Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Ken Kwapis

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

Gilbert and Frank talk to Emmy-nominated TV and film director Ken Kwapis about working with primates, borrowing from Buster Keaton, falling in (and out of) love with movies, adapting "The Office" for American television and his new memoir, "But What I REALLY Want to Do is Direct." Also, Charlie Chaplin walks a tightrope, Alan Arkin (reluctantly) plays volleyball, Steve Coogan seduces a Keebler elf and Ken finds inspiration in "The Bellboy" and "A Night at the Opera." PLUS: "American Graffiti"! In praise of drive-in theaters! The cinema of Joan Micklin Silver! The comic mastery of Steve Carell! And Ken shares memories of Peter Falk, Faye Dunaway, Robert Redford and Captain Kangaroo! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star. With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White, Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Planning for a summer road trip? Check. Luggage? Check. Music? Check. Snacks, drinks, and everything we can win in a new game at Circle K? Check!

With Circle K's Summer Road Trip game, you can win over a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of $25,000. Play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week is a producer, writer, author, and an acclaimed Emmy-winning director of popular films and television shows. You've seen his work in feature films like He Said, She Said, The Sisterhood of

the Traveling Pants, License to Weigh, Sesame Street Presents, Follow That Bird, Big Miracle, Dunstan Checks In, The Robert Redford Star, A Walk in the Woods, and He's Just Not Into You, just to name a few. As a director, he's been an important part of some of the most successful and admired TV shows of the last five decades, including several episodes and the pilot of the Larry Sanders show, as well as episodes of amazing stories. Eerie, Pennsylvania, Eerie,

Pennsylvania. All right. See, I, I think I'm through for tonight. Yeah. That was an underrated show here in Pennsylvania. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Collapsal Podcast. And I did a quarter of the introduction.

Well, go back to that. Tune in next week and I'll tell the rest of the introduction. Pick it up from that part. We'll sew it together. From Erie, Indiana. Okay. And this is with a page in front of me. Joe Dante is going to be furious at you.

Yes. As well as episodes of amazing stories. Erie, Indiana. Freaks and geeks, the Bernie Mac show, happy-ish, Malcolm in the Middle, parks and recreation, and of course the office.

And directing several unforgettable episodes, as well as the pilot and the final series finale. In a long and fascinating journey that began when his parents gave him a Super 8 camera, at the age of 10, he's gone on to work with Steven Spielberg, Jim Henson, Robin Williams, Robert Redford, Peter Fult, Emma Thompson, Nick Nolte, Steve Carell, and Faye Dunaway, as well as amazing Colossal Podcast guests Jason Alexander, Jeffrey Tambor, Amy Ryan, James Caron, Dave Thomas, and Chevy Chase. His terrific new memoir, which doubles as a how-to guide, is called But What I Really Want to Do is Direct. And it's filled with memorable showbiz anecdotes as well as tons of useful and practical filmmaking advice.

Frank and I are excited to welcome to the show an artist of many skills, a fellow movie fanatic, and a man who seems like a nice guy, and a man who seems like a nice guy, which is why neither of us can understand why he lied to Captain Kangaroo, the talented Ken Wapis. Thank you for having me, and I can't believe that the headline is lying to the captain. Yes.

I mean, that's like beating up Mr. Rogers. Well, as long as we're talking about it, Ken, why did you lie to the captain? Well, the captain— It was a white lie. No, it was a white lie. My first job interview as a director was with Captain Kangaroo. No, my first job interview as a director was with Captain Kangaroo. He was the executive producer of something in the early 80s called the CBS Afternoon Playhouse. It was sort of CBS's attempt to cash in on the very popular ABC after-school special.

And I was asked to direct one. And Captain Kangaroo was the gatekeeper. He was the one who was going to decide whether I should get the job or not. So I met with him and it was actually a very curious interview because pretty quickly I kind of got the sense that Captain Kangaroo didn't know what to ask, didn't know how to interview a director, to be honest. And I thought later, you know, I guess the director, you know, like the big question on the Captain Kangaroo show was like, where do we put the camera to get the best shot of Mr. Moose or something?

So he finally just ran out of questions and he said, so Ken, how were your grades in school? And I was flabbergasted because in fact, I hadn't completed school. Because, in fact, I hadn't completed school. I was a graduate student in film at USC, but I left before completing my degree, and I left a number of classes incomplete. And, of course, at that time, if you let them go incomplete at a certain point, they'll turn into Fs. And I thought, oh, my God, this is like a setup. He's going to, like, call the school and ask for my transcript. And so I lied. I said, no, I got mostly A's.

So I basically lied about my academic record, and he was happy and gave me the job. But I really had a shuddering moment where I thought after I left the room, he's going to turn to his assistant and say, call that school and get his transcript sent over. Would have been great. He didn't send over Mr. Green Jeans to kick your ass? Only in dreams that I've had since then. Before we turn on the mics, Gilbert was reminiscing about auditioning. Yes, I auditioned for one of your movies. was reminiscing about auditioning. Yes. I auditioned for one of your movies.

And that movie was the acclaimed motion picture, Vibes. That's what I thought. That was going to be my guess, is that you came in for Vibes. Because I know we've met, and I just couldn't remember what picture it was. So that was, I'm sorry we didn't get to work on it together. And I hope we get to. What part did you audition for, Gilbert? Any memory?

Oh, I have no idea. The Cyndi Lauper part? Yes. And then I break into girls just want to have fun. I'm trying to think. I mean, I wonder if you might have been one of the explorers. Michael Lerner ended up playing that role.

I'll have to pull out the archives and see. I've got the casting sheets hiding somewhere. I'm in competition with Michael Lerner for the Jew parts. He did famously, and it's said a lot on this show, Ken, Gilbert famously lost a part to Billy Barty. Really?

Yeah. It's amazing. It's one thing to lose to Michael Lerner, but to lose to Billy Barty, who's basically a carnival freak. Dare I ask what role you've lost to Billy Barty? Those are bragging rights by the way. I think so.

Okay, it was one of Mel Brooks' finest films, Life Stinks. I have seen it. Yes, indeed. Yes. I have seen it.

You would have saved it, Gil. Yes. I would have changed it, pulled it around. But yeah, I was supposed to be one of the homeless guys. And at the last minute, they went with Billy Barty. Now, wait. So wait, did you guys have Mel Brooks on the show? And at the last minute, they went with Billy Barty. So wait, did you guys have Mel Brooks on the show? We never have had Mel Brooks.

Because Gilbert won't call him. We've surrounded Mel Brooks. We've had the two writers of Blazing Saddles. And a bunch of other people that work with Mel. And I lost to Billy Bartik because Verne Troyer was busy. Oh, my gosh. Well, Ken has a connection to Verne Troyer. My connection to Verne Troyer is very important, and that is in the early 1990s, I directed the film Dunstan Checks In, starring an orangutan and Jason Alexander.

And the studio, 20th Century Fox, did not believe that a real orangutan and Jason Alexander. And the studio, 20th Century Fox, did not believe that a real orangutan could do all the work required by the script. There was a lot of climbing through, ductwork up the side of a building. So they demanded that I build an orangutan suit and hire a small actor to get into that suit every day. it turns out the orangutan the actual animal actor the orangutan was great and the guy we hired to get in the suit never never did a day's work on on the show and that turned out to be verne troyer i remember at the end of the the show i had to you know wish him good luck and goodbye and i thought oh i hope this guy gets another job soon and like a year later he was mini me so yeah he's a star now i i don't want to do uh uh you know uh one better uh game but i i was in uh a very uh prestigious film funky monkey oh that's hard and hard to top that had orangutans and and i heard with that

it was like the second time they tried to film it the first time was with a a drunken french midget in a monkey suit. Well, all I can say is the orangutan suit that we built at the insistence of the powers that be at 20th Century Fox was a really beautiful, I mean, it was a very well-crafted suit that still looked like an ape suit. You know, no one was going to be fooled by this suit. And, you know, every day Vern showed up for work very dutifully,

and at the end of each day, I'd just come into his room, and I'd shrug and say, sorry, Vern, no work, nothing today. Wow. And I once auditioned for a TV show called Mr. Smith, and that was a talking orangutan. Yeah, Ed Weinberger's show. Yes, and I was a talking orangutan. Yeah, Ed Weinberger show. Yes, and I didn't get it. That's right.

That's the same orangutan that Joe Mantegna told us he had to escort around the lot. See, that orangutan works more than I do. Mr. Smith, well, tell us, you know, we love a guest who worked with a primate ken so and we asked you we asked jason about this and he told us about sammy you know what what was the experience for you no but here's the amazing thing and jason probably said this i mean orangutans are you know probably at the top of the list in terms of intelligence yeah you know among non-human mammals and um and so you could give sammy a lot you could give him notes essentially and he could you know hit a mark do a particular action take a beat then do a second action he could do a complicated series of things and there came a point during the shooting where i actually occasionally forgot i was directing an orangutan. And instead of talking to Sammy's trainer, I literally just started giving notes directly to the orangutan.

I love that. So orangutans are intelligent. Very, very. They share a lot of our DNA, yeah. What scares me now, because I've worked with them, but what scares me are the stories I hear about chimps. Well, I will say, boy, I didn't think we were going to talk so much about animals, but I have actually directed a capuchin monkey. Maybe I'm mispronouncing it. C-A-P-U-C-H-I-N.

I think you got it right. Like the one on Friends was a Capuchin monkey. Yeah. In a very memorable episode of Malcolm in the Middle called Monkey Butler. And the Capuchin monkey was just that. He's sort of a butler for one of the characters who was incapacitated at the time with a broken leg or something. And that monkey was great. But, oh my gosh, and I trust that both of you have seen this film, but without a doubt, the greatest Capuchin monkey role in the history of movies is Buster Keaton's The Cameraman.

Buster Keaton. Oh, yes, of course. Because in that film, he accidentally, running around the streets with his unwieldy camera, knocks over an organ grinder and the organ grinder's monkey. The organ grinder's monkey seems to be dead, and so Buster has to cart him off, but in fact he's not dead,

and he becomes Buster's accomplice in the film. It's a remarkable film on many levels, but the monkey's incredible. You gave me a segue there, Ken, which is who approached you at an early screening of Dunstan to tell you how much you enjoyed it? This was such a big, big, big moment for me. how much she enjoyed it. This was such a big, big, big moment for me. And I was actually, you know, it was at the premiere of the film.

And Gil, I hope you'll appreciate this. The premiere of Dunstan Checks In was held on a Sunday morning at 10 a.m. And I thought, oh boy, this is not exactly, this is not exactly get out the Klieg lights. And it was a little demoralizing. And I just, you know, before the screening, I was just in kind of a bad mood. But afterwards, people were coming up and congratulating me on the film. And one of the actors in the picture, Glenn Shaddix, wonderful actor,

who's no longer with us. Yeah. He came up with an older woman on his arm, introduced her as Eleanor Keaton. an older woman on his arm introduced her as Eleanor Keaton. And in fact, Glenn had brought Buster Keaton's widow to our screening. And she shook my hand and said, Ken, Buster would have loved this film. And all I can say is I probably could have just walked away and retired then. That's it. That's better than the Academy Award right there.

It is. How about that? How about that? And on top of that, not to get too deep into the weeds on this one, but there is a scene in Dunstan that I basically stole from Buster's film Steamboat Bill Jr. And Eleanor cited it. She said, you know, Ken Buster would have loved, in particular, the scene where Dunstan tries on all the hats.

And that is actually a fun scene in Dunstan Checks In. But in Keaton's film, Steamboat Bill Jr., it's just kind of a remarkable set piece. And of course, you know, what Buster can do with a dozen different hats is, you know, is just unbelievable. So I was doubly thrilled that she made that citation. What a great compliment. What's funny about Buster Keaton, well, with a lot of people, it's like there seems to be a weird film snobbery that you have to take sides with either Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin.

It is weird. You can't like both. Yeah. And God forbid you like Harold Lloyd as well. I don't know if that snobbery still exists, but I remember when I was coming of age as a movie watcher, it was literally like Buster Keaton was cinema, but Chaplin, although only one of the greatest stars ever, was merely filmed theater. There was a lot of people who made these distinctions. I thought, well, they're both pretty outstanding. I know people who think that way, who think that Kate in a cinema chaplain's too sentimental. Speaking of working with a monkey,

the circus. Oh my God, the circus is, that is, by the way, that scene where Chaplin's on the tight rope and it's not just one monkey. I think there were four or maybe five monkeys crawling all over him while he's attempting to do a tightrope act. And one of the monkeys, you have to see this shot again, manages to stick its tail right in Chaplin's mouth. It's really, it is really, it is eerie. I like that one. People don't talk about the circus too much. Somebody said on Facebook the other day there's a baby in the circus that's still alive that's 102. I have to find out about that.

Can you believe that? Somebody just posted it. The baby won't remember anything, but we have to have it on the show. We'll get the baby. I think it's fun, Ken. He'd be our youngest guest. Are you a horror fan? Are you a fan of the old Frankenstein fun, Ken. He'd be our youngest guest. Are you a horror fan? Are you a fan of the old Frankenstein pictures, Ken?

I'm not as big a fan as other people, but I certainly, as a young person, I've watched a ton of horror films. And this is not a horror film per se. It's a monster movie, but I would say one of the most traumatic movie-going events of my young childhood was being taken to the drive-in to see King Kong vs. Godzilla, a film that is, if I may, I hope I'm not insulting too many King Kong or Godzilla fans, it's pretty laughable, but when I saw it, I hid under the dashboard of my father's car. I was so terrified by the spectacle of a man in a Godzilla suit pummeling a guy in an ape suit. Everything old is new again. Yeah, we were discussing another Godzilla one.

I always forget the title but it's where they uh build a robot uh king kong to battle god that might be king kong escapes yeah i get i and i always thought why did the robot have to look like king kong they just build a robot because he's because king k Kong is one of the stars. Yes. It has to look like him. And everything old is new again. There's a King Kong Godzilla movie coming out this month. I know. I live not too far from Warner Brothers, and I drove past a billboard for it, and it just gave me the shivers.

It took me back to my five-year-old self. I thought, oh, I'm not going to see that. My five-year-old self, I thought, oh, I'm not going to see that. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast after this. Tell us about the Skyview Theater. That was the name of the drive-in? We talk a lot about movie theaters, childhood movie theaters with our guests. And you talk in the book about how you view movie theaters as secular houses of worship.

I really do. In fact, I feel like I remember where I saw certain films more clearly than I remember my relatives' birthdays. So it's like... And the Skyview? Tell us about it. And is it still around? The Skyview is actually having a great moment right now because of the pandemic. It's been around since the 40s,

and it must have been one of the original drive-ins in the Midwest, and I saw many, many films there, including I went to see Lawrence of Arabia at the Skyview drive-in, and all I can say is the screen, the drive-in screen is not remotely the right aspect ratio to capture david lean's huge widescreen vistas so i think imagine occasionally you know i just saw like a couple of noses poking in from either side of the frame

did they what they have like a uh what were you saying in the book they had a merry-go-round and pony rides oh yeah i mean i think there was much more attention to what the kids were playing on before the movie than the movie itself. And usually if I saw a film in the summertime, the sun was still out when the movie started. So the image never looked particularly great. I hope my Belleville, Illinois pals are not going to be angry at me. But sometimes watching a movie in the middle of the summer was not that easy at the Skypen. But there was always a pony ride. There was, again, a lot of swings, a little Ferris wheel as well.

That's nice. That was back when movie going was an event. Gil, did you ever go to drive-ins as a kid? Your family didn't have a car? We had a car, but never went to a drive-in. Interesting. You know, I remember seeing Tony Rome in a drive-in. Does that mean anything to anybody?

Sinatra, Sinatra detective movie? Frank Sinatra, yeah. Maybe with Jill St. John or somebody? I do remember sneaking into drive-ins, like on foot. Like there'd be a fence around the perimeter and like hopping a fence in order to stand and watch a movie at the drive-in. I actually remember sneaking into movie theaters a lot because when I was a kid, this is before the rating system, before PG. There was like rated M movies, which in Belleville, Illinois, they weren't letting me into. So I remember sneaking in to see films. I think even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid may have been rated M at the time.

I'm not sure what for, what was particularly mature about it. But I definitely remember sneaking in to see Dirty Harry, sneaking into the back door to see Dirty Harry, maybe even Bonnie and Clyde. Wow. And I heard stories that families, I hope it's true, they would hide their kids in the trunk of the car. Still going on to this day, I'm sure. Well, drive-ins are experiencing experiencing resurgence because of the pandemic.

The Skyview has a lot of people attending right now. And I think during the pandemic, since there weren't a lot of new movie releases, they were doing like, you know, 80s night or, you know, showing a double bill of a couple of John Hughes films or maybe a couple of, I know Gremlins was there one night

and I think Follow That Bird, I think Sesame Street Follow That Bird was shown at the drive-in. You were represented. I was represented. And I have a few celebrities like Jerry Lewis and people like that who I can use the classic line, well, he was always nice to me.

Now, that leads me to you knew Faye Dunaway. Mm-hmm. It's Jerry's birthday, by the way. Yeah. We'll mention that. Because she's one of those that does not have a good reputation. Well, she does not. And when I met her, and she played, by the way, the villainess in Dunstan Checks In.

But when I met her, she was very upfront about her reputation. And she said that to me partly to assure me that she was going to be focused and diligent and do her work and not be a prima donna. And in fact, she was great. I actually, so I'm not the right person to ask about Faye Dunaway's, you know, bad behavior on the set, because in fact, I had a great time working with her. She was also really excited to do Slapstick, to do Pratt pratfalls the climax of dunstan uh the title character leaps from a chandelier on to faye dunaway who falls backwards into a giant cake and she just couldn't wait to fall into a giant cake and i she's and she and she said to me she goes ken i will fall into that cake as many times as you want and i remember remember actually thinking, well, I don't want to let her know that our budget won't allow

for more than two of these big cakes, so it better work in two days. You were attracted to that, the pie fight, the cakes. You wanted to do slapstick. You wanted to try your hand at that sort of classic Keaton slapstick or Stooges slapstick.

Yeah, I think what, I mean, what it was mainly is that there's a lot of physical comedy and sight gags and in the script and i thought what a great op and you don't always actually get a chance uh to really you know kind of i don't know just kind of focus on sight gags visual comedy and i thought i'm just gonna make i'm gonna make a real study of sight gags while i'm working on this film hence buster keaton uh but i also you know thinking about faye falling into that cake i watched the great pie fight scene

from blake edwards the great race one of my favorites which apparently they used you know thousands of pies when they shot that scene yeah it must have it looks like it was the movie the movie is is is you know not entirely successful but but they they look like they were having an absolute blast making it they were having too much fun actually no but but i but speaking of jerry lewis though i mean when i was prepping dunstan i thought a lot about you know kind of wonderful comedy set in hotels and like at the top of the list is the bellboy, you know, Jerry's directorial debut. And there's so many, there's so many great, wonderful scenes in that.

And I don't think we, I don't think I, I don't think I pilfered anything from the bellboy, but I definitely was inspired. I mean, I'm inspired by Jerry Luce's framing and how he sets the camera, how he works within the frame, how he uses off-screen space. I just think he's pretty brilliant. Interesting. And speaking of Jerry, you talk in the book about Video Village. Well, yes. Jerry, of course, is partly to blame for what I think is something that's grown out of control on most sets. And I trust that your listeners know what Video Village is, but if not, I'll explain it simply. And that is that a video feed from the film or digital camera

is sent to a conglomeration of chairs where the director, the script supervisor, producers, studio executives all huddle and basically watch the director directors work on a monitor. And I think that, I mean, I always, when I talk to young directors, I encourage them to not sit at the monitor, to not sit in the video village, to not be surrounded by all these people, but to actually get off your butt and stand next to the camera and be near the actors so that when you call a cut and the actors look up, you know, eager for some approval or some notes that the first face they see is the director. But, you know, by and large, a lot of, you know, I don't want to say by and

large, a lot of directors much prefer to spend, you know, spend the shooting day sitting in a chair watching basically a television image and and again not to get too deep deep into this but i think what happens is if you're sitting in video village that's where all the decisions get made and oftentimes the decisions get made by committee because you're surrounded by a lot of people who you know feel like they need to have their voice heard again for me it's old old stuff, but stand next to the camera. That's the place to be. And I always ask this of our guests.

What's the first sign you're working with a bad director? Oh, my gosh. You know, well, here's the funny thing is I have a hard... I don't know how to answer that because I rarely watch other directors. That's the weird thing about being a director. I can't say that I've really observed a lot of directors, but I do... I would say this is just one of many things that would be a sign. I do think that a director's job is to really create an atmosphere where people feel, you know, acknowledged and respected and safe and free to play. But I think a lot of directors, you know, operate in a different way and they sort of

want to keep everyone in a very tense, you know, everyone feeling a little bit panicky and tense. Intense, you know, everyone feeling a little bit panicky and tense. And for me, I mean, again, great films have been made by sadists. But for me personally, I'd much prefer, you know, creating an atmosphere where people feel like they want to come to work. You know, you talk about it in the book that by you standing right next to the camera, it's almost like you're in it with the actor. Right. There's a direct collaboration. I mean, you're not across the room. You're engaged. Well, it's also, if you're acting in front of the camera, you can sense the director's presence there. So again, it's hard to kind of quantify it,

but just knowing that your director is standing by, I think sort of just kind of helps the actor feel at ease and, again, free to play. And the other thing, too, is that when you're standing next to the camera, you can see what's going on off camera in a way that you can't if you're like 25 yards away looking at a video monitor. Interesting. can't if you're like 25 yards away looking at a video monitor interesting so for instance if i'm setting up a shot of you and and we're and there's a person off camera and they might do something really interesting and if i'm there watching it i can go oh that's a great idea let's make sure we capture that you know during a take as opposed to again having your view sort of uh restricted by looking only at a monitor. Gil, you've been in plenty of movies.

You don't have to name any names. Have you gotten bad direction or bad notes? Oh, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the funny thing is I find with the thing that I'll have a problem with directors, you have a problem with everybody in the world. And that's people who have to justify their own position. Yes.

It's like if you hired me as your decorator, I wouldn't have to see a place. I just go, that couch is horrible. Get rid of that table. The carpeting is ugly. I think we find that disease among agents and managers more than we would like to. And publicists. Well, I think also what happens on a set is that people come from the studios or from the networks. They're sort of assigned to go and kind of babysit the show or the film. And they feel like they have to justify being there by offering, God forbid, an opinion. So I think that, and again, even as a director, sometimes I think the smartest director knows when to actually shut up and

let people do their thing too. And I, cause you don't like focus groups. He talks about it. You talk about it in the book. Yeah. I, I don't, I don't, I can't say that I've met anyone who likes focus groups, but I, but I, one of the things that I've experienced with focus groups, and this is, of course, while testing a cut of your film is that there's always a weird dynamic within the focus group. And there's always some loud mouth who, you know, fancies him or herself like a film expert and who can spout off things that kind of sway the rest of the group.

And there are some people in the focus group who are very mild-mannered, very shy, and they don't, like in any group dynamic, they don't feel comfortable kind of expressing their opinion. And so I find that, I mean, again, I hate to be so damning of the whole thing, but I feel the focus group process is so it doesn't it creates a lot of misleading information about how a film's playing well i when i was on that bad season of saturday night live uh nbc or someone decided let's get a group together of just people off the street where you give them all like ten dollars

and a can of soda and and they were they were gonna help make the show good with the questions they had and one of the questions i remember were do you think uh that there are two actresses on this season who look too much alike. That was going to help the show. Oh my gosh. That is, oh my gosh. At least they didn't think you were a Navajo like Woody Allen did when he saw you.

Gene Dumanian, who produced that season, apparently showed Woody Allen, her friend. Yeah. She had clips of everybody who auditioned for this show. Oh, my gosh. So she brought Woody Allen in, and he sat in the room with her and watched.

And the whole time he was stone-faced, look at everything. time he was stone-faced look at everything and then my clip came on and for the first time he spoke after hours and he said is he a Navajo Indian it's so good I I don't think I'm ever going to be able to look at you the same way, Gil. It's one of the big laughs in the book, Henzo. I'm going to bring it up. The 11-year-old kid who stood up at Vibes, was that a screening? Was that a focus? It couldn't have been a focus group with a child.

No, this was a preview screening of the film Vibes. And afterwards, there are audience surveys that are handed out with a lot of questions and at the end of the survey you can you know there's just a space where you can say any additional comments you want to make right here and and and a 10 year old because the surveys said what's your age a 10 year old wrote totally A 10-year-old wrote, totally unreleasable. That's so funny. I promise you, I still have that survey hiding somewhere. It's hilarious. And I've often wondered what happened to that kid. And my hunch is I'm probably working for him now.

You may be. Tell us a little bit about Falk, who's a favorite of ours. And you worked with him again on Larry Sanders. I worked with him a couple of times. And I would say on vibes, I'll just be honest. I mean, he was the most formidable actor I worked with in my then young career. I mean, he's like, you know, on every level. with in my then young career. I mean, he's like, you know, on every level. And I've found myself scrambling every now and then to figure out how to direct him. But I did actually become pals with

him over the course of the shoot. And at one point, I asked him if he would talk about his collaboration with John Cassavetes. I just was, you know, so excited to hear how they worked together. And Falk said that more often than not, the notes that Cassavetes would give to Falk made no sense. They were totally confusing. And Falk didn't understand. Literally, he didn't understand them. And finally, in frustration, while working on one film, I'm not sure which, Falk pulled John Cassavetes aside and said, I don't understand what the fuck you're talking about. And Cassavetes confided to Falk and said, I know, because if I gave you a note that you could make sense of, you'd turn it into a cliche. cliche. So there was a method to this madness, that he wanted to keep the actor's performance fresh by kind of keeping them in a weird state of confusion. What I wrote in my book is that

I have certainly over the course of my career given some very confusing notes, but not with such a great, brilliant agenda as Cassavetes. Which leads me to what is the worst note you've got over the years? And I know you've probably been asked that question, but maybe from a network executive, and you don't have to be that specific if you don't want to be. I have to think about that. You know what? Let me think about that.

Think about it and get back to us on that. I was going to say, I'll use my auxiliary brain to think about that while I answer another question. Okay. And you talk about a movie that is a favorite of mine, and that's Night Moves. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, Arthur Penn's film with Gene Hackman. I mentioned it in my book because of one line of dialogue that Gene Hackman has when he says to another character, he says, I just saw a film by Eric Romer. It was like watching paint dry, which is a line that I've

heard many variations of, especially when I was in film school. I feel like this was a favorite insult that film students would use with each other. If you showed a fellow student your film, your rough cut of your film, they might say, oh, my gosh, that was like watching paint dry, which I thought was a pretty horrible thing to say. watching paint dry, which I thought was a pretty horrible thing to say. And there's another line in that movie where he's watching a sports event on TV, and his wife walks in, and she goes, who's winning? And he says, neither one. One team's just losing faster than the other. I love that.

I wonder, do you remember who wrote that? I should find out who wrote that script. I'll look it up while you guys are talking. But you reference a lot of films in the book that were catalysts for you. No bigger one than American Graffiti. Yeah, American Graffiti really just had a really strong personal effect on me. And I think part of it was I saw it when I was 16. I was, you know, living in a small town in southern Illinois. I had no clue what I was going to do with my life. I loved the idea of making movies, but I had no idea how one went about doing that. And so when I watched that film, I mean, especially the story

arc, Richard Dreyfuss's character's story arc, it really moved me because here was a guy who was dead set against leaving town. And over the course of this one pivotal night, he completely does a 180 degree move and decides to leave town. And I think I needed to see a story about someone deciding to get out of their small town. And literally, I think it changed the direction of my life. And before anything else, this is the kind of stuff that bugs me. The line is, And neither one, one team is just losing slower than the other one. Yeah, so that wouldn't bug me. Anyway, I remember Melanie Griffith was in that.

Yeah, absolutely. I think Ed Binns was in it. Edward Binns. Alan Sharp is the writer. Oh, yeah. I'm told. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm told. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another movie that you reference, and this is kind of about your directing style, too.

You mentioned Jerry Lewis before. You're talking about the king of comedy in the book and how Jerry and De Niro purposely avoided one another, that it was an actor making a choice. I guess it was De Niro's choice. I think it was De Niro purposely avoided one another, that it was an actor making a choice. I guess it was De Niro's choice to not have anything to do with Jerry during the shoot. And you think that actors should spend as much time together as possible. Right. I mean, I think that especially due to the fact that, you know, when you're rehearsing, whether it's a film or a television show, you rarely get much rehearsal time. or a television show, you rarely get much rehearsal time. So often you're telling a story about, let's say, characters who have had a long time relationship, who are best friends,

who've been friends for life. And the actors meet each other one day before you start shooting. So how do you create a sense of, how do you create a bond between them? How do you create the illusion these characters these people have been best friends forever so you want to you know figure out ways it's it's less important for me to like put scenes on their feet than it is to just figure out opportunities for the actors just to get to know each other to develop a shorthand and i mentioned the king of comedy as the opposite in the sense that you know you know de niro plays this you know plays this borderline sociopath, and as much as he admires the actor, as much as he admired Jerry Lewis, he felt it was important to keep his distance from Jerry Lewis while making that film. Just the better to kind of underscore the tension between the characters. It's interesting that you think actors should, they benefit actually by fraternizing more.

Yeah, it's funny. I talked to Steve Carell about this. He told me about working on the film Little Miss Sunshine. Again, a wonderful film with a very low budget. Yeah, it's a great film. They had a small budget. They had not a lot of prep time and the directors according to steve uh had the cast gather one afternoon for a volleyball game

and if i'm not mistaken one of the actors well it's alan arkin right he won an oscar for that and alan arkin i think was very grousey about the whole thing and like you know i'm an Academy Award winner. Why do I have to fucking play volleyball? But Steve said that, and the other actors were all like, all right, let's do the volleyball game. But what Steve said is that it really was effective in creating a shorthand within the ensemble so that once they started shooting, especially when the ensemble is stuck in this VW van for many, many scenes,

again, they had sort of created a shorthand with each other and a relationship between them already existed. I think Carell, since you brought him up, is a comic genius. And he's such a wonderful man to work with, too. And I will say, I directed the pilot of The Office in about, oh gosh, a dozen or so more episodes. And I used to pride myself on getting to the set really early to just stand there alone and figure out my shots. And invariably, whenever I got to the Dunder

Mifflin set, even if it was like an hour before call, Steve was there. He was already there. He was in Michael Scott's office just preparing his work for the day. So I think he's such, he's very focused, he's very diligent, and he set a great tone for the whole group on that show. I told you, my wife and I love the show. We can't stop watching it. And we watch it over and over again. But Steve Carell and Rainn Wilson stand out particularly as brave actors, as guys who will completely commit. Oh, you know, you told me that you really enjoyed that episode, Booze Cruise. Yeah, I love Booze Cruise. oh you know what i you told me that you really enjoyed that episode booze cruise yeah i love booze cruise so as i recall steve was actually doing double duty i think he was actually doing you know doing scenes from a feature on the weekends he was like he was overextended

and yet when we got to that scene in booze cruise where he does that crazy dance how brave he i not only how brave but he wouldn't stop he went you know take after take after take and and it's i don't i mean i was exhausted standing there not moving watching him but he and he just you know he wanted to keep pushing himself and he keeps finding you know new this is just about his work on that show in general, but he's constantly looking for new kind of aspects to that Michael Scott character. He's always finding a new kind of way to shade that character. So, again, I hope every director gets to work with him. That's nice. A show that was so well-past.

Tell us about Rip Torn. That's nice. A show that was so well-past. Tell us about Rip Torn. You know, Rip Torn, it's so funny because Rip Torn is probably the reason I have much of my gray hair. But I do actually, weirdly enough, and I'm sure you've had this experience where somebody who really made your life difficult, you end up still having a lot of affection for. Maybe that's not so uncommon. I mean, Rip was on the surface, really, I mean, he was a handful and he would routinely march up to me and write in my face, and I hope I'm okay to use an expletive on this podcast

i have a certain amount you have to use we have a quota yeah okay well i'm gonna i'll get close on this no he would just come right up to me inches away from my face and yell ken this whole fucking thing sucks and i and i wouldn't and i wouldn't have any idea what he was talking about. And I quickly realized that the best way to deal with it was to simply agree. So I say, yes, you're right. It sucks. This really sucks. And finally, I'd throw in, and what sucks exactly? sucks exactly yes you you described the whole sit larry sanders experience and by the way i was telling you this in an email i mean two two arguably the greatest single camera comedies of of the last the last 30 years of larry sanders and the office and you've been an integral part of both of them but you call it a white knuckle ride in the book. Well, it was complicated on many levels. I mean, part of it was, you know, Gary's personality is very complicated, but it was also, it was just logistically a crazy show. Nobody knew what it was, and yet it required real life celebrities to be the, quote, guest stars on the show within

the show. And so we were constantly, well, not we, Gary was constantly scrambling to get people to appear on the show. I mean, once it aired and received all this critical attention, then people were kind of falling all over themselves to be guests. But at the beginning, it was difficult. But I will say that, you know, this is something I actually didn't mention in the book, and I'll just say it briefly, that I hadn't done a lot of television before The Larry Sanders Show. And when I started as a director, I kind of, you know, and I'm hardly alone, I like look, I look down on TV. I mean, like a lot of, you know, young filmmakers, I felt, you know, if you're a television director, you're like,

good luck ever getting a feature off the ground. And if you're a feature director, why would you possibly want to direct television? And I kind of had that bias for a number of years until in the early 90s, I was sent a half hour comedy script. And I remember literally thinking to myself, should I even open this envelope? This is the slippery slope. It's a sitcom. After this, no one will take my feature directing seriously. And it was the pilot episode of The Larry Sanders Show. And I remember reading it thinking, oh, well, huh, this is not like any show on the air.

And moreover, it's not like any film playing in a theater right now. I mean, it really felt like. It was unique. It felt like the guys who wrote it, Gary and Dennis Klein, were sort of kind of reinventing the game a little bit. Now, there's a story with Gary Shandling. I don't know if you know anything about it, where Gary Shandling was worried that some manager or something was bugging his phone calls.

Oh, that was the whole thing with Brad Gray. Yeah, and at first it sounds insane. It sounds like Gary Shandling's gone nuts. And then they found out it was true. You know what? I'm not surprised to hear that. I wish I could say I was close with Gary and verify it. I was not really that close with him.

And I think that his relationship with Brad definitely deteriorated, but it was after my tenure on the show. They're both gone now. Yeah. What did he say to you? It's a wonderful line in the book. He said, I'm not an asshole, but. Oh, yeah. You know, when I met him.

No, it's when I met Gary. Gilbert and I both knew him a little bit. Well, you know, I met him to get the job, to do the pilot and to work on the show. And I remember asking him if he could sort of boil down the whole show to like a simple sentence, a concept, a mission statement, a mantra, something. I said, you know, if I'm ever in doubt, give me the thing to think about, the one liner that the show is. And he thought about it for a moment. And then he he said this is a show about whether or not i'm going to

become an asshole and there was a pause and he said i'm not an asshole but i have the potential and i remember even in that moment thinking wait who who is he talking about is he talking about is he talking about is he talking about himself is he he talking about Gary or Larry? And I figured out pretty quickly that what's compelling about the show is that it's about that weird gray area between Gary and Larry. Gary's house of mirrors, you describe that. Yes, indeed. Yeah. And you talk about Nineth the Opera. Oh, well, I love that film.

I love just about every Marx Brothers film. But the stateroom scene from A Night at the Opera played a mainly set in the Dunder Mifflin conference room, which is not a big room. And there was a suggestion made by one of the producers that maybe we take a scene in that conference room and move it out into the much more spacious bullpen, you know, give the actors some elbow room, give the crew some elbow room. And I couldn't put my finger on it, but I just felt certain that having the characters in this confined space was right, both for the story and for the comedy. And I kept trying, I was racking my brain trying to come up with an antecedent. And of course, then it hit me, the stateroom scene in A Night

at the Opera, which has, you which has that tiny room with probably, I tried to count them, I think it's a dozen people crammed into that room, not to mention a steamer trunk or two. Right, right. And again, it just seemed like that's all I needed to remember. I mean, when I thought of that scene, I thought, yeah, we have to stick this whole, the whole episode could take place in the conference room. That's right. There is something about good comedy in closed spaces. People, the tension created by that,

by people on top of one another. Well, also with the office, in addition to the employees who are stuck in this conference room having to, you know, kind of endure this kind of lame brain diversity seminar that Michael Scott puts on, there's also the, quote, camera operator. The documentary team is stuck in there with them. So it just, again, added to the claustrophobia in a way that there's a camera like sort of right in everyone's face as they're having to kind of deal with this diversity seminar. It's interesting that every, you know, you know that every success is, you know, every successful film or television show

is in a way a happy accident. That things have to go right and the stars have to align. You didn't have a lot of faith in the office working. Here's this very, very dark British comedy. You didn't have a lot of faith that this thing was going to, that an adaptation for American television, such a dark, downbeat show, without a laugh track, without music, was going to fly. Well, what worried me was that a broadcast network wouldn't let us replicate the darker edges of that original show.

And I mean, I had faith. Well, I certainly had enough faith to take on the job. I did have several friends who said to me, you know, you're going to get killed. Critics are going to kill you. People love that show. Are you crazy thinking you can remake it? But I feel like we, you know, the show found its voice. And again, all credit to the showrunner and creator of the American version, Greg Daniels, that he convinced NBC to kind of, you know, to back off and let us do some very unconventional things. Again, no laugh track, no music.

No music. Other than that tiny little ditty at the beginning of every episode, there's no underscore. There's nothing to cue the audience that something funny is going on. And in fact, a lot of times what's most memorable about the show, or at least at the beginning, are these weird deadpan stares from the Dunder Mifflin employees who don't quite know how to react to their boss's antics. Of course, perfect casting helps, too. Casting doesn't hurt. Now, one thing I brought up a couple of times on this show when we have composers and stuff and that's clumsy music in uh in a movie or tv show where when the music comes on you go okay here comes the music

i you know it's funny because i am a music lover i i and and I listen to all sorts of different music, but I would say over the course of my career, I've felt like definitely less is more when it comes to underscore, and I love orchestral sounds. I mean, I love the orchestra, but even, you know, I think the challenge for a composer sometimes is to take a big ensemble, an orchestra, and make them sound like a single violin. I'm hardly the first one to say that. But I think that for movie scoring, it's important to know how to take those forces and make them work to serve the scene as opposed to announce itself know great music it's what i hate is uh especially comedy funny scores for comedy scenes where it's like unless it's done ironically like larry does it on curb your enthusiasm yes i think that what happened in the uh early aughts was that the networks felt more comfortable about single camera comedies with no laugh track.

But in lieu of a laugh track, a lot of the networks said, well, you better have music to let the audience know it's funny. Oh, it's just painful. So that was actually – I always heard that from executives. Yeah, you can do your show without a laugh track, but you better fill it full of music. Well, it's like the Flintstones had a laugh track, and I was always thinking, so are there – I never thought of that. Is there a cartoon audience laughing at this? I never gave that any thought, Gilbert.

You're right. That's disturbing. You talked about too in the book how you've been pressured, maybe subtly, but maybe not, to include certain songs in a movie so that they can put it on a soundtrack album. Yeah. I'm not sure if this is as much the case now as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago. But once upon a time, it seemed like there were certain films that were simply excuses to put together a soundtrack album. And, you know, I've had more than one experience trying to finish a film where, you know, the studio said, we'd love for you to stick a song deep into the background of a scene simply so that we can include it on an album, even if it made no sense for the scene. So it's always a very frustrating thing. But I'm not sure that, you know what, I don't have the answer to this. I don't know if those kinds of soundtracks are done anymore.

I'm not sure that that's very important anymore. That's interesting. I like the music in A Walk in the Woods, by the way, very much. Yeah, terrific work. Really worked with the film. Very much. Oh, some terrific work. Really worked with the film.

The Lord Huron is the artist who did the majority of the songs. And what I hoped to do with those Lord Huron songs was kind of create that sense you get with The Graduate where you get Simon and Garfunkel doing a number of songs. You can think of a couple other examples like Cat Stevens and Harold and Maude. That's a good example. But anyway, so we were able to thread that band's songs throughout A Walk in the Woods, and it really, really helped the picture. Because it's funny, with The Graduate, now you can't imagine what the movie would have been without Simon and Garfunkel. Oh, I know. And none of those songs, well, maybe I'm wrong.

Was anything written for that? I guess Mrs. Robinson was written for that movie. Mrs. Robinson, I heard, was something like, they had a song already called, like, Mrs. Washington. And they said. I think it was Mrs. Roosevelt. Oh, yeah. And they said, all right, we'll change it to Robinson. Oh, and they wrote it for themselves and then changed it for the movie? Yes, they already had that in their pocket.

I think so. I think so. But that's a case where the music is one of the stars of the movie, and the same with Harold and Maude. Oh, yeah. They're such a part of the film. Oh, yeah. And I'm not sure, you know, I don't remember exactly. Or Leonard Cohen's music in McCabe and Mrs. Miller. McCabe and Mrs. Miller, yeah. They're such a part of the film. Oh, yeah. And I'm not sure, you know, I don't remember exactly. Or Leonard Cohen's music in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller, absolutely. Yeah, can't imagine it without it. I think actually Harold and Maude was my introduction to Cat Stevens. I can't recall whether I heard any of those songs before that. But, yeah, they're inseparable from the film. And there's a few examples of that in more recent times. And there's Jonathan Richman, who's an on-camera troubadour in There's Something About Mary. And then going back, one of my all-time favorites is, you know, Nat King Cole and Stubby K doing

the musical narration of Cat Blue. I don't know if you've seen that in a while. Yeah, sure. But it works. Oh, it's great. It seems like Martin Scorsese is very good at picking known songs and putting them into a scene. Yeah, it's funny because he has chosen, on occasion, incredibly familiar music and put it in the back of a scene. And then suddenly, for instance, now when I hear, you know, Derek and the Dominoes, Layla, I think of a scene and then suddenly for instance now when i hear you know derrick and the dominoes leila i think of a murder scene and good yeah you can't not think of it or if i you

know if you hear harry nielsen's jump into the fire i think of ray leota you know coked up ray leota you know trying to avoid those helicopters at the end of good fellas gilbert will find this interesting uh can talk a little bit about Redford, because A Walk in the Woods was something that he had developed years earlier and had planned it as a project for himself and Paul Newman. Yeah. The weird thing is, you know, Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a duo, they're such an iconic duo, and they made two movies. Two movies. That's it. That's it. Two movies. And A Walk in the Woods was going to be the third collaboration between the two. And Paul Newman worked, I was not

on the picture at the time, but Paul Newman and Redford developed a draft together. And then Paul Newman grew ill. And at one point, he called Redford and said, you know what, I don't think I'm going to be available to do this picture. And after one point he called Redford and said, you know what, I don't think I'm going to be available to do this picture. And after Newman passed away, Redford put the picture on the shelf. He just couldn't imagine doing it with anyone else. A few years passed and then Redford directed the spy thriller, political thriller, The Company You Keep, which featured Nick Nolte. And they'd never worked together. I'm not sure they, I mean, I'm sure they've crossed paths in the past, but they'd never worked together. They got on famously, and Redford decided to pull the script off the shelf.

And in fact, Nick, I mean, believe me, Paul Newman would have been phenomenal. But Nick really is that, I mean, he is that guy. He's good. He is Bill Bryson's washed up, washed out old friend cats. It's a good film. I recommend it to our listeners. And it's a sweet picture. Nolte showed up and put you in a headlock? Yes. Well, he didn't.

That wasn't our first meeting, but I will say one day we were out on the Appalachian Trail, and he got frustrated about something. I'm sure it was I was asking him to do multiple takes climbing up a hill, like delivering pages of dialogue. And just out of frustration in one moment, he grabbed me and put me in a headlock. And it was an affectionate headlock, if you can imagine such a thing. But it was a headlock. And later that day, I remembered, I actually got a laptop out and I Googled his biography to find out that, in fact, once upon a time, he played college football. So, in fact, he knows how to give a headlock, I promise you. I mean, you talk about the book, and when he showed up, he was so out of shape that you were concerned.

You thought, is this guy going to make it through this shoot? Well, I mean, he was out of shape, and the character is so out of shape. Yes, it works. It totally works. And there was a point over the course of the picture, though, where he, I mean, there was a lot of hiking in that movie and he started to get more and more in shape. He actually kind of, I mean, again,

I think he had a lot to say with this particular role. And needless to say, he's somebody who has had, you know, crazy ups and downs personally in his life. And again, I think he really loved the idea of, you know, kind of just embodying someone who every this character who people have just written off and finding a way to redeem this guy. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast, but first, a word from our sponsor. Now, another thing that we've discussed is years before the pandemic,

movie theaters were dying out. And it seems like the pandemic is just like the final nail in the coffin let's hope not well i'm not sure what to say i mean i think that my question is not whether people will go back to the movies after the pandemic my question is whether there will be movies for adults to see in the theater yeah that's because i think you know, what happened is the studios over the course of the past 10, 15 years kind of just bailed on adult audiences. Well, you're talking about in the book, even with Redford and Nolte, who were stars, you

know, it's difficult. Is there, you know, is there a slot for a picture like this? Oh, yeah. No, that was a film. I mean, it's hard to imagine a more all-American subject. You know, these two guys walking the Appalachian Trail. Bill Bryson's memoir is a very popular book. And they are two icons of the cinema.

How hard could it be to get a picture like that financed? Well, it turned out it was very difficult. And the funding for the film came from Korea, of all places. And in a slightly different era, that would have been a mainstream Hollywood studio project. And a lot of times I'll remember movies I've seen, or a movie will pop up on TV. And I always go, oh, no way in hell would that be in a movie theater nowadays. Well, we just talked about one, Night Moves. Yeah, Night Moves, no way. Perfect example.

Or American Graffiti. Or The Conversation or anything. Yeah, no, I think, how would those movies get made? Or Harold and Maude. Midnight Cowboy wouldn't be able to. Any of them. Well, they'd be Netflix originals, or they'd be on Amazon, or they'd be, you know, somebody would find a way through. But it'd be hard to find a wide release.

You know, it's funny. Last year, when The Irishman was released, both on Netflix and in a few theaters, I just made the commitment to see it in a movie theater. And the night that I went, the movie theater was basically empty. But I didn't move for the whole three-plus hours of that film. And I realized my experience of it was so enhanced by just being alone in a dark room, in a big dark room room watching it on the screen and there's no substitute and nowadays it's like you know you're watching something and you know you could click it on pause and you could go to the bathroom you can make yourself something to eat

and uh and it's like so this whole idea of being in one place where you have to watch the movie and you have to pay attention. Also, from a filmmaker's standpoint, you work really hard to pace a film. And if the audience is in control of the film, they are effectively changing the pace of the film. If you pause it to go to the bathroom,

you've changed the pace. People will pause it, stop, and watch the other half two days later. I mean, talk about changing the pace. And I know a couple of times I've heard this from people who said, oh, you know that part of the movie that's so scary where you jump up, order the movie that's so scary where you jump up, and they'll go, I watched it in slow motion, and I could see how phony it was. And I'm thinking, oh, God. I don't know if this is true, but can you watch a Netflix film slightly speeded up?

I don't. That's a good question. I don't know. I think that might be a feature that's available, but don't hold me to it. My dad used to talk about seeing Psycho in a theater and how Hitchcock had paced the film deliberately. You know, that it's a little slow going until Perkins shows up, Norman shows up, and the entire theater erupted in terror. And if you can't have that experience anymore. Oh, yeah. Hitchcock was really great about sort of the slow pace of some of those films, like Rear Window.

Rear Window, nothing seems to happen for the longest time. It's another good example, yeah. But it's like what you don't know is the director's really carefully planting the seeds so that when things really explode, you're like, you know, you're all the more riveted. Yeah. A scary movie or a funny movie, two things that you want to experience with other people around you. Oh, absolutely. It's a shared experience. It's just like watching a movie where the good guy shoots the bad guy and everyone's cheering.

And, you know, you don't get that experience uh in your living room oh and i think that if you're watching a horror film or a thriller and you're in a room in your living room with the lights on and other devices are going you're you're you're not going to be as thrilled period you haven't shared a wonderful experience with strangers there was uh uh when uh brian de palma was working with and now i'm getting a mental block on the composer oh uh bernard herman yeah bernard herman oh yeah and bernard herman was watching one of the movies they were doing and he said you know nothing's happening here and uh brian de palma said well you you notice with hitchcock nothing happens in the first half and

it all comes together and brian herman said to him they'll wait for hitchcock they won't wait for you well no well sadly he's he's right and and it's actually i've been in you know meetings where you try and argue to a studio executive that in fact the audience will will be grateful for the slow pace in the first act it's like forget it you cannot you know you cannot persuade someone that that you know all the studios want to do is sort of get that adrenaline rush within the first couple of minutes. Quick question from a listener, Ken. Mark Schatzberg, here's his question. He said, she said, discuss. I will ask – go ahead. But I was going to ask you, make it a little bit more specific. What is it like directing a film with a person? You weren't married to Marissa yet. No, Marissa and I were dating.

We lived together. We lived together, excuse me. And this was in 1990 when we made the film. And, I mean, the film is very personal. Marissa and I were out to dinner one night in the late 80s. Somebody asked us how we met, and we proceeded to tell these pretty wildly conflicting stories. And later, we laughed about it. And I can't remember who started the conversation, but I probably said, we should, like, come up with a film or something that would, you know, you would direct the woman's half,

and I'll do the guy's half. And she, without even thinking, just said, oh, yeah, let's call it He Said, She Said, which, believe it or not, was not a title that had been used before. There's some variations that people know. There's like the Beatles song, She Said, She Said. Right. But I credit my now wife, Marissa, with coming up with a phrase that became very quickly, very quickly became very ubiquitous. So Marissa coined the phrase. Yes. We'll give that to her.

That's cool. That's cool. And you have a story about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yeah. Well, I directed, no, excuse me. Let me take that back. I produced but did not direct the pilot of a show that eventually became the series Happyish with Steve Coogan. Originally, Philip Seymour Hoffman was going to play the lead in that series. And unfortunately, he passed away before we were able to of the pilot. And in the pilot, he plays a kind of angst-ridden advertising man who at one point is saddled with the task of coming up with a new campaign for the Keebler cookie company.

And in his angst, he has a dream, an actual nightmare. He's asleep. He has a nightmare about having sex with ma keebler the the elderly matriarch of the keebler elves and we shot the scene with it you know it's so it's a combination of live action and animation and we we replicated the scene a year or so later with Steve Coogan. And that was also, going back to focus groups and previews, we previewed the version of the show, the version of the pilot with Philip Seymour Hoffman. And I will tell you that when the sex with Ma Keebler scene unfurled, all i can say is it was like that scene in the producers when the audience is like stone-faced after the springtime for hitler number and um and and i don't know if you've

if you guys have been to these kinds of tests but this one had this weird thing where there were like these dials built into the chairs where you'd turn a knob to the right yeah you turn the knob to the right and that means you're happy you turn it to the left and it means you don't like what you're seeing i mean it's like so weird and so i i any everything about it's terrible but while the screening was going on i was able to monitor a graph like a live graph of like what these dial knobs were showing. And when the sex with Ma Keebler scene started, all the men in the audience turned their knobs to the right. They loved the scene. The graph just went way high. And the women

uniformly turned it to the left. mean in fact the you know the dial knob graph it went below the graph itself so did it end up in the coogan version oh yeah yeah it's definitely oh yeah it's definitely in there it made it in there and when they use a focus group a lot of times rather than having a realistic down ending, the focus groups want to go like, no, we want a happy ending. Oh, that is such a tricky part of this. And I've had that experience with a couple of films, including the film He's Just Not That Into You, which is a big ensemble, and not all the characters have happy endings. So Bradley Cooper's story ends unhappily, Scarlett Johansson's story ends pretty unhappily. And again, arguing to a studio that an audience actually is gratified to see stories that don't always end so cheerily is a challenge.

I can imagine. There's a silent movie that I'm drawing a blank on. I think the guy is a doorman or something. Oh, yeah, The Last Laugh. Yes. No, but that's the perfect example. That is the perfect example. Do you know that film, Frank? Is it a Murnau picture? Yes. That's the perfect example. That is the perfect example. Do you know that film, Frank?

Is it a Murnau picture? Yes. I saw it in film school many years ago. It's supposed to be like a heartbreaking ending to a heartbreaking story. And at the last minute, a scene that couldn't work in the worst comedy, they all of a sudden throw in that he wins the lottery and he becomes rich. Oh, yeah.

So even in the 20s, this was happening. Oh, yes. And I don't know if that was intended to be ironic or whether, because the scene that precedes the, you know, the kind of upbeat tag is like, I think you see the character played by Emil Jannings in a corner of a washroom, destitute. And suddenly there's a title card, and the next thing you know, he's driving in a Rolls. Well, Sunrise is another dark, tragic film with a happy ending. That one, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's another one. Oh, boy. It has to do with that real-life family where they all were in the same army troop and were killed. Well, not saving Private Ryan? It was a true story.

I think the movie's called the fighting sullivan that sounds yes i think that's it and they're uh it's supposed to be earlier in the picture their father's a train conductor and they're as little boys they know when this train is going by and they salute to him and he salutes back to them and then uh after uh they're killed there's an ending where the father's in the train and he looks up with tears in his eyes and gives uh like a very weak salute And then they fucking kill it by having like the boys there as ghosts with big smiles on their faces and giving him a big salute back. And I thought this would have been such a heartbreaking ending. Give me a legitimate tragic ending.

Do you like Herbert Ross's Pennies from Heaven, Ken? Oh, I love that film. Me too. In fact, not too long ago, I was just showing someone Chris Walken's great dance number in it. It's like he's unbelievable. Electric. He was an amazing dancer.

He's a hoofer, yeah. On the subject, going back to your wife, and I'm telling you this, she's made some good films, too. Very good films, like Old Enough and Permanent Record. Permanent Record, and then decided to move from one challenging career to an even more challenging career. She quit being a director to become a literary fiction author, and I'm happy to say has made quite a go of it. Good for her. And we also have to point out your late mother-in-law, who we lost last year, Joan Micklin Silver. Marissa's mother, Joan. And I will say that I meet so many young directors and young women directors who don't know Joan's work. And I think I'm just hoping people discover or rediscover her now that she's no longer with us. But so many great films.

Chili's Scene is a Winner, Between the Lines, Hester Street, Crossing Delancey. Well, we love Crossing Delancey on this show. I told you, we had Riegert here. And Crossing Delancey is a case of a romantic comedy that makes sense. romantic comedy that makes sense every other i i think uh jennifer aniston in an interview said it's it's not about the romance it's about the scheme and every romantic comedy has like a scheme like some wacky scheme and Delancey, just people. I will say that one of Joan's great talents was casting and discovering people. So people like Carol Kane.

Carol was on your show. Carol Kane, her first role was Hester Street. And people like John Hurd. And people like Rieger. I mean, I don't know how much Peter worked before. He had a role in Chili Scenes of Winter. Yeah, he's in it. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, but her casting instincts were like stunning. And also Finnegan Begin Again, which I believe she made it for HBO, which is wonderful. Oh, the other thing too, we were

talking about, uh, music in films and the idea of a pop pop singer like cat stevens or singer songwriter like cat stevens doing the you know the creating like a musical thread for a picture and that's the same in crossing to lancy the roaches the roach sisters oh yeah sort of a kind of a musical narration for that film yes good film i mean. I mean, we had Peter here. We gushed about it. It's great. And then there's this other thing that happens, because, you know, directors go to directing school and they have people they admire.

So there are movies that will throw in a pop song because they've seen Scorsese do it. It doesn't work with them, but they've seen it, so they'll throw in the song. Tarantino does it very well, too, actually. Tarantino does it very well. You cite Stuck in the Middle? Yeah. I mean, again, I don't think you can hear Stuck in the Middle anymore without thinking

of someone wielding a razor blade. But also, there was a lot of great songs, a lot of less-known pop songs from the 60s in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. No, he's very, very good at doing that. One of the things that stood out to me from the book, Ken, and it's early in the book, is you talking about, and it's sad really, Hollywood's obsession with box office takes. And obviously it's a business. It's the old conversation about art versus commerce. And obviously it's a business, but you talk about how many great talents, some of them over the years, just finally threw in the towel because all the work and all the art was always judged by weekend grosses and good people winding up in director's jail. My feeling is that, well, let me put it a different way.

I mean, like the big theme in the film is like how to figure out how to define success on your own terms. And I've had a lot of ups and downs. I've had films that do well. I've had films that do very poorly at the box office. And what I came to realize is that I don't really have any control over how well a movie does or whether people watch a TV show or whether critics like or dislike my work. So I can't control that.

So the only thing I can really control is the process of making the film or the show. So for me, that's become kind of my watchword. It's like, keep focused on process. And over time, the kind of ups and downs of the business will start to mean less and less because you'll just develop the resilience to, you know, yeah, you get a blistering review, get up, keep going, because actually the review is

not something you can control. I think about directors who disappeared. Martin Brest, after Gigli, I mean, and he made, we were talking about Yafikoto before passing away, Midnight Run, Beverly Hills Cop, Going in Style, which is a terrific movie, and he vanished. And you wonder. You know what? I love Martin Brest's films. I remember I fell in love with his, I think it was an NYU feature film he made called Hot Tomorrows. Yes. I've never seen it, but I know about it. Oh, it's great. And I think that was the film he made prior to getting hired to direct Going in Style for Warner Brothers. I'd love to see a Martin Brest film. I'm sorry that he is not working. No. I can't speak to why he's not working. He may have, you know, he may, for different reasons, decided not to do it anymore. But he made it so, I mean, Midnight Run, that's one of the great action movies ever. It's truly great.

Frank and I were discussing, you had a passage about falling out of love with certain movies. Oh, well, I would say, I mean, I've had that experience with a lot of movies because I have such intense feelings for movies. And the movie I was referencing in the book is a very important one, 2001 A Space Odyssey. And there was, you know, as a young person, I could quote dialogue from that film. I watched it innumerable times.

When I was in my 20s, I literally, I like turned on the film. I decided that it was sort of pretentious and boring and just overwrought and too many, you know, kind of pristinely composed shots. And I kind of gave up on the film for a while. more excited about different kinds of directors, the chaotic films of Cassavetes or the improvised films by Robert Altman. But what happened over the course of a couple more decades is I came back around and when I revisited 2001, I believe in the year 2001, it was like I fell in love all over again. And it was like meeting someone you've broken up with and realizing, like, why did I do that? Why did I, will you take me back?

By the way, Paul Brickman is another guy who vanished after Risky Business on a good movie called Men Don't leave men don't leave is a wonderful film and uh starring a then little known arliss howard yep yep and uh who plays uh louis b mayor yeah it's in manc in manc just so we just had ben mankowitz last week but these guys i you know you don't know what happens i know malik disappeared for a while because he was doing other things. But you just wonder why these guys – and he came back, fortunately. But the directors that make these terrific movies and then maybe they just don't have the fight in them or they just don't have the – they don't enjoy the experience. It's possible that it's – I mean it can be a very difficult experience. I don't know Paul Brickman.

I sure love those two films. Actually, Men Don't Leave is a terrific film. Really terrific. Jessica Lange, right? Terrific movie. And, yeah, I don't know what became of him. But, again, for all I know, he's like Terrence Malick. He's just taking a 20-year sabbatical.

Maybe. We hope they come back. We hope they come back. Okay, well, I don't know what happened to Gilbert. He's having technical difficulties. I'm going to ask you one more question from the list, and then I will wrap the show in Gilbert's absence, and we will go find out what happened to Gilbert. We will send out a search party. But before we get out of here, Martin Bowe, and we talked about Redford, wants to know simply what was Robert Redford like to work with?

What was your experience of the man? You know, here's the thing. Robert Redford was really gracious to me in the sense that he wanted to take off his directing hat, his producing hat. He wanted to focus on his performance. And Robert Redford is not someone who's known for light or comical performances. And the role of Bill Bryson has definitely got some comedy in it. So I think he was really eager to be directed. And I loved that. But the one thing I really loved about working with Redford, among the many things, is that every weekend, every Saturday night, Redford and I had dinner

together to discuss what we were going to shoot the following week. And I would bring the screenplay, but invariably, we never talked about work, or rather, we never talked about a walk in the woods. What we talked about was his like 50 years as an actor, director, and producer. And so every weekend, he would just go to a restaurant, and I would just ask all sorts of questions about, again, his creative journey. And he opened up about a ton of things, everything from doing a bit role in an episode of Route 66 to trying to persuade Elia Kazan to direct All the President's Men. Wow, yes.

I read about that in your book. Wow. So I feel like I couldn't have – I feel like, wow, talk about a privileged seat. I just got to sit there and listen to him wax nostalgic about this amazing career. With one of the icons of 70s cinema. So the book – I'm going to wrap because I don't know when Gilbert's coming back. He may have had a power outage

where he is down in Florida. So it's just me and Ken and Aristotle, our engineer. I'm going to plug the book, Ken. Thank you. Maybe at some point Gilbert will come back and we'll call you back and do a new ending. But for now, what I really want to do is direct. It's a wonderful read.

All kinds of goodies, not only all these anecdotes, and anecdotes that you didn't tell, that we didn't get to, because we want to save something for people to actually buy and read the book. But it's also a very generous how-to book. You're giving people and young people the benefit of your life experience in a very candid, very open, as I said, very generous way. So I applaud you for that. Thank you. I tried to keep it personal. Yeah. I hope you had fun with this.

Oh, I had a great time doing this today. Please give our best to Marissa and tell her that we love her work as well and sometime I'd like to ask what it was like working with Lou Reed. Oh my... That's worth a whole episode. So we will thank

Aristotle for this. Our wonderful engineer Aristotle Acevedo. We will thank Ken Kwapis. Folks, please get the book. You will love it. We do move a lot of books on this show, by the way, Ken. Oh, great.

And good luck with the Shags movie, which we didn't even get to talk about. Oh, Gilbert's back. Gil, welcome back. Yeah. My computer went out. It can't say anything at all interesting. He told stories about you.

I'm sorry, you're going to have to tell them all over again. He was talking about how he was treated to a private audience every week at dinner with the great Robert Redford. Oh, was it good? Story and show. But so far, I'm not that impressed with him. I think he's a pretentious asshole if you ask me. Will we ever get to see

the Sarah Silverman pilot, Ken? You know what? I believe you to see the sarah silverman pilot ken you know what i believe you can see the sarah silverman pilot somewhere on the internet i went looking for it but whoever it was took it down really oh my gosh sarah put it up i'll have to ask sarah please ask her to send it to you it's really cool and and uh among other things it features features the lovely Tig Notaro, who I had the pleasure of working with on her Amazon show, One Mississippi. Great talent. And also Jeff Goldblum. And Goldblum, yep, absolutely. Gilbert, this is one more thing for you before we go, and we're going to sew all this together somehow.

T.K.D. Sandberg, a listener, says, I was hoping that Ken would talk about Friday Night Dinner, a remake of a popular British sitcom, which I'm sure Gilbert would love because it's about a Jewish family and their antics. Starring, I believe, David Koechner from The Office. Koechner's in there, and Allison Janney starred in that pilot. This was a pilot that was developed by my office colleague, Greg Daniels. And basically the premise is, you know, a family having Friday night dinner. That was it. Every episode is basically Friday night dinner. Something will go wrong each Friday night. But, again, a very wonderfully minimalist idea.

I think the British series had a couple of seasons. It's a beautiful – it's really a great show. And I'm sorry that NBC didn't pick it up. Well, I want to get my hands on these pilots. You also directed The About a Boy. Hey, I just something popped into my head now. We were talking about The Last Laugh with Emil Janning, who was also in the, whatchamacallit,

with Marlena Dietrich, The Blue Angel. Blue Angel, right. So he was a fine actor, but now I'm having trouble with him because he was doing propaganda films for Hitler. I think, you know what? I don't know enough about his life in the 30s. I guess he...

All I do know is that before Hitler's rise, he was such a great star. And if I'm not mistaken, I believe he won the first Best Actor Oscar for the movie The Last Command, which if you haven't seen, you will love.

You will love this film. With, I think, William Powell's in it, and it's directed by von Sternberg. But I don't know... You know, I think, William Powell's in it, and it's directed by von Sternberg. But I don't know. You know, I think you're right. I think he was supportive of the Nazis, but I don't know any details. Gilbert, once again, you've brought the room down. Yeah.

I was going to say, no, Gilbert if you were setting me up for a joke. I always wait till like everything's hopping and everyone's laughing. Then I go, now, there was, you killed a child in your last movie. I was going to say, are you going to ask me about,

you know, Jerry Lewis's The Day the Clown Cried Next? Have you ever seen any of it? I've seen little bits and pieces that are online, but I don't think anyone's seen it. Yeah, yeah. Well, we'll wish Jerry—it would have been 95 today. So we'll wish Jerry a happy posthumous birthday. And Gilbert, we're going to get out of here because we've held onto this man for two hours

through all these technical difficulties. Gilbert's computer was hit by a tsunami, ironically. I don't use that word anymore. I know that. Once again, this wonderful book is called But What I Really Want to Do is Direct, Lessons from a Life Behind the Camera with the great and generous Ken Kwapis. And Ken will plug the book like crazy on social media when this is up.

Thank you. Thank you. It's been great to hang out with both of you. All right, my friend, Gilbert. And this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast Podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and the guy who got on my nerves, and that's why I disconnected my computer. I flung my computer across the room and smashed it across the wall because I was tired of listening to him. Ken Kwame.

Then I succeeded. My work is complete. Thank you, Ken. Humans were involved, as you like to say. Absolutely. Read the book, everybody. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

I saw a friend today, it had been a while And we forgot each other's names But it didn't matter cause deep inside The feeling still remained the same We talked of knowing one before you met And how you feel more than you see And other worlds that lie in spaces in between And angels you can see

And all the faces that I know Have that same familiar glow I think I must have known them somewhere once before All the faces that I know And all the faces we see each and every day When I get home at night You're the face I need And when my mind's absorbed on my private little screen

And I'm walking blind through a sea of unknown men I hear a voice reminding there across the street walks an old forgotten friend We don't have to say a word It's really better left unsaid Just lights through eyes that recognize All the faces that I know

All the faces that I know And all the faces we see each and every day When I get home at night You're the face I need When I get home at night You're the only face I need