The Big Picture - Interview With 'Hidden Figures' Director Ted Melfi | The Big Picture (Ep. 1)

Episode Date: January 13, 2017

The Ringer's Sean Fennessey sits down with Ted Melfi to discuss the success of his latest film, Hidden Figures (1:10), and how it came about (3:19), as well as the difficulties of making an entertaining movie about math (8:00). Melfi also shares what it's like working with Taraji P. Henson (18:27) and Kevin Costner (21:15), getting Pharrell to score his movie (29:20), and how he feels about the "Hidden Fences" mishap (38:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by SeatGeek, the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. With just two taps on your phone, you can instantly buy SeatGeek tickets to an event and you can enter that event just using your phone. No paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app. Use one that's built for 2016, download the free SeatGeek app or go to SeatGeek.com. Hello and welcome to a very special Channel 33 podcast. My name is Sean Fennessy. I'm the editor-in-chief of The Ringer. And over the course of the next few weeks, we're going to be having some conversations with filmmakers, actors,

other people involved in the movie industry in the run-up to awards season. Today, I'm really excited to be joined by Ted Melfi, the writer-director of Hidden Figures, a new movie about three women who played an integral role in the first space flight with NASA. Ted, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me. You've got some great news today. You have the number one movie in the country. Where were you when you found this news out? I was driving home from a party last night about midnight,

and I got an email from Fox saying the numbers are in, and it looks like we had an amazing Sunday, and that's what happened. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. Did you have any idea that this would happen? What were you thinking about the prospects of this movie when you first started taking it on? I don't know.

I never thought about box office. I don't know if anyone thinks about box office. Maybe some people do. I never thought about box office. I just thought I if anyone thinks about box office. Maybe some people do. I never thought about box office. I just thought I wanted to tell a story because I love this story so much. And the budget was low enough, I thought, oh, maybe it'll be successful.

You never can tell. So tell people what the movie is about. You gave me, before we started, a little bit of a thumbnail, and it sounds like an unlikely number one movie. Yeah, it's everything you're not supposed to do in a movie uh you're not supposed to make a movie with three black leads and then three female leads on top of it and then about math and science is like those those are like all things that are traditionally uh uh unheard of um but as you see and thank god

i think the country's changing even though we think it's not i God, I think the country's changing, even though we think it's not. I think the country's changing and growing into a maturity about film. The story is essentially, you know, essentially the story is about these three incredible black mathematicians, female, who are integral in the Mercury missions and getting John Glenn in that space. And they have been unheralded in the general public, but NASA's known about them and honored them for 40 years. But these three women, Katherine Johnson in particular, was the only person that John Glenn trusted to run his numbers on that maiden voyage of the Friendship 7.

So, I mean, it's a great story. No one knows about it. And to think that these three women did it in the Jim Crow South, in a segregated workspace, with all the racism and sexism one could heap upon them, and they just barreled through and they were successful. So the movie's based on Margot Lee Shutterly's book. How did the movie come to you?

Were you aware of the book did the movie come to you? Were you aware of the book before the movie idea came? No. The book, we got a book proposal. We got Margot's book proposal, which is 55 pages of the outline of what this novel would be. And Don Gelati, the producer, got a hold of this book proposal somehow and flipped out over it.

And then she sent it to UTA, an agency here in Los Angeles, and they pitched me on it and I read a first draft of a script by, the script by Allison Schroeder and I read the book proposal and I just flipped my lid because I couldn't believe it was true as most people can't believe it was true and then I just started writing. So we didn't have the book. I remember when I finished the script in December, we started shooting, we started pre-production in January. We started shooting in March. Margot finishes the novel in like mid-April and sent it to me.

Amazing. Halfway through the shoot. And I'm like, Margot. Did a lot have to change? No, I couldn't. I said, Margot, I'm not even going to read it. Because we're done. I mean, I'll just ruin myself if I read it. So said, Margo, I'm not even going to read it because we're done. I mean,

I'll just ruin myself if I read it. So I hope it's accurate to the book, but the outline was very thorough, her book proposal. So what did you do then to, how did you dive into this story? Obviously, NASA is very complex, plus there's a lot of racial and social issues going on. How did you immerse yourself in everything? Research, research, research, really. I first took a trip to NASA. First thing I did was take a trip to NASA. How do you do that? Do you just email at nasa.com?

How do you make that connection? Well, Margo Lee Shenderly, her father, this is how Margo found this story. Margo grew up in Hampton Roads, Virginia. So Margo's father was a research scientist at NASA. So Margo ends up going to social events, church barbecues and picnics and these things with these three women. Wow. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson. And she says, daddy, who are these women these women he said those are our mathematicians and she became like infested with it and started researching it so she is very in uh in the in in

the in crowd with nasa because her dad worked so what she did was started calling nasa and she was our liaison to nasa so we called her and said we want to tour nasa we want to make this into a movie so she walked us through, she knows everyone at NASA. And so, she's been researching this for six years. And so, she took us to NASA, we saw all there was to see at NASA. And then we, then, and I researched that, I researched with historians, I got information from NASA's historian, Dr. Bill Barry and Bert Ulrich, brilliant NASA guys from DC. And then I interviewed Katherine Johnson a few times, who was 98. The time I interviewed her, she was 97, and spent a few sessions with her just digging into everything she remembered and knew and what life was at NASA,

what her day-to-day work was at NASA. So I started piecing that together, who she was. What was that like talking to her? And was she, you know, 55, 60 years later able to sort of remember the complexity of that moment? Yes, she's sharp as a tack, but, which I think says something, to be honest with you. Just as a side note, how sharp she is. At 98, I think says something to the brain of a mathematician. Yeah. Like literally. Like you keep your brain active like that, forget about it.

Anyway. I saw just a few clips of her talking recently and she's all there and she just remembers things with specificity. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, which doesn't really happen in 98. Not at all. There should be some research on this about training your mind with math and music. But that's another podcast. Anyway, so she has a very different perspective.

Because I'd ask her, I'd say, Catherine, what was it like to experience racism and sexism in the workplace? And she looked at me like I was crazy. I said, what? No, I didn't. No, I just put my head down, did my work, and everyone was so nice to me. And I realized who she is as a person right then and there. She put her head down, did the work, and let her work speak for herself. And her color vanished.

And her sex vanished at NASA. And she went straight to the top there as a result of what she had of her actions and how she lived her life so that's who Katherine Johnson became for me in the film she has one outburst in the film but other than that she does the work and doesn't talk about it just fights for what she believes in and does the work so after several interviews with with Katherine Johnson and dozens of interviews with the NASA historians, we then attacked the math. And I attacked the math with the help of the NASA historians and the math specialist at Morehouse College, Dr. Rudy Horn.

And I really wanted to learn the math because I thought to myself, if I can't learn the math and fully understand what the problem was at NASA at the time, A, how am I going to shoot it? And B, how am I going to tell the actors what to do? And the audience won't understand it. So I basically took a month to write a scene

where Jim Parsons explains what the problem is at NASA. Now, the Atlas rocket, that can push us into orbit. Goes up, delivers the capsule into an elliptical orbit. Earth's gravity keeps pulling at it, but it's going so fast, it keeps missing the Earth. That's how it stays in orbit.

Now, getting it back down, that's the math we don't know. Yes, Catherine. So the capsule will spin around the Earth forever because there's nothing to slow it down? That's right. Slowing it down at precisely the right moment, at precisely the right amount, that's the task.

We bring him in too soon... He burns up on reentry. That's right. We bring him in too late, he's pushed out of Earth's gravity. And any changes to mass, weight, speed, time, distance, friction, or puff of wind

would alter the go-no-go. And we start our calculations over. Yes. It's interesting because the movie does a really good job of, I think, maybe not simplifying, but clarifying the actual problems that the characters have, which a lot of times in a movie like this, you kind of breeze past the problem in an effort to just lean into only

character. But it really fuses the fact that Katherine Johnson is a brilliant person. She's working in this environment where her brilliance really needs to kind of be emphasized in order for them to solve their problem. Have you since gotten feedback from mathematicians that say like, hey, great job. You actually explained what's happening in space. Yeah, I got the highest compliment I think I'll ever get in my life. The NASA historian and the NASA mathematician and Dr. Rudy Horn said, that scene where Jim Parsons explains the difference between these orbits in layman's terms is the best depiction of what we do

and what we did that we've ever seen. Yeah, it's a movie that has a lot of emotional highs, but weirdly, arguably the most complicated part of the movie is one of the most emotionally affecting. It pulled off something tricky there. It's tricky. So what was it about specifically the movie that clicked with you?

What knocked you out about Margot Lee Shutterly's treatment and why did you take this on? I was so touched by the fact that these women worked so hard and no one knew a damn thing about it and i i felt to myself you know look as a director you know whatever that means right as a director you stand up here or i'm here talking to you but i'm talking for a thousand people right but you'll never know the person who who does craft service and you'll never know the person who grips the movie and and yet one person stands up and gets all this credit

right and i've always been fascinated with that you know it's the reason why i'm not a saint by any means but it's the reason why i never took a film by credit right because to me it's not a film by me i i have a thousand people who made the film with me sure yeah so i'm always fascinated with with with the people behind the scenes that actually make something tick. The space race is very complicated. You know, we have parades for John Glenn and the astronauts, but we don't have a parade for the thousands of technicians and mathematicians and scientists who actually put the rocket and the capsule into space. So that, to me, is a big theme in my life, of recognizing the whole, the whole.

It's not minimizing the poster child, but it's also not minimizing the janitor. It's like everyone's an organism working together. So that was the main draw for me. And the second is, I have two daughters. And to this day they're told, don't worry about the math. To this day, it's 2016, and people are telling them that. And it's like, we have to teach our young girls

and our women, you can do anything. They obviously can do anything, they put a man in space. We can do anything, you can do anything. And the gender stuff always drives me nuts. So it's like two things that happen. There's something very spirited and hopeful about the movie. And obviously, this is a very complicated time in society. Obviously, movies take a long time to make over a course of years.

Did you have a sense when you were doing it that this, was it existing in a different time frame, in a different mind frame for you when you were making it, where it felt like the world was different somehow, and then it just so happens that it's this way or is that just a function of the way things go? I don't know, it's like the classic art imitates life. You know, we started the film before one,

before the first African American motorist got shot by a cop, right? So we did that. We started the film before the Black Lives Matter mm-hmm movement we started the film before Oscar so white really mm-hmm and then all of these things happened as we were shooting or or or slightly thereafter we were shooting and then the opening scene of in our in our film is this these women stuck on the road in a small town,

and up comes a white cop. Not a great place for three of y'all to be having car trouble. We didn't pick the place, officer. It picked us. You being disrespectful? No, sir. You have identification on you? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

We're just on our way to work at Langley. NASA, sir. We do a great deal of the calculating, getting our rockets into space. All three of you? Yes, sir. Yes, officer. NASA? That's something.

I had no idea they hired. There are quite a few women working in the space program. You girls ever meet those astronauts? Mercury 7? Absolutely. Yes, sir. We work with those gentlemen all the time. Those boys are the best we got.

I'm sure of that. We got to get a man up here before the commies do. Whole damn country's counting on them. That's for certain. Hard being of service is broken down on the side of 40 commies do. Absolutely. Whole damn country's counting on them. That's for certain. Paul being of service is broken down on the side of the road, though. Right, right. What, y'all need a tow or something?

And I didn't realize how powerful it was until we showed it to an audience in Kansas in July, and that audience didn't breathe. And then they started to laugh, once they realized that the scene would flip. They let it go. And then all of a sudden, God bless John Glenn, passes away.

And we have a tribute to John Glenn at the end of the movie. Done before he had passed away. Unbelievable. All these things have collided. And then Donald Trump's election and the racial divide and the racial and sex and sexist tensions in the country. I don't know. It's just one of those things that like, it would have been, maybe it would have been

a very different movie if Hillary Clinton had won the election. Yeah. It's a little bit of a cliche to say this is something that people need right now, but I can totally see why everyone is connecting with it. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It's just, it's just one of those things that hits a chord at the, at a time. It's like, it's like life is about timing. Did you have any misgivings or apprehension about doing a story like this, being who you are and telling the story of women and black women in the fifties and sixties? Yeah, I was, uh, I was, and still am scared to death. I was scared to death to take it on as a white, as a white male. And I was like, what do I have to offer this story? And, um, if I had thought about it long enough, I might not have done it, but I didn't think about it a lot until after,

mostly after when people said, you know, you're white. I said, I've been living with that my whole life. I said, yeah. Um I said, yeah, I don't know. I hopefully, I one day hope that we don't say black film. We say film. I hope one day we don't say white director or black director. We say director. That's where we're heading. That's where my 11-year-old is.

She watches the movie and goes, I don't understand this. I said, what do you understand? She goes, I don't understand this. And I said, what do you understand? She goes, why would they treat her like different? What's beautiful is you get to have that conversation. So no, I had misgivings after doing it, really, when I realized, oh my God, what did I just do? But ultimately, a filmmaker is a person who tells stories of humans. And more than anything, I pride myself on loving being human myself, on loving humanity myself. So to me, it's not a black story. It's not something I couldn't do. You mentioned Black Lives Matter and some of the things that started to take shape when you guys were shooting. Was that something you guys talked about on set at all? Was there a feeling feeling where you were responding to any of those things?

Or was it just a happenstance for when you were making this movie? It was all happenstance. It was all serendipity. We never discussed Black Lives Matter. We never discussed Oscars So White. People are discussing it now. And the movie is not reactionary. This movie, people will watch the Oscars or watch Golden Globes and say,

oh, we've whipped the, Hollywood has reacted to the Oscars so white this year. Hollywood has not reacted to anything. Hollywood's the slowest force on the planet. Hollywood's like molasses. Hollywood's been working on these movies for years. Loving has been for years. Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker,

had been working on it for eight years. Loving and Hidden Figures and all these things. Moonlight, all these things have been going on. Denzel's been circling fences for how long? Yep. So no, I don't think, none of it was reactionary. Just shifting gears a little bit, the movie has a ridiculous cast.

This is your, not your second feature, but your second major studio feature, Hollywood feature. How did this, how did all these people come to be a part of this? How did you cast it? Yeah, I've been in love with taraji p henson's work

since the curious case of benjamin button i just i mean i watched curious case of benjamin button i said who is that woman i mean what an actor um and i obviously a lot of people felt the same way because she got an oscar nomination for that part so i actually wanted to put her in saint vincent i wanted to work with her in saint. Vincent. And she was going... That's your first, your last film? Yeah. And she wanted to play the role of Bill Murray's prostitute, right? And I wanted her to play the role of Bill Murray's prostitute. But for a lot of reasons, the studio wouldn't allow me to do that. So her and I had met. We really got along, really liked each other.

And when I got this story, I called her and i just pitched her over the phone said taraji let me just tell you a true story about three women in 1961 who did this extraordinary thing and she flipped out and just on her phone call she said i'm in and so she just trusted that i'd be able to get the script and i'd be able to write or rewrite the script. How long ago is this? Oh, this is like September, September 15. By December of 15, I had a script done. And by January of 16, we're in pre-production. By March of 16, we're shooting. Wow.

And here we are. It's been lightning. That is very quick. Yeah. Octavia, the same thing. I had met with Octavia. I had a lunch at one point with Octavia. And I just, I'm huge.

I mean, Octavia is like the Mariana Rivera of actors. If you want the thing closed down with the same pitch, you call. Octavia, she's just brilliant. Every moment is fully realized. And she got an early draft's fully realized and uh she got an early draft of script and said she wanted to do it so that was that um and then janelle monae's character uh once the studio studio was very happy when we got taraji and octavia and they were like okay you're free to play with right two oscar nominated actresses the star of a major tv

hit drama yeah we feel good we feel we feel like we're covered at this budget range to have us have a success and so they said let's play around with mary and get something fresh and i said i'd love to and janelle monet walked in the door and auditioned and i was just shocked by her. She inhabited the spirit of Mary Jackson, just this fighter, wild child, never holding her tongue was Mary Jackson. That's who Janelle is in real life. Janelle's an activist. So those three were set.

Kevin Costner came on board. Originally, I was going younger with the role because all of the men at NASA were under 40. But then Kevin Costner's agent called and just pitched me him. And I said, you know what? I had never thought about A, going older because everyone in the story was younger, but B, a distinguished, like a really distinguished leader. And so I met Kevin, and we really hit it off, and he had issues with the script, and he had issues with his character because it was a mess. His character was a mess. So I made a promise to work on it, and him and I

worked on it, and we got in shape. Did working with Bill Murray on your last film inform working with such a heavyweight star? I mean, Kevin Costner is obviously a very iconic American actor who will come with notes and have a lot of point of view. You know, was there any correlation between those two things or was this totally different? Some correlations and some completely different. Nothing compares to Bill Murray. I mean, Bill Murray is the most amazing human being to me.

He only lives in the present moment, which pushes and forces everyone else to live in the present moment or you're not going to be with them.

You're not going to get it. And so, Kevin's a planner. Kevin, although he lives in the present moment with his work,

he's meticulous to this amazing point to watch him work. He pulls out a piece of chewing gum on the exact word of a line every time. Interesting. And Bill is a free, pure freedom. Kevin's a scientist. As a writer, how do you handle the ego of that, where you have crafted something and then somebody who's a scientist. As a writer, how do you handle the ego of that where you have crafted something and then somebody who's a performer

really wants to get into the nitty gritty of it and break it down and build it back up? You just got to let people have their process. I mean, you don't, to me, you wouldn't, why would you cast Bill Murray and Kevin Costner and Taraji Henson and Octavia Spencer and then tell them exactly, and then paint by number them. Why would you, that's not the point of acting.

Was there any concern with maybe changing history in a way that got too far away from what had actually happened? Well, yeah. You know, you're trying to, you're telling an iconic story about the Mercury missions. Everyone knows the Mercury missions. Everyone knows, you know, Friendship 7, John Glenn's maiden voyage. Everyone knows these things. Yet no one knows the three women. So you have to, but I do. And so I know the three women.

The book's out and I've spent time with them. And I know them. So I have that responsibility to tell their story as they were. And the responsibility to NASA. Yet you have to make a movie. You're not making a documentary. So the last third of the script and the subsequent movie is verbatim NASA transcripts, literally. Almost every line said by anyone in the command center or in the capsule or John Glenn is verbatim.

I'm going to be honest with you, Al. When I fly, I fly the machine. And right now it seems like this machine is flying me. We're on the same page, John. Our guys are on it. Let's get the girl to check the numbers. The girl? Yes, sir. You mean Catherine?

Yes, sir. The smart one. I mean, she says. Smart one. I Mean she says they're good. I'm ready to go. John Glenn said get the girl around the numbers If she says they're good, I'm good to go an exact quote People don't know this Here's where it gets here is where you deviate. Yes. He said that But it took her three days to do those. It took her three days to do that math. Right. Yep. Right. So we made it in 30 seconds. Right. Right. But you have to, right. I don't think anyone would look at it and go, Oh, that's bull. Right. You go, yes, that's, that's how you

make a movie of it. The spirit is still accurate. Totally to what happened. So those are the things you, you have to deviate from. Did you worry about maintaining tension in a movie like this, where the third act is so important, it's all about basically this mission that you're building towards, but it's an extremely famous, somewhat recent history moment where people, we know that John Glenn, who just passed away, survived and succeeded. How do you keep the tension inside the story when that's happening? Well, number one is you do your best to have the audience so invested in the characters themselves that it doesn't matter. They displace their knowledge and they don't care. Because they're watching the event happen through the eyes of Katherine Johnson and Al Harrison and Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jane.

They're watching that story unfold for them. So they almost, once you can get them to immerse themselves in it, they, for the briefest moment, forget or choose to forget what really happened to John Glenn. What's fascinating is I screened this movie all over the country.

When I screened this movie, I screened it for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of high schoolers who don't know that John Glenn made it home, who erupt in cheers when he's safe. And you just smile and go, you know what? You're making a movie for everyone. You're not just making the movie for the 40-year-olds who remember or the 60-year-olds who lived it. You're making the movie for the 15-year-old who doesn, or the 60-year-olds who lived it. You're making the movie for the 15-year-old who doesn't know shit about John Glenn and that he got home safely.

They don't. And so to hear them cheer and clap when John Glenn comes out of that cloud is great. So, I mean, you keep the tension by having people invest in the character, and then you have to at some point say, I don't care that everyone knows it. What was the thinking with screening the movie

around the country? How did that work? Why were you doing that? We tested three times. I guess I could say this now because it's out. You were hit. We tested in Los Angeles for the first time. And it was about 60-40.

60% black, 40% white. And we got a 92, which is through the roof, right? So for those of you who don't know, it's just like a grading system, one to a hundred. Yep. A 92 for a movie like this is phenomenal. So I say, okay, we want to test it again, but we want to test it with a more black audience just to see. I said, okay. So we tested it down at the Howard Hughes Center, those theaters down there by the airport, with about an 80% black audience, 20% white or other. It got a 97.

Okay. So then they were like, okay, well, make a bunch of changes. And I said, no, no. I go, let's not make changes yet. I go go let's test it in Kansas and they were like what without changes I said let's test this exact cut in Kansas right before the election really yeah and they said okay and they didn't let me thin they allowed me not to make any changes to the film we go to Kansas and we screen the movie for a 80% white audience, 20% other.

It scores a 96. And every other category was higher than the actual LA screen. And I was like, that's what, do you see? It's colorless. It's an American story. And that's when we locked picture because, you know. Did you, did you know that that was going to be the case or were you a little nervous when you were? I had a gut feeling. Okay. I had a gut feeling because I don't see the color of it. I just see the movie of it. I had a gut feeling that a moviegoer sees a movie. A moviegoer doesn't go, oh, let's go see see the movie of it. I had a gut feeling that a moviegoer sees a movie. A moviegoer doesn't go, oh, let's go see this black movie. They go, let's go see that movie.

We have created that. It doesn't exist in most people's minds. There's one other thing about the movie that makes it stand out in a big way, which is that you have a score and original songs from Pharrell. You basically have an original Pharrell album living inside of your movie. How did that happen? How did you make it work? That's a wild story. Pharrell heard about the story from his producing partner Mimi Valdez. They had a meeting with Donna Gelati.

And Donna pitched Mimi this idea. And she flipped out and told Pharrell. Pharrell grew up in Hampton Roads, Virginia, 20 minutes from Nassau Langley. And he's a space nut and a feminist. And he flipped out and said, I want to be a part. I have to be a part. So I then met him. And we hit it off.

He said, what do you want out of the music? And I said, I want music. I go, I can't even tell you. I go, first of all, but I can tell you this. I want music that harkens back to the 1960s, that you listen to and totally go, that feels like the 1960s. I go, but that's completely modern. And and he goes I got just the thing he had been working on

something already and I was shocked he sent me a couple tracks and I was like dude that's I don't know how you know that's it and then he read the script and he wrote two songs right after reading the script he said Katherine Johnson really had to run to the bathroom? I said, yeah, you know, the bathroom was in a different building. She was in segregated NASA at the time. And he wrote Running, like, in a week. I don't want no fear, run I'm just sick of time running Some nights I cry

Cause I can see the day coming Together we fly Oh, but no more running And that was his love letter to her running to that bathroom. And then he wrote, I see a victory. And so he just started cranking out music. He then says, who do you like as a composer? Do you have any composers in mind?

I say, no. He goes, how about Hans Zimmer? And I go, well, I guess. Do you know him? I said, I guess I know the work. And so he approached Hans. Hans fell in love with the movie, saw the movie. Hans watched the movie four times before even,

he just kept coming and watching and watching and watching it. And he brought Ben Walfish, who was one of his protégés. And then what it did was it created this fusion, classic Hans band Euro music, classic music, classically composed, mixed with Pharrell, which is everything that's happening in the future, if you ask me.

Pharrell's in the future. He's not here today. He's in the future. And you put those two together in that soundtrack, I'm in love with it. It's incredible. You really pull off something amazing, which is that those songs live inside the movie, even in specific scenes where they're essentially

the jukebox to two characters dancing. And it doesn't feel anachronistic. It doesn't feel strange. It's him doing Jackie Wilson or Stevie Wonder or something like that. It actually works. It's kind of an incredible thing. But if you listen to it just on iTunes,

it just sounds like a good Pharrell record. It's quite an accomplishment. So I just want to talk a little bit about some other things in your career. You've had a cool and interesting career. And I know that when St. Vincent came out, there was a lot of overnight success, where did this guy come from kind of conversation. And now, obviously, you are on your second big film.

And I'm curious what that was like for you after St. Vincent and what you thought about what you would do next. And did you know what, were you trying to be a specific kind of filmmaker? Did you always want to be a writer director on your next project? And now that you've had this, how do you look forward to the next things you're going to do? I've never thought of myself as anything but a worker. And that's what I ultimately am,

is a worker. I love making movies and I love writing. So those are things I will always do if I'm allowed to do them. After St. Vincent, you know, I've made nine movies. I mean, people go away, you know, same thing as movies i mean people people go where you know the same thing as the overnight success a 20-year overnight success i've made nine movies at every level um i've made 50 000 movies i've made 1.2 million dollar movies i've written some of them i've directed one of them i produced all of them um i've always had my hands in creating creating media and entertainment because this is what I just I'd love to do I never I've always been a writer first and foremost I may have been writing since I was I

wrote my started writing my dad's newspaper at the age of eight I had my own column and I've been writing my whole life so I never thought of anything was the name of your dad's newspaper Middle Americans news Wow okay and I was writing for you know in this is in New York. Yeah, Brooklyn Okay, I wrote for years and years and years and years and I just always thought I want to write I went with my life if I could write something that would be great So I never like look at anything and say I'm a writer director or I only want to write or direct my own things I'm open to whatever happens.

St. Vince, everything I do, though, I want to have some sort of, not to be utopian about it, but some sort of social relevance. I think what's missing in movies today is a lot of times, under the pressure of being commerce, we're losing the moral of the story.

Just very simple. And, you know, in high school, when we were in high school, they'd always say, what's the moral, or in junior high, what's the moral of the story? Right? And you could study all those classic fables. There was always a moral of the story. It doesn't have to be heavy handed. It's just, what is the author telling you?

What's he trying to convey? So that's what St. Vincent was. Here's a guy who's flawed saying, everyone has value. Everyone has value. And that was the core of it. It's kind of the same core as in Hidden Figures, is everyone has a value and don't overlook it.

What's it been like for you to try to do that inside the studio system? I feel like that's not always very valued. They so desperately overlook it. What's it been like for you to try to do that inside the studio system? I feel like that's not always very valued. They so desperately want it. Really? Yeah, they're always asking for it. And for some reason they can't, a lot of times they can't find it.

But I think every time I'm in a meeting, every time I rewrite a lot of scripts, they're always like, can you infuse some heart into it? Can you find a, and that's what they're saying is, how do we get the moral of the story back in in a way that's commercial and acceptable

but moves people? And I think they desperately want it. I mean, look at movies like Jungle Book. They're infusing... John Favre did such a brilliant job with Jungle Book that you were able to be entertained yet have a moral to the story. Do you want to do movies on that kind of scale?

I would do anything on any scale. I'm very happy at $25 million and under because I'm very happy there because I just believe that movies are too expensive. And any movie you make that can feed a nation you should think about it's a good point you should kind of think about if you're making a 250 million dollar movie and that would give rice to sudan for a decade you gotta kind of i don't know you better have a you better be saying something good yeah that makes that makes sense. You said just before you sat down here that you got a couple of interesting voicemails. I'm wondering what those very interesting people said to you. Yeah, I got an interesting voicemail from Alan Arkin, who I became friends with, and he saw Hidden Figures and left me this most beautiful message

about, he said, Ted, I've been crying, and my wife was crying, and I actually had to take a break and pause the movie to cry for a few minutes before I could restart it. I'm so touched and inspired by this movie, and it was just the most beautiful message you could get from someone. And then this morning I had this message from Dustin Hoffman, who I became friends with also on Going In Style, even though he didn't end up being in the film, saying it's so extraordinary and he wants to talk to me about it, I've got to call him back.

But anyway, when your heroes in life, your acting heroes in life call you, it's just so humbling. I don't know. It's Dustin Hoffman. Do you feel like your life significantly after this success has changed in a big way? I still live in Van Nuys and my mortgage is still $1,054. That's good. People go,

I have a little two bedroom house, one bathroom, and Kim, my wife, who co-produced the movie with me me is always like, are we going to get a bigger house? And I go, I don't, I don't, I really don't think so. Don't jinx it. So we splurged last year. We put a pool in, but that's about, you know, I don't know. I read that you're still a drinker at the Elks Lodge because they got $2 beers.

I still go to the Elks Lodge. They got $2 beers. I don't know. I'm, I'm in the, I'm in the trench. Everyone's the same. I don't, I don't want the problems that come with a $7,000 a month mortgage. I'm going to ask you about Hidden Fences right now. Hidden Fences. What was your reaction to the handful of flubs of the titles and maybe what some of that confusion means? In case you didn't know, Hidden Figures and Fences are two entirely different movies featuring African-American leads

that both received multiple nominations. But shh, don't tell that to red carpet reporter Jenna Bush Hager. different movies featuring African-American leads that both received multiple nominations, but shh, don't tell that to red carpet reporter Jenna Bush Hager. I think Twitter is the funniest place on the planet. Twitter started tweeting all these, you know, mashup, 12 years a Butler, The Color Precious. And you're like, if you want to get hammered, you fuck with the Beehive or Taraji's group. I don't know, you know, people make mistakes. People make mistakes.

At the end of the day, what's her, Jenna Bush, right? At the end of the day, Jenna Bush, you know, look, if anyone has been on the red red carpet it's a freaking mess yeah it's a mess and it's just it's insane and you can't hear anything and your brain is you know fried she made an honest mistake in my mind i mean okay so people in twitterverse say it's subliminal or it's unkind it's the same here's what i've heard it's the same bias as displayed in the movie um who come on i mean maybe maybe not but ultimately she apologized and was so she almost cried today on the on the on the news on the morning news um and then michael keaton gets up there that might have been a subconscious repetition of yeah

all i look look he he wears glasses so he's probably trying to read a teleprompter and look if the teleprompter said hidden fences we got a big fucking problem let's just say that if the teleprompter at the golden globe says hidden fences we got a fucking big problem but i don't think so. I think people just made an honest mistake and Twitter just jumped on it. And we'll take the free advertising. I don't think anybody else is making the mistake. Thank you for sitting down and chatting with me.

Congratulations on the movie. I recommend everyone go see it. It's fantastic. Thanks for having me. Cool. Thanks, Ted. Take care.