Hollywood Handbook - Introducing Subtitles ON (Ep #1: Adaptation)

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Welcome to Subtitles ON! Each episode, Sean talks to writers about movies about writers. For the first episode, Sean chats with Hayes about the film Adaptation (2002). They discuss Charlie Kaufman’s depiction of the highs and lows of the writing process and share personal stories inspired by the movie.Next week’s episode will be covering The TV Set (2006).Every episode will be on the Patreon with selected episode available for free here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. the same in the entertainment industry and share a lot of personal stories inspired by the movie. I've known Sean for like eight years now, and he tells so many stories I have never heard before. I really enjoy recording this and listening to it. It's a lot of fun, and I think you will really enjoy it as well. So every episode will be available on the Patreon, patreon.com slash the flagrant ones. And we also made a dedicated free feed that will have selected episodes just on there for you as well. So if you want to check that out, both of those links are available in the episode description. And that's everything. So enjoy the first episode with Hayes discussing adaptation.

Hello, hello. Welcome to Subtitles On. This is a new podcast that we're doing just for you guys, whoever's listening. It's only for people who listen to it. Was it 3 a.m. that you called me? Hayes called me in the middle of the night and he said, Sean, I realized something. There are all these podcasts out there, but no one is talking about movies. You know what I mean? Like there's all these shows,

everybody's doing a show. They're like, and they're talking about all these like world issues and stuff. And nobody's ever just like watching a movie from like 20 years ago. Yes. And just kind of going like, man, this is,

I really liked this movie yeah and it seemed like there was a vacuum you said you can't do it you don't have time but well what i said whose hands is this idea safe in right that's what i spent a lot of time like leading up to three i hadn't just had the idea i'd actually been sitting on it for a few months but i was like i can't just like put this out in the world in a way that like it can be mishandled appropriated in a way that is not true to its original if this idea fell into the wrong yes exactly yeah because it's such a powerful concept to discuss a movie yes so you have been uh i know on this journey that we've talked about privately where you are embracing your identity as a writer

uh throwing out all the like all the bullshit of like pretending not to care so deeply about this this work and this craft craft talking to your wife and saying i'm a writer i'm not a husband writer i will i will i will continue, we can stay together or whatever, but my identity is writer, and that always takes precedent. People ask me for advice on becoming a writer, and I say, what are the three most important things in your life? And they might say my family, my mommy and daddy or or my child or my wife my home or what something else someone would find important car a car my car and i say if you don't put writer first yeah

you're gonna lose all those things yeah so you say what's the most important thing in your life the answer should be writer writer if writer's not the most important thing yeah cross everything else out those things are gone because you're gonna lose it yes because being a writer if you truly are a writer repo man's coming which is the exact number one example of a type of movie that could be discussed on a show like this yes yes on a show like the idea that that the movie repo man not on this show necessarily not this show because this show at least for now like this yeah what this show is going to do look writers are under attack yes the studios are coming for our fucking necks yes and so uh And so because of that, I feel even more defensive of my identity as a writer. And also, I have a little extra time.

And so I thought, let's watch some movies about writing, writers, Hollywood, showbiz, studios, producers, writers, this kind of thing. Or even writers. I mean, it's like I'm a screenwriter. Yeah. I'm a successful one. But there's other kinds of writers. I think. Aren't there?

This is the moment in the movie where the rebels are at the battlements and they've been under siege for all this time. Okay. Who's the writer too? The way you're describing this who's also a writer and uh the the king of the castle is looking down and he sees them like turning it looks like they're retreating and he's like oh look at him look at him run like uh like rodents but he's and but they're running to get their gun or something when we're the gun yes and we i was thinking like a trebuchet but that's a gun they're running that's what a gun

used to be a fucking gun yes a trebuchet and they roll in the trebuchet which is this podcast it's celebrating writers it's honoring writers and writing and we call it subtitles on yeah and we call it that because the guest has to watch the movie with the subtitles on because we're not watching the movie we're reading the movie and we're watching the movie yeah but we're reading the movie while we're watching the movie i don't know shit about i didn't go to fucking film school spoiler alert i don't know about a camera from a from a hole you know i don't know what that means yeah but i do know about how to read a book i can read i can read a book on the screen and it's a movie so um the first movie we wanted to cover the movie we wanted to discuss is a movie called adaptation and it's

about guess what have you been listening a writer it's about, guess what? Have you been listening? A writer. It's about a couple of different writers, two writers and another one as well. Three writers total. And maybe, and there's, and there's one more.

It was a fourth writer. Yeah. And it's kind of the movie that is the most about a writer and the process of writing movie and also made it so you could never really do that again. Yes. Because they did it so much in this movie. Yeah. So allow me to allow me to drop the act as Scott Aukerman would say and just acknowledge that I love this movie. I think it's one of the best movies about writing and the creative process that I've ever seen. It's also like it's very funny how it's very Kaufman ask, but Charlie Kaufman.

Right. Not Andy Kaufman. Yeah. Because it's like so complex and it like folds in on itself and it's super meta. Um, it's like weird, but it's also very like personal and specific and I think accessible too.

So, uh, I want to read the description of the movie that comes up when I go to rent the movie from one of these big studios. That's strangling my livelihood. A screenwriter asks his identical twin who is in the same profession for advice on a story about a serial killer. Now, you made a point. That is one of the only concrete things that you can say definitely happens in the movie.

Well, that's so interesting because the screenwriter in that description that they're talking about donald they're talking about donald yes yeah and so but i thought that they were talking about charlie and really the only event the only turning point in the movie is basically charlie when charlie finally asked donald so so it's written by charlie kaufman he um chose to write the movie with a fictional twin brother who is also a screenwriter. Charlie Kaufman is a very sort of cerebral, highbrow, artistic writer. And his brother is writing like kind of Hollywood schlock. Yeah. And it's interesting that the description did choose to focus on the fact that initially charlie's brother asked him for

help on his like big commercial screenplay right um rather than the reverse which is like i guess it's a spoiler right honestly yes if you think about it would be a pretty big spoiler to know that charlie breaks down and asks his brother if he can help um i also say the other thing that is sort of funny is at the beginning uh in the opening of the movie it says based on the book the orchid thief by susan orlean yeah um which it is it is and it was nominated for best adapted screenplay because it is uh it is technically based on the book and it does faithfully reproduce huge chunks of that story huge sections of the book and also um one of the things i think is so smart about the way it's done is he chose to write himself into the movie he chose to write in

his struggle adapting the book into a movie and make the movie about how hard it was for him to write the movie and adapt the book but i think what he seized on was that some of the themes that were being explored in the book of like whatever a desire to belong and like sort of longing and and these other uh concepts that he was experiencing those themes and that by writing about it he would honor sort of the underpinnings of the book without actually like doing exactly what was in the book let's go back 2002 i'm, little dork, not hot. I have made at this time, this was the time when I think a lot of people that age that description were making loving movies their identity.

And stuff was coming out at that time that, you know, kid like me, I got my little Panasonic DVD player. You could have your friends over and there were all those movies that you would just watch on DVD that were relatively new. Yeah. Memento, Mulholland Drive, Lost in Translation. lost in translation for comedies it was like napoleon dynamite and like all of these movies that were kind of built around indie auteurs yeah and and charlie kaufman being just like the avatar of that era certainly for writers no one was really like touching him as and also documentaries around that same time all those amazing documentaries coming out capturing the freemans fog of war

grizzly man bowling for columbine these movies that are like making good money as as indie movies also auteur projects yeah uh and and then i think at some point it turned the corner i think of like little miss sunshine and um king of kong for the one fiction movie in the one documentary movie where it just got like this kind of corporate it had become a formula or something where you were like oh they like turned it into an algorithm and they know exactly how to package it and promote it and it no longer feels like i'm seeing something private yes and those movies made fucking bank and they crushed yes and not you know whatever not that they suck but they don't have the same um it felt like there was a little grit to like,

and, and the story of like, there was no cynicism or whatever to the, the scripting of being John Malkovich, which was the movie that Kaufman made prior to this, where it was this script, I think that floated around forever. And everyone was like,

God, I fucking love this. No, one's ever going to make it. Why did did you write it like yeah you're so smart do you want to write something we would make and he was like no no i want to do this and it finally um i think ended up with the copulas and then sophia was married to spike jones at the time right and uh he was like oh i think i know how to do this and so that collaboration happened and the story that charlie kaufman tells is that while he was on set during the making of that movie he was he he had been hired to adapt the orchid thief and was kind of going why did

i take this assignment that was never gonna be able to do this at the time right and he was going i don't know how to do it and then he said the only person he told about his idea to write himself in was spike jones yeah and that if spike jones had been like what are you talking about you're insane that he just wouldn't have done it but he was like all right let's see it and then that kind of gave him the courage so it even somebody very unique and with like this big vision needed a collaborator who believed in them and it does make me think of my relationship with kevin bartell you know what i mean like you do have to look and go like yes i'm a singular voice like yes i'm a creative wonderkin oh yeah but like if I didn't have Kevin going like okay sure like I don't know if I would have had the guts to make a movie podcast

which no one has ever thought of before I thought about myself a lot watching this movie too uh and our uh so it's a movie about the movie that ends up on screen it's about the process of writing that movie yeah and kind of the the the pretense of it is that the movie that you are watching kind of sucks uh because like because of like you see what went into it someone who has really no idea what to do every idea that he has in the movie ends up, he shuffles through all these different versions of the movie he wants to make, and they all end up on screen.

They're all in the movie, yes. Every time he goes like, no, no, no, that's not how to start it. I should start it like this. It's like, well, they all, all of those sections get filmed and get presented to you. Everything gets filmed,

and then the entire third act, the idea is that his brother has taken over the process of writing the movie and turned it into something completely different that is like sort of garbage but not stylized in such a way that it's like actually bad on screen it's like a decently executed version of it yeah there's a there's like um this like sort of ironic detachment where it's like i'm allowed to do this like shitty sucky commercial portion of the movie because i have acknowledged that it sucks and is shitty i know when someone does it and you know that the person in the movie experienced the the events yes

thinks that what he's experiencing would be bad if it was in a movie yes and so it's like what just a great meta aspect so i think like it's an out where you can't judge it because he's already judged it it is it is b-rabbit in a mile so nestled in that out with so much of what we've done it's such a crutch uh to be like but yeah we think it's bad we know it sucks we're not even trying uh like the yeah watching this movie was very satisfying but also well imagine opening up a movie podcast by being like oh no one's ever done a movie podcast before. Oh, so good. So it's like, I know there's too many of them, so you can't tell me there's too many of them.

It's a security blanket, and now you're just like cloaked in it. And then you can just get away with fucking up as much as you want. Yeah. Because like. Well, he said it sucked. Yes, that's exactly right. How am I going to come for him? Yes.

Yeah. And then it turns on itself. We're like, okay, he knows that he did this badly on purpose and so that's why the movie is so good and and so smart but i i wanna because you you're touching on some of the stuff i wanted to say about it which is like as inaccessible and self-serving and uh alienating as a movie about like someone's personal creative process could be and could seem and as much as that sounds like a bad idea for how to do a movie like this there are a lot of things that are so smart i think including that about the way it's executed and like the opening which is a theme that gets repeated a little bit of him asking a series of questions like you're just

inside his brain and it's like he's like going like i should do this i should do that he's judging himself he's like thinking about um how he's losing his hair and he's gaining weight and he's you know all these different judgments and whenever he sits down to write it's like maybe it should be this maybe it should be that like i should get something to eat i should eat a little bit just a little something like that um is specific and true to when you have to write but i also think it's totally universal that everyone has this inner monologue where it's like, there's something I'm supposed to do. I just have to do it. And then your brain starts trying to do something else. It doesn't want to do the work part and it will

try to distract you. And then it will ultimately start to attack you yeah like you're negotiating with a wild animal where it's going like i so badly don't want to do this work which if i just thought about it we would be done and be able to execute it uh that i don't just want to procrastinate right i'm going to kill you like i want you to hate yourself so much that you never do anything again yes and to convince you that you are dying this is something that runs through all of it i think it's like a really serious thing he's dealt with over his life like yeah some kind of hypochondria yes where like he talks about in this movie it's like the bump on his leg yeah is that my leg hurts and when you get to like

synecdoche new york like you realize how much growth since yeah yeah that's kind of like taken over his mind at at different points yeah uh and i think it's interesting i think what he does in this movie is more palatable to what he ended up doing later in his career he is obviously obsessed with the criticism and in this movie it's all about self-criticism and how much he hates himself. And everyone else in the movie kind of likes his shit generally. Yeah. But he just can't understand that. He can't acknowledge that. And then his career turned towards attacking his critics.

Sean and I read a book together called Antkind where it's entirely uh this movie critic character who's based on richard brody who he he hates his main character and the main character hates charlie kaufman talks about charlie kaufman and i think part of what has reduced his productivity in later years is he sunk like a decade into this movie called i think frank or francis that he could never get funding for it was an original musical with 50 songs and it's about a uh commenter like a troll like an online troll uh yeah he became obsessed with the criticism and and richard brody was you know a well-respected critic for the new yorker who hated charlie kaufman's movies like was just like this is indulgent this is and i think it must have really stuck to him i respect ant kind as one of the most in-depth totally petty works of art

yeah i've ever seen which is also hilariously funny but yeah the frank or fred sing it's about and it was about like internet outrage culture a little bit but in like 2010 yeah like before it was what you think of now it was like when it was when i think it would have been more woke or whatever to be on the side of internet outrage is out of control right um because it was like you know so you've been publicly shamed like john ron's era where it was like hey wait a minute we need to calm down and then of course the world was like no let's get he was probably talking about like movie message boards and things like totally when i was reading about the movie they were talking about how like

drew mcweeney at ain't it cool news yes and reviewed the script ahead of reviewed the script exactly and so that's the kind of thing i'm sure at that time in his life was driving him literally insane the other the the other thing i wanted to mention about uh how he made the idea accessible and i agree that this uh this is to me personally because probably whatever where i was in my life and when i saw it i'm a little older than you but um so i wasn't you know 16 i was actually fucking badass i was what was 2002 i was 21 i was fucking partying like a rock star got sober like a year later um so so um i thought this was kind of his peak for me like this was the being john malkovich was cool and then it was like okay i can do anything uh but i've been hired to adapt this book and i'm gonna do this crazy version of

it and i thought it was awesome and because of what you're saying where he puts every version like every idea he comes up with ends up into the in the movie you understand why you're seeing what you're seeing right like it opens with this like time lapse evolution of like nature and like you know the world and life being born and then like you know um primates becoming humans and all this stuff and then you see him get the idea to have the movie open with that yeah and understand why he wants it and so there's some like very clever kind of thematic smart stuff in the movie but he also holds your hand if you're a dumb guy to be like this is why this movie is presented this way this is why it's important this is what made me think it would be good to put in yeah and so that's why you watched it right

and it lets you feel like you totally understand the theme so it's it's weirdly like less alienating yeah than just presenting the movie on its face but it undercuts it too right because you see him come up with all these ideas out of desperation they sound very cliched when he's talking them out rather than when you're seeing it on screen so if you liked it later in the movie he's like oh you like that this that actually sucks and if you didn't like it you're like now now you're brought into the movie because he's all he also thinks all of his ideas are like within the movie he thinks they're like contrived right and yeah unworkable well he also every time he has momentum yes every single time he's like going

like no i have it like reopen with a roach he pulls over the swap and he's like going through this stuff and then what will derail him is his brother will walk in or like his agent will call him and he will hear that someone who he thinks of as like less talented and having less value than him has more momentum and more success. And that is the most relatable thing I have ever seen. Oh, like a writer acknowledge about writing is like you open up deadline and see that someone you know yes sold a script right and you look at the script you're working on you're like i'm gonna fucking write this now they already sold that thing it's about to get shot like what am i fucking doing like you know you're just like oh and that's like and that's kind of

yeah that that idea is probably better that's gonna do better yeah and it just it's paralyzing that other people are doing it and that you're like also like well if that's what everyone likes and that's what people are buying why am i gonna try to do my thing yeah like i thought my thing was unique and cool but i guess like that is what people want. So fuck it. And so like that, and it's not, it,

I thought it's done in kind of a subtle way where it just feels like, Oh, his annoying brother keeps interrupting him, but he always interrupts him with like, I figured out the third act or like I finished the script or his agent going like your brother's script is incredible. And then the spell is kind of broken yeah and you just can't go back to the thing that you like no your momentum's gone yeah and you're like now thinking about

yourself and your career and and uh all this other stuff again you're no longer in the actual creative act that you're trying to do yeah i think back in the early 2000s compared to like when when we started like writing and like started working in entertainment that was a time when you could be identified as someone who came up with ideas and would like bring an idea to a movie and then like realize it in this in a script which is kind of like an auteur uh like conception of of how hollywood works if that existed from the time that i started writing uh like in like 2009 or whatever it was on its way out i think uh and it became much more about being brought in to realize an idea that had already been pre-approved had been through all the like test marketing already yeah and it was like we want something exactly like this yeah and that's always how tv has kind of worked where if you're writing on a

show you're there to realize the idea that someone else has come up with the auteurs got to make tv for the next few years or so uh but i think that has started to fall off as well the idea like uh like of someone being able to come in with a fully formed premise like breaking bad or mad men or whatever it is and like see it all the way through that stuff doesn't seem to really be happening anymore either well the amount of pre-work that you need to do like it's just they you know it was also in tv you could bring in a great pilot that you wrote so i have this great pilot i wrote breaking bad or like mad men was like a spec like he wrote mad men yeah and then like it got to amc and they were like we want we're getting in the tv business we want to do this and like you tell us what it is now it would

be like okay cool we read mad men we do want to do a show about an advertising agency why don't you outline what the first three seasons would be yes and then like we've got notes on you know there's just so much more of like them asking you alone to like map everything out which is probably not first of all it's probably not what it's going to be if you ever get to actually make it and it's probably not as good as what it is when you do get the collaboration of the way tv is actually written which is like with a with a group um but charlie kaufman started in television which is kind of interesting um i'll say this probably on this movie podcast a lot i haven't worked really in movies i've written you know my own

feature stuff where i've done punch up on other people's stuff but i've never like done a movie i don't know that side of the business as well but i like that he did start out staffing he stopped on get a life which is one of the weirdest shows ever yeah and i'm and i think was successful there because they were so open to somebody with like really unique ideas and then went through a journey of some other shows finally on ned and stacy which is like a pretty down the middle sitcom that he was a producer on and i think that at that point was probably pretty fed up with tv because that is when you're, as you say, you're realizing someone else's vision, your job when you get hired on a staff, is there's a showrunner, often also the creator,

who has a tone and a voice that they've decided on and a way they think the show should go, and you are trying to aim at the same target as them. You're not trying to do your your version of their idea you're trying to help them make their idea yeah with comedy i think you can get that satisfaction satisfaction from like oh my jokes are getting it yeah each individual joke is like a creative product that's yours especially when i was writing on family guy it's so modular with the cutaways and stuff you could just be like oh that's mine that's like straight up my little sketch that's in here yeah and like you can keep track of your stats better

than than you can on some other types of shows like just be like oh my shit's getting in like i'm good at at this yeah and you can come up with some develop some ownership over the product in that way yeah and and full story in a sitcom that has like a serialized element or something you can you can point to sometimes like oh i cracked this story piece something like get a life each premise was such a unique like weird story i'm sure he was coming up with stuff that really felt like it was it was his and so you're now you're you're like developing an idea of yourself as a writer even though you're subsumed into this project. Yeah, I think that's harder to do now with comedy and less joke based structures where you're just like basically sitting with your arms crossed trying to carve an eight episode plot arc.

Yeah. You know, out of I mean, you just like wrestling it's like turning a like a cruise ship rather than yeah well any big like innovative pitch then like jostles loose yes the two episodes around it on either side and it's like so you're like i have a pitch but it creates a lot of work yeah and so you end up finishing the day with much more frustration and no real sense of satisfaction most days because the individual pitch, the small idea is just not as relevant. And I think lots of comedy TV writing today. But talk about the my shit is I mean, when I pitch, it's really good. Talk about what?

Like the lead time on some of these shows. talk about what uh like the lead time on some of these shows i think feel like everyone's talking about jury duty is like kind of this throwback thing where like it's it's a small show but like interesting idea i was in the mini room for jury duty and i think 2015 2016 something like that when the show came out on air i was like oh they did a different show about jury duty i had no idea it was the show same creators same yeah for so long at the time they hadn't talked about the like someone in the room doesn't know that it's real which became like the main premise it was just kind of a show about jury duty but they did want to have a so they were talking about it being will farrell like the one celebrity that's in there that ended up being james margdon i think i auditioned for it like three years ago and like you know never i mean and i maybe wasn't even at the same network that it ended up airing on like it was originally for

abc as part of the eisenberg and stepnitsky's like overall deal and it might have still gone through abc studios i don't know if they even still have their deal there but um yeah and it Part of the Eisenberg and Stubnitsky's like overall deal. And it might have still gone through ABC Studios. I don't know if they even still have their deal there. But yeah. And it was maybe going to end up on HBO that they were talking about. But I mean that is more time investment than I think most people are willing to put into any project at this point. I mean that's a really, really long process. For stuff that used to turn around in less

than a year from from conception to it being on air yeah so as we talk about our experiences in in tv writing and stuff i want to mention like so one of the first things you see in the movie when you when you see charlie kaufman is he's on set yeah he's on the set of being john malkovich and um i think it's very uh well illustrated you mentioned to me that if that was you you would feel like you were i believe you said king shit of king shit hollywood yeah um and that he but that he is like feeling very out of place and kind of miserable on set and you know you just you you can see on his face that like the self-loathing is present there and he wants wants some kind of acknowledgement or something yeah or to disappear but he just like he feels

like he's in the way and people are treating and I think it's probably overblown how much people are like how disrespectful people are of him on the set because he was. And again, this is all how he sees the world. The entire movie is filtered through his perception. There's a surreal aspect of it. And there's some things that like ring a little bit false. Some exchanges. things that like ring a little bit false some exchanges but i think it's because it's stylized into like this is this is exactly how he um or it's like a shorthand for how he felt or how he perceived it yes and i i do think it's really interesting i remember the first times being on

set for like my sketch on nick swartzen's comedy central show or like my 10 time or pretend time yeah my episodes of big lake or whatever i was just like so puffed up watching them i still have like the menu from the fucking diner at big lake because that i remember thinking like someone had to go make this someone had to go like put this together just a number of people that are now like springing into action. From something you created. It's very easy to get like full of yourself. In that context. But he is so. Diseased.

That like he's watching people. Like there's no. Better version. Of like a writer's work. Being realized. Like from start to finish. He had this idea. It is being shot. The movie ended up being absolutely beloved yeah he's got like john malkovich like to in being

john malkovich in being john malkovich but but i so you said that to me and i totally disagreed because I don't feel that way when I'm on set and I've been, you know, I, I, I've been like an executive producer on shows. Like I've been on set for things that's yours that it, yes, I've been on set for things that are shot, uh, that are mine. I've been on set for things I didn't write, but I was the person who the show creators trusted the most to be there overseeing it. Right. And, you know, I worked on a show where I got sent to set all the time and for my stuff and others.

And I, as a writer, especially, I guess, because it was never my show. Yeah. Felt totally in the way uh-huh i constantly think like all these like other trades people are just like get the fuck out of my way like i'm trying to move like a big light like you just like can you not stand there and then you know sometimes you have a chair but it's like set far back from everyone else you're like looking through like other chairs in people's heads and then there's like either they turn to ask you if you have something like they'll film a scene they'll do rehearsal they'll turn to you and they'll either go like are you good do you have anything and then you're like supposed to i guess be like yes

here's the best line like right um or really what they want is for you to go like that's great like keep going like they don't want your input really um or there's like a problem that you're now supposed to solve and it's like something that 10 people worked on for weeks right and then there's an issue with it and they're like now you one person in 30 seconds like fix it make it that's different and that i definitely would feel like later in in my work all the time like that stress and anxiety about like having to do something that was important or like whatever thomas hayden church has an unrealizable idea that you have to like talk him out of or things like

that but that's very different from what charlie kaufman is showing which is like he doesn't need to be there at all and nobody i don't i i don't feel like anyone knows who i am or why i'm there and it's like i am this person who it's like why is this fucking guy like right next to the monitor yeah like why is he here yeah um and like maybe the especially in television where there's a new director every week it's like some directors are like cool and inclusive and like hey we should do this and like talk to you about it yeah but some of them if you do have something where you're like i know we need to get that line a different way or something like that, you have to go and bother them. You have to go and interrupt them.

They won't come to you. You have to go like, hey, sorry, can you not actually move on to a new shot? And they're like, what? And it's like, I hate it. I just feel so much anxiety. I feel totally unnecessary. There was a show that I was a producer on and I was there on set for all of it. And I had been involved in some of the table reads early on. And, you know, the moment where he's staring at Catherine Keener and it's like he wants

the cast to say hi to him like that. Yes. That's such a feeling that I know of, of being like, maybe if some of the other important creative people who are recognized by everyone here, talk to me, like they think I'm cool. That will settle some of the issues that I'm having. And so I had one of the actors come up to me and start talking to me and they were like walking with me. And I like walked, you know, from the set back to my office and they were like, whoa, you've got your own office. Look at you moving up.

And I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And through the conversation realized that they thought I was someone who had only been hired to help out with table reads because I read all the extra parts of the table read. Now that they thought that was a job at all. Yes. That that was a job that I would then be carried on to set to watch other people film when those parts had been cast by other actors. Well, that's important. You got to know like for the next table read. And then it was like, wow, you've got an office. Yeah.

And it was like. That's very funny. I'm your boss. Yeah. But it's like that's very funny i'm i'm your boss yeah but it's like you don't know my name you know my name my name is on some of the scripts okay but that i just feel like so worthless and like i'm and like i'm in the way so i connected to that well the like what we're talking about is what you're assuming that other people are thinking and same for me because i would fall into this place sometimes of being like oh my god like i'm the right you know especially when i was really young yeah it's like oh i'm the writer everyone's talking about how young i am to be here like everyone like is like scared to talk to me

but is acknowledging my role in the situation and i think the entire movie is about his his assumption of what people think about him which is not accurate at all like it is is a product of his his mental health problems and i think it's really interesting how the movie is like that like the character he's mostly writing about that's not him is another writer yeah who he does not assume has any of those same insecurities doesn't assume that she has problems just like you cut from his office to hers at one point his office is a tiny little table with a shitty typewriter on it there's nothing on the wall it's in his bedroom i think yeah and it looks like total crap and then you cut to her office which is like wood paneled and has like nice books and

like things all over the place and she's just kind of like typing away yeah she's got a computer yeah she's got her little computer and like her problems are more about like searching for meaning and like real like what's authentic love and things like that but she's not shown as seeing like oh this other fucking writer is just like like this other new yorker writer has got this like getting more attention than me which i know i'm friends with new yorker like this is that's how everyone thinks that's how like that's how all writers think and her process i'm sure is like just as fraught with like blockages and like not you know well and the way his and the other writer being his his brother who has no is not

self-conscious at all yes like is not concerned but that's a fake character perception yeah i know but it's it's there there are other writers in the movie and the other writers do not have the same yes they do not have self-doubt around their work yes um her problems are all like she's in like a midlife crisis yes so that is a little bit different um but it's but it's different like the movie is about how he talks about the part of the movies about how like we all come from the same play you know the same cells we're all one a lot of movies that were made these indie movies were like i think like me and you and everyone we know we're kind of like that crash whatever like showing all these people have their own problems but he can't actually universalize his his condition like he he can't represent

other people well because he's thinking why is it so easy for other people but it's not i mean he just doesn't get it yeah that's true but it does it does sometimes appear that way and when you see someone who's like because the thing that i did where i did connect to what you were saying about like why is he still like so self-loathing this spot is when he goes when he first sits down with the executive till the swinton and she's like we're huge fans of you we love your shit yes in that spot i would not because he's like oh geez yeah and like and then um you know can't can't accept the compliment and that's and that's but if i was like with like a powerful movie executive

who was being like i think you're a genius i would be like thank you i'm glad someone recognized it internet i would be like finally i've secretly been thinking that for a long time and i've been wondering like when is somebody with a fucking brain gonna read some of my shit yeah like so that that would make me like very egocentric and even that like the set thing i understand the like executive uh kissing your ass thing i'm like i'm a sucker for that like when they're like you're doing great i'm like yes i know so and then he proceeds to also like in his perception blow the meeting and talk himself out of the job like he portrays it as he is saying everything she doesn't want to hear.

And like ruining her lunch and the idea of the movie that they have and gets the job anyway. So it's like, you know, that's not how the conversation went because when they cut away, he has the job. So it didn't go as badly as he thinks. I wanna talk about when you say like his brother is a fake character which he is why do you think it's an identical twin and why do you think that character is in there like what is it a symbol of he represents a kind of writer that i hate and another person who i just like

think exists or is it like this is how i wish i could be this is like a part of me i wish i could access because he does ultimately write the part of the movie that his brother writes right and it is in the movie now he's in it wishing it wasn't kind of but like what do you what did you think about that like why is it like what i don't think it is you didn't even bring this up but like what in a lot of those cases it would be like oh these are two different sides of myself that i'm illustrating as two different characters i don't think there's any anyone thinks that any version of donald is in charlie kaufman like this is like i don't think that is a side of him right right it's no i think it's not but it's like is it like

does he think it could be inside of him and he can't access it like i see people who are like so good at right schmoozing with execs or whatever yeah and i know it would be helpful for my career if i was better at that and i go and i've had the thought even like when i used to commercial audition and people be like you just gotta not care and i would go in and like oh pally for example would like do exactly what they told him not to do yes like he would make a choice and they would go like okay let's do it again this time don't do that and he would do it even more right and then he would get the job and i'd go that's what i gotta do just be punk rock i don't need the job like i've gotta have that mentality and then i would go in and like try to do it and they would hate me so much more yes than they had before and i would be like why did i do

that it's like you're never going to see that casting director again yes because you tried to do what you've seen them like but they like it from that other person because they actually don't care right i think it's two different things one is i think it is one of the things in the movie that's the manifestation of a sort of uh cliched like schlocky idea that comes up in the movie like the split personality thing which then does become a movie that john cusack from being john malkovich that's right did do it yeah exactly they did the movie and that was a thing at the time and i think like memento was kind of the same idea and i think he's sort of playing off it's one of those things that's like yeah this is this is we've seen this before but i know that like it's sort of winking at it and i i also think

yeah it's that just taking that writer that you're so resentful of that it seems to be so easy for and is like you know fucking and like yeah it's like this is getting everything that that he wants and just turning it into but like the fact that it's his twin brother isn't i think it was also it's a way to uh get a good actor to to do something i think they're just kind of the commercial elements of it yeah and and to talk about the acting for a minute like nick cage plays both those roles he does i mean when he's playing the sort of like brother who has no internal monologue uh he does things like says i'm gonna push push in the bush yes is like pretending to hump the air it's it's one of the craziest funniest things but the thing that's wild in

this movie is meryl streep goes big she plays on drugs she wants to commit a murder yes nick cage plays small yeah the whole time he yells at like the very end of the movie but it's like it's such an authentic like he's just like stressed yell yeah i mean i don't know i i can't really think of uh another performance where he never does like one of his things and uh i'm sure they exist but like this this is the one that stands out to me of he plays so small he plays so real he plays like this kind of whatever uh very anxious guy um and streep is like when she plays that scene where she first gets high yeah and she's like on them she's taking these long pauses she's like i'm very happy now yes and it's like it's so good uh and it's so fun and with her i can't really think of a similar performance either. I hadn't seen the movie in probably 15 years.

And as that scene was playing out, I realized how much I remembered her line reading. So specifically, like, cause they're, they're, they're so distinct. Weirdly, I, I remember, uh, you know, this was also the time in my life when I was very focused on the academy awards sure and like what was gonna happen i remember the performance everyone was talking about that time was chris cooper yeah he's very good in the movie he's great but it's just like one of those it sometimes happens with more supporting roles you lose sight of like but other the the leads are doing and he was being introduced in a way like he obviously

has had a great career yes but it was like within a string of three or four awesome performances by him that were all different and it was kind of like it was people had just learned his name that's right to say like meryl streep gives a great performance was boring or nicholas cage because they both had oscars that's but that's partially why although when you watch it now their performances i think are both more impressive um and there's something similar to like you say like he really differentiates himself from susan orlean and like that he's she doesn't have problems but they are mirrored because i guess this could be you know possibly one of my smart thoughts i will

be talking about smart thoughts on this podcast that i had about movies so i'll say this smart thought and then my other big one which is they are sort of intellectuals like principled intellectuals who are being opened up by someone who is very simple and like and uh and not simple meaning like dumb but they you know it's like donald is teaching charlie like how to let go and love and write and not judge and she is learning from la roche who is like this like kind of backwoods character with no front teeth who like walks around in a swamp how to rediscover passion and caring about things and interest and like they are you know they are having the same experience that's the way and that is the way that he is adapting the book. Right.

The third act is, you know, it's Donald's version of the movie, but it also, I think there's a conversation that people remember most about the movie, like philosophically that they're putting forward. And it's kind of, it happens in sort of a contrived moment where they're like running from, they're hiding in a swamp and they're trying not to get killed by susan orlean and yeah uh and john la roche uncomplicated is what i wanted to call those characters yeah they are not complicated characters they are like right down what you see is what you get it is on the surface they are telling you what they are thinking they are not like prejudging any of their thoughts they're just going like this is what i think yes and the and susan orlean and uh dude are incapable of doing that and you see yeah when they even when

she has the dinner party and they're making fun of laroche and she has to go excuse herself to the bathroom she's like this is who i'm pretending to be of like someone who would judge this stuff but i actually think it's like beautiful that like his van's a mess. That's a great scene. And it's such a good realization of like kind of a crappy like upper class dinner party. You know who her husband is? No, I don't. Curtis Hanson.

Wow. Yeah. So there's a lot that I think that most people remember is when Donald was talking about. You're talking, you're getting to, yes talking you're getting to yes you're getting to the scene which is my this is my wish i wrote it you are what you love not what loves you yeah so there's so so i i want to talk about do it because there's a show about writing uh of movies i want to have a segment called wish i wrote it where we pick the part of the movie that you're the most jealous of yeah when you watch it and it's like it's not even a specific line in it although i think the line that i find more affecting even than like you're you're not um you're you are

what you love not what loves you is when charlie's telling his brother about a time that he watched him get flirted with by a popular girl at high school and that he was happy when he walked away she made fun of him and he goes like you're so clueless like you don't know what anyone thinks about you I have to think about what everyone thinks about me you're not burdened with that you had no idea and his brother goes I knew they were making fun of me I could hear them and he's like then why were you still happy and he says because it was mine because he loved her yeah the love i felt for her yeah the girl who's making was mine yeah it was and it wasn't it wasn't hers to take away

it was like a good feeling i had about something or someone and like that's up to me yeah and then that goes on a little bit and like you are what you love not what loves you and charlie starts crying and says thank you and yes cannot put into words what he's thanking him for but he's been kind of opened up by this and that is that's the moment that stuck with me for sure yes and yeah it takes place within the like swamp gun chase car chase thing that is like the fakest part of the movie but it's got this like real sentiment in it and that's the vulnerable thing like that the place that you watching it that the writer puts you in because i also think that that sentiment is very meaningful and i think

it's like a very well written sequence but it does happen in this part of the movie that is like supposed to be bad and it kind of makes you wonder it's another self-protection thing yeah where it's like well this is the corny part of the movie exactly is that meant to be like something that a bad movie would do stop down the chase sequence for like when they're talking too loud like they're getting there's people right behind them with guns and they're like not whispering yes and so it would be very easy like you talk to him and be like oh yeah i guess i'm glad you like that i actually wrote that because i thought it was so stupid i was yeah i was making fun of how movies will have this yeah but that's great no that's awesome that you liked it though

like i totally believe that but it's like uh you know, I'm a sucker. Yeah. Like, I'm a little bit of a softie. And so I was like, yeah, this is, even if he was writing it to be like, this is what a shitty writer would write in this spot, within the context of the film, I'm jealous of that existing where it does, because it is, you know, it is this big third act moment. Yeah. And it does give the full message. And it does, you know, and he says it into his little tape recorder later. Right.

Like, he tells me, you know, and Charlie tries to thank him, but he can't put it into words. Like, he's having it as the idea for the end of the movie that he thinks is good in the movie, too. And they end with happy together. And so you're like, oh, that was the song

that Donald wanted to put in the movie. Yeah. The movie does, I think, successfully have it both ways totally like they don't go into full parody mode in that third act it's not like um that like ntsf suv type like uh the style of the movie doesn't change so much no that it pulls you all the way out of it and now it's it's just like a bit um but here's my other big smart thought okay and tell me if this is obvious but you know la roche is giving these speeches about like the the bees purpose in life

like it goes and like mates with the flower and this is how life continues by doing its like singularly focused thing and you you have to do the thing you're supposed to do and um that's what we have adapted to and evolved into and that like you know charlie kaufman or kaufman's learning i have to i i should be writing like i should be writing the movie that's i that's my b thing like i'm supposed to or i should be falling in love or whatever it is but the movie itself the movie that you are watching by having that like shitty sequence at the end during the course of the movie it adapts to survive in the hollywood ecosystem yeah like part of the idea of the movie is that in hollywood you cannot have a movie when he pitches tilda swinton at the beginning like

it's not gonna have like a story or a plot or like i don't want like a fucking car chase or a gun or like any of this fake bullshit and by both robert mckee and till the swit and he's told like well that's not a movie then like you can't have a movie that is that the movie evolves and adapts and acquires these qualities that will allow it to be released in theaters because the environment in which it lives needs that to survive and that's why you're seeing the movie otherwise it would have died right and i was like so it's like it's adaptation it's an adaptation of a book they're talking about how flowers adapt how animals adapt he's you know laroche helps her adapt he donald helps him adapt but also the movie itself adapts and i thought that that that was cool. That was my smart thought.

Yeah. The thing about what I wish I had written, again, I think it is kind of impossible to, like, if you weren't working in that, if you're working in that time, I'm sure every fucking writer who was like in the business at that time,

I was like, fuck, this is something I could have done. The entire, and would have loved to do because it's about me and my shit and everyone loves it like they must have hated him when this movie came out i cannot imagine how jealous literally every other writer in the industry was tv because he got to make the leap to movies every other screenwriter so jealous that he got to put this out so i but i don't think that jealousy can move backwards like there's there's nothing at the time we were working that you could have done that was reminiscent of that because it had been done so

extensively by this movie i i just really like the one the one joke i really like is um he says there are no movies about flowers and donald says what about flowers for algernon and he says that's not about flowers in his own movie oh yeah i never saw it yeah oh yeah he says oh yeah i never never saw it because you've been told it's not a movie yeah that's right oh yeah sorry i never saw it yes i mean that that that that just hold back and forth is really really funny and that's great. And it's played so fast. Yeah, I think I've maybe said all my really smart thoughts about the movie. Yeah, the only, so it is about like whatever, Hollywood and all this stuff.

And so try to inject some personal stories into this. And his agent is a very funny character. It's Ron Livingston. I do believe, so he has a meeting in his agent's office and twice his agent looks at women passing by in the window and mentions either that he has said something about fucking someone up the ass about like either somebody walked by at a restaurant or something because it's so specific and he does it twice. And it is so kind of jarring when he does it that he like thinks it's cool. jarring when he does it that he like thinks it's cool and uh i do think you know we have some agents are really good some are really bad but there is sort of a culture there uh where they try i had one agent who i maybe went out to meals with him like three times and every time at some point he would be like you know fighting do? Do you like to fight? Do you have any fighting training?

And then I would be like, ah, not really. And he would proceed to explain all of his fighting training and then reveal to me that he was actually at some point studied almost like a top secret martial art where he could kill people, which so could i like you would choke them like please don't but like um so that was like this very macho kind of bro-y thing that he wanted to get down on and i'm sure that this is charlie's version of that where he's like I don't want to talk about this like yeah and I think that has changed a lot as well in terms of like who is in those roles I think that's what agents mostly

were like and agents that were female were kind of evaluated by whether or not they could hang in that world yeah can you get in the boys club yes but my agent uh was or i haven't written anything in a very long time and i think i'm still she's still technically my agent but like very smart not like that at all and i think like she's not an agent anymore now she's like but yeah but i think i still might technically be right here i'm not positive yes i think you are and it's something about the movie in general it's what i was talking about with what he thinks susan orlean's process is like is a very much like a guy's idea of what uh like someone who does his job but is a woman does it like just this idea that oh they just like much more discipline they just like kind of go to work they don't have the same level of insecurity yeah everything's

neat and tidy and like the office is nice and it's like pretty you know it's pretty easy to write and like they kind of think these guys around them are crazy their husband's a little annoying yeah it's yeah he's basically what like charlie coffin is what then became later like the hot mess like amy schumer type character like showing what like susan Orlean's character does not really have flaws or the flaws in the third act are really like made up. She has like desire and longing, but like otherwise she wishes she was more like activated and a bigger participant in life rather than an observer.

Um, but it's, I mean, we talk about like garden state at the same time, like these indie movies by male auteurs and like what they were kind of like putting women for all like through their idea. Well, I mean, also he's and he's acknowledging like, so Charlie Kaufman masturbates to three women. Yes. Yes.

The first that we see is a waitress yes that is nice to him the second that we see i think is the executive that he has lunch with at the beginning he's imagining her loving his script yes and it um makes him so horny and then the third time and final time it is to the author of the book that he is adapting the book jacket and he turns and he turns to the book jacket after he's finished masturbating to her in the film that you are watching that wasn't ever from a book and he says i hope i don't disappoint you yes and and that is insane and she i believe did reject this movie being made she had approval over the movie being made when she read it she was like do not make this movie i do not want this yeah and which i completely understand it would ruin her career

it is interesting in a way like i just feel like i'm not saying this is good or bad that would not be in a movie now no i don't know it would not happen in a movie i think that's probably true or i think and like it did end up being what what she is i mean she's continued to write all along but it's what she's best known as we would see her sometimes at earwolf studios we used to host a podcast on the same network. And I would always think, oh, Susan Orlean, for an adaptation. This is really exciting.

I think today, this is a good thing. The movie would actually, if you were to do that with a male character, you would also shift some of those qualities that I think are more accurate to the female character as well you know like showing them being like the what we see is more traditionally male flaws but that women also like have more on on screen now like if that's the way you would kind of balance that out i think if you were to to do that today yeah right well we're just about done talking about this movie this has been good i have one more sort of just unrelated but i just think it's a funny story agent story which is not from a

writing agent it was from when i was acting and um i was starting to write, but I had no work. I had moved to LA for a writing job. I wrote for this MTV show. I was then done and kind of trying to figure out what to do next. And I remember, and I was, we had the improv show, Shitty Jobs, going at UCB. It was, I would say, and I guess people can fact check me at the time, other than I guess ASCAP, which is like the flagship, most famous UCB show, probably the most popular improv show at the UCB theater, which is arguably, you know, one of the best comedy theaters in the country. I was doing improv there. It was sold out for the month,

the second it went up, every day. And I had an agent, and I was, so I was doing improv, I would say, at a high level. And they were holding auditions for MTV's Disaster Date. And they needed improvisers. And I called my agent, and I said, hey, every improviser I know is going in for this.

Can you get me in for this? And she was like, I don't know, Sean. You gotta be funny to do those shows. I mean, like funny, funny. I said, well, i think i might be maybe you could come to see my show like because i do an improv show and you could tell them like you i've seen him he does improv you could tell me he does a popular they might know ucb and she went like when's the show and i was like, when's the show? And I was like, well, it's at 11 o'clock. And she went, 11 a.m.? Maybe. And I went, no, no, it's at 11 p.m.

And she went, oh, Sean, that's too late. That is very late. Well, Saturday Night Live starts at 11.30. That's also, that's a level of professional disgrace that even Charlie Kaufman, who hates himself, believes that kind of thing is happening to him all the time. But it's so disrespectful that he doesn't even have characters talking to him that way. She doesn't want to lob in the call. She doesn't want to burn the bridge with the MTV disaster date people by sending them a fucking dud like me.

Yeah. disaster date people by sending them a fucking dud like me yeah yeah so uh as i said when you um when you are a writer when you are on set uh they finish filming and they turn and they say you got anything and so i say to you hayes um are you good we good to move on i'm good good to do next episode yeah okay all good all good which is also what I always say is that I never have anything moving on and now it's on and now it's on

that was a hate gum podcast