Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Jon Favreau

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

The 1996 movie Swingers set Jon Favreau on a path to becoming one of the most successful and sought-after filmmakers in Hollywood. His directing resume now includes massive hits like Elf, Iron Man, The Jungle Book and the 2019 version of The Lion King, which made more than $1.6 billion at the box office while introducing groundbreaking visual effects. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with the actor and director to talk about putting all of that experience behind his latest project, the docuseries Prehistoric Planet.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit Down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along. Very excited to bring you this conversation this week with superstar director, producer, actor, writer, John Favro, who has had such a fascinating career in Hollywood. For me, and I think for a lot of people, you got to know him first with Swingers in 1996, where he and Vince Vaughn starred in that movie that was sort of of very of its time about young Hollywood actors or 20-somethings trying to find their way through life and trying to find their way in Los Angeles. And it became such a hit. He wrote that movie that was after he'd been in the film Rudy, the Notre Dame football movie, the true story. And he decided he's getting some parts and he wanted to kind of control his own destiny. So he wrote Swingers, was in Swingers. And that sort of launched everything for him.

But then turns his focus to directing. goodness, did he do some directing? He directed Elf, of course, the Will Ferrell Christmas Classic. That was his first big hit. Then comes a little film called Iron Man. He directed Iron Man, and then he directed Iron Man too, launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which didn't exist in any significant way until Iron Man. Those become huge hits. He's also an executive producer on all the Avengers movies. And guess what? He's a director of the Mandalorian. the new Star Wars world, he created with his filmmaking idol, George Lucas. So my goodness has he done so much.

That just scratches the surface of the movies he's made and such a fascinating life and career. Growing up in New York, not knowing exactly who he wanted to be, trying improv, becoming an actor, a writer, and now this superstar director. And just a smart guy and fun to sit with. We got together at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. So we're in L.A. together. set the scene for you. We are sitting in front of, you can picture it, if you've been to any museum of natural history, huge, huge fossil remains of a T-Rex and a T-Seratops in a fight, basically, engage with each other in a fight.

Why are we there? Because he is the executive producer of a new series on Apple TV Plus called Prehistoric Planet, all about the dinosaurs. And it's so cool if you haven't seen it, you've got to check it out, because it truly feels like one of those planet Earth, nature documentaries down to Sir David Attenborough is the voiceover. You'll recognize his voice immediately when you hear it. Hans Zimmer scored the music for this. And he uses all the technology, does Favro, that he helped to create with movies like The Lion King, which he also directed, and the Jungle Book, which he also directed, that are more than CGI. They're sort of the next step. He calls it photorealism. So he basically puts these dinosaurs into their habitats, and it just looks like a nature

documentary. I can't put it into words. He does better than I will. You just have to check it out. So I'll stop talking. Turn it over to John Favreau. To me, such a fascinating conversation. If you love The Mandalorian, if you love Iron Man, if you love hearing how movies get made, if you love hearing about the technology behind movies, if you love dinosaurs, if you love swingers, come on, who wouldn't love this? John Favro right now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Thanks for doing this, John. Oh, my pleasure. This is so much fun to be out here talking about this truly extraordinary project, prehistoric planet. I say extraordinary because of the scale of ambition,

both in what you're trying to capture 66 million years ago and how you're trying to do it in terms of the filmmaking. Right. So how did you embark on this? You put together this team, I know, that BBC knows what it's doing, your team knows what it's doing. Sure. But what was it about dinosaurs that captured you?

Well, it really started, you got to kind of walk it back to the collaborations I had on the live action Disney animated updates, you know, like The Jungle Book, Lion King. And we had developed, my team that I work with and the vendor that we work with at L-MPC, you know, we had a whole team that we assembled for those two films to try to figure out how to do really naturalistic performances and depictions and creating new, you know, rendering tools and simulations and all the things that create the magic trick that makes all these illusions. look real, which is really what filmmaking is, right? It's an extension of the old illusionist, you know, from the stage,

and they would start to use cinematic tools to create these illusions that would delight audiences. And you look back at like Melier's, that's where it began. So there's still the tradition, the sort of magician's tradition throughout the cinematic art form. And so when we were working on the Jungle Book and Lion King, we were figuring out how to make these animals come to life. And when I was done working on that and had moved on to working on the Mandalorian, there was a whole group of people that I had worked with for so many years.

And we had a whole workflow and a way to create things using a combination of virtual reality and game engine technology, a lot of cutting-edge stuff. And we had really hit also a great working relationship. got a great team going. And so when they reached out to me through Apple to do, to collaborate with the BBC on this project, it seemed like a great application for what we had been developing for so long. And we had really been studying planet Earth and all of the, what you might call the Attenborough documentaries, because we were trying to look for reference for photorealism. And so to actually be able to work with people like Mike Gunton who had been working on all those

shows and bring our skill sets together was just a just the geek out factor alone was was awesome and so we started to collaborate figuring out how they did documentaries in in the real world and how we created the you know photo real artificial world and by bringing those two those two traditions together we i think achieved something that was uh that i don't think would have been possible at an at an earlier of the time or with a different group of people. It's impossible to describe watching it, the experience of it, and people will if they haven't already, but the opening scene where there's a T-Rex swimming through the water

as babies. I'm seeing above the water and then I'm beneath the water. And it just feels like a documentary. Like you've got cameras 66 million years ago. I know it's a long explanation, but photorealism, what is it? How do you pull that off? Well, there's lots of tricks. And if I spoke about each specific thing, it's not that interesting.

I mean, it is interesting that people work on it. Things like ray tracing. It's a way that light, you create a simulation around the way light bounces around and off of different surfaces. It creates the illusion of real light hitting a real object. That's something that's been a breakthrough in the last few years. Simulations, how fur, or in this case feathers react, how they react all. off of one another, how they react to environments, how weather affects things, wind. But in this case, remember, in Jungle Book and Lion King, we created completely virtual environments.

We, you know, everything was created through CGI. We never went to a real jungle for Jungle Book. But in this case, because we're working with the BBC and we're working with producers who had worked on documentaries, they actually went out in the field and shot plates in those real environments. And so we put our artificial dinosaurs into those real environments. And thanks to the technology that's available, we could make it integrate, you know, I think, to a very high standard. And then there's sort of the educational side of it, which is you have to get the facts right about every one of these dinosaurs, what they look like, what their feathers or their skin.

Well, if they had feathers. Like I learned so much from working with these paleontologists and people who are experts in the field. Because I would, you know, my first thing was when they present me with different story ideas for each vignette, I'd say, that seems like a reach. And they'd explain to me why there's actual scientific backing in the latest learnings. And we are in a golden age now of paleontology and archaeology, because we keep finding new specimens all around the world. And there's a great cooperation between the scientists all around the world. And so if there's a new breakthrough, that will inspire a different type of story.

And so they're starting to realize because, for example, the eye. eyes on dinosaurs, they could tell from fossil remains that they were actually probably very sensitive to not just movement but color. You know, in Jurassic Park, it was like, don't move, it can't see you, but in reality, they have eyes more like bird's eyes. And because they can perceive color, there's a lot of speculation as to the coloration that dinosaurs would have had. And we're starting to see that there's plumage as well. So the combination of feathers, crests, and very sensitive eyes to color makes you realize that there's those, probably more like the bird world in what we see.

So there may very well have been spectacular coloration on these animals. And there are certain cutting-edge paleo artists that do paintings that look like something out of a crazy, you know, fantasy movie. But in fact, these dinosaurs may have looked, more like exotic birds. There's some conjecture.

Now, of course, what we do in the show is we don't want to break out that hard away from expectations. And so there are leaps that we make that are plausible and to the most part agreed upon by the whole scientific community. But their behavior can be, certain assumptions can be made about their behavior, the way that their culture, how they traveled, you know, hunted in packs, how they reared their young that they didn't just lay their eggs and walk away, but that T-Rexes, you know, there's fossil evidence that supports the idea that they were actually, you know, raising their brood as birds would have.

So it's, to me, every time we would get on the, you know, on these calls, and it was mostly done by Zoom because we're in different countries, and it was, a lot of it was during the lockdown, we'd go off on these conversations about, well, how do you know this? Like, what makes you think that this is the case? Are we just taking a leap? And so I actually learned a lot. about the science. It's one of those weird ironies that the older that you get, the more you wish you were still in school. You really want to learn. And so to me, it was just a wonderful education with the top people in the field. Well, you sound pretty fluent at this point in paleontology. Did you come to this with a fascination with dinosaurs or this is fully a learning experience for you? No, I just like, I mean, dinosaurs are fun. I guess, you know, it's interesting because every new technology in cinema seems to be drawn to dinosaurs first.

whether it's stop motion or CGI with what Spielberg was able to do with with Jurassic Park, which I think is still one of the high watermarks of CGI, even though it was the first. And audio animatronics with Stan Winston's work, everybody seems to, as soon as they have something new they could do, they want to use it to bring dinosaurs to life. There's something just fascinating about, I think, the scale, and they feel like fantasy creatures and the fact that they really walk the earth where we are.

And that they were here for so long as the other thing that I never realized. I mean, us as a species, we've been around for, you know, hundreds of thousands of years. They were around for, you know, hundreds of millions of years. They were, you know, there were different periods, but, you know, you could go back. You know, terosaurs were around 250 million years ago to, you know, the extinction period, which is, you know, that's almost a 200 million years spread. So you realize what a flash we've been in the timeline of the planet, and you realize that the dinosaurs and the other species that coexisted with them

were here for so many millions of years and what the planet was like and for how long. It just puts things in perspective. It's somewhat humbling when you think of us as this dominant species in the planet, realize that we're just a blip. I had that same thought watching. In fact, I looked up the time, you know, the planet's 4 billion years old. These guys, you know, a couple hundred million years old and were maybe 200,000 years ago, maybe.

But the modern form is much less than that. If you look at modern culture and, you know, when we really took off as an agrarian culture, you know, thousands of years, not millions for sure. You can lead to an existential crisis. When you think about that, how insignificant we actually are. It's good to, you know, it's kind of good to keep both things. You have to see yourself as, you know, the most important center of the universe, but also an insignificant spec at the same time. Right.

And if you could balance those two things, it kind of prepares you for life's challenges and puts a proper perspective on things. Totally. One of the things that strikes me watching the series is that it might change the way people feel about dinosaurs. At least some dinosaurs, in some scenes like a T-Rex, for example, is sympathetic. It's a dad or a mom just trying to survive with its babies, and it loses it. a baby to a bigger dinosaur, it's all survival. Did you think when you embarked on this, or maybe later when you saw it like, oh, this may be shown in middle schools or high schools and educate people about what these animals really were? Yeah. You know, I mean, something interesting

that I've learned from my conversations with George Lucas that I've been lucky enough to have is as a storyteller, he's constantly reminding us of the fact that, you know, stories were really created primarily for people coming of age. Like that's what that's what the myth, the tradition of the myth is, the monomyth, the hero's journey. It's about, it's about the coming of age. And there could be coming of ages and transitions later in life too, but primarily it's about going from childhood to adulthood and, you know, the challenges that come with that threshold. And each culture and each society has a different set of values that it, that it lays into their their stories and their myths.

And whether it's religion or whether it's storytelling, every story has that dimension to it. And so creating, I think there's sort of two aspects of it that I really like about this particular project. One is that you get to empathize with a really relatable story with these fantastic creatures that are not human, but yet go through all the challenges that survival and family and, you know, traveling from one biome to another in search of food or to have the next generation and lay their eggs.

So there's that very sort of relatable story about just the challenges associated with life done in a way that's, because it's in an arm's distance, it allows you to, I think, accept the themes of it because you're not really scrutinizing it. You're able to be transported by these beautiful visuals in this far away land long ago. And on the other hand, I think it's also great because you're hopefully hitting people at an age, kids in an age when they're first being introduced to science and first being introduced to this, how much is available to them if their curiosity is engaged. And I think the older I get, the more I realize that if you could, you'll never be more productive than if you find a career that you have excitement and passion around.

Because even if it's a career that where the odds might not be on your side, you're going to be bringing so much more of yourself to it that I think it throws off the metrics of it. So I'm working in a field where, you know, statistically it's not very promising, but I found myself, you know, in other, I thought myself as a lazy person before this because I wouldn't work as hard on my schoolwork as I should. But there were always things that I was engaged by that I would be obsessively, you know, thinking about or working at. Usually something. you think of as like a hobby or something you do for your free time. And if you could line up your passions with what you're doing as a career, all of a sudden you're engaging on a much more

productive level and you're enjoying your work life so much that you're taking rest, not because you're not taking breaks, not because you're sick of what you're doing, but because you just need to recharge. But even when I go on vacation and if I step away from writing or step away from storytelling, I find myself, you know, after not too long, starting to come up with another idea. And that's what I'm doing on my free time. And so what you want to do is present all of these options to young people and expose them to things that might inspire them. And the whole, you know, the idea of paleontology or the stem fields in general or science

for kids to get intrigued by it is, you know, one of those kids might be the next paleontologist, all the people that I work with started loving dinosaurs when they were very young, the paleontologists. And that seems to be a through line. And I love also with Iron Man that Tony Stark was an engineer, that he was a scientist. And I think, you know, I've heard stories anecdotally of people who were influenced by that when they were younger and became curious about that field and then went into it. So in that way, I feel that there's like a lot of good that could come out of it.

But selfishly, I just loved working on it. And I love finding projects that are exciting to me enough because I know it's going to be a long haul. These things take, you know, this was what you're seeing on television now we've been working on for three years. It's just a very slow process. So you have to be up for the marathon and be as excited on when it's coming out as you were when you started.

So that's, I found, I'm very fortunate that I get to work on things that I want to work on. And if my passion pulls me to something or to a group of people that I want to work with or something I want to learn about or a challenge or something that's never been done before, you know, I'm very grateful to have that available to me. And cool to use your name and your success and your platform for something like this. If this is directed by Director X, we're probably not sitting here talking about it, you know? It could be, though. I have to say that, you know, between the BBC, Planet Earth, David Attenborough, you know, that mixture.

an Apple, like it was, there was enough that people would have checked it out anyway, so I felt like I was in very good company and it wasn't relying on me, but yet I could, but people hopefully saw my contributions and understood that, that this is something I've been working at for a long time, and this is the pinnacle of everything I learned up to now. Yeah, bringing all your experience to it. You mentioned David Attenborough. Yeah. It feels like to me it had to be him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So how did you make that happen? Well, there was a relationship previously, of course, with Mike Gunton and the team that had been working on the BBC documentaries.

But he's somebody who's very selective about what he gets involved with. And honestly, he's at a point in his life where, you know, he's not looking to expand his career. He has a whole body of work in a legacy. And I think his name stands for a lot because he gets involved only with things that he feels passionately about. And so as I've been asking my, you know, my colleagues who knew him, like, we should really reach out to him and see, well, it was like too early.

It was pencils at first. Then it was, you know, storyboards, then it was animatics or simple, you know, it looked like a video game for a long time. And it wasn't until it looked like it was going to look and it didn't require too much imagination that they went to him. And I was really, you know, I was really on pins and needles because I knew that that was the, you know, all the technology doesn't mean anything if you don't feel something, if you're not fooled, if the magic trick doesn't work. And all of the tricks that we've learned and all of the technology available to us can only make it so real. There's something about hearing Sir David Attenborough's voice walking you through this, that all of a sudden was like that transformative piece that meant more honestly than all the other things combined. And his, because he doesn't just record what you hand him, he's very involved and is very careful.

curious about the science and wants to make sure that his name being on it is that he's vetted the content. And so he was fortunately very enthusiastic about it. He saw the promise of what this technology could do, and he had a trust factor with the scientists that were involved and the producers that were involved. So for me, when I first heard his voice over, it was when I really felt like, okay, now we've got it. It's finally, now I know it's going to work. Because up until then I, you know, it's always a bit of a, you know, it's always a bit of a gamble. And so I had been around storytelling enough to know that this was a complete experience that everything was working well together.

And of course, Hans Zimmer and his company bleeding fingers, their music coming into it, also connected it with the Planet Earth documentaries. And I had worked with Hans. I know him very well now. And he's a great guy, of course, a wonderful artist. and the fact that he brought his team to this, and it connected it again to the Planet Earth documentaries. So the whole package really worked quite well.

And it's a, you know, again, it's a week-long magic trick where people, you know, we had one a night, and had five episodes coming out. And it was just such a refreshing change of pace to be transported to this world at a time where most things you're seeing, you know, when you turn on your TV, you know, make you feel not this way. and something that may be different generations might come together and share one screen,

that's becomes, I know I have three kids I really value. If there's something we all want to check out together, that's rarer and rarer. I grew up, you know, there was one TV and we all gathered around it like a fireplace, you know, and now it's everybody has their own screen. Even if you're sitting in the same room, everybody's looking at their own thing. And you're happy just to be together, but to actually be focused on something together and discuss it is a real treat that I don't take for granted as a parent. That's the piece of it, too, the conversation after.

Oh, I didn't know that about that dinosaur. You mentioned Hans Zimmer. The score is amazing. My one complaint is every time the music is uplifting, I'm feeling good about a dinosaur, the score changes. An admirer says, but a predator is lurking. Yes. Oh, no, we're going to lose the hatchling, aren't we?

No, it's hard because the science has to be real. And just because you could control everything doesn't mean. that you can manipulate the reality of it. And so we really trusted our scientific and our documentary, our people of the nature documentary background to determine the balancing act. But they have a way to contextualize it. I think also there's something comforting about his voice that even when something, you know, there are wonderful moments and then there are sad moments.

And certainly you see it in sharp detail. in the natural world. And, you know, the human condition isn't that far off. We live in a more insulated life, but we all have our moments where we're facing just the beautiful moments of life, but then the moments of loss and sadness. And good stories know how to incorporate all of that

and contextualize it. And ultimately, hopefully, in a way that makes you think, but it's so beautiful in spite of all of that. and that, you know, the darkness is followed by the dawn, and that's part of the cycle of it. And I think that those documentaries, when they're done well, really capture that in a way that put you through it, but then ultimately make you feel like you're very blessed

to be seeing this beautiful world and being a part of it. And hopefully we did it. We magically captured it with technology in a way that they just are able to go out in the field and just present what's out there. And if you've ever been out in nature on safari or something, it's very, boy, it really puts you in touch with that feeling that we are part of something bigger and something quite beautiful.

You've done something powerful when I'm empathizing with a T-Rex. Yeah. Because he lost his baby. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. For a sympathetic character. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Stick around to hear more from John Favro right after the break. Welcome back now more of my conversation with John Favro.

So I'm curious, John, where this love of films and filmmaking comes from. Because obviously you started as an actor before you became this huge director. To go back to Queens? Yeah, I was little. I grew up in Queens. I think I always liked movies. I was an only child. My folks were split.

So I remember spending a lot of time with my dad. You know, and when you got, when you're with your dad for a few days a week, or every other week, then you're, you know, where do you go? What do you do? And he loved movies. I love movies. He really introduced me. This is, you know, pre-VCR days. I was lucky enough to be able to be a short drive from Manhattan where there were revival theaters. And there was always theaters with a curated slate. So there'd be old classic films. And my dad would always, if he saw something cool that he thought I'd like, he'd bring me to them. And we'd watch movies a lot. And I think I always loved storytelling. I always thought that was cool. And I also liked to perform. Like, I like being on stage and school plays and things. So that combo, of course, I never thought it was something I would do.

It's just something I liked. And then eventually I wasn't, it wasn't until I was like 22 years old that I decided to even try to, you know, even try acting or being in anything in the entertainment field as a profession. And that's when I moved to Chicago and I, and I, and I started doing comedy there and learning and taking classes and learning improvisation. And it became part of the foundation of what I do now. A very eclectic set of influences and teachers. And then once you're a working actor, then you're, you know, I used to do extra work,

but when you finally get like parts, even small parts, then you're on a set. And a set is, you know, it's a circus. It's a, you know, and so you could, everybody's doing everything all around you. And if you're curious, you could talk to the cinematographer, you could talk to the editor, you could talk to everybody who's there and figure out what they do and why and how.

And then you realize that, you know, there are so many tricks to create illusions, and there's a whole culture that's been, you know, it's now, it's a century old. of what filmmaking is. And there's a camaraderie among all the people who have to work together, and usually very fast, and usually pretty long hours.

And what's fun about being on a movie set is, you know, with rare exception, everybody's there because they really want to be doing that. And I didn't, I'd worked other jobs, and I didn't experience that where people were working for the weekend. You know, they wanted to save up for their boat, or their motorcycle or their car or their trip or their, you know. And but on the movie sets, people were like happy to be on a good show.

And there's an excitement about it and people took a lot of pride. And people, there's also an apprenticeship dynamic in the film business where you work your way up in various departments. And so you're learning on the job. But you need a lot of hands. You need a lot of people who know what they're doing to get the job done. Everything is, you know, you come in. to town and you roll out the tent and you got to figure out where the cameras are going,

where the lights are going, where the, where people are going to eat, where, you know, everybody hits it and figures it out together and it's, um, it's pretty spectacular and everything's focused on this one little area under the lights that everybody concentrates on, but really it's the, you know, what's happening, rippling out in the periphery of it that's just as exciting. And so it feels like, you know, you feel, I always felt very lucky to be on a set. I always felt very lucky to walk around the back lots of like the New York City's streets and in Hollywood as I was going to auditions and taking meetings. So I really got to be on the outside for a long time looking in so that by the time I actually got to a position where I

was making a living there and that was my career, I felt very grateful. And then storytelling is storytelling. So acting means you're reading a lot of scripts. You read a lot of scripts. You start to figure it out. You start to try to write. And that was ultimately the thing that really opened the door for me, more than my acting, was my writing. And then the writing led to filmmaking. and directing and then all that leads to in television producing so even though i've done a lot of different things they're all kind of the same thing which is storytelling and fitting into the tradition of making movies and making film entertainment and now i think that's even a limiting term because it's not really film anymore and it's expanding into other technologies that i've

I've been learning about thanks to my experiences making fake dinosaurs come to life and using VR. And then you start to realize that all these new tools that are coming, becoming available and becoming refined and more ubiquitous, opens up the door for a lot more storytelling experiences and techniques. And I'm very happy to be at a time when there's a transition happening where we still have everything available to us that was for 100 years from cinema, from photochemical, You know, all the same techniques that were developed around photochemical film are still applicable as the technology develops, but then there's also other ways to tell stories and other means to deliver them.

So I love the idea of being able to innovate and working with the innovators and learning from them and applying what I've known and learned to new technologies as well. You're talking about putting the idea in your head of becoming a performer. You were knocking around a little after high school, working a Wall Street job. I don't think you loved. Then you make the natural leap from Bear Stearns to Second City. Of course. Just the way it's done in show business.

I had gone cross country. So I had stopped in Chicago and saw people performing on stage. And, you know, I think the first night I went to watch a live show is Chris Farley on stage. Wow. I was like, these people are good here. I didn't realize I was looking at a generational talent. I was like, geez, this is intimidating. You know, and so he was on stage.

And so it was like, geez, these people. And also, like, I couldn't believe how. much people thought in their feet. I love that there was an audience that would show up to look at an unscripted comedy show, and then it would come together, and that they would figure out how to tell stories. It was really actually good training for filmmaking or writing

because you have to figure out what the story is without any planning just based on the scenes that you've improvised. And having, especially the longer form techniques where the stories all come together. And I thought that was fascinating. And so I learned a lot of lessons. And there's nothing like learning a lesson in front of a crowd. Sometimes who didn't even know a comedy show was going to be breaking out there.

So you turn the music off and people are having a beer. And then you say, okay, let's take some suggestions for our comedy show. And, you know, if you could win over that crowd, like that's, it's a good, you know, it's good. You know, everything that I do, I still have in the back of my mind, how is a live audience going to react? Like, you still have in your head, like, that's probably going to, you know. that would get a laugh or this is interesting. But the sense that the audience, it's your job to keep the audience engaged because they have other things they want to do.

And so you have to put on a show. And that's not just for comedy. It's for drama storytelling. It's honestly like if you're telling a story around, you know, especially you're with your family around a big table at a dinner. You know, I know what it was like in your family, my family, if you weren't interesting, you don't talk. Like, it's not your turn to talk anymore.

So I think that there's a sense of reading the crowd and that tradition of, you know, whether you're telling a ghost story at camp or you're telling a joke around the dinner table, there's a sense that, you know, this is a two-way street. This isn't just me expressing myself. This is me connecting with another person. And especially if you like that connection and you like getting a laugh or you like people being excited when it's your turn to say something, you have to hold up your end. and make it keep it interesting.

That's so fascinating. Even that plays into what you do now. All those years ago, it's built in, and they're all steps up the ladder. Even Dungeons and Dragons. Even like, hey, are they going to want to play in my, you know, could I come up with something for my fellow students when we get together, who's going to create an adventure?

Who's going to lay out a, you know, could you create a campaign that's interesting for them to be entertained by and participate in? So I've always been drawn to that. And also, by the way, I love being an audience member, too. Like, it doesn't have to always be me doing it. Like, if I, boy, if there's a good show that somebody's like, oh, you got to check the series out, like, I savor it. I savor it. Like, I love a good story.

And there's so many places where stories are available. You know, I think the, in one sense, there's a ubiquity to it where there's so many people telling stories. But also, it's amazing how there's always just a hand-finding. that kind of work their way up where everybody's excited by it. And there's something really fun. I really like that about the culture, too, is that everybody, sometimes there's a moment when a story is being told or something's, where everybody's gathered together and, you know, not just here,

but all around the world. Like when you get it just right or when somebody gets it just right, there's a sense that everybody's like, you feel connected in a way that I don't know that we always feel right now. think there's a lot pushing us apart right now. And so if stories could pull us together, I think it's, I think it's, people really appreciate that. Almost more rewarding too to break through now when there's so much stuff. So much. Like it takes more to come out of it. Right. It's not just three channels and one channels number one. Everybody's watching it eight o'clock on

Wednesday. You know, everybody's watching the same thing. I got that when I was in Seinfeld. Like I was in Seinfeld. I had a bit part, but I was part of Seinfeld. Everybody was watching Seinfeld. So everybody knew my little, you know, my little vignette. And my dad heard people talking on the subway or an uncle, I forget who it was, but somebody overheard a conversation about a bit that I had been in. And from that or as on friends. That was really, you know, television was always because it all happened at the same time. A movie, it comes out.

Some people, some people see it beforehand. Some people see it the premiere. Some people see opening weekend. Some people see it later. Some people don't see it until it's on the airplane. Some people see it when it's on cable or DVD. And so you never got that one big rush. But now with television, especially with streaming too,

everybody's kind of seeing it at the same time and talking about it. And so you really get the sense that you have, I mean, it burns brighter, but it burns shorter because the next thing's coming the next week. But it's really interesting to be able to have that conversation taking place in real time from people all around the world who connect with it. And there's something really, I find really, you know, rewarding about that. You were talking about different generations, know you from different things.

Before we started here, and for me, it's Swingers. So you get Rudy, you're in a big movie. You think, here we go. Career's about to take off. Met Vince. But moved to town. Right. And the experiences of Vince showing me around town.

And, you know, now everybody knows him as a big movie star. But at the time, he was, you know, he wasn't, you know, he was having tricky time. Even though we were working, we were, you know, it was a grind to get just a part here or there. But he was always just incredibly entertaining guy and funny and quick. And to go, you know, to be introduced to Hollywood coming from New York and then Chicago, that experience was somewhat, you know, inspiring of the script. Then it was the first time I wrote a script. And Doug Lyman, who was also somebody that we knew, a friend of ours, directed it.

And so it was really a group of friends coming together. And a lot of people from, you know, we're down here by SC, a lot of people who had met through the SC film program were working as part of the crew at the time. And so that was the thing that got us, the attention, you know, all of us respectively, but me more so as a writer especially. And that led to me directing because once I was,

I sort of broke through in one area, but then was able to pivot. And it really wasn't until it was, It wasn't until Elf that, and that was quite a few years later, that I was involved with a movie that was well received. And in Hollywood, if it's profitable. So it made money for New Line. And it put me in a new category where now I could work if I wanted to work. But it took many years, even between swingers and that, I had directed the small film made that Vince produced.

Told that I love me. Yes, that Vince produced with me. And he, you know, was, it was part of a journey from writing to showing people that you could direct to. And then also acting, remember in between and I was doing friends and other things like that. But nothing was really, people were getting to know me, but I wasn't like on those lists. People have lists at the studios. I don't know what it's like now, but it was like either you were kind of, they wanted you or they didn't want you, depending on some collectively agreed upon,

you know, invisible chart or list that there was. And I found myself, you know, being hired as a writer, that's the other thing I was very grateful for. After Swingers, I was hired to do a lot of rewrites and things, most of which were films that were just in development, many of which never got made, and some of them were rewritten after me. but I was making an income from doing writing. And that allowed me to not have to work or struggle, I had more money than I needed to survive and even able to get my first house.

And so, like, I felt a certain amount of security in that. And also the sense that, hey, if I'm making a living doing this, then maybe I belong here. Because there's always the thing hanging over your head, like, should I go home? Is this, did we give it a good, run and it's not working out, you know. And so that was like, okay, I'm actually making a living. I don't know where I'm going to fit in, but clearly I could, I could tread water here and do well

and then learn from every collaboration. Because as a writer, you're paired up with different directors, different studio executives, and you're learning constantly. Now, you don't realize that at the time because you're like, I just want my break. I want this to be a hit. But what you're, the real value proposition is that you're sitting with people who know what they're talking about or some who don't, but you're learning because you're taking those meetings. And even though you think that meeting is just, well, will they finally approve my draft of the script? But really, they're telling you what they want and they're giving you really candid insight into the way that they tell stories and how they see things. And then they'll tell stories about things that they worked on before. And so

you're becoming, you're absorbing all of this information and knowledge that, Now I look back at like, oh, my God, I learned so much. But at the time, you just want to get to that next, you want to hit that next rung. Because you don't know if you're going to make it because the water's coming up and you've got to keep ahead of it. And then finally, when I was, you know, after, as I said with Elf, then it became a different thing, which is like, okay, what do I do? Now you really want to be careful not to, now that a lot of opportunities are coming your way, then you have to say, okay, so what do I really connect with the most? I feel the most for what I want to get involved with. And I found over the course of many films,

I was being drawn to the technological aspects of it. Because I think Star Wars was like always a thing. In Spielberg's movies, those are the ones I really, really at my core enjoyed the most. I loved the Scorsese movies. I loved all of that, all of the more edgier in the Tarantino stuff. I definitely appreciated that kind of storytelling.

But I think my youngest self, the part of me that was the most, The most pure was the one that was drawn to the first time I saw King Kong, Star Wars, Close Encounters. And I wanted to learn how to do all those tricks. I just loved those tricks. I wanted to see how they made the puppets come to life. And, you know, American Werewolf in London. And now I was getting to meet people who worked on that kind of stuff.

And you go to their shops, and you go to ILM for the first time, and you see all the miniatures. And remember, back then it wasn't digital. So there's still remnants, you know, just like you have five. fossil remains here. You had all of the, you know, you go to ILM and you walk down those hallways and you see spaceships and you see ghosts from Ghostbusters and you see models and mat paintings. And it really felt special. And so I did a little bit of visual effects in Elf. So I was doing stop motion. I was doing forced perspective. A little bit of CG. And then for Zathura, I started to do motion control. I started to do some miniature work, some CGI. And then by the time I, you know,

I kept going. And every film I've done, some of them missed, some of them hit. But there was always different layers of complexity I was finding in the rearview mirror. I was like, boy, I'm really building towards technology. I was a bit resistant to CGI until Iron Man. And I think CGI I hit a point where it was really getting photo reel, especially with hard surfaces, like a metal suit. And that's with Iron Man is when I really started to say, okay, CGI is another paint in my paint box here. And then we started to challenge things to make it even organic materials more photoreal like in Jungle Book and Lion King. And so doing a dinosaur show is kind of, you know, collecting the fruits of all the work that had been up up until that. point, this is something that we're able to do even for television, which, you know, the level of

work there. And as I do the Mandalorian and as I work on the Star Wars properties for Disney Plus, you know, there we have a lot of a whole other level of innovation where we're using video walls and using game engine technology and in-camera final pixel visual effects and able to work on a TV budget and a TV schedule and get really cinematic level output, thanks to the collaborations with a lot of different technical people, especially with ILM and with Lucasfilm and that whole tradition, because it all started with them, you know, all the CG started with, you know, all the work that Lucas had done. And so I find myself, you know, now not just learning from the people who've done it, but innovating with the people and breaking through to the next level of

what can be achieved. And to me, at this point, I love the storytelling. I love, by the way, the mentorship that comes with it, because just as I've learned from others, in television, really lends itself to, we're going to bring on other directors. I won't direct because we have to do a whole season, but I can interact with each of them as an executive producer and as a writer

and say, here's what we're going to do this time, and here's how you do it, and then they tell me how they want to do it, and so, and some people are less experience where there's more learning, and some people are even more experienced than I am, and I learn from them. And so this collective, this creative collective that forms around a television show like that, at this point in my life and my career is really, really rewarding because a film always feels more like you're almost like on a military campaign alone.

You're like a general and you have your army with you. But in television it's not that. In television it feels very much like you're, it's almost like an academy at times. Like you have people coming in, people graduating out, people returning back to work, the people that are. had learned or teaching others. And that to me is really, really exciting and rewarding because I get to see the whole new crop with new voices and new perspectives keeping me fresh while I'm, you know, able to pass down some of what I was able to learn to the people who really want to know how to do it. And I could help balance them and give them the tools at least as best as I can for my,

for my experience. It's interesting here. You talk about Iron Man. elf and swingers because people in a minute realize it as big a hits as they are in enduring classics none of those three was a sure thing no at the time right i mean swingers was your story you invent yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and who knows what's going to happen and the next thing you know people are wearing suits all the way was not a hit in the theaters right at all but it made it made it made enough of a cultural splash that it got us right you know hey who are those guys right and that's you need a lot of breaks and you got to be ready for them and that certainly was a big one for us.

But honestly, just getting into Rudy was a big break. Yeah. Just getting me an agent, like, that was a big step. And that movie didn't do that great in the theaters either, but it stood the test of time. I just signed a copy of a DVD for somebody here. So it still holds a... That's also what you realize is that if you connect,

it certain... You know, there's so many movies been made, so many TV shows, there are only a few that people keep with them. and want to return to, like Elf, one of the most rewarding aspects of it, it's on TV every year. That's a big deal to be part of like that, those Christmas, that special, you know, a set of Christmas movies that people return to the nostalgia of it, how it reminds you of your childhood or, you know, inspires you or makes you feel the way you want to feel at Christmas time. That's a big deal. So a lot of them, I'm about, you know, I don't have a fantastic,

batting average. Pretty good, man. I have big hits, but I also have big flops. And I think it's been it's a good, it's been a good balance. Because you need the, you need to trip over your feet

sometimes to learn. That's when you learn. You don't learn on the hits. You learn on the, on the misses, because that's when you meet, you sit back and say, okay, what did I do? What could I do different? What can I, you know, it's also you learn about like, you got to, like, it's not going to be good. Like, there's bad things happen in life. And that's, and a flop of a movie is very

small on the scale of things that people go through, everybody. But if you're, if you suffer setbacks at a way that you could manage, you, it makes you stronger and you grow from it. And, you know, whether it's, you know, you could talk about it, I'm not even talking about the loftiness of, of, of, of, of life. I'm just saying, even just in a career or in a skill, like, things have to go wrong for you to build the better engine, for you to refine, how do you make that plane a little bit lighter? How do you make that design a little bit more streamlined? How do you make that joke pop a little bit better? How do you make that visual effect a little bit more real? Like that's the human, that's what we do as humans. We problem solve. We identify patterns and then we figure out how to

innovate on top of the setbacks that you're facing. And that's what made us a species. That's why we're here. And that's why we're, you know, we cooperate and we learn and we communicate. Because we don't have the big, you know, we're not big with big teeth like that or armor. We're very vulnerable alone. But we figured how to cooperate and specialize. And that's what set us apart is that we learn and we pass that down.

We figure things out. And we figure out how to work together. That's when we're at our best. And that's why I like about, honestly, the movie business, when you're, you know, it's a team. You can't do it alone. And so if you have a good group of people around you, there's something about collaborating with people. And I feel like it brings out the best. And it's certainly the most enjoyable way to work for me.

For me, everybody's different. But for me, I found that's my, it's the most rewarding. my career has been so rewarding because I think it reinforces all the things that I had loved to do. It encapsulates that. People who are fans of yours since Swingers who followed your career, they root for you. I remember it was like, whoa, Fabros to an Iron Man. You know, and then it was like all the way. Why?

The Mandalorian. No, but it was like our guy from Swinger, it's like he made it. Like we went through it with you or something. Do you have moments where you stop John and you're like, you invent knocking, knocking around, LA, back in the 90s? Now here you are doing projects like this. Yeah, no, it's very, the whole thing's very surreal. The whole thing is it does feel a little bit like if I woke up and like, oh, this was just some weird dream.

Like it would make as much sense as it being real because my life has changes so much. Just having kids, like, life is weird. Like life is not what you think it's going to be. And hopefully it's, you know, hopefully you're surfing. and it's delightful, but it's still crazy. And the places I've gotten to go, the people I've gotten to meet, people that I, you know, really looked up to and idolized, and then you get to meet them as real people,

it's all very strange. And just the amount of travel I've gotten to do. Just, you know, my grandfather never left, you know, the lower 48. And then he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, lived a full life, but he barely left the city, you know, that he was where we lived. And, you know, you go upstate or you go someplace to Florida. And I looked at my passport now, because I'm getting ready to travel to see if the date was right. And I just see all the stamps and how lucky I've been to go to all the different, you know, most of the continents

in the world. And often it's with a project where I'm, you know, I'm not just traveling, but somebody's meeting me at the airport and taking me to a hotel. And, has a dinner scheduled for us. And so I get to see, you know, see, eating these great restaurants and meet these great people and be in front of audiences. And also because my work, I've been doing this for so long, wherever I go, people know me already. Because there's something they've seen or something, you know, not everybody. I'm kind of at that good level where I'm not, where it doesn't interfere with my life.

But everywhere I go, there's probably somebody who knows who I am and I never feel like I'm, alone. I always feel like, I always see somebody looking at me and know that they know who I am, and that feels like you've got a friend everywhere. Even in countries where you don't speak the language, they know at least a version of me from either my acting work or some people, because they, like Star Wars, like Marvel, it's all different. I have to figure out who, I got to kind of figure out pretty fast what they know me from. Because like, do I know you? I'm like, okay, I'm not going to go through my whole resume. I'm like, if they're young, I'm like, yeah, I'm happy Hogan.

Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, if there are, I'm like Star Wars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's different. Yeah, I've been very lucky that I've been able to play in that sandbox. Even as an actor, just to be a character actor in all those Marvel movies and be part of that, you know, Iron Man was where the MCU started. And I've only directed two films there.

I've produced a number of them, but your involvement as a producer really diminishes, especially when you have people like the Russo brothers, and you've got the great, they don't, it's nice to have your name on it, but the fact is everything's, you're not really, you're not intervening a lot, you know. But as an actor, being a character actor

throughout so many of those titles, I really feel like I could have a continuous presence, especially with kids who've grown up watching those movies, and there's a lot of different cast members coming and going, and, you know, it's been going on for a long time, And to be there and to be this consistent part of it, I feel still connected to those audiences. And I meet people who were little when Iron Man came out and now they're grown up and I, and I, you know,

and they know me as Happy Hogan. Like that's pretty cool. Remember, that's how I started. I started off as a character actor. You know, when I moved to Chicago, that was the goal. And so to still be connected to that part of it, I feel very grateful for that as well. We're talking about your dad before we started. As you described this run, you've had, I'm thinking about him taking you to those little movie houses in Manhattan.

Oh, my dad's really happy. What does he think about all that? Oh, he's, he's, I'm very lucky he's around and, you know, vital and young enough to enjoy it and travel and come with me to a lot of these things and premieres and festivals. And he's been really there the whole time. And, you know, it was his love of movies. that I think really got me into it. So to experience it with him is wonderful. And it's, you know,

I know as a parent how I would feel, you know, to be able to share that with your kid. Like, that's, there's, it's a nice thing. We don't always get that, you know. I think my mom passed away when I was very young, you know. You don't, you don't, you're lucky when you have it. And I think that's kind of the big takeaway is like it doesn't, none of this stuff lasts forever, you know. So you got to kind of figure out a way to, in spite of how challenging a lot of the things feels,

you've got to figure out a way to have fun on this ride. You know, you've got to figure out a way to get every little bit out of it so that when you don't get to do it anymore, because that's where it's going, we know that's where it's going. and you're here for a limited time, that you just got to get the most out of it and appreciate. Honestly, that's what it is, is appreciate because everybody has something

that they can look at and realize that, you know, you're lucky to have it. Because if you didn't have it anymore, you'd miss it. But we don't always focus on the things we used to have, we don't have, we want. That's when you're younger. And that gives you the drive. Like, there's nothing wrong with it.

But I think as you get older, you start to say, wow, this is really, you know, I know kind of what else is out there, and this is, you know, and I've worked hard in my life to make it, in a way, how I enjoy and have people around you that you feel close with. And even though my world has gotten big because I, you know, got to work on all these things, really you start to really limit and focus on the human-sized world around you, and that's really where the rewards come from. So people like my dad, my family, you know, when we get to spend time together and enjoy it, especially when I'm working on things that they can enjoy too. And they get a kick out of, you know, that's really rewarding and fun. But I feel like I'm at the point in my career too where I've done, you know,

everything I work on now is just like, is this going to be interesting and exciting? Is this going to be fun? because it's really, there's a generational shift happening now. And, you know, I'm relevant because I'm, you know, still working and I'm relevant because I could teach others. But I really feel like there's a new generation coming up that's, it's their turn. And so that's also part of it. Like, how do you fit into that? I see it with my kids and I see it with people I work with.

It's like, okay, you're actually, you know, you're, you know what you're talking about. about now, you're there, and it's your turn. And so how do you gracefully help that transition happen to? And that's also what's nice about working on television is that you get to work with the next generation and feel that you could be helpful to that. And the more you learn and connect with that, the longer you last, because you're still incorporating that what's going on, that generational transition, you could be part of it by being helpful to it and having proper perspective on it. And what's cool is they'll talk about you, the way you talk about the guys you looked up to.

That's right. As a bridge. That's the goal, right? You want to leave them with a positive feeling of that person, you know, I'm where I am, and I know what I know because there were people who came before me who understood that that never-ending dynamic that is never static. It's always in transition. Stick around for more of my conversation with John Favro right after a quick break.

Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with John Favro. We're going to go look at some bones. Before I let you go, I have to ask you, did you have any idea what you were creating when you came up with Baby Yoda? How big it was going to be? Yeah, no, I knew I was like, because it wasn't like I said, hey, let me make a show about baby Yoda. It was like, again, I was like, okay, here's the bounty hunter.

He only knows that it's 50 years old. And like, that could be really cool if the big reveal is he thinks he's going after a 50-year-old and it's a baby. And Yoda was hundreds of years old. So 50 could be a baby in that species. And, you know, and Yoda was such a, of course, like one of those characters where you don't know that much about this about what you know what species they are their backstory there's very few of that species george lucas always kept that he you know

he always kept a mystery around that character where that character was from but also a character with tremendous wisdom and everything defined everything that yoda uh was defined by was wisdom it was like the it was like the martial arts master it was the it was the the you know the hermit on the hilltop, the, you know, the archetype of Yoda is very strong, and you'll see that archetype in every culture, every religion, you know, the wise, the wise enigmatic trickster mentor character. And so having a baby that wouldn't have any of that. And what's the other extreme archetype, the pure, innocent, you know, new life, innocence and love.

And so that all came just from basically thinking about what's the most fun choice to make here. Like he thinks he has to do that. Now he's faced with this dilemma. That's a fertile storytelling opportunities. This is a conundrum that's going to be difficult. And that he ultimately decides, I'm this, you know, this scarred bounty hunter who seems to, It doesn't even have a face. And you question, do they still have a soul?

And then this renewal of this extreme innocence facing it. And that it becomes he is going to have to make decisions and change to engage with this beautiful thing. So it all came from storytelling. But then it was like, we got to make sure people don't know about it. So when you have something where everybody's looking at it, like, you can probably sell a few of those. George Lucas, in addition to all of his storytelling, you know, genius, has also been, you know, very clever about how he's approached merchandising.

You know, a lot of the money generated around Star Wars wasn't just from the box office. It was just the innovations that he made in that regard. And that's Lucasfilm has been, you know, that's been a big part of it. I remember when I first saw Star Wars, I wanted those action figures so bad. like that was part of the experience, was continuing the adventure with your friends. And then, of course, in video games later. So, but that was also where the leaks happen. You know, I remember most of the things you learn about from like a superhero movie or something

is because they'll release a style guide or there'll be some display at a toy, you know, when they're trying to sell the toys and manufacture the toys. Those are where the leaks come, even if you don't announce anything. And so a picture will pop up of a Lego box or something where you'll see an image of this character that nobody knows about. So we held back that. That's why it took so long for the toys to come out. It took a whole year because it takes a long time to tool up for a toy. But the surprise of not seeing Baby Yoda, of not seeing Grogu until the reveal at the end of the first episode of a new show on a new show on a new show.

New streaming service, I think, was a very important moment because everybody was like, eh, let me wait and see if I want to watch the show. And then next thing, you know, everybody's talking about this. Like, what is that? All of a sudden, everybody now wants to watch it when it first comes out so it's not spoiled for them. And that anything, you know, with television, that's the thing. You've got to surprise people every week. It's not like a movie.

Every week you got to give them something to tune in for. And that's the tradition, honestly, of the, you know, all the cliffhangers that inspired originally George Lucas was, you know, the serialized storytelling. Because remember the first time, you know, I remember seeing Star Wars when I was first in the theaters. And it was like when we last left our heroes, you know, they had the crawl telling and giving context around a story that was already happening. And my dad was like, oh, that's like our old, those are the Saturday morning serials that he would watch growing up. You know, the old Flash Gordon stuff. And there was a lot of them.

And so that pulpy storytelling style that was done with tremendous. tremendous, you know, technical sophistication was a really interesting mashup of genres and aesthetics that I think led to what we associate with Star Wars. But yeah, I knew when we saw, whenever I'd show people that thing and you'd see the first reveal of the baby, everybody would be like, what the? You know, they just wanted to know. It was like instantly curious about what was going to happen next. And the good news is the merch sales did catch up. The merch sales eventually get it. There was a year where you can only get it on Etsy.

And it was all homemade people knitting them or ceramic ones that were being sold, all bootleg stuff. But there was something cool about like the merch was all crowdsourced. Everybody was like making their own drawings and making stickers and T-shirts. And then eventually we had, you know, Mattel and Hasbro and all the partners came in and did some really, really good merchandise for it that, became part of it. And looking back, you don't remember. But I would, I would posit that the surprise of discovering that character together, in the long one, probably helped the whole thing, as

opposed to feeling like, hey, Whaley, you meet this new character. You're going to love them. You know, order yours now. Like, no, it's like, when we grew up, we learned about, I learned about Yoda in the theater. And I didn't even think that was Yoda. He was like looking for Yoda. Like, who's this guy? And I remember, I was being surprised and started. Star Wars was always about being surprised. I don't want to spoil anything for people who haven't seen the old Star Wars movies, but there's a familial relationship between Luke and Darth Vader that was revealed. So there was always surprises and revelations and, you know, a lot of gasps.

In addition to the gasps about the scale of the spaceships and the excitement of the technology and the space battles and the lightsaber fights. I like the half century later spoiler alert, just in case. You know, there might be somebody out there. in 77. Exactly. John, thanks so much. Great talking to the last.

My big thanks to John for truly a great extended conversation. What you didn't hear afterward is that he and I went upstairs and looked at some of the fossils. We looked at the teeth of a T-Rex. We got to touch them and put our hands on them with a renowned paleontologist. Just a fascinating day. And our thanks again to the Natural Museum of History of Los Angeles for hosting us. It was so cool. You can catch Farronautil.

Acero's series Prehistoric Planet streaming now on Apple TV Plus. My thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear more of these conversations with our guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sitdown podcast.