Happy Sad Confused - Aaron Sorkin, Vol. II

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

He's perhaps the most acclaimed screenwriter alive but in recent years he's added directing to his skillset. Aaron Sorkin returns to the podcast this week to talk about the unique challenges of telling Lucille Ball's story in "Being the Ricardos" and the film he considers his comfort food. Happy Sad Confused is also proud to announce our 3rd annual holiday benefit! On December 16th, Tom Hiddleston will join Josh for a LIVE chat at 4pm ET. This event will NOT appear as a podcast. The only way to watch and enjoy is to purchase a ticket. All proceeds go to charity! Purchase your tickets here! Don't forget to check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to The Wakeup newsletter here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Nights definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time. Fear, I have to make them afraid. He's got a motorcycle. Get after him or have you shot. What do you mean blow up the building? From this moment on,

none of you are safe. New episodes every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad Confused, Aaron Sorkin returns to tell the story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Hey guys, Josh Harrow, it's here with another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. I always love it when I can say is back, returns.

And I always love it when it's someone of the caliber of Aaron Sorken. I can say that about. It was a real, real honor to have him on the podcast about, I don't know, 12, 14 months ago talking about the trial of the Chicago 7 and kind of an even bigger honor that he came back because that means I'm doing something right and he's making good movies and we're all happy. And I think you will be too after you hear this conversation. As I said to him, it's always kind of like a masterclass in writing and directing and filmmaking storytelling when you talk to Aaron Sorkin.

He, it's just pearl after pearl. And yes, I'm in the tank for Aaron Sorkin, guilty as charged. But I've always loved his screenwriting, his television shows, and now the films he's been directing. Molly's game, The Trial of the Chicago 7 and his latest being the Ricardo's. If you don't know about being the Ricardo's, here's the deal. This is basically a story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, of course, known as the real-life couple that made I Love Lucy. What you may not know is that Lucy Ricardo, the character, the character Lucille Ball played, and I didn't realize this, was such an extreme character for her. I mean, I guess in retrospect, that's obvious when you look at the show. It's a heightened kind of character. But to see this movie, you see the difference. So striking, so evident. And you see it in Nicole Kimman's brilliant performance as both Lucille Ball and yes, Lucy Ricardo in bits and pieces on the show. This film tells the story of one week in the production of the show. Certain events are collapsed and conflated for dramatic purpose, and this guy knows what he's doing. It works in the end. Javier Baird M. Excellent and an amazing ensemble behind them, Alia Sharkad and Tony Hale.

It's another fine piece of work by Mr. Aaron Sorkin, and it's going to be available on Amazon Prime. I believe it's December 21st. It's in theaters this week, December 10th. So see it in the theater, see it on Prime, however you like, see being the Ricardo's. This is a great chat. We talk comfort movies, of course, and when you get a filmmaker like Iron Sorkin, who can really dig in onto why something is great from a screenwriting perspective, that's just gold. So you'll enjoy that. We'll talk a little bit about, you know, the status of that social network sequel he teased with me over a year ago and a whole lot more. Other things to mention, well, there's a lot going on, guys. Wow, now that I'm thinking about, there's a lot to update you

guys on. I'll try to make it brief because I know you guys will probably want to hear the main event with Aaron Sorkin. But first things first, December 16th. Do you have your tickets yet, guys? The happy, sad, confused holiday benefit happening live 4 p.m. Eastern Time with Tom Hiddleston. Guys, this is a no-lose situation for everybody. It's for charity. Every single dollar goes to charity. It's me and Tom Hiddleston talking live. That'll be fun. We've got some surprises up our sleeves. We've got free giveaways.

We're going to give away a few autographed pieces of merch from Tom Hiddleston himself. We're going to take some fan questions. It's going to be awesome. How do you get tickets? I'm going to put the link to all of that in my bio. Or just go over to Symphony Space, New York's Symphony Space website, and you'll see it on their calendar. You can purchase tickets there. By the way, if you are a member of the Happy Set Confused Patreon, there's a discount.

So go over there, look for the post about this event. You'll see the discount code. Enter that in. You get a few bucks off of the event. So I really hope you guys will be there. A, because it's supporting some causes that are really near and dear to me. But B, I just want to see a packed virtual house for me and Tom, and it's going to be a blast. I promise you.

Man, where to begin on the other stuff that's going on? Well, I had a crazy day the other date, guys. I moderated three different in-person events for the new Adam McKay film, Don't Look Up. Don't Look Up is this hysterical and also terrifying new film from Adam about a comet heading towards Earth and two astronomers who are just desperate to get the world to pay attention. Those two astronomers are played by none other than Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. So, yeah, I basically spent the day with Adam McKay, who I love Beyond Words. He's been on the podcast a couple of times. Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Merrill Streep, and Jonah Hill.

So, yeah, that was crazy. That was insane. I mean, look, I've done a lot with those guys, but I'm still not going to act like it's just like a chill day when you're hanging out with Leonardo deCaprio. So fun. So, yeah, I don't know if these, unfortunately, these Q&A's will be. available anywhere. If I find out they are needles to say, I will let you guys know. One of them was for the Directors Guild. One was a press conference. One was for Screen Actors Guild. It's the season where they do all these amazing events. It was just fantastic, A, to be with this

caliber of talent, but also to be in front of live crowds, which I love. And there's more of this to come. I'm doing a couple more events next week. I also, God, this is going to sound insane. Some intros, you don't have much to say. You're just like, oh, there's some good new movies out there. Enjoy the podcast. This is one of those weeks where I have so much. I also just came from an event, guys, where I moderated a conversation with Daniel Craig about No Time to Die. This was his first conversation, public conversation, since No Time to Die has come out. Now, if you haven't seen the movie, I'm not going to spoil it, but there's some stuff in No Time to Die worth talking about. So again, if there's a way for me to share, I promise I will, but just

suffice to say, this was pretty cool. I chided with him, Barbara Broccoli, the producer, Carrie Fukunaga, the director, and Rami Mollick. So, yeah, what can I say? I've had a really fun, a busy week and more to come before the holidays, you know, hopefully give me and all of you guys a breather. Also, I want to mention we've got a great Comedy Central episode, a kind of a sketch we did. It is a sketch with Haley Steinfeld that's dropping any day now. I will keep you posted. a great opportunity coming up with MTV about the Spider-Man films.

I'll keep you posted on that. And, oh, man, what else? Is there anything else? I don't know. You can tell. I'm busy. I'm excited, but busy. I hope you guys enjoy this chat with Aaron Sorkin.

As you guys know, I love geeking out with filmmakers. I adore and respect, and he is at the top of the list. Seek out being the Ricardo's. And in the meantime, enjoy this chat with the one and only, Aaron Sorkin. I am very pleased to welcome Mr. Aaron Sorkin back to Happy Second Fused. Yes, he's a glutton for punishment. This either means that he's just lowered his standards or maybe he's made another great movie and I didn't fuck up the first time.

Aaron, welcome back to the podcast. It's good to be with you, Josh. Congratulations on the film. I have a lot of questions about being the Ricardo. But if you'll indulge me before we get to that, when I was reading up on you and refreshing, a couple of things popped up that I have to ask you about. One is that when you were a playwright and you were considering, or maybe not even considering turning to screenwriting, a film you saw registered with you as an entry point, which was

broadcast news. That's a film that I hold very dear. I know many people do. It's kind of a perfect movie for me. I'm just curious what you saw in that movie that enlivened or o'clock. open the world of screenwriting up to you for some reason even though i'd seen plenty of movies before uh with um with with great writing okay all about eve um uh 12 angry men even though i'd seen plenty of movies before with great writing for some reason on that day sitting in that theater watching

broadcast news. It was the first time I got the same feeling I got watching a play, okay, where I wanted to be the person who wrote it. I just never thought about movies that way. And I did watching broadcast news. I owe a lot to Jim Brooks. Was Jane Craig the proto walk and talker? I mean, basically the entire film, she's in motion. I feel like she is the proto iron sorking character in a ways uh yeah you know um that's pretty good proof that uh i i didn't invent the steady cam shop let's talk about being the ricardo's i like many um revered i love lucy certainly i was watching it in reruns like many and i'm curious i don't i wonder even if this new generation encounters lucile ball or i love lucy in the same way that that we all did um is part of the

the ulterior motive of something like this. I don't know, just spreading the good word of what that show was and what a remarkable woman, Lucille Ball, was? No, I really, I wasn't trying to introduce Lucille Ball to a generation that probably hasn't been watching. I Love Lucy reruns the way the rest of us did. It was, listen, the first thing. that happens, the first thing I'm looking for, the only thing I'm looking for, is do I have

a chance to write a good screenplay? I'm not looking for a particular theme or have an ulterior motive. It's just like a batter looking for their pitch to hit. Is there a chance, just a chance, that there's something in my head that can turn into a good screenplay? And if the answer is yes, then I'll really commit to it. So Todd Black called me into his office in 2015. Todd Black's our producer and asked me if I was interested in writing a movie about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I knew that all I knew at that point was that I didn't want to do a biopic. I think that it's hard to shake the structure of a biopic that audiences are so familiar with,

the cradle to grave story, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, kind of a dramatized Wikipedia page. And what I learned in that first meeting, and we would continue having meetings for 18 months before I committed to writing the movie, and I didn't know at that point that I was also going to be the director of the movie. Well, what I heard at that first meeting was that Lucy had been accused of being a communist, which I never knew. So I kind of asked around, I wanted to see if I was the only one who didn't know that.

And I turned out that nobody knew that. And then, excuse me, I kept finding points of friction in her relationship with Desi and her relationship with Jess Oppenheimer and her relationship with Vivian Vance that I thought were very interesting. But most interesting to me, because he asked me was this to introduce a new generation to Lucille Ball. is that the people have an intense relationship with Lucille Ball, except it's not with Lucille Ball, it's with Lucy Ricardo. And they have, I've discovered that people have a very hard time separating Lucy and Desi from Lucy and Ricky. And Lucy and Desi are not at all like Lucy and Ricky. Lucille Ball doesn't even look like Lucille Ball.

uh because when we think of lucile ball the image you're going to get in your head is lucy ricardo just like when you think of charlie chaplin the image you're going to get is the little tramp and those two didn't look anything alike uh so i i was i was rather than the idea of introducing lucile ball to a new generation which is fine with me that would be a bonus um it seemed fun uh to show how much more complicated the lives of the real people were than the than the lives of the people where we find so much comfort in that living room. You mentioned structure, and it's one of the points I definitely wanted to talk to you about because I agree with you. I've grown up and I've watched a lot of cradle-to-grade biopics

and stuff have been great, but for whatever reason, maybe we've seen too many, maybe it's just not in fashion. They don't work on me as well as they used to. And you've confronted this in different ways before with jobs, et cetera, and you always find a very interesting, unique structure in, how do you arrive at what the structure is going to be? I mean, the events in this film are not necessarily the events that happen in this one week, but you use artistic license to put them together, is what's the process in finding, like, what my way in? Do I need a narrator? Do I need some bookends? What happens? Sure. Well, first, I just, I want to be clear that I am not, not a fan of cradle to grave biopics. I'm a sucker for them, as a matter of fact.

I will watch each and every one of them. I just feel like there is a cap on how good it can be. Because we can feel the structure already. We're not going to be surprised by much in terms of the kind of storytelling it is. No harm in that. It just doesn't seem like something I could do well. And again, I'm just, I'm looking for the opportunity to do well. Right.

with a structure, and by the way, building myself a structure is important. I hope you'll excuse me while I compare myself to a cute animal. But when you bring home a new puppy, they tell you to get a crate that is just big enough for the puppy to be able to turn around in, but no bigger, because that tight space, those confines, give the puppy security. It makes the puppy less nervous. And I'm the same way. It's why most of what I write is people talking in rooms.

If I even type the letters, E-X-T, period, exterior, I suddenly start to get dizzy, okay? Because I don't know where people enter from or exit to. I can't see the walls. I can't see anything around me. uh we're just kind of always in a park or something like it's a dream it just doesn't have dimensions um so uh in this case uh one of my early thoughts was uh what if i could set this during one production week of i love lucy monday table read to friday audience taping uh am i perverting

history by taking three events, Lucy being accused of being a communist, Lucy getting pregnant during the season and a time when a woman absolutely could not be pregnant on television, and the third, Desi shawing up on the cover of Confidential Magazine with another woman and the headline, Desi's Wild Night Out, which chronicled an evening of infidelity. could I take those things, which actually happened over two years, and put them into one week to maximize the pressure on Lucy and Desi? You know, what you want to do as a dramatist is you take your protagonist or protagonists, you give them a strong intention, and you put in front of them as many formidable obstacles as possible. And the tactics they use in overcoming that obstacle, that's going to be your story. So I thought, no, it's not a perversion of history to do that.

That's a, that's just a storytelling construct. And so suddenly I had my little puppy crate that I could operate in. And things started to feel better. There's so many insightful things you said there. And now, unfortunately, for the rest of the conversation, I'm imagining you as a puppy in a crate. So thanks for that, Aaron. Sure.

Sure. You got it. With the social network, there was so much I didn't know when I was starting out, but what I did know was that there were two simultaneous depositions going on, two different lawsuits brought against Mark Zuckerberg. And I thought, all right, there's a structure, you know, two parallel depositions. It'll still be fun to tell the story this way. It must be a huge, like, damn breaking moment in, like, the process of writing a script. Once you have that, it's not the same. The rest is easy, but it's certainly you have a path. Yes, you feel great for six minutes, and then you realize, okay, you've got a structure. I'm going to fill the page now. You're going to have to tell the story, you know.

People are going to kind of expect that. One thing that I was very impressed by this film, and I'll compare oddly to a documentary I saw recently, it's a very difficult to depict creativity, the spark of creativity in film. And I experienced this watching your film, and I also experienced watching the recent Beatles documentary by Peter Jackson, where we eavesdrop on essentially the creation of a brilliant song by Paul McCartney. From your perspective, as a writer, talk to me a little bit about the change. challenge of approaching someone like Lucille Ball, who obviously had a brilliant mind for comedy and how you depict that on screen in a way that conveys what she's feeling, but also is

entertained to the audience. It's a lot of balls to have up in the air, I would imagine. It is, and you're absolutely right. It's a real challenge, dramatizing, creative genius, any kind of genius really but at least you know if it's goodwill hunting genius there's a whiteboard that you can write a lot of and decipherable equations and it looks like genius to me right creative genius is a is a little tougher in this case with being the ricardo's what I decided to do because I listen I knew going in that while this absolutely was not going to be, the thing I didn't want it at all to be was an I Love Lucy cover band doing a I Love Lucy greatest hits, right? I get that when you're

doing Bohemian Rhapsody, we are waiting for the songs, okay? You know, we're waiting for Bohemia Rhapsody. But this couldn't be a thing where we're waiting for the chocolate factory or vitamin vegimen or anything. Hey, you do at least give us the grape stomping. So you give us a little more. Yes, I had to, for the actress playing Lucy to be accepted, for the character to be accepted by the audience, she was going to have to show us a little Lucy Ricardo, okay?

And Desi was going to have to show us a little Ricky Ricardo. So how do I deliver those moments to the audience? How can I show them shards of, I Love Lucy throughout. Why are they seeing that? What's motivating that? And what was motivating that? And here's how I got to kill two birds with one stone was, oh, here's how I'll show

Lucy's creative genius. When we see those shards of I Love Lucy, we're going to be in Lucy's head. Okay? We're going to be at a table read. And I'm going to get some very tight shots of a pencil tapping of her script. and then we're going to do a push-in on her as we're going, and we're going to see that she is able to game out at a table read what that joke is going to look like Friday night,

if it's going to work for the audience. Is there a logic problem? Whether she's at the table read, whether she's being pitched a story in the writer's room, whether it's during rehearsal, we can do that from time to time. And that will show what I'm trying to show, which is that she is a comedic chess master,

that she's the smartest person in the room when it comes to the, she's the highest comedy IQ in the room, and it gives the audience a little dose of I Love Lucy. Which we are required to do. Of course. It must be endlessly satisfying for you to see the praise, not only for the film, but for these performances.

And I'll mention Nicole in particular, who, as you well know, there were the skeptics once she was announced, like, oh, does she look like her enough? Is it going to work? And it sounds like Nicole had those kind of whispers got to her, in effect, when that was in the ether. I'm curious for you, and I don't want to diagnose you as a neurotic, but I do feel we share common blood.

As a neurotic, how do you alleviate the neuroses of your actor? That's feeling pause as they approach production. Yeah. Okay, I'm glad you asked me about this, because I want to answer the question as fully as possible um even though i think i'm the last person on earth who doesn't have any social media accounts uh obviously i'm you know you become aware of what's going on in the world of social media and i was aware that on twitter there was a group and it's it's never clear to me if it's a couple of dozen people or a thousand people you can can never really tell uh but but that there were

people who thought that Nicole had been miscast and they were very, very angry about that. Those people were at a disadvantage because I had read the script and knew what the movie was about, and they didn't. The role wasn't Lucy Ricardo that I was casting. It was Lucy L'Ball. As I said, she was going to have to tip her hat to Lucy Ricardo and do those black and white moments. moments, but the whole point is that Lucille Ball is a completely different person from Lucy Ricardo. Now, and I knew that Nicole was going to head it out of the park.

As far as Nicole's nervousness, I'm now of the mind that Nicole Kidman is the bravest woman in show business. She going in, she had a right to be nervous. This is a very challenging role. You're playing an icon. You're playing somebody that, as I said, people really feel strongly about. She was not going to come in under the radar. People were going to have things to say. And so when a few weeks before shooting started,

the same Todd Black, the producer, called me and said, listen, you know, Nicole, it's okay, it's okay. but I think she's a little nervous and you should talk to her. So I did. And I told her that I was not going to be the first director in the world who was unable to get a phenomenal performance

from Nicole Kidman. And that you know, I'm living and dying with this movie and I would not cast someone and I didn't have complete confidence in to play this role. And I reminded her, and this was the most important thing because the first thing I told Nicole and Javier and J.K. and Nina was I don't want you doing an impersonation of the real people.

This isn't Vegas, you aren't Elvis impersonators. There's not going to be any prosthetics or anything like that. I want you to play the characters in the script. Just play the characters in the script. And I reminded to call that and to die for, she was playing Pamela Smart. But because they changed the names of everyone and to die for, she was completely free to not have to do a Pamela Smart impersonation. Right.

And to create, to play the character that was in the script. And that that is all I wanted her to do here. I know there was only one physical thing that I was asking of her. And that was I needed two different voices. Lucy Ricardo should be about an octave higher than Lucille Ball, who smokes a lot and has a deep voice. And then I did want to see that contrast. That was no problem for her. Nonetheless, Nicole had spent the few months leading up to the start of photography learning Lucy's physicality, the way she moves her arms, the way she uses her hands.

And she had learned every square inch of the I love Lucy's. moments in the show. She just worked with a coach and a monitor in Sydney, Australia, looking at that grape stomping scene and memorizing every inch of it, which I didn't know on the day we were shooting the grape stomping scene. It was a 39-day shoot,

and two of those days were for the I Love Lucy scenes. And I had carved out three or four hours that morning to just sit with Nicole and look at a playback monitor and watch the scene. We'd shoot it by Injosey's. You know, okay, she puts her left hand on the fireplace mantle and turns to Ethel here. That's how far we'll go. I was going to do it like that.

And I came in and she had already learned it. So Nicole, who at this point could easily be resting on her laurels, okay, does not have to take risks with her reputation. She did. She took a big one. It was a big risk, and I think it's a huge payoff. And I think you started out by asking me if I take pride in the praise that the actors are getting, you better believe it.

Not because I had much to do with the quality of their performances, but because they all grabbed at this with both hands, really committed to it, and their performances are so good, so enjoyable. I could watch Javier do Cuban Pete all day. One of the many things I think you do exceptionally well, and I felt this on Chicago 7 as well, is this like sneaky poignancy that kind of creeps up

and by the end you're like, wait, why are my eyes getting moist? And, you know, without rooting the film too much, too much. It's not the kind of film you really ruin, but like one of the themes that emerges is how work, how the, how the Lucy Ricardo character and how that, that show was her safe haven in a way, an idealized world where her husband wasn't cheating on her and she always got a laugh, etc. And that's a powerful notion. And it's something that I feel like, you know, while most of us don't star in our own sitcoms.

We do have different places where we find solace and peace. And I'm curious for you, do you relate to that? Has work been a safe harbor for you at times when you needed it or what? God, that's exactly right, Josh. This, I don't want to turn this into a therapy session, but that's exactly right.

I can very much relate to what Luce was saying, which helped because I was the one who wrote what Lucy was saying. That, you know, listen, also it was, it was kind of a breakthrough in the screenwriting process. Lucy yearned for domesticity, and it just, sometimes I drive around in my car. It's another form of pacing and climbing the walls. I'll drive around my car and try to think. of stuff by starting arguments with myself. And it occurred to me on one of these driving sessions.

That's ironic, you know, that Lucy wanted a home and the most iconic line from the most iconic TV show of all time is Lucy, I'm home. Wait a second. Hang on. We pull over right in my notes app. Yeah. Yeah. If I can get to Lucy, I'm home.

If that, it can be the last line of the movie. Um, and I can set that up. If I can set the table, uh, if, if I can articulate, you know, for instance, uh, on their first date that her ambition is, uh, Desi Astor, is to have a home. Um, if I can have Linda Lab and say she talked about home a lot. And then if I can write that speech for her on the sound stage where she talks about how she, uh, it's, it's like a fairy tale. You tell a little girl about a witch, it puts a curse, um, uh, uh, on a woman, she'll be adored by the man she loves as long as she stays on this patch of ground

right here. If I can do that successfully, then we're going to win with Lucy on the home. Yeah. I'm curious, you know, so much your work is so poured over by just fans, but aspiring screenwriters, et cetera. How aware are you of your own ticks, your own motifs that you return to? And do you ever feel like, oh, I have to retire a trick? that's in my bag of tricks that I've gone to the well too often in this, or do you not, does that not even concern you? If it works, it works, and I'm going to keep using X, Y, or Z. That's not really the thought process. It's more like this. I can, I only know how to write the way I write. Right. I can't, because I've tried to, to write like someone else a couple of times.

I remember when I had to adapt the play A Few Good Men into the movie, A Few Good Men. It was the first time I'd ever written a screenplay. I'd never read a screenplay before, and Rob Reiner was going to be producing and directing this movie. And at the time, it was at the top of his game, it was a very important director. And I spent months. I had a deadline, and I spent months just trying to think of what it is Rob wants me to write, what it is Rob wants me to write. And finally, I was coming up on this deadline, and I had to give up on thinking that and just say,

you know what, you're just going to have to write the way you write, as if that was a consolation. That should be the second choice. Right. But that was just my first screenplay, and you would think that kind of thing would go away. It doesn't. It never does. with the social network, when it finally was time for me to,

I had figured out the first couple of scenes and it was time to write Fade in, okay? It was time to start the car and go. It suddenly occurred to me, and it was going to be the scene with Jesse Eisenberg and Rudy Mara, you know, in the college bar. Suddenly, it occurred to me, these are the youngest characters I've ever written,

even when I was their age, the characters that I wrote for. We're older. These are the youngest characters I've ever written. They have to talk like young people. And, you know, I struggled for a while on page one. And then I went, this is ridiculous. First of all, there isn't one way young people talk.

Secondly, I can only write the way I write. I only know how to do that. So they're going to talk the way I write. And the exact same thing happened. I have a play on Broadway right now, To Kill a Mockingbird, a new adaptation of that book. It's a slightly new take on To Kill a Mockenberg. But when I started writing it, I started writing it trying to be as gentle as possible and do an impersonation of Harper Lee.

I can't do a Harperly impersonation. I can't pretend I'm writing to Kill a Mockenberg in 1959. I had to be me writing it today. So, you asked, am I aware of ticks and things like that? What I am aware of is that I have a writing style that is maybe a little bit different from other writing styles. It's, for better or for worse, you recognize it when you hear it usually. And then I stopped thinking about it because I can only write the way I know how to write.

Right. Well, this reminds me of something we talked about briefly last year when we were talking about Chicago 7. You know, I was asking the standard question, which is, you know, you can't have a conversation about filmmaking without talking about superhero films. And you were candid and said, look, I like some of them. It's not what I necessarily know how to do. I have a different question along the same lines about that stuff. that stuff. We didn't get into the kind of the ones that have resonated with you.

I'm curious as a student of film and screenwriting, is there some, is there one in particular in that genre that stood out to you as, as one that's elevated the material to a degree worth, worth chatting about? Oh, I definitely think that there have been, I have, listen, I haven't, I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of, of superhero films, like some people do. I just haven't seen very many of them.

But first of all, I can tell you, you know, as a little kid, when I saw the first Superman, the Christopher Reed Superman, I loved it. I loved that movie. And, you know, Joker is as good a film as there is. But people who write good superhero films know. what they're doing. They have an understanding of the genre that I don't have. Same with people who can write Westerns. Same with people who can write crime. They know something I don't. Or they have a skill I don't. Speaking of Westerns, we should talk comfort movies because, as you know, I believe, I've been asking folks to pick a comfort movie, especially in these last two years

when we've needed it more than ever. And you've picked one that surprisingly has not been chosen yet, and it doesn't surprise me. I'm shocked. It is shocking. It's written by a man that I know is dear to you. Can you tell us a little bit about what film you chose on? Talking about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and William Goldman, who won an Oscar for writing Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That movie is so good.

I don't want to reduce it by calling it comfort food, but it is comfort food. but it is it is comfort food uh and there was a man at william goldman uh he was a real genre writer um he would that that's the thing that he loved he would love uh you know he completely understand uh westerns he would completely understand thrillers he would completely understand movies that have a supernatural element uh and he always no matter what genre he was in, he always wrote the way he writes. And it was simply the story that changed, you know? Yep.

Okay, this one's got horses in it. I know how to do horses. So that movie, obviously, you got to give George Roy Hill a credit to in Redford and Newman. It's a perfect movie. Do you remember? I mean, you must have had reverence for it before you even knew. Oh, yeah. Sure. I was, again, I was a little kid the first time I saw it.

I think so young that there were parts of it, I remember not understanding. But, you know, it's a movie. I've seen it a couple of hundred times, probably. So I had a reference for it long before William Goldbein came into my life, which was incredible. I had just written the play a few good men in my mid-20s. And we were going into rehearsal

in a couple of months and people were kind of passing the play around and reading it. And one of those people who read it was Bill Goldman who called me one day and asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him. And I was 95% sure that one of my friends,

was playing a joke on me. But on that 5% chance that they weren't, that it was for real, I showed up at that restaurant when I was supposed to. Oh, did he if you... Oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say he,

it's maybe an overused word, but he became my mentor at that point with what he volunteered to do. He said, I think I can turn you into a screenwriter. And he He passed away a few years ago, but until the day he did, he was always the first person I showed pages to.

I'm curious, if you'll indulge me to dive a little bit more into Bush Cassidy. Like, what is, you know, it's hard to reduce it to one or two elements, but what is the miracle from a screenwriter's perspective of that film? What do you point to and say 99% other films just didn't capture that? Every scene in the film is perfect. It's about much more than a Western is usually about. It's about the times they are changing, right? These two were the last outlaws. They were the ones who had to turn off flights.

It broke a number of rules. In Westerns, the heroes don't run away. And they definitely don't run away to South America. And here comes a big spoiler. Close your ears. Anyone out there who hasn't seen Butch Cassidy, his son, Nance kid. They don't die in the end of the movie. And Bill did all those things. What he also did was he, until then, buddy comedies, buddy's stories were Bob Hope and... Grossby. Thank you. I don't know why it's facing. I'm Ben Crassman.

And this was really good comedy. You know, it helped that you had the two perfect movie stars in it. But when have there ever been that many laughs in a Western? You know, that wasn't Blazing Saddles. That wasn't a comedy, which which Gasset and the Sinai's Kid isn't. It just happens to have more laughs than most comedies right um think about the fact that and and i'm sure this is a lot of what appealed to me uh think about the fact that we're talking about a western and when people talk about the movie they quote dialogue you know um every once in a while there'll be a western that has a we don't

need no stinking badges uh a line that people can quote um but usually when people think about a western It's the shootout scene and that kind of thing. You know, we wanted more talking. Yeah. It's probably a bad analogy, but in some ways, it's the way you're talking about it. It makes me think of Raiders South the Lost Dark, which, yes, has some of the best action set pieces ever made, but also it's just crackling, witty, fantastic. Fantastic screenplay. Yeah.

Fantastic screenplay. Do you have an appetite for another TV series right now? You've zigged where others have zagged. Every filmmaker is now making TV. and who obviously had so much success in television has now doubled down on your film directing career. Well, I think that, you know, I think that so many great filmmakers are doing television,

so many great actors are doing television because the best theater in America is on television right now. You know, television got great. So great, one more. you know, one more place to tell stories. I love series television, and if I get an idea for a series, I'll start working out and do series television.

For me, what was always so tough about series television was that if you're writing a movie or you're writing a play, and it's not going well. you're stuck you know it's you can tell it's coming out like a new bottle of ketchup um uh you need to step away from it uh okay you've done something wrong you need to rethink it so if if you're doing them writing a movie or a play and you need to step away from it you can call the producer call the studio call whoever is waiting for it and say i know i said i was going to deliver the first draft in june is probably going to be more like september they may not like it but

But they get it. And you're okay. With television, you have hard deadlines. You have air dates to meet, which means that you have to write even when you're not writing well, when you should be stepping away from it and rethinking it. You're plowing through, even though you've got a pebble in your shoe. And you've got to take that script that you knew you weren't writing well and you've got to put it on a table for the cast and the crew, and then you've got to point a camera at it.

And that's a really tough pill to swallow. In your story television career, is there a week that would dramatically make for a good story, a la what you've done in being the Ricardo's? That's an interesting question. The answer is, and I'm sorry to be coy, the answer is yes. I've never thought about it before. But the answer is yes, but I can't tell you what it was. no it's just a reason to keep on conversations going you after you're one day i'll wear you down

okay i'm sure you will when we talked last time we made some news when you know i talked to you a little bit about social network and you basically said like you definitely want to do the follow-up you just need david fincher to say i want to direct the follow-up well you've had about 14 months have you gone in anywhere with mr I should have said there are two things I need to do I need to get David Fincher to direct the follow-up and I need an idea

for what the movie would be but it seemed like you were inspired by Zucked it seemed like there was a... I get it and and I listen there's obviously there is more story to tell after the social network ends but I don't have

in my head a clear idea for exactly what story to tell and how to tell it. And I can promise you, David Fincher is not going to say yes to an empty script. So, but like I said, there is more story there, and I hope one day soon I get an idea. I know you don't have extra scripts lying around. You were saying you've had the luxury of basically producing everything you've ever written, which is remarkable. So where are you at post being the Ricardo's? Is it an empty page or do you have a specific project you're working on? For the first time and a long time, I don't know what I'm doing next. It's for the last several years, six, seven, eight years. I always, while I was doing something, I always knew what the next thing was. How does that feel?

that sit with you on the one hand uh nicely i'm not feeling the pressure of i'm already behind on the next thing and i don't have an idea um on the other hand i don't have an idea uh uh and so you know you i i've never finished writing anything and uh felt like i was going to be able to write the next thing i've never finished writing an episode of the west wing and felt like i was going to be able to write the next episode of the Westling. I was always certain that I've run out of stories. I've used every word I know in every order I can think of. That's it. I'm done now. And so on the one hand, I have, I like not feeling the pressure of whatever's next. On the other hand, I'd kind of like to feel the pressure of whatever's next. I'd love to have an idea. I'm putting the

pressure on to figure out the social network sequel. So consider the last thing for you. You know, we've talked about these last couple films like as like, you know, you as a burgeoning, you know, filmmaker. Does it feel like three films in as a director, you have somewhat approaching the confidence you have as a screenwriter? When you look at this latest film, do you see a progression yourself? Are you satisfied with where you've come to on this third film as a filmmaker? see a progression. I'm very happy with where I was on the, with being Ricardo's. I'm, I'm gaining confidence. I don't think that I will ever have the confidence as a director that I have as a writer. I just don't think that I have the visual sensibility. I,

to hear things much more than I see them. And so when I'm writing, you know, what a line sounds like is as important to me as what it means. And when I work with someone like David Fincher and I watch him composing a frame, he just, he thinks of things I know that I won't ever think of. So what I try to do as a director, First of all, if I have a strength as a director,

it's knowing what my weaknesses as a director are. So I put in key positions people like Jeff Cronin with who shot the social network and John Huttman, who was, well, he was the production designer on the West Wing, but he was also the production designer on Quiz Show, which was the look that I wanted for being with Ricardo's, like Alan Baumgart and the editor. And so I try to put people in those positions,

positions who will do more than take instructions. They'll have a better idea than I'll have. And I try to play to my strengths. I just get the actors giving the performance they need to give and hope to put it all together in post. Well, I would venture to say you're a bit humble because as I was writing my notes the second time watching this, like it brought me back to obviously a time

I didn't live in, but, you know, I think back to, like, a great film, like, quiz show that also kind of transported me in that kind of, like, luxurious other era. And this film, this film does that as well, as well, you know, that's the bells and whistles. That's the icing on the cake is to kind of live in this world. Yes. And then it's, it's these fine performances and these, this amazing script, as always. And your three for three is a filmmaker, sir, and I always appreciate this now annual masterclass you give me in how you do what you do. What a thing to say.

It's great talking to you, as always, Josh, and I hope we do it again next year. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh. American history is full of infamous tales that continue to captivate audiences. decades, or even hundreds of years after they happened. On the infamous America podcast, you'll hear the true stories of the Salem Witch Trials

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