Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini #150: Oscar-nominated Screenwriter Michael H. Weber

Episode Date: February 8, 2018

This week: Writing "The Disaster Artist"! "Mom and Dad Save the World"! The generosity of Harvey Keitel! Gilbert lands on the cutting room floor! And Michael curates the Robert De Niro archive! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is Marion Ross. You're listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. Beautiful. Is that it? It's not even in there. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host Frank Santopadre, and this is Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. I win the bet, Frank. You got the name right. How long will it take before Gilbert announces this as a Monday episode?

Oh, my God. Instead of a Thursday episode. I think it's the first time I got it right. We are here with, do you want to introduce the guest or shall I? Yes, it's either Michael Weaver or Wilbur. Timely. Everyone in my family is now changing our last name to Wilbur. It's pretty crazy.

Michael Weber. Yes, hi. Thank you. And your first name is Mequel? Yes. Well, why don't we just start by referencing something that just happened that we're alluding to here, which is, first of all, congratulations. Thank you so much. happened that we're alluding to here, which is, first of all, congratulations.

Thank you so much. You are our first guest in something like 180, 200 shows to walk in the room fresh from an Oscar nomination. It is. I still can't believe it. So it happened yesterday. I was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Disaster Artist, which I wrote with my friend and writing partner, Scott Neustadter. Gilbert would mangle that name as well.

Oh, my God. We'd have to do a part two. That's the reason he's not here. It would have taken the whole episode for you to say Neustadter. So we just figured, you know what? It's better if just I'm here. Congratulations. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Are you still sky high? It hasn't fully sunk in yet. Even though your name was mangled by Tiffany Haddish. That made it a memorable moment. And you. Are you still sky high? It hasn't fully sunk in yet. Even though your name was mangled by Tiffany Haddish. That made it a memorable moment. And you know what? I saw Girl's Trip and she's hilarious. She's a funny lady. She can call me anything she wants. That's great.

It's great. So it's an honor. And as I was also pointing out to Gilbert, and this shocks him to his core, you are a fan of this very podcast. I love it. I've never missed an episode. I've listened to every single one of them. I think I might also be your youngest guest.

You might be. Sean Connery is our youngest guest. I set a Google alert this week for Kirk Douglas and Olivia de Havilland, praying nothing happens to them. While you have me on instead of them, the clock is ticking. What are you guys doing? You could have waited a little. That's it.

Well, you're 40, right? I turned 40 this month as well. You turned 40. So it's been a special month. Maybe you're our youngest guest. We had the problem child from the Problem Child franchise. Oh, that's right. That's close.

Michael Oliver. Paul Scheer is a year older than me. Paul Scheer's right. That's close. Michael Oliver. Paul Scheer is a year older than me. Paul Scheer's older. He's in the Disaster Artist as well. Apatow, he's a funny guy. We loved having him here. Apatow's older than you. Oh, definitely.

I'm trying to think. Yeah. Boy, it's... Josh Groban? Oh, that's close. Well, I'm on the short list of people you've had on who know what a podcast is. The host doesn't know what a podcast is.

So, yeah, so that's how we didn't find Michael. He found us. He wrote to me and said he was a fan of the show. And I knew 500 Days of Summer, a movie, a wonderful movie that he wrote with Scott. And I said, my God, you know, you got to come on. Usually when someone gets nominated for an award, we know they're not going to want to do this. There was a moment, there was a touch and go moment yesterday where I thought, nah, he's out. Yeah. He's too good for this. I'm only the screenwriter, so I'm here. If it was an actor

or director, forget about it. Best adapted screenplay. And I'll talk about Disaster Artist for a couple of minutes, which Gilbert hasn't seen, but he's going to see. You're going to run right home and see it, right, Gil? Yes. How many times did you have to watch The Room to watch for our listeners that know? So for anyone who doesn't know, The Room is now considered one of the worst movies of all time.

It's often called the Citizen Kane of bad movies. It's no Back by Midnight, Gilbert. But the reason it is incomprehensible when you watch it, it defies understanding. Five or ten minutes in, you think it might be a porno. Ten minutes after that, you think it's a home movie. Twenty minutes after that, you think you might be watching a snuff minutes after that you think it's a home movie 20 minutes after that you think you might be watching a snuff film it's just it's so out there it's

really up your alley these two friends who desperately wanted to break into Hollywood and couldn't really you know get a toehold decided you know what we're going to make our own movie and they made The Room and the thing about The Room is if you watch it uh it

looks like it was made in one afternoon for 50 and it uh allegedly cost six million dollars it's incredible and you don't know where the money went when you watch it no um which you guys play with in the film you play with that idea and uh what the crazy thing is, the movie then became a cult hit slowly but surely. It initially came out in 2002, 2003, and it took a few years. But AFI students and USC students in L.A. were going to see it kind of as a gag and bringing their friends and their friends brought their friends. And sort of almost the Internet had not reached a point yet where everyone was streaming things and watching them on YouTube. So it really was in some ways the last word of mouth cult hit.

And suddenly people in Hollywood were going to see it and having these sort of private screenings at home. And the crazy thing is all these years later, the movie has now turned a profit. It has been screened on every continent. There was a screening in Moscow a couple years ago. It's become a real hit and people love this movie. They go and there's all these rituals, kind of like Rocky Horror Picture Show, where people interact with the movie as it's going.

For my writing partner, Scott and I, we were very mindful of we wanted to write a movie about these two guys, these two dreamers who just couldn't break into the business. Tommy and Greg. Tommy and Greg. Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. Right. And years later, Greg wrote a book with Tom Bissell called The Disaster Artist. And we adapted that book. And for us, we wanted to mostly focus on the aspect of two friends, two dreamers who believed in each other when no one else believed in them.

And the nice thing about our movie is you don't need to have seen The Room to watch it. As Paul Scheer said. I hadn't seen The Room when you invited me to the screening. Great, great. And I love hearing that because as Paul Scheer said it, if you've seen The Room, the disaster artist is a sequel. But if you've never seen The Room, The Disaster Artist is a prequel. So they could be watched in either order. And, yeah, it's crazy.

We set out to make this. James Franco directed it and plays Tommy Wiseau. His brother Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero. Seth Rogen produced it and has a small part in it. And we went into this hoping to not make the worst movie of all time if the bar was the room worst case scenario we'd make the second worst movie of all time and so to

be nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay is crazy it's just kind of surreal isn't it I'm speechless about it it still hasn't sunk in I'm going to make Gilbert watch both of them I'm going to make Gilbert watch both of them. I'm going to make him watch The Room, too.

Yeah, watch The Disaster Artist first, I think, in a weird way. You have an appreciation of bad cinema. Oh, yes. Gilbert. Oh, my God, yeah. And he's been in a few, if I may say. He's been in maybe a clunker or two. Well, you know what?

Work with a few monkeys. Oh, yes. Do you have one that you consider the worst of the worst? The ones that I've been in? Yeah, like which one is the truly the bottom of the barrel? I'd like to know that too. Well, see, with me, there's just too much to choose from. I was in a film that I have not seen called Funky Monkey.

Oh, wow. Okay, you got homework to do, Mike. Yeah. Who was in that? There was an actual chimp? Yeah, yeah, an actual chimp. And I heard this was yet a remake. Of what?

The Grapes of Wrath? They had done a French version where in the French version, they had an angry, drunken French midget in a monkey suit. Oh, my God. And they said he was always bombed out of his skull and just fucking pissed off. And this is an American remake of this? And I guess the first one was so good. Guys, guys, I found my next project. There you go.

A movie about the making of Funky Monkey. There you go. This is, I'm going to text my agent right now. We're doing this. There's also Back by Midnight, which I referenced before. Back by Midnight. Was it Rodney Dangerfield? Yeah, also never saw it.

Can you imagine? Yeah. Did these things get released? I don't know. I mean, I was in another Rodney Dangerfield one. That was. Oh, Meet Wally Sparks. Meet Wally Sparks.

You know that one? That one. I've seen Meet Wally Sparks. He's in it. That's a kind of a great, that's a very watchable bad movie. Oh, Meet Wally Sparks. Meet Wally Sparks. You know that one? I've seen Meet Wally Sparks. He's in it. That's a very watchable bad movie. Yeah, it was the last vaguely, very vaguely watchable. Was that before or after Ladybugs? Oh, that was also terrible.

After Ladybugs. With your late Jonathan Brandes. Yeah. When Rodney started doing those bad movies, they were bad. Yeah. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. Treats for every celebration, big or small. Make it easy and breezy with our legendary lineup of summer must-tries

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We have to do a third episode. We printed out Gilbert's IMDB page and did the mini episode. We just went through them. There should be a new segment where you bring in the residual checks every quarter for the worst ones. And Frank guesses, almost like you have the check for

Meet Wally Sparks and Frank guesses how much the residual check is for. I like to do that. I have a residual check. I once got hired to do that. I have a residual check. I once got hired to do a voice for the movie Mom and Dad Save the World.

My roommate at Syracuse owned that on DVD and used to watch it around the clock. That's distressing. He's going to hear this and freak out because I used to make fun of him for owning that DVD. And I say to him, you are the only human being who owns this on DVD. That is distressing.

It's as bad a movie as you could get. And to further insult injury, they didn't use my voice in it. I'm not good enough for it. I was not. Oh, the films I was not good enough for. That's a whole other show. That's a whole episode. They cut me out of Double Dragon.

That was a movie starring Alyssa Milano. Okay. Okay. I thought that was like a Van Damme movie. Yeah, I thought so too. It was based on the video game. Oh. Alyssa Milano.

And I was- Were you her love interest? I was cut out of- Oh, God. Oh, Blank Man. Oh, the Damon Wayans picture. Yes. Yes.

Not good enough for Blank Man. Blank Man. You know that one? Of course. You're a buff. I got a check, a residual check for Mom and Dad Save the World for a

penny. Oh my, that was my roommate. So we've now put it together where that one DVD sale was from. So I'll let him know. So Gilbert, you have to watch Michael's movie. You have to watch The Disaster Artist. And The Room.

And The Room. And then report back. Yes. And then we'll talk about it. You also, you could just throw this away or say maybe one thing about it because I think it's kind of fun. And when we met, you told me that you were Robert De Niro's assistant. I did.

That was my first job after college. I went to Syracuse. Gilbert was intrigued by this. I went to Syracuse, and I couldn't afford to go away for spring break. So this was the 90s. I opened the phone book and cold called production companies in New York. And the person who answered the phone at Tribeca Productions was Scott Neustadter, my now writing partner. There you go.

So we met as friends working for De Niro. When I graduated, I went back and I was one of De Niro's full-time assistants. That was my first job at 22. Kismet. It was crazy. Kismet. it and said, look, I, you know, I got into this business to write and I just, I don't have any time to write. And he created a position for me where I was no longer one of the sort of assistants in his office doing the day-to-day stuff, but instead, um, archiving his props and wardrobe from all his movies. And, and Bob keeps his, he, first of all, he keeps all the drafts of all the scripts.

He keeps his correspondence from, from the movies. He all the scripts. He keeps his correspondence from the movies. He keeps the notes. He keeps props and wardrobe. Before it was in his contract, my understanding was he used to just take the stuff. That's a Gilbert move. That's a hardcore Gilbert move. I've seen the documentary, so I know.

You guys are kindred spirits. Does he store soap under the bed as well? I don't. There was never anything from any hotel room, so none of that. All right. But we actually, he had a warehouse that looked like the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And it was just boxes. And most of them were unmarked.

So I like to say I had a De Niro fellowship to write because I was working part-time for him, archiving these amazing artifacts. And then half my time writing and sort of just having enough time to kind of get my writing off the ground. But working for him was incredible. You would dig through these boxes and it was his hack license from Taxi Driver and the shooting script and you turn to the page and see where he wrote in the margin, you talking to me, you talking to me. Wow. And it's insane. I will say for every piece of treasure like that,

there was his socks from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Gilbert wants to get his hands on those socks. If you want the backup undershirt he didn't wear on day 10 of shooting of Jackknife. Yeah, I remember Jackknife. We had that. Wow. Why would he save all this stuff? Is it just a bit of a hoarder or is it because he feels he feels like he's going to have something to donate to a, well, so a university one day.

He tells this great story that, uh, when he was a young actor starting out, he was at Western costume and, and it was one of those early pictures that he did with, um, uh, Brian De Palma. Oh, hi mom. I don't remember which one it was. Yeah. It was one of them. Although I think those men shot in New York, whatever it was, It was one of his early, well before he was a star.

He was digging around at Western Costume. And in the back, there was a bag. And literally crammed in a bag were costumes from Gone with the Wind. Jeez. And off that, he kind of made note of he was just going to keep his stuff. And it was incredible to go through that. And I will say now it has a home. The Ransom Center,

which is an archive on the campus of the University of Texas. And it's an incredible facility. And that really was my main project working for Bob, was finding a home for all these artifacts. And you can go there and see all this stuff. And it's really incredible. And they put a lot of it on display.

People, to Bob's credit, he had the foresight that not just actors, but if you are a screenwriter, you can go there and read the scripts. If you want to be a director, you can go and read all of his notes and everything from directing Bronx Tale and directing The Good Shepherd.

And sort of no matter what you're interested in in pursuing a career in filmmaking, you can go to this archive and learn from it so anyway that was my my job uh working for him fascinating that he did he did have the foresight to do that yeah so all that stuff's in texas and and and before i forget since you named greetings yeah the theme song of course he's gonna. He's going to know the theme song from Greetings, a movie that hasn't been seen by anybody in 40 years. Greetings, greetings, greetings.

We would like a word with you. Greetings, greetings, greetings. Spend a day or two with Uncle. Spend a day or two with Uncle Spend a day or two with Uncle Spend a day or two with Uncle Sam Fantastic. Can you confirm that this was the theme song from Greetings? I feel like we need to lift that clip and send it to the University of Texas. Done. Let's match it up. That send it to the University of Texas. Done.

Let's match it up. That should be in the archive right now. Done. Does he have the collar, like, from True Confessions? Does he have everything that he— Everything. I'm just pulling movies out of the air. Oh, does he have that sliding gun on the arm?

The thing from Taxi Driver, the apparatus? He had the fake milk me thing from Meet the Parents of the Breastfeeding. Everything. Incredible. So it was really amazing to go through. And you know what? I'll say like amazing for me. I was in my 20s, barely making ends meet, but working just enough to get health insurance and have time to write.

And it really, you know, he sent me the nicest email after the nomination came out. And I see him every once in a while, and he gives me a big hug. And he really, like, was sort of the person that, you know, helped me get my career started. It's a nice story. Yeah, yeah. We'd love to have him here, but he's not a chatty Cathy, as you know. And he's too well-respected. Far too well-respected.

I'll tell you guys one quick story that you'll appreciate. And if not, you can lift out. But it really was a surreal experience working for him because my, my first day on the job, my, my actual first day as his assistant was his birthday. And I had been an intern,

but, but the inner sanctum of his office was something I, you know, interns were not allowed anywhere near there. And my first day, the lead assistant who had been there many years said, just sit here and watch me answer phones. And in a few hours, I'll let you take a call. So I sat there for half a day and just watched, you know, these three women roll calls all day. And it was maybe early, a little bit after lunch, when she said, all right, you can take the next call. I take the next call, and I answer it,

and it's Harvey Keitel. Wow. Hold on. And Keitel, so here's the thing. The office at the time was a bunch of women and me. And Harvey said, are you the new boy and i didn't know this yet but i guess most people like the the young guy in the office who did computers and cars and tech things for bob was usually considered the boy and i said yeah i'm

the new boy uh and he said okay well um there's a large box in bob's inner office and it's for his birthday it's his birthday present. And I can't be there, uh, when he opens it. So I'd like you to videotape him opening the box and send it to me. Uh, cause I'd want to see the look on his face. And I said, Oh, okay. Okay. Harvey. Sure. Uh, he hung up, uh, and, and Bob came into the office a couple hours later. And I, by the way, I'd gotten the job. Um, I'd never met him. So there was no interview with him, uh, to have the job. Uh, Bob comes in for the first time I meet him and I, I I'm, I'm nervous to meet him. And I, I said, uh, Harvey called and, uh, do you see that large box over there? That's, uh, your, your birthday present. I have to say, this box was three feet high, a foot and a half wide.

It was a huge box. And Bob said, okay, the camera's over there. Go get it. And I said, okay, so you want me to film this? He said, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I go get the camera, and we're in his office with this box, and he said, where do you want me to stand? And I don't, wherever you want.

I didn't, or is this good? How's the lighting? Is this a good spot for me to stand? He said, yeah, no, that's fine. So I take the camera. My arm is shaking and I'm holding it with my other hand because I can't believe my first day on the job, I'm directing him in a movie.

And he pulls out a pocket knife and he cuts open this box and the smell from the box hits us like a punch in the face. And it is a giant moon rock piece of Parmesan cheese. And Bob said, thank you, Harvey. Thank you so much. I really, you know, I appreciate it. It's very funny.

And that's it. The video stops and I stopped the camera and Bob looks at me and in all seriousness, he says, should we do another? Wow. And I said, no, I think we got it. That was hilarious. That was it. That was hilarious. That was good. That was good.

The ink was not dry on my diploma, and I'm shooting him in this little video for Harvey on day one of the job. So it was just a crazy experience, and that kind of set the pace for the rest of the job. Gilbert, did you ever interact with him? I spoke with him incredibly briefly about three times. He was very nice. And he did give me a hug the last time I saw him. And I did have one scene with him where I had about two lines. That, of course, was cut out of the movie. Which one?

Which movie? Oh, in The Comedian. Oh, the Jeff Ross thing. Yeah. If you never saw it, you could join the rest of the group. It's nice I could say that was after my time. Yes. I spoke with him for 50 seconds backstage at The View,

but he strikes me as a guy, from what I know about him through mutual friends, is that he has a wicked sense of humor. He does. I think he would appreciate somebody like Gilbert. He loves comedy, too. That was the thing I didn't realize until I worked with him for a while,

is he really does love comedy and loved hosting SNL and sort of doing all those things. Right, right, right. Anyway, I owe the start of my career to him. And it seems like both he and Scorsese, I mean, they prove it in both like, well, king of comedy. Yes. They both seem to love Jerry Lewis.

And they were obviously fans of Don Rickles. Obviously. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we had Ileana Rickles. Obviously. Yeah. Well, we had Ileana Douglas here, and she told us that she confirmed that Scorsese was a Gilbert fan. So that was nice. And you could tell by all the Scorsese. I thought you were corpse number six in Bringing Up the Dead. He was Jimmy two times, but he was replaced.

He was replaced. Yeah, he was one of the corpses in Goodfellas when they're playing Layla. You were the pilot on the Lufthansa flight that was... Yes! You know, we're having so much fun doing this that we're going to actually get to the premise in part two. Can you stay for another 25 minutes?

Of course. It would be my pleasure. Okay, so I'm going to ask you this then to take us out of this one. You wrote a movie for Jane Fond and Robert Redford. Yes, Scott and I, we were shocked that Robert Redford brought a book to us a few years ago, a beautiful novel called Our Souls at Night, written by Kent Huriff, who Redford was friendly with and had passed away a couple years ago.

And all along, it was intended to be him and Jane Fonda, their reunion after all these years together. They hadn't worked together since Electric Horseman in 1979. So Scott and I were thrilled. And in some ways, it was an interesting career thing for us because 500 Days of Summer premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. And then a few years later, another movie of ours, The Spectacular Now, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. So without even knowing us, Redford had had an influence on our career and really helped

sort of us build a screenwriting career. So the fact that he then came to us with this book, and I have to say, we spent about a year and a half developing the script with Jane and Bob, and being in a room with them for hours was incredible. It was so cool to be with them. And every meeting took four hours because Jane was always early and Redford was always late. And they would sit around and kind of

just kibitz for a while before we got into the meeting. And that was the best. Were they reminiscing about the old days? Were they reminiscing about Barefoot in the Park? Talking about old friends and this and that. And we ended up shooting the movie in Colorado. And at one point they were talking about old

towns in Utah and Colorado. And Jane Fonda talked about visiting her dad on set of some films when she was growing up. Just like crazy stuff to sit there and you pinch yourself

realizing she's talking about Henry Fonda and John Ford. It's insane. I'll tell you one funny quick story. Jane is a true cinephile. She sees everything.

I've heard that about her. Every movie, American films, foreign films. She knows the name of every director. She is a film buff. She's amazing. And Redford is a film fan too, but it's just not, you know, more like the rest of us. I mean, Jane must watch two movies a day. It's incredible.

So we had a meeting and it was around the time of award season a few years ago. And Jane was, was talking about this movie and that movie that came out and all these movies up for Oscar consideration. And Redford was a little behind in, in, in watching the screeners and catching up. And, and, and she was kind of giving Redford a little bit of a hard time that like, you haven't watched this yet. You haven't watched this yet. And, and, and, and Redford was taking it, taking it well, but then Jane got to The Revenant. And you remember the Leonardo DiCaprio film that he won Best Actor for. And Jane goes, oh, Bob, you have to see The Revenant. And have you seen it yet?

He said, no, no, I haven't had time for it yet. And oh, Bob. And she kind of playfully hits him a little bit. And just make time for it. You have to see it. You have to see it. You have to see The Revenant. And Bob finally goes, Jane, I saw The Revenant. I made The Revenant.

It was called Jeremiah Johnson. That's great. And he's right. It's so right. And Scott and I were like, they're paying us to write this movie? We would do this for free. This is incredible. Oh, man.

So that movie's out on Netflix now and is a really sweet love story. Our souls at night. Yeah, directed by Ritesh Batra, who's a really interesting international filmmaker who made this movie called The Lunchbox some years ago that won some awards at Cannes. And anyway, we're super proud of it. And to work with them was a dream come true. That's good stuff. international filmmaker who made this movie called The Lunchbox some years ago that won some awards at Cannes. Anyway, we're super proud of it, and to work with them was a dream come true. That's good stuff, and I love 500 Days of Summer. Oh, thank you. I showed my wife recently, and there's just so much to like about it, and I'll make Gilbert watch that one too.

You know, Mike came here with a premise, but we've had so much fun just chit-chatting about De Niro and all kinds of fun stuff and his hobnobbing with Jane Fond and Robert Redford, for Christ's sake, that we will do it in the next part. What do you think of that? Oh, jeez. I guess we'll have to. So we're going to

sign off and we're going to do that. What do you think? It's an honor. And then you're in two weeks in a row. I love it. So this has been another edition of Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal obsessions with our guest, Mickey Weaver. Cousin of doodles. I love Mickey Weaver. All right, Mike, we'll see you next week

definitely thanks guys