Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 237 - Jason Reitman

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Tom auditions to be in Jason Reitman's next film. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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at PayPal point, like in their careers. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember asking Elon Musk, what are you going to do now? Are you just going to hang out? And he was like, I want to put rockets into space. And I was like, that seems hard. He goes, it's literally rocket science. It's breaking bread. Hey, everybody. It's finally here. My new Netflix special, Home Free, is streaming right now, right now. And any time from now until the end of time or streaming, whichever comes first, probably time. Home free.

I'm very excited. I recorded it, as you know, from listening to this or me anywhere. I've been talking about it since June. I shot it at the one. Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. It's super funny. I'm super proud of it, and you should go check it out. Also go to Tompapa.com.

I've got, I think, about six more dates on the books through the end of the year. And then, yeah, I think Indiana and Wilkesbury and Niagara Falls, a couple places. If you want to come hang out and see some shows, and then pick up some merch for the holidays, and maybe just write me a note about how much you loved my special. You didn't bake that. Joe? He did. We were doing another show.

He had to leave the show to go to the oven to get the bread to... That's not true. Yeah, I was on my radio show this morning. Is that genuinely true? Yeah, we do it from 10 to 12. And I had it rise last night, or I mixed it last night. Yeah. And it rises through the night.

Got up at 7 this morning to make sure it was shaped. Come on. So that I could then bake it two hours later after the fridge. But it was during our radio show with... I do with Fortune Feemster. and during the show, we normally go for like a half hour and then take a break.

I was like 15 minutes. Okay, we'll be right back after this. And I scurry into the kitchen and do the stages of your bread. So can you? Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome.

Can you walk away from a bread while it's being made and with confidence? What do you mean? Okay, let's start with the fact that I know nothing about making anything. Okay. But, just movies.

But like, the casualness with which you said you were like, yeah, like I threw it in and then I went away and did a radio show. Yeah. Is there a part of your brain that's going, I wonder how that bread's doing while you're doing the radio show? Or can you literally go, I know how it's doing? It's going to be fine. Yeah, I know how it's doing. It's the timing. I do have to set a timer because I will get distracted, especially if I'm writing.

It's kind of like the process of bread baking. This is maybe too boring for everyone listening. The process of writing and bread baking is, they're some patico. Wait, really? These stage, yeah, because you're writing, and then you've got to stand up and stretch a little bit. Okay. Walk away from the screen or the pad for a minute. Then you go over there, and then you start folding the bread and doing the bread thing,

and then you come back. It's kind of like, it's a good little, they interrupt each other delightfully. But I've been doing it for so long that I know kind of like the stages of it. Ten years. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of instinct at this point.

Yeah, I was going to say, is it as simple as doing laundry? Are they putting it into a washing machine? No. It's not as walk away as that. It's not as walk away. Because, yeah, laundry, you know, you're not making the soap. You're not measuring the water. No, no, that's 100% fair.

Do you still get a piece? Do you still get a loaf where you go, fuck yeah like how often does it's kind of I don't know if it's arrogant or a sophomoreic

but I'd say 70% of the time I pull the bread out put it on the rack and say to my wife or my daughters when they're home and go

you got to look at this did you see the bread yeah and they're like 10 years of yeah dad we saw the bread but I'm genuinely like

no I mean you hear it crackling. Do you see what, look, you see how I scored it and then I put a little extra? It's, wow, right? Do you think it is in life to continue to have things like that? Do you think that's one of the reasons why people pick up golf? Because when you describe that, now I don't play golf, but when I hear you describe it, it reminds me of the way people describe getting a shot off where they just hit it right.

It makes that sound. It goes straight. It went where they wanted it to. Yeah. And they had somehow. found a way to forget what they were doing while they were swinging the club. And that seems to be some people pick up for the same reason and continue with it into their later life. Yeah, I think that that's really important. I think it's a craft that you can, it's a skill or a craft that you can get better at, but it's also humbling. But it definitely,

in success or failure, it takes you out of reality for a minute. It gives you that focus. Well, it gives you a sense of success that you don't have complete control over. And I think we get to a point in our lives where we know the things we are good at, we know the things we are not good at, we have a sense of what's going to come back every time we throw the boomerang. And what I like about the way you're describing bread is it seems to be the rare thing in life that no matter how long you do it, no matter how close you get to your own personal finish line, it's going to surprise you each time and give you a moment of genuine delight. Oh, yeah, or humility, right?

Yeah. Because you're going to fail at it too. That's the other thing as good as you get. I mean, what part of filmmaking is that? Like, what... Really? Like, what is the... I mean, there's so many different... Well, it's interesting because, you know,

um... One, every time you begin a film, of course, there's the perfect version in your head, and you have to surrender that. Because it's never going to be that thing. It's going to evolve. You have to learn to love the process of evolution that is going to change and surprise you.

My father had a line that I always really loved, which was at a certain point, you have to stop and let the film tell you who it is. Kind of like a kid. You know, you're raising a child, it's a similar thing. At first, you're like, I'm going to make sure that you are completely sane

you'll have 100% self-confidence you'll have every tool necessary and then and then your kid starts telling you wait this is who I am and a film does the same thing it does that while you're writing it does that

on set and it does that during the edit and you're crazy to ignore it yeah you want to ignore it right because you're like I created you does it ever tell you that it's something that you're not gonna like and no one's gonna like. Well, sure. I mean, like, okay, this is the most common example I can

give of this is that people who write things all the time will say, well, this scene is the reason I made the whole movie. This moment, that moment where she hangs the clothes on the hanger, you know, that's it. That's the whole reason. It's like, I'm sorry. That scene has no place in the movie whatsoever anymore. And that may have been the catalyst of what got you started. Yeah. But it took you to a much more important place and it's time to let go. Another, example is songs. You know, with every movie I've ever written, there is a song that gets me writing every single time. And I'm always thinking, this is the soundtrack. This is the opening theme song. This is the closing credits. It's going to be everywhere. And then you get to the

movie and you're like, oh, I don't need to use that song anymore because the film is saying everything the song was saying. Now I need to find different music that complements it. Do you play it over and over when you write? Like, is it, or is it that kind of thing? What I found early on is that, that obviously the hardest part, it's like going to the gym, the hardest part is walking, you know, is walking in. Yeah.

It's like, what's going to actually get you writing? Uh-huh. And nothing puts you into the movie like a song. Yeah. Yeah. What gets you writing? I listen to Oscar Peterson,

who's this great jazz pianist. Oh. And he was from Montreal. Mm-hmm. And are you from Montreal? Yeah, that's where I was born. And so do you not know how to Oscar Peterson? That name is familiar.

but I'm embarrassed to say like I like I get like he was in the 50s 60 70s got it you know like you know like a big guy hands like two of my hands yeah yeah yeah there's a statue of him in Montreal like oh really like stitting on a park bench or something and he's just beautiful and there's this one album of like the best of Oscar Peterson or something there's no lyrics just piano yeah sometimes his trio but I got into the the rhythm of using that, it's like, if I put it on. No matter what you're writing. No matter what I'm writing. No matter what I'm writing. Not to inspire, not like what you're saying of like, no, this piece is going to, this is giving me like a morning jacket kind of a vibe. No, this is just a

the tick, tick, tick, tick in your brain. That album just gets me into a place of, oh yeah, we're writing now. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I need the inner soundtrack. of the main character. I need the song that makes you feel, because I feel like I'm always writing from the main character's point of view at first. Right. And I'm in love with movies about

unlikable heroes. And so I'm at the beginning, usually trying to relate to an unlikable person and trying to find the humanity in them. Yeah. And I think that starts with their ego. And it's like, all right, what gets this person up in the morning

what allows them to do what they do? You know, whether it's a tobacco lobbyist or a guy fires people for a living or a woman who's trying to like be a home wrecker. Like, it's like, okay, but how can I feel like them and decent about myself? Yeah. So what was the music for Lauren?

Let me start, let me go, let me start off a quarter way through and say, I love the movie. The movie was great. It really was. Thank you. And we got the screener for it. Yeah. And they gave us, I think, three and a half hours

to watch. it. Yeah. And that's how it's meant to be seen on a laptop. Yeah. I know. Well, it was kind of perfect because we blew it. We composed with that in mind every time.

Yeah. What we imagine is what we'll often do is we imagine you watching the movie, but you have your text messages on the right side of frame. And then you have a kind of, you know, something on YouTube that's an instructional happening on the left side. But right in the middle is that sweet spot where our movie plays. Yeah. You occasionally get to see.

Yeah. We went to. the Regal Theater, my wife and I in the afternoon and watched the film proper on the big screen. Yeah. I blew the screener window. But my wife pointed out, well, that was good. Let's go to the movies. We keep saying let's go to the movies. And we got popcorn and went and sat in the movie. And as two New Yorkers

genuinely appreciative. From the comedy world, we loved it. Loved it. It really was so great. And just from, and I, you know, I knew the subject, but I didn't really know, I didn't read any reviews, nothing, and just wandered in just seeing the poster as a Mad Magazine National Lampoon kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That poster was so great.

Isn't that great? Oh, so great. I know, obviously, I grew up with those illustrated posters in Animal House and Meatballs had posters like that. Yeah. And frankly, even when I was doing Ghostbusters afterlife, a lot of the time we're trying to figure out, you know, what was it that led to the creation of slimer?

What was it that led to the creation of Staypoft? It's an interesting movie as far as its monsters go Because if you're trying to If you're trying to figure out the DNA of a Ghostbusters ghost It's a complicated question Because gozer and Stapeoff and a terror dog and slimer What is the commonality? I mean other than that they're perfectly conceived

And we would often go back to Mad Magazine And think about the illustrators that were doing Mad Magazine, National Lampoon, and they would create this kind of like icky, gory I always described it as kind of like, it's like, when you look at the cartoons, everyone looks like they're on mess.

They all look like that guy at the end of the bar that you're scared to make eye contact with. And they're like, oh, crap, now we're in a conversation. And weird skin and dripping sweat. And once you start thinking of those cartoons, from that era, you start to go, oh, I know where slimer was born. Right. I have been thinking about them because you get a little jaded as a grown person in the world.

And I tend to, in my darker moments, like, see humanity is really hopeless and disgusting at the airports or what have you. I can't imagine. I saw a guy with his cell phone out, his belly just sticking out, shorts, flip-flops. in my neighborhood and he's looking at his thing and he had this hat on and it really it was the mad magazine satire that hit me for a second and he's like he's not horrible he's hilarious like that mad magazine would yeah mad magazine would take that guy and have him seven times throughout the issue of being no he's part of america what's great about this moment is when you started that monologue you were actually kind of replicating Kevin Spacey and seven talking about one of the people

he thought he needed to punish and removed from the face of the planet. And I was a little word for you. But then you made this lovely positive turn. And it just shows how, as humans, we're capable of going at either direction in any given moment. It's really true. And those Mad Magazine satires, that lens is really valuable because it really is like, no, this is us now. This is us now. The collective us now.

It was, but anyway, seeing the poster and having that style was, we knew walking in. Yeah, it's really nostalgic. We're in good hands. Yeah, it's part of the DNA. So what was the Lauren Michaels, or did you have a song when you were writing this? I mean, the kind of song I was listening to at the top was Falakuti, you know. And I, you know, because you start listening to the music of Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. And Lauren was hip.

And Lauren had great taste in music. It was bringing a lot of interesting musical acts on and was already friendly with a lot of cool musicians. Even before he started the show. Yeah. So when I think about the early show, it's not just comedy. I mean, it really has its root. It has one foot in comedy, but one foot in music. Right.

And the music is not an afterthought. Yeah. And the way that Howard Shore designed that band, it designed the opening theme song, was really crucial as well. It had its roots in kind of jazz and rock and roll. You know, the theme song is really interesting in that it's never been recorded.

Think of another TV show like that where for 50 years, The opening theme song has played live every week and has a built-in sax solo because Howard Shore, the guy who wrote it, was a saxophone player. He was a saxophone player. He was a saxophone solo. And it's played different every single week. And it's evolved over 50 years. And if you think about that idea alone, you get the genius of Saturday Night Live that from the beginning they were saying, we're not locking anything into place. This is going to change. This is going to change as a result of who's here, who the comedians are, who the writers, are and the show 10, 20, 30 years from now is not going to reflect what it is today. Amazing. As a storyteller, I love hearing you talk about films and you say primarily you're a storyteller and you go at things. What was the story that you wanted to tell with this? Like, where did that come from? I really appreciate that question and the way you just phrased that because 99.999% of

the times when I have this conversation, the person talking to me says, why this part of SNL. And it kind of misses the whole concept of why you make a movie. And it goes back to another thing that my father used to say, which is don't confuse your plot for your location. We'd like to thank the good people at Quince for sponsoring today's program. If you spend a lot of time cooking at home, it's time to elevate your game. When your cookware actually feels good to use and is thoughtfully made and looks beautiful on your counter,

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That's Quince, QI-N-C-E dot com slash Papa, P-A-P-A, for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash Papa. We're not making a movie about SNL. Right. SNL is a location. Right. A location to tell the other. Sorry.

Godfather's not a movie about the mafia. The mafia is a location. Right. When you watch a movie where the plot is the mafia, it's never good. Yeah, yeah. If the mafia is a location. Yeah. The Sopranos, it's a location.

Yeah. It's a location. Right. So, uh, this is a movie where Saturn Night Live is a location. It's a location to talk about generational divide. Right. It's a time, you know, to talk about what it is like to be at the moment of creation, you know. And what happens when a generation rips, you know, rips the baton out of another generation's hand.

Those are the things that we were interested in. Yeah. Oh, man, there's so many moments of that. Well, it's the Woodstock moment for television. Yeah. Yeah, it really is. Exactly. It's like, we're kicking you out.

Yeah, and it's kind of every young generation's job to rip the baton out of another generation's hands. And this was this weird moment where 20 brilliant people happened to be in the same room at the same time and said, fuck you now it's our term. A thing that was nagging me during the film was that in present day. Because you had a structure of the studios and the system.

It was very institutionalized and you could come in with John Belushi crazy hair and kick the door down. Now, like for young people, I still don't have the answer. Maybe you do. Maybe you've given it thought. Is there a, is it too porous now where we can't, young kids? can't tear it down and make it a new? Is it so segmented on its real funny kids are showing up on TikTok and social media

and killing it in these other smaller ways? Like, is there an opportunity for that now? I feel it happening. I feel, oh, a thousand percent. I think what I see is people younger than me are going, I don't care where I watch things. I don't care how long something is. I don't care what structures you were used to.

and what you grew up on. And particularly when it comes to comedy, the structure of what you said comedy was doesn't matter to me. Right. And the things that make my daughter laugh. And, yeah, I mean, I watch TikTok and I watch Instagram Reels and I go,

these kids are really impressive. And their editing is phenomenal. I know. And their ability to get right at a joke and find a new way and digest culture three times over, you know, into a meme on a meme, on a meme, where they're almost speaking a language I don't understand.

I just have to kind of step back and go, all right, you win. I don't know. I know. Is it as uniting, though, as, like, what the beginning of SNL was? Oh, that's an interesting question. You know what I mean? Like... Yeah, where, like, Saturday at 1130 became an appointment with every young person saying,

we are going to be at a television. Whether I'm alone at home or at a party, the TV's going to be on because this speaks to who we are. And if you were, I was too young and not allowed to see it, but then hearing the kids talk about the next day and then everything that week was, how can I get to someone's house where I can see it next week? Well, there's nothing more sad than two older guys talking about what was and what will be. But I would imagine that's the definition of going viral is when, you know, 10 million people say, this matters. Yeah. Can I say something off of your very mean comment about how old. old we are. I said the bread was lovely. It's going to make me sound older anyway, but I'll say it.

Anne Patchett, the novelist, wrote an op-ed on Sunday about her regretting, becoming part of email culture and as a writer. They're all the reasons why going to her computer and corresponding that way. It was sad and all that kind of stuff. And the old person talking about the new ways. all that. But somebody, not Anne, but someone she quoted in the article, and another writer, said, you should be lucky enough to live long enough where your past becomes fable. Ha! Oh, I love that. What a great comment. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's very comforting to you and me,

and Joe, maybe. He's kind of old. So, Falakutti. Love Fela Kootie. Yeah, so do I. It has a Fela Kuti pace, that's film. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, look, I think there's something that is this combination of rock and roll and African rhythms and Phaelah's music. And there's an urgency to it. And when I brought it up to John Batiste, he immediately got it. He immediately understood what the idea was.

I worked on live from here, which was a prayer home companion. And John came in and guest hosted. I was in charge of a spoken word for it. No kidding. And Christyeli did the music and was the host. and John came in. We were at the St. Fitzgerald in St. Paul. He came in, and it was the only time I met him,

and he came in and ran the music for, like, he's the leader of it, and they have the guest. What a otherworldly experience being around that guy. Yeah. Touched by God. Like, there is something, there is a rhythm and a joy and something going on there that I could not explain. I don't think I've met a person who was simultaneously that brilliant

and that unpretentious. And he's trying to take the pretension out of music with everything he does. It doesn't matter if he's playing Rock Mononoff. He's going to find a way to make it for everybody. Wild. So our approach on Saturday night was, again, how do we capture the moment of live?

And how do you do that while filmmaking? Because filmmaking, obviously, is a really practiced, choreographed artistic endeavor in which you work over the course of a year and just refine and refine and refine. And yet this, what we're emulating is a show that's done in six days. Yeah. And that's the magic of it.

So we were trying to find ways to do that in every part of the process. And music was the greatest because John started writing and recording the entire original score live on set. Was he hired to do that? Yeah. I mean, well, we knew that he was going to be the composer of the movie and he was going to play Billy Preston. But instead of doing the traditional process, which is you cut a scene, you put a click to it, you send it to a composer, the composer sends you back five different ideas that are literally written to every cut of the film.

Every day on set, at rap, John and his band would get out of their costumes, get into streetclothes, come back to set, and our editor Nathan Orloff would play rough cuts of scenes on his laptop, and John would just immediately turn to his band and just point to an instrumentals and go, all right, I want you to start on A-flat, go to a G, go to a B, get to A-flat, and then point to a percussionist, he would mout out a rhythm. and he's giving them these ideas and he's just reacting in real time and he's channeling and we're recording

and those recordings are the score of the film. Then we would take the score, get it back to editing, and now we're editing to that music, and as a result, the heartbeat of the film comes from John acting in real time. So the editing rhythm mimics. his score. Yeah, rather than the score,

like trying to find a way around every, you know, every edit that's already been made, we're letting John set the heartbeat. Had you worked with the editor before? Yeah, I mean, Nathan did Ghostbusters, and I've been working them on a couple of the films even before that. So this must have been the first time, though,

in his career that he worked that way. Yeah, but it was wonderful because it's that interchange with another artist. Yeah. You know, Lawrence says this thing about, you know, we start on Tuesday with nothing. And by Saturday we have a 90-minute show. He says, you can't imagine what you're capable of doing in six days.

Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. I've always loved these kind of like 48-hour film festivals where they just give you a prompt and you go make something. And I love that kind of real-time art. Yeah. So I think, again, to get out of the level of control that you normally have in filmmaking and to kind of lean into this wild nature of it. Yeah.

It's, as an editor, I think it's really freeing and thrilling. Yeah. Man, that had to be pretty cool as a director to see this starting. Once they put their street clothes on and started, you didn't plan that. It must have been like, huh, I'm going to let this happen. I mean, but that's how it was from the beginning. So the way that we made this movie is we rebuilt the entire eighth and ninth floor of Rockefeller Center, like edge to edge. Yeah.

So we're on a soundstage, but we have two stories. And again, not little individual sets. One giant set that's full 360. All four walls, ceiling, floor, and then all the lighting is built into the set. So we choreographed all the movement of the camera and the actors in prep. And as a result, our cinematographer, Eric Stilberg, was able to set every light in advance. Because he knows the landing position of every actor. So every built-in light in the set is already positioned.

So when you go to shoot, all the cabling is in the wall. We have mics in the ceilings. So when you go to shoot, there's nothing that tells you are in a set. No. I honestly, this is why I love show business so much, is that you can be in it and still be fooled. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For real. Like, you know what I mean? And I've been on that set. I've been there. Yeah. I didn't, I believed I was there. I really was like, I wonder how they shot this. I wonder how they got time to go shoot here. Yeah, exactly. We were in Atlanta. So like, yeah, I remember Willem Defoe came for his first day of shooting. And he's just sitting up in that balcony area where the audience. chairs are. And he's watching all the action on the floor. And of course, the young actors are freaking

out because Willem Defoe is just sitting there watching them for hours. And finally, I go to Willem kind of the end of the day. And he goes, you know what I love about your movie? I said, what? And he was, no edge of frame. I don't know what the fuck you're shooting. And that's how it would have felt like there. That's amazing. So every actor is there every single day. All the background are there every day. And we're creating this living, breathing of environment where the camera can just keep going. Remember, it's not a movie with 90 scenes. It's a movie with one 90-minute scene. Right. That just keeps going and going and going. Is there a longer, is there a point, what's the longest that ended up in the film of one shot? Oh, one shot, probably five minutes.

Wow. And it's really complicated, but there's a real joy to doing that. Yeah. And as a director, you have to surrender. And going back to what you just said about. this liveliness. Yeah. The liveliness is that once you've created certain parameters, you're like, this is the world, this is where the camera's gonna go,

is where the actor's gonna generally be, now it's yours. To every actor. Not just the person doing dialogue right in front of camera, but the 50 actors behind them who are character, they know where their character journey is.

They know where they're going over 90 consecutive minutes. Keep it alive. Have fun. Oh, man. So if you're a comedian who likes getting a win and most do,

Yeah. Find your win. That's brilliant. That's really brilliant. The casting of this was insane because I love, who was the guy, who was the guy who was the guy who played in Batman the riddler? Frank Ocean, Frank Gershon. Do you remember him? Wait.

The original way back. Way back. I have no clue. Joe. Frank Gorshian. Okay. Frank Gorshian. Yeah.

Frank Gorson was the original riddler. I didn't come prepared for that question. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I should have done my research. I apologize. How dare you. I know, I know.

I failed you. He was an impressionist. And his, I saw him on Broadway playing like George Burns or something. I don't know what it was. But it got me looking into him on like way, like the beginnings of the Tonight Show and stuff. And he would do like Kirk Douglas and all these things. But he wasn't an impressionist in that he was. mimicking and getting exactly down what the person was doing.

But the essence of it, of everyone he did was like, it was a masterwork. It was so brilliant. This is a long way of saying, however you cast this film, I feel like every actor that we know from the original cast, everybody kind of had that to them. They all had a real essence. No one was like coming in like cartoony being Gilderad. but that there was a light to the Gilda Radner essence that she captured. And I think it was, it really was across the board.

One of the greatest compliments you give the movie. It's two compliments I got on my questions. I, I mean that. And we realized, but it really, it was a joy. You can imagine when we started casting the movie, all the original editions that came in were Saturday Night Live style impressions. If it's acroid, it's acroid doing basimatic. You know what I mean?

It's these heightened versions of who they were, which is great for a sketch but not great for a movie. Because in a movie, you want it real. You want to feel like you're with him. You want the vulnerability of, you don't want like, yes, Dan Eckhart's funny, but how vulnerable does he feel minutes before going to air? How is this going to change his life? Is he aware of that? John Belushi, you know, aware that this is going to be the end of one chapter of his life and he's scared. Yeah.

And that's why he's on the run. That's why he's hiding. You know, Garrett Morris is like, who am? I? What is my identity here? So, so what we did is we started to identify the essence of what each role was going to be, you know, Chevy Chase is an ego that needs to be humbled. You know, Gilda Radner is a well of, you know, unending empathy, you know, how do we get to this one concept of each character and then go to the actors and be like, this is it? This is your art. This is what we're exploring here. So you inform them of that in the audition process or once they got cast? Honestly, I, frankly,

I feel like as a director, it's like somewhere in the back of the head, you know it, but you're not able to vocalize it until you start doing interviews after the movie's done. Right, yeah. That's funny. Who plays Chevy Chase? Corey Michael Smith. Corey Michael Smith. Yeah.

I mean, the complicated character of Chevy Chase with the complete confidence and bravado and vulnerability and spitefulness and I mean, he had it all like in, in like a sentence or like a look. Like, he really captured. He really captured it. And again, it's not about being funny, even though Corey is funny. Yeah. I think it's about the fragility of ego. And he knew how to do that.

So in that moment where he's talking to Milton Burrell and Chevy's still smiling and kind of laughing, but he's hollow and broken underneath that smile, that's the moment. And that's what Corey's brilliant at. Yeah. Man, what a scene. That's a good scene, right? What a scene. Is that a real show that...

As a Rumpus hour? Yeah. I mean, again, so we interviewed every living actor, every living writer, everyone could find that was in the building that night. And we wove together all their kind of memories. But it's, you know, we're taking memories from weeks before and weeks after and we're trying to capture what it felt like. And the big idea, of course, was the generational shift. And Milton Burl, for us, represented everything that television was. Yeah.

And everything that these kids were trying to fight against. So he was the perfect personification, and it is a rule that J.K. Simmons is in every movie I ever make. So I thought, here we go. I don't, did you find him? Was he, was his first big role with you? No, I mean, so J.K. had already done a few, I mean, first, J.K. had already been on Law and Order. J.K. had already been in Oz. Okay. He was already a Broadway guy. I mean, one of my favorite things of all time is that J.K. was doing Oz and guys and dolls at the same time. I can imagine But So no

But Juno was So you were in Thank you for Smoking Right And played the main character's boss And then and then of course Juno and then up in the air And it just kind of went from that And then I produced Whiplash

And that was my great contribution To that movie Oh wow Was telling Damien I was like I think this is the guy You should say He's so good He's brilliant

And he could do anything And he could be So Loving and charming as he is as the dad in Juno, and then absolutely terrifying as the, as the instructor in Whiplash. And I don't know what I'm acting with that kind of range.

Oh, my God. And doing this turn as Uncle Miltie, that, I mean, was just, he had all of that old showbiz stuff that was real and, like, he had the confidence and... And that nastiness, and that kind of desperately hanging on to the baton. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh. It's so funny because people come to me, it's fun. it's obviously talking to a comedian. The amount of people who come to me and go, did Milton really reveal himself that way? And it's like,

I don't know how many comedians I know who haven't seen his penis. Like he, uh, this is, this is just, this is what he did. This is, yeah,

legendary. Yeah, Jeff Ross saw the movie, uh, and call me after. And he's like, yeah, I saw,

I saw, I saw Milton's dick. I didn't get me to, it got me 22. He was that big. Yeah. So disturbing. But man, what a good scene.

Here's a question that my wife wanted me to ask, with everybody being so accurate. Was there anything done to any of the voice of the characters? She was like, there were certain moments where like the Billy Crystal where he just hit the pitch of it was so perfect. It's unreal. No, that's all Netflix. All just them.

Here's the crazy part. So, you know, we're casting these kids. Yeah, right. Who aren't all completely familiar with the people they're playing. I can imagine. Let alone, Frank Gorshan. Yeah, seriously.

Come on. Nicholas did know who Billy Crystal was. Crazy. Nicholas comes in, does his audition, and I was like, so you must be a pretty big Billy Crystal fan. And he's like, yeah, from Monsters Inc. You'd never seen when Harry Met Sally.

Like he just, and just like he went out and did his studies, but he just, he nailed it. He knew that he had that voice down. That was 100% of him. Wow. It really is pretty amazing. There was, yeah, I was like, they're not manipulating the voices. I don't think. But some of them, I didn't know what she was talking about because there were certain,

but just orally, just the pitch of certain of them. No, they would just nail it. These are good actors, yeah. So good. Yeah, and Gilda too. And the actress, Elahunt playing Gilda is British. Both the actresses playing Lorraine Newman. And Gilda are British.

Wow. There's such show-offs. I went, so I was in London producing the last Ghostbusters movie, and I went to see Brokeback Mountain on stage because Lucas Hedges was in it. And I went to see him in it. And this girl playing the character of Heath Ledger's wife in Brokeback, man, she's really good. I think she could be Lorraine.

And I go to meet her after the show, and she's been doing this Oklahoma accent for the last, you know, hour and a half. She comes out. She's from Liverpool. I was like, what? And in my hand, I'm like, maybe never mind. But then she put down a Lorraine Newman

and it was perfect. Jeez. Yeah. Amazing. Ghostbusters, that had to be a fun bridge in your life of... An emotionally complicated one. Yeah, I would imagine.

I mean, this is something that I think I kind of avoided my entire life. Really? It's interesting because, I mean, just in our short little time together, you mentioned a couple nice moments of your dad creatively, just artistically. I mean, my relationship with my father was extraordinary, but my relationship with being my father's son is much more complicated.

Yeah. You know, I'm hip enough that I realized pretty early that if you're the son of a famous director, people are going to presume that you're a talentless shitbag, you know, who has never worked a day in his life and probably has an alcohol or drug problem. And I, you know, who wants to think that? So, first, you know, I ran away from the idea of filmmaking in general. I went to school. I went pre-med.

I thought I was going to be a doctor. Oh, really? Yeah, my dad came to visit me and was like, what are you doing? And I explained all my fears. And he said, well, being scared isn't a reason to do anything. Because I thought I read that you were messing around with film as a kid, like when you were like 15. I was, but still, by the time I got to college, I thought, well, why would I want to either, you know, fail in his spotlight or succeed in a shadow? I think that was kind of, those were the options.

My father became the first Jewish dad in history to tell a son, don't be a doctor, go be a filmmaker. And I started making short films. Did he see that in you? Back to the thing of, like, when you see a kid becoming and telling you what they are? Yeah, I think I think I spent every. every living second of my childhood on set, if I could, you know, hanging on the trucks, being a part of the crew.

That's who I wanted to be. Like I, you know, even when I used to watch Saturday Night Live, I love the actors, but what I really loved was those brief moments in the bumpers where you get to see the crew moving the sets and the cameras, and I was like, who were those guys? Yeah. That's who I want to be one of them.

Right. It's so cool. I love this story much more than when you see showbiz people and they're like, I told my kids never go in it. is the worst thing. In my life, it's just like, no, if you guys have any kind of interest in it, it's a pretty great life being an artist. Being a storyteller is really rewarding.

It's also very hard. And certainly has a high failure rate. My dad encouraged it. And I started making short films. And I was really grateful that there was film festivals because all there was a democratic way in which I could just submit my short films. And if they sucked, they wouldn't get in. And if they were good, they did.

And I had short films that got in lots of festivals. and I got short films that got turned down left and right. Yeah. And I made five short films. They got progressively better. They started winning awards. And by the time people were going, taking an interest, I was already in love with Thank You for Smoking.

I went and I wrote that script. Right. No one would make it. And it ended up being financed by internet billionaires. Yeah. The people who made my first film were Elon Musk and Peter Thiel and David Sacks. They literally read my script for thank you for smoking. They were like, why hasn't anyone made this?

Really? And they each wrote a check for a million bucks, and that's how my movie got made. No way. Came out of nowhere. I was already writing up in the air and directing commercials. And I literally got a call out of the blue that said, these guys who sold PayPal want to start making movies, and they like your script. Wow.

It was absolutely bonkers. That's insane. Yeah. That's insane. At that point, at PayPal point. like in their careers. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. No, I remember asking Elon Musk, what are you going to do now? Are you just going to hang out? And he was like, I want to put rockets into space. And I was like, that seems hard. And he goes, it's literally rocket science. But back then, I really just saw myself as an independent filmmaker.

I just wanted to bring movies to film festivals. And I thought Ghostbusters is the last thing on Earth. ever want to do. It seems like, like, actually the worst possible move it could make as a director, particularly after, like, separating myself and creating a name for myself. Right. Well, it had to be a little easier at that point because you had, you have your own thing going on. I guess so. It felt like a dragon. It felt like the thing that was chasing. I mean, the question I'd probably answered most in my life was, are you ever going to direct a Ghostbusters movie? Oh, really? And it didn't matter, like what I made or what kind of movies I made.

Right. And finally one day I just had an idea for it. Yeah. And I told it to my dad. I was really scared of it. But it felt like the right thing. And what was insane is that, you know, I made it to make a movie when my daughter was 12 and I thought she would really love this experience.

And I made it because I thought, oh, I could make this movie with my dad. And it was a movie about generations. You know, it's a movie about basically the daughter of a Ghostbuster who, refuses to pick up the proton pack. And then the granddaughter of a Ghostbuster who picks up their proton pack and succeeds. I mean, I was telling my own story. Right, right.

And the movie came out. It was a success. I got to go around the world with my father and we'd go to screenings. I'd introduce him. The audience would get on their feet. And my father would cry. It was extraordinary.

Amazing. And then within a year, my father passed. And I realized in that moment, or shortly thereafter, that, oh, I did this at the last second. Wow. And it's amazing how often that happens. Yeah.

You think you have all the time in the world. You think you're like, oh, I'll casually make this decision. Well, I guess we'll do this now. Yeah. And then you go, oh, I was like Indiana Jones. I got my hat out from underneath the wall just as it came down. And it was truly at the last second that I got to make this with my father and thank God. What a blessing.

Yep. God. Such a cool thing that the thing that was scaring you the most becomes like one of the most beautiful moments, right? That's really well said. That's really well said. Yeah. That you're avoiding for all this time. I mean, it's a lot better than had it, like, you know, gone down in flames.

Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Your dad's all sad having to depress for something no one likes. Yeah, I really bummed out my dad, and then he died. Yeah. Harold Ramos. Yeah. Put me in my first movie.

Oh, you're kidding me. No. Which one was that? Analyze the second one. No kidding. Yeah. Analyze that. I've heard he was a really tender filmmaker that he,

He was so sweet. Yeah, he was in New York. Really lovely. Yeah. He brought me in. I auditioned and then I got to go to the callback. And I'm just in the little thing and you're going to go in. Harold's there.

I was like, okay, cool. And I'm like, who do I read with? And you're going to read with Bobby. And I was like, okay, cool. And I walk in and Bobby is Robert De Niro. Yeah. I'm like, there's Harold Ramos. That's insane.

insane. And I started reading my little lines. It was just like, you know, a little scene. Are you even a little bit in character? Like, are you just, or is your mind just going a million miles a second? Yeah, you're just the whole time, you're like, I'm with Robert De Niro. I'm with Robert De Niro. And I'm trying to pretend that I'm not. And then he lost his way in the script in the middle of the audition. And he starts doing this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, Robert DeNiro. I was screwing up my audition. I went like that. In a moment like that, I'm so curious.

Do you have the forethought to think, this is actually great? This is a benefit. He's not screwing up the scene right now. Oh. He's actually calling attention to this moment. And as a result of his accident, there's going to be more empathy for me as an actor. And I'm getting moments that every other actor doesn't. Every other actor just goes through the scene.

I'm getting moments. to then react to him losing his place. We're going to have a little fun with that. Like, do you, does that seem like an opportunity in the meeting? No, not at that time. Maybe today, but not then. I got in the elevator like, I think Robert De Niro stopped me from getting in this movie. As a comedian, as a comedian, I thought, well, this will be a good story if nothing else.

Right, right, right. So you have that. But, yeah, but I'm, yeah, but he, he, he effed me. Right. Yeah. But then they gave it to me. Yeah. And then I got to spend the day in a jewelry store acting with Robert De Niro, which was just fantastic.

But that was Harold Ramis, and he was such a cool, like, mellow. Yeah, what's so interesting to me about that is I can't think of an actor more intimidating than Robert De Niro. And I don't think I can think of a director more generous than Harold Ramos. Yeah. And that must be interesting to be inside that wavelength. That I did notice. That I noticed was like, oh, this is a, somehow I got a glimpse of this creative, like, friendship going on here. Right. You know, that I did, that was just kind of cool to see these two giants.

Harold's daughter, Violet, wrote a book about her father. And it's an amazing book because I've never seen this as a structure. She does one chapter about father-daughter, then a chapter about a specific movie, then a chapter about father-daughter, then a chapter about a specific movie. So you're getting this sense of Harold that's weaving in between personal and work in the same way that a film career is. You go to a movie, you come back to your personal life. You go to a movie, come back to your personal life. So, you know, he's on Caddyshack. He just became a father.

He's on Ghostbusters. His daughter's going to kindergarten. Wow, that's beautiful. And it's back and forth. And she has great stories from either. And the chapters are short. She never overstays or welcome. And it gives you a really great sense of,

him, but also what a director's life is. Wow. Did you come away with a feeling of how she thought the experience of growing up under a person. Yeah, and obviously I related to it a lot. And there's not a lot of books out there by the children of directors. Right. I don't get a, you know, successful, funny directors. Yeah, there's not some whole canon that I can go relate to. So it was really meaningful. And obviously in writing Ghostbusters, which was about Egon, which is about Harold's, you know, character and his relationship with his daughter and granddaughter. It was really influential. Right.

When you, as a storyteller, sometimes you write the stuff, sometimes you find the stuff and adapt it. Sometimes you just direct it. Yeah. Is there as much storytelling as just the director with this piece as there is when you start the whole thing off? I feel like every movie is an autobiography. Oh, yeah? I think that's the truth. Really?

And usually you talk to any director, unless they really just got hired. Yeah. Every movie's autobiography in one way. I don't care if you're directing, you know, you're directing, you know, carwash or Texas chainsaw. Like, some reason, like, it's connecting with something deep. And with Diablo, who wrote, you know, young adult and who wrote Tully and Jennifer her's body and like I feel like she and I have always been on this kind of wavelength together where the stuff that's on our mind is the stuff that's on my mind and so we really connect

otherwise I'm adapting books and I've done that on an own on my own I've done that with other people but at some point it's always something for my life is connecting with the piece of material and in between is the movie oh interesting I'm trying to tie it to bread baking but I don't think I think it's deeper. I think this is much deeper. Well, I'll tell you how it's similar. It's, you know, what the hell are we doing with this life? And why do we do anything?

And, you know, I think the reason to bake is similar as the reason to make movies. And we're trying to make purpose out of all this. Yeah. And we're trying to create things that impress ourselves and express ourselves and trying to bring joy to other people. And we're trying to find that in like all the little ways. Yeah. And otherwise, like, what the hell?

Like, why would you work so hard? Right. Why the hell did you get up at 7 a.m.? I mean, it's just, it's insane. Yeah. No, it's really true. The other thing that was on my mind during Saturday night was, uh,

you could have told this film in a lot of different ways, this story of this. Just Lauren and how he's coming up with it. Like there was, it made me want to go research a little bit more of Lauren's backstory. Yeah. Like up to this point? Yeah.

Like, why was he so hip? How did he have all this knowledge of music? Lauren's Patrick. It's like John Batiste. Lawrence touched by God. Yeah. You know, there's something that is undeniably him. Yeah.

And it's unreplicable. Yeah. It's just, he has exceptional taste. Yeah. Well, it's the combination of exceptional taste. Obviously, losing his father young, and creating an orphanage for wayward comedians. Mm-hmm. And the wherewithal to be, just go, I'm not the performer, I'm the dad.

Yeah. You know, because he was a performer and clearly a good one. Yeah. But he knew don't get in front of the camera. Don't just be one of the guys. Did it come down to that as displayed in the film that he was about to do weekend update and last second does not? Not at the last second, but he was going to do weekend update. He was, right.

And he was going to be part of that show. And there's a moment where you realize I'm not the performer. I'm the producer. Yeah. And you can't just start cutting other people's sketches if you're in the show yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

You have to make hard decisions. Yeah. You have to add stuff. I mean, being a parent to stuff. Yeah. And you have to be a different kind of parent to each one of your children. And that's a lot of the movie is watching Lorne figure out a way to be a parent to each one of these kids. Yeah.

Even though he's like a kid himself. Right. Exactly. Yeah. But he just becomes the guy. Yeah. He does. And he somehow created this home that became the birthplace to 100 careers.

Yeah, really amazing. Was there any sync up between him and the telling of this story in the 50th year? No. That's just kismet. Complete kismet, yeah. I don't think I was even aware that it was approaching as I started talking about him. I just told him the idea and I said, you know, I said, I'm thinking about doing a movie and I was very wary. I was like a movie about what?

Because I'm sure a billion people have told them they want to do the creation of SNL. and I had no interest in doing the creation of SNL. I'm not a huge fan of those biopics. I said, I want to do a movie with a 90 minutes leading up to showtime. The movie starts at 10 p.m. with U.150th Street looking for Andy Kaufman. And the last line of the movie is live from New York, it's Saturday night, said for the first time. Wow. And he got that.

He immediately was like, oh, okay. Yeah. And I had done a guest writing job on the show in 2008, where I got to spend a week there, and I wrote a sketch, and I got to be part of the rhythm just for a moment. Yeah. And I remember what it felt like in the room as they went to air. I was like, I want to capture that. I want the audience to feel that.

Yeah, you did. It really, really, it was conveyed. Thank you. Well done. We do a thing on this program called a taste test. Okay. We're not only about the finer things like bread and beautiful stuff like that, but we also have bizarre stuff we find in 7-Eleven.

Here we go. And put it on a test. And bread bag. These are the things we found. The Oreo people are going a little. little nuts. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And they've came up with a thing called the cakester. Yep. Have you had these? No, I'm aware of them. Me either. I know. I've seen them around. But it's the kind of thing like you're too embarrassed to buy yourself.

I wouldn't be. It looks like a whoope pie. No, I, I'm a big camper. I like RV trips. Oh, yeah. And as somebody who's RV trips, all you're doing is tasting America. That's a good way to put it. Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers. Mm-mm-mm. Mm-hmm. Okay, so first thoughts. Yep. I think hostess should sue. It's a devil dog.

Oh, interesting. Is that what you're going to say? I was going to go, I just did it. I was going more ding-dong, but like, but yes. But it's got that cakey. Yeah. All the moisture in my mouth is gone. Yeah, like a thousand percent.

I was like, I don't know how I'm going to finish this podcast. But by the way, tasty. Yeah. And it's doing that mind trick where my eyes see an Oreo, but my mouth is tasting hostess. Yeah, there's evil geniuses over there. Oh, wait, there's fudge in there. What? Or is my mind playing tricks on me?

I don't think there's fun. Oh, no, no, there isn't. No. That was just my mind playing. That was your hopes. It's good, though. I would use, dudes. It's not an Oreo.

No. I mean, imagine creating the Oreo. I know. I was watching The Shining last night. Good segue. First time, it is because first time I caught, when she drags him into the freezer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he wakes up. He's waking up. I never noticed that he had been eating before he passed out.

There's an open thing of peanut butter. Yeah. A crushed open thing of Oreos. Oh, really? Yeah. They had Oreos in there. It's a perfect cookie. Like, it is. It always will be.

Yeah. Vegan, by the way, Joe. Have you ever seen the footage of Kubrick setting up the shot for the... There's a documentary that his daughter shot on the set of The Shining, and there's footage of them setting up that sequence. When he's looking... When the camera's coming up. Yes, exactly.

And Kubrick's on the ground with the viewfinder looking up and trying to figure out the shot. It's really wonderful when you see a moment like that. Because directing... Directing so secretive. Yeah. You don't really, like, I think most other jobs, you kind of get a sense of how they do it, but directing you really don't. And it's so internal. And to watch Stanley Kubrick, who, you know, top five directors of literally all time.

Yeah. And just see him kind of crawling around the ground and trying to finding that shot and playing. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Just a kid making a... Not a guy with a pipe.

Like, like, yeah, just on the ground with the finder, trying to find it, telling Jack, well, maybe look a little more like this way. That's good. Yeah, it should never stop being play. It's play, yeah, exactly. Oh, my God, that movie's intense. It's good. Why do you think it works so well? The material is a creepy that Stephen King comes up with that.

You ever hear that story? How he was literally driving with his family and stopped in a hotel and had a nightmare. No. In the hotel. Had a nightmare and got up and smoked a cigarette. And a billion dollars later. And he said by the time the cigarette was done, he knew the whole story. I hate that guy.

I know. You ever walk into a bookstore and just see like, I know. I'm looking for my book. Like, where is it? Yeah, the K section. Exactly. The whole thing. So anyway, the material.

But as the film, I mean, you know, not saying Kubrick, just to what kind of transpires. The music in that. Music's perfect. is so insanely. It's absolutely haunting. Music, I mean, the screeching, the whole thing. My dogs were going crazy with that owling and all that. The music, the color, the saturation, like the, just that red bathroom.

Yeah, that green kitchen area. Yeah. I mean, just it's otherworldly. And then Jack is so, there's not one scene where he's not blowing your mind. Yeah, it's weird because I love grounded acting. And yet somehow he can go up to 11 and I'm still a thousand percent in with him. Yeah. And the kid's great.

Oh my God. The kid's like truly great. Really great. And there are visuals in it that lock in forever. Yeah. And it's the kind of movie as a kid when you watch, you feel like you're watching something you're not supposed to. Yeah. You know, it almost on like a pornographic level.

You're like, I'm not supposed to be watching this. No. When they're racing through the hotel at the end when all the ghosts are appearing. The two guys of the bearheads, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean.

Scariest thing I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. And he's really kind of toying with like what you're allowed to see and whatnot. And it seems to be there's a whole hidden ghost story that you're unaware of, but it's like just kind of teasing you. Yeah. No. I mean, it feels like a movie that's reaching and plucking your nerves. Oh.

All right. At the end. Yeah. When they go into the photograph from 1924, Fourth of July party, and there's Jack in it. What do you, but Jack is here in present day, do you think that the images, what do you think that means? I mean, I think he's joined the party.

I think he's now one of the ghosts, right? So he's like added to the photo after the event? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, oh, sorry, are there theories that he was always there? My wife asked it in a way that was like, so he came, He came back to life and came back to the hotel? Oh, that's interesting. Like, as Jack reincarnated?

Oh, I just presumed he's joined the hotel. Yeah. And that his ghost is now going to just haunt that place with everybody else. Right. So good. What's the next story you want to tell? Can you tell us? No, but...

I thought we were friends. Yeah, yeah. I gave you cakesters and big credit at seven in the morning. All right, fine. We could have secrets. All right. Have you ever heard of something called Batman? No.

No, I feel really happy to have just made a small movie again. Yeah. You know, I made a career out of making films that can play film festivals. And then I disappeared into Ghostbusters and then lost my dad. And it was an extraordinary five, six year process of first making a movie where every day of shooting Ghostbusters, I'm thinking about, what did my dad think or feel when he was in my shoes making this back in 1984? You know, and I did that every single day. Yeah.

And often with him there. You know, imagine coming to work and your father sitting next to you every single day. Oh, that'd be terrible. I mean, it's like, it's like wonderful, but it's also like, is that a shot you're going to do? Like, it's tough. What's he thinking now? And then I lost him. And then I was able to do this movie.

And Saturday night is the last script of mine my father ever read. Wow. And it's the first movie of mine that my father will never see. Wow. And so from here, it's a new chapter. Amazing. And I'm just thinking about what I want to write about. I had that question in my mind, because it is a smaller film.

It's like the films that I love and adore, and they're not making a bunch of now. Yeah. How much of the state of the film industry do you occupy your brain with, or do you, Do you just think, you down? Yeah, I think about it a lot. And I try to be realistic with myself about whether I'm holding on to old ideals or not. But I think movie going is important. Yeah.

And not just because it's what I do for a living. I think it's culturally one of the few places where we go and we laugh together and we cry together and it bonds us. And the movie theater is a really important thing. Yeah. It's why, you know, I bought a movie theater here in Los Angeles. The village theater in Westwood, the giant one with the tower. It's been around 100 years. I put together a group of 30 directors last year, and we bought that theater.

Whoa. And we're in the process of rehabilitating it. Amazing. And so, like, you ask what I'm doing next, frankly, like, what I came from today, it was a meeting on that. Wow. That's my next project. And to reopen that theater and create another cultural center. Yeah.

Not just a place to, you know, get overcharged for popcorn and watch a movie, but a place where you want to actually spend some real time. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. It was so much better going to the theater. It was just, Joe and I were talking about, like, we have to go to, I'm tired of being in the background saying, geez, what's really happening to this movie business?

It's such a shame. And then not going to the theater. Well, it's funny. You got to go to the theater. Had you clicked the link that Sony sent you on Saturday night, it really would have just been a video of me shaming you for not going to see the movie. There was no movie on that link. Oh, boo. How dare you if?

Yeah. All right. Last question. I'll make it about me. Why haven't we worked together? Right? That's the question. Well, yeah, but no.

But I was going to say, when are we going to work in the future? Oh, okay. And do I have to audition? Because I don't like that. All right. Let's get into it. Who do you want to play? What part of you had you not like, like, like,

gone through yet. Well, a lot of people say I look like Jack Benny. Okay. And I know you just did this with Miltie as you kind of did that thing. But I feel like a Jack Benny, a darker side of Hollywood with Jack Benny involved. Could be interesting. And do you want to play Jack Benny because you look like him or because you feel like him? I feel like him.

Oh, okay. Yeah. What's the last moment of the movie? Hmm. Good question. I guess him playing violin by himself. We're going to sell a lot of tickets. I thought you were into making cool small movies. I own a movie theater now, dude. No, no, I own a movie theater now, man. I got to put butts in seats. Other than that, I don't know. Anything you got. Anything you got.

All right. You know, you see a lot of actors talk about, like, how did you pick that for your next film? Well, they said yes. Someone called, said they'd put me in it. How did I think about it. Yeah. And by the way, I think it's, this is the weirdest part of my job. Yeah.

Is that I'm asking people to come do things. So when I ask people to come to a movie with me, it's probably not going to be shot in Los Angeles. sadly. It's going to be shot somewhere else. So I'm going to say, hey, do you want to abandon your life for a minute? Yeah. You know, say goodbye to your spouse and your kids. Yeah. You're going to miss your kid's birthday.

Probably make less money than what you're doing right now. Yeah, exactly. You're going to say no to this other thing that's going to be a huge hit. Once you get there, I'm going to be living in a shitty place. And I'm going to ask you to wake up at 4 in the morning and going to hair and makeup. I won't actually use you until 2 p.m. that day. and yeah, you'll give up maybe a month of your life and then you'll see it one day and ask yourself, was it worth it?

So anytime I ask anyone to do a movie, crew or cast, that's what I'm thinking about. Is that moment a year from then when they go, wait, what? Why'd I say yes? Because the sacrifice should be worth it. Yeah. And it's one thing to be asked to do something,

but to ask people all the time, hey, come join me. Oh, please. There's a lot more pressure of like, You want it to be worthwhile. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But on the other side of it,

there's a whole bunch of actors out there and people on crew who are just waiting to be asked. And we're all vagabonds. Everyone's going to leave their life. Yeah, I mean, we're all circus folk. I mean, you can't kind of join this. And if you trust the part, like if you,

if it's somebody with a proven track record, it's a lot easier to say yes. The most dangerous part. I'm part of the Stephen's, Soderberg camp. That's where I do most of my work. Yeah. No, I understand. I know, but he doesn't know how to make anything back. The thing about Stephen that maybe you don't understand is, I feel like I'm safe with Stephen. Is he, does he work as fast as it seems? Yeah. Not Clint Eastwood fast, but fast. But like two takes, knows, um, knows the lighting,

like has the lighting down, can make very quick adjustments, use very few lights. First scene I ever did with him in The Informant was the first film I did with him. And it was over and I thought we just rehearsed. That's amazing. They're like, moving on. I'm like, I wasn't even trying. He's like, thank God. Right.

I need to wrap before you try. Try less, Papa. My favorite thing to tell actors the night before they start shooting is you already know how to do this. Yeah. Because it is. It's try less. Right, right. And I don't want to watch you try.

That's so funny. You know. Stop trying. I know, you're right. Congratulations. This was really fantastic. I'm so glad to finally meet you and spend some time with you. Yeah, me too.

But the movie was a real treat for us to go into the theater and come out, like, feeling great and talking about it all week long. Yeah. Was just really great. That means so much to me. And thank you for actually buying a ticket and supporting the movie. Yeah. Do you validate? What the fuck?

I'm going to go broke on this fucking movie. All right, enjoy your bread. Let me know how you like it. I will. I absolutely will. Thank you. Thank you. Got it, Johnny.