Happy Sad Confused - Todd Field

Episode Date: December 30, 2022

It's been 16 long years since Todd Field directed a feature film but the wait was worth it. Todd joins Josh to talk about TAR, his early successes and struggles with IN THE BEDROOM and LITTLE CHILDREN, how Stanley Kubrick and Tom Cruise changed his career, and his connection with Adam Sandler. To watch episodes of Happy Sad Confused, subscribe to Josh's youtube channel here! Check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got discount codes to live events, merch, early access, exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to The Wakeup newsletter here! Thanks to our sponsors! WILDGRAIN -- You can get $30 off the first box - PLUS free Croissants in every box - when you go to Wildgrain.com/happysad to start your subscription. EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/happysad Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, Sad, Confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, Director Todd Field returns to the cinema at long last with Tar. Hey guys, I'm Josh Harrow. It's welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused.

We're ending the year with a great filmmaker, a first-time guest on the podcast. Mr. Todd Field is on the show today. looking all things tar, which is a movie that I positively adore starring Kate Blanchett. Look it up. We had her on just a couple of months back. But I also love his earlier work in the bedroom, Oscar nominated film, little children Oscar nominated film. These are two exceptional works.

And tar, if you don't know, is a bit of a character study, kind of a thriller, kind of a drama, kind of a black comedy at times. I appreciate it on all those levels and more. it asks big questions you will ask big questions of it and it will stick with you for some time and that's all you can ask for in a great piece of work so i was more than delighted to help spread the good word by having this chat with todd on the podcast here he is a he's a fascinating guy this is a guy who um for some maybe came to prominence with a decent acting career i mean i remember him in ruby in paradise and in twister and of course in eyes wide shut and then he made that

difficult transition into becoming a true master behind the camera. He's got some great stories going way back when. His maybe seemingly all unlikely friendship with Adam Sandler, unlikely to some, but they have remained friends. They're actually talking about collaborating, which is a fascinating idea. He talks, of course, about the previous films, but also about Stanley Kubrick. Eyes Wedshot was a major film for him. A turning point. in his career for a number of reasons and he's got some great stories about that production um yeah i really vibed i think with todd and i just i just loved geeking out with him about movie making and a really fascinating career so and also just a good excuse frankly to spread the

good word on a movie that just deserves as much love uh as it can get tar we'll get a bunch of oscar nominations i'm sure um and yeah like if you haven't seen it put it up put at the top of your list, guys. This is a really special one. Other things to mention, well, look, we're wrapping up the year with a great podcast. I hope you've enjoyed what we've had to offer in 2022. It's been a year of a lot of firsts for Happy Say I Confused some major guests we've never had before. A lot of live events, which I was thrilled to do at 92 NY in Symphony Space. I'm happy to say there will be many more to come in the new year. We've launched the video versions of the podcast on YouTube. Remember to subscribe on YouTube to YouTube.com slash Josh Horowitz. All of that is free. You can

watch virtually every episode of the current podcast in video form, if you so desire. And of course, we have the Patreon going. I think it's now in our second year, second or third year. And that's your place if you want the early access, the discount codes, all the cool stuff. Remember to go to patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused. All the info. Don't worry. It's in the show notes. You know the deal. um all right let's get to it guys let's close out 22 in style i hope you guys are having a great end of the year a great holiday season i hope you're getting some well-deserved rest uh sit back and relax and enjoy this chat with a truly talented filmmaker here is me and todd field there's no pomp and circumstance except to say i'm such a fan of mr todd field's

work and it's a privilege uh his new film is tar i've been obsessed with it ever since i saw it you will be too if you haven't seen it go seek it out todd welcome officially to the happy say confused podcast man thank you thanks josh so um i was going to say you're a first time guest on the podcast but i mean to be fair there weren't podcasts around the last time you had a film so you yeah yeah there weren't even cars then it was basically the flintstones out there yeah That's right. No, but it's a privilege. It's given me an excuse to go back and revisit some of your earlier work in the bedroom and little children this week and all just amazing movies, man.

Talk to me first about just what life is like right now, day to day, you know, you have birthed this amazing, unusual child into the world, TAR, and the reviews been great and it's the silly award season, which is silly but also great. are you obsessing about how people are interpreting it are you enjoying it give me a sense of what life is like right now for you ma'am well it's it's you know um i started work on this in march 2020 and i haven't had a day off since so um it's kind of like one very long surreal day josh um i i'm looking forward um to the future when i can kind of stand back and and really look at the thing, you know, what it is, but I'm still very much in it. These are all different processes that, that are necessary to filmmaking. Some of them are very physical.

Some of them are, you know, just a, it's really, it's an awful lot of time, you know, I mean, and that's sort of, I guess that's the thing that really is different for me, you know, because normally I work in advertising. So you start something, you shoot it, you've edited it in a few days. And it's, you know, in front of the Olympics two days later, in front of a billion people. And you're done and you don't think about it again. And this is a very, very different sort of thing. And as you point out, you know, the last film I made 100 years ago, you know, you would do a couple of days of press

and, you know, maybe go to a festival or two and enjoy the sort of, you know, the kind of privilege of being at a festival and being around other colleagues and their work and do, you know, do a couple of things and that was sort of it, you know. And once, you know, once the film, you know, Monica Willie and I finished the film, you know, in terms of the final sound and the grade, really in the middle of August. So Venice started less than two weeks later. And it's been sort of nonstop then since then. So it's a very long, digressive non-answer to your question. No, no, no. No, it's all.

I get it. And it's strange to kind of to see the cadence of your career because, you know, you make these two films within about five years of each other. And then you have this extended gap, but it's like not like, as you say, you can it's funny you just kind of termed yourself like i usually work in advertising like it's it's strange for me to think of you saying that about yourself because of course that's kind of invisible to us like the the the way you've made a living frankly probably the last 15 years um the stuff i mean have you been able to derive beyond an income derive artistic satisfaction from working

in that field the last 15 years or was something lacking yeah occasionally occasionally you know occasionally you have, I mean, I have, and people do. You know, I mean, Stanley Kubrick was, like, obsessed with, like, you know, low-in-brow commercials. Like, how could you have that much story in 30 seconds, you know? So there is something to be said for the form. It's a very tough form, just like short films are much harder than feature films. And short stories and novellas are much harder than novels, you know. So there's a certain kind of, you know, by necessity, sort of,

fitness as a filmmaker and strength that you gain and confidence you gain technically because you're at the forefront essentially running a skunk works for the feature business which is very glacial so you're experimenting with camera systems and glass and equipment and technology that long before tv or feature people ever see it and that part of it's extremely exciting where it's different is um and And I've said this before because I've had to answer this question. It's a very logical question to ask someone that hasn't made a film in so long, which is the difference is the first day of shooting, say, for the Santar, the very first setup for us was not with the orchestra,

it was actually up in the rake for the scene that takes place right after the first orchestra rehearsal. And that was with Cape Blanchet, of course, Neuey Merlant and Nina Haas. And I remember the very first take of that scene, just sort of, you know, getting a very tight feeling in my chest and feeling a little bit emotional because it just suddenly hit me,

oh, yeah, oh, I remember what this was like. You know, the difference is that you're doing something that has a lot of meaning for you, but mainly that you're working with other artists that are so incredible on camera that can do such amazing things in dialogue with those artists. And that is where it's very different than advertising. Most of the time you're shooting in about objects or you're shooting people that do commercials that in most cases are not actors and don't even pretend to be actors.

Right. The star is the Subaru. The star is the object often those. Yeah. Yeah, the haircut. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I promise not to obsess over the gap. We're going to get to the film because it's worthy of the discussion. But I'm curious, like you weren't in director jail. It's not like you had made two very acclaimed movies. One, financially very successful in the bedroom. I mean, if you look at the financials on that, it's kind of an amazing thing. And very telling of the time, like that movie made, I think, $45 million. And that's just not the environment right now for that kind of film, unfortunately. Even little children, which, financially wasn't a success garnered a bunch of Oscar nominations. It's hugely revered.

I'm just curious, like, you know, I look at the Wikipedia entry. It's always telling when there's like a section of unrealized projects on a filmmaker. There is that section for you, Todd. Did you, did you? You know, I mean, that's, I don't, I think it's, I think it's fairly typical for all filmmakers, you know. I guess. And that question, and that question is just sort of the, you know, the difference between, um, the attention and the desire to to be on the floor at all costs, you know, and the difference for me

is, is that I only wanted to be on the floor if I can be doing exactly what I want to do. And if I can't, I'd rather be on the floor doing something else like selling a Subaru. So, you know, I mean, I think that's the essential difference. And, you know, as you point out, yes, in the bedroom was one of the most profitable films of ever, you know, I mean, we made that film for nothing. And that was a very particular time in the business where we had, you know, where we had the typical so-called fourth quarter audience. And that audience was, at the very least, had an undergraduate degree. 75% of the audience was female.

And the age of that audience was, you know, 40 to 70 years old. And so in many ways, looking at in the bedroom from the outside and people did because everyone passed on that movie, everyone. except for a good machine. They all say, well, this is about 50-year-old people that, you know, lose a child. Who's going to be interested in that? I was like, well, that's actually, those are the people that go to fourth quarter films. And if you make something for them, they'll come. And they did.

For little children, you know, we were at a studio with Bob Shea, and Bob, you know, was gone when that film was greenlit. I mean, I was warned by Toby Emmerich and everyone else at New Line that if I wanted to, I should take the film to another studio because he was going to bury it, which is exactly what he'd did he never really released the film we had a trailer like six weeks before it was released which back then no internet it was all theatrical in front of one movie was a disaster you know and they never released the film on more than 42 screens ever i didn't realize that that's even when we got oscar nominations so i mean middle street got up you know um at the golden gloves that year which also they didn't show a clip for the film even though it was nominated for best picture um large part because

I think that Bob Shea made sure they didn't have a clip. And it essentially did like a 30-minute, you know, plea to theater owners to show the film. And I remember I was sitting next to Bob Shia at the time. And he leaned in and whispered my ear, they should be calling the studio heads. You know, it wasn't a particularly nice experience. And so ironic. And also, like, the first one was with Miramax. Like, were you, did Harvey Scissorhands come in at, at, at, at, at, at,

in the bedroom at all? Did you have? It sounds like you had actually a decent experience the first time around, ironically. Well, I had a great experience with Good Machine and with Green Street, who funded the film, but it wasn't a Miramax film. I mean, and Harvey didn't buy it. It was bought by Mark Gill and Agnes Mantrae at Sundance, and I wasn't part of those conversations. I had met with Peter Rice, and I'd met with some other people, and I was called and told that it was just a fact. they were selling it to Miramax. And at the time, I literally went into the bathroom and I threw up. And I was very emotional.

My wife was about ready to take me to the hospital because that was the last place I wanted that film. Because it wasn't. You'd heard the stories by then, I assume. It had you, it was. Yeah. I mean, it was that, but it was also, it wasn't the kind of, it felt like it should be at like Sony classics. Like with, you know, with those guys. Yeah.

It was a small film. It wasn't, you know, Shakespeare in love. wasn't chocolate or anything like that. And it's funny, because people talk about that film as a Miramax film, which always kind of makes me cringe. It really had nothing to do with that studio at all. So then this experience with Focus, which is a beautiful one in that, yes, all these, after all these false starts of trying, I'm not willing to make compromises for something that you didn't want to, you know,

invest two years of your life in. They essentially, from what I gather, say, write what you want and we're basically at a certain budget, I assume. Like, this is not how it happens and must have been, in some ways, a bizarre but beautiful thing to happen, especially during the pandemic when we were all going crazy, can be a sense of sort of the circumstances and the unusualness of this arrangement with TAR for you in focus. Well, it was unusual, you know, and as you point out, it was a very long time between, you know, sort of coming out of little children and making tar. And, you know, people, you know, people have asked over the last few months, they always say, well, why did, why so long? And I was like, well, I was waiting, you know, I was waiting for a call from Peter Kujowski, you know, because, you know, Peter, going back to Good Machine, you know, Peter came up from Good Machine. So that was very much like family, you know, and for Peter to say, we just want to make a film with you, write whatever you like, you know, was extraordinary, you know, and to be paid that kind of respect, you know, I was desperate to meet it. And as you say, it was the beginning of the pandemic.

It was March 2020. And you had to really seriously ask yourself, would there be theatrical or anything on the other side of it? The world was ending. You know, people we knew were sick and were dying. I lost my father at the beginning of the pandemic. And, you know, to show up at a table every day and ask yourself, does this matter? was a very, very real existential question. But on the other hand, it was, you know, it was an incredible gift because I had a place

to escape to every day for a few months. And that was a, it was a real lucky break. How much of where you were, you described that time in your life, which was fraught for all of us. And I, you know, my condolences on your dad. But like, this is a film that has kind of this. existential indefinable dread that kind of like hangs over it you can't quite define it for a while it's the first time i was watching it i just i was uneasy and i mean as a compliment i felt like

something was coming and i wasn't sure what um how much did that inform was that informed by where you were at personally in the world that was falling apart at the time where was your head and how do you think it ended up on the page i you know i don't know i mean i I don't really ask myself those kinds of questions. You know, I'm probably, you know, strangely out of touch, you know, in terms of when I sit down to execute material, I just kind of follow my nose, you know, so. Do you think about genre? Like, are you like, because this, again, I feel like I read like five different reviews that could all cite it as a different genre. As a thriller, a character study, a black comedy.

Is that helpful for you? and do you delight in that it is kind of indefinable? Well, you know, I, I think that what you're pointing out in terms of asking the question, do you think that the pandemic informed the writing of the script, I would say 100%. Absolutely. In terms of, you know, I said this to my wife the other night. I couldn't have written the script if the way. world wasn't ending.

So probably a lot of the enthusiasms that I have as an amateur filmgoer, you know, and as a student of film, probably wound up in a container. And I'll sort of leave it at that. Well, you know, it's funny you put it. I mean, because this is about the world ending, as it were, for Lydia Tar, at least the world that she's constructed for herself. and she is a constructed, a reconstructed individual. It's, needless to say, an amazing performance from Kate Blanchett, who you wrote the script for.

Do you, how much love do you have for her? I mean, she's, again, someone you can hate, you could have some admiration for, you could admire her talents and dismiss how she's conducted herself personally. but needless to say she's a complex figure. I guess do you have much sympathy for her? Do you have viewers a tragic figure? What's your attitude about your main character here? I have many feelings about her. I mean, she is accomplished.

She is logical. She is hypocritical. She is capricious. She is absurd. She is lacking in some basic self-awareness. she's a human being to me you know so she's very real to me um and i feel differently about her depending on when i think about her right you know and i i feel differently about her and felt very differently about her when monica willie and i were in scotland editing

you know again that means i've told this story many times but it bears repeating that you know we would watch the film down and take several days off from from it because we knew we had to um and then we and we would designate certain periods of time to watch it so that we knew that um we would sort of like be a you know sort of a specific time of the day where we could pay attention the best we kind of agreed upon that and after we would watch it never really would ask each other the same question which was how did you feel about her today you know um and sometimes um it was 180 degrees for one of us than how we felt the previous viewing.

And that was exciting because that didn't change. That went on for weeks. And it made it very, very, there was sort of confirmation bias for us because that's what we were after, which was that this thing could change on you, depending on when and how you saw it and what state of mind you were in, potentially. But also it made it extremely challenging to know when we were finished. you know and really the bar for that was if we started leaning one way or the other with her and felt as if we were pointing in any manner that we had failed and so it was really about subtraction more than anything else well that leads me to something I want to bring up which is

I think something that permeated all your work and much of all the films that are most of the films that I love which is this holding back frankly and not telling the audience how to feel and leaving room for interpretation. And this is a film that, you know, I got a chance to see this at Tell You Ride First. I've seen it a couple times since. And this is a film that will stick around, like in the bedroom and little children,

or box office or not Oscars or not. It's just it will. I have thousands of percent confidence in that, then you should too. Is that what you gravitate towards as a watcher of film too? I mean, Kubrick is mentioned all the time. And I want to talk about Stanley Kubrick with you a bit. But I think of that.

Like, I think of, you know, the film you were in Eyes Wide Shut and how a thousand think pieces have been written and a thousand more will be written about that film in every film he's done. Is that the space that you enjoy as both a creator and a consumer of film? Yeah, I mean, the films that really excited my imagination made me want to make my own films. you know, were films that left room for me inside of them, you know. And that goes back to the, when I first moved to New York City as a young man and had only been exposed to, for the most part, in large part, to very mainstream movies. And those were mainstream movies that I saw hundreds of times because I worked as a projectionist at a second run movie house when I was in high school. So, and I love those movies and I love those movies deeply. You know, and they were very mainstream films, like the First Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Like, I've seen it probably 350 times for real, you know, like I've watched it in a theater 350 times. So I have a huge amount of... You know the point where Belloc swallows the fly. You know when that happens. Yeah, I know everything. I know, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I've had these conversations. I tried to restrain myself the first time I really sat with Stevensfield and not, you know, tried to bother him about questions about them.

And he told me some, he was kind enough to tell me some very, very funny stories. But it wasn't really time to New York, you know, and I was working across the street from Lincoln Center and somebody pushed me over there and said, you should go to the New York Film Festival if you want to see films, not movies, you know. And I didn't understand that distinction, but I was about ready to very quickly. And, you know, seeing films like Jarmish's, you know, first film, or it's Lisa's first feature film. and seeing the Coins had their first film there that year. And there was a true foe retrospective. It was the first time I'd seen like the 400 blows. You know, I understood that there was a difference.

These were films that invited me to have a conversation with them. And they weren't talking at me. And that kind of destroyed stuff for me in one way. Because before then, I would go down to Times Square and see movies like Target. starring Gene Hackman and Matt Dillon and they were playing father and son and you never questioned it, you know. You're just, you're like, okay, well, it's a movie. I mean, that's how it works, you know. But there was a sort of very, you know, it was a very different way of reading a film after that.

So, yeah, I mean, that's a long way of saying, yes, there were certain films that made me want to make my own for sure. So, you know, we obviously can't go to everything in detail. But of course, your path is an interesting one in that you had a successful career as an actor. I mean, I remember seeing Ruby in Paradise. Somehow you ended up being Jan de Bonz guy for a couple movies. Is there a story there? How did Twister and The Haunting happen? Was he just a Todd Field fan?

No. I think what happened was, you know, yes, I acted for five years and then I quit. And the last thing that, the last film that I made was Ruby in Paradise. And that was a film that Victor Nunez had inherited some money from an aunt. He made that movie for $350,000. And he made it with like a six-person crew. And that had a giant effect on me. I was about ready to go.

I'd quit acting. I was going to go to the American Film Institute and be a fellow. And I had been accepted. And Victor was very courtly and very kind and very inclusive in that process. And while I was at the American Film Institute, a short film that I had made with some friends played in front of Ruby in Paradise at the Sundance Film Institute or film festival and it won the Grand Jury Prize and all of a sudden I didn't even have an acting agent I had a I didn't have a manager I had like you know I had an attorney I started getting calls and my wife was working at the time to try to get me through film school and we had you know a couple young kids at home and I couldn't really turn down the acting work whatever it was because it was tangible and I needed to get us out of the hole. So one of those jobs was, yes, Twister, you know,

another one of those jobs was Nicole Hollis Center's first film walking and talking. Great movie. And then, of course, and then the third one was Stanley Kubrick calling me out of the blue and saying, I think it might be good for you to come and make this film for me. And there was no way I was going to say no. So, you know, it wasn't like I had some big acting career. I was kind of a journeyman.

actor, you know, futzing around. And I made this one independent film and it kept me working for the next eight years, essentially. Are you hurt they didn't come to you? Or maybe they did for the Twister sequel? Did you see that Minari director, Lee Isaac Chung, is directing, of all things, the Twister sequel, Todd? Well, it's really funny. You know, I was doing a Q&A for TAR out in Los Angeles. And I looked down and there was Sean Whalen, you know, who's, who was in Twister with me, and he said, you know, they're making a sequel. And I said, yeah, yeah, I heard, I heard. But I don't think they're interested in any of us, you know. I don't know.

Nor should they be. Now, I remember talking to Bill Paxton about this years ago, because Bill and I were really, really good friends. You know, we'd made three pictures together as actors. And we had both of our first films as directors come out the same year. And our sons went to school together up in Ohio. So I used to spend quite a bit of time with the Paxtonstonston. Bill was always trying to pitch me on a twister sequel. He was really, really adamant that it should happen. So I think somewhere Bill, Bill's happy that it's happening in whatever form. A good filmmaker. Was that frailty his first one? That was a good one. I enjoyed it. Yeah, it was good. Yeah, and Bill Butler shot that who shot Jaws with Spielberg. Oh my gosh.

cameraman. Amazing. Amazing. Okay, so let's talk a little Kubrick. I feel like that's an hour long, at least, conversation in its own right. But look, I will take any excuse to talk about Stanley Kubrick. First of all, how long were you there? Was that like six months, a year of your life?

It's not obviously the lead of the film, but you have some significant moments. But obviously, that film was, I think, the longest production. short of a Avengers movie in existence. What was your experience just in terms of length and access to Stanley like? Well, you know, I knew some people that had worked with Stanley before. And when Jan Harland, who was producing Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley's brother-in-law, his wife's brother,

when he told me that we're just going to have you come over in October, this is 1996, and you'll just work a few weeks and then you'll be done. I kind of thought that might not be the case. And that's exactly what it was. So I started the first day of the shoot, the very first day of the shoot, and I was there for the last day of the shoot for the orgy sequence. So that was October 96 and I wrapped the end of January 1998. That was for three scenes, three scenes.

So I did go back and forth between 96 and 97, and I went back and forth between at some point in 97, mid-97, but probably I was there for maybe nine months out of 18 months. And, you know, we shot nights. So they were very, I think there's like maybe two day shots in the film, you know. So we were living like vampires, you know. It was a very odd way to live and you couldn't go off nights because it was. wreck you. So I found, you know, I got called to set a lot when I wasn't working and I was happy to be there because there was nothing for me to do otherwise. And Stanley, very much like Victor Nunez, was very, if you were, if you were inside a project together, you were inside a project

together. So, you know, he would have me go in the trailer and look at Daly's I was involved in and he would allow me to, you know, to sort of stand behind him, you know, on set and things like that. you know from as a student of film it was a tremendous um you know incredible um privilege you know um and uh yeah and it has a you know in so many ways um that experience uh is sort of impossible to talk about you know was he aware of your intentions like had you talked about specifically in the bedroom or generally your intention to become a a filmmaker Well, I met him when he was doing camera tests. I was sort of, Yon dropped me off at this giant manor house in Luton.

Luton, who is the manor house. It was designed the interiors of the same man that did the Titanic. And that has a very interesting history to it. So I was just, you know, left to kind of wander around. I didn't, no one took me to be introduced, you know, be introduced to Stanley or anything like that. And I had a camera with me around my neck. just wandered you know i walked around for a couple hours just making pictures um and then i came to this this ballroom and i looked in and the door was cracked and there was stanley kubrick you know doing

lighting tests with with larry smith and and the guys and um and he saw me you know and you know he has this famous stare that everybody you know you could feel it coming out of out of any still photograph and and if if you're in that beam you know it's like it's like a it's like a tractor beam i literally you know i almost wanted to wet my pants so um and and and he and he said hey hey hey you're here you're here come on over here you know um and i you know i sort of stumbled forward and um and i said you know hi i'm todd field he goes i know who the fuck you are i hired you know what kind of camera is that and he grabbed it from from my neck and asked me how much i paid for it and what the year was and etc etc and that's sort of how our conversation began and so he knew i was a student of film he

knew that i had i had gone through the american film institute although he didn't think very much about that he didn't believe in any kind of formal education uh based on on how he was built um and um and so yeah he was he was he he he understood um that i wasn't just interested in acting you know um and and and tom cruise um was just a tremendous um person to spend time with and and and he really um you know he really came to to serve stanley um yeah in every possible way and but he also you know he paid attention and he honestly it was really tom you know he took me aside after a few months and said you're going to make a feature film and i said yeah I will I went to film school he goes no but you're going to make a feature film you've got a few months now what are you going to do you know you should write a script and I said well you know there's a story I was thinking about it goes go get it go get it when you come back here I want to know you got this story it really challenged me and so I did you know I tracked it down and somebody had the rights and they agreed to let me sort of come in and by the end of my my period you know working on eyes wide shut I

I had the script for him in the bedroom and I'd given it to Stanley and, you know, I was able to actually sit with him and, and he asked me mainly because that's what he would always do. He would never tell you anything, you know, but he would always ask you a lot of questions. And he asked me a lot of questions about what I was thinking and why I wanted to do it. And he very gently offered me some extremely valuable advice. And so yeah, that was a, uh, Eyes White Shed is, you know, in very, in so many ways, the reason that I made that first film. I mean, amazing. I love the Cruz story.

I always talk about how that's a guy that just obviously worships storytelling and worships like filmmakers. Like you look at the filmmakers he made a point of working with, especially in like the first like 10, 15 years of his career. And it's like, you know, Oliver Stone, Scorsese. Like you go down the list. He was just like knocking him off. And yeah, that's so telling. And by the way, I also. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry.

Well, no, I mean, and De Palma and yeah, everybody, I mean, he wanted. Yeah. Yeah. And not to mention for you and the Kubra connection, I would also love that you, of course, then establish this relationship and professional relationship with Leon Vitale, who sadly passed in the last year, who was his long time kind of custodian, assistant, associate producer. It tickled me to, when I rewatched little children to see him for a half a second in a very unusual moment in the film. Oh, you have no idea. There was a whole section with Leon that someday I have to unearth. You know, the way you meet that character is Leon standing at the Long Beach Airport with a holding a sign that says SK on it, which is very funny. That's for this character, Sletty K, but it was also like an inside joke between us, you know. Fantastic. I had the privilege also spending some time.

with the great Adam Sandler recently. Adam says you guys go way back. First, tell me the connection between you and Sandler. Well, I mean, Sandler was a, you know, we were all young guys, and it was mainly guys back then. This is like the mid-80s, late 80s in Los Angeles. You know, I think I first met Adam because I had a great friend, one of my dearest friends, Jimmy Vallee, and he was a comic, but he was also a writer. and he introduced me to a lot of other comics and I used to stay with Jim and we'd sit around at the improv and those were just the people that were around and this is long before Adam was on Saturday Night Live or anything like that and you know I was talking to Adam about this the other day because my first memory of Adam was I had sort of tried to sort of boonswagon my way into a meeting with Milosh Foreman who was going to do this film that he never ended up making

called Hell Camp that was going to take place in Japan. And so he was meeting people over at Sony. Sony wanted him to make it with John Cusack and he didn't want to do that. He wanted to go with, you know, with someone unknown. So I had, I was waiting in the lobby. I think it was Ellen Chenworth was a casting person. And I saw Adam come out of the room with Milosh. And he just looked really ashen, you know. And I went in and had the meeting. And it went very well. And actually, you know, I was going to end up, I ended up testing for the film later on.

But that day when I came out of there, I went into the parking lot at Sony. And all of a sudden I heard this, hey, field, field. I was like, yeah? And I look over and there's Adam like poking out from behind his car. He's like, man, what was that? And I said, what do you mean, Adam? He says, all he wanted to do was talk. He just wanted to talk to me.

And I said, I know that's how Milosh Cass. He really wants to get to know you. Yeah, but he wouldn't let me do anything. I got to do something. And it was such a perfect, a perfect way to articulate the dilemma, you know, especially for somebody that, you know, Adam's like a Ferrari. He's got so much going on, you know. Let me play. Let me do my thing. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, let me do my thing. Yeah. Who knew you had such a Sandler impression in you? How often does that come out? Oh, I don't know. I have to apologize to Adam. I don't know. Probably it was a terrible impression. No, it was great. So you guys are talking about doing something. Can you say anything? Like, I mean, obviously he, I'm fascinated by his career. I mean, he's got these two amazing lanes he's been in where he's like, arguably the biggest comedy star him and Jim Carrey of the last 20, 30 years. and then his dramatic work is fantastic and it tracks the best PTA and James L. Brooks and there's a reason for that. I'm guessing this is the second lane you guys are going to work in. You're not going to do your Madison sequel.

Well, I don't know. I mean, maybe it'll be like that. I don't know. I mean, no, you know, the funny thing is having met Adams at such a young age, you know, before our lives took their, you know, their natural course. or unnatural course, as it were, you know, I knew of his career, you know, it's unignorable. You would, of course, you would know about it. And my children were obsessed with Adam.

And my youngest child now, you know, who there's, he and his friends are obsessed with Adam, like obsessed, you know. And I had never seen any of his films. The first film I ever saw of Adams was Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drug Glove. And I felt so lucky that that was my first time seeing Adam in a film. And it just, you know, floored me because it really is one of the great screen performances for me of all time. And obviously the stuff he's done with the safeties is just, you know, amazing. And as you mentioned, the stuff he's done with Brooks and stuff he did with Noah, Bombach. So, I mean, he has an incredible range.

You know, I mean, he really, there's no one like him. And, yeah, I hope we end up working together. I really do. Can you tease anything about what this idea is? It's a specific idea, I assume. Like, it's a specific thought. It's more than just, oh, we should work together. We've been talking about some things.

Yeah, it's too early. How far outside of your conceptual comfort zone could you imagine yourself going? I teased you about, like, oh, you're going to direct the Twister sequel. But like, you have a nice, an amazing lane. And I would love to see you just make Todd Field, quote, unquote, whatever these are. Todd Field movies the rest of your life. But is there that temptation? Do you take the meetings with studios just to see if your skill set can jive with the Marvel?

or whatever like could you even see yourself playing in a sandbox that is is like that a genre big genre four quadrant blockbuster kind of thing well i have i mean that that's what advertising is someone will come to you and say do a cluster encounter's thing or do an adventure thing or do you know a wink and a nod you know about pirates with you know huge budgets like 12 million dollars for commercials where you're making miniature ships and things like that so i played with all those kinds of genres. And again, going back to sort of my humble beginnings as a high school projectionist and watching, you know, genre films, these genre films, you know, the creator of the great American genre films, you know, Steven Spielberg himself, of course I have a love for

those things. And I don't think it's a question about whether I would ever want to make them. And, you know, not to not to sound immodest, but I'm fairly certain that I understand what it would take to make them. Those films will be very different than the films that I've made. I don't think that's the obstacle. I think the obstacle is that people very rightly so want you to see the thing that you've done. And I don't think they're naturally thinking that they're going to hire me for the next born identity. you know um have you that i have those meetings i mean you do have the real as you said the commercial real like don't even tell them about your other movies show them the commercials they might

hire you yeah yeah yeah well maybe yeah i don't know you know i mean we all get these we all get these sort of kick me signs stuck on our backs you know um and sometimes they're very hard to to pull off so um i yeah i mean i would never say never i mean i like all kinds of movies it's not like i'm sitting around and watching Bergman all day, you know? I mean, I, I, I watch a lot. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. You know, I mean, I like him as much as the next person, you know, but it's not, that's not my entire diet, you know. Yeah, yeah. I was, yes, I contain multitudes. I like Billy Madison and Punch Trunk Love. I, uh, exactly. Um, I'll let you go on this. I mean, again, we, we started by talking about all these potential other unrealized projects. Actually, I did an event with Daniel Craig last

night. And I know you spent a lot of time. I heard 2,000 pages were written of purity. That's what, which is Jonathan Franzen adaptation. Crazy. I mean, are there any that you could see yourself coming back to if someone gave you, you know, the giant bag of money to greenlight any of these kind of projects that almost came to fruition? What's the one you would, well, into existence? I don't think any of them. I mean, with, you know, Daniel was in the room with John and I seven days a week. We rolled up our sleeves and worked for a year on that. And, you know, I think there was a sort of polite sort of, you know, words that were said that, oh, it was, you know, a bond thing that came up.

But that wasn't true. It was just the, you know, the network just didn't want to spend what the three of us thought needed to be spent to make the thing that we'd spend a year of our lives on. If that material wasn't so prophetic, and it was prophetic, it had, we were, there were things in the air that wound up in that material that have unfortunately come to pass, having to do with the American government, having to do with geopolitics, having to do it with a lot of things. Right. This is purity, by the way, so to let people know the. Yeah, I mean, if we were to, if we were, we could never go back to it now because it would feel cheap as if we were, you know, we were being opportunistic as opposed to. being prophetic. So there was another project that, you know, Kate Banchett, and this is where I met Kate,

with Joe Didion that we worked on for a very long time together. That will never happen, and Joan's not here anymore. But, yeah, I mean, I don't see, yeah. No, it's kind of like a family plot. You know, you have these little headstones that you have a passing acquaintance with and occasionally drop flowers on, but I don't want to dig any of them up. Fair enough. Fair enough. This has been a real pleasure, man.

I'm such a fan of your work. And, I mean, if folks haven't seen TAR, it's just a gorgeous piece of filmmaking. It will ask questions of you. You will ask questions of it. It will stick with you like all of Todd's work does. Yes, it's in the award season. And yes, Kate Blanchett may or may not take home yet another Oscar. If she does, it's well-deserved.

I wish you nothing but the best with this one. And I'm, as you can tell, I'm a fan of the work. And I hope we can continue the conversation of another time. Yeah, me too. Thank you, Josh. I really appreciate it. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes

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