The Bill Simmons Podcast - Clippers-Lakers Opening Thoughts Plus Edward Norton | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's BIll Simmons reacts to Lakers-Clippers (2:24), before sitting down with actor and director Edward Norton to discuss 'Rounders', directing a film while acting, spending smarter in film production, '25th Hour', 'American History X', his new film 'Motherless Brooklyn' premiering November 1st, and more (28:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's very special. Holy shit, the NBA just started. Let's go. Episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by Zipcritter. Finding key players for your team can be challenging. Just look at the Celtics. They lost Al Horford. We have Enos Kanter, Rob Williams.

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the ringer podcast network. We just kicked off the NBA today on the ringer with a whole bunch of new NBA videos and podcasts and multimedia content, including a Lakers wine bottle team that I created from the last 40 years. We had a lot of people weighing in on that. Take Hunter 4, you can find that as well. You can find a lot of different season preview stuff, the return to NBA desktop, and a whole lot more. Go to our YouTube page, youtube.com slash ringer

or theringer.com. And you can find all that stuff coming up. My thoughts on Lakers Clippers tonight. I went and give you some of my reactions and then we're going to have Edward Norton coming on. Yet another A-list actor who has not been on the BS podcast. We have changed that today. That's happening.

All coming up first, our friends from Pro Gym. Taping this at 1045 Pacific time. Just came back from Lakers Clippers opening night, Staples Center, a night unlike any Clipper game I've been to. For a few reasons, I've had season tickets for the Clippers since 2004. I almost gave them up, I think in 2009, and my friend Mike Tolan convinced me to keep them. We split the tickets. We thought it might be a mistake. We saw some dark times. We saw some bad times. If you read my archives on ESPN.com,

there are some funny nights that we spent there at Staples. I remember a Zeebo airball ending a game. I think I wrote a wholeeebo airball ending a game. I think I wrote a whole running diary about just what an awful sports experience it was. So we've seen some bad things. Blake Griffin showed up. Lob City was really fun, but not really.

It was a team that felt like it had a little bit of a ceiling. Chris Paul stomping around, arguing, arguing with the refs, ordering his teammates around. Everybody's arguing about every call. There was a weird vibe to those teams. I would say out of the 15 Clipper seasons I've had, the two most fun ones, 2006, when they improbably almost made the Western Finals, the same year that Kobe averaged 35 a game. And that was really the one time the Clippers and the Lakers were humming

at the same time. And they weren't even really. The Clippers, nobody really expected them to make the finals, even though they actually came a little bit closer. I think people remember. And the Lakers team was basically just Kobe and a bunch of schmucks. So that was the one time where they were pretty equal. They were pretty good and the games had a real energy.

So that season was fun. And I think the first and second Lob City seasons were just immensely fun because Blake was so goddamn entertaining back then when he was just trying to jump over everybody and dunk on everybody. Then when they kind of settled into contender status, the Donald Sterling stuff happened, the games were, you know, they were playoff basketball games. I think the most memorable one was probably when they beat the,

the Warriors in a game seven. That one was great. They beat the Spurs. I think in 2015, that game was great. The collapse against the Rockets in game six. They definitely had their share of awesome moments. And there were some bad ones too, like Oklahoma City in 2014

when Chris Paul really choked. And I think it was a game four. And a colossal choke, actually. But they had some moments. And I think they were a contender. I don't think Clipper fans would be bouncing their grandkids on their lap, telling them about all the great times. The point is, there's never been a Clipper team like this team,

where they are the favorites to win the title. They have, in my opinion, the best player in the league. And there was a real energy in place that was compounded, tripled, doubled, multiplied, whatever verb you want to use, by the fact that the Lakers were there with LeBron and AD. And half of the place was Laker fans. And they were obnoxious because that's what they are. They feel like they own LA. They have no time for the Clippers. The Clippers are the little brother. They're the black sheep. And the energy was there from a half hour beforehand. You had a bunch of wealthy LA people sitting around courtside, lots of all the power agents,

Patrick Whitesell, Larry Emanuel Rich Paul a lot of celebrities it was like you know a game that people wanted to be at and be seen at and people wanted to see LeBron and AD together and they wanted to see Kawhi together and if you were a Laker fan you kind of wanted to

lay the smack down a little bit the people the energy in the building even in the pregame intros was great. Kawhi tried to speak to all the Clipper fans before the game. I've never seen this before. Got drowned out by boos because there were

so many Laker fans. I would say it was like 50-50. And all the Laker fans were booing. So here's poor Kawhi trying to say something nice to his new fan base, this team that he signed up for, and the fans are just drowning him out. So that was weird. That was awkward. I don't think Kawhi and Paul George fully understood or realized how few Clipper fans there were in Los Angeles. What's weird is Paul George is basically from here,

so he should have known this, but I think they did think they were going to become a thing. And that still might happen. But I think what we saw tonight is just the Lakers DNA is just so deep here. And, you know, there was never really a point when it felt like a Clipper home game. It felt a little bit more like a soccer match on a neutral field in a European city when there was just noise constantly. I actually kind of liked it.

I got to be honest. I wish more basketball games were like this where people are rooting for both sides because I think what happens is people end up cheering and clapping and doing everything louder because they're trying to drown out the other side. Because I've always, I've always wondered what would happen if they had a finals at a neutral location, like what, like what we have with the Superbowl, how would that play out over the course of seven game series? They would never have that, but the energy in the building resembled what the dream scenario that would be like. So anyway, I wrote down some notes. Really four things I want to cover. The first thing. So LeBron is the only guy I think left from the 2003 draft.

He is definitely one of like the 10 oldest players in the league. And it hasn't really mattered from kind of an alpha dog when you go see him in person, who else is on the court. I mean, the best game I've ever seen anyone play in my life was game one of the 2018 finals in Golden State when he almost beat an iconic Warriors team by himself and probably should have, and J.R. Smith blew it. This was the first time,

I've seen him a lot over the years. I don't know how many LeBron games I've seen in person, but it's a lot. It's dozens. And a lot of playoff games and finals games, stuff like that. He was the third best guy on the floor tonight. And it wasn't just that he didn't have a great game.

He is the third best guy in this batch of, and that was the most glaring thing to me tonight. Watching it. Davis is just in his prime. He's unstoppable. He wasn't even like that great tonight. He's unstoppable. He's going to get 27, 28, 30, 32, 36.

He's just peak of his powers. He really is. LeBron is not the peak of his powers anymore. He's still really good. He's incredibly smart. He has moments when it seems like he is the old athletic LeBron. But there was a couple moments tonight. First of all, he was short rimming a bunch of different shots

and just doesn't seem like he has his legs the same way. They were trying to play him a point guard. I don't know if athletically he can do that anymore. He might be able to do it for a couple stretches, but it really slowed their offense down. And it made it seem like it just felt like an early 2010s kind of offense. You know, like Frank Vogel, ironically, is their coach. It felt like a 2012 Pacers kind of offense.

Like they weren't running a lot of high screens with AD and LeBron. There wasn't a lot of ball movement at all. There was a lot of isos. And I think part of the reason is because LeBron is entering a different stage of his career athletically. And you could kind of feel it a little bit tonight. There was this one moment when Kawhi was on him that somebody threw a pass to LeBron. Kawhi tipped it and it went into the Lakers.

It went into the Clipper side of the court. And LeBron and Kawhi went for the ball together. And they were basically dead even. And Kawhi got the ball. And as you were watching it, this was the kind of play, you know, when you would see LeBron in person or you'd watch him on TV every night,

there are these athlete plays that he would make where you would go, oh my God, that guy's the greatest athlete I've ever seen in my life. And these were the type of plays where if there was a loose ball and it was him versus somebody else, he was getting the loose ball.

He was just, I'm bigger, I'm stronger, I'm faster. I'm getting it. And Kawhi got the loose ball and random moment in a game might not have meant anything, but it felt kind of significant because I just feel like he's a better basketball player because he is. Kawhi's the best player in the league. And what's crazy is we have to keep reminding ourselves of this. And it's like, oh, with Giannis, could he win the MVP again? Like, and he might. Giannis might be the best regular season 82 game player in the league. Kawhi is the best player in the league. Kawhi proved it last year.

He did everything he needed to do tonight. And he's just awesome. So my big takeaway driving home, I was thinking about, I was like, wow, I just went to a game. It was a regular season NBA game where LeBron was the third best guy in the game, which brings me to Kawhi.

Also was thinking about this during the intros. There's been some dark Clipper years. There's no question. And Kawhi is by far the best Clipper years. There's no question. Kawhi is by far the best Clipper ever. I guess the competition would be Blake Griffin 2015 when by the end of

the 2015 playoffs, he was one of the three or four best guys in the league. Chris Paul. Elton Brannan 06 was really good. Go back and look at his numbers. He was like 25 and 11 and was really unstoppable that year. Who else?

Bob McAdoo, if you go back to the Buffalo Braves. Danny Manning for like a cup of coffee when his knees were healthy. Bill Walton, barely. This is not like an awesome group of greatest Clippers of all time. They've certainly never had anybody who was one of the best 25 players ever, which Kawhi is. And he is the best player in the league right now, which they've also never had.

And it was just kind of amazing. You know, we know he signed there. This has been a story since beginning of July. But it was really weird to just be in the seats, the same seats, you know, in the same section where like I was watching Zach Randolph and Marco Jaric and Quentin Ross and Chris Kamen bowling over people and Mike Dunleavy trying to get fired for two years. And, you know, Donald Sterling sitting there at midcourt like the Prince of Darkness. And you just think like, holy shit, the Clippers fucking did it. They're the best player in the league.

And then Paul George on the bench in a tuxedo, not even ready to play yet. And it didn't actually matter. You watch the Clippers introductions and they do this every year. They introduce every guy on the team. You know, you're doing this in 2009 and it's like depressing. Here he is, Tim Thomas. Thomas, like, Oh, great. Uh, it just would set the tone for like, wow, this year is going to suck. How am I going to get rid of my tickets? And that was a big thing. If you have Clipper season tickets, part of having Clipper

season tickets was trying to figure out how to get rid of 25 games. Cause nobody wanted to go. People would be like, yeah, I'll go to the Cleveland game. But you'd be like, hey, what about the, I got Charlotte on Sunday night. Any interest? I mean, honestly, you had a better chance of getting pulled out of the stands and playing in the Clippers Hornets game than actually going to the Clippers Hornets game in like 2010. So, you know, it's just been a long run. And a lot of the people who are in my, I'm in section 101. A lot of those people, they call them the 84s, that section, because when they moved from San Diego to LA, you know, a lot of the people who were in that section have been going since 1984

and have seen a lot of dark shit. And even like, you know, kind of the highlight of Lob City when it seemed like that team had a chance to win the title those couple years. The Donald Sterling thing happens and then they really have a chance to go make the Western Finals in 2015. They just completely choke.

And, you know, they've had some rough times. So the way this has played out where they're having the intros and the guys are actually good and it's like, oh, Michael Green's your 10th guy? That guy's actually

a competent playoff player. Kawhi's incredible. He had a couple moments today I was looking over on the bench and the guys on the bench are, he's,

Kawhi's making one of his like crazy follow-ins and you look over the bench and they're just like laughing. They're like, oh my God. Cause they're watching it every day too. They know how good he is, but they're just like laughing and in awe of just how crazy good that guy is. So I noticed that. And I noticed one other Clippers thing, like, you know, Moe Harkless is kind of the guy

I didn't really spend enough time thinking about this summer for them. You watch it in the games. Athletic swingman has been in a lot of big games in Portland and he has up and down history with them. I think Portland was okay moving on

with them and sometimes that happens, especially with swing men. Sometimes these guys get older and they kind of settle into what they are. And that's when you want them. And it might be happening with him because I always thought they would be using his cap, his cap kind of a figure to maybe swing for Andre Godal or whoever.

And I'm actually, I think they keep him. I actually think they should keep him. I actually think they should keep him because I think he can help them. I think he's athletic. He can make threes. He makes corner threes.

And he's been in big games. He wasn't afraid. I noticed that. Patrick Patterson was the weak link tonight, but Paul George is going to grab all his minutes.

Shamit's not totally ready, but I think maybe he can get there by the end of the season. God forbid he played in the world championships and got some experience. He definitely was not that reliable tonight. But, you know, Beverly and Harrell and Lou Williams, they come in, the Lakers go up 13-2

and they, you know, three and a half minutes in the game, Rivers brings in Harrell and Williams and those guys play great together. And I think what's interesting about this team, especially when Paul George comes back, it's not just the defense and the energy and the fact that they have these different dudes that can swing the momentum in a game

just with hustle or a hustle play or a play on D or a block, steal, charge, whatever. But they have different guys who can take over the game for like three, four minutes. You can see it tonight. Like Kawhi had his little moment. Lou Williams had his little moment. Harold has his little, like, all of a sudden,

a couple of screen rolls. And it's a really good team. I don't regret picking them to be at these Sixers in the finals. And when Paul George comes back, holy shit, because there's some lineups that they're going to be able to throw out when he comes back. Like, I think they'll play Harkless and Paul George and Kawhi all together. You know, play those three with Harrell and with Beverly

and just that defensively, they're going to be like a vice. That's going to be crazy. I'm really excited to watch the different lineups. It was also cool to see Ty Lue and Doc Rivers together because they coached together way back when, and it just seemed like they had the right vibe. On the flip side, the Lakers thing, poor Frank Vogel. Kid, I had a friend of mine who was at the game who was watching.

He was like, there's about six times today where Jason Kidd started forgot that he wasn't the head coach and was like getting up and doing stuff and the vibe was definitely a little strange they the offense they were running I didn't love they have some huge personnel issues obviously

where you have your two best guys play the same position LeBron and AD they tried to fix that tonight by having LeBron play point guard. Good luck with that for 100 games. When Kuzma comes back, I feel like he's also a four. They missed him tonight. Danny Green had 28 points. They still lost by double figures.

The thing is the drop-off, and I'm sure you could see it on TV, but you could really feel it in person, the drop-off from Danny Green as the third best Laker tonight to the rest of the guys they trotted out was brutal. Like Bradley wasn't even that bad tonight. He made a couple shots.

He was trying to chase Lou Williams around on defense. He was at least pressuring the ball a little bit, but if they're going to have him as the point guard, teams are going to figure that out really quickly and start pressing him full court because he can barely handle the ball. If you're counting him as your point guard, good luck.

But the drop-off, man, they had... You think... I mean, look at this. JaVale plays 17 minutes. It's about 15 minutes too long. Bradley plays 24. Jared Dudley played 13 minutes. He's minus 20.

I don't love plus minus, but the minus 20 feels right. If you, if you watch the game, Troy Daniels played 16 minutes. Quinn cook played 17 minutes. Dwight Howard played 19 minutes. Hold that thought.

And then the coup de gras. Contavious Caldwell Pope 27.0 minutes is just a complete non-threat offensively. And I think you could feel LeBron. LeBron can't hide it sometimes when he just, he knows his teammates aren't good. And there was a couple couple moments where Davis was sitting and he was just out there with four random dudes.

It'd be like Dwight Howard, Quinn Cook, whoever. And his body language would just change. And you could see him, the same body language that he would have last year. He's just like, oh man, I do not want to buy into these dudes. It's almost like he's signaling Rob Polenka. Hey man, feel free to make some moves

because this sucks what we got going right now. Anybody who thinks this current iteration of the Lakers is a finals team is smoking something. So bring Rondo back, great. Okay, well, that's another guy who can't shoot. You bring Kuzma back, okay. So I got LeBron, Davis, Kuzma, and Green as my four best players.

Three of those guys play the same position. What am I going to do with the guard spot I'm not really that athletic LeBron and Davis are my two athletes in that group I don't have the energy hustle guy in there I just don't like the makeup of that I'll be really interested to see what they do my assumption would be

they'll play Bradley with Kuzma, Green, LeBron, and AD, which now puts AD at the center where he doesn't want to play. I guess. Hey, is that going to work for four rounds? It feels like this team has more trades to make, I guess is my bigger point. They're playing Avery Bradley and KCP in crunch time tonight. I've never understood the KCP. I don't get it. If somebody could explain it to me, awesome.

But it feels like this team is a work in progress. Listen, I don't want to overreact after one game. Just from what I watched for four quarters, I was like, this doesn't feel like this is their finished team. We're going to see some moves and some trades and all and, uh, all kinds of stuff. I will say though,

the one thing with, um, with LeBron, it does seem like him and AD have latched onto each other. And LeBron does this, you know, he definitely with Wade, he did this. There's been some dream teams when he's latched onto teammates. Like you can tell when he's like, that's my dude, that's my guy. You know, he's almost like a wrestler who needs the tag team partner to really, really blossom. Um, and him and Davis were just locked up tonight. Um, there was a lot of talking and it was kind of like, it was those two. And then it was the other 10 guys, not sure that's going to work long-term,

but, uh, it seems like they bought into each other. And my question is how long will they buy into the supporting cast? And then what do they do with this offense? Because the offense I saw tonight should not be the offense. I would have a lot more emotion, a lot more high screens and stuff like that. All right. Last topic. The Dwight Howard thing was just bizarre. I don't know how you guys felt about it on TV. He's lost, it appears to be 40 pounds. It's just a lot.

This was a guy who was awe-inspiring how huge he was. I remember going to a game in, I think, 2012, the Super Bowl, the Pats-Giants, the second Super Bowl in Indianapolis. And me and Jacobian House went to an Orlando game. And we sat underneath the basket. And Dwight Howard was just a mammoth specimen

of a human being. And then the game tonight, he looked like a guy who had been living in Redondo Beach on the water, doing a vegan diet and doing hot yoga every day. He was like skinny guy and he was wearing a uniform that wasn't baggy or anything. It was actually kind of,

it seemed like he was borrowing Averygy or anything. It was actually kind of, it seemed like he was borrowing Avery Bradley's uniform. It was, it was tight. And the way he played, he played like he was a second round pick from Senegal who was still learning how to play basketball. But the one thing he could do is sprint from end to end. I've never, I've never been more riveted by anything. He only played, I think, like 19 minutes tonight. I could have watched Dwight Howard for all 48. I just couldn't get over it. This guy, I think he made six straight all-NBA first teams.

He was the best center in the league for basically the entire decade. He beat LeBron in the Eastern Conference Finals. This was only 10 years ago. He's not like 45 or anything. I think the weirdest thing is usually when centers get old. Yeah, I remember Artis Gilmore in the Celtics in the mid 80s. And his nickname was Rigor Artis. When centers get old, they just kind of mummify.

You saw that with Shaq. You know, you saw that with Kareem. Like pick a center. Hakeem Olajuwon in his last year in Toronto, they just kind of mummify. And this was the opposite. This turned into like vegan hot yoga guy who completely lost all of his explosiveness.

He got stuffed on the rim. He's doing the other thing that Shaq always talks about, or Barkley. No, I'm sorry, it's Barkley. He talks when centers get old, when they have the ball around the rim, they bring it down first, which is a great point. That was what Dwight does.

He has the ball around the rim. In the old days, you just go and stuff it. It doesn't matter. I don't care who's in my way. Now he brings it down. He thinks about it because he's not the same guy anymore. And what's really hilarious is there was this two, three-week window here in LA on local radio and local TV and, you know, all the

message boards, stuff like that, where they were like, Dwight Howard, I don't know. This might be something. And Rossello and I, we were making fun of it last week at the Overture. It was like, oh yeah, it's something. All right. It's going to be called Dwight Howard has been waived by the LA Lakers in December. It was riveting to watch. I just, I've never seen this version of a washed up NBA star before.

I've seen mummified version. I've seen lost seven steps version. I've never seen, this is basically, I mean, he's called himself Superman. He's Clark Kent now. He's lost all of his muscle. What happened to it? I'll let that question hang in the air for a while.

I'm going to let it hang for a couple seconds. Two more. Yeah. Need an investigation on this one. Anyway, quite a game. And I think the cool thing is we're going to get more of these. This is a great rivalry.

And this season is going to be awesome. We have seven awesome rivalries. Like Celtics, Sixers is tomorrow night. That's going to be fantastic. Every Nets-Celtics game is going to be great. The Warriors against the Rockets will be great. Rockets-Lakers, that's going to be awesome. Clippers, whoever.

Denver, does Denver need a rival? I guess Denver-Portland, is that technically a rivalry? It's like a rivalry of fan bases who feel like they're being taken for granted as contenders. Great season. This was a great night. I really enjoyed it. All right, we're bringing Edward Norton in, in one second. First,

you've got to check out the Ryan Rosillo podcast. Every Monday, Chris Long is on there. It's great. He's had Scott Van Pelt on there. He's had all kinds of people on there. He's creating weird Wednesdays. That's going to become a thing. Every Wednesday is going to get a little weird. Remember all you have to do, you can just say, hey, Google, play the Ryan Russillo podcast. All right. Here's the latest episode of the Ryan Russillo podcast. Week seven recap with Chris Long.

That was easy. Hey, Google, pause podcast. I already listened to that episode, but I'm looking forward to listening to every episode of the Ryan Russillo podcast as soon as they pop up. All right, coming up, Edward Norton for the first time ever.

He's got a new movie coming out. Here we go. Edward Norton is here. Been pushing for this since 2007. You're a hard man to get. You don't do a lot.

I've been pushing since 2002. You're a hard man to get. Hard man to get. You're here now. I've been waiting for this invite. This is it.

We're announcing Rounders 2 It's done We found Worm He was in Austria Koppelman and Levine Have not been told yet That the script is already written

You've basically said I'm in Everybody involved has Damon's in Yep Because I asked him last year He said he was in Koppelman and Levine are in. This is it. We're ready to go.

We need a detective to sniff out where's the logjam. Well, I think... Do you know my... I have the script. I gave it to them for free. Really? Because I like those guys. No, it's just like Mike McD, he goes to Vegas and then poker takes off and he becomes like one of the

main guys. Right. And what happens to Worm? Worm comes back into his life because now we don't know it's unclear he's wearing the same jacket of course because I'm selfish

and I want to know what are my lines what your motivation is no I want to know literally how big is my part so no I'm kidding I said to Brian and David one time

there's no way that Worm wasn't involved somehow in the credit default swaps. He has to have been. He has to have been doing something dodgy in some form of the finance bubble. Would you rather play a guy like that

or a guy who's the hero? What's the language? We can swear. We can do F-bombs I only want to quote the movie but yeah I always say that there are certain certain things you just want to work with certain people and you do it because you're like I did a movie with Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando it was Brando's last film and I I did it for those three reasons it was Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. It was Brando's last film. And I, I did it for those three reasons. It was Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando. I'm not going to not do that movie. Right. It was a heist picture. We tried to make it really good, but mostly it's like, I want to be on that poster, you know what I mean? But, um, but rounders, I think we all had the experience when we read it. Like when I read the script and Mike says like, um, you know,orm says something like, yeah, what did I ever do to that guy?

And Mike says, you fucked his mother. And he says, well, she was a good looking older woman. I was like, I'm doing this movie. Right. Literally that exchange. I was like, I'm doing this movie. I love this guy. Like this is this is really funny, you know.

And does Rounders get made now? It's a really good question because i guess like once damon got a little cachet and you got a little cachet at the same time we we were bringing we we brought kind of the like hey these are the the coming the young turks they they they're and um and then but you know? It was also done with sense. The whole movie, we all did the movie for no money, essentially. The whole movie cost 13 million bucks, I think, right? Wow.

And if you do that, and if we say in that moment, hey, we're not looking like to lever whatever we've done into the biggest paycheck we can get. We want to make one of these movies. And then Malkovich and Turturro and Martin Landau and all these people come onto it. Suddenly, like you've got like the dream, which is like you're making a movie of a certain kind that you wanted, that you came up loving. But nobody's like, you know, nothing's going gonna, the Titanic's not going to sink over it. Right. And so you can have fun. You can go for the, you can go for the thing, the way it's

supposed to be without just like macro corporate pressure, like down on your head. Right. And, and in a funny way at that exact moment, that was that exact moment where, frankly, just to give credit where credit is due, Miramax in that era rewrote the way people were approaching these things. They said, hey, look, we're going to get auteur-driven things, and we're going to get great actors, and we're going to get people, and we're going to put them together around projects, and we're going to make them for reasonable amounts of money and spend smart and make money. And the whole industry had to change. The whole industry started Miramax-like labels. All the old studios started their version of Fox Searchlight.

Because it was like, holy crap, you can make margins in these kinds of films. And Rounders was right at that moment when people are going, how the hell did they get all those people together and everything? But it was a great way to work. And yet, ironically, the movie bombed. It had a slow burn because it didn't do well in the theaters and then belatedly did really well. And by the way, in the era too, where the industry had not been asleep at the, you know, later they were so asleep at the switch, they handed off the entirety of the home video value to a company that had never existed called Netflix. Right. They literally they literally snoozed away their entire secondary distribution.

Right. Business. Right. secondary distribution business, right? But in those days, if Rounders, you know, was a little anemic at the box office or not what they hoped or whatever, it didn't matter because they owned that long tail life, right? And they could do great on it. And they did.

Same with Fight Club, which Fight Club was a much bigger bomb at the box office relative to it. Was it? Much bigger than Rounders. Fight Club cost 68 million bucks. I think it did like 35 at the box office, right? God, I felt like that movie was an event.

It was an event, but it was an event that unfolded over a longer period of time than a studio accountant would like to see on opening weekend. And it was a slap in the face. I think everybody felt like disappointed, a little stung, whatever. It got booed at the Venice Film Festival. And it was kind of this thing of like, wait a minute, we're, Brad and I honestly like smoked a joint and watched the

movie in the back of the Venice Film Festival. And at the, in the dark at the end, people were booing and Brad turned to me in the dark and goes, that's one of the best movies that we will ever be in. And I felt the same, you know, like we, we had a conviction, but, but it took a minute. It took a minute to form the best thing in the world, which is that direct conversation with the audience it was intended for. And what you're saying was an event was in fact, just this pause it needed for the word to get out and people to find it and lo and behold that movie financially ultimately did very very well because it was the era where they were selling their own dvds and not you know stream you know getting pennies on the dollar well and so it so it was it was a it was a cool time because in a lot of ways, if you were willing to come in with rounders and make it in the right way,

which we were, you, you, it was, it was fine. And it, I mean, it was never more fun.

There's, you can't have more fun making a movie than we had making that movie. It's, it was everything. We all got into the stupid trade of the whole thing to do. You know what I mean? It was like, I have, I, I said this when I talked to the guy

for the ringer for the oral history. It's like, I remember standing on 8th Avenue in the cold with Matt, Ted Demme, Koppelman and Levine and Martin Landau's like telling stories about James Dean. And you're just going like, don't anybody wake me up. Like this is too fun, you know? I was thinking about those first five years you have in Hollywood because you were a stage actor first.

And then Primal Fear happens and immediately becomes, you were immediately thrown into the whole mainstream. Yeah. In those five years, it was such a fun time for film. The movie you just did, Motherless Brooklyn, which took forever to make, it's kind of a throwback

to that era where movies like that were actually made. Yeah, I mean, I... You talked to a lot of good actors into being in it. It doesn't cost a crazy amount of money

and it was like a huge passion project. Yes. All that's true. I think... Look,. And it was like a huge passion project. Yes. All that's true. I think, look, I love, and I think a lot of people love, you know, L.A. Confidential or Chinatown's a tricky movie. I love Chinatown, but it's a dark and strange and hard movie. It's an age great. It's the movie parts age great.

The themes are rougher. It's very age great. It's the movie parts age great. The themes are rougher in 2019. Yeah, I agree. But I do think that I sometimes think it almost gets underestimated how much audiences enjoy that kind of classic film that takes them into an era with no tongue in cheek, no

like wink wink to like fifties irony, or, you know, even like mad men is a little bit like it's, it's, it's a little bit knowing, right. I think what, what was great about LA confidential as like a period kind of thing was it was like, no, no, no. These are real, like weighty actors take playing this totally straight. The product, it looks great. The music was great. And you kind of like, I couldn't tell you what the plot of LA Confidential was today, but you were just like five minutes in, you were like, I'm, I'm in for the drift on this one because I just like being here. Yeah. I'm just, I'm happy to be here because they're doing it well, like really well, you know? And, and I, I think, um, Yeah. on, between what was going on in jazz clubs, the changes that were taking place in the city,

these deep, dark things. If LA's deep, dark secret is that it's built on stolen water, you know, like what New York's deep, dark secret is that in the exact era when everyone sort of thinks of as the post-war democratic utopia, like there was a guy running New York City who was literally more of an autocrat. He was a dictatorial autocrat like Darth Vader, who was a racist. And he had an uncontested power in New York, an unelected guy who ran the city and defined New York's infrastructure with his racism in ways that it still can't solve today. It still can't figure out, you know, he wouldn't let trains be in the LIE corridor.

He wouldn't, he built, he tore down black neighborhoods and built the projects, which became the worst slums in the world. And he literally like made the Dodgers move to LA. I mean, this guy was a dark, dark figure of imperial power and he did damage that we still can't fix. And people don't even know this. They don't even know that this happened. So it's like, you know, to me, it was ripe. It was ripe to to have one of those movies where you just kind of like, you go for the ride through that era. The directing yourself thing. I know this is a boring, hacky question, but I just think that's so impressive when people can run a movie, but then also inhabit a character at the same time. And I think it's almost, for lack of a better word, weird. It's weird. It's weird.

It's a weird talent to have where you could be like, I'm Mr. Norton here directing everybody, but now I'm going to be this character again. It's schizophrenic in a way. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It is illogical because it's very different sides of your brain. Yeah. And ping-ponging between them, I think, it's suboptimal for both jobs in a way.

I was going to say, does it lower the ceiling of each job? So you're looking at like an A-minus max for both of them? I hope not. I hope not. I hope not. I mean, I, you know, to me, it's one of those things that I, you know, you look at like going all the way back, like Orson Welles and Citizen Kane. The guy was 25 years old.

He made this massive American film, very talky film about the American character. You know, he did weird shots. He did all this kind of stuff. And he played a guy from age 20 to his death. You know, it's ballsy. It's just it's ballsy as hell. It was weird. It was misunderstood at the time, but it became like one of those things that everyone looked at. And that inspired like Warren Beatty, like made reds. And people told

Warren told me that people told him nobody in the world wants to see a three hour movie about American socialists with documentary footage from the era. You are going to, your whole career that you've built, you're going to flush on this. And he was like, you know what? Like it's the movie I want to see. Like I want to see this movie. So, you know. It seems like so many of these actors hit that point where they're just like, fuck off. I'm doing this. Yeah. Well, I mean I mean, and also Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, Kevin Costner, Dances with Wolfe. And I'm not even commenting on the films, although these are all really good films. Ben Affleck did it with Argo, you know? And he did it with a lot of people throwing shade on him.

Yeah. Like, when Ben did that, I was like, on my feet. I was like, that's fucking right. I was like, it's so great when people do it because in some ways, I think at a certain moment, if you've done it long enough, you get, you get a sense of like what the nature of the audience's favorite relationship with you is. And part of those things, films we all just named is in some ways it's an actor going, Hey, there's a story I really get and I fit in it. Yeah. It's, it's in the sweet spot for me. And, and, you know, I know enough now to know how to

do this. And sometimes something very special emerges from that because i think um you know it's it's i who knows why but um and you know by the way my friend liz banks is she's like one of the only women in hollywood directing the movies that she's in now and she's killing it like killing it do you feel like you get lost in the movie where even when you're not on the set it's just you're the only one who can see not only the movie but the main performance in it no can you like watch a yankee game at 7 30 when you're going through all this stuff yeah i put on like you know i put on like the documentary about quincy jones when i just so i'm like let me hear some good music and chill out right but i part of it is part of it is having people you, anybody who does this will say the same thing, which is you

say something completely crazy. You go, I'm going to make a big scale American epic about New York in the 50s. It's not going to be a little diorama. We're going to have like car chases through Manhattan. We're going to shut down 20 blocks. We're going to shoot in big spaces and big places. We're going to have a big A-list cast, Bruce Willis and Willem Dafoe and all these people. And we're going to do it all for 26 million bucks. And oh, my character has Tourette syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder. And like most people's eyes cross and just go like, like we're in the Edward Norton business generally. On this one, we're taking a pass. You know what I mean?

But then you get like a great DP and a great, you get like those actors say yes to doing it for no money. Like all my cast did this for scale. Did me a huge solid. You know what I mean? And you get these people that start levering their talent against sort of this crazy thing you've set up. And all of a sudden it's like becoming possible, you know?

And there's like a moment, there's kind of this tipping moment where the whole thing is like, oh my God, like what are we doing? They're going to take away my license. This is all thing. And suddenly there's like someday you walk in and you realize like i got one of the great cinematographers of all time shooting this and he's done all of mike lee's films in 45 days and he can do this

and you start seeing like other people are really bringing a game and you start going wow they're making me look like i know what i'm doing, you know, and you start you're delegating, you're delegating to really good people. And then even when you got to act in it, you know, you can turn and look at that cameraman and go, are we good? Like, do I don't I can't manage this right now. Are we good? We've talked about it. We know what we're going for. And if he goes thumbs up, like you're like,'re like we got it we're moving and when you start having that kind of that that's how it works it's like you're not alone at the table it's like you're you've got a team and that team is what pulls it off and um you you're playing a guy with Tourette's and OCD in 2019 when everybody on the internet is going to come after you if you don't hit those two things correctly. You had to have been wary of that.

To a degree, except that over time, you know, talking to people who have that condition, it came from a book that was a very different plot than my movie. It's set in modern times. Yeah. But the character is the same, a detective with Tourette's syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder. People love the book. What I found was people with Tourette's syndrome love the book. They love it. They love like the humanity.

They think it's authentic. They love that you're inside his head, knowing him in his full depth as a person while you watch his condition cause him all kinds of problems that are funny, that are painful. They love the complex presentation of him. The other thing is that Tourette syndrome is a wild thing in the sense that some people blink compulsively. You wouldn't even know. You probably have known someone who seems like they're always cracking their neck, but they might have mild Tourette's. You know what I mean? All the way up the spectrum to people who have the vocal component where they shout or compulsively say a word over and over again in the middle of conversation, or like the one that's sort of the cliche, they scream like X-rated or really offensive things, which is

actually not at all the majority of people. Some people have, remember Chris Jackson, the basketball player? Yeah. He had Tourette's Syndrome. I remember seeing him in person. It was mesmerizing. In the film, the thing of touching the shoulder of someone else compulsively, I took that off him because he talked about it in this one documentary and talked about

how his impulse to tap people, even when he was defending people in the films, you can see him doing it. But he also talked about how when he was young and it was coming on him, it was paralyzing because he couldn't leave the free throw line until he heard 10

that went through the net and sounded right. And that's why he was like, what? He was like a 98.5% free throw shooter or whatever? Right. And during games, when you watched him, I'd never seen anything like this before

where he had his process that he was going to stick to, but there's a game going on with nine other people and a clock and, you know, his free throw line, everything had to be the same

on the free throw shot no matter what. And, you know, you felt bad for him, but it was also kind of weirdly, like, courageous to watch this dude battling this. Well, and also, you felt bad for him, but it was also kind of weirdly like courageous to watch this dude battling this. Well, and also as, as there's a trumpet player that, you know, Michael K. Williams, uh, plays who, who says to my character, like,

you know, your head, basically he says, your head is like mine. This is how, that's how jazz works too. It's like, you can't stop. And some people call it a gift, but it is a brain affliction, right? He's saying, you know, musical obsession is a gift, but it is a brain affliction too. And, and I think that there's, that's to me, part of the beauty of like anybody and the things they struggle with, there's often like weird gifts in it, even though it's a struggle. And he was, you know, he was a great free throw shooter because of the same set of obsessions. And that too I put in the film because I love the idea that until something sounds right, you can't stop doing it. where like when the blonde girl hits on my character at the bar, it goes disastrously because he can't light her cigarette without blowing out the match because it doesn't sound right.

And, you know, I thought the idea of someone who, what they deal with is way more extreme than what you or I deal with, but you still identify. You identify with the isolation. You identify with, oh, everybody can identify with feeling misunderstood, feeling underappreciated or taken for granted. And even the way you get in your own way,

but it's like, and we don't all have like Tourette's syndrome. We're not all like autistic, like Rain Man, but there's something you still, with those characters, like Matt's, you know, Matt's movie, Good Will Hunting, right? Which is a great example of that to me. He's a working class kid. He's got a chip on his shoulder. He's got anger problems.

He's got all kinds of problems and ways he's getting in his own way. But he has this thing in his head, you know, and and he's got a he's got a rise in the film. He's got to like kind of get over his own like barriers to maximize the talent that he's got in that. And I think we like those movies. We like underdogs. We like to watch an underdog get there because somewhere down inside it goes, A, we feel good about ourselves for rooting for him,

but also we kind of go like, hey, if he can get there, I can get there in some way. You know what I mean? You mentioned the New York part of this movie. You made 25th Hour. I think it was, you were making it in 02 or when, 01? Not 01 because it was after 9-11. Yeah, we made it in the early summer of 02.

Yeah, I think it was like the first movie shot in New York. Well, that, but that's, that's become its legacy where it's become, it's kind of like a post 9-11 movie and it has this added weight to it. Like when you watch it now, where it really feels like. It's very melancholy.

It's good, but it's, I, do people ask you about that movie? Cause it feels like that has become a very, very New York movie. Yeah, definitely. And a lot of people, I think, rightly think it's one of Spike Lee's better films, you know. I think I have it in the top three for me. Yeah, I mean, he, you know, I can't say enough about Spike.

Spike is misunderstood. Spike is a person who, because his personality is so big and because he can say very provocative and iconoclastic things, it almost masks what an obsessive craftsman he is. And also, I think how much compassion is actually in his movies. He, it's almost like people relate to spike and it affects the way they look at the films, but, but he, that guy, that guy is one of the best prepared directors that I've ever worked with ever. Phil Hoffman and I were both obsessed, you know, I mean like do the right thing was one of the most important films of like our growing up, you know what I mean, like Do the Right Thing was one of the most important films of like our growing up, you know, I mean, I think that was one of the movies if you went to public school and grew up in a city. When I saw that movie, it was like someone set a hand grenade off in the

theater, like when he pushed in on people and they're screaming their inner monologue about, you know, race. And it was like, oh my, like nobody was saying those things. And Chuck D on the soundtrack singing, you know, Elvis was a hero to most. He never meant shit to me. It was like people's minds were melting, you know? It was like you forget, like when you go back and you realize like how, what a grenade that film set off in terms of the conversation. And he was doing whatever the hell he wanted.

He was like talking to the camera. He was like, it was like all Spike, you know? And he had characters in that movie that I just had never seen in a movie before. Never, never. And he was in the movie. And he's funny in the movie. You know what I mean?

Like, and language that was like, became part of the language. That's to the curb, Mookie. You know what I mean? It's like, there was stuff that it was, it was so significant. And, um, and yet like the end of the movie is really this question mark. It's this, like, he puts up the quote from Martin Luther King saying violence is not a path.

And then he puts up the Malcolm X quote saying, sometimes violence is very legitimate. And he just puts it right in your lap and goes, what is your active thought about this? Not I'm going to answer this for you. Not I have an answer, but we have to talk about this. You know, and that is, that's like maturity. I mean, that's like real,

that's like actually doing something as a filmmaker. He made people talk about one of the things we don't like to talk about, you know, and people talk about it more because of it, you know what I mean? And it was kind of like. When you did that movie with him, he was, you know, that's, he was almost like an athlete who had played in the NBA for a few seasons. Like, all right, I know everything that I'm doing at this point. Yeah. He made that movie in 26 days. I've never, Jill and I looked at each other and we're like, how is that even possible?

We're going to make, and he did it six weeks of rehearsal, like a play, every shot planned and boarded and listed down in the thing. You've never seen a director move through a film like he did on that. I feel at one one at one point phil and i we were just sitting there we're like this is heaven this is like this is like the way is what we wanted to do and with like one of the masters and um it was just great but also like he got game like he got game is he got games with the best movies ever made about sports and money and America. That movie is so masterful.

It's like people don't even appreciate, I think, how great that movie is. You worked with Phil Hoffman. He was pretty well-known and successful at that point, but the era was still pointing up. What do you remember about working with him? Well, we, we kind of came up in New York or in the same era, we were both like building theater companies and, um, you know, he was like a real New Yorker. I was too. And, uh, you know, he, he was one of those guys that in a way he started to register, get work and stuff more than earlier than any of us.

Like he's like a son of a woman. Yeah, exactly. And, but like, like my, the people I sort of, uh,

you know, like Mark Ruffalo and Bobby Cannavale and Sam Rockwell. Like there was a lot of people I, I, you know, knew were in New York from the New York theater scene and they Rockwell. There was a lot of people I knew in New York from the New York theater scene. They were good.

And it was kind of like you knew you could see people were getting their cracks at things. And it was exciting. But in a lot of ways, I think Phil was kind of almost more respected sooner by the rest of us. It was kind of like the rest of the world was going to catch up eventually,

but he was, you know, by then, he was doing PTA's movies and he was, he was like one of the greats, you know, I think,

hadn't, I don't know if he had done Capote at that point, maybe. I think that was coming. That was coming. Yeah. But,

that, we did two films that year. We did Red Dragon and then Spike's movie. And then we were both he was directing a play and I was doing the play like right next to each other. It was really was probably probably when I got to know him better even than I had known him. And just, you know, I think he was, I think he was like, it's stupid to say like the best in, but he, he was one of the people in my cohort who I think every actor thought like, he is, he's like,

he's like the high bar of, of just quality and balls and guts. And know he the respect level for phil was like infinite you know among actors damon when he was on this pot he told a story about it was same thing where you're saying now about how everybody knew each other or was aware of each other but then these great roles would come up and everybody would go for the roles and he was like had this one movie primal fear came in and then this fucking guy ed norton and that guy from new york and he was like had this one movie primal fear came in and then this fucking guy ed norton and that guy from new york and he stepped in and got that role but he was like we were all going for that role and it seemed like there was a few of them in the 90s that it was just like oh that role yeah those things i mean i but like i think matt and i were both up for um you know the

the grisham movie that francis copola directed. Oh, yeah, Rainmaker. Yeah, Matt got that one. And it was kind of like, fuck it, work with Coppola. I went out to Napa. He cooked me dinner. I was like, I think I might get this. And then it's just like, what? No, you snake.

You know what I mean? No, it is. But you know what's really funny? Honestly, there's these moments you look at things and you go yeah that was that was the right call like Matt was like

better in that than I would have been like he was as in many things like he's he's just great you know he's great

and he's got like you know it's like I think things kind of fall the way they are supposed to you know you think every time

or like nine out of 10 times? There's got to be somewhere it's like, oh man. I mean, obviously the Wachowski should have put me in the Matrix, you know? No, like I totally, I'm totally kidding. Cause literally like, I think Keanu Reeves is like, you can't imagine that movie.

You could have been John Wick. You get the whole arc. You'd be Kung Fu Maven. Let's take a break to talk about the rewatchables on the Ringer Podcast Network. A podcast Edward Norton has not been on yet. He should come on at some point in his life. Halloween next week.

Oh yeah, The Shining. It's coming. The Shining. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. This is happening. We have one, two, three, eight movies left. The rest of the way on the Rewatchables feed, including in mid-December, The Godfather 2.

Oh yeah, that's happening. Guess what else is happening over Thanksgiving vacation? Wolf of Wall Street. Yeah, that's happening too. Lots of good ones coming up. You can subscribe to the Rewatchables on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, or you can go back and just listen to old ones on the feed. Guess how many movies we've done so far? 90. We've done 90 movies over the last three years. And when we get to a hundred, the hundredth episode is going to be the reheat with me and Chris Ryan. We're doing heat for the second time. It's the first time we've ever done

a movie again. That's happening. Check it out. It is one of our most popular podcasts as well as one of my favorite things to do. So the rewatchables subscribe right now. Back to Edward Norton. Can I ask you about the behind the head dunk in American History X? Is it behind the head? I think it was. Yes. You're going to call me out.

What do you want to know? Well. White men can't jump. Is that what you're. I think it could have been a one-hander facing the rim. You really went for it. Plus, you were jacked. I was not as jacked as people think.

We cast people very small around me. Is that true? Yeah. I mean, look, you know, I'm six feet tall, but I, like, if I'm in shape, I weigh 155, 160. You know what I mean? So I'm not, like, I put put on I probably put on, you know, I was probably 25 pounds up from what I normally am, but I'm still just not that big frame. But we literally did. You know, this is one thing I do when when you watch Tootsie and you don't really notice that Dustin Hoffman is a lot shorter than Jessica Lange.

You learn things about the way camera can work. And one thing, if I'm in the frame, the camera doesn't see my size. It sees my shape, right? So you wanted, if you have mass and you have definition, you can look really jacked, right? But if you put a guy who's legit 220 next to me, I'm not going to look that big, right? And in fact, in the movie, the guy who actually,

the skinhead in the prison who actually like rapes my character, that guy was like a Division I-A football player. Oh, Jesus. And you can see. Yeah, yeah. He's like way bigger than me, like way bigger than me. But we cast in the film all around me. We cast like a lot of people who were more my size or thinner or smaller or whatever. And you feel it, you feel this, like, you know, like Guy Torre, the great actor who's in the prison with me, the guy he becomes friends

with who kind of gets him over his hate in a lot of ways guy's really small you know what I mean so I look I look pretty big but um so nobody brings up

the two-handed dunk to you? they um most people are kinder than you they I'm just curious I'm curious no you know what's really funny is um

cause the scene's good there's good basketball in that scene you're actually impressive I played I played basketball in that scene. Well, you're actually impressive. I played bad. I played basketball in high. So I, I was,

I was okay. You know, um, I, I, I rode the bench, but I, you know,

I, I, I tried, um, so I could fake it. And, um, but we did something stupid,

which is we, we, we save that sort of because they wanted to put a one camera up on a crane, we were just like saving it for the end of the day. And my legs were like toast, but, but I, so I knew I wasn't gonna be able to like dunk or anything. So then they were like, it was basically like, look, the angles are going to be from straight above and they're going to be from way below. Right. So they, they literally were like, they were like, well, how low do you want it? Right. And of course your ego, like everyone's standing around, like listening and you go,

and you go, and I, and I made a terrible mistake. This is like, go, I go, yeah, you know,

like nine, nine feet, nine feet's good, whatever, whatever. They put it nine feet and I'm like, donk, like ball into the rim,

ball into the rim, ball. And then your legs are getting tired and tired. And then you go like, okay, lower, you know, knock it,

knock it down a little bit. And, and then guys start going, okay, lower, you know, knock it down a little bit. And then guys start going, oh, right. Right, right. And I had to notch it down like three times. See, this is why I've always wanted my services as a sports movie scene consultant. Where anytime there's a scene like this, they just, they fly me in. I'm like, let's start Edward here at like eight feet, two inches. Yeah.

Just get his confidence up. Let me tell you what you should have said had you been there first. You should have gone, clear the set. Yeah, true. Clear the set. Everybody who doesn't need to be here, get out of here. Like, you know what I mean? Now put up some, you know, now put up some scrims so that no one can see.

Set the camera. Now put the rim at seven feet seven feet you know what I mean Costner was here a couple months ago talking about For Love of the Game and how the pressure of when you're pitching

and not only is it the set but they had all these extras in the stands but he said it was positive like he got adrenaline from it but yeah we don't think about this stuff

when our favorite actors have to be in sports movie scenes. Well, that's it. By the way, he got game. The lead is Ray Allen, right? Yeah, Ray plays the lead in Spike's great basketball movie because he was

like, you can't fake this stuff. He's got to be great. I had Spike and Denzel tell the same story about how Denzel snookered Ray Allen because they're supposed to play the game and it's supposed to be 10-0. And Denzel actually tries to score on him and scores the first four. And Ray didn't know what was going on and gets mad and the whole thing. That's great. Spike used it against him.

I mean, how great is Denzel in that movie? That's my favorite Denzel in that movie. Oh, he's, that's my favorite Denzel. It's, it's, you know, but by the way, like, I bet, I bet Matt, I feel like when we were doing Rounders,

one of the things I remember was sitting in the car in the cold. We were so obsessed with Midnight Run and we would like create these conversations out of Midnight Run dialogue and all these things. But also he does a really, really good Morgan Freeman impersonation. So we were like doing Glory.

Yeah. We're like, I was like doing Denzel, like I loves the 54th and he's like doing Morgan Freeman, like, you know, and, um, but I think if, if you had a bunch of us, I think a lot of people would say pound for pound, like Denzel's the best actor working in, in the business because he, he's one of the greatest stage actors in America, like with full stop, no question, classical, you know, Julius Caesar, the Iceman Cometh. I mean, this guy has done like canonical, big classical theaterences by August Wilson, which I would say him and Viola Davis in Fences was one of the greatest things I've ever seen on stage. I've never seen an audience weeping like that. Like it was so, the film was really good on stage. I think it

was one of the greatest performances I've seen on stage, that duet. Wow. And he's a great character actor, right? Like, you know, that one recently he did about the guy. Now I'm blanking on the name. Tony Gilroy's, Dan Gilroy's movie. He's a lawyer. What's that? Yeah. Yeah.

Roman. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. I don't know why I'm forgetting the name but but he he'll play like you know like Hurricane Carter or the character in in well training day he becomes evil yeah yeah and then he's this you know he's one of the biggest movie stars in the world like he does he really does it all you know what I mean he's one of the biggest movie stars in the world. Like, he really does it all. You know what I mean? He's... We just taped

a rewatchable. But very, very few people are like that. And I think Daniel A. Lewis is one of the greatest actors ever. But, like, he hasn't, like, you know, who is one of the greatest stage actors in the country, a huge movie star, and

actually, like, one of the really great film character actors too. It's like there just aren't many people like that. It's like LeBron. Yeah, we just did a rewatch of what was about Remember the Titans? Which is just Denzel like I'm just going to be a movie star in this movie. Yeah. It's like I'm going to coach. Just do Denzel stuff.

Get out of here. But the same year he did Training Day. Yeah. And could do both at the same time. I'm, I'm, I'm pretty much always in with him. You know,

I never, I don't really tire of it. You never worked with him though. Yeah. So that five years, 95 to basically, let's say 99, 2000.

Do you feel like that can come back? Because, you know, I, I think the narrative now is like, it's all going to be big movies and comic book movies all this stuff but I do feel like the streaming

services as they start pouring more and more money into how to differentiate themselves from each other we're already seeing it with Netflix I mean I know the Irishman was super expensive but for the most part I wonder like insanely right much more than people are but I wonder if we're heading toward an era

where that $20 to $35 million movie could actually be like a competitive advantage for Netflix when they're trying to go against HBO Max and Disney Plus. And maybe this will come back. Maybe it's not going to take six, seven years for you to make a movie like the one you made. Well, let's put it this way.

If I had pivoted and said, I'm going to make this movie on Netflix, it wouldn't have taken me five, six years now. Right. I could have made it like in, I could have had a yes in an afternoon. I think legitimately. Yeah. I mean, and I'm not saying that in a knock way. I think it's incredible. But I think that's a good thing.

I think that's where we're heading. Me too. I don't know how long it's going to last, but it's going to reinvent stuff. I have no... If you're on the creativity side of the equation and you get into a headspace where you think you're entitled to someone else's money

to make what you want to make, you need to check yourself because you're not, you're not. Like, other people are in the game of assessing the risks and rewards to them of, like, bankrolling your crazy notion and really just betting on you because these things are fundamentally just execution dependent and there is no way to guarantee it's going to come off right so you you can't ever lose a deep appreciation for um the the risks and stresses entailed in people bankrolling your work, right? And I, like, I never feel that if someone's saying no, and they're saying no politely, I get, you know, like, I get it. Like, you can't, like,

go like, how can they not, like, you know, make my 1950s thing about a Tourette's detective, you know, and listen to how that sounds even it's crazy. Right. You just have to like, but when the, but the people who do step to the things you want to do, they really become your like allies for life, you know, when it goes well and, um, you feel lucky. Right. Uh, but I think, first of all, I I don't agree. I don't agree that it's not possible for sort of the traditional model of of studios focused on theatrical distribution in theaters and then things to make original adult movies without losing their shirt. But certain things are required and you have to be smart. Like Toby Emmerich, the guy who runs Warner Brothers,

like he's, you know, he has been a huge champion of my film. We sort of made it independently, but with a promise from Warner to distribute it and kick in at the end and everything. We had to raise a good amount of money independently, but he gave me a route to making it

to get to make a very, you know, like personal and eclectic film that nobody could really say like, wow, how will that work? Like, will that work? Like sort of a Rain Man, Forrest Gump-y kind of a character in a kind of a cool old fashioned

Dele Confidential kind of story. Will it work to have Tom York from radio head writing songs and Wynton Marsalis doing jazz? Will that mashup work? Right? No, they couldn't know. And then basically it's like the way we did it, it, it could work. You know what I mean? I mean, I mean, yeah, I got you. But we did it for a number. If you get a cast to say, we'll do this for scale, and you make that movie for like 26 million net, it's a whole different equation than if everybody like maxes out on getting paid and a budget that blows up

and all these things that studios tend to do, right? So it's not out of the- And we have the smaller studios too, like the a24s yeah yeah and now my could my movie get made with an a24 like i i don't think so because we did we it's a big movie right yeah it's a big movie um and and could you really do what we love about DLA confidential type movies below a certain number, probably not like I, I, you're not, I'm not looking, you know, for extra credit, but like even making the movie we made at the scale we made it for the number, for the number we made it for has been dropping the jaws of some of my, uh, some people don't believe me. I've had like filmmakers say like,

what did you get 75, 80 days to do that? And we, you know, we did it in 46 and we're proud of it. Right. Um, I think you can, I think you can, if you're, if everybody's passionate enough about it, you can do it in the traditional construct and actually do it in ways that they're not, that they don't have to do crazy numbers to make money on it, actually make money on it. But I think that there's no question that certain things right now, probably the most opportune new set of doors to knock on is exactly what you said.

It's the streaming services. But, you know, I also think we've gotten over this thing where there's like this prejudice against television. You know, I'm a movie actor. I don't do television. That's, that's gone. That's over. Right. Um, the best people, Meryl Streep's in like long, you know, series, right. And, and it's one of the best things she's as always like great, no matter what the format. Right. And everybody's kind of knows that. And the world's changed. And I think it's great. It's not the same as the 90. What happened in the 90s that was exciting for all of us was there was a reshaping. There was a there was a new understanding of ways you could do it. And suddenly all these new doors got created because of Miramax's success. And for us,

it produced suddenly this thing where people could come with their weird ideas and get it done, right? But the same thing is happening now. The same thing is happening now. That's what this all represents. I would say you could make the case that it's never been easier for diverse and eclectic visions to find their way into the world. That's how I feel. I think this is a new narrative. It's an incredible moment. By the way, you haven't really done the TV thing. No, but I've been writing.

I mean, I wrote a miniseries for HBO about the Lewis and Clark expedition that will get done. I loved working. Because now you can do seven episodes. That's why I think. They get the billboard, you get the side of the Soho House building and they'll promote the shit out of it and then you're done in seven weeks.

It's to me, whinging about anybody who's like sort of, you can't not be excited. If you're a creative person, you can't not be excited about the scale of the way that all now. Was there anything out there that you were jealous of? Like TV stuff where you're like, oh man,

I didn't know that could happen. Well, think about like the wire and what that did. No, I mean, I mean, recent stuff. Like you watch Fleabag and you're like,

wow, I just, I've been just catching up on that six 25 minute episodes and this is but by the way the original Ricky Gervais office was like that

I mean yeah I was like that's one of the best things I've ever seen you know what I mean when are you going to be on Billions

don't you owe those guys owe them you can't go on for one episode play like some billionaire evil billionaire you could he could be like he could be for all the things you're against owe them. You can't go on for one episode and play like some billionaire? Evil billionaire? You could

he could be like against he could be for all the things you're against. If I say if I say on a mic like like with sort of a sour

petulant tone like yeah those guys haven't invited me they're gonna ring me like you know Is that true? They haven't invited you? No, they probably have.

I've been I've been really down the hole with my Maybe they just they don't want to get rejected so they haven't invited you? No, they probably have. I've been really down the hole with my- Maybe they just don't want to get rejected. So they haven't asked you. That's possible. You should go on. Just do one episode.

They probably asked me in the beginning if I would. But look how successful it is. You could have a weird accent. You could do 90 million things. When are you going to be like in a- What's your sports movie when is this happening can't you be like a like a nba coach who's bounced around we're gonna say that i'm in the coach era of my life no no you've been wow i mean no i'm 50 you turned 50 a month before i did i know um yeah you're like your coach you've this is your last chance you've

been fired two other times how old was Redford when he did The Natural well he I mean they had to look it up no he was he was

he was older then and they worked that into the story they had to I think he was like 46, 47 but they had to do like weird lighting shit

with him yeah great sports movie though so you're ready to still be in a sports movie great sports movie you haven't given up maybe that's a sports movie the comeback story of a ready to still be in a sports movie. Great sports movie. You haven't given up.

Maybe that's a sports movie. The comeback story of a pink ball player. The 50-year-old three-point shooter. You're a three-point shooter. You're just like the best. You can spread the floor, put you in the corner. What about, who's the oldest person who ever had a major sports moment? It's really cool. Well, it would have to be a golfer.

You'd be a golfer. Yeah. You could be like, can you play golf? Anyone like in their 40s ever win an Olympic medal, I wonder. That's tough.

Yeah. Maybe it's some new sport. Yeah. You had an advantage. Maybe it's eSports. If I can get Scorsese to direct the movie, he can just age me backwards.

That's true. How do you feel about that? Get Netflix to pay to age me backwards. Does this worry you that we're going to have the technology soon to, for somebody to go take performances you've already done and do weird things to them? Nobody's gonna know the, the, the real cost of that is not going to make sense to anybody in most situations. I hope not. I never asked you about Fincher. What'd you learn from him?

You worked with him early in his career, but it was that was his I'm here movie. Well, I, for me, like seven in the game. No, but I mean, like, he's like, these aren't flukes. I'm actually going to be here for the long haul.

Look, when you're involved, when a director with his kind of talent meets a piece of text, it's almost like it's almost like it was designed for the best of what they can do. It's so cool to be around that and see it going on and know that they're firing, that they're in that zone. Yeah. I felt that way with In Your Riddle on Birdman. It's like you're watching it and you're like, I am watching someone in the zone where they are just connecting on every level.

And pound for pound, David's without a doubt one of the most talented across every department. You've worked know, pound for pound, David's like, without a doubt, one of the most talented across every department. You've worked with some fucking awesome directors. Yeah. That's got to be 90% intentional.

10% intentional. 10% luck. Yeah, 10% luck. Yeah, Milos Forman, who was one of my heroes, People vs. Larry Flynn, but he had done Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus

and a lot of these things. And Spike and Fincher and – Who's left? Wes Anderson. You've done three Wes Anderson movies. Yeah, yeah, and I love him. Eastwood? I learned – I love – yeah.

Eastwood, you're out of there. It's like 10 to 4, you're done. Golfing. You learn things from absolutely everybody. You learn things even from the people who quietly you think are kind of like screwing it up because you watch, you watch, you watch, you know, watching things, watching things that aren't going so great. Um, right. It's very instructive. You know what I mean? And, um, it's as instructive as watching things that are great. But I do think that, um, when you watch people, um, who have real game, uh, you know, and it, it real game, it's like it's master class all the time.

You know what I mean? Every day it's like you're getting to – and that doesn't mean that you're going to – nobody grabs anybody's style really. Like if you're – it's always going to – You're picking up tricks. No, it's going to, yeah, it's going to run through you. But you, but yeah, but it's like little stuff and big stuff. But that more like, how do they make this process flow? How do they get the work done in the time they've got?

How do they, you know, create an environment? You know, it's just, you could go on and on, but they, but. We have to go. Yeah. Cause the door just opened, which means we have to go. I don't know who opened it, but it felt ominous. No. How old's your son though?

My son is six. Does he know yet that you could have just kept being the Incredible Hulk and you gave up? Cause he's going to be mad about this at some point. No. Probably about a year from now. No, he. Big dad. I was just on the internet. It's really wild. You gave up the Because he's going to be mad about this at some point. Probably about a year from now. Big dad!

I was just on the internet. You gave up the Incredible Hulk? What happened? God, I hope he's not on the internet. It's going to happen. My son's 11. I'm telling you, he's going to go on the internet and start reading about you soon. Yeah, he has not beautifully, he has not caught the bug for superheroes yet.

Oh, that will happen too. I know. I'm sure it will. And by the way, I subscribed to five different comic books. I was a real fan. My view of that, first of all, like, you know, clickbait journalism. People should know that in among the many ways that the Matrix is trying to, like, turn you into a mindless consumer. Yeah. There's the obvious ones, you know, like high fructose corn syrup kind of movies that come out, you know, like machine produced from any number of like shops and

then want you to check out and then want you to buy shit later. Right. We, that's familiar to us. We can sort of spot that. We can sort of see that. But I think that people don't even realize that we're starting to grasp, I think, with all this, the degree to which we've been manipulated literally by foreign nations and active measure type things to try to get us antagonized with each other, right? Which has been happening. I mean, you read the Mueller report, is this should be completely a bipartisan concern. Like we have active foreign measures by antagonistic foreign powers working concertedly to sow discord in our country. Right. a notch down from that. We've got like clickbait journalists who manufacture narratives of conflict because they want you to think like, you know, somehow that between Mark and me and Mark,

that there's some sort of a like thing. It's like, okay, this is one of my oldest and most beloved friend colleagues in this trade. I was going to say, I would imagine you guys would have done nothing, but laugh about it. I love, he's one of the best actors of my generation.

You know, the notion that there's a shred of anything other than love and celebration and laughter about all this is so stupid. And even the idea that, you know, I make a joke at my own expense on like Comedy Central, right? In the Bruce Willis rogues. And then, and it converts into like legit, like me, like, you know, throwing shade. It's like, no, I'm throwing shade on me, dickwads. Like, you know what I mean? Like I'm making fun of like my own, you know, the joke that I like to rewrite everything. I'm making fun of myself. You know what know, the joke that I like to rewrite everything. I'm making

fun of myself. You know what I mean? It's like, come on, grow up and recognize that like, there is no, there's no bad feeling. There's no discord. I think the guys who are making that stuff, you know, are great. I think they're doing a, if I was a Disney stockholder, I'd be like, you guys are doing it, right? Well done. Well done. And, um, the idea that there's like

any actual conflict in any of this is so juvenile. I don't even know about the fake conflict story. I just knew, I just knew that you gave up the Hulk and your son's going to be mad about it

at some point. People are always like saying like, there's this like, stuff. And it's just like, nobody should listen to any of that. It's, they're just trying to get you to like,

everyone has that stuff they're trying to click a thing that takes you to outbrain and gets them paid you know what I mean you mentioned it but that's like

one of your internet reputations like he tries to rewrite every movie it's like I doubt he tries to rewrite every movie no

not believe that one and actually in many cases I got paid to rewrite that movie like it's actually a job I was hired to do

you know what I mean and and but I got paid to rewrite that movie. It's actually a job I was hired to do. You know what I mean? But my view of that is lots of people have played Hamlet, right? Yeah. And nobody says, oh, they gave up Hamlet. It's like, Bill Bixby will always be the Hulk to me. Oh my gosh. And Eric always.

That's it for me, for life. That's it. Every episode had ever worked out for him. His shirt was me. Oh my God. And Eric, always. That's it for me, for life. That's it. Every episode had ever worked out for him. No one will ever. His shirt was torn. He's walking. I actually feel like

in many ways, I think no one could be better than him as that. We have to go down. We have somebody peeking in. Guys, I love being part of that group. This was really fun.

Yes. Will you come back and do rewatchables? What's that? We do a podcast where we break down a movie. Yeah, sure. You're here. You would like it. Sure. You'd be good at it. Sure. There's so many good ones. We'll let you pick the movie. rewatchables what's that we do a podcast where we break down a movie yeah sure you're here

you would like it sure you'd be good at it sure there's so many good ones we'll let you pick the movie that'll come in alright

this is good luck with your movie when's it premiere it comes out November 1st and I can tell you this is not a line there's like

there's like very little else on that weekend that an adult human being will enjoy more than this movie great I certify it good luck thank you thanks to ZipRecruiter don't forget to go to very little else on that weekend that an adult human being will enjoy more than this movie. Great.

I certify it. Good luck. Thank you. Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. Thanks to Vudu, a leading streaming app in the library of over 150,000 titles available to rent or buy and over 10,000 titles you can watch for free on their ad

supported on-demand service, including a couple of movies that we've done on the rewatchables like Con Air. We've done that one. I can't remember if we've done He Got Game. God, now I'm going to have to watch He Got Game again. I don't think we've done He Got Game yet. That is coming in 2020. I promise you. Head to voodoo.com slash Bill Simmons to sign up and start watching today. Ali Crimson Tide. Crimson Tide is another one we're going to be doing. V-U-D-U.com slash Bill Simmons to sign up and start watching today. Ali Crimson Tide. That's another Crimson Tide is another one we're going to be doing. V-U-D-U.com slash Bill Simmons.

Back on Thursday with one more podcast. And pretty soon we're going to have an announcement of another thing I have been brewing and hatching for the last few months. Yeah. Stay tuned. Talk to you soon on the wayside