: you know, many people of that magnitude have been in
50:46
Speaker 2: the room with many people like down the magnitude and
50:48
Speaker 2: when you could just be with their back turn and
50:50
Speaker 2: they walk into the other side of the room and
50:52
Speaker 2: you just go someone just walked in and you could
50:54
Speaker 2: just feel that energy. Was that what it was like
50:57
Speaker 2: being with It does no matter what age it is,
50:58
Speaker 2: by the way, it could be It could be Michael
51:00
Speaker 2: Jackson at seven years old. It doesn't matter.
51:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Billy is a very magnetic personality. There's
51:06
Speaker 3: no question. And she she uh as I understand it.
51:11
Speaker 3: She's she has been her whole life. Uh. There's and
51:17
Speaker 3: her her her talent, her brilliance, her poetry, her her
51:23
Speaker 3: her vision are all exceptional. And but but she's also
51:29
Speaker 3: this very real kid. You know. She sits around, you know,
51:33
Speaker 3: making far chokes and eating burritos and wanting to slip out,
51:37
Speaker 3: slip out the back door with her boyfriend and you know,
51:40
Speaker 3: watch porn and whatever, you know, and and she's just
51:44
Speaker 3: a kid. And who's got the curiosity of a kid
51:47
Speaker 3: and the outrage of a kid, and the and the
51:50
Speaker 3: and and the ambitions and the and at all and
51:54
Speaker 3: she and she's made of music, you know, she's it's
51:58
Speaker 3: the first she says, Our family was one big fucking song.
52:00
Speaker 3: It's true. It's true, and and yes, one of the
52:05
Speaker 3: questions I had a part meeting her was what planet
52:09
Speaker 3: does this person come from? And I and I certainly
52:13
Speaker 3: and what planet does Phineas come from? And I certainly.
52:17
Speaker 3: You know, remember thinking and feeling that this is you know,
52:21
Speaker 3: on some levels, she's part human, part deity, you know,
52:26
Speaker 3: and she really is. She's a shaman, you know, she
52:29
Speaker 3: has a power. She stands before hundreds of thousands and
52:33
Speaker 3: and and literally on a daily basis, she's on the
52:36
Speaker 3: telephone of seventy five million followers on eighty million followers
52:40
Speaker 3: on Instagram, and she she leads, she is a she
52:44
Speaker 3: is a modern day you know. I don't know what
52:49
Speaker 3: the what the what. The best way of describing it
52:51
Speaker 3: is it is, it's very powerful, and it's a it's shamanistic,
52:59
Speaker 3: it's very you know, it's all of those things. And
53:02
Speaker 3: you feel it. You feel the power. And she pierces
53:05
Speaker 3: her of her audience's hearts. She connects with them. They
53:09
Speaker 3: all feel like she's singing directly to them. I've been
53:12
Speaker 3: in tiny rooms with her singing. I've been in enormous
53:15
Speaker 3: rooms with her singing. There's no difference. She can be
53:19
Speaker 3: in an arena in Miami that seats twenty two thousand people,
53:24
Speaker 3: and the kid in the top bowl of that arena
53:30
Speaker 3: in the back row is connected to Billie Eilish the
53:33
Speaker 3: same way the kid in the front row is or
53:36
Speaker 3: the kid in the club. It's just amazing. The spaces
53:39
Speaker 3: feel tiny. She has a power and you see that.
53:42
Speaker 3: You see that in the film.
53:43
Speaker 2: How and there's no explanation for it. There's no explanation
53:47
Speaker 2: for that kind of Well.
53:48
Speaker 3: I don't want to say there's no explanation. I just
53:50
Speaker 3: want to say, you know, those who explain those I'm not.
53:53
Speaker 3: That's not my business explain. It's my business to show
53:58
Speaker 3: it and to tell the story, worry about it, and
54:01
Speaker 3: others can explain it. But I think the film is
54:04
Speaker 3: you know, certainly reveals the power. I mean, it's a
54:07
Speaker 3: lot of and there are a lot of things involved.
54:09
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the fact that first of all, she's
54:12
Speaker 3: a she's not an only child prodigy. She's one of
54:16
Speaker 3: two prodigies in that same house. And they need each other.
54:21
Speaker 3: They make each other even greater than either, you know,
54:25
Speaker 3: she and Phineas, they are a partnership. So when I
54:31
Speaker 3: say what planet did they come from on some level.
54:34
Speaker 3: The answer is, you know, planet Maggie's womb, where they
54:38
Speaker 3: both spent nine years just nine months ges stating to
54:42
Speaker 3: the same heartbeat. And then they were raised by the
54:45
Speaker 3: same parents, and you see all the complex and they
54:48
Speaker 3: were raised in a particular way, which, as Billy says
54:51
Speaker 3: in the film, you know, first and foremost they were
54:54
Speaker 3: encouraged to be themselves, and first and foremost their family
54:58
Speaker 3: was one big fucking song. As she said in the film,
55:01
Speaker 3: you know that's by the way, those two lines I
55:03
Speaker 3: just quoted are pretty much the first line in the film,
55:06
Speaker 3: in the last line in the film. So the whole
55:07
Speaker 3: film is about how those things come together. But there
55:12
Speaker 3: are lots of explanations, and then some things are just
55:16
Speaker 3: can't be explained, can.
55:18
Speaker 2: They It's just that thing, It's that thing that you
55:21
Speaker 2: know it when you see it, but you just can't articulate.
55:24
Speaker 3: Well, you know, but Jim.
55:26
Speaker 2: John Belushy, John Belushi, all this.
55:28
Speaker 3: Life, you know again, this is a this is my
55:32
Speaker 3: uh you know, I I have a lot of gratitude
55:38
Speaker 3: because I'm able to tell these stories, and these stories
55:41
Speaker 3: kind of live in the landscape of people are just
55:43
Speaker 3: you know, fascinating, and there are so many remarkable people
55:48
Speaker 3: doing these incredible things. And you know, I'm not kidding
55:51
Speaker 3: when I say it's dust and the wind. We're all
55:53
Speaker 3: here for a blip. Listen. Billy is nothing if not
55:55
Speaker 3: an existentialist, and raised by Patrick, who is nothing if
55:58
Speaker 3: not an existentialist, as we see in the film. And
56:01
Speaker 3: she's like, you know, I remember early on her being
56:05
Speaker 3: interviewed and somebody who's like, why do you what do
56:07
Speaker 3: you you know? Why do you do it all your way?
56:10
Speaker 3: Why don't you don't you think you'd have even more
56:12
Speaker 3: success if you conform? And she's like, well, why would
56:15
Speaker 3: I do anything that I don't believe in? Like I'm
56:17
Speaker 3: gonna I'm gonna live, I'm gonna die, y'all are gonna
56:20
Speaker 3: forget I was ever here? Why would I bother with
56:24
Speaker 3: doing anything that wasn't true to myself? What's the point?
56:28
Speaker 3: None of it matters. It's like songs that are gonna
56:31
Speaker 3: come and then one day no one will even know
56:33
Speaker 3: I was here. And why wouldn't I have spent my
56:35
Speaker 3: time here? There's a child talking about I was gonna
56:38
Speaker 3: say the wisdom Earth? Why wouldn't I spend my time
56:42
Speaker 3: being true to myself. And that's her whole thing. That
56:45
Speaker 3: is the whole Billie Eilish thing. Be true to yourself
56:47
Speaker 3: in the way you work, Be true to yourself in
56:49
Speaker 3: the way you treat others, Be true to yourself in
56:52
Speaker 3: the in the art that you put out in the world.
56:54
Speaker 3: Be true to yourself in the way you dress, Be
56:56
Speaker 3: true to yourself. Be yourself. That's you know, that's might
57:01
Speaker 3: be considered a kind of radical philosophical approach, but refers
57:06
Speaker 3: and it resonates the world over through her, through her
57:11
Speaker 3: her art and just her persona.
57:13
Speaker 2: And where and where can you people watch this film?
57:16
Speaker 3: Uh? The world according to I'm Sorry, the world according
57:20
Speaker 3: to Billy Eilis will be called Billie Eilish. The World's
57:23
Speaker 3: a Little Blurry is on Apple TV plus. Uh. There's
57:27
Speaker 3: another series we have on Apple called Deer, which is
57:29
Speaker 3: a which is a wonderful project that we did about
57:33
Speaker 3: also about how work impacts people. Uh. And and then
57:37
Speaker 3: on Showtime, UH is the is the John Belushi film
57:42
Speaker 3: called Belushi. And we talked a lot in this conversation
57:45
Speaker 3: about the war Room that's available on Criterion. Uh. And
57:49
Speaker 3: of course all these films, you know, they're all they're
57:52
Speaker 3: all on a streaming service. And and what a pleasure
57:56
Speaker 3: to chat about it all with you.
57:58
Speaker 2: And I can ask you a leats a few questions.
58:00
Speaker 2: I always ask all my guests, what advice would you
58:03
Speaker 2: give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?
58:07
Speaker 3: Make a movie? Best a movie? Best advis Please don't
58:11
Speaker 3: go to film school, Please make a movie. Film school
58:15
Speaker 3: is an old paradigm that allowed that provided for equipment.
58:22
Speaker 3: And that's it. It's provided for equipment. It gave you
58:25
Speaker 3: access to equipment you couldn't afford. You couldn't afford a
58:28
Speaker 3: camera when it was a film camera processing, you couldn't
58:31
Speaker 3: afford the ford. Now guess what, here's a camera. Here's
58:35
Speaker 3: a camera. This I'm holding up a telephone. Here's a camera,
58:38
Speaker 3: the new iPhone. It's got an editing equipment on it
58:41
Speaker 3: that does the trip. It's upgrade. But you got it
58:44
Speaker 3: all Or buy a thing, buy a camera from Amazon
58:48
Speaker 3: and return it in twenty nine days. It's not illegal,
58:52
Speaker 3: it's their policy. It's how they became the biggest company
58:55
Speaker 3: on the planet. And Jeff Bezos became one of the
58:57
Speaker 3: richest men to ever have lived. He's a fit and
59:00
Speaker 3: he says, please buy stuff from me, make a movie
59:04
Speaker 3: and return it twenty nine days later, and I'll give
59:06
Speaker 3: you your money back. I'll pay for your film. That's
59:09
Speaker 3: what Jeff Bezos says. He does, he says it it's big.
59:12
Speaker 3: So that's what my advice to young filming. Don't talk
59:15
Speaker 3: about agents, don't talk about showbiz, don't talk about film school.
59:21
Speaker 3: Don't just make a movie and guess what it may suck.
59:25
Speaker 3: Then make another movie. It's going to be better than
59:27
Speaker 3: the first one. And that is absolutely my advice. Carry on, man,
59:32
Speaker 3: tell stories with your friends.
59:34
Speaker 2: A men, preach, my friend, preach. Now, what is the
59:38
Speaker 2: lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in
59:40
Speaker 2: the film industry or in life.
59:43
Speaker 3: Oh goodness, I hesitate, because the lesson that took me
59:50
Speaker 3: the longest to learn is one I'm sure I'm still learning, sure,
59:53
Speaker 3: but you know it's all I think it's all going
59:59
Speaker 3: to be It's all going to be be all right.
1:00:02
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
1:00:08
Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
1:00:11
Speaker 3: It's all going to be fine is a good lesson,
1:00:13
Speaker 3: you know. I listen. I mentioned that I was James
1:00:16
Speaker 3: Lapine's assistant on into the Woods, the Broadway musical, the
1:00:20
Speaker 3: legendary Lapine Sondheim musical that I think it was nineteen
1:00:23
Speaker 3: eighty seven or eighty eight that we did it. And
1:00:27
Speaker 3: I remember one night James saying to me, you know
1:00:29
Speaker 3: the biggest part of my job. You know what the
1:00:31
Speaker 3: biggest part of my job is. And I was like,
1:00:33
Speaker 3: what he said, just saying to everybody, it's all going
1:00:36
Speaker 3: to be great. It's all going to be great. And
1:00:38
Speaker 3: I was like, oh shit, that is you say that
1:00:40
Speaker 3: all the time. I was like, that's the biggest part
1:00:42
Speaker 3: of my job. It's all going to be great. It's
1:00:43
Speaker 3: all going to be great. So you know, I say,
1:00:47
Speaker 3: that's a lesson that's worth remembering, you know. And so
1:00:50
Speaker 3: there you go.
1:00:51
Speaker 2: And three of your favorite films of all time.
1:00:54
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, lady, Eve Preston Sturgis film. Uh, let's
1:01:10
Speaker 3: just leave it at the at the at the at
1:01:11
Speaker 3: the at the Oh, here we go, give me shelter,
1:01:16
Speaker 3: Alan David Masels film about the Rolling Stones, and let's see,
1:01:24
Speaker 3: and I'll put on this list. Don't look back Da
1:01:27
Speaker 3: Panna Baker's masterpiece about Bob Dylan, Fantastic Rji.
1:01:31
Speaker 2: It has been a pleasure talking shop with you today,
1:01:34
Speaker 2: my friend, Thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:01:36
Speaker 2: I appreciate it.
1:01:37
Speaker 3: My friend likewise really really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.
1:01:42
Speaker 2: I want to thank RJ for coming on the show
1:01:44
Speaker 2: and dropping his knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Thank
1:01:47
Speaker 2: you so much, r J. If you want to get
1:01:49
Speaker 2: links to anything we spoke about in this episode, including
1:01:52
Speaker 2: how to watch Billie Eilish The World's a Little Blurry
1:01:55
Speaker 2: on Apple TV, head over to the show notes at
1:01:57
Speaker 2: Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. For Slash for fourteen, thank you
1:02:01
Speaker 2: so much for listening to guys. As always, keep on
1:02:04
Speaker 2: writing no matter what.
1:02:05
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you soon.
1:02:07
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
1:02:11
Speaker 1: dot tv.