Happy Sad Confused - Alexander Payne

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Alexander Payne knows no movie is finished until the audience sees it in a theater. And he's been entertaining audiences now for 25+ years with films like ELECTION, SIDEWAYS, ABOUT SCHMIDT, THE DESCENDANTS, and now THE HOLDOVERS. He chats about it all with Josh on his first appearance on the podcast. SPONSORS Masterclass -- Get 15% off RIGHT NOW at Masterclass.com/HSC BetterHelp -- This episode is sponsored by/brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/HSC and get on your way to being your best self Check out the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Happy Sad Confused patreon here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Josh's youtube channel here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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D.C. high volume, Batman. The Dark Knight's 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. I'd love to sell out We'd get a bunch of money We said it Your movies do sometimes make a lot of money It doesn't mean I get it

Pay this man He deserves it all I'm serious The phrase is it has been for years You get famous in movies But rich on TV And that's pretty much how it is But I do remember meeting

Kristen Stewart Yeah we met at Blinky's Donuts At Campa Canyon Boulevard And Dumets in Woodland Hills Is that your go-to? She was on her way to Brazil for a twilight junket or something. She has to meet you at 8.30 in the morning.

I go, can she meet at Blinkies? And we got there, she's like, I need coffee, man. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. I'm Josh Horowitz, and today on Happy Say I Confused, we have a two-time Academy Award winner for the last 25-plus years. He's made some of my favorite films election

about Schmidt, side. ways, the descendants, and now his latest, the holdovers, I love this movie, I love this filmmaker. I am pleased to welcome Alexander Payne to happy, set, confused for the very first time. Thank you, sir. Thank you, thank you. It's good to see you. We had a conversation a couple of weeks ago, and it went well, so now we're doing this. I passed the first test. Yeah, well, I don't know what happens after this.

It's mutual. No, I'm thrilled to talk to you about this film and this remarkable career. I mean, since we spoke, the good news is people are enjoying your movie, actual real people and like me, like the fake critics. The movie's doing very well in limited release. You're platforming. It's expanding.

Right. Well, it just opened a few days ago. We are speaking here on Wednesday, November 1st. It just opened in two cities five days ago on Friday. So I hope it's doing well. I hope it, you know. Well, the deep dark secret about Alexander Payne's career is you are a not-so-secret moneymaker. Your movies actually do very well.

Not all of them. Not all of them. The big ones were sideways and the descendants. But those did, I mean, I was actually shocked. I mean, I knew they did well, but like the descendants make makes nearly $200 million, sideways over $100 million. Descendants is the one I can sort of brag about, which is apparently, I haven't corroborated this, but apparently that year at Fox and 20th century Fox, it was the biggest moneymaker compared

to what it cost, because it just cost 20-something and then made, like, like 200 million. So compared to cost, it was the biggest success that year. So not the biggest movie, but the biggest, you know, you get it. In relation to the budget. So in terms of like the creative freedom you've had over your entire career, do you think that's related as much to the accolades, to the fact that, you know, you do get the awards and the great critical praise, but you also generally or sometimes do quite well by studios? The key is keeping the budgets low. That's the key. That's where freedom lies.

So I've never needed or even necessarily wanted a hit what I need. And generally what filmmakers need is you've got to make your negative cost, some degree of the, what we used to call P&A, and $1. Right. Then you can keep making movies. I mean, filmmakers basically just think about what can I do to keep making movies. Stay out of director jail, which is a real thing for directors. It can be. if you're movie tanks

yeah and I had a tanker in the the unmentionable we can mention it's a good movie downsizing no no downsizing man you know that tank bad but I wasn't put thrown into the movie who's gow too much because I think hopefully

I think I had accumulated enough equity before then that it could be that right off could be a one off so at this stage when a movie is starting to be released. Are you at peace with however this turns out?

You like the movie, obviously. No, that's not obvious. Okay. Finish your question. That's another thing. Okay. I guess the first part of it is your general demeanor in this stage of releasing a movie.

You've had this movie basically done for over a year. So you've had to kind of like live with it. I've had some validation that it's watchable. That's largely modest. No, largely in focus and watch. And the fact that it's got... Clean focus, okay. There's one out of focus shot.

Sorry, Glenn. No, the fact that focus picked it up a year ago at the Toronto Film Festival unfinished and paid what I'm told was a decent amount for it, showed, you know, exhibited belief in the film. And then its reception at some festivals has been generous. And so one is released. One is relieved that the film is generally playing well. First and foremost, it's a relief. Right. Now, the back half of my random,

of my assortment of words there was something about your own contentment with the film and you seem to stop me because that is not necessarily the case that you feel... I'm not trying to eat humble pie here or something like that, but I make the films, I like parts of them. You know, I'm still learning.

I maybe can like them more or dislike them more in hindsight than in the moment because in the moment you know you're just splashing around at it and feeling it's good or decent enough beat by beat by beat

by beat mostly through editing but then you really need an audience to tell you what you've got on your hands you know and that's why Kevin Tent the editor and I start screening well many filmmakers do really really early on. As soon as we have a cut, we have to show it, some version of it, not just to financiers, you know, so they feel okay about it. But more importantly to my friends and

anybody we can get to come see the movie, and that tells you if your movie's basically working or not, especially if it's a comedy. Yeah, I mean, you, you, audience is king, right? I mean, you can trust your own instincts to an extent, but then once you start to give it over to an audience, they're going to tell you what absolutely is correct or not, especially when you're making it for an audience it depends on how large an audience you're making it for you know if you i mean in a way basically my audience is me and my best friends right right if i can appeal to them and then your luck as a filmmakers if what occurs to you and your best friends as basically a good movie overlapsed actual audience happens to occur to enough other people

that you can recover your negative cost some degree of p and a and one dollar one dollar that key $1. Let's give a little bit of overview for the lines that is unfamiliar with the holdovers. The elevator pitch. I curse me, most of your films don't necessarily lend themselves to elevator pitches to that kind of like, I mean, like, what is sideways? Like, what do you even say to somebody that's going to? Two guys go on a wine tour the week before one of them is to get married. That works. I just don't know if that's.

It doesn't say much. Exactly. Nor should it. You've got to see the damn movie. Right. I guess that's the benefit of being out of interpain now with the, again, the body of work. trust me I'll put this body and the body they're buying the body they're buying the film and the body okay so this is set 1970 basically a trio of characters are at the core

here led by the great Paul Giamatti a curmudgeonly professor is that fair to say in that kind of lost holiday week at the end of the year and a cook a student a professor all essentially finding each other in a way finding companionship in this time that's that's rough on a lot of people um talk to me a little bit about okay so this i i know this is inspired um by a french film i believe that you saw inspired loosely what it means is i stole the premise okay is money to change hands or no no no no the base i saw a 1935 french film by the great marcell pagnol it's called merluse and it has the same basic setup uh kermudgeon teacher with a wonky eye is charged with taking care of a bunch of students at an

all-boys boarding school who have nowhere to go over the holidays and winds up having some kind of a relationship with one of them you have no that's the setup you didn't go to a boarding school as I understand it right no I went to an all boys school private school high school but not a not a boarding school no so is that I mean you know the old badge is right what you know and often filmmakers especially earlier in their career they're mining their own life and experiences. At this stage, is there a little bit more, I don't know, confidence that you can graft your own life experiences onto the specificity? Of any story, there's a, you have to, there's a big difference between an autobiographical film and a personal film. Right. They can

still be personal. They can be the same. But the process of making a film, if you're making it, you know, sincerely, makes it personal. So David Hemingson and I, the screenwriter of this one, started with that basic premise I just told you. But then the process of what story skeleton you decide upon and then what character and thematic flesh you put on the skeleton, the choices you make there, what occurs to you, that's what makes it personal.

So do you see as much of yourself in this as the Omaha set? Well, all the movies are personal. Yeah. And that's also the job of the professional filmmaker is to make it personal. I've used this example before, but I'll say it again. For example, the best years of our lives, William Weiler. Did we talk about this last time? Okay, so he did not write the screenplay.

But for example, the wonderful passage early in the film where Frederick March comes home. home to Myrna Loy, and she's in the kitchen, her back to the front door, across a hallway, and the children open the door, and there's dad, and they're overjoyed, but he says, I want to surprise your mother. And she, on her back hears, who's that at the, and her shoulders tell you, she realizes who it is, and she turns and they look at each other after the years of war down that hall. It makes you weep. Wiler staged it that way because that's how he came home to his wife.

So it's just a small example about how you make things personal by, and that's the job of the professional director, I feel, is to make anything you do personal somehow. You mentioned, you know, ultimately films are for an audience, and thus far all of your films have been on the... And I got to say a group audience, too, not individual viewers at home, ideally. Well, that's exactly what I want to talk about.

So this is a film that plays great in theaters with a big group, as all of your films, I would say, do, especially, like, comedy is always very important to your films and who wants to laugh in isolation. It just doesn't work as well. When, for instance, like, when this was sold to focus, is a big part of that, there's no way this is going to end up on, you know, if you got a searchlight, oh, wait, are we suddenly on Hulu? Like, is that, like, a big thing for you at this point in your career to make sure? Yes. And hats off to focus for committing themselves and this film to theatrical. Yeah. And it helped that, I mean, they bought it a year ago.

It would have been September of last year. And for a number of reasons, they made the decision to wait, to sit on it for a year and put it out this year and out last. But chief among them is that people would be more used to going back to theaters. Now, and hopefully next year even more so. Yeah. And not just for the big movies, even though the big movies prime the pump of getting people to go to the, you know, Oppenheimer. Sure.

But there's also a trickle-down effect of that, too. And now Taylor Swift. Right. No, that you go for the big movies, but maybe we'll do what I do. Stay at the, at the syneplex and sneak into the other one. How do you think I spent my teenage years, triple features? Yeah, I used to do. I should, yeah.

I used to call it movie smorgasbord, pay for one movie and then just goes to you six movies. Oh, yeah. Every year after I would go away for summer camp for eight weeks. I would come back. My older brother would take me to the movies and we'd just like see as many movies as possible. Catch up on everything we missed that summer. Happiest memories. When you think back, you must have had so many remarkably wonderful experiences with audiences for your film.

Film festivals, premieres, actual audiences. Do any stand out to you? Is that really made a mark on you? No. Which is not to say they didn't happen, but, you know, with these lights on me and in front of camera. I'm blanking. No problem. Also, I'm splashing around so much in this one because I am watching it with a lot of audiences.

And I get asked like, oh, will you be sitting through the film tonight? And most of the time, particularly in the early festival, it's absolutely, are you kidding? Absolutely. I got to see how the movie's playing. And if I'm going to do a Q&A afterwards, you've got to get a sense of the temperature of the room. but also a movie is not as we've been suggesting

a movie is not complete without an audience not viewers but an audience especially a comedy and then we who work in film don't have that rush that stage actors get or musicians get that what you do is immediately seen and felt by an audience

and you have that communication the closest we can get to it is with early festival audiences. Not later audiences because then they're like, well, I don't think is that good. You know, I'm one of those too. But, and that's, and that has to bleed into the fact that the actors,

writer strike and actor's strike have been going on. And the writer's strike is over, so now David Hemingsson, the writer, can be present in some of these screenings and see his words being appreciated by the audience. But, you know, I got a text from Paul Giamati last week saying, you know, just before the opening, he said, I feel like Achilles brooding in my tent. Just waiting. Let me in coach.

Put me in. And this poor kid, Dominic Sessa, who's never been in a movie before, and he co-stars with Giamati, hasn't seen it with an audience. You know, I say, well, you know, wear a mustache and sneak in and everybody scared him, like, no, if somebody recognized you and takes a picture of you and posts it, everybody's in trouble. I heard that story though. Was it his girlfriend that showed up at a screen?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She came. She was like the last A at a Q&A, his girlfriend. I mean, he's seen the movie, but alone. Yeah. When you think back to your childhood, were the films that made the impact on you the most films you saw at home or films in a theater? Theater.

Yeah. Although I have vivid memories of all, we, this is in back 60s and early 70s, they had teeny-tiny-tiny tiny TVs that you put in the kitchen or something like that. And so I would take those TVs and take them up secretly and bring them upstairs and watch old movies that started at 1030 under the covers. That's where I saw all the old Warner Brothers gangster pictures. Were you the anomaly in your family? You grew up in Omaha.

Parents ran a restaurant, as I understand it. Not parents, my dad. Your dad did. Okay, sorry. So were they film lovers? Did they have a passion, the passion that you have? Not passion, but my mother and her mother and siblings had been very avid film goers. I saw, I was watching back here, it's nice to say the sentence.

Your two Oscar acceptance speeches, your second for the descendants, it was very sweet. You brought your mom, dedicated it to your mom. That must have been a very meaningful thing. I mean, these things can be silly and gratifying, but to, like, share it with... Well, she had also threatened me and said, If you ever win it again, you have to dedicate it to me, like some of those other people do. Right, there's that part. That's a little darker.

I was trying to stay on the sweet side. And now she has dimension. Doesn't remember any of it. She's 100 years old. But she did experience your success and see it, and that must have been great. Yeah, what met a lot to her at the time was because I said something to her in Greek. We happen to be Greek-American at the Oscars. and for about a month after that,

she was the most famous Greek mother in the world. She was getting calls from Athens to be interviewed and everything. And she enjoyed that month. Too bad she can't remember it. The, you know, we talk about your films playing for audiences in a theater. When I think back, I'm curious, like Citizen Ruth, an election, when I think back to my experiences seeing those films, I remember those doing actually very well on the home video.

Is that true that they find, I don't think Citizen Ruth ever did probably I bet election did because they pretty much they this distributors pretty much dumped both those films of the box office but election accrued some critical right momentum and then by the end of the year was appraised or reappraised it had come out in April of that year April of 99 but you know Jim and I were nominated for an Oscar that year which kind of surprised us we thought maybe Witherspoon might, but she wasn't. Well, it's surprised people because, and I think you've even said this, like, at first

when that material came to you, you know, it seemed to be just, you know, a high school film, which didn't interesting. Well, that's what they had in mind. Yeah. That's what Paramount was looking for. Well, MTV. That's right. Not even so much, right.

But they were all under Viacom at the time. And so MTV was starting at launching a movie making entity. Right. And this was one of theirs. And they, you know, Albert and Ron, the producers and brought it to MTA. TV. Well, they'll want to do a teen movie. And there was a whole spate of high school movies at the time in the late 90s, which I couldn't have been less interested in. And I didn't even read that novel for a long time after it had been given to me until finally I did kind of begrudgingly and saw, oh damn, all right, this is good. I think Jim and I can do something with this. But I interrupted the question you were. I'm all over the place. You were talking about home video and Citizen Ruth and election. No, I was curious because I wasn't sure what the fact was, if home video actually was beneficial to you or not. But I think people probably caught up to election on home video.

I don't know if anyone ever really caught up to Citizen Ruth. Citizen Ruth did have, like, the festival run, right? Did Sundance, and that's kind of where it found a little bit of a life and reputation? To some degree, it's still tanked later. I think Miramax pretty much dumped it. They didn't spend a dime on it on the release. Was that? But it helped my career enough to score a second film to get election.

And then that one really put me and Jim Taylor and me on the big board. Yeah, because when I was reading back, I mean, that first kind of act of your career is fascinating because you come out of film school and you make this thesis film that the passion of Martin, Martin, which I watched a little of this morning. I think there is a lot of the text of Alexander Payne in that film. It's on the Criterion Blu-ray of Election. Oh, I love it. in its entirety and they did they were generous enough criterion was to let me do some restoration to it so it's in pretty good shape and if you just you know i only had a chance to watch the first 15 minutes or so you that's an alexander pain film it's there you see it there and clearly others did too because from what i gather you got a deal out of that you're like a really promising remarkable deal which i don't think would happen now i don't even know that those deals exist what to do you

When film schools have their end-of-the-year screenings in May or June, don't scouts still go looking for talent, scouts from agencies and... I suppose they did, but even like... It sounded like a relatively lucrative for that time contract with Universal, no? Yeah, within a month of that film's showing at the end of the year, the Spotlight Awards at UCLA. I had an agent and a writing-directing deal at Universal. So what did that mean?

I got $125,000 and an office on the lot. 75 of that was the Writers Guild minimum for something being contracted. And then 50 was, I don't know, we love you money. You must have felt like you had it made, though. This is easy. I thought I'd be directing my first feature within a year, and it was five years. Right. And that feature eventually. But that 125 grand helped see me through those then lean years.

You know, you keep about half of it. Right. So I had about $60,000, $65,000 on to live on or at least supplement whatever else I was doing for like the next five years. So that script eventually becomes about Schmidt. Correct. But before that, so Citizen Ruth, those that haven't seen it, it's still a fantastic film or a turn, who you've since worked with, worked with their dad, et cetera. That's when you start to obviously work with very accomplished famous actors. I mean, you're directing Laura, but you're also directing Tippy Hedron, Bert Reynolds.

Yep. Is that intimidating? Did you feel like you knew how to work with actors of that stripe then? It was slightly intimidating, and I felt I knew how to work with actors even then, that I have to say. I always felt that's the one, you know, you go to film school and some people are really good with camera and some people are really good with lenses and some people go with lighting or mood or whatever. And I always sort of felt I was pretty good with actors. Is that intangible? No, I think because I was a frustrated act, not a frustrated, but I just feel I have some acting talent without being very good at it.

But I get that. And I'm kind of a ham and clown. And I sort of, I just, yeah. And also, even going back to my, not even Passion of Martin, but Carmen, my 18-minute super eight version of the opera Carmen that I made in Project 1 at UCLA, still a comedy. a send-up and I cast that one well and worked with the actors well and so anyway I don't mean to be patting myself on the back too much but the other thing too is it's not just me and my attitude but the actors who chose to be on Citizen Ruth were doing so because they liked the script and had seen passionate Martin and believed in me so they made it easy for me it's a two-way

Street. That's huge, yeah. You don't want to feel like you're having to prove yourself in the middle of making your own movie. You have enough of a job to... No, they were in it and taking scale. I mean, there was a feature film with 44 days of shooting something like that, long post schedule for $2.1 million. And a lot of that was because all the actors from Laura Dern on down were just taking scale for... So that... So you had Bert Reynolds and Tippy Hendard and Suzy Kurtz and Mary Kay Place and Kurtwood Smith all come into Omaha, Nebraska in some jerk's first film, but they like the script. That's amazing.

It's somewhat surprising to me because, you know, there are the stories of like Bert Reynolds giving like Paul Thomas Anderson shit. And it's like... What kind of shit did? Can we say shit on your podcast? Apparently, I just did. Yeah, yeah. I think he just questioned, maybe he, I don't know.

These might be apocryphal stories, but... No, I can tell you true ones, but go ahead. Oh, about that production? Or about yours with the birds? Yeah, I don't know about. They just, I, suffice it the same from what I gather. They did not get along and he did not trust Paul's direction. I don't know if he didn't.

He still did it in spite of himself because he's terrific in boogie nights. Yeah. With me, he trusted my direction and was nice but couldn't remember his dialogue. Oh, wow. And I had to go to cue cards. But he was in a position where I had to bring up cue cards, not he at least tell a young kid. hey man I want to do good for your movie would you just I but I need a little help because you know it just helps like great and we're on a tight schedule so that'll help me whatever you

say to a director yeah but it was like pulling teeth that's an awkward situation it's I mean you know we can get to this in terms of the holdovers and it's often been cited your your films have that kind of 70s film sensibility and indeed you've called upon 70s film stars whether it's Bert Reynolds or Jack Nicholson. Stacey Keech, Bruce Dern, Beau Bridges. So that must be something that's... It's a thrill. Yeah.

It's a thrill to work with those guys. And there's a way in which... Maybe because I had two older brothers, one more than 1950, the other, 1953. And those guys... Anyway, there's a way in which I kind of see them as older brothers. I mean, yes, is the stars that I idolized, but also from a period that was...

really groovy and and they appreciated the movies they were making with me and there was just very good camaraderie. The one I really want to work with is Jeff Bridges. Not a false note is possible out of that actor. And I've worked with Bo, his brother, Bo Bridges, and I met Jeff Bridges on a number of occasions. It always just feels, and I'm sure he gives that vibe to many directors he meets, but like, hey, yeah, let's, I'm your older brother. Exactly. This episode is brought to by Tron Aries. For the first time the captivating world of Tron breaks out of the grid.

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Well, big news to share it, right? Yes, huge, monumental, earth-shaking. Heartbeat sound effect, big. Mait is back. That's right. After a brief snack nap. We're coming back. We're picking snacks.

We're eating snacks. We're raiding snacks. Like the snackologist we were born to be. Mates is back. Mike and Tom, eat snacks. Wherever you get you. your podcast unless you get them from a snack machine in which case it calls us cause i do want to talk a lot about that casting because you've you cast the hell out of your movies and obviously

actors love working with you um so like about schmidt for instance i mean Nicholson is amazing in that film as he always is but he's particularly fantastic i don't forget udo cure i had udo cure in uh Amazing. Fantastic. Okay. So how do you get Jack? How hard is it to get the great Jack Nicholson on board your project? The way it happened for About Schmidt was easy, seemingly, which was that, so I had written

the aforementioned script for Universal, which you did your research and knew it came, like a dozen years later it became About Schmidt. So the reason it happened is that many years later. a guy named Harry Giddis Jack Nicholson's very good old friend and indeed the character Jake Giddiss his name for Harry Gittis set me a book called

About Schmidt by a writer named Louis Begley here in New York City which was about a fellow who retires and questions his choices and all that and I had kind of forgotten about my previous script it was painful to think about it and let's just move on and you know it was the one I had in the proverbial

bottom desk drawer But I read, I thought, oh, I'm still interested in that theme. I still haven't really scratched that itch. And it was designed to be a vehicle for Jack Nicholson. In other words, Harry had sent Jack Nicholson the book. Jack Nicholson had read it and told Harry, okay, if you get a good script, let me know. And so Harry found me, and I wrote it with Jim. And then the more we were adapting the book, actually, the more we wound up,

writing my previous script called The Coward using some narrative threads taken from the novel, which allowed us to put some things in Act 1 that paid off in Act 3. We turned it into Harry, like on a Monday or Tuesday. Friday he gave it to Jack Nicholson, and by Tuesday, I was in Jack Nicholson's house who had accepted to do it. That's a good Tuesday. So it's a lot of getting there, you know, Louis Beckley has to write the book and Harry Gediz has to buy the rights or get the rights

bought for him by Sony have Jack Nichols have you know the timing with election that people had seen election liked election who's this guy so a lot of things that's why I say seemingly a lot bubbles around underneath but that's how it happened and once he's in though I would imagine he was in he's in because the lore on Jack is this is a man who he's still with us sadly he's not acting anymore but loved to act like he lived to act this the famous story i think in like a few good men on those like courtroom scenes is like he did all like the opposite coverage like he didn't need to like be there for well the old all the old pros do that to to do the off camera right but i guess like

the only jerks don't don't stick around for off camera they're in the trailer yeah you can that's a good barometer so he on set what what did anything surprise you in terms of like how he i mean you know he's got the goods he know he's jack freaking nicholson What was, I don't know, what was the experience like? It made me a better director because he's so capable and exact that anything I would say, he would do exactly that in a way which rippled magnificently through the entire take. It's like driving a Ferrari, not that I drive a Ferrari, but one of those great cars with really tight, Right. You can give a very specific direction.

I have an 88 station wagon. You can do this and it just keeps going straight with those cars. So often I'd give him a direction and then he would do exactly that and I go, oh man, that's not what I meant. But that wasn't quite right. And I have to say, cut, excuse me, I know I said this, but really what I mean is that. But nor did he expect brilliance in direction in this way. He would say, I mean, I'd call, I've told the story before, forgive me, especially when about Schmidt was out, however many years ago. But before directing him, I called it Mike Nichols, who had reached out to me in a friendly way after seeing election. And I said, you've directed Jack Nicholson three or four times. Could you please give me some advice on directing Jack Nicholson? And he said, this is over the

phone. He said, oh, it's very simple, my boy. Just tell him the truth. Because he's going to smell it on you anyway. No trickery, no, don't put up a front. In other words, you don't need to coddle him, just say what you need. Be a director, you've got to be yourself. No false fronts. And there's so much, when you take directing the actor classes in film school or something, there's so much, or you read books about how to direct actors.

There are these, never give a line reading, always give an actable verb. don't give a result like who can do all that I'm not Harold Clermann I'm not Elliot Kazan to like think of the most perfect thing in the right moment you know

so I could in fact Nicholson told me earlier and goes you know if you it's okay to give me a line reading that's amazing because especially he goes I've learned that especially with writers who then direct their own things

they hear it in a certain way in their brain and it's got a certain rhythm, and I need to know that. So he was completely open. One other thing, can I just tell a while? Again, I've told this anecdote before, but it's worth retelling that on the, because so even though I have Jack Nicholson,

you know, it was still low budget below the line. I had to make all my days. And there was one scene, the first or second week, where, we had to get in and out of this location. So I kind of had to dictate a priori the coverage. So we bring in Mr. Nichols, and I say, well, Mr. Nichols, let's start here in a wide shot,

and I'd like you to walk here, and I'll get a close-up, but then I want you to walk there, you know, whatever it was. And then I said, does that feel okay? Is that all right? And he said, look, kid, whatever you can come up with, I can find a way to justify it to myself. So what do you need? Very practical.

Which is also someone, because he never forgot his beginnings as in low budget. Right. Roger Corman years. You know, with Corman and at BBS, where you were always under the gun and trying to crank out a movie in, I don't know, 12 days or something. That's a film. He never, he never let, sorry, interrupt, but he never forgot those origins. Right. And it's what made him a great, not just actor, but filmmaker.

You know, he's an actor who's, and director, but whose body of work, at least during a sense. certain period of his life is as cohesive and unique as any single directors. I had the privilege of, I interviewed Jack, actually. Oh, I know. You buried the lead. Well, for, and I only mentioned this because you just said, he's a filmmaker. I noticed that the two Jakes was, they did a remastered DVD, and I reached out to his folks, and sure enough, he wanted to talk about the two Jakes, the China Times

sequels. How long ago was this? This is probably, actually, probably around the, a little after you made, No, it's probably more like 12 years ago, not quite true. Okay. Yeah. And it was a thrill, thrill of a lifetime. Did you go meet it? Did you go to his house? No, no. I spent about an hour on the phone with him, and he was delightful. And then I remember he endorsed Hillary Clinton that year. It must have been 2008. Do I have that right?

I don't know. And about a month later, I rang up his assistant and said, you know, does he want to talk about Hillary? And sure, like within a half an hour, he rang me up on the phone again, and it was again. You know how press shy Mr. Nicholson is. It was a true privilege. He's a lovely guy. He was always really elegant with me. So I was going to say that film, much like a lot of your films, you're not a director that shies away from narration.

A lot of like filmmakers. You mean voiceover? Sorry, yes. Oh, I love it. A lot of people say that's a crutch. Like, oh, you know. That's like saying don't give a result to an actor. It's one of those dumb things they play.

Stupid adages that is not. If you execute it well. So, yeah, go tell. Billy Wilder and Terrence Malick and Stanley Kubrick that voiceover is no good in a movie. Come on man, killing me. Do you record that after the fact or are you on set with the actors?

I mean, that's so key to, like, I think election is so, I mean, that is part and parcel of that film. We grabbed it right after production. Went to a studio in Omaha and grabbed most of it. And then, most of it remained intact. And it's good then because the actors are still very much in character. There were some lines of dialogue, I think I had to go back some months

later and pick up. Oh, especially since on election, we shot a new ending. Right. Excuse me. So I had to get some new voiceover from Matthew, Broderick. That, I should mention, I know there's no real news, but like in the last year, it's been said that the Tom Perada sequel novel is something that you guys are developing potentially as a film. Yes. So now the news was that was for Paramount Plus, the stuff tales with our earlier conversation. Would you ever make that for expressly Paramount Plus? So I was busy making this movie the holdovers when all that deal stuff was being hashed out and it's like

oh yeah paramount plus and they're paying this much and this is an instructment of paramount if and when jim taylor and i get around to it i'm going to renegotiate that no for sure i'm glad to hear i'm going to renegotiate that paramount plus thing yeah and go and not just the two-week the begrudging two-week theatrical window or something because bless all right i was about to go on a stream or tirade but i won't Is there a passion for revisiting those characters? I mean, Tom has, you know, has the broad strokes for you, but you can obviously adapt it however you want now.

How faithful to that book are you going to be? Tom wrote a very fine novel, as he always does. He's an outstanding writer, and Jim and I would enjoy doing Jim Taylor, and Reese Witherspoon would enjoy playing it, and we don't want to rope in. Matthew Broderick's character, Jim McAllister, is not in this book, but we'd want to rope him in somehow.

The other thing, too, I'm slightly averse to is making another high school movie. I did election. I did, what is this one, holdovers. There are bits and pieces of it and sideways, and in a pilot I did, so I'm a little over with it, over it. So Jim and I are talking right now about how can we adapt that novel faithfully, loosely and put our own voice into it. So we'll get there.

We're not quite there yet, but we'll get there. You know, again, we've been talking a lot about casting, and I think... Oh, the reason I said that, sorry, to be clear, is that Tom's novel also takes place in a high school. So that's why I said I didn't want to make another high school movie. Fair enough. Goodbye, summer movies, hello fall. Anthony Devaney. And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast,

the Ultimate Movie Podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another, Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Mari Supreme. Let's not forget Emma Stone and Yorgos is Bogonia. Dwayne Johnson, he's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine, Spike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from Redo. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about, too. Tron Aries looks exceptional, plus Mortal Kombat 2, and Edgar writes, The Running Man, starring Glenn Powell.

Search for Raiders of the Lost podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the L.A. Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We come together to host Unspool, a podcast where we talk about good movies, Critical hits. Fan favorites, must see, and in case you miss them. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone.

From Greece to the Dark Night. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button. Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to election day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances. It can feel exhausting.

impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milkey. I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News, and every morning my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand, with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So, kickstart your morning. Start Smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel overwhelming. I love all the casting stories and the would-be casting stories. I'm a sucker for that stuff. We talked about getting Nicholson.

Did you ever come close to getting Gene Hackman for Nebraska? I mean, I love what Bruce did, obviously, but the great Hackman is retired for good, I guess. His agent, a real lovely guy and kind of legend at CAA guy named Fred Spector. He's in his early 90s and still working. Like just a really amazing cat. He said, I'll send it to him, but don't expect an answer. So he claims that he sent it to Gene Hackman down in Santa Fe two, three, four times and never got a response for it. All right.

He's resolute in his retirement. Hopefully he's enjoying it. Do you enjoy, you know, we talk a lot about like the big name actors? But it worked out. Oh, of course it did. Because Bruce, now I can't imagine anyone other than Bruce Stern in that part. You know, I think of something like the descendants. then on the flip side of, like, lesser-known actors.

And at the time, Shaline was not a huge name. She had done, I think, in an ABC family show. Correct. Et cetera. And there were stories of, I think, like, folks ranging from, like, Brie Larson to Kristen Stewart being up for that role. Do you relish that process? Do you know immediately?

Do you, is it gut? Like, how are you casting particularly? I didn't know about Brie Larson. She's talked about it. She mentioned that she... Did I meet her? Apparently. Oh, I remember meeting her later.

Well, someone's got fuzzy. It's okay. Don't tell her. He's a lovely actor. But I do remember meeting Kristen Stewart. Yeah, we met at Blinky's Donuts at Topanga Canyon Boulevard and Dummets in Woodland Hills. Is that your go-to? Because she lived in Woodland Hills at the time.

I lived in Topanga Canyon still do. So I said, like, she's on her way out of, like, she was on her way to Brazil for a twilight junket or something. She has to meet you at 8.30 in the morning. I go, can she meet at Blinkies? And she went out there, she's like, I need coffee, man. And there's a Starbucks right across the street. So you went to the Starbucks. But yeah, I met her.

She was nice. But you knew was it instantaneous or Shailene? You know what he helped me is Shaline came in and read. I need actors to read for me. Even ones who were known and everything. And I mean no disrespect. Yeah. But until you actually see them and have it the words.

Even Bruce Dern. I even actually asked him to come in and do me the courtesy. and I'm on bended knee and very respectful, very grateful. It just helps me, even if I pretty much know you're going to get the part, just come in and read so I can kind of start thinking about you, more concretely you in that part. Wait, one other anecdote, I worked with the great, don't say that lightly, Judy Greer on the descendants.

And I don't know if she's still like this, but at the time she described herself as an audition-only actor. And I said, why? She goes, she wants to prove it to herself? Yeah, well, sort of, yes. But she said, I don't want to just take an offer. I want to go in and meet the director. And what are we going to do?

Just small talk? Who's going to get anything out of that? I want to say some of the words of the script. And only when I do, do I have a sense that I'm right for the part with this director. Right. Like, is it really a good fit, me, this text, and the director? Well, it must be so gratifying for you. this is not, nothing new, that you've really exercised what control you have over that casting

process, like the famous stories of sideways and you obviously worked with Clooney later on on the descendants, but like, you know, you stuck to your guns and you're like, no, it's Giamati, it's Thomas Hayden Church. And I, you know, maybe you can get a bigger budget with George Clooney, but you wanted to make the film on your terms and the proofs in the pudding, clearly. They, they, the big they ask, often ask directors to compromise on the single, most important part of the narrative movie, which is the casting of the leads, in order to have the most famous person in that six-month window of time, you know, in which you're

trying to get the movie cast. And one, well, I have to be willing to take a lower budget for the film in order to get the right casting in there. It's super important. When it works, sorry, when it works out that you have a star, I mean, you know, you In the event of a tie, the star wins because everybody's happier and you get, you know, the money flows and everybody feels better and breathes this eye relief. So when I had Clooney and what's it called Descendants and Matt Damon in downsizing, I've got stars who are right for the part and everybody feels good. What's the lesson learned if there is one for yourself on downsizing?

I mean, it must have been a trial for you to go through that. I mean, you'd never really experienced anything close to that in your career. It's not that biggest stretch, man. I mean, ultimately, it's probably a screenplay problem than anything else. It's an idea that probably would have been better served by a limited series in hindsight than a feature film. Yes, I found arduous visual effects because I just don't care that much about sitting in those endless damn visual effects meeting talking about contrast. And I'm like, well, that doesn't quite look right. Well, what does it look right to you?

I don't know. You're the expert. You tell me what doesn't look right about it. You don't come here and tell me how to direct Jack Nicholson. I'm just telling you it doesn't feel right, man. You're supposed to be the expert. I saw it again projected a few months ago. I didn't think the visual effects were that bad.

I was kind of pleased with them. And there are some beautiful passages in that movie. But I don't have any big takeaway. Right. You know, you can't listen, ma'am. You can't win them all. Yeah. And my joke lately has been that in 600 years,

when people really are small, I will be worshipped as a god. So many statues in the rubble that is the earth. It will be hailed as a masterpiece of early cinema. The first 300 years of cinema. Yeah, before cinema was just pumped right into our brains. But it was fun to make. It just had that extra layer of stuff on it.

The other thing about higher budget movies, which is, again, fine, you know, whatever. But there's an extra layer of people breathing down your neck. because of the budget and then what it's going to cost to market it and that kind of thing. So when I say freedom lies in lower budgets, not as many people are breathing down your neck. So there's no, quote, unquote, four quadrant, $150 million every, you know, summer July 4th release in the Alexander Payne Arsenal. Sure, why not? But don't think that every one of those movies has to be a visual effects movie or, you know, don't get too cut a.

up in what's current today. Jim Brooks was making highly priced, human comedies. Nancy Myers has. Sidney Pollock was. See, and I actually missed those. Me too. Now, a lot of that was star salaries, which you can say, star and director salaries, which are overblown.

And I think that's a big mistake with all respect. We still want to keep our prices down. It's just good business. business. But yes, I want to, you know, I want to be no job too big, no job too small. It just depends on what it is. Any more Jurassic films in your future? That was just a job, man. What he's referring to is Jim Taylor and I rewrote Jurassic Park 3 20 years ago. It is a curiosity. When you go down the resume, that's like one of these things is not like the other. It's just an interesting. You know what? It was a good job. Jim and I had done the last

uncredited rewrite on Meet the Parents for Universal and then Jurassic Park 3 was coming up and a month out of shooting away from shooting they needed help not with the dinosaurs but with the people so we were called in to do some character work let me end with just a couple miscellaneous questions for you what's the most frequent direction you give your actors on set great now faster to the point Have you ever had to fire anyone? Yes. It's horrible.

Without you have to do it. Without naming names, like what's the, what are the kind of circumstances that creates? Someone was disobedient. Did you ever think you were ever going to be fired from a film? No. Okay, you're the mayor of Hollywood. You can do anything. You can change the business with one fell swoop.

What do you change? I'd have to think about that one. Okay, fair enough. best script you've ever written that's not been produced. Most of the ones Jim and I have written have been made, I'm sorry to say. You know what? We did a rewrite years ago on something called Tucker Ames as himself. It never got made.

It disappeared into the ethos, but it was sort of a parody of a Bill Gates guy who gets his comeuppance in some way. I can't exactly remember, but that one had some good stuff in it. It's got a good title. Yeah. I'm glad to see that you're selling out next

by doing a film about rival antique chair dealers. Chair dealers. You really go, again, you're going to that Barbie Oppenheimer. I'd love to sell out. We'd get a bunch of money. We said it. Your movies do sometimes make a lot of money. It doesn't mean I get it.

Pay this man. He deserves it all. No, no, I'm serious. The phrase is it has been for years. You get famous in movies but rich on TV. And that's pretty much how it is. So where's your max 10-part series that's going to buy your five-hast? Stop torturing me.

Sorry. I'm just trying to, I'm looking out for you. You've given us so much. I want to give back. Thanks. I like what I do. I like what you do, too. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining.

I'll let you go on that. The holdovers is fantastic. As you can tell, I'm such an admirer of your work. Everybody should see it. Most importantly seen in a third. theater with friends, laugh, go through all the emotions, enjoy it. And thank you so much for this time. You're very kind. Thanks very much. Thanks for the interest. Thank you. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate and subscribe to this show on iTunes or

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