Happy Sad Confused - Barry Sonnenfeld

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

Two neurotics walk into a podcast...and this happened! Josh welcomes famed director Barry Sonnenfeld to his office to chat about his new memoir, "Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother" and his hysterical life in film, from working with the Coen brothers to "Get Shorty" and "Men in Black". 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, Barry Sondonfeld reflects on a storied life and career. Hey, guys, I'm Josh Harowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused.

Yes, we're soldiering on, guys. we've got some more exciting conversations that we have banked before the world changed. Not for the better. Not for the better. I am anti what has happened. Let me be clear. I know it's a controversial stance. But, yes, like I said in the last podcast, I definitely feel like HappySet Confused is important for me.

And it's hopefully important for a few of you guys. And yeah, we're soldiering on. This conversation with Barry Sondfeld, one of my favorite, just like characters in the Hollywood industry, was recorded literally right before the shit hit the fan. This was just when it was starting to kind of, the signs were there, we were all starting to get a little bit uneasy, and I think we recorded it on the Monday of the week

where the president gave the address on Wednesday and the NBA closed down on Wednesday. So it was like about 48 hours before it really went bad in South. So he's probably the last guest I'll have in person on HappySac Confused for quite some time, sad to say. But as I've alluded to earlier and on Twitter, et cetera, HappySat Confused is continuing. I have cracked the technology, even though I'm not quite a Luddite,

but I'm pretty much a moron when it comes to tech. But I figured it out. I've already started recording things, and yes, happy second fuse is going to continue with virtual conversations that are a little different, but still fun and interesting and informative and good for any of you film, TV, pop culture geeks out there, and any folks that have come to appreciate whatever the hell this podcast is. Anyway, this conversation is one of our last two, as I said, recorded before the shit hit the fan. So Barry Sonnenfeld, if you're a film fan, you know his work. His career's

fascinating. He began as a cinematographer working with the Cohn brothers on their most, I mean, their first three films, which were hugely influential and remained so. Blood Simple, raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing. He quickly, relatively quickly started to segue into directing his own films. His feature film debut was with the Adams family. and his filmography is pretty impressive as a filmmaker. Adam's family, Adam's family values, get shorty, men in black, things like Wild Wild West, which he has amazing stories about. And even more so than the career is Barry Sondonfeld is a character.

He is a neurotic. His new memoir is Barry Sondonfeld, Call Your Mother, Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker. The book is really fun and entertaining and a great diverse. if you're looking for something to distract you from what's going on outside your window. Yeah, I highly recommend it, and he's a, like I said, he's a character, he's a New Yorker, he's a neurotic, he is familiar to me in many ways, and most importantly, he loves movies, and he's made some great ones. So this conversation is fantastically candid. He pulls no punches, will go anywhere you want, has some amazing,

stories about some of the biggest names in Hollywood, and we go into it all in this fantastic chat. Yes, back in my office, which I sadly won't see for a long while, RIP, Josh's office. But yeah, I hope you guys enjoy this conversation with Barry Sondonfeld. Please remember to rate review and subscribe to Happy, Sad, Confused. Spread the good word, because we're going strong. We're continuing. I'm really excited for what's to come in the future. And yes, hopeful for humanity. We're going to come out of this, guys. We definitely will.

It's going to be a tough few months to say the least, but there's hope out there. Anyway, I hope this is a nice little distraction for you guys. This is my conversation with Barry Sondentfeld. I'm such a fan of your work,

and I've always been, and I'm excited about this memoir. Has this always been the plan? Was this like in life's goals At some point, I'm going to put pen to paper. I'm so nervous about you. I'm already nervous that your shiny jacket is making too much noise whenever you change your position.

T-shirt only. Weirdly, even though I'm a visualist, I'm very interested in sound. Okay, that's so much. Is that better? Okay, put you at ease? Yes, okay. Now to your life's plan and the idea of doing a memoir. Here's what happened.

I've lived in unusual and interesting life, and I live now with my wife in Telluride, Colorado. Our neighbor is Jerry Seinfeld. He used to hear horrible stories about, you know, me trying to direct men in black three and the studio interference and producing interference. And one day he came over and said, you know, I think you would really enjoy doing stand-up. And I said, aren't I too old to do stand-up? And he said, oh, yeah, you're way too well. Oh, you won't make any money doing it, but you should try it. And instead, I wrote my memoir, which is sort of a safer way.

I still can get people to laugh, but I don't have to be there watching them not laugh if they don't like it. And you get to perform. You do the audiobook yourself. You didn't call in Will Smith to do the audio book in this one. Well, actually, I did call in Max Greenfield, who is sort of like my good-looking doppelganger. but the book publisher, Hachette, said, no, no, we really want you to do it. And I said, but here's a problem.

We're going to need an audio glossary, because when you hear me say, poor, you're thinking something that comes out of a pitcher, and I'm thinking that's what dogs have at the end of their legs. They have pores. So I thought it was going to be a disaster, but it turned out well, and I think the audio book is pretty funny, so yeah. Now, to some out there, you might seem like an exotic creature, but I have to say,

Barry, you are familiar to me. We, we, okay, so like, I'm... Jew? What made you guess? How'd you guess? I grew up in New York. We both were born on April 1st, Barry. No.

We suffer from that affliction. Well, it's good and bad. As you know, the good news is everyone remembers your birth. birthday. The bad news is you get beautiful boxes of Godiva chocolate, but each one is half eaten. So that's the best. Well, congratulations. That's great. Did the jokes ever end? Because they haven't quite ended for me at my advanced stage. Well, I'm even more advanced. I will be in a few weeks, 67. And no, no, they never get old. Oh, they always have been old. Right. But they never stop. But everyone remembers your birthday.

There you go. So let's talk a little bit about your beginnings, because it clearly has, like for anybody, your childhood makes an impact, but for you in particular, it sounds like your parents clearly defined the neurotic filmmaker sitting before me today.

Thank you. So how would you describe your parents to the uninitiated? Well, they were both different versions of narcissists. My mother's narcissism was about, being a martyr. I say her ability was her strength through weakness. The example that I give

is the name of my book is Barry's son and fell call your mother. It's based on a very true event in early 1970. I was 17 years old, about to be 18, and I was at the first peace concert at Madison Square Garden, Hare, Peter Paul and Mary, Jimmy Hendrix. And I was supposed to be home at two. It was 220 in the morning. Jimmy Hendricks was warming up, 19,600 people. And over the PA system, of course, comes the announcement, Barry, Sonnenfeld, call your mother. So, first of all, the amount of strength through weakness it would take to reach someone at the garden,

to get them to the person who could make a decision, to get me to actually be. page. So the only reason that could ever happen, of course, is that my father was dead. Sure. But he wasn't. The problem was it was 220 and I was supposed to be home at two. So now I'm weeping. I stand up

which announces to everyone I am Barry Sonnenfeld and what started in the blue seats, the cheap seats in the garden, but cascaded down towards the red and orange was and the garden is a genius at chanting. That

Barry, Barry. So by the time I got to the phone, I'm weeping uncontrollably. Is dad dead? No. What's wrong? It's 220. You would be home at two. But did they tell you the concert was still going on?

Well, yeah, but they couldn't confirm you were there. So that's my mother. Did she become less protective as you, is she still with us? Is your parents still with us? Thank God. They're both dead. Okay, just checking. I'm sorry to hear that.

I'm not. Oh, gosh. I know we can get to that, too. So did she get less protective as you achieved success? Like once you were, like, an established, like you had a career, or did she, did her treatment of you change? No, her narcissism knew no bounds. And I was, well, here's the thing. Many times in my career, I said horribly mean things about my mother.

In the New York Times on David Letterman, I said that until he died, my mother could have been Vincent Gardiner's photo double. and I didn't know this but I had been pre-interviewed Letterman had a photo of Gardinia I looked at the photo and I said well mom has more facial hair now mom was still alive at the time but the worst one was

when men in black came out I was quote Newsweek had mentioned that I was sort of a whiny neurotic guy as a compliment of course I mean what you see is what you got well you see as hell thank you Josh that's lovely and I was

quoted saying that I would walk around the stage offering crew members $400,000 to either get me fired off the movie or kill my mother. So my mother reads this in Newsweek and says, do you really wish I were dead? And I said, mom, I promise you, I would never pay anyone $400,000 to kill you. And my mother said, thank you, Barry. I love you too. It turns out you were the perfect guy to be the D.P. on through a mama from the train. No, exactly. This is your life's story. That's right. Wish fulfillment. Yeah, that's right. If only, yeah.

But she died and then, but dad died in his late 90s. Oh, wow. He was around. And, I mean, you know, you, you know, in addition to the very funny stories that are throughout this book, there's some serious stuff in there. You mean, you talk about the abuse that you suffered. Well, my parents, being the narcissists that they were. So, uh, uh, uh, they allow. my mother's cousin, who we called C.M.

The C.M. Child, Mike, the Child molester to live with us for several years. Molescing me, neighbor kids, cousins of all sexes. Because if you're prepubescent, a child molester is an equal opportunity molester. And it's, I don't make fun of it, but here I am, and it's all fun and fun games. fun games, but not really, but in my 90s, in his 90s, I should live so long, as they say, I went to see my father, and I said, why did you let someone who's a child molester live with us? And he said, Barry, I have three reasons. First of all, don't forget, back then, child molestation didn't have the same stigma it has now. That was number one. Then he said, also don't forget,

I was having so many affairs and your mother was so depressed that I thought having mic around would cheer her up. Also pretty moronic. But the third one in my favorite, the one that made me go tilt and leave was

when he said, because you keep thinking maybe the parents didn't know, maybe my parents. But he said, I never thought he was molesting you. I only thought he was playing with your penis. At which point you go tilt, see you around.

Thanks so much for the coffee. I think we just have different definitions of things here. Let's move on. Yeah, exactly. New topic. Right. How do you, you know, not repeat the mistakes of the previous generation? I mean, while you're a neurotic, you're clearly, my eyes, not what you're describing.

Now, do you have a family? I do. I mean, do I have parents, yes. Oh, I do have children. I actually don't have kids. Okay. All right. Well, here's what you learn.

you horribly become your parents right you try not to you vow you won't but i'm like my father because my father was a salesman and i'm always like slapping people on the back saying come on let's do that you know i'm so and and my daughter or uh my wife was at some point say you're being like sunny sunny was the nickname for my father sunny sun and feld and i'm like my mother in that i live in constant fear of all things. You know, my mother wouldn't let me go to, she called it sleepaway school. Others call it college.

She said if I went away to, left home for college, she would commit suicide. So I went to NYU for three years, and then when I was going to be a senior, I thought, wait, I could go away to another school and my mother commit suicide, two birds, one stone.

So I went to Hampshire for my senior year, and mom reneged, unfortunately, and didn't kill herself. But literally, my daughter who's 26, I have two stepdaughters and a daughter with my wife. And literally, when she flies, let's say, from L.A. to Asia, I have flight aware, and I know her flight number, and I put it in, and I stay up all night watching her flight, and I'll go, wait a minute, they're in the middle of the Pacific, and they just dropped from 37,000 to 36,800 feet. what's that about?

What's going on on that plane? What's a, you know, and then... So if you had the capacity of your mom to somehow get into the PA system on that plane, you would enact that. Chloe, uh, text me. Exactly. Exactly.

So the, I mean, the obvious question that I think probably would be a running theme as we get into the career stuff with you is, you know, I've talked to many, a filmmaker here. And most of them generally speaking exude confidence. It's like a big thing to kind of like, know, be the guy that, or woman

that has the plan, even if you don't have the plan. Now, by all counts, you've succeeded with a different plan. How do you kind of jive that? Why does being a neurotic serve you well as a filmmaker? Well, you know, I'm very accessible, but I do have very, very strong opinions, and I have very specific ways of directing. First of all, the only thing a direct, first of all, everything a directed does is just having opinions and answering questions.

No prop guy, when they give you the red folder and a green folder, wants to hear you say, oh, I don't care what you choose. Right. So you go the green folder. And then on the day, you realize, oh, Jesus, the woman carrying the green folder is in a green dress, will never see the green folder I screwed up. And then you say the prop guy, hey, do you remember? And he goes, yeah, yeah, I got the red folder, no problem.

So they, but you have to make decisions. You need to be strongly opinionated. And all you need to do is to tell actors to talk faster. No director ever has, ever since Preston Sturgis and Howard Hawks, because I'm a comedy guy, directors don't pace their movies on the set. They try to pace it in the cutting room, and that's the wrong place. Editing is the enemy of comedy. Comedy plays in two-shot, action and reaction.

Carrie Grant in a bathrobe, Catherine Hepburn calling him, Mr. Bones, and that's not his name. But what's funny is, Catherine in the foreground, chatting away, and Carrie Grant doing nothing but reacting, right? That's comedy. And to get it to work, to get the two shot to work, people have to talk fast. So all I ever do is, I'll say, great, let's just do one more way faster. The other thing I often do, it throws people off, is if there are two people in a scene after a take,

I always go up to them and say, one of you is very good. You don't say which. No, you don't say which one. But both of them assume they weren't the good one and they get better. And the third thing I do, which exudes self-confidence, is I direct from a saddle. Literally. Literally. Now I have two saddles.

For many years, I had a saddle that sat on an apple box that sat on a platform with wheels. at first it had four wheels but it kept throwing me so no it has 12 wheels three in each corner and and at the last year of a series of unfortunate events uh the the other executive producer rose lamb because i kept saying i need a motorized saddle uh got me one she she bought a rascal you know the things that like old people drive around their communities took off the seat had the special effects people put a saddle on it so i've got a joystick And the thing would do, you know, like 14 miles an hour. So now I race up to the actors and go, one of you is very good.

And also, you know, director chairs are very uncomfortable. They're bad for your back. But with a saddle, you sit up straight. I wear a cowboy hat and a tie. And boy, do I get respect. Everybody does their own thing. Hitchcock wore a suit. Sam Ramey does the suit.

Sam Ramey wears a suit. And you do your cowboy in the saddle thing. But I believe Sam is unfortunately. And I know Sam, but you should check this out. I believe he's a Trump supporter. That can't be. I will put money on it. Are you being serious?

Yeah, make you think less of Evil Dead now, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's get back. Yeah. The Cohn brothers are not Trump supporters. I'm pretty sure about that.

And obviously that collaboration, even before you were a director. So out of, you're in NYU film school at the time, I believe, right? No. Oh, you were out by the time you met Joel. We had nothing to do with film school together. He was at undergraduate, I was in graduate. Got it. So, okay, so from what I gather, you met Joel Cohen at a party.

At a party. You guys end up collaborating on Blood Simple. Right. An amazing piece of work that's their first film. And by all accounts, your first time on a film set was literally being the DP. And their first time. So who was taking a bigger shot on who? Was it the Cohen's taking a shot on you or are you taking a shot on them?

Or was it equal opportunity we didn't know we were doing? It was really equal opportunity. You know, we were at this party. everyone there was from Dary Ann Connecticut except Joel and me. We Jews from the opposite side of the room sniffed each other out. We started to talk. The movie An American Friend by Vim Vendors had just come out. Robbie Mueller was a cameraman, did a phenomenal job. We were talking

and he said, Joel said, my brother Ethan and I just wrote this script, Blood Simple, and we're going to shoot a trailer like it's a Finnish movie and use that to get dentists and doctors and all that to invest. Because a dentist can't read a script and say, oh, this is great. And also, Joe and Ethan had never done anything, so no one's going to say, oh, yeah, I trust you guys. But with a trailer, you can look at it and say, I'd go see that movie.

So Joel said, we're going to shoot this trailer. And I said, well, I own a U-16-millimeter camera, and he said, you're hired. To shoot the trailer, not the feature, but we went out, we shot the trailer. over several days. There are no actors in it just feet and bodies and bullet holes and all that. It turned out great. And a year later, we raised the 700.

Joel actually went to Minneapolis and got the Hadassah list. So he was seeing rich Jewish women while Ethan and I were seeing doctors and dentists in New York. We each had a print of the trailer. And literally the first day on the set of Blood Simple

was the first day, Joe Ethan and I had ever been on a movie set. I had the cameraman assistant come over the night before to show me where the on-off switch was on this 35-millimeter camera. But we all took chances together, but we all took, we all had a very similar notion of that we wanted to be very stylized. And I think one thing I sort of helped them with is I'm an only child of Jewish persuasion. I wish I could be handsome and an actor, but I'm not. But I still wanted everyone to know that I was in the movie. And if you look at the body of my work, I'm saying that with quotes because it sounds pretentious.

The camera is more than a recording device. Whether it's Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, throw Mama from the train, Adam's family. The camera sort of grabs the audience and says, I'm in charge here, follow me. I'm going to do weird things. You know, in Blood Simple, we do that shot where we track over the bar, but there's a drunk asleep on the bar, so we just boom up over the bar and back down again. I think even exponentially then next on Raising Arizona,

then you really kind of go for broke. It's all, I mean, like, Nick Cage, what did he say he was like channeling about Looney Tunes cartoon character and that or something? I mean, it has that kind of manic energy to it. And the camera is totally a character in the movie. You know, we had the blankie cam, where I would lay on a blanket and be dragged across the room

whenever we were chasing dogs. We had this shaky cam, which was a camera mounted on a 12-foot piece of plywood, a board, Joel at one end, me on the other, an Aeroflex 2C with a 9.8 millimeter lens in the middle, and we would run and then lift it up and over fountains, cars, up a ladder, through a window,

and into Florence, Arizona's mouth, and one sort of continuous shot. And then you followed the last collaboration, I guess, was Miller's Crossing, which is such like a, I mean, a gorgeous movie. Oh, thanks, thanks, and more classical in some ways. I mean, it's still a Cohn Brothers Sonnenfeld skewed version of that kind of gangster story. But that was, that's a good way to go out in terms of that, I mean, that triptych of three films you did with them. Yeah, they're very different.

And raising, Miller's Crossing is my favorite movie I ever shot as a cinematographer in terms of my own work. Yeah. It's handsome. It's beautiful. It's not wacky. There's not a lot of wide-angle lenses. And we tried it in New Orleans, but it doesn't say nuance. It's supposed to be like any city in America with gangsters.

It has a timeless quality to it. It really stands up. So you transition into feature directing with the Adams family. And from what I gather, was it Scott Rudin that essentially kind of gambled on you on that one? Yes. Totally. So for good or for bad, he's a character, I understand. Have you?

I've never interviewed. But, I mean, I've heard all the stories. I mean, he's infamous. Well, what I say about Scott is I love him and I wish you were dead. I'll tell you a quick story about it. So Scott had tried to get Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton to direct Adams family. When they both passed, he sent the script to me. I was not looking to be a director.

I was very happy as a cameraman. I felt I could be in charge of my craft. He sent it to me. He said, read it. Meet me at Hugo's, which is this play. in L.A. in two hours, and I grew up with the Charles Adams cartoons because, you know, they were in a New Yorker, and they're up my alley because they're totally visual, and also the reader had to find the joke. You know, you had to scan the image and say, oh, he's got a

pair of scissors, and, oh, that guy's. So I said, why do you want me to direct? And he said, well, all the good directors passed. Thank you. And he said, I'd rather take a chance with a visual stylist than with a hack comedy guy. Right. It was a nightmare. It was a lot of pressure.

I threw up a lot. I fainted on the set. You lost your DP? We lost our DP because he was so slow after 10 weeks. We had to get rid of him, get another one. But we had a great DP. Owen Roysman is one of the great ones, you know, Tootsie and French Connection. There you go, yeah.

But so impeccably cast, too. I mean, I can't. Raul Julia and Angelica. I know. It's just like those three alone. Raoul and Angelica were both Scott and my idea, and Scott didn't want to hire Christina Ricci. He liked this other girl who had hyperthyroid eyes that looked more like Raoul.

But Christina is so dark and wonderful. Here's the story not in the book, Barry. Sonnenfeld, call your mother. We did a shot, a wide shot of the whole family. The door opens, and they see Fester for the first time, and it was fine. And I went up to Christina, I said, hey, Christina, that was great, but let's just do one more where you look sadder. And she's 10.

I started to walk away, and she says, Barry, oh, God, this is going to be horrible. Yes, Christina. I can't look sadder. And I said, okay, how come? And she said, well, sadness is an emotion, and Wednesday has no emotion. So I'm going, oh, Jesus, I got a small one. So I said, okay, you know what, just look more morose. And she said, okay.

And I walked back, and she did a second take. She looked sadder. And I gave her an award when she was like 30, and I told the story. And I said, to this day, I don't know if she knew what morose meant, didn't know but knew it meant something like sad and Christina took the award and said believe me Barry I knew what Mara was 10 going on 40 yeah and I'm for my money and bizarrely it's actually been on cable a lot lately I've been watching Adam's family values yeah yeah bits and pieces the Camp Chippewa stuff alone is just like

gold it's one of the best comedy sequels out there I think that one is it true is the folklore is that you turn down Forrest Gump to do that one? Yes and no. What happened was after Adam's family came out, the head of the studio, not the chairman, but the president, Gary Lucchese, loved it and said, look, we have eight scripts of this thing, Forrest Gump. I'm not sending you any script. It's no good. I'm sending you the book. I read the book, and the character of Forrest Gump is sort of an overweight guy who's really, he's like Confederacy of Dunstice. Right. So I wrote back. I called Gary, I said, look, here's the thing.

I shot big. I know Hanks. Hanks would be perfect for it. Instead of a fat guy, let's just make him like a runner. And can I send it to Hanks? And Gary said, can you send it to Hanks? Yeah, I send it to Hanks. I said, look, you probably don't want to do it because it's another man-child thing.

It's similar or big in some ways. Hanks loved it. So now I have Hanks. I hire Eric Roth. We have the script. And then, Paramount says, you can do Forrest Gump, but we want you to do Adam's Family Values first. I said, great, I'll do Adam's Family Values and I'll do Gump.

And the producer, rightfully so, said, I don't want to wait. Hanks could die. There could be another movie like Forrest Gump. Hanks could change his mind. I want to go now, and I don't want to wait for Barry. and her husband was Mark Canton, who was a chairman, a president of Warner Brothers. Canton said to my agent, if Barry makes us wait, he will never work in this business again. Something original to Hollywood, never spoken before.

And my agent at the time no longer said, Barry, you can't do gum, you know. And what I should have done was insisted on a producing credit since I did get Hanks and I did get that script. but life goes on. That would have reaped rewards, but you found other rewards. I found other rewards. And I'm here with, if I had done that, maybe I'd never write this book, and Barry's son-and-feld call your mother, and maybe I'm not here with you. I've been told to say the book title a lot.

Media trained very well, very well. We can't go into detail on everything. Obviously, get shorty comes. That's an exceptional piece of work using, I mean, it was kind of Travolta at the height of his powers coming off pulp. Yeah. He was Gene Hackman, who's just for my money, like my favorite actor of all time. And a great comedy actor because he never tries to be funny. And we'll get into this a little bit on Men and Black.

But, like, Hackman's one of those that has, like, a reputation, too. He's a tough guy. Like, not every director's gotten along so well with him. Yep. Did you get along well with Gene Hackman? Gene was very scary. Here's the thing, though. Here's going to shock you.

You know, you play a game like, if death was not an option, who would you rather drive cross-country with? Yeah. The one I used to play on the set all the time with Joe and Ethan is, if death were not an option, I would say to Joe, would you rather have sex with Ethan or your mother? And Joe would say, well, I got to keep working with Ethan,

so I guess my mother, which is, anyway, it's a really good game. I highly recommend death is not an option. If you don't want to do the sex version, you can do the, who would you rather drive cross-country with? Okay. If I had to spend the rest of my life

only working with Tommy Lee Jones, Gene Hackman or Robin Williams. Wow, I've sensed a surprise coming. The surprise is the one I would not want to work with ever again is Robin. So that was on RV. That was on RV. Was it just where he was at that time or just generally? It was two things.

One, it was where he was at that time, but I didn't know that at the time. But Robin and I have very different versions of comedy. For me, it's all about control. And for him, it's all about general. jazz, you know, and that's very different ways of working. And I think he bridled under my very sort of demanding this, say it as written kind of comedy. You alluded to a little bit of like sort of like the reaction shot being as important as the A camera. Yeah. And like he was the human A camera. That's right. It was that that was the show. That's right. You don't want to hire Robin to do nothing

but react. Yeah. Right. So, and then between Gene and Tommy, Uh, my favorite of the three is Tommy. I love Tommy. So what's the secret sauce to Tommy Lee Jones? I know, I know the answer. I've been doing this for a long time on my side of things. And truly, and this is not, this is an open secret in Hollywood. He is a, he can be an asshole to a lot of people.

They perceive him as that. And on my side, I've never interviewed him. And that's been a conscious choice because I don't want to experience what I've heard from other people. So why are you the fortunate one that brings out the human Tommy Lee? Well, first of all, I'm accessible and adorable. What about to Barry? No, no, no, you are.

You know what? That's true. And therefore, you will succeed. I should give it a try. Okay. Tommy suffers no fools and doesn't want to be asked stupid questions. Right. Here was the way I worked with Tommy on the first men in black, 20-week shoot, 26 months, right? The very first day, and Will was finishing Independence Day.

So for the first two weeks, I just had Tommy. First scene, we meet Tommy Lee Jones in the Sonora Desert. He's interviewing illegal aliens, and then this illegal takes off his disguise, and you see Mikey, an alien, who speaks in an alien language with arms and flippers. First day of shooting, first line from Tommy ever. He says to Mikey, who is speaking in angry, an angry. alien language, Tommy says, that's enough, Mikey. Put up your hands. And all your flippers cut. Hey, Tommy, it's going to be funnier if you don't acknowledge that flippers are funny

because, you see, you do this every day, you know he has flippers. So don't hit the comedy. Your government issue, your GI, you're Jack Webb, you just say the lines, nothing's funny. And he stares at me with pure hate. And for 20 weeks, all I would ever do with Tommy, there were two things. One is I'd say, Tommy, flatter, don't be funny, don't be funny. His agent called me, he said, you don't want Tommy to be funny, you just want Will to be funny. I said, George Burns is funnier than Gracie Allen. The reaction shot gets the laugh.

I was a D.P. I went Sally. I shot the orgasm scene. I've been in that audience a hundred times and as funny as Meg is faking an orgasm and let's say you're at 100 DPs you cut decibels

you cut to Billy doing nothing and the left goes from 100 to 120 believe me Tommy is as funny as will I think funnier only because he's not trying to be funny no you hate Tommy you hate Tommy I don't hate Tommy I love Tommy

Tommy Tommy Tommy hates me for 20 weeks. The movie's done. You've got to show it to Tommy a week before the junk it. So in the press, ask him questions. And the press, the question that the press constantly asked Tommy was, how did you get to be, how did you get to be that funny? So Tommy loved doing the interviews. And Tommy's response, God love him, was the secret to comedy is stand next to Will Smith and do whatever Barry Sunnenfeld tells you to. So I was really, redeemed after that it was perfection but here's a problem with tommy all of our space guns the noisy cricket the series 5 the atomizer they're prop guns they don't make sounds right

Tommy for 20 weeks would go cut Tommy Tommy Tommy don't make a sound we're gonna add that in post Tommy goes well I didn't make a sound and I'd go well and Will would say Tommy you made it and Tommy loved Will. Tommy loved Will. So that was great. And because Tommy got to start two weeks before Will, Tommy got to feel that Will was visiting his set. Right. So I love Tommy. Gene, Gene is very intimidated. I suspect he's killed. Yeah. Yeah, talk about not suffering fools. He was tough. Crazy. So jumping ahead to Wild Wild West. Okay. I'm there. I have had Kevin Klein in here. We've talked about it.

It's one of those things also that, like, the legend becomes bigger in a way where, like, if people forget also, that movie made a lot of money. No, no, it did. It made a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide. Yeah, so, you know, all, you know, with some context. But you also had another kind of crazy producer on that one. You had John Peters on that one, super infamous, the man who likes giant spiders in the ends of his movies. I think he wanted one in the Superman movie

that never happened, too. Oh, really? That's the story, at least. Well, the problem with John is he wanted Will to be in drag, and I begged him. For me, there were two problems with that, three problems with Wild West. There are parts I really like.

I really love the opening and, you know, fat canned candies, you know, whorehouse and all that. One is John Peters, who really insisted that Will be in drag, and I think it totally takes you out of the movie. It's not believable. None of us really sort of wanted to be there.

Two, and this goes back to my theory of comedy, you never want two funny people in your movie. You want Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith. You want Gracie Allen and George Burns. You don't want two Gracie Allen's. We had George Clooney, and George dropped out late. George is going to play Arterman. And Artemis was designed to be the straight man.

I'm sorry. Artemis was designed to be the straight man and Will's character, Jim West, was supposed to be funny. Right. And Will totally subscribed after Men in Black to my theory of straight man, funny man, and I could not get Kevin not to be funny. And after a week on the show, Will came up to me

and Will calls me Baz. Will said, hey, Baz, are you thinking what I'm thinking and I said yeah you're the straight man and he said yeah I'm the straight man and you know Kevin also felt he was slummy you know he was a great Shakespearean actor also we had Kenneth Brana who is a great Shakespearean actor so Kevin would come on to set and say arose by any of Kevin just stand here and say so it was and also tonally I think the mistake was a lot of people hadn't seen the television show and didn't

understand. It was a combination of sort of science fiction and cowboys. It's a steampunk kind of thing before it was cool. And also, yeah, and also I think the spider was too big. I think I should have made the spider 20 feet, not 80 feet.

I think it just took you out of the movie. But there are definitely parts of that movie I love and parts of it that I cringe at. But I'm, I wouldn't be here with you today if I had done something else. So post Men in Black 3, you know, you spent a lot of time in recent years on a series of unfortunate events, which I love.

Which is great. Is your appetite, have your appetites changed in terms of like, do you, I mean, you're, you know, there are not a lot of filmmakers that can handle tent pole kind of really complex, special effects driven films that can combine comedy and action like you. Thank you. Do you want to do more of those big scale block? at this point, right? I want to do streaming television.

Really? My three years in Vancouver on a series of unfortunate events with Neil Patrick Harris and all my favorite actors, Patrick Warburton, who's in everything I do, was perfection. I had never been a showrunner before, you know, which is sort of the guy in charge of everything. Usually there's a writer's showrunner. Rarely is there a director showrunner. Netflix was perfection. They really were.

Their theory is, take your time, hire the right guy, but when you think you got the right person, give them the power to succeed or fail. Sure. But don't give them the responsibility without the power. And so Netflix, I shot the first two episodes. I sent them my cut, you know, rough cut. They sent me notes, and I said,

listen, do you want me to make all these changes or just the ones I think will work or do you want to see all of them just to make sure I've done them? And the Netflix creative executive assigned to us said, it's your show. These are our suggestions. Do whatever you want. If you don't think a suggestion works, don't do it. I mean, no studio has ever said that to me. So it's going to be hard to go back is what you're saying. I mean, to, like, sign up for a Marvel movie where Kevin Feigey is the ultimate guy. Yeah, I, yeah. And also, you know, streaming, the writing is getting so good. You get to do 20, in the case of a series of unfortunate events, who was 25 hours of television. And also, you know, I had been hired to direct the, the Jim Carrey feature

of a series of unfortunate events with Scott Rudin. Scott Rudin quit and I was sort of alone and Paramount wanted to bring on another producer and I said that's fine bring on any producer you want except Walter Parks because he'll fire me the next day Walter was the producer on the three men and blacks.

I always say about Walter if we didn't work together we'd be really good friends. He's a great guy. He's smart. He's funny but he just doesn't want to give up power, and I don't want to give up power, but Paramount hired Walter and I was fired the next day, which was very lucky for me because now I got to do in 25 hours instead of 90 minutes,

and it's so much better a venue for a series of unfortunate events. One more thing I want to say about that is, I had read the books for my daughter. I desperately loved the material. And for me, what I love about it is Daniel Hander, the writer of the books, posits that children are smart and capable, and all adults, whether they mean well or villains, are equally ineffectual.

And that's my parents. I was going to say, this is your memoir. We've been talking about it. That's right, exactly. What's my memoir called again? Oh, wait. Is it Barry Sondfeld called your mother? It is. That's amazing that you remember that. Thank you.

Again, I've been media trained too, apparently by you. Wait. So did you, you mentioned Jim Carrey. Do you think about actors that have gotten a way that you've always wanted to work with? Like, I read that you were going to do a Jetson's movie with Jim at one point. Like, no, that's not true. Okay. But like, are there actors out there that are on that list of like, oh, I would gel with them? It just hasn't come together. You know what? I would gel with anyone who would be willing to talk really quickly. I mean, I really wish I were around when Preston Sturgis and, you know, Howard Hawks, if I could work with Kerry Grant, and really our modern Carrie Grant is George Clooney. I was going to say. Yeah, Clooney is fantastic.

He really knows where the comedy is and where the comedy isn't, and he's a great reactor. Also, in terms of fast talking in a different kind of camp, I would... Mrs. Maisel. Well, that too, but I would also steer you to Jesse Eisenberg, who's been maybe the past. Stalker on this podcast. I have so desperately tried to work with Jesse. I had a script for years called Moist, the most unfavored word in the English language.

I was desperate for Jesse. He's also one of those guys. He can be very, very flat and very fast. And if I could work with Jesse, absolutely. So get this out to Jesse, please. We'll work on it on. Come on, so do you know what the next project is? Is it a streaming, is do you have a script in mind that you're trying to?

Maybe. You know, the thing about Hollywood is it's all happening until it's not happening. Right. So I've been meeting with Lorne Michaels about a project for Apple that I'm very close to doing. And there's been, for the last four weeks, I've been told, oh, your deal will be finished today. Right. So you may read about it later today or never, but it would be a six-part series, and it would be a musical, which will be really... I was going to say, that seems... Oh, yes.

Yeah, so that's kind of exciting for me, and it's written by Cinco Paul, who's only written movies that make billion dollars. He's written animated movies like Despicable Me and The Minions and all those Secret Life of Pets. So he's written this six-part musical, which is kind of fantastic. I'm very much hoping that that happens. Did you ever bring yourself to see the latest men in black, or was it a little too close to home? I haven't seen it yet, but from what I hear, I think they violated a few of your rules that you've talked about earlier today. Don't be funny. Don't wing. Don't say anything. I saw the trailer, and I saw one, two shot of the two leaves, and I thought, they think they're in a comedy. you don't want

here's the other comedy rule you don't want anyone to know they're in a comedy you don't want the DP to know because it'll be too bright the lab will make it too bright you don't want to compose her to know because there'll be slide whistles and xylophones

you don't want the actors to know because so like wink at the camera the director should know they're in a comedy I always say if the scene is absurd just play the reality of the scene Don't ever try to be funny.

Finally, I was somewhat surprised to read that, like, I think someone asked you your favorite all-time filmmaker, and I would have expected, you know, a Mel Brooks or a Woody Allen, and you cited Kubrick. Yeah. Is that true? It's true. Weirdly, there are several movies of his I've never seen,

so that might change my opinion. There only have, like, nine movies seen me. I know, but... And by the way, some of them I didn't like and some I didn't see, but there is no better movie ever made. than Dr. Strangelove. Yeah. Except for about 42 seconds of George C. Scott overacting for 18 frames too long.

But that's not his fault. That's Kubrick's fault because he could have cut out a little sooner. But the men and black credits are certainly an homage to that. Well, yes, the same guy, Pablo Farrow. Yeah. Yeah, he did the two Adams family. He did the three men and blacks and it's all because of Dr. Strange love. There is no better movie than Strange Love.

He's also part of the affection for Kubrick that he came out of, like, photography. He had a little bit of your trajectory in a way. He really knows where to put the camera. And also, if you look at Strange Love again, there are scenes that go on forever without a cut. Usually with Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers, you know, and Hayden's sort of layer, you know, where he's got his gammy leg shot off. and what's brilliant is you get to see sellers going yeah yeah as as you know you're learning about precious bodily fluids and all that the fact that you don't cut into close-ups and allow the audience

to find the joke is what comedy is about now let's say look I love the Sturgis movies you know Palm Beach story is close to my favorite movie I love bringing a baby but for me it's Kubrick's mainly because of a 2001 of Space Odyssey. You've seen that one. I have. I think I'm still watching it. It's like 19 hours long. It has an overture.

It's so great, though. It's so watchable. So he's my favorite. Because, boy, he knows where to put the camera. Yeah, I always like, I've said this before filmmakers. I like to feel like I'm in safe hands. Like there's a confidence that it wasn't arbitrary, that there was an actual perspective. And you know what?

A lot of comedies are now becoming very, very. arbitrary they have three or four cameras they do uh sort of improv stuff listen tell a day good nights was very funny but i couldn't i don't know i don't know how to do that thing yeah you know it's a different it's kind of a sloppy it's very funny just not my thing uh what was the name of that book again barry hey have you noticed that i talk about 40 dbs louder than you do doesn't still sound intimate can i sound like we're actually sitting across from each other we're I'm going to spend millions of dollars on post on this to make us sound like two normal human beings. Well, can you all?

Well, the book, which I'm very proud of. You should be. I'm very excited for you. Thank you. Is Barry Sennonfeld, Call Your Mother, coming out March 10th. Some of these stories you heard today, but many that you haven't heard in that book. Congratulations on it. And I'm so pleased it gave me an excuse to pick your brain for about an hour today.

I loved every second of this interview. Thank you. Thanks, Barry. 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. The Old West is an iconic period of American history. and full of legendary figures whose names still resonate today. Like Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and Butch and Sundance, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Geronimo, Wyatt Earp, Batmasterson, and Bass Reeves, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, the Texas Rangers, and many more.

Hear all their stories on the Legends of the Old West podcast. We'll take you to Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City, to the plains, mountains, and deserts for battles between the U.S. Army and Native American warriors to dark corners for the disaster of the Donner Party and shining summits for achievements like the Transcontinental Railroad. We'll go back to the earliest days of explorers and mountain men and head up through notorious Pinkerton agents and gunmen like Tom Horn. Every episode features narrative writing and cinematic music, and there are hundreds of episodes available to binge. I'm Chris Wimmer. Find Legends of the Old West wherever you're listening now.