Happy Sad Confused - Edward Norton

Episode Date: November 7, 2019

Edward Norton chooses his projects deliberately. You can tell from from his acting choices and even moreso from his directing career. His second directing effort, "Motherless Brooklyn", has arrived in theaters 19(!) years after his first time behind the camera, "Keeping the Faith". Edward joins Josh to discuss his wayward path to acting, working with legends like David Fincher & Marlong Brando, and why Bruce Springsteen is as much an inspiration to him as any artist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 XC90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com.

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. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Edward Norton returns to directing with his new film, Motherless Brooklyn.

Hey, guys, I'm Josh Harrow. It's welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Yes, very pleased to say that the great Edward Norton, first-time guest on Happy, Say, Confused is here today talking about his latest passion project. He is written, directed, starring,

God knows what else. The great new film, Motherless Brooklyn, it is out in theaters right now. But before we get into all of that, I should mention there's another human being in my office. It's Sammy. Hi, Sammy. Hi, Sammy.

Hi, Sammy. I know, this is exciting for me. Sammy. Ed Norton. Ed. You said Edward. Edward. I know, but I didn't.

Like in my head, I always say Ed Norton. So I don't know. I think Ed Norton, I know you were a big Honeymooners fan growing up. Do you ever seen an episode of the Honeymoons? I'm familiar with the concept of Honeymoon. There's a character on the Honeymooners called Ed Norton. So when I hear Ed Norton, I think of the character from the Honeymooners. Did he like, what did he call himself?

Did he introduce himself? Like, I'm Edward or I'm Ed? Close friends don't introduce themselves. Oh, I didn't realize you guys were close friends. That's nice. I don't say that. But I will say, it's interesting. I've talked to him a lot over the.

years. There was like a couple year period, like 10 years ago where I would see, I would see him a lot. He was in a lot of independent films. Incredible Hulk was out. So I saw him a lot. And then he doesn't work that much. You saw him like in friendly situations or like where he was being paid to be there and you were being paid to be there. Exactly. Transactional. Like friendship. Got it. Got it. But I'm saying. So there's a bit of a history there. And I always worried that he, he, I felt like I was talking to him in the days of when I had to ask him a lot about the Incredible the Holt. He wasn't happy. And that was a tense kind of situation. It felt like at the time. So I was always worried he didn't love me or whatever. But I think we have a meeting of the minds now.

He was in here for a long time. We chatted over an hour. Wow. There was a lot to talk about. We talked a lot about his new film, Motherless Brooklyn, which is based on a bestselling book from about 20 years back. And it's an excellent new film. It's kind of a film noir set in the 50s. Edward is the lead, Edward is the lead character. He's surrounded by an amazing cast of actors he's assembled, including Bruce Willis and William Defoe and Alec Baldwin, Bobby Kana Vali, a who's who of New York actors. And it's kind of in the Chinatown, LA Confidential vein, very kind of an old school film that you don't see made anymore. Certainly not the kind of film you see on the big screen anymore. So I would definitely recommend that people

should check it out, support it. And as I said, it's a bit of a passion project for him. He's been working on and off on it for about nearly 20 years. Whoa. Yeah. That's major. So yeah, we cover a lot in this one. Did you cut, I bet you didn't even talk about my favorite Edward Norton movie. What do you think it is? What is it? Do you want to guess what my favorite Edward Norton movie is?

Is it Death to Smoochie? No, although I don't hate that. I watched it again recently. It's pretty good. Yeah. Do you want to guess or no? Everyone says, I love you. Keeping the Faye!

Oh, yeah. That was his last directing effort. He directed that 20 years ago. Oh, God. What a classic. I hope you went in depth. on keeping the faith. Was it mentioned?

Well, this is why you need to be around. This is why you need your own podcast. To get to what people really want. The KTF podcast. We want to talk about rom-coms from 20 years ago. I have some affection for keeping the faith. Yes, of course. Jenna Elfman, Ben Stiller.

Yes, it's truly wonderful. Anyway, there's that. What else to talk about? Oh, you know what's out this week? What? What? Honeyboy, the new, people should check out. What?

Honeyboy. the new, the Shy LaBuff movie. Your greatest love. I wouldn't say my greatest, but I do have a lot of affection for Shy. I'm always rooting for him, and I'm so thankful that this movie is getting great reviews. He wrote it. He stars in it. It's his story.

If it's playing near you, I heartily encourage you to check it out. If you heartily encourage it, we got to go. Well, I'm just saying. Hopefully it's going to be in the awards conversation. What else do you have coming up? Let's see. Oh, other things you guys should check out. I had a lovely chat with the cast.

of last Christmas, Amelia Clark and Henry Golding. Oh, those are a couple nice-looking Brits. I guess, whatever. Yeah, you don't notice that too. Nope, nope. They put a blindfold on me before my interviews now. But they were very charming, a lot of fun. So that interview should be up on MTV News's various social platforms very soon.

Yeah, those are the big ones. Wait, who did I just do for personal... Mamoa? That's right, Jason Mamoa for personal space. Aquaman. Aquaman. That is the latest edition of Personal Space, which is kind of like my long-form chat series for MTV News.

That's up. Great chat with him at his favorite guitar store. Everyone needs a favorite guitar store. What's your favorite guitar store, Josh? If you watch the personal space, which you clearly have it, in the first 10 seconds, it has revealed how I do not have any connection to guitars. Or music in any way. I mean, I like music, all right.

Besides Springsteen. We talked about, actually, on this podcast, we talked a lot about Springsteen. You're going to mention it in every interviewer podcast. He brought it up. Wow. I don't know if I had the publicist. Tell the publicist, okay, I want, if I have one request.

Nope, nope. What else to mention? Oh, there's going to be a, I'm chatting with the stars of Charlie's Angels soon. So guys, keep a look out for my chat with Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Banks, Naomi Scott, and the other star of Charlie's Angels that I can't think of right now. now. It's our first film, so I'm excused. I excuse you. Thank you. Look out for that.

Hopefully it goes well. I haven't done it yet, but if you never see it, that means it did not go well. I hope they don't hear this first. Anything else on your mind, Sammy, we should mention? No, I'm pretty excited about Ed Norton. Edward. Not well, we're friends. I did walk by a couple times because you told me to come in here at a certain time, and it's now 40 minutes past that time, so I did walk by a couple of times.

and noticed he was wearing nice shoes. So, yeah, that's why, again, this is why I'm here. So I think, based on that, it's probably going to be a really good chit-chat. That's how you judge by the shoes? Like, this guy's got good head on his shoulders, good shoes on his feet. So you go from the top and the bottom, nothing in the middle. It doesn't matter. Right.

Yeah, that's all you need. An interesting young lady. Everybody should check out. Motherless Brooklyn, now out in theaters. And, of course, remember to review, rate, and subscribe to Happy Say I Confused. You got a. You got a. You got a.

The holiday season's coming up. It's the perfect podcast for the holidays. I've always said that, guys. Without any further ado, here is Edward Norton. I was waiting to see what you were going to do. I said his name as it appears on his birth certificate. Ed. I'm respectful that way.

Norton. What's your birth certificate say? That's private. Antichrist. Yeah. It's a bunch of numbers. Here he is. Listen. Okay,

Tell me when we're starting. We're starting, man. It's happening. It's happening. Do you feel it happening? Okay, great. We're here. We're here. Has entered my office.

It's good to see you, man, as always. You too. Motherless Brooklyn is the film. Congratulations again. We chatted briefly in Toronto, but I'm thrilled that you made the time to have a longer chat about it today. Everybody should check this out. I was talking when you came in, like, you have been running around a lot. You've been, you know, you're the greatest advocate for this.

this one as you should be. Yeah, I think, I mean, there's, you know, when you go really deep on one and you feel good about it, that's good. And also, but also, you know, people, a lot of people really backed me on this, not just like the people who put up millions in co-finance alongside Warner and not just like Warner that took the kind of risk that people say studios never take anymore to make exactly these kinds of films. than they did. Yeah. But also, like my cast, the cast of the movie on this movie from Bruce Willis on Down all did the movie for no, you know, they deferred their fees on it so that we could get it done for the price I had to get it done for.

So like, I just, I have such a, people, people stepped up for me in such a big way. And I, you know, I, I want to get out there and get people to come see it. um well worth their time it's it's now out in theaters i mean talk to me a little bit about i'm curious you know you you know so many great filmmakers you've worked with so many and you're kind of like plugged in i feel like to like the old guard as it were do you show this film to like do you show this to warren baby yeah do you show this to jack i mean who's who's seen this um and do any of them give you notes not not notes i mean i showed it to sean penn the other night and he wrote me about the nicest letter I've ever gotten from an actor about anything.

Like, it was really great. But, yeah, well, one night, one night it was sort of inadvertent. Roman Coppola is a friend of mine because he writes with Wes Anderson on some of the films I've been in. Anyway, Francis was in L.A., and Roman had mentioned the film to him, and he was it's the 50s in New York which is when Francis sort of grew up here and so anyway he wanted to see the film

so I found a really good screening room and I was setting it up for for Francis and his wife and Roman and then then Warren Beatty was able to come but then Dustin Hoffman came and Elliot Gould came

and Quincy Jones came and Norman Lear and Roger Deacons, the great cinematographer, and suddenly it was like... This is like a Vanity Fair spread. Yeah, no, it was like... It was like the OGs, right? It was sort of like...

And that was... That was exciting, nerve-wracking, gratifying. They must appreciate it on a number of levels, as you said, like Coppola, just that milieu, but also, as, you know, this keeps being said, and it rightfully should be that this is the kind of movie that we all grew up with, the kind of movie that we don't see made that much anymore.

So it must be all the more gratifying to see somebody continue the lineage that they grew up with. Yes, I think, and Warren, Warren, I got really flattering feedback from Francis in particular and Elliot Gould. But Warren, Warren called me the next day, and it was, it's kind of thrilling because he was like, look, I really been, he goes, admired it on just every level and blah blah he goes but i can't wrap my head around you doing this in 46 days which is that's sort of like movie inside baseball but but you know for perspective we shot fight club in 130 days right and um and making this movie in 46 days was no mean feet it was um i think most people looking at it sort of assumed that it was a 70 or 80 day shoot yeah and um or a 70 or 80 million dollar movie yeah

Yeah, and we, and, you know, in an era, I mean, I, I, uh, I hope I can get Netflix to give me 200 million to age my friends backward at some point. I'm the dream of any actor. I, who doesn't want? I told Bobby Cannavali, we're going to get our turn. We're going to get our turn, Bobby. You didn't get aged backward in this one. I'm going to turn you into a 12 year old boy one day, Bobby. Yeah, but you and I, we are doing standby me.

Don't think we're not, because we are. I mean, I would watch that. beta testing the technology. It's so nice to beta test the stuff for you guys. Yeah, but we're going to, we're going to do it, and it's not going to look like young faces on 70-year-old bodies walking along. It's going to be good. No, joking aside, I think. But yeah, you work within the constraints you're given.

Yeah, yeah. And I was, and I think that it was great to feel like those guys. appreciating it. I will say I'm nervous. Right now I'm nervous because tonight we're running it at the Directors Guild and Spike Lee and Bruce Springsteen

are both coming. So I'm flipping out a little bit because Bruce, there are things in the film that actually are inspired by... There's a specific music cue that I said to the great composer on the film, Daniel Pemberton, I said, listen to meeting across the river on Born to Run, and that's

the vibe I want in this queue, a sense of like people going to a meeting, a dark meeting where they're over their head, you know. And I think Springsteen's, that song meeting across the river is about as noirri as you could get in a pop song with the lonely trumpet, you know, intro and this sense of like, hey, tuck this gun in your pocket because we have to look like we have to look like we're tougher than we are right we're going up against people who are you remember that line you know like you know because this this guy don't dance and where it's been past it's our last chance and you know it's like it's like we we have to go pretend we're we're grown up and tough and can deal with this front yeah yeah front it and and that's and that's like

sort of when my character in this movie goes for the final big meeting at the pool with alec Baldwin um i really i really wanted it to have that feeling of like of like i'm playing out of of my depth, but I'm going to go kind of tilt with a giant and hope I don't get crushed, you know. Put yourself in the shoes of your mentor. What would your mentor do be that guy that you're supposed to be in the novel or in real life? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And it's funny because Bruce, you know, like long before MTV and the visualization of music,

literally, you know, Bruce, I feel, I don't even know if we knew each other at this point, Literally, I'm trying to think what you, so in, in 2007-ish was the 30th anniversary of darkness on the edge of town being released. And I was at Toronto for some reason. Yes. Maybe I was shooting the Hulk or something. I don't remember. But in the Toronto Film Festival, yes, I think that's what it was.

I think it was the summer or fall of 2007 and I was shooting the Hulk. and they showed the documentary that they created about making darkness on the edge of town because it was the 30th release and because I was up there they asked me if I would interview Bruce on stage at TIF so I interviewed him and we had this long conversation about the effect of cinema on his music like about how much noir films and Terry Malik films like Badlands, which is the opening track on Darkness on the Edge of Town, his Badlands, literally, how much they affected him in his young life and created a sense of landscapes.

And I think, you know, darkness on the edge of town picks up literally where Born to Run leaves off with meeting across the river and becomes literally like a cinematic noir album, those songs like, you know, racing in the streets and dark. It's on the edge of town, and, you know, it's a very, very cinematic record. It is a record that feels like you're watching a dark, shadowy movie. I'll tell you why this is really funny. So literally, all on the podcast last week, I went, I was crazy for me to say this. I visited Springsteen and Coltsneck.

And I talked to him about exactly what you're talking about. No, come on, really? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, Western Stars. Which has some very noirish elements too, by the way. Yeah. And our conversation was all about just the intersection.

of film and music in his life. And it's all these stuff, how Malik totally influenced him and John Ford, et cetera. Amazing. This is a good two-for. If you just listen to this crazy podcast. Well, that's, great.

Well, that's, to me, you know, the thing that's beautiful in that to me is like, um, you know, I think I, whenever I bump into people who deny their influences, I don't trust them. If I feel like people are trying to like, assert their originality.

We're all mining what we... Right. Then I'm sort of like, what's your problem? What it means is you're insecure, right? Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Bruce Springsteen. The great. It's the best. All cite their influences. David Bowie. They were the fastest to say, oh yeah, I'm just taking this and bending it through me. Applying to my own personal.

Yeah, but they know that bending it through me means it's something wholly original. You know what I mean? Like it's Bruce's narrative is the narrative of his places. but it's still affected by Roy Orbison and Terry Malick and all of these things. And Spike Lee will talk, you know, for days about the films he's referencing. And I think, but I think it's, I always think it's beautiful. It's like, I mean, I'm saying straight up, like, literally I'm saying in this music cue, I want you to evoke art, you know, a meeting across the river or.

But you're marrying it with the specificity of the situation or, and you're using a trope and emotion, a feel and you're marrying it something else and it becomes its own thing yeah yeah and i think um it becomes its own thing and in a funny way i mean i think there's real truth to the to the um you know the the the people who really think deeply on an academically almost about stories and myths and the idea that we you know i don't know if it's joseph campbell or whoever says that there's really just there are a certain baseline of stories and that we we we we re-scaned them and tell them over and over and over again because we need them to stay recognizable to the world we're living in.

So it's like we, I mean, honestly, when we did America History X, we talked about this overtly all the time. We were like, we're doing Othello. We are actually doing a story, a Shakespearean story about a person brought down by rage, you know, or Macbeth, you know, like ambition, right? When you're in school, they say, what is Macbeth's tragic flaw, ambition? What is Othello's jealousy? you know um what is lear's pride you know it's it's like and we were like well what if you did a

a big sort of epic almost melodramatic tragedy but but what's going to make that resonate now for people and it's like well anger anger directed at the wrong people and how does it destroy you more than the target of your anger you know what i mean and and i think when you but you have to do that because people have to be able to look at the world that's in a story and say well that this is about me. You know, this is about me. This does actually apply to me.

And I think to the point about Bruce, like, what is Bruce, if not that? If you, I grew up in the Route 95 corridor, literally between Baltimore and New York, Route 95,

that's the landscape of his, his world. And, and, you know, it was like, here's, this person's,

yeah, these are Trubidore ballads. These are, these have Woody Guthrie in them. These have Roy Orbison in them. These have, all kinds of stuff, but they're describing the world we live in now.

They're describing like highways and cars and semi-poverty and, you know, beach towns and all this stuff. And it's like, oh, my God, he's writing about us. He's writing anthemic epic ballads about us. Yes. And by the way, radio heads doing the same thing, but theirs is in the context of, of a digital age of information

and the oppressive fracture of like you know living in the modern world right right but still what longing longing to get out to have an alien come and take you away you know what I mean so okay I want to backtrack a little bit just because it's a rare opportunity to have you for this kind of time and talk about a wide array of things so okay so if you'll indulge me you the infamous big break year you're about 27 years old you have this amazing like triumvirate of films that come out within a year primal fear everyone says i love you people versus larry flint yeah those were i made that was i feel like

i was 25 maybe when you started yeah when i was made 25 26 the summer that i made that stuff yeah i'm curious in the years prior to that so you're new york you moved to new york after school right you're and so you're here you're doing theater here were those years of like uncertainty or did you feel like you were on a path prior to the quote-unquote big breaks? Did it feel like you knew where you were headed or? No, I mean, I knew what I was, I knew what I was, well, let me, if I'm strictly honest, I didn't move to New York with a clear embrace in my own head of what I wanted to do. Like I didn't move to New York with a conscious thought of, I'm moving to New York to be an actor at all.

it took me a long time to ever even say out loud to people, that's what I'm doing. You know what I mean? I was always moonlighting. Like, I was never... I'm going to do something more important with my life than I do. Well, I was, well, no, I mean, at one point I was, you know, I literally, uh, I had wild and crazy ideas about things. I, I, you know, on the conservative side, I like had friends who were going to law school. And there was like an intellectual part of me that was turned on by that, not in a careerist sense.

But my dad was a U.S. attorney. I grew up from when I was eight to when I was seven to when I was like 12. My dad was a federal prosecutor. and I sat in the back of the courtroom with my mom and watched his bank robbery trials and big federal tax fraud trials. And it was like, that was like the 70s in Baltimore. It was like the wire.

I mean, there are people my dad worked with in the U.S. Turning's office who there are characters in the wire are literally based on them. His trial partner was Kurt Schmoke who became the first black mayor of Baltimore. And, you know, to me, it wasn't like, be a suit. It was like, it looked like being a fighter pilot. I was like, it was like, you know, not even like LA law. It was more, it was something, I don't even know what it is in our

current sort of pop culture, legal framework. Because I don't even know if we've seen, it was like what pre-Baraja came in New York, just like, holy cow, like the great, these great, crusading public defenders, Spitzer before he, you know, crashed out. And, Eric Schneiderman before he crashed out, You know, just like, I know, brutal. But, but I, you know, so there was a, there was a part of me that sort of was like there's a, thought there was maybe something that was both smart and also high octane in that world. But I was, I was absolutely not interested in going to school again. Right.

At that time, I was interested in music. I didn't play music well enough to, like, but I wrote, you know, I was like, you know, I was Like, I was obsessed with Springsteen and with, you know, the chili peppers. And I used to, I told Flea one time, literally, Flea and I were surfing. We've been friends a long, long time, and he made some music. He plays the trumpet and bass on Tom York's track in this film. Right. But he, we've known it for the long time.

And he was like, when did we meet? And I was like, well, we met, like, you know, at this place in L.A., blah, blah. And he was like, yeah. I said, but you don't remember, you wouldn't know. But the real place. Yeah, you wouldn't know this. But I was like, they played Toads in New Haven, which is a bar club in New Haven. They played Toads in 88 or 89.

Maybe it was right when John Fushiani had joined the band. So John was 19. Wow. And I was 18 or 19 in college. And I went to see them play Toads. I think I want to say 89, but I can't remember when Mother's Milk came out. It was either right before. mother's milk came out or John had just joined the band I don't remember but this friend of

mine from San Diego was was in the punk and funk and he knew and we went to see them and um and I remember after like they were hanging out at the bar and flee I saw flee like chatting up this like a girl a college girl you know what I mean and I remember looking at them and going like all these thoughts I had about like you know because I had liked like the DC punk scene and Springsteen and all these things and these kind of nascent little thoughts of like, wow, could, you know, could I ever like, you know, be a musician or whatever? And I remember seeing the chili pepper as this club and John was the same age as us. And he was like Hendricks. Like truly the kid, that guy played guitar when he was 19 years old, like a prodigy.

So this wasn't an encouraging moment. You saw, oh, wait, no, not at all. And also, they were so, I mean, inked up and things. And it was just like, this is not a world. I am, I am, I'm so fucking square. What am I even thinking? I'm wearing like a fleece. And I, you know, like, you do not get into the chili peppers. I need to throw my hoodie in the trash. You do not get in a chili peppers wearing a fleece.

Like, and, and they, and it was just like, and I, but I remember having this very distinct thought of like, how does a person even get to where they play music like John Frusianti and Fleer playing it? at this age. Like, how do you get to be doing that at our age? And what the hell world do you come from where you're incarnating, like, this whole vibe by this time? Because I felt so innocent.

It conveyed to me this sense of, like, an exotic life of outlaw adventure. Since they were five years old. Yeah, exactly. It was like, yeah, these people have been getting tattoos since they were six, obviously, right? Time for your first tattoo. But what's really funny is so I was telling this. And Flea was like, he was like, that's so fucking weird. He goes, I remember, I remember talking to this girl and being like, how's a person even fucking get into college at this age?

Yeah, he was like, I remember thinking like, God damn, like these girls are so fucking smart. Where'd that kind of get that fleece? Yeah. No, that I know was not being said. Flea in a fleece, um, probably still, uh, it looks a little weird. It's just a person to flame. Unless it's the same pink. color as his hair like and then it's like okay

it kind of works no but but it's like you I do think like you know like certain things probably I was like I'm probably not going to be in punk rock like I'm not that authentically whatever and but I didn't know I went to New York

kind of with a vague idea of that it was like full of adventure and that it had a lot of it had a lot of what I was interested in, and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. Do you remember the, so jumping ahead past, you know, theatrical success, I know an association with Albi was very important to you,

and then these film successes, is there like a welcome to the club moment where you feel like I belong here? Like, is there like the secret handshake at Nicholson's house where you're like, no, no, no. I mean, that's all much later. In New York, I felt, in New York, I thought, But I think everybody, most people, like, are not Bob Dylan and, you know, anointed at the Newport Festival when they're 20, right?

That just, that doesn't happen that often. And most people feel like their life is pretty half-baked. You're like, you're faking it. You don't know what the hell you're doing. You're, you're drifting. You're looking for, you're looking for any fingerhold of, of, that makes you feel good about yourself in any way you know what i mean and i think um you're you're just you're just you're you're you're i hate to say it but in a lot of ways in that time and life like

what a lot of people are going through i think is realizing like that you're just going to have to do a lot of stuff that you don't like yeah and that your life is going to be as much about humbling yourself and figuring out what you don't like doing so much that you're willing to quit. Do you know what I mean? And my grandfather- My attrition, oh wait, here's the thing left that I have to do. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. And my granddad, who was a fairly eccentric and cool guy, I remember him saying to me, just don't chase money, do the things you like doing as much as you can, but no, you're just going to spend time doing things. And when you realize this is not me, and I don't like this, quit and move on and don't be afraid to, you know, unclip and not know

what you're doing next and do it. And that did stick with me. That like that's too short to go down these other paths for years at a time. Yeah. Pursue and then having a self-awareness to know I'm not that good enough and I'm not that I don't enjoy it enough to make it worthwhile. The other thing that I would say in that period was, I think, was an important permission that my granddad gave me, and my parents gave me too, was that, but he, my grand, my, my, my dad was like, you know, an environmental crusader and organization builder. My mom was a public school teacher, so they were, like, incredibly accomplished people in my mind, but they, they weren't like, they weren't like, they never chased money. Like they were very much like about service and mission driven work and my grandfather paid for me and my siblings to go to college and everything. And so I felt this. I admired him a lot and I felt this.

He was very famous in his own way for his urban development work and affordable housing work and all this stuff. And I sort of felt like when I got out of college, so many people in my family were doing what I would call. really like heroic work to make the world a better place. And I sort of felt like part of me was like this little voice in my head that's like, I want to be an actor. I felt a little bit like I had to, you know, like, oh, that's not why they paid for me to go college, you know. And I talked to my grandfather about it the week after I got out of school.

And I said, you know, I might want to do. this and he was kind of like, you know, he was like, yeah, no, he was like, do, do he, and he was like, I'm 67 years old. I don't, I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing what I'm doing after a lifetime of trying to do well before doing good. He's like, I'm doing good now. Right. But he, he said something to me like, you will, if you get good at a thing and you figure out what you love doing, you will figure out the way that you can be contributive through it, but don't, don't, you know, Don't put up on yourself about pursuing what makes you happen. Yeah, he kind of was also saying don't martyr yourself.

You know what I mean? Like don't, you don't have to martyr yourself. You don't have to martyr the idea of doing things that you're passionate about to the idea exclusively of giving your life to public service or anything like that. He was like there's room and time to be very contributive once you figure out like what you're good at. And it seems like anybody that looks at your filmography and wonders like, wait, why is he not doing three films a year? That has their artistic sides to that

of like not wanting to like, you know, inundated audience with too much of you, but it's also of like balancing these other efforts. I mean, I've interviewed you where you're sitting next to a Maasai warrior and you're running the marathon. Yeah, that's true. We did that. I forgot that.

Yeah. So, I mean, like you found the balance. I mean, and after if your output on the acting side maybe has decreased, you've kind of supplemented it with these other things that fulfill you in different ways. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, yeah. It's, it's, uh, I don't, I don't think that, I don't think that actors are better for acting more frequently.

I really don't. Um, I think that that, that, that, you, you start to get into what I would call, like, um, you're, you're, you're functioning more within the movie star, uh, commodity kind of, uh, frame. And, and, and I, I, I just don't think anyone who's work I've liked in any, you know Bowie or Bob Dylan or Radiohead or Springsteen or anything yeah I don't I don't feel like they're like

they're not dropping albums once a year did um what was your first meeting like with Fincher did you guys click immediately um yeah but I it's funny to me I'm really trying to remember how we met was it first on Fight Club you think

yeah no definitely I'd never met him I was like super super astonished by seven and then the game i i um i thought i couldn't even really wrap my head around what was going on that was having but literally like in retrospect i remember thinking there's such a there's so much incredible control there's like there's like a virtuosity to the float and the movement of these films visually they look so um they just i just thought they were really masterful it's wonderful masterful visual compositions um the cut image to image to image was just like it it had a an incredible sophistication and maturity and certitude like

certitude is a great word yeah yeah and yet there's this anarchic spirit Yeah, a sense of chaos, a sense of of doom, like looming, like danger in the, in the best sense, um, dread, you know, and, um, they were, they were great. So I, I was a fan, but, uh, I think, honestly, I think that I got word that they wanted to send me this book and script. And I feel like maybe I feel like maybe we talked briefly on the phone and he said, you know, read the book first. And, you know, and that I did. And then my recollection is that we talked on the phone again. But I feel like I want to say that I think maybe we met

at the newsroom cafe on Robertson, where the old new line was because maybe because he'd done the seven with new line or whatever I feel like maybe I met him at the newsroom cafe. Did you immediately, I mean,

I've interviewed him a few times and I acknowledge how lucky I am because he doesn't do a lot of press but I did a thing with him recently for Mind Hunter and I'm just always struck by like how funny he is. He's so funny, yeah. Like he has...

Well, the thing I do remember is that the first real conversation I had with him was about the book and there was a little like get to know you kind of thing but I basically remember saying it's really funny like but you you want

it to be funny right and he was like and he goes yeah that's the whole point like he kind of looked at me like duh like dude you know we're not doing it we're not going for them he's like he's like

he and I kind of feel like like my the delight of the first time I met him was realizing that he was sort of like dude you don't think I take myself seriously do you you you know you um which of course he does but but his vibe was so irreverent yeah um so irreverent and so you know self um you know self um you know self mocking and yes and mocking of everybody else and you know i mean like nobody's ever called actors meat puppets with more affection you know what i mean it's like

Nobody, only Fincher can... He's my favorite. Yeah, like he's like, you know, he gave me the best note I've ever gotten as from a director. What's that? Because I was running along in the wingtips and the underwear and something. And I probably did something that was like a little borderline like John Turturro in Miller's Crossing or something. You know, like a little bit... Yeah, a little bit Harold Lloydish.

Anyway, he just walks up. he kind of comes over to me and he goes he goes i'm thinking a little less jerry a little more dean you know and i was like oh yeah yeah that's it that's it um that's the movie like it's it's it's it's just toggling between those two things um and and he's he's just very he's very you know he's super crazy technically talented but he's but he's got a great um annoyingly great feel for a line reading. He's a very sardonic, very funny dude.

And yet you've only worked together once. Have you come close on anything else? No. I mean, I literally, I check in with Fincher and get advice from him or bounce things off of him with like regularity.

I don't think I've ever done anything I creatively and not asked him for For a gut check on certain things. And he's super generous with counsel, with discussion of technical stuff. He's always the guy you want to call if you're saying, like, hey, am I crazy? Is there degeneration between this and the transfer to this and how do I mitigate that?

I mean, if you want to know, like, hey, how do I not let someone else botch the hard work we've done? what are my checklist of must-dos. He's the guy, like the guy to call about any such thing. So on the flip side of a different kind of a person, the brando that you met and got to know on the score, it seems to be like a brando that was kind of like maybe, I don't know, you tell me, but disillusioned with acting a little bit,

kind of over the business, overacting? Was it heartening or disheartening to sort of see what his attitude was about? No, I don't actually think that. I think that he probably, I think that phase was a long way in the past and that he was, when I knew him, he was honestly at such an advanced age in life that I think he had long ago let go of even his own, you know, resistance to it. I think he was in a very, um, a little bit more of a Zen place.

Yeah, yeah, no, entirely. I think he, I think other things in life had buffeted him so hard. that he was actually quite he was in a very gentle place of it's a gig and I'm you know and it's a gig

and he Bobby as he calls De Niro like you know it's getting to do it with him and he and I knew each other I think it was I think he was in a he knew he was with friends he was relaxed I found him to be actually

I actually didn't like later as I often don't the narrative that was created right? Yeah, the clickbait horse shit that like people were taking his pants off being crazy it's like what are you talking about? Like the guy was an old man and he was hot and he was aware

that he was going to sweat through his suit and when he checked in to see if the lens size was cropping him he thought I should take my pants off so that I don't overswet my suit. It's like it was like it was like like conscientious. It was like knowing. It was like unselfconscious. Not not nutty. Like not even eccentric. Like really practical. You know what I mean? And oh, you know, he's he doesn't even learn his lines. He's stuff. He was nearly 80 years old and he wore the, he used this ear mic

system. And what happened was like three takes in. He would into his microphone, he would say, Anya, I got it. You know, and and then he was there. And it just, it actually was an accelerator. And many cases, Bob, who I love, took much longer to get to his own kind of comfortable relationship with the text than Marlin was. Marlin was fluid and effective and improvisational. And in fact, I thought that in some cases, the things that people end up saying caused friction between him and the director and everything. I was like, Marlin was just, he was exploring a very, on the character that honestly was it was maybe just not what was being expected

because he was playing with... Trying to elevate the material a little bit, a little. And actually, to be totally candid, I thought what he was doing was exploring kind of a closeted homosexuality in the character that maybe was in love with De Niro a little bit. Oh, yeah, there's a flamboyance to that character. Yeah, and a little bit of a Truman Capote in it.

And that maybe, you know, people who were thinking, oh, we're making a tough guy heist movie, and we want Brando and De Niro and, and it's sort of like, it's like, well, that's fine, but what he's doing is actually super interesting. And everybody was tightening up. You know what I mean? And I think, um, I thought it was,

I thought it was sweet. Like, honestly, I thought it was very, um, I was a little bit aggrieved at seeing, seeing the imposition around him of the idea that what he was doing was kooky or, that he was being things. I didn't feel that at all. And for no less than one of, like, arguably our greatest.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, something within that is something, I think, you know, you know, the speed with which in a creative process, people will tighten up around the idea that they've had in their head, people have videotape in their head of the way things are going to go and they often go on tilt when what shows up and what happens

doesn't match that videotape and you can see that in I see it when people come up and interrupt you at dinner you know there are people who come up and say in this super grounded down in their shoes way they look at you like a human being and they just say

you know I don't want to interrupt I just wanted to say that this meant something. And you say, and you look at them in the eye and you say, thank you so much. That really means a lot. And they go, thanks so much. And they're like, human, human, perfect. And there are people who come up and you can see from the minute they step up to you,

they are now trying to enact a videotape that they've been running in their head of the way a thing is going to go. And they are not even looking at you. They're looking at a mirror or they're, it's so disconnected. but the creative expression of that is that and by the way, Fincher used to tell me like he was the best as well planned and prepped a director as you'll ever meet but he was always like you plan

but you be prepared to deal with what is actually going on on the day that is the nature of the gig and you can hedge it and hedge it but there's going to be something that you just got to roll with and I think the sad thing is when there's

incredible discovery available within that unexpected and people tighten up around it instead and and I think there's famous stories of that with Brando and even Marie Saint and the glove one of the most famous like improvisational moments of acting lore but you know when I was making motherless Brooklyn I'm directing actors that are have been career inspirations for me like Willam Defoe right And Willem, we did a, in the scene where we're in the Washington Square Park at a protest and then I follow him down the path in Washington Square Park in the late afternoon sun. And I'm questioning him and it's a long shot where he's talking and talking and he's disgorging this huge amount of text, this kind of furious diatribe, right? And Willem's been practicing it because he's been walking up and down in the park. And if like you ever wanted to like come in New York, no one knows.

Like, Willam Defoe is going up and down, practicing his lines, and no one noticed. Like, they're like a crazy guy is muttering to himself. Or they're just going, oh, Willam Defoe. I love him in the Worcester group. That's about what I expect Willem Dafoe to be doing. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, we get toward the end of the, we're getting toward it, and the truth is, I've run out of time for the stuff with Willem.

I've spent too much time doing other stuff, and the light is falling, and it's that classic thing where you're looking at the time and the amount that he's supposed to do and that we're supposed to do, and I went into a tightness. My mind starts going, I'm not doing this to Willem Defoe. I'm not going to be that director, that actor who goes,

sorry, Willem, we just have to really hurry and we have to do this in a couple of takes on a steady cam and everything. And I almost raised my hand and was like, sorry guys, we're just going to have to come back to this. But then I literally looked at my first AD and he was kind of like, just reminding you, like, we are never coming back

to Washington Square Park with 300 extras. We don't have the money. This is it. And I kind of go to Willem. And he looks at me like, yeah, let's go. Let's go. And I realize I have one of those moments of like, why am I tightening up? He's not tightening up.

He's like pressure the moment feeds into the thing. What do we have to lose? It's not even film anymore. Let's just rock. You know what I mean? And we kind of get going and we're shooting really fast and really gorilla with a steady cam and these things. And he's firing. And when he messes it up, he's like, let's just go back.

He's running back and doing it. doing these things, and we end up, I absolutely love that scene in the movie. He's terrific in it, and the tension, the pressure of what was around us, you feel it. It feels it in it. And I later, I was like, because you always want to be, I've been doing this 25 years, you always, I know these stories, I know these things, but you go, why did my, why did I tighten up? Why did my mind go, go, why did I go into like lockdown instead of like, let's have fun Let's do it. Let's have fun.

You know what I mean? And granted, I think that's why Willem, like, an invaluable part. He's looking at me like, you got it. We're good. Like, let's go, you know. And that's collaboration. That's wonderful. But it is amazing to me how sometimes the mind, the desire in the mind to control, like,

fires in you and you go, you can actually become your own worst enemy. No matter how long you've done a thing. can you can the training the the the constant mental training to like allow allow shit to happen is it it you never really you never really get past the need to kind of conscientiously put yourself into an openness you know what i mean yeah he was just yeah well and came by again a few weeks ago and he's one of those guys i feel like i could talk about acting with like endlessly he just like lives to act and what i love about him is he seems to like it's not like he has one way of doing it

he will work with any kind of director and kind of adapt to their process. No, I agree. He's truly like a versatile he has got incredible versatility. Also, but by the way, it's part of why I wanted him in this is the character he plays in this

seems a little like a crank in the beginning, like a conspiracy theorist, very much an outsider doesn't fit is untrustworthy. but by the end you realize that he's actually sort of like Obi-Wan Kenobi he is the Jedi in rags

who really does know what's going on and is himself very powerful with the force like literally he and except like Obi-Wan he's the one who has sacrificed himself pariah that's kind of yeah but he has actually cared so much about other people and about goodness and morality that he he is the one going down you know

to Darth Vader's sword to protect others. And Willem, but Willem, you know, there's not a lot of people who have that straddle, who have that sort of thing that can disturb you a little, but then that deep humanity, you know. And I think Alec Baldwin has that in his own, a different thing, like I wanted someone who has a lethal capacity for charm and persuasion and intellectual, like seductiveness. and then also like the gene of a real bully like a real genuine

terrifyingly intimidating You use his powers as well As I've seen them in recent years Alex like because you know When he did it on 30 Rock He's a genius of that kind of stuff too But I haven't seen him in like a big screen role like this in a while No I think it's one of the best dramatic performances

He's given in a long time Like I think I mean Which never a lot of us I, you know, when I was sitting around the winter before I had this all together and I was talking to Bennett Miller and, you know,

people who are really great directors, friends of mine and I was sort of like, what about, you know, I think, like, and this part I was saying like, what about so-and-so, and people, other people were like, why are you even debating this? It's so obviously, Alec, like

and, you know, and you realize the rest of the culture will say stupid stuff to you, like, oh, but he's so, he's so, you know, it's like, it's like, no, man, we, that baggage for a second. No, like, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, coffee is for closers only, like, it's an iconic thing, not because it's a great line, but because he slams you into the back of your seat. And he has that, he also has a theater actor, a Shakespearean actor's command of language that in this film gets just full-throated, you know, You really get to see him open up into sixth gear in terms of his, the mastery he has of language.

He is so, there are so few people who could do the dark monologue he has in the pool at the end and drive through it as a single dark, cohesive thought. You know what I mean? He really, he really has a gift for language and elocution that's pretty, pretty unique, you know. One thing I want to mention before I release you out into the wild, sir, is I didn't realize your interest in the test screening process. Can you explain to me a little bit sort of like, so you're part of a company that does test screenings? And does that, is that born out of experience, bad experiences with test screenings for your own films?

Well, so, no, I, my company, it's called EDO, which stands for Entertainment Data Oracle, but we, it's a little bit of long story. but my partner, the guy I founded that company with, is a very, very, he's a leading theoretical technologist in terms of data science and quantitative. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence applications of complex data, I was a backer of his company called Ken Show that was a, it became one of the leading companies using AI,

on financial data. Okay. And then we had the record, we realized, I persuaded him that there was, there were things within media data that were very, very applicable, that there was, that the baseline, the baseline of data science in media data and in things like measuring the effectiveness of advertising was Stone Age compared to the things they were doing. So, yeah, so for instance, Nielsen, this gets a little business wonky, but Nielsen, but since the biggest media data company in the world.

And essentially what they have is a 70-year-old metric for measuring things, which is notionally by having set-top boxes, how many people saw something as an extrapolation off of how many people watched it out of our little data set. But if you were doing brain surgery in, you know, 70 years ago, you used very different tools than you would use now,

and you wouldn't want brain surgery done on you 70 years ago. Let's give it the old college. try with the old stuff. Yeah, exactly. And I think that we have so much more capacity now to understand without invading privacy or anything with things like search data, which are very, very difficult to monitor in a moment-to-moment basis unless you use the most advanced machine learning. If you don't use the capacities that we have now through machine learning an artificial intelligence to analyze massive amounts of data at incredible rates. Right.

As opposed to a box at the end of a movie where you write very good. Well, no, so that's getting, what you're talking about is something different. The main game stuff we do is that, you know, basically Nielsen was how many people saw something. Right. What we do primarily is that all the big networks and all the big television advertising buyers from Toyota to Warner Brothers, they use our data to look at how we put a television ad out, not how many people watched that program and therefore how many people saw our ad, but when we actually dropped the ad, how many people not only searched related to that ad, but searched in specific ways that actually indicate what they responded to. what they responded to and do they intend to purchase and there are there are if we what we do actually lines up with the financial outcomes that people see and so so it's like it's like seeing on a cellular level as opposed to looking at a body you know it's like are we is what

we're doing literally making people do what we want them to do not how many people saw it and that's worth 100x in terms of the insight that it gives someone who's selling ads on a program or buying ads and and that gets that's the main of what we do on the side yeah on the side we we we almost got annoyed we just realized that that honestly i got so fed up with the notion that in 2019 we're still doing one of our most important market research things on creative content we're putting it in front of an audience and then we're putting a piece of paper and a pencil in their hands and asking them to fill out a pencil and paper survey that has to be tallied that, you know, you can't do any kind of data science on. It's the hanging chads of 2000.

It's so ridiculous that it's laughable. And so because we have like some of the best engineers in the world, we just like as an afterthought, we built a tablet-based audience survey. Got us. Platform and software that does literally in less than 100 seconds what took a little. an hour and ends up generating very sophisticated audience reaction reports like really, really fast and blah, blah, blah. That is, honestly, it's a, it was a side project to the bulk of what we do, but we do now, we do about a third, we do over a third of all the Hollywood film test screenings now,

and pretty much nobody who's done that is ever going to go back to using a pencil. paper yeah it's laughable it reminds me of like i think of like polling data just around elections and stuff it's like wait they only poll people that have landlines that can respond yeah and it's like of course that's why our polling data yeah yeah you you you you know people we're in a really wild era because there's there's there's lots of legitimate concerns about data there's lots of overhype about it but on the other hand that's sort of like a skit the truth is is that the magnitude of what's possible now that was fuzz you know it's possible to have clarity about things that were fuzzy before and they are legitimately good like it's sort of like saying to me there's

like you know people have gripes about ride sharing right they have gripes that there's this and that and the way our driver's employees to get benefits like these are all very legitimate and necessary conversations right but i think people lose sight of what the baseline was before that The taxi system is not like, it's not like an apples to apples things. It was a cartel in New York, mostly managed by, a lot of times by mobsters, literally, as we learned from the president's ex-lawyer. You know, and B, it was like, it was the most insanely anti-humanist, like, treatment of drivers ever. Like, these people, you know, no one owned their cabs. They were $200 in the hole when they got into the cab.

Yeah, this black market for the medallions, like. Yeah, driving like a bad out of hell, horrible service because they literally are driving themselves out of debt every time they get in the car. They can't do less than a 12-hour shift. They have no equity in the cab that they drive. It's just the worst. And on top of it all, baseline, you have 30,000 cars driving around empty looking for people standing in the rain with their kid crying, trying to find one. This is the definition of a waste of human time. Right.

And the idea of through data and software marrying up supply and demand, it's like such a no-brainer. The idea that we're even having a conversation about whether that is better than the old system is ludicrous. You can have all kinds of conversations, but you can't have a conversation about whether it's better than what there was before. And I think, you know, and in truth, if they really wanted to clean up congestion, what they do is say nothing makes any sense except database. platform-based ride-sharing, and we should just stop the medallion system and take all those taxis off the road. Like, that would make much more sense. But I think that it's like the legitimate concerns within the realms of data can't mask

the fact that we're transforming the world. And by the way, this applies to conservation. And we understand, like, where we should plant trees because of data. We understand, you know, it's like, you can't, you can't, like, discount knowledge. And part of the, part of the, you know, people, it's sort of what my film is about in a way. You can't, you don't want power to amass where it's not supposed to be. And like this toothy conversation now, you know, I think like, I think like to me I'm like, Jack Dorsey responded the right way and Mark Zuckerberg responded the wrong fucking way in a big way.

It's like you do not, you know, like this is not a name. that you own. It's a company. It exists. It is licensed by Fiat from the population, the citizens of the United States. You fucking owe this country your service and your loyalty and or we should fucking delist you. You know what I mean? And it's like if you can't open your mouth and say, I care about the impact, you got a problem, like a big problem. And you are entering into the zone of Nietzschean will to power, literally, like you, you are viewing yourself and this thing you've built and its financial maximization as a greater priority than the common good. And that is not fucking acceptable. And it's like, and, and, and, and those are like

important conversations, you know, and I think you, the people in the United States should get loud and get toothy when people are, are hijacking. what we call our system, you know what I mean? And I think the, the, the, the, um, but you know, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater and there's an enormous amount of good that's been realized through technology and data and all these things. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of incredible opportunity for that to continue to get smarter and better and like make the world a better place, but you've, you've got to hold

people to account for not using it in the right way. Yeah, for how they deploy it. You know what I mean? So. I bet when you walked in here today you weren't expecting an hour long conversation not even to deal with death to smoochie at all. I was admiring your discipline. That's the next hour we're going to cover.

But honestly, I always enjoy chatting with you. It had been a while since I caught up with you in Toronto and I'm glad we had a chance to get into some stuff a little bit more in depth today. Yeah. Congratulations on the film man. Everybody should check it out. Yeah, it's just out. It's one of those things where it's like, if you see it, you appreciate it.

So just get into the theater. Yeah, I think, look, well, I think that I think, I'll end on this. I mean, I think that it's funny because we, it's sort of where my character gets in the end of the movie. It's like his own, Tom York's song in the film is called Daily Battles. And it's like he's dealing with a rather. unique kind of daily battle with his Tourette syndrome and stuff like that. But by the end, it's like she challenges him and sort of says like everybody's got something. You've got to decide if you're, if that's, if you're going to permit yourself apathy just because you

struggle like everybody else. And I think by the end, he's like knows he's got to get off his ass and get into the fight, into the fight, I think. But I think that in a funny way, we, we all want, we all say we want like good art. We all say we want like great music and and movies that make us think and we don't all want like a fast food burger and Xanax in in a blender. There's plenty of that and it's enjoyable. No, and it's, it's its own thing. But if, but I do think it's, it is sort of that like what do you get off the couch for? You know what I mean? And I think if you, if it's, it's good to, it's good to push yourself into the unknown. It's like, it's good to, it's good to go off into films that, because I, I don't agree with everything that

Scorsese said about the, because I think it's actually, I think the landscape of what's happening is full of incredible opportunity for young people. I think, I think diverse voices are getting more opportunity than ever in the history of filmed entertainment, right? And that's just a full stop positive. And there's lots of young people who don't have the same relationship to like, movies in a theatrical setting that we've had growing up right and so you can't you can't like sort of I don't think you can

like bemoan the collapse of like society it's not it's not the end of the world it's also not the end of the world it's it's a change but um and young filmmakers shouldn't feel like they're stepping into

a world of diminished opportunity because it's that's just not true at the same time What I think, what is very true in one of the things he said is that in the corporate matrix that wants, like, stability of cash flow, literally, like, wants, like, franchisee type stuff that can make very big returns very quick, right? And that has produced a system where, you know, the churn is so fast that the, you know, films, even when we were growing up, like, there were films that, like, there were films that if, If they had a vibe, they would stay in the theater for a long time for an audience to get to them. You know what I mean? And I remember, I was just talking to like a great producer about the era of like the graduate.

Now that's going back to our parents. But it played for 16 months. You know what I mean? And a whole generation found, got to come and find it, right? And I think two or three weeks. Yeah. And so, and so even on this film, we literally have been trying to do something a little unorthodox, which is not tried to like, spend money in a way that feels good,

but it's just going to blow apart any chance of ever getting, making this make financial sense. We made the movie really cheap. We're trying to be really, really disciplined and know that, like, adult audiences are, like, loving the movie. Ken Burns' essay is really, it encapsulates a lot of the reaction that we're getting from grown-up audiences.

They're really appreciating this, it as a fine meal in a way. But you do have to fight to keep it, literally keep it out there for people to see. And in a weird way, you've got to say to people, hey, get up and go, go. Like, if we want these things when we see one or we hear about one, if it has the people that we go, hey, like, this person never lets me down, then get up and go because otherwise that window is just going to compress and compress and compress and soon, I do think. think he's right, there's the chance that it just will become too tiring. It'll be too much of an uphill battle to put films like this one that I've made. The sun will go down on those being in a theatrical configuration. And I do think there's something special about that. I do think

there's something still really wonderful about seeing things in that setting with other people, laugh with other people, feel it, get transported. And I think, I hope that we can still like, like motivate people to sort of like we're talking about in the film just like go yeah I want to I want to be I want to I want to I want to get out for these things because I because I want to see them you know what I mean there you go guys the future of adults smart filmmaking is on you now it's up to you if yeah you have no one to blame but yourself and I will blame you yeah I will blame you I'm with Edward it's good to see it buddy thanks thanks again 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.