Fantasy Football Today - 05/31: "Die Hard" Writer Steven E. de Souza!

Episode Date: May 31, 2019

This episode is for basically anyone who loves movies! Steven E. de Souza did not just write Die Hard, he also wrote classics like Commando, Running Man, and 48 Hours among others. We of course ask Steven about the Christmas aspect of Die Hard, but also much more about the movie, writing for big action stars, the origin of "Yippee ki yay ..." and more. We hear great stories from the sets of these classic action flicks, get unique perspectives from Steven and even learn a lot about writing in the process! Topics discussed include ...-Why Steven says Die Hard is, in fact, a Christmas movie (1:50)-If Steven recognized it was a Christmas movie as he was writing it (9:20)-The "mistake" Steven made while writing Die Hard (10:15)-The origin of "Yippee ki yay" (11:20)-Is Die Hard 2 a Christmas movie? (14:30)-Steven's take on Game of Thrones and what the GoT scripts say about Dany's turn (16:30)-An "emotional jump" in writing (18:10)-Writing for top action stars including David Hasselhoff! (22:20)-Schwarzenegger! (25:30)-Stallone! And why some actors weren't interested in the John McClane role (29:30)-What Steven's kid said to him after seeing Die Hard for the first time (31:00)-Meeting Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte before 48 Hours (31:40)-Writing Street Fighter (33:00)-Denzel! (35:00)-Why he had to remove jokes from Beverly Hills Cop 3 (38:00)-A final thought on the legacy of Die Hard (40:00) To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, it's a bonus episode of Fantasy Football today. Fantasy Die Hard today. I'm Adam Azer. Welcome to the show, everybody. Dave Richard and Jamie Eisenberger here. Are you guys ready for this? Yep. This has been 25 years in the making. We didn't start the debate, but we did do the debate before it became super popular. And today we have an awesome guest, the man who wrote one of the greatest action movies ever made.

Steven DeSouza is here. He wrote Die Hard. He wrote Die Hard 2, Commando, Running Man, 48 Hours, and many more. Thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it. How are you? I'm great, and I'm just delighted to be here in Fort Lauderdale. And thank you for sending the show blimp to pick me up. Of course, we got a show blimp specifically for this episode, so very excited about it. Now, I know and a lot of people know that you have previously said Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

You ended the debate, but you are coming on today, I think, to say, just kidding, right? You're going to agree with me, right? It's not a Christmas movie after all. No, no. I got the impression that you had another round, the 25th argument on this, like a week ago. And then I think, was it Dave that reached out to me? Yeah.

Twitter. So I'm here to like hammer it home once again. Oh, okay. So incontestable facts and graphs and charts. I have a whole wall in my house with the red strings and the faces, like when you sort of go crazy and trying to prove that the aliens are working with the UN. I'm not sure if you just called me an alien. That is possible.

So what are your primary arguments about why Die Hard is, in fact, a Christmas movie? Well, the movie takes place entirely from Christmas Eve to morning of the next day. It takes place entirely over christmas number one um the um i would rather not i would rather not i would rather knock down the arguments about why it's not a christmas movie fair okay so the number one argument people say it's not a christmas movie is because uh it's an action movie. All right? And my response to that is that not every Christmas movie is about Santa Claus. For example, Home Alone is clearly a Christmas movie.

In which Santa Claus is not about Santa and a reindeer. You can have other topics that make it a Christmas movie. Another argument made against it is, well, it came out in the summertime. But many Christmas movies, like Miracle on 34th Street, also came out in the summertime. It's very interesting, by the way, that because Miracle on 34th Street came out during the summer, and it was such a Christmas movie, and the studio thought it would be kind of a dissonance and people would be confused, if you go online, and maybe I'll provide links for you, you can find the old coming attraction that was in movie theaters for Meocron 34th Street. It doesn't have one thing in it.

They completely removed Christmas from the coming attraction because they thought people wouldn't see a Christmas movie in the summer. So it's just sold as a romantic comedy. You'd have to work really hard. I've had some people say, well, people get killed in this summer. So it's just sold as a romantic comedy. You'd have to work really hard. I've had some people say, well, people get killed in this movie. How can you have a Christmas movie that people get killed? Well, the original Christmas movie begins with the murder of all the

babies in Bethlehem, as we all may recall. Right? So if you actually find a Christmas movie that is about the nativity, there's a scene of mothers crying and wailing as soldiers are running out of the houses. You know? Here's my benchmark.

Can we all agree that White Christmas, the Bing Crosby movie, is a Christmas movie? Yes. I think, okay, there's our baseline. Okay. It even has Christmas in the title. So I would compare Die Hard to White Christmas. So, for example, does the movie take place during Christmas? even has Christmas in the title. So I would compare Die Hard to White Christmas.

So, for example, does the movie take place during Christmas? Die Hard takes place entirely during Christmas. White Christmas, only the first scene is during Christmas, 1944, and the last scene is Christmas in 1955. And in between, nine years go by without any Christmas at all, as they follow the characters over a nine-year period. In Die Hard, the movie not only takes place during Christmas, it's entirely a Christmas party, the entire movie. White Christmas, only the last scene where they actually see White Christmas when they're in their red Santa suits, is on a Christmas party.

The rest of it is a nine-year period with no Christmas parties. Die Hard has four Christmas songs, Let It Snow, Winter Wonderland, pardon me, Christmas in Hollis, which is the first one we all love, and Jingle Bells. White Christmas only has two Christmas songs, White Christmas, of course, and a movie called Snow, which is arguably not really a Christmas song. It's about skiing and snow. I can go on. Please do. Please do. Yeah, yeah. In Die Hard, the party, the Christmas party,

the party venue was threatened by terrorists. Right. Remember? Of course. In White Christmas, the party venue, which is a bed and breakfast, is threatened by foreclosure. Not quite as dramatic. No, not quite.

Bruce Willis would not have done the foreclosure film, probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a government – You're evicted? Yeah. Both movies have government incompetence. The FBI overreacts and die hard. And in White Christmas, the Pentagon fires General Waverly, which triggers the whole plot. So the main reasons why I don't consider it a Christmas movie – and it's very weird to say that to you, so I apologize.

And it is one of my favorite movies. I love Die Hard, obviously. I felt like it could take place any time of year and still be as great of a movie. Okay, okay. I've heard that argument. Okay, let's say for the villain's plot to work, they need to attack a party venue, the headquarters of this corporation, when the entire building will be empty. Yeah. So there's always people on Twitter at Christmas.

I'm inundated. And they say, well, it could be a Fourth of July. And I said, well, on the Fourth of July, it would be outdoor barbecue. Any company would have an outdoor barbecue. It would not be indoors. Other people say, well, Halloween. Well, first off, unlike Christmas and the Fourth of July, which corporations often sponsor, very few companies do a Halloween party.

And in any case, Halloween is not a legal holiday, and therefore the whole building would not be empty. Stephen, I got to tell you that Adam hosts an Arbor Day party that is absolutely unreal where everybody gets dressed up as trees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One last point. One last point. The sort of like sense of family that you would normally get from a Christmas movie. For me, it's Home Alone. It's all about the importance of family.

Does Die Hard have enough of that? Because to me, if Die Hard were a true Christmas movie, the final scene would be John and Holly going home to the kids and giving them presents and saying Merry Christmas. With the absence of that, that's why to, it doesn't really feel like a Christmas movie. Well, you do know that right after the credits roll, that's what happens. He gets in the car with his wife and they drive off. And as far as this being, obviously, they go through an emotional roller coaster,

the couple at the heart of the movie, but look at It's a Wonderful Life. I mean, he's ready to commit suicide. It's a Christmas movie. He's going to commit suicide. It's a Christmas movie. He's going to commit suicide. You know, and the whole town turns on him. I would also point out that I think if you're going to go in the Christmas spirit,

you need to have, I want to address the body count. People say, well, you can't have a Christmas movie, all these people get killed. So I point out that the original Christmas story has, not like terrorists and policemen getting killed, babies getting killed. Put that aside.

I admit that 23 people get killed in Die Hard. It's a big body count for a Christmas movie. But White Christmas, 26,000 people get killed in the opening scene, which is the Battle of the Bulge. Yeah, that's not – yeah. That doesn't bother me at all. And finally, to pour a the Christmas story you want to have the gift of the magi moment you know the gift of the magi story where there's a sacrifice where the husband sells his watch to buy a um a hair ribbon for the wife who has such beautiful hair and she

cuts off her hair and sells it to a wig maker to buy him a chain for his watch. It's a beautiful story. They each give up something because of their love. Well, I argue that there's a wonderful movie sacrifice in Die Hard. He runs barefoot over broken glass to save everybody. And what's the sacrifice in White Christmas? Danny Kaye gives his first class ticket to Vera Ellen. That's not quite as – Not in the same league.

Right. Yeah, shoot the glass is definitely one of our favorite parts. All right, Dave and Jamie, I've monopolized enough of the time here. You guys go for it. Sure, sure. Stephen, did you recognize that this was a Christmas movie as you were writing it? I have to be honest and say, as I was typing, no. In fact, our producer, Joel Silver, who has a habit of setting his movies at Christmas, you may notice, he said, originally the book had Christmas anyway, but the book took place over three or four days we compressed it into just uh dusted on so he said because it's all christmas now this movie will play every christmas and we'll all get a check in the mail which has

turned out to be true for 25 christmases now it plays on plays on television very christmas but it didn't sink in until i went to the set and i saw all the christmas decorations you know every desk has a santa clothes there's greeting cards, there's a Christmas tree. That's when it hit me how immersive the Christmas experience would be in the entire movie. And of course, the characters all make reference to Christmas. I'll tell you the one mistake I made. I actually, we watched the Eagles win last year, and I was at a party with a 70-inch screen and it was almost as good a view as I had of the last time the Eagles won the NFL championship in 1960. My dad had season tickets to Veterans Stadium mainly because he had been a naval officer in World

War II, was a Navy fan, and that's the way you got to see the Army-Navy game. So we had tickets on the 50-yard line for that game. And that game was – I thought it was Christmas Day, and that's why I had the game – there's a game on Christmas Eve in the movie, which is impossible. Notre Dame and USC. The 1960 game was actually the day after Christmas in my mind. So my own life experience created that err. You know, people like to catch mistakes in movies like, there's a wristwatch in Ben-Err,

if you know where to look for it, you know? Starbucks, Godman, Game of Thrones, yeah. Stuff like that, sure. There's a wristwatch story. Oh, go ahead, Jamie, go ahead. You referenced, you know, shoot the glass, and that's obviously a famous line. Yippee-ki-yay, mother bleeper, obviously, is another one.

How did you come up with that, and how many times do people say that to you on a daily basis? Well, people don't say it to me because nobody knows what I look like. I go to Comic-Con, and maybe there's one person walking towards me who goes, oh, you're that guy. And that person looks like the guy who stole Woody in Toy Story. I don't know. Nobody, no girl dressed like Red Sonja or Sheena Queen of the Jungle comes up and says, autograph my breath. It's always the guy who stole Woody in Toy Story.

But to the degree that people know who I am, it will come up. But that came up because when I met Bruce right before we started the movie and I wanted to talk, spend some time with him so that I could. I always try to meet the actors. And then that informs how I write their dialogue. In a well-written script, characters should sound different from each other. You should be able to look at a script and not see the name of the person speaking and know who's saying that. So the speech pattern for Hans Gruber is totally different than all American Bruce Willis. So anyway, I was talking to Bruce. I discovered we grew up about 30 miles apart in the Philadelphia

area. And we're five years apart. We used to play Army under the boardwalk in Atlantic City. And in the conversation, we started talking about when we were kids we played soldier and army and cops and robbers and making the movies like that for real and we somehow got on the topic of the children's show we used to watch when we were kids because he would get i'm in uh bucks county and he's in new jersey we're both getting the philadelphia tv stations and we started talking about roy rogers uh and uh chiefftown. These were shows they had in Philadelphia. So they would sign off. They would say, yippee-ki-yay. Roy Rogers would say, yippee-ki-yay.

It was a song he had. So I put in the script, yippee-ki-yay. And then Bruce did one ad lib, which we decided we would see if know, get that in and not jump from R to X because the people who give the ratings, it's this anonymous committee. There's a movie called This Movie Is Not Yet Rated where somebody followed them around with hidden cameras. They're like not remotely qualified to rate the movies.

It's a whole story there of how that goes on. So you never know how it's going to land when you go to there. There's like, you know, a dentist and like a woman who does cat rescues or it's just to land when you go to there there's like you know a dentist and like a uh a woman who does cat rescues or it's just random random people uh so anyway we put that take in we sent the movie over we knew we're getting an r-rated anyway and and it stuck so now it's uh of course now in the sequels where they want to make the movies more family friendly it becomes no yippee-ki-yay melon farmer where theremer, where there's an explosion. So you don't hear it.

They're always like, you know, trying to like, trying to do it, but not do it. That's what we call Adam all the time, a Melon Farmer. So it is.

And your fans sound, you know, nothing like our fans. We've got all kinds of gorgeous women racing up to us at fantasy football events and bars and all that stuff now. All right. So now it's established Die Hard Christmas movie. There's no question about it.

Does that mean Die Hard 2 is also a Christmas movie? Well, now I got to say it takes place at Christmas, but it's not so Christmassy. Oh, okay. What are the distinctions? What? What are the distinctions? Why no on Die Hard 2? I think it doesn't hit

as many points. It doesn't hit as many points. I would have to put that in the category of Christmas-ish movies. As opposed to a hard Christmas and on a... Christmas-ish. How about Christmas?

Actually, right now, I'm actually writing a Hanukkah movie. Are you really? No kidding, yeah. So can you tell us about it? You got three experts right here. Yeah. I am too. No, I'm writing this with my friend Wes Clark, and it's in the tradition of a Cecil B. DeMille movie.

It's like – it takes place during the period, and we'll be – people will be complaining, this can't be a holiday movie. Too many people get killed. It'll be the same conversation. Oh, that's great. Oh, man, I'm pumped for that. So you – No, I'm talking about Maccabees versus the Greeks, the whole war, elephant attacks, hails of arrows, swords, very Game of Thrones-y. Okay, so they're all –

If only Cersei got the elephant, she would have been in good shape. That's right. Well, actually, that is what triggered the idea. That's awesome. The whole conversation about elephants, I go, wait a minute. There's a whole elephant – there's a whole, like, elephant, there's a whole, there's a whole scene missing from, you know, when they have the Hanukkah specials, which, you know, like, the Hanukkah specials, I guess was Rugrats was the only one, I don't know. But, like, in all the Hanukkah things I've seen on television, I've never seen sword fights, decapitation, the elephants trampling people, which, if you think about it, is an important part of the Hanukkah story. So I'm going to deliver that finally.

Yes. Stephen, it sounds like you're a Game of Thrones fan, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I read the first book, in fact. So as somebody who has written for movie and TV, we've talked a lot about how the last couple of seasons felt a little rushed. Did you feel that from your perspective as an expert in this field? Yeah, I felt that the last two seasons felt a little bit rushed, too.

And I also think this, what's really interesting is many of the scripts are online. If you're a fan of the show, you can see the scripts. And if you read the scripts, you can see that they actually laid pipe for Dainey toty to like lose it if you go back even a couple years ago when she's getting upset or people cross her in the stage directions for for the actress they're like put they're laying pipe there that she's like got a short fuse uh so um i think that the audience doesn't get to read the script pardon me till now so i think maybe it didn't come across as obvious as they thought it did. It was on the script. It was in the actress's mind.

But when you read the script, it's quite clear that they're signaling the actresses that. I also think this last season, where they did six 90-minute episodes, they could have done nine one-hour episodes if they just cut them up differently. And I think in a strange way, the emotional gear changing would not have seemed so rushed if it had taken place over the exact same material stretched over nine weeks. It would be a slower burn. In other words, you'd have a week to think that Dany is stewing over what just happened. Right. You know, that she's boiling mad about killing her friend you know so it might i think it might have you know played out there's a thing in writing i won't get lost in the weeds here uh called a jump an emotional jump where

something happens in the story because um we want it to happen so let's say uh i'm writing a movie where the four of us are bank robbers right but? But then one of us wants to run away. You tell me who would double-cross the others. You guys know each other. Yeah, me. Definitely me. That's me. All right.

So you would want to have, in the course of the two-hour movie, a couple of hints earlier on that you're going to turn on the other bank robbers. Maybe we see a cop is leaning on you give me a tip or there's like a wife or a lover that says you never take me anywhere or whatever like the you know something to plant the seed so i feel that the seeds were planted in previous seasons but the audience didn't have time to like water, water them, if I can do a totally confused metaphor. I'll give you a literary example of a jump, which was taught to me. One of my first bosses was Harv Bennett, who was the producer of the Bionic shows and later did the Star Trek movies.

So he sort of taught me my first day at work about the emotional jump because I get it. Somebody, in other words, like, good morning, I morning i want a divorce well wait a minute hold it out you know something's missing there you know so either there are previous scenes or the argument goes longer so um um shalom aleckum uh wrote a lot of short stories and he did the best story example of a jump ever a guy gets on the trolley in minsk and a young a prosperous older gentleman gets on the trolley in minsk and a young man sitting next to him says excuse me sir do you have the time and the older prosperous gentleman says to the young student no way on god's green earth are you marrying my daughter so So the young guy says, what the hell? Where does that come from?

I just asked you for the time. He says, why would you say that? He says, why would I say that? Here we are, both in the same trolley at 4.30 on an afternoon in Minsk. We're obviously both going to the same Jewish neighborhood, right? You are a young single student I see by your books and your wardrobe. I will be honor bound once you start the conversation to invite you to my house for Shabbos dinner. You will come in and you will take one look at my gorgeous daughter and you will want to make a move on her. And I'm not going to let some bum who can't even afford a watch date my daughter. That's good. That's pretty cool.

So I haven't done – the original schalom Aleckim story is probably more amusing. But anyway, that's an example of a jump, but at least Shalom Aleckim explains why he did it. So, yeah, what did you think of the ending then? I mean if it was the last two seasons about the little rush, were you satisfied with the way the show ended? Well, I have a really – I have sort of mixed feelings because first off, the dragon flies – first of all, the first time he goes to see her, after they're executing people on the streets, they take away his sword before we let him go see her. No, no, no, no, no. They took away his sword when we went to see Tyrion. Right.

You're right. You're right. Okay. He had a sword when he went to see Dany. Okay. Yeah, but I'm saying why wouldn't they if they're wary of him? Well, I don't think it was they were wary of him. I think it's that Tyrion was a prisoner, so they wouldn't let him went to see Dany. Okay, yeah, but I'm saying why wouldn't they if they're wary of him, you know? Well, I don't think it was they were wary of him.

I think it's that Tyrion was a prisoner, so they wouldn't let him go and see a prisoner. Well, in any event, no one saw his scene with Dany. So the only way they would know he killed her is if he confessed it. But the dragon flew off, and, you know, the whole city is full of smoke. The dragon flies off. She's tinier in the dragon's claw than than than fey ray is in king kong's fist he comes out and they say where's dany he says i don't know she flew off that's all you have to say he could have gotten away with it yeah he would have gotten

away with it plus great plus at the end of the picture uh the picture the end of the picture, the end of the series, Grey Worm and all his guys sail away. So why doesn't Jon just turn around and come back? Yeah. Are they going to Skype Grey Wolf? I don't think so. Well, he has too much honor, Steven. Give Jon Snow some credit, I guess, right? Guys, I really want to know about Steven's history with these

unbelievable, the best of the best action stars. You've written for Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone. And did you have the same experience with all those guys that you talked about with Bruce, where you talked to him first and you came up with a line or something like that? Because obviously in Running Man,

Schwarzenegger's got all these great one-liners. Does it work the same with all these guys? Before you answer, though, you forgot one. David Hasselhoff, too. He actually wrote for The Knight Rider, which is awesome. Oh, my God. With the show Knight Rider,

to this day, I feel guilty about David's issues with drinking. Here's why. On one of our early episodes, we had a scene where he was trying to infiltrate a bodyguard school because they thought it was actually a trading ground for tourists so he pretended to he pretended to be drunk the story called for him to pretend to be drunk so that he would lose a lot of money so

to ingratiate himself with the bodyguards by like being a patsy they invited him to the card games so we look at the first day's dailies and bob senator who was executive producer with me says this is you know it's not working you got to go down and we got to redo this whole scene his whole drunk act is terrible so i went down to david at the end of the day said listen david we're going to do that card game scene again here's why it was really funny the way you were playing drunk because you were, again, I sent you the wrong signals in the script. But a drunk person is trying super hard to act sober as opposed to an undercover cop trying to act drunk. You know what I'm saying? Because a cop is not an activist.

I got it. I got it. So we're going to do it tomorrow. So the next day I call up the set and say, how are we doing? Because you're supposed to do so many pages a day and go from set A to set B. And the second AD says to me, well, we're still on the first set in the card game. We're just getting started. I said, just getting started?

It's like 12 o'clock. He says, well, I don't know what you said to Hasselhoff, but he came in two hours late, actually drunk. So he took the actor studio method a little too much. When I met Arnold, again, coming back to my days in television, one of the Don Mankiewicz famous Hollywood family, famous Academy Award nominee was one of my early bosses back in the days of silent television by the way i'll say that the intern sometime i'll make yeah back in silent television and the interns go oh i had no idea television was around that long you know i go all right so uh uh i have into my people say when are you going to write your book about all the hollywood crazy nonsense you see from executives and movie stars and i said the longer book is intern stories i mean like like especially they come from these tremendous educational backgrounds it's i had one interest i had to send this letter it's got to be this letter's got to go out it's a um registered

letter it's got to go there and bring the envelope and the envelope is addressed on the flap side i don't you address this envelope on the wrong side. He goes, there's a right side? The kid had never said a stand-up before. I digress. So my boss years ago, Don Mankiewicz, said, when you have an actor whose first language is not English, you should get together socially over lunch or something

and make sure you haven't inadvertently given them a tongue twister. So I did that with arnold we had lunch and uh and i went over his house and we smoked a couple cigars and i went through the whole script and we hit some speeches where it was inadvertently a tongue twister for someone whose first language is german so for example maybe i wrote i wonder their really went on that he said i wonder their really went on wednesday steven i'm not i can't I wonder if there will be events on Wednesday. He said, I wonder if there will be events on Wednesday. Stephen, I cannot be saying that. So I said, all right. Frank was furious on Friday. Frank was furious on Friday.

Yeah, that I can say more better. So I went through the entire movie of Commando, and I made sure that things would flow for him. Because it's just pronouncing the words. And then right after that, we did The Running Man, and I did the same thing. After The Running Man, he did a movie called Raw Deal with different writers and directors, and obviously no one on that movie did that with him. And I remember one review said,

the strangest thing is going on with Arnold Schwarzenegger. His English was getting better and better the last two pictures, and now it's worse. Hey, kudos to you. That's really interesting. I mean, a lot goes into it, I guess. Did you write, like, the he had to split line? Yes. Yes, I did. Oh, that's amazing. I'm responsible for...

Now, of course, the inspiration for all these Arnoldisms is, of course, you know, my impressionable years as a kid watching James Bond. I mean, the first couple... You know, I saw the first bond i mean the first couple you know i saw the the first three bond movies first run you know like dr no and uh from russian with love and that was the first time you saw that awesome coolness you know like uh shocking he throws the guy in the bathtub uh and uh so and there's there's even a there's a joke in uh Commando, which is very similar to a gag in Dr. No.

You remember in Dr. No, someone impersonating the government driver picks Bond up at the airport and tries to kill him en route. And Bond kills him and he pulls up at the government house and the guy's dead. And Bond says something to the guard at the gate like, don't make my friend or something like that. You know, the guy's dead. And I did the same thing in Commando. My friend is is dead tired by the way i'm famous for my arnold impression i have i have i've pranked a couple of studio executives one time i called up larry gordon our producer on um uh commando and i said uh what is going on i'm seeing harrison foote's trailer is bigger than mine i was told in my deal i would have and he starts and finally goes then i stepped into view with the receiver

so larry can see me damn it the susan at you again on the running man there's a thing you do when you finish a movie it's called adr which is automatic dialogue replacement invariably on a motion picture some of your soundtracks are bad either an airplane goes overhead or somebody coughs and the soundtrack is not clean on something you want so before we did the audience test screening of commando we had to fix some dialogue but you only have whatever it is probably three days in the contract for your star to come in and replace the soundtrack and you don't want to have them come in for the test screening because you may throw away some scenes in the test screening or put some back in. And now you burned your three

days up. You have to like pay extra or go overtime, whatever. So they said, Steve, you do Arnold's lines. You do a good Arnold. So I did a half a dozen lines for the test screening. But then in the rush to get the movie out, they brought on some extra sound cutters and they could not tell me from Arnold. So in the final, so if you see the running man, I have two lines of dialogue. That's actually me coming out of Arnold's mouth. They're both in the scene where they escape the prison camp with the exploding collars, which, by the way, has been copied many times by me. But this was the first one. But anyway, when Arnold says,

we do it outside, and also he says, Chico, no! That's me. I'm cracking up right now. Can you do it Stallone or just Arnold? I haven't tried Stallone. Now, first of all, my excuse for Stallone not being good is I have a cold.

But I think my best thought, if I do Stallone, I would say I have a cold, but I think my best thought, if I knew Stallone, I would say, this is, by the way, this is the explanation. You know, the story that everybody in Hollywood turned down diehard.

And that was because Stallone and Schwarzenegger had established this benchmark of like the huge steroid gigantic guy as a hero. So for example, in Rambo, the commies, we still have commies for villains then the commies uh grab grab sly they strap him to the springs of a mattress they put electrodes on his genitals he breaks loose he kills everybody in the room with his bare hands then he grabs the microphone which

connects him to the other bad guy who's in this location and he says the guy's saying come in he says come in comrade come in comrade and there's no. And he says, the guy saying, come in. He says, come in comrade, come in comrade. And there's no answer. And he says, your comrades are dead and I'm coming after you next. So that kind of line of dialogue, uh,

is, is the opposite of the way Bruce Willis behaves in diehard. Uh, when all these actors present the script, they get the page like, you know, 20, he looks out the doorway and sees a dozen terrorists coming in

and he runs upstairs to try and call the police so all these actors or agents said oh this guy's you don't want to play this part but but the guy but it was real you know um i had not seen my children had not seen any of my movies at that time because they were too intense for small children uh what we would do we'd finish a movie like 48 Hours or Commando, and we'd make the airline version, the TV version, with all the curse words taken out. So I would bring that home, the VHS of that. So Die Hard was the first movie I took my kids to see in the movie theater. You know, we don't want to influence these children, you know, with R-rated movies. So at that same moment, when Bruce looks out and sees all these guys and runs away,

my son grabs my arm. He's 11 years old. He goes, dad, your hero's chicken. I go, where did you learn that word? Not from my movies. Oh, wow. You took him to a Christmas movie for their first movie. How about that?

Yeah, I am. You mentioned 48 Hours. How much fun was it working with Eddie Murphy at that time? Here's what's funny. This is his first movie. Because I said I want to meet the actors and talk to them so I can hear their voice in my head and make them fit so it fits their personality. He was so green and naive in Hollywood, he wore a suit and tie to meet me. He's like one year out of high school.

So he comes in all neat and clean a nice neat suit uh and uh i'd seen him on saturday night live i knew what he could do and then nick came in and nick came in to see me looking pretty much like that famous mugshot of him only like 20 years earlier so nick comes in he goes oh yeah they're gonna hire me a a trainer i'm gonna lose this gut i want to get in shape and stuff and so after they left i said hire me a trainer. I'm going to lose this gut. I want to get in shape and stuff. And so after they left, I said, listen,

cancel the trainer. Let Nick stay overweight and sloppy. I want to put that in the script now. So the idea that Eddie was neat and sharp and Nick was a slob was not in the script until they came to my office. And I saw them and I said, that works for the movie. And it also created a gag where several times in the movie when they see them handcuffed together, everybody assumes Eddie's the cop because Nick looks like he's on crack. I love that. I mean that's such a great movie.

It's such a great pairing. I know you probably got to go. Thank you for taking so much time. I wanted to ask you about a rumor. Tell me if this is true. I heard that you wrote the Street Fighter film in 24 hours. Is that true? No, that's not at all true. That would be impossible.

What happened was the producer said these people from the video game are going to be in town. They're taking meetings all over town. Can you come up with an idea for them? They're going to be here the day after tomorrow.

I came up with an idea for them they're going to be here like you like day after tomorrow so i came up with um a uh a design for the movie that my dumb luck was actually where they were thinking everything along the lines of more of a bond movie or a gi joe movie than a fighting movie and i had the same thought that the problem with it with a tournament movie is you know that everybody's gonna you know that your key character is going to make it to the final round. It's like any kind of sports movie has a problem. What's the best sports movies? I mean the best sports movies to me are like Fear Strikes Out or maybe – what's the movie, Tom Hanks, about women's baseball?

Yeah, I think of Their Own. Yeah, okay. Because you know what? They're not about winning or losing. They're about the people. Oh, so you can have sports movies that don't involve sports. That's an interesting thing. No, no, no.

Not all sports. It's just not about winning the game. Right, exactly. You don't always have to be on the field to be a sports movie. Well, like for example, Tom Cruise. Like Jerry Maguire. Yeah, exactly. There's more going on.

But Tom Cruise, for example, Tom Cruise. Like Jerry Maguire. Yeah, exactly. There's more going on. But Tom Cruise, for example, in Days of Thunder, when he gets injured in the middle, is there any doubt that he's going to drive again? There's, like, no doubt in your mind that he's going to drive again. Right. Like when Cuba Gunning Jr. takes the hit. There's no doubt he's going to get up and – Well, that one you don't know because the movie is, like – that movie was kind of pissing with a lot of expectations. Like you hear we're getting fired after taking a stand. So I lost my train of thought here. Because Jamie and I argue about Jerry Maguire because I don't think Jerry Maguire is a sports movie, which is the same as the Die Hard Christmas.

All right. I'll get that one. It's not seasonal though. Steven, as you can see, Adam has terrible takes about movies, although he does love your work.

He does terrible takes in general about movies. I do have a question for you. Is there a movie that stands out to you as your favorite that you've ever done and then one

that you regret doing? Well, I mean, the movies I like, I would say a movie that doesn't get a lot of attention that I like a lot that I did was Ricochet with Denzel Washington and John Lithgow. That's a great movie. Love it. Thank you.

Thank you. For some reason, it's not on a lot of people's radar. But John Lithgow is a villain. Yeah. He's awesome. He's terrific. And the sweetest guy. Another guy that's so unbelievable sweet is Bill Duke, who is, of course, you know, from Predator. And he was the guy who was always shaving.

And he's the guy that says, I eat green braids for breakfast. You know, that kind of thing. But he is the sweetest guy. And when he's behind the camera, he directs like a chick flicks. So you would so you would never uh you would never uh put that together uh anyway every actor is different and um uh in in my experience uh the actors who come out of stage work uh are the most disciplined because if you come from stage work uh you're the first thing you learn is you can't change a single line of dialogue unless the playwright approves.

If you're in a play and in rehearsal you come up with a new idea, the director's going to say, I'll call the playwright tonight and we'll see if we can incorporate that. So I've had situations where Denzel Washington, this movie, he calls me up one night, It's like 9.50. He said, I'm sorry to call so late. No, it's okay. What is it?

He says, I have a question about the script. So I go, all right, here it comes. Here it comes. I'm going to be all right. I'm going to be on the phone for an hour. He says, like on page 52, when I leave Kevin Pollack, I say, ciao.

I don't think I say ciao. Can I just say see ya? And I go, yeah, sure. And he's like, no, that's it. I know, you could not go with the feather because most American movie stars would have a long conversation about their childhood or whatever.

I did a movie, another movie I'm fond of, which is called Possessed, which nobody's seen, which is kind of my version of The Exorcist. And I had Christopher Plummer and Timothy Dalton, kind of like Academy Award-winning Shakespearean actors. So Timothy Dalton says, I want to talk to you about this scene, the last scene of the movie. It's very important for my character.

I go, oh, my God, I'm following my own schedule. I can't hear it. I go, what is it? He says, I think in this scene it would be better if I said nothing. I go, excuse me, what? I think this scene would be more powerful if I said nothing. I go, excuse me, what? I think this scene would be more powerful if I said nothing in the entire scene. I go, okay. And he was right.

But again, you don't have that too much with movie stars saying, I want to talk less. Yeah. Right. Is there one you regret that you don't? There's one I regret. Well, there's movies like, the joke joke is who do you have to like screw to get on get on this movie is who do you have to yeah on on beverly hills cop 3 was in development so long that it morphed and morphed and morphed to the point where eddie said i don't want to be

funny i want to play a more serious role and the last memo i got was to take jokes out of the script oh gee oh my hell and uh the budget got slashed too whereas uh originally we had this theme park that was a brutal takedown of disney it was it was a great parody of the whole disneyland scene you know everything is tm and everything is stamped and everything is you know all and as the budget got slashed we had to like not have the rides we were inventing we had to like recycle so like we took the earthquake ride from universal studios and pretend that it was alien attack because the budget was our budget was so low for this paramount movie uh that we had to go to universal and just film the earthquake ride as

it was but pretending that things are happening not because of an earthquake because aliens are attacking so the entire budget for that the entire budget for the alien attack ride at our fictional theme park was a sign that said alien attack this way with uh with people in line so um and also i was i was out of the country normally the writers guild they're supposed to show you a movie uh before it comes out in case you want to use a pseudonym. You know, like Alan Smithy, a lot of the directors do Alan Smithy. You can put a pseudonym on it. So I was out of the country. They didn't show me the movie.

And after I was finished taking out jokes for Eddie, they brought in more writers to take out more jokes. So had I known the finished product, I probably would have done some thinly disguised pseudonym like... Adam Azer. There you go. Yes. That would have done some thinly disguised pseudonym like – Adam Azer. There you go. Yes. That would have been perfect.

I would have taken that. That movie, when I get my residual checks, I go to the cash machine with my collar up and my hoodie. I want to ask you one last question. We love Die Hard. It's one of the best, if not the best, of its genre. Why does it have the legacy that it has? What is it about Die Hard that makes it the classic action film? Well, I think that on a certain sort of deep level, a deep dive now into nerddom, it fulfills the basics, the absolute ground rule basics of drama going back to Aristotle. It's a unity of time, place and action. Not everything has that. So that makes it a very intense experience. It feels like it's a unity of time place and action not everything has that so that makes it a

very intense experience it feels like it's happening in real time in other words like there's nobody goes to sleep nobody wakes up the next day you don't see autumn leaves so there's there's a hyper intensity to it feeling like it's in real time also the hero is a very identifiable guy because as soon as he gets the limousine comes and he sits in front, he's like an average guy. And we painted him as an average guy, particularly in contrast to the villains. So everything that we could do as filmmakers to make you identify with that character like works. Furthermore, the character does not walk in like stallone or schwarzenegger with veins popping you know uh so you say to yourself oh i could i'd probably do that to save

my my loved one i mean not that that remotely you could remotely do that but you can fantasize and identify with that character more so than you can with Neo in the Matrix, for example. Having said that, if it weren't for Bruce Willis playing that part, I don't think you would have Keanu Reeves as an action hero or even Liam Neeson. He broke the mold that you had to be this staggering physical specimen to be an action star or that you had to be a martial artist like Steven Seagal or John Claude. It said, okay, a normal-looking guy can be a hero. And I think that we've had a lot of these really interesting movies since then because he really broke ground there. Well, Steven, we kept you a long time.

And we've done this show for about 10, 11 years now. That's going to be one of our favorite episodes. Thank you so much for coming on. Wait a minute. Adam, can you admit now once and for all that Die Hard is a Christmas film? As long as I don't have to admit that Jerry Maguire is a sports movie, I will admit that.

Those are separate conversations. That Die Hard is the best Christmas movie ever made. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. There you go. It only took eight years. I'm happy to be of service. Thank you for everything you've done. Thanks, man. Thank you, Stephen. There you go. It only took eight years. I'm happy to be of service. Thank you for everything you've done.

Thanks, man. Fantastic. That's it for us here on Fantasy Football today. We'll talk to you next week.