The Tim Ferriss Show - #279: The Most Curious Man in Hollywood — Brian Grazer

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Starting point is 00:03:09 Tim Ferriss Show. I'm sitting in a freezing cold house with an overdose of oolong tea and the unnamed crazy Bulgarian who's back to his antics to help me with book launch. Samulevsky. I have no idea what that means, but he's fun to have around, like mini-me. All right, the next episode that you are going to listen to was recorded live in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, in front of a sold-out audience of around 2,000 people at Summit LA17. You can check out what Summit's all about at summit.co. And you can

Starting point is 00:03:47 find links to everything, all the show notes, all the good stuff from this conversation, which is freaking hilarious. It's quite a roller coaster with Brian Grazer at tim.blog forward slash podcast. So you can find all the links, all the goodies, favorite books, all this stuff from every episode at tim.blog forward slash podcast. And if you haven't checked it out, take a look at the latest crazy project that is launching right now. Uh, tribe of mentors.com. That is my new tome tribe of mentors.com. And you can see sample chapters, the full list of mentors from every possible discipline you can imagine. You're always asking, how do I find a mentor?

Starting point is 00:04:29 If I'm the average of the five people I associate with most, how do I learn from them? This is how. Tribeofmentors.com. Take a look. So, without further ado, as I like to say before I talk even more, please enjoy this conversation with the incredible, the entertaining, and ever so effective, Brian Grazer. How's everybody doing today? It's all downhill after that intro, I'm afraid.

Starting point is 00:05:01 Yeah, the secret to happiness is low expectations, at least for me. And our guest today is the real draw, and I'm so excited to be speaking with him. But before we get to that, let's just roll a little sizzle reel that we have to whet your appetite. So, AB guys, if you could roll the reel. Houston, we have a problem. Fine, Professor London. I'll give you somebody. There's nobody.

Starting point is 00:05:32 Go! I'm gonna turn around with a great smile and walk my white ass back across eight miles. Turn on the alarm and I'll blow your head off. Stop screwing with me! Woo! Might make your head blow off. Was it good for you? I've had better.

Starting point is 00:05:53 Awesome. Mission Control, we're looking at a red planet. I mean, this stuff has been really wild. May I have your autograph, sir? I want to be a scientist just like you. Muga Muga! Have you decided to accept that? You are seriously fly, son. Don't forget to thank me, baby.

Starting point is 00:06:17 Don't forget to thank your cookie. What power? This power! Whose power? Our power! We are in the middle of a war, one that's been going on forever. What are you talking about? You asked what would be worth killing for.

Starting point is 00:06:34 Witness the biggest cover-up in human history. You can't get involved in these people's problems. I don't think they're gonna make it if they're not together. To help arm our agents so that they have a fighting chance against the submachine guns are some of the most dangerous characters in the history of American criminality. Stop saying that! You're not my son! It's a bigger idea than just the concert.

Starting point is 00:07:07 We all have the same struggles. Ladies and gentlemen, here are the Beatles! Thank you so much for believing in my weirdness. Clear eyes, full hearts. Get out! How big is the universe? Infinite. How do you know for sure?

Starting point is 00:07:36 I don't, I just believe. It's the same with love, I guess. Gentlemen, it's been a privilege flying with you. I'm saying that when the president does it, that means it's not illegal. So as some of you know, I'm just a professional dilettante who gets to sometimes interview people who are world-class at what they do, and this is certainly the case. Quick housekeeping question for people backstage. Clock says 55 minutes. I could spend that much on one movie.

Starting point is 00:08:25 I assume I have 90 minutes, head nod or no? Do we have clarity? Yes? Okay, great. So let me do a little read. This is a rare, rarely cited live edition of the Tim Ferriss Show, so thank you for coming. So who is our guest today?

Starting point is 00:08:44 Brian Grazer, as you know, is an Academy Award and Emmy Award winning producer whose films and television shows have been nominated for 43 Oscars and 187 Emmys. Just let that sink in for a second. There are people whose careers are defined by being Emmy nominated one time. All right. 187. His movies include A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, American Gangster, 8 Mile, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood and Splash. His television shows include most recently Genius, about Albert Einstein, Empire 24 and Arrested Development. Grazer has been named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world and

Starting point is 00:09:17 his book A Curious Mind, subtitle The Secret to a Bigger Life, is a New York Times best seller. Please welcome to the stage Brian Grazer. . Okay. Here we are. And here we are. And we're using two sets of mics because, as some of you may know, two is one and one is none. Always have a backup.

Starting point is 00:09:51 So I thought there's so many hundreds of ways we could start this, but I'm going to go and use a tried and true playbook. The way that I think all good interviews start is by talking about 4'10 Jewish women. So could you please tell us about your grandmother? Okay, grandmother. I had a pretty normal family, or actually it looked like it was normal. But I did have, in the entire family, I had one person that was a champion of me, that was a believer. And that was my grandma, Grandma Sonia, who I dedicated my book to and should be dedicating everything to.

Starting point is 00:10:33 And you really just need one believer. She was a tiny, little, feisty renegade named Sonia. She was about 4'10". And she would watch me. I'd see her every week. And as an elementary school student, she'd tell me I was going to be special. I am special. And she meant it in the best sense. And I would be looking at my report card, and it was all Fs. Everything was an F. And there was a point where I kind of thought, there is really no empirical data that supports that I'm going to be special. But nothing defied her. Nothing

Starting point is 00:11:13 could wear her down. I just, and so, and she was there also an early supporter of me asking questions and using curiosity as a force or an engine to understand things because, and we spoke for only a minute, because I was struck with dyslexia, and, but it wasn't thought of as dyslexia then, it was just, I was just embarrassed too, that I couldn't answer questions and read books, and you sort of duck and hide.

Starting point is 00:11:41 So the dyslexia, I mean, you're clearly very smart and very curious, and we're going to spend a lot of time on curiosity, but I'd like to, before we get to Brian Grazer in quotation marks, to talk about Brian Grazer, the younger, not to be confused with the Roman of the same name, but it's easy to look at people, say, on one of these stages and assume that they're superheroes who have just been hitting home runs with every at-bat. I want to talk about specifically, and I actually don't know the full story, but could you tell us about your experience being cut from the football team?

Starting point is 00:12:18 Oh, okay. So first of all, I'm from Los Angeles. I'm from San Fernando Valley, the flat part, the, um, really? Okay. So good. Yeah. Um, so, uh, I went to Chatsworth high school, Nobel junior high. Come on. Really? All right. So, all right. So I'm at,, first of all, I was a very feisty kid, and I was very resourceful, and had a lot of energy, and could keep up in sports with all of my friends in elementary school and junior high. When we transitioned into high school, all my friends became 6'4". And as you saw, my license says 5'8", I'm not sure. So, in any event, but I thought I could play football. And so, I went out for football, did Hell Week, which is like what it sounds like,

Starting point is 00:13:17 Hell Week. And I got through it and the coaches said, okay, everybody in an auditorium. So there was about 300 kids all in an auditorium, and they were to state that the job was your status, your name, and your status. So it would be Perry Schellmeyer, tailback, Richard Cox, I'm giving the real names, quarterback, Brian Grazer, tailback, incorrect Cox, I'm giving you the real names, quarterback, Brian Grazer, tailback, incorrect. Everything stopped. And he said, after he said incorrect, Coach Ogawa said, cut. So I got cut from high school football in front of about 300 kids. And it was pretty, it was, look, it was momentarily, or maybe a little longer than that, traumatizing.

Starting point is 00:14:07 Because before I had to give my name and status, I was a human being. And once I did that, I was no longer a human being. And certainly in that room. And it stuck with me. And that's, but it stuck with me and I retained the memory of those 10 seconds and if you want me to go it gave life to when I read a book it was called Friday Night Lights and there's a lot of way everything is about all content I think involves a unique perspective. And so my perspective on this book was, sure, it's about

Starting point is 00:14:48 a small town in Odessa, Texas, and sure, it's about what small town living is like, and it is about high school football, but it's also about the fragility of what it's like to grow up as a young boy, 15, 16, 17 years old. And that a single moment, like the one I just had, can be absolutely seismic in somebody's life and can completely redirect where you thought you were going. So that was my connective tissue to this book called Friday Night Lights. And then I grabbed a hold of it and I eventually, I have a short story, I ended up making it into a movie, but wasn't that simple, of course. And then I ended up turning it into the TV series that you guys probably know, Friday Night Lights. Did you share that story of getting cut with people in your family or your close friends?

Starting point is 00:15:42 Did any of them, was any person in your life able to help you repair that, or was that something that you did on your own? Well, that's a shame issue. So I probably didn't share it. No one's actually asked me that question on stage. I didn't really share that. I shared it once I made this movie, and I was proud of the movie, but I didn't share it at the time, no.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Were there any role models or coaches or teachers who acted as a counterweight to that, who perhaps helped you or particularly inspired you? Oh, I had a coach, Wiley. Coach Wiley was a football coach and kind of tough, but he was also the swim coach. And I had this accident experience of being incredibly good as a hundred butterfly swimmer. And it was the oddest thing because I felt so badly about myself because of the football that I went into track and I did gymnastics, but that wasn't very satisfying. I thought, well, I'll try something else. It's also a way to duck out of first period.

Starting point is 00:16:50 So I went, took swimming. I went out for swimming and the worst, absolutely. So we had a pre-meet of Los Angeles city meet. There's about 60 schools in Los Angeles City. And they go, he goes, Grazer, lane eight. But I've never really swam the butterfly. I just kind of held the side of the thing, and I swam a little bit like that, freestyle. And he goes, lane eight, butterfly. You're like, okay. I kind of become alert, and I get in lane eight. And lane eight, by the way, let me tell you, is the worst lane because you're getting all the flow over and everything else, and you're kind of bobbing as you're swimming. And I'm swimming this butterfly that I hadn't really swam,

Starting point is 00:17:39 and I hit the side of the end of the pool, and I thought everybody was out of the pool. And Wiley's there with a clock, and he goes, you just broke the city record. And I'm going, oh, that's amazing. And I looked, and everyone was behind me, and he became my hero. Because he then championed me. My grandfather could relay it off to Coach Wiley. Now, if... I'm just imagining, like, the mutant-like shoulder mobility

Starting point is 00:18:11 that somehow granted you this gift, but I'm not going to dwell on that. So my understanding, based on my homework, is that you dropped out of college, or that you dropped out of school and that a teacher recommended that you do that. Is that accurate or am I reading the wrong vandalized page on the internet somewhere?

Starting point is 00:18:33 Well, it's in there somewhere, but it's more that as a freshman in college, there was a speech, oh boy, this really actually parallels what's going on right now. There's a metric involved. Actually, I was in speech class, and there was about 125 kids in this freshman speech class. Is this speech meaning public speaking class? Public speaking. It's public speaking class. And it was a Mr. French. Sounds like a television name.

Starting point is 00:18:59 In any event, so Mr. French says, why don't you stay behind? So I stay behind. He puts his arm around me. I remember exactly what he looked like. And he said, I want to make a recommendation. My recommendation is that you discontinue going to college. I've been watching you. You've been in the class. I really think that this is kind of a, you know, like not futile,

Starting point is 00:19:23 but a little bit of a waste of time for everybody. And I thought about it. I thought, wow, what is this guy? This is horrible. So, I didn't quit college. I did stay in college, but he was really pretty emphatic about going to an occupational school, which he recommended. What was the occupational school? Oh, it was, it's on Woodman Avenue, but it was like you're working with your hands. Anything to do with, it was like working with your hands. What effect?

Starting point is 00:19:53 Like he would know. Yeah, what effect did that have on you? That transition to an occupational school? I powered through, somehow got through that class. I got like a C or something. And I did stay in college. I graduated USC. I did pretty well, actually, because I somehow found a system in the last two years, had a test, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:17 just a system of being able to synthesize and then literally integrate it into my system right before I went to sleep at night. So I was able to assimilate it and actually perform. So it wasn't fully just memorized, it was assimilated. What was your system? Well, the system was really, I would just continue to, I'd aggregate what was going on in the class.

Starting point is 00:20:41 By writing it down? Sorry? By writing it down. By writing it down and reading books and yellow penning stuff and then I would just continue. I was always editing the system almost like a movie as I was propelling myself through the class. And when it came to any big test, I was at a point where I had synthesized it to something

Starting point is 00:21:04 I could really look at in less than an hour before I went to bed. And I wasn't really, I mean, now I would say it was a way, it did enter your subconsciousness, and I was able to really do, I really did well. But then I did discontinue going to law school. I think that's what you... Right, got it. Yeah. Why did you discontinue going to law school? I thought there'd what you... Right. Got it. Yeah. Why did you discontinue

Starting point is 00:21:25 going to law school? I thought there'd be no way I could pass those tests. Why did you go to law school? Well, I didn't really know what to do. So, when you graduate college, you kind of don't know what to do. I mean, well, you guys probably... I still don't know what to do. You guys clearly know what to do. You're here. But I didn't know what to do. So I thought, well, you know, one of these, I'll go to law school. And so, but okay. So what happened is I thought, okay, I thought, okay, I get into law school. And then I over, I'm living in an apartment complex in Santa Monica. And I overhear these three guys that are all grad, just had graduated law school. And one of them says, yeah, man, I just left the cushiest job.

Starting point is 00:22:12 And I'm thinking, wow, what an interesting word, cushy job. It must mean really easy. So I literally opened up the screen, the window, and closed the drape so I could really listen in. And he says, yeah, it was so easy, man. We got, it was a $5 an hour job and they gave us a company car. I got a company car and it was at Warner Brothers in the legal department. And they said, he said his name, Peter Connect. But I literally, when they walked away, I just, I got the number 843-6000, just dialed 411. And I called and said, I understand you might be looking for a law clerk, and I'm preparing myself to go to law school, and I'd love to come in and meet.

Starting point is 00:22:52 And I got the job that day. So then, that leads to a lot of other stuff. So basically then, I now have the job as the law clerk. And literally, it is the job as the law clerk. And literally it is the crappiest little job. It's the crappiest little job in the tiniest little office with no windows. I mean, it's literally had to be, it was like a prison cell. But I was in there.

Starting point is 00:23:23 And every once in a while they'd say, you've got to deliver papers to, they'd name famous people or powerful people. The woman named Sue Mingers that was the head of ICM, International Creative Management, and the most important agent in the world. You've got to deliver these papers. And so pretty early on, I had to deliver some papers to Warren Beatty. And Warren Beatty was a giant movie star, and he's living at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel

Starting point is 00:23:44 and had like a penthouse, a giant penthouse area. And an assistant to an assistant comes downstairs to say, like, hand me the papers, kid. You know, like that kind of a thing. And I say, I think, why don't I say they're not valid unless I get them to Mr. Beatty, my hand to his hand? So, I try that out and it kind of works. And another assistant comes down, like, we're having trouble with this kid down here, you know, like, he says you have to hand it.

Starting point is 00:24:20 So his number one personal assistant comes down and I said, look, I'm just telling you straight up, these papers are invalid unless I hand them directly to Mr. Beatty. So, they go, okay. And so, I go upstairs, and I, now it's like, I see this Adamus, you know, Warren Beatty. And I literally, I go, hand him the papers, and I create a conversation right away. And I just, by by accident into like expanding that conversation into like an hour of talking. And the guide really dug me and I'm thinking, this is amazing. I can do this every time. So I start doing it every time and I get, every person I get to go see, the author of The Exorcist, I literally, I had to drive it out to Malibu, and before you knew it, I got through the butler,

Starting point is 00:25:12 and I'm sipping espressos on the porch over the ocean. I'm only 22, but I'm really learning a lot. I'm feeling like, wow, this is a great sort of learning tool also. I mean, I'm also using the Warner Brothers assets to advantage me. But I wasn't really hurting anybody. I wasn't stealing. And so that's sort of the beginning of it. And then I discontinued going to law school. And I convinced my boss, can I stay there for one more year? I'm pushing law school a year.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Right. But so I'll end this very quickly. So then what happened is. No, you don't have to end quickly. I think this is fine. So I realized that I could actually use my, oh, so then what happens is, sorry. So then I see that somebody,

Starting point is 00:26:01 a senior vice president of business affairs, got fired. And he had this giant office, and it was vacant. And I say to my boss, Peter Connect, who started with Jack Warner in the day, who leaves like at lunch, I say, do you think I could have that office? And he goes, sure, no problem. So I now have an office bigger than my boss's. And it's so far away from my boss, he doesn't even notice me, really.

Starting point is 00:26:29 And then, but I'm right outside the cadre of decision makers. The chairman of the board, Ted Ashley, the vice chairman of the board was John Kelly and then Frank Wells. Okay, so then they would go, hey, you know, like, you seem like a good kid. Why don't you sit on my couch and watch me work? And I thought, wow, this is great. I'm really learning a lot watching them work. Hold on, hold on. I wasn't going to interrupt, but I have to hit pause. I've never had that happen to me. How did it come to pass that they said, hey, kid, you seem like I would enjoy having you sit on my couch watching me work?

Starting point is 00:27:11 Well, I was a very… Maybe I'm the only one wondering that, but just in case. I did have this tool that I didn't really imagine could be the superpower of curiosity, but I had this sort of bridge where I could ask questions. There was a huge circular driveway where the big shots could park, and I would find my way to sort of be down there when they were parking their car, and I'd say, hey, and they'd say, walk on up, come on up with me.

Starting point is 00:27:34 And one of them took a real liking to me, and his office had no desk. It was just like, I was so admired of the office. It had no desk. It had like a big like swordfish that he caught and boats and stuff. And I'm thinking, wow, this is the life. This seems like the right business. But then what I did, I had two union secretaries, and I can do this quickly. I had two union secretaries. You don't have to do it quickly. I had two union secretaries that they wouldn't fire.

Starting point is 00:28:03 And they were really strict because they didn't like that I was using the office for me, to benefit of me. And so they were, like, getting really mad at me, and they got my parking revoked and stuff like that. And there got to be a point, well, I started to use the office every single day for a year. I met a new person that was getting something done in the entertainment business from every, every chairman of every studio, from Mel Brooks to Richard Brooks. I mean, stars. And I would just, I would call up, I know the speech so well. Hi, my name is Brian Grazer. I work at Warner Brothers Pictures. This is not associated with studio business, but I'd like to meet your boss for the following reasons.

Starting point is 00:28:51 And I'd be like three or four tiers down. I'm saying this to, you know, like, you know, to one assistant, to another assistant, and I could wear everybody down eventually. And then my assistant said, we're sort of sick of you. We're getting you fired. I said, okay, hold on. Before you fire me, I will give you half of my salary if you don't get me fired. So, they took half my salary. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So, just a few details so I can fill in the gaps. Apologize to the audience. I'm from Long Island. My brain doesn't move very

Starting point is 00:29:25 quickly. So, all right, where to begin? First, what would some example reasons be? I want to meet your boss for the following reasons. What types of reasons would you cite? Okay. Okay. That's a real question. Okay. Sorry. I like to lead with my terrible fake questions to warm you up for the real questions. Okay. Well, what I did learn to do on the series, I did learn to prepare. So it wasn't just like fly by the seat of my pants. I really, really prepared.

Starting point is 00:29:56 So first of all, by being in that office, I would read the trades and I decoded the language of entertainment. Because the language of show business is like, it looks like, hey, let's go to a party and hang out. There's a lot more than let's go to a party and hang out. And so I was able to, like, fly my little Cessna through this fog and find my way to understand beneath the language, I started to understand the mechanics of how it worked. And how to actually, where the leverage was. So the leverage could be the studio, because they have money, or it could be creative leverage, because a director was expert at something, or it could be that you just had IP, or it could be that you

Starting point is 00:30:39 create IP. So I was able to understand the system of leverage. And so I was able to say to somebody, I've researched your boss. I'd love to meet him for the following reason. And the following reason, like Robert Evans, it would be real reasons. Like I saw the Godfather, and I can't believe that he could be, was involved in the creation of that, plus love story. They're so diverse. I mean, literally stuff like that. So I was good at it. But there was a little bullshit in it too, but I was good at it. And then I had this moment with Lou Wasserman. Yes.

Starting point is 00:31:18 So basically, Lou Wasserman was the king of the entire movie business. He was the patriarch of it all. And he ran Universal, the Universal movie and television company. And I'm thinking, wow, would I like to meet Lou Wasserman. He is the man. I'm going to meet him. And he was sort of like the elderly statesman, and he was friends with Henry Kissinger. I mean, he had it all. He was a man for all seasons. And so, I target a lot of his assistants, and I eventually met Melody, his number one assistant in the parking lot way out on the lot, and I said, oh, come on, please.

Starting point is 00:31:50 I begged her anyway. And she said, okay. So then what happens is I'm in the elevator going up to now meet Lou Wasserman. Press it up. I get into the elevator. Now I'm on the 14th floor. I get out. He's got his hands in the air like this, like, don't go any further. So, he wasn't like any other normal guy I was

Starting point is 00:32:12 meeting. He stopped me before I could get into his office, kind of like that look of like, you're just bullshitting me. And I started sort of, it was a look like I didn't, I couldn't say much. I was sort of frozen. And he said, wait one minute. And he goes into his office and he comes back with a pencil and a legal tablet. And he said, you put the pencil to the paper and it has greater value than it did as separate parts. Get out of here. So, I take the pencil and paper and I'm now escorted to the elevator and I thought, what is he saying? What's going on here? And I realized what he's saying is like, you've got to do better than this. You better start writing ideas, even if they're little ideas that you can

Starting point is 00:32:58 breathe life into or that have some, have value. And so that was the beginning of like being substantial. Did he say that because he saw in a letter some inkling of wanting to create your own movies? Or was there something else that led him to make that recommendation? Or was it just a general lack of substance that he saw and therefore he said, hey kid, I love the bluster. I think he kind of, he might have liked me a little bit, a little tiny bit, but mostly he just felt like, let me give him some advice and get him out of here.

Starting point is 00:33:33 Some real advice. So, I'm going to back up just a second to the half a salary thing. Yeah. So, in that case, you're offering half your salary to an assistant who helped X, Y, or Z powerful or well-known person to prevent you from getting fired? Yeah. There were two unions. One's a paralegal and one was a secretary that were there from the previous boss.

Starting point is 00:33:55 This is on your lot or near your office? On the Warner Brothers lot. I see. Got it. Yeah, sorry. On the Warner Brothers lot. And those two secretaries were there in the office of the executive that I then inhabited his office.

Starting point is 00:34:09 I see. Sorry. No, no, that makes more sense. And so they were kind of going, hey, you're like a scammer, cut it out. And they got my parking stripped away, so I had to park the copper penny across the street and just a bunch of stuff like that. So the art and craft of getting these meetings is something I want to talk about. And you're very well known for these curiosity conversations, but do you recall how you struck

Starting point is 00:34:36 up a conversation with Warren Beatty? With who? With Warren, early on. With Warren Beatty. Yeah, because early on, everyone I would imagine during that period of time is trying to do exactly the same thing. So do you recall at all the approach or what you said that opened the door? Well, I have a system now that Deeds Comes to Town, I believe. And I should know this.

Starting point is 00:35:13 But you ask good questions. That's why you've got a lot of problems. I do. I think you've checked the good factual recall box. We're not even going to go there. So I said, will you explain to me, like, how Mr. Deeds comes to town is going to become a heaven can wait and kind of a fantasy? Like, what is that going to be?

Starting point is 00:35:28 Because that's where the papers were, Mr. Deeds. It was being, it was, they were all interlinked. And so I started off like that. So I had a prop. Props are very, very, very important. And you've refined it since. Yeah. But I do want to talk about the early days,

Starting point is 00:35:46 and then we're going to get to the current model of Lamborghini version of this. But my understanding, and it could be also a misunderstanding, is that there was one line in particular that you used quite a bit that caught my attention at least. And it was along the lines of, I absolutely don't want a job, but could I please meet your boss? So the I absolutely don't want a job, were there any other keys, if that is actually accurate?

Starting point is 00:36:17 Yes, it's accurate. I would say to, and I still say, there's not going to be an ask. I just want to have a one-on-one conversation. It can be a very short conversation. It's up to you. It's up to your boss, whoever I'm speaking to. But there'll be, you know, essentially, your boss is not going to be uncomfortable. I'm not going to ask for anything. I'm not going to position him. I'm not going to ask him one of those really hard questions, Barbara Walters questions. I'm not going to do any of that. So basically, everybody's going to be safe here.

Starting point is 00:36:53 That was the premise. And how did you select, because it seems like your curiosity conversations began with industry insiders, but expanded. When did it start expanding to people in the sciences and in all different fields? Yes.

Starting point is 00:37:12 So for the year and a half, it was just completely in the population of entertainment. So move big, you know, people are getting something done principles that we're getting something done in movies or television. Then I got fired, clearly. I'm going to get fired from that job, right?

Starting point is 00:37:32 From the Warner Brothers job. They finally fired me. Sam Pasquin finally fired me. What was the grievous offense? It was the HR. What? What was the camel that broke the camel's back? Did I say the camel that broke the camel's back? Yeah, yeah. No, I know what you mean. That's actually very easy to do. The straw that broke the camel's back? Did I say the camel that broke the camel's back?

Starting point is 00:37:45 Yeah, I know what you mean. That's actually very easy to do. The straw that broke the camel's back. Well, I was doing these curiosity conversations, and I was demanding to meet all those famous people. But the straw was I started to have, I started, I created tremendous access with myself and their story department. The story department had all the early submissions of any script or manuscript that could possibly be sold or bidded upon or was owned by Warner Brothers.

Starting point is 00:38:22 And so I was like crawling under the tent and getting all that information. And to be really honest, I think I actually might have tried to kind of create a fake bid on something. And they just got so annoyed with it all. You know, it was like that lecture of, you know, we could file a lawsuit against you, but you're too young, so just get out of here, a version of that.

Starting point is 00:38:51 So you were fired, and I was asked to be. But I wasn't broken down because I was fired, but I thought, wow, I am really smart, though. I thought I was so smart. I thought I was really cunning, really resourceful, and I had researched a lot now, and I've met a lot of people, and I started to understand their process, their system of how they would accomplish something, or just to keep it simple. And I thought, wow, I'm so smart. I should go from that fired law clerk to being like running a movie company, you know? It's absurd.

Starting point is 00:39:28 But I did think, so I thought, I'm going to just jump from that guy that's 23 to like, I should run somebody's movie company. Well, I found that that didn't work at all. So I then started getting unemployment checks. And that really seals the deal where you know it's not working. Because you're getting an unemployment check. And then I thought, you know what, I'll give myself a little more time and try to pull this thing off. Just jump the ship.

Starting point is 00:40:00 And so I couldn't. It didn't work. It didn't work. So I thought, you know what, I'm just going to take a really crummy job. I'm going to take a job like as the lowest assistant and be happy with it, like be present in the process of the lowest job, which was kind of an epiphany. But I, well, it was an epiphany, but it was also reality. So now I'm in the very lowest job working for somebody.

Starting point is 00:40:29 His name was Edgar J. Sherrick. Edgar J. Sherrick was Harvard, and he was really smart, and he created the wild world of sports and ran ABC programming, and now has left and had this giant deal at Warner, coincidentally at Warner Brothers Television. But he also had money to bring to it and everything else. I take a job working for Edgar J. Sherrick. As did another, a very esteemed producer, exactly at my level, named Scott Rudin.

Starting point is 00:40:58 Who I really respect. He's a tremendous taste. We both were baby assistants that called ourselves lieutenants. And then he was on the East Coast. I was on the West Coast. This boss, and rest in peace, it's totally cool. He was either yelling his lungs out at you or giving you opportunity. So literally, he was very happy to scream at you and yell at you, and he could only be happier if other people were there to watch it. So, and he did that to Rudin and I, but he would give you opportunity. So all those little stories

Starting point is 00:41:39 I wrote, a few of them I was able to like sell working for this bigger guy. And so I sold two of them, and they became movies for television when I was about 25. One was called Zuma Beach. It was just super attractive people, day in the life of the beach. But I would sort of say it's like American graffiti at the beach, you know, like give it a little dignity. And then I thought I can really be highbrow, and I think I'll do, and I did, I sold a 20-hour miniseries on the Ten Commandments, where each commandment was used as an underlying theme in a contemporary moral dilemma. And so I produced the Zuma Beach one. My boss was really embarrassed

Starting point is 00:42:21 because he was Edgar J. Sherrick. But then when it got good ratings, it was like everything's fine. You know, like it was good. And then I started doing the Ten Commandments, and that was good. But he kept yelling at me, and it was really abusive. And I started getting a lot of job offers, like amazing opportunities. And so I say to him, hey, you think you'd give me a raise? No chance. So then I took a job, another, I mean, a better, much better thing.

Starting point is 00:42:47 Were we on that subject? I think we're on all the subjects. Okay, okay. Oh, and so from that point, sorry. I know what we're talking about. We're talking about transitioning into more. Broader curiosity. Yeah, so once things started to gel and I wrote Splash, which became a movie, you know, a real-life movie that starred Tom Hanks and a mermaid and all that.

Starting point is 00:43:13 Then I started to say, I said to myself, there will be, there will never be two weeks that I don't, that I'm going to pledge myself. I'm going to create a discipline that every two weeks I will meet someone that is expert or renowned or committed to something that is unrelated to entertainment. So science, medicine, politics, religion, technology, all art forms. And that's what I've done still to this day and without fail ever. And sometimes more than one person every two weeks, but always once every two weeks.

Starting point is 00:43:50 How old were you roughly when you made that commitment to yourself? Well, that exact commitment came at about 27. 27. Yeah. And when did Ron Howard enter the picture? How did Ron Howard come into the picture? Ron Howard, okay. So Ron Howard came before Night Shift and Splash,

Starting point is 00:44:10 although I'd written the story for Night Shift and the script for Splash, but I couldn't get them to, I couldn't get them made. But I still had this very big, I had this big deal at Paramount because Michael Eisner and Barry Diller spotted me and they said that guy that this guy won't give a raise to will totally pay this guy. He's like an idea machine. And so, and so then I got this job and then that was a time where I wanted to meet people. It's still

Starting point is 00:44:40 in the business a little bit. And I looked at Ron Howard. He was walking, he was still on happy days. I actually yelled out the window because I I had a window in this really good building. You know, Ron, Ron Howard. And like, I scared him, because he's shy. And now he's scared, but I call his office, and I speak to his still now assistant, Louisa, and I go, come on, like, da-da-da-da, and I tell you the whole story. Now I'm on the lot, he's on the lot, blah-blah-blah. And so then I get to meet Ron Howard. Ron Howard literally, it was the craziest thing, he hadn't directed, of course, a big mainstream movie, but he comes into my office, and I felt like it was, it was like he had

Starting point is 00:45:19 an aura of goodness about him. And I thought, wow, do I need goodness? And so this will really be something I need to ground myself as goodness. And I don't care if he hasn't directed, I'll get him to direct, you know, like I'll figure it out. And I also wanted to be a mainstream movie producer because I was produced, I produced television but not a theatrical film. And then I go, I'll back you, man. I mean, I didn't say man.

Starting point is 00:45:52 That would have scared him too. But anyway, so that's how that happened. And then the first movie he wanted to make was Night Shift because Night Shift was an R-rated comedy that involved nudity and kind of, you know, was irreverent, and he was just coming off Happy Days, and of course, Andy and Mayberry, and he wanted to go, I don't want to be that clean-cut guy anymore. I still might be that guy, but I don't want to be looked at as that guy. I'm doing the irreverent nude one with nude girls, and I'm not going to do that one. And so, we got Night Shift made.

Starting point is 00:46:21 It wasn't a hit, but it was really solid, And then I was able to convince him to do Splash, and that became a really big success for us. Man. Okay. Yeah. Let's take an applause break. This is my game to lose here at this point. No, I was like, don't fuck it up, Ferris.

Starting point is 00:46:43 All right. Pause. Breathe. One with Yoda. up, Ferris. All right. Pause. Breathe. One with Yoda. You're doing great. All right. Thank you. What advice would you give to people?

Starting point is 00:46:53 Would you recommend that everyone in this room try to have their own versions of curiosity conversations? And if so, what advice would you give them? How can they cultivate that curiosity and broader awareness and knowledge of the world? Okay, a couple thoughts. One is, I bet everybody in this audience is curious, because I know the Summit Group, and you guys have gone out of your way to come here for the weekend, and so I'm assuming that you guys are curious. I mean, the way to maybe further refine it or to use it the way I did, of course I'd recommend it because you gain, you get the value of a different perspective

Starting point is 00:47:34 that is outside of the definition of what you thought you were going to experience. So whatever, whether it's an architect, you think you know what an architect is, or I thought I knew what an architect was, I was wrong. I met Rem Koolhaas, and the first thing he said whether it's an architect, you think you know what an architect is, or I thought I knew what an architect was, I was wrong. I met Rem Koolhaas, and the first thing he said is, architecture is like a living organism. I would have never guessed that he'd think of architecture on its base level as a living organism. And I can go through every one of my conversations where I was completely surprised and it either shattered a prejudice or expanded a preconception. And so, absolutely do it. And what does it? It sort of reaches right

Starting point is 00:48:18 into the soul of humanity, which I think is something, an access point for all of us, I'm sure. Because at the very minimally, you're being really polite. You know, you're asking somebody genuinely with eye contact and caring. You're asking them, what are you doing or how do you feel? You're getting into something that's kind of real. And the minute you're into some real place, it becomes a really powerful, self-perpetuating force that leads to many other questions that are really edifying. So I definitely think that you should do it. And the other thing I would, I mean, I'd add to support it is you do have to do homework.

Starting point is 00:48:54 It takes a lot of case building and preparation so that you're a good date. My pledge was always I'm going to be a great date. You know, like, you know, the best date you ever had with a guy or a girl, whatever it is, I'm going to be better than that with this one-on-one conversation. I'm going to keep it so they leave feeling like, wow, I got something out of it too. It has to be win-win, and it can always be win-win. And these conversations, oddly enough, each conversation was like each individual lived inside of a, was like a dot living inside of a greater constellation of dots.

Starting point is 00:49:30 And I just always had faith that they may connect someday. And I found that many of them do connect and form perspectives that are additive in storytelling. And then storytelling is like a startup. Every one of these movies I've made was nurtured from zero and is kind of a startup. So it all kind of works together. For people who are excited to actually give this a shot, and they sit down, they find an assistance or publicist's contact information on IMDb Pro or wherever they happen to be searching, just in the case of entertainment, do you have any advice for crafting, say, the email? What are some do's or do nots or specific lines that you found very helpful? Well, you have to start with an insight about the person that's not dull, not generic. If you're generic, I teach the graduating class at USC.

Starting point is 00:50:46 So after six years, there's one final class, and it's now called Starting at Zero. And I'm going to do one session that's if you get the chance to have 30-second contact in a restaurant or a football, basketball game, and you see that person you want to meet, how to not blow it. And generic questions always blow it. The other thing that always blows it is to ask for information that you could get yourself. So anything you can search, you don't want to ask. You never want to ask in a conversation if you see somebody, how do I reach you? It's the worst thing, because you figure out how to reach them. They don't want to stand there while you type out their email. They just don't want to do that. Now, in the email, I think it's, once again, you have to say, you have to connect your interest

Starting point is 00:51:39 and their interest, and then have an insight that lands in the middle. And you're going to say, give me an example. It's really hard. You know me too well. All right. What are other ways to blow it then? Are there other ways to blow it that you see a lot? Or now that you're in a position where you're getting pitched, people want to have conversations and meetings with you. Okay.

Starting point is 00:52:03 Okay. I'll accept that. So I will, sometimes I'll give a speech or I'll have a conversation and people go, no, I don't want to say it that way. Let me say it to you. I will say no. I mean, I've learned to say no. I don't like to say no because I'm a pleaser, but I've learned to say no because often people just want to know the shortcut. They might disguise the shortcut question, but they want the shortcut. Like, hey, how do you be a producer?

Starting point is 00:52:36 Like, I hate that question. Like, I so, I mean, I don't wanna say hate in this crowd, but, or, you know, there are things that just are uncomfortable for me, I don't want to say hate in this crowd, but... Or, you know, there are things that just are uncomfortable for me, like, hey, there's no harm in asking. Well, there is a harm in asking. But I think if you have an insight, you see the movie Dunkirk, and you get a chance to meet the director for a second, you don't want to say, how did you make Dunkirk? You know, you want to say, the best thing is if you

Starting point is 00:53:11 saw it. You can't pretend you saw it if you didn't. And then you have to say the unique trait about Dunkirk, like the multiple perspectives of the characters that made it such a subjective experience or, I mean, I can just invent stuff, but I mean, right now, but I don't want to perspectives of the characters that made it a subjective experience. I mean, I can just invent stuff right now, but I don't want to waste everybody's time. But you have to, the question was what? The question was other ways that people blow it, whether they're pitching you or pitching other people. But I think in tandem, we can come back to that. Well, I have a son who's just turning 18 years old

Starting point is 00:53:46 and I don't want him to blow it. So the other day, he was thinking a couple months ago to go, he really wanted to go to Tulane. There's a bunch of schools that are on the list but he's thinking Tulane. So now I'm at Aspen Ideas Festival and we see Walter Isaacson who I did the Albert Einstein series with.

Starting point is 00:54:08 And I go, oh my God, you're going to meet Walter Isaacson's Thomas. And not only is he this guy, but he is the key to Tulane. So he meets Walter Isaacson just before we go on stage, and he's talking. He goes, my name is Todd. He's a great kid, amazing kid. He says, hey, and they say hello, and then I look away because I think things are going well. He's looking on his iPhone. Well, Walter Isaacson's right there. That's not a good move, I don't think. You can't be on your iPhone while you're trying to have great connectivity. That just doesn't work. So I say to him, you're going to probably meet him again.

Starting point is 00:54:50 And sure enough, he did. I said, you in your pocket have to have three things you could say. I don't care if you talk about Gucci Mane. He's going to go, who's Gucci Mane? You're going to go, like, he's trap. And he's going to go, what's trap? And then you're going to say it. It's mumble. to go, like, he's trap. And he's going to go, what's trap? And then you're going to say it.

Starting point is 00:55:06 It's mumble. What's mumble? It's trap. You know, like, so you have to have something to say. Or sporting, you know, like, you know, LeBron. LeBron got traded. Oh, did he? Really?

Starting point is 00:55:20 You have to say something. How did the second conversation go? Oh, the second conversation went, yes, better than the first, but there's still room for improvement. How, whether in the early stages or now, anywhere in between, do you choose the people to have lunch with? Because you have nearly infinite choice, finite time. How do you find the people or filter the people to select those you want to spend time with? Okay. Well, now it's almost a self-perpetuating system. And people know I do this. So, I have a trainer that works me

Starting point is 00:56:07 out, and he goes, wow, did you see William McRaven's commencement speech in Texas? I go, no. And so, he shows it to me while I'm on my elliptical, and I go, well, I better meet William McRaven. And then I get to do that, and that was amazing. But how do I do it? You have to go to blogs. You listen to podcasts, in your case. And you go, wow, that would be hip to meet this person. But I said that so casually. So there are so many ways to stimulate an interest to create a pool of possibilities.

Starting point is 00:56:47 I could also ask you about a specific person that I think you've met. Can you ask me? I have a related question with Edward Teller. Oh, yeah. How did you choose Edward Teller? Well, okay. So Edward Teller was thought to be the father of the hydrogen bomb and also was creating the Star Wars program to protect the North American continent

Starting point is 00:57:14 at the time of the Reagan presidency, I believe. And that was like through missiles and webs and everything else. And I'm just wondering like if Jeff Bezos is in the room, because I did have a chance to have a curiosity conversation with him about 16 years ago. He blew my mind then, and I still get to be friends with him, and I know he's speaking. But he knows a lot about Edward Teller, much more than I do.

Starting point is 00:57:38 So if you're here for that conversation, you might want to ask him. But I did put a lot of effort… Brian Grazer told me to ask you. No, no, no. No, no, no. So, but he doesn't know, I know that he knows quite a bit. So Edward Teller took about two years to meet, and he said to me, it took about two years, and I met him like with military security around me right outside the LAX, like outside of LAX private airport because he had a lot of army guys.

Starting point is 00:58:10 And it was like nearly a cavity search so I could have this conversation. And but he really, really had no interest in me. I mean, he had no interest really in storytelling. And I asked him what was the last movie he'd seen, and he brought up Walt Disney's animated film Dumbo. And not that that doesn't qualify as a movie, but it was quite a while ago. So he just wasn't really that interested, but I was, I just kept going, just kept going. And then I remember Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, I had to go back to a meeting with them.

Starting point is 00:58:50 They go, how could you take it? The dude totally insulted you. And I go, yeah, it was kind of a bad experience, I guess, but I got a lot out of it. So you get a lot, you can gain a lot from failure. You learn a lot from failure. I learned a lot from the failure of meeting Isaac Asimov, which took a long time, too, as a preeminent writer, author of science fiction, and quite prolific. But I wasn't prepared well enough. I got my little coach ticket to fly, like, about 35 years ago to meet Isaac Asimov. and it turns out his wife came, who was actually also his psychiatrist.

Starting point is 00:59:34 And I was talking at the Ritz-Carlton bar with them, and we were all drinking non-alcoholic beverages, and she just looked at me and said, let's go. And so they left after five minutes after I flew. It was literally. But I did think. It didn't feel good. It felt like a big waste of time. But it taught me to prepare. I hope I'm prepared for this. I think you're more than prepared.

Starting point is 01:00:07 Do you ever purposefully meet with people you know you will disagree with fundamentally? Yes, I purposely do. Why do you do that? Because it shakes me up. It shakes me up, wakes me up. Also, have you ever seen, just quickly snap by, The Fog of War by McNamara? That's the point of that. You don't have to like him, but it humanizes him through ultimately entering his perspective as to how and why he expressed why he was what he was. So I met Daryl Gates, who I knew I wasn't going to like. He was one of the founders,

Starting point is 01:00:48 creators of SWAT, SWAT team, police and forensics, and became the police chief of Los Angeles and was right at the center of the Rodney King riot and eventually was quickly removed from office. So, you know, I do do that, yes. I've met many cult leaders, leaders of really very, I'm not gonna say their names, very intense cults.

Starting point is 01:01:15 What did you take away from those conversations? How, well, cult leaders are kind of like, in a way, they sort of operate the same way a dictator does. They're very, you know, they're seductive, they're charming, they're cunning, they're intelligent. But they have a belief system that they are going to impregnate you with. And it's an interesting study to inhabit. So you mentioned very briefly, and we don't have to spend a ton of time on it, but I wanted to open the door at least, eye contact. Yes. Could you please share

Starting point is 01:01:55 some of your thoughts or beliefs related to eye contact? Yes. Okay, so I just finished writing a book called Eye Contact, but it's born out of the world of curiosity. And I didn't even really, I mean, my appreciation for eye contact became kind of retrospectively, came alive. The use of eye contact, the importance of eye contact, it's a tool that can't really be replicated through anything, and I don't think through AI. And it's a way to create intimacy and trust, and you learn so much through eye contact. And I didn't realize that it was so fundamental to all of my curiosity conversations.

Starting point is 01:02:46 But it was only about a year ago, I had a waiter that I go to a restaurant all the time, and the waiter said to my wife, wow, I really like Brian, but I didn't really know that I, I didn't really think that he could know me well enough to like me, because I didn't think he knew me or anything. And he just said, I like him because every time he speaks to me, he looks at me directly in the eyes, and it makes me feel like a human being. And I just thought about that. I thought, wow, it's really true. I know that's not deeply profound, but it was sort of deeply profound to me. And I just kept thinking about that,

Starting point is 01:03:26 and I thought about how that worked in every one of these. None of these curiosity conversations would have happened. They would have vaporized or melt down on the launch pad if I didn't really have eye contact. Because when you really have eye contact and it's happening, coming to life, it is again like a great date, and it's the best date, and through eye contact it becomes deeply neurological, and it's very powerful. And I realized, and then I thought back to myself, I thought,

Starting point is 01:04:02 well, my partner Ron Howard, when I was really amped up and everything, like super amped up, when writers would come in and meet with us just before our first movie in 1982, Night Shift, he'd say, you don't really look at them in the eyes. And I'd go, well, I heard everything they said, and I can repeat it back. But he goes, yeah, but it's not respectful. And so I changed it sort of temporarily, but then I kind of lost touch, and then I realized that, you know, then I animated it once again. But remember, he said it to me, and it had a lot of impact, and it, you know, once again resonated. But there are times when you shouldn't have eye contact, by the way. Because in tribal cultures, you should look, because I've had houses that I've owned in tribal cultures. Well, hold on.

Starting point is 01:04:56 You've had houses you've owned in tribal cultures? Well, I don't know. Let's go to another question. No. No. I actually just did not interrupt you. Please continue. Well, no, the only thing, I've been to, basically, I had a house on the north shore of Oahu because I like to surf. And it's a little tribal there. It's very, it's hierarchical in this sort of tribal sense.

Starting point is 01:05:19 And you don't, the word, you don't look, you're not supposed to look people right in the eyes. You look at them in the face to give them respect and just divert your eyes just a bit. Because that could produce a negative consequence. So pick your time and place. So you mentioned back when you were amped up. Yeah. And I wanted to ask the question, how did your hairstyle come to be? As someone who no longer has hair, I'm very curious.

Starting point is 01:05:50 Well, it converges upon a couple of things. One was I was a pretty successful movie producer, and I wanted to have an identity beyond just – because I saw that there were other successful movie producers, like four or five of them, and they all had facial hair, and I couldn't really grow facial hair, and so their beards were helping define them a little bit, and I sort of thought I couldn't do that, and then there was one producer who liked to throw stuff at people, and I didn't really want to do that. And so I kind of was at a loss at trying to create an impression beyond just being a producer.

Starting point is 01:06:35 And then I was swimming in my swimming pool with my daughter at the time. She was like six. And I just popped my hair up, and she was like, I love that. So I thought, really? So we get out of the pool and we go, you know, and I put some gel in my hair. It wasn't my gel, it was someone else's gel. Put it in the hair and she goes, that's awesome. And then that's how it began.

Starting point is 01:07:04 And then just to further that a little bit, so then I did it, and it was very, very polarizing. Some people thought, a very small percentage thought, hey, that's cool, like maybe 20%. And 80% thought, what a dick. And I could see that they thought that. And sometimes they said it. And I just thought, wow, it's very, it's polarizing, but yet it reveals something. It's like a litmus test.

Starting point is 01:07:40 So then I just kept it going. So one of the things, one of many, that has really impressed me when looking back at your career is how persistently you have cultivated certain projects. And one in particular I'd love to ask you about is 8 Mile. Could you tell us, and I don't know the answer to this, but how 8 Mile came to be? Okay, sure. What if I said no, I don't know the answer to this, but the how 8 Mile came to be. Okay, sure. What if I said no, I couldn't. No, I can tell the story. So the way, well, I was dedicated to having curiosity conversations.

Starting point is 01:08:18 Had to be, I should really know, but it was at least 20 years ago. And I was in New York and I was in a cab, a taxi cab, and the cab driver had on like a local radio show, talk radio show, and old dirty bastard is being interviewed by this radio guy more than 20 years ago. So I'm going, whoa, this guy's choosing to be called old dirty bastard. That's his choice. He wants to be called that. So, that already was interesting. So, now I'm listening to ODB talk, and I'm going, wow, this doesn't even make any sense, you know? But he was so getting away with it and committed to it, I'm

Starting point is 01:09:07 thinking, I want to meet him. So I find a way to meet old dirty bastard, ODB. And it was a trip. Everything cost money. I mean, I met him. He said, meet me at a studio, but he wouldn't let me in the studio. I was on the sidewalk. Everything was like an a la carte thing. Like if I wanted to go in, that would cost a little. If I wanted to watch him do something a little extra, it was bang, bang, bang. It was everything was a, it was a la carte. So I just chose to stay on the sidewalk. It felt like that's what I should do. And I just thought he is really, really interesting. He's kind of funny, but he's also like God, he's speaking some truth about what's going on in the inner city, what's going on on the East Coast in this music genre that was, you know, early rap.

Starting point is 01:10:04 And so I started thinking like, what is early rap? What's going on? So then that led me from ODB, I think I'm going to meet Slick Rick. Now Slick Rick is really funny. So he's a guy, a British dude, wears a patch on his eye and has to be carried in like this, like a king, Slick Rick the Ruler. So I'm thinking, so Slick Rick the Ruler is really funny, but also cool. Then that got me from that point, I meet Chuck D of Public Enemy, and that's another thing. And I'm thinking, wow, this is a really important movement that's going on. And while I'm in New York, because I do these missions, like I'll meet every, in 48 hours, I'll make a point to meet every magazine editor, like literally, and sometimes newspaper editors.

Starting point is 01:10:52 And so I can say this, I think I met, well, I met the most, one of the more accomplished newspaper editors, Frank Rich. Frank Rich was really credible, really, really, really smart, and very high quality. And I said something to him, I met these guys, da-da-da, and he sort of dismissed it as an inferior subculture. And I said, I don't think it's a subculture, I think it's the culture. And he sort of kind of, you know, blew that off. And I thought, you know, I'm going to try to like look at this kind of as like an equation that I'm going to prove in a story form,

Starting point is 01:11:32 like try to bring some cinematic form to this equation and prove that hip-hop is the culture, the pervasive culture, not a subculture and much less an inferior subculture. So I went on this journey to try to do that, this learning journey that was more artists, more people, blah, blah, blah. And I wanted to capture the humor and the truth. And now I'm about eight years into just doing this, and I keep it alive. And I'm watching the VMAs that they're doing in New York when the VMAs were super cool. And the camera pans and I see this kid, Eminem. And the camera sort of sits on him and he's got this icy, icy urban glare

Starting point is 01:12:15 like I'm killing somebody. And then all of a sudden he becomes this sort of fluid, self-effacing guy that smiles and laughs and is really elastic. And I'm going, wow, what a range. So I'm thinking, this is really interesting. I want to meet that guy. So then I know, I go to my friend, longtime friend, Jimmy Iovine, who's like one of the more, most important music producers ever, really, I think, and who's such a superstar for picking. And he goes, yeah, I can make it happen. But it wasn't easy to meet Eminem. But he said, I can arrange it. You know, he's kind of a recluse, but make it happen. This is before

Starting point is 01:12:55 he really blew up and became a star. So, he comes into my office in Beverly Hills, and he sits there like this. And he won't look at me. I'm over here and I'm like talking and I'm talking and he won't talk back and I'm trying every little trick and nothing's working. It's got to be 30 or 40 minutes into this. It felt like three hours. And he goes, I'm out.

Starting point is 01:13:21 I'm thinking, you're out? We didn't get to talk. You didn't talk. So I'm thinking, I'm going to have to beg him somehow. I have to find some way. So I used the word, like he's at the door, and I used something like, I don't want to say it, but it was like, come on, you can animate or you can something. And then he turned at me and looked at me like, again, like this is not a good thing to happen to Brian Grazer right now. But then he sat down, and one thing led to the next, and he told his story, which was an amazing story, which became the basis of 8 Mile. And so he was able to fully encapsulate what it was, and it was just a flashpoint moment where I was able to grab this,

Starting point is 01:14:04 and he wasn't like saying, I want to start it or anything, but I could tell it was, and it was just a flashpoint moment where I was able to grab this, and he wasn't like saying I want to start it or anything, but I could tell it was it because it introduced what rap battles are, which is very cinematic, and it had a theme that I cared about. All of my movies that I care about begin with a theme, not a story, because themes are, they're not challengeable. Love, if I may, if love is a theme, it's hard to challenge that and say, oh, I don't believe in love, you know? Or in his case, you know, that story was literally like, how is he going to get through these emotional injuries to become self-actualized enough to actually perform and to be liberated from all of his emotional injuries so that he could look at the audience

Starting point is 01:14:50 and say what he said at the end of the movie, which I won't say in this audience. But, you know, so I thought, this is amazing. And then we were able to get him to do the movie, and he ended up, of course, being the only rapper ever to win an Academy Award. And it was a great thing. He's so talented. So you, just to follow up on a bookmark from that, so what you said to him to get him to not leave was, come on, you can animate or something along those lines? Yeah, I don't really want to say. I mean, it was something, it was a little desperate like that.

Starting point is 01:15:30 But I had to take my last shot, you know, he was at the door. Seems to have worked out. Sorry? I said it seemed to have worked out. It seemed, it worked, it worked. I couldn't, it was like partially antagonized and maybe, I don't know where, I don't know what happened. But he talked, He came back. I mean, I have the utmost respect because I've worked with so many actors having produced

Starting point is 01:15:50 a, you know, somewhere around 100 movies, and he was the most professional. I mean, he actually acted in every frame of the movie, wrote all of the music, one and I, I mean, wrote all the music and composed the music and was a father. And he's just, I don't get to see him much, but have the most respect for him. So we saw the sizzle reel earlier. Oh. And that was a pregnant little comment. But I think that we could talk about, and we should, and we have talked about some of the successes. Do you have a favorite failure meaning, a failure that set you up for later success,

Starting point is 01:16:34 or something that was particularly helpful from the standpoint of learning? I have a lot of failures. I mean, fortunately, I've had enough successes that it sticks out, but I do have a lot of failures, and I fail different types of failures. Sometimes when I violate my own rules, and I get lazy with my own rules about choice of a movie, where I get sloppy, lazy in the choices of building the foundation. Like, any time you say, okay, so sometimes I've picked a director where I go,

Starting point is 01:17:07 he's good enough. Because you're making hundreds of decisions. Good enough equals shitty. So that never, good enough doesn't ever work. I do have one failure. I mean, I have one, you know, one failure of I produced Apollo 13, and Ron, Tom, and I sort of became kind of friends. We're friends and partners, and we all go, well, if we can just make this good, that's a win.

Starting point is 01:17:33 And we're feeling so good about ourselves because we're feeling like we're making something good that's not going to make very much money, but at least it'll be good. Why do I want to make a lot of money? Because everybody knew the end of the movie. They all lived. I mean, like, so I, so then all of a sudden, we make the movie, and the movie does really well. And we're all really happy. But then the studio goes, don't, like a version of, don't be too happy.

Starting point is 01:17:56 Let's see how it does overseas. So I'm realizing, okay, now I'm on this journey. I thought I was happy, but now I'm not happy. No one's happy because it didn't get released overseas yet. So then it gets released overseas, does really well. We have a few more of these things. Wait till it gets to home video. Okay. So then all of a sudden, all the financial corridors are satisfied and it does well. Then, I don't even think like this. Now, the Oscars are coming about. And the Oscars, they nominate, there's like five movies that get nominated, and Apollo 13 gets nominated for Best Picture, gets nine Oscar nominations. It excludes Ron Howard, which was a

Starting point is 01:18:40 super bummer for him, and a bummer. No nuance there, just it was a bummer. Okay, it was a bummer. And then, so that was, for him, it was really terrible. But now we're in the Oscar race, and everyone is saying Apollo 13 is 100% going to win. Las Vegas oddmakers. Everybody's going, hey, you're going to win. What are you going to say? I go, I don't know what I'm going to say.

Starting point is 01:19:04 I don't know if I'm going to win. I don't know anything. I've already had like up and down like this the entire time. So now what happens is it's the day of the Oscars and I've got my speech in my pocket, right in my pocket. I know I'm going to be saying this speech. I know it because everybody said it. In fact, some very, very famous investment bankers, one of them came to my office. I didn't know. And heers, one of them came to my office, so I didn't know, and he said, I just want you to say a few words about my pancreatic cancer company. And I go, I can't, I don't even, can't think like this. You're jinxing me. This is too much for me, too much pressure. And so now it's the day of the Oscars. I got

Starting point is 01:19:39 my tuxedo on, I got the thing, and we're at the last award, and Sidney Poitier is going to open the envelope, and he's a very dignified and he's a very deliberate communicator. He speaks slowly. And the winner is, and he's got the envelope in his hand, he's ripping it open, and it looks like he's going to say Brian. I mean, because I'm hypnotized. I feel like a bee is coming off his lip. So, I get up. I won't walk. I get up, and I walk all, well, very close to him. I'm up out of my seat, and he said, Braveheart! That's not Brian. That's another movie. That's a whole other movie. So I have to turn around and walk back to my seat. And I walk backwards because

Starting point is 01:20:36 I'm so embarrassed. And I walk backwards. And this is so vivid. I mean, this got me on like taking sleeping pills because it was so… So, when I turned around, one chairman of one studio goes like this, loser to me. So, I'm going, oh, this is such a bad thing for me. And so, I sit down in a sweat, and the real astronaut that Tom Hanks played, Jim Lovell, is like two seats down. He reaches way over Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, grabs my wrist, and he said, I never made it to the moon either. That's a hell of a story. It's a long story. It is. Oh no. One hell of a story. That's a hell of a story. It's a long story.

Starting point is 01:21:45 Oh, no, one hell of a story. That's a good story. That's a good hell. Not a bad hell. Did that have, well, actually, did it have a lasting impact or were you able to brush it off? Oh, so, well, I mean, okay, what did I learn? What I learned was to certainly not to treat anything as a reality until it becomes a reality, and that reality is a fluid experience, and that reality is always changing. So whatever data that they were supporting, that doesn't win.

Starting point is 01:22:20 So basically, you know, always stay down the middle lane. I was pretty good at that, but I did fall out of the lane. I thought, well, I could win, and I'm going to win. I'm going to go up. And then eventually I did win for A Beautiful Mind. So that was good. But because I was in the column of feeling like, wow, anything could happen. It could all go wrong.

Starting point is 01:22:44 I almost couldn't, almost couldn't talk on that award. I was like, I went up, I was so nervous and I had this piece of paper and I'm shaking with the paper. And I look at Russell Crowe and I say to the audience, I know that my nervousness seems imperceptible. And they thought that was kind of funny but then I noticed like all of the most, the biggest female stars in the world were in the front rows like Sandy Bullock and Nicole Kidman and every one of them and I'd known a lot of them from meetings

Starting point is 01:23:16 or working with them and they were all looking at me like, you can do this, you can do it. You know, because they could tell I was crashing, you know. Maybe it teaches you something about pre-anticipatory anxiety. I don't know. That sounds like a good answer. I don't know. Yeah, it does. You mentioned when you violate your rules for choosing films or working on projects, and one of the, I guess, one of the rules being good enough is shitty. Can you tell us about any of the other criteria that you have for selecting or choosing the movies?

Starting point is 01:23:57 I guess I'm selecting and choosing the same thing. I'm just trying to get fancy. Okay, so I, yeah, I start with a theme, and then I find a story that is compatible to that theme, that actually is a vehicle for that theme. So A Beautiful Mind, I was just being present, looking around my world, and I would see people, kids, that were stigmatized by even the mildest mental disability, and I felt shitty about it. I didn't, and you'd see, as you can see out in this area,

Starting point is 01:24:26 you see guys talking into garbage cans. And they're not just talking into garbage cans, they're mostly living in an alternate reality. And that alternate narrative is the narrative of them talking into that garbage can. And it's not something to, you don't, you want to understand it so that it doesn't, it's not cruel or stigmatizing. And it took a very long time to find a story that would be in service of that theme, but I did. But you ultimately, I mean, ultimately, I've always said that I'm in the feelings business, that it's not really, I'm not really, as a storyteller, I'm only in the feelings business, because if you can ignite a feeling in cinematic form, which is an abbreviated way to connect, right, go right into your bloodstream, then you've created some, an indelible experience for somebody

Starting point is 01:25:16 that, and if it's, that if it has hope, because I try to make movies, I don't always win at this, but to make movies that have hope, I don't like to put out negative energy out in the world. But it doesn't have to be corny like Eminem's ending wasn't. Corny didn't become, you know, it's just, or in Friday Night Lights, they don't even win the game. They just become more complete young men and more mature and stronger. So I think feelings are so central. They're the differentiator. And if you lose track of that, I think you're really lost.

Starting point is 01:25:58 It's very important when you create any kind of story that your protagonist is suited for the population or the audience. So, you really don't want to have a story that… I don't want… I want to end on that. What was that? Well, no, I mean, I think… Well, if you have a story that's designed to have emotional impact as an end point, which is my goal, you have to think to yourself, is that, what is your audience, and make sure that the characters that are personifying this idea are the same age or likeness to your audience. Because sometimes you can, you forget that, and you go, wow, this is a young person's idea, and I have older people as protagonists. That often

Starting point is 01:26:42 is just a calibration that is off. It's a calibration that's off. I made a movie that was, I'll look at our time. I made a movie called Fear. Fear starred Mark Wahlberg, commonly known as Marky Mark at the time, and Reese Witherspoon. And it was based on, a lot of the movies that matter to me are based on an experience like Friday Night Lights, something I experienced, something emotional or real that I'm able to capture in a story or something I'm observing.

Starting point is 01:27:12 So what happened is I have a daughter. Her name is Sage, the one with the hair, the one with my hair up. So now she's, prior to that, she's three and a half years old. We're going skiing. She doesn't really know how to ski. We're in the chairlift. And I go, follow me as we dismount. She doesn't really know how to ski. We're in the chairlift, and I go, follow me as we dismount. She goes, no, you follow me. I thought, this is going to be a nightmare.

Starting point is 01:27:37 Like, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to be, at three and a half, she's saying, follow her. At 16, I'll be completely powerless. So, I created a movie, this thriller called Fear, starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon, where she picks this guy that is really charming and cool and popular, but really a psychopath. But the father is powerless and can't just go, hey, your boyfriend's a psychopath. He has to be like, hey, you really sure you want to go out with him? And you have to really be thinking through. And so that becomes this horrible, this nightmare film that is a very, very, very effective film. Unfortunately, I picked, I lived it through the parent's point of view as opposed to the kid's point of view. So it shows the points of view, but it's balanced through the perspective and the stakes

Starting point is 01:28:26 in the man's, the 45-year-old man's brain. If it were in the kid's brain, it would have made $150 million. But when I put it in the wrong perspective, even though it was an effective story personified through the parents, it was, it didn't do very well at all. But it was a good movie. It just didn't have commercial results. Because it was a kid's story represented through adults. So you have to actually line all, you have to calibrate all these things and be very precise about it.

Starting point is 01:29:00 But I can actually apply, you know, there's like really, by associative parts in storytelling to any one of your startups, I'm positive. Because I happen to believe that everything is a story. I'm sure it's refutable, but I think that everything is a story. And when you lose track of your story, whether it's a company or a human being, it creates a misdirection. Thank you for that. You don't have to worry about the time. I'll watch the time.

Starting point is 01:29:35 Definitely don't worry about that. You mentioned good enough equaling shitty, which I like a lot. What separates a good enough producer or even a good producer from a great producer in, say, feature films? Taste. Taste. Just taste. to pick the subject that is also authentic and hasn't been inhabited from either at all

Starting point is 01:30:06 or through a fresh perspective. So the taste in picking the right thing, the taste in executing, knowing what is good and not good. It's really completely qualitative. You know, like what some people think is a good meal, other person might not think is a good meal. If someone think, there are people that think that's a great car, and there are people that don't think it's a great car. So I would just think taste alignment and the ability to execute

Starting point is 01:30:34 it. And so when you build the foundational parts of whether it's your business or the business that I'm in, which is making stories, you have to pick people with similar taste. And I always, in testing that, I always go, well, what does it look like? Because I want the person to say what they think the thing looks like, even if it's just a feeling. So often I do this little, I used to do this little trick of like, I could meet a director that has very good credentials of executing great taste.

Starting point is 01:31:09 But he might not see, he might not want to message the same thing that I want to message. So you really have to make sure, like so I would go like if I made a comedy, and I did this many times, produced a comedy and I got this A plus director and I go, well, God, what would it look like, Ted? And then they start talking, and he starts talking about wide shots. Well, I know that's not right, because comedy is a close-up medium. You know, there's, like, all these little giveaways that I'm sure you guys will have within that you can codify in your own manifesto. So, it's a very doable thing to think through. Are there ways to cultivate taste? I still make mistakes, by the way. I'm still very fallible. As we all are. Works in progress.

Starting point is 01:32:03 Is taste something that you can cultivate? Are there ways to cultivate it? Or is it more like height or something like that? It's fixed. I think you can develop taste. You just have to go on a journey to do that. I hadn't thought of it, but you would just have to be exposed to the execution of good taste in fashion and in art or in medicine or in technology. Do some people see the uber picture in the game? And so you want to be exposed to those people. Why are you laughing?

Starting point is 01:32:39 I think it's a good answer. It's not a mocking smile. It's more of an I agree, thank you smile. No, no, I know. Oh, cool. No, I mean, some people do. They see things in an elevated way. And sometimes they're accidents, but you should make it.

Starting point is 01:32:54 I try to make this always part of my journey. But, I mean, Harold Ramis, may he rest in peace. I adored him. He wrote Animal House and Stripes. And I met him, and he had such an, I thought Animal House was like one of the funniest movies, but he had a really brainy, Harvard brainy, I guess they don't have to always be aligned, but he had a very brainy way of stating what that movie was about. And I thought, whoa, that's really heavy, you know, like.

Starting point is 01:33:25 And so you know it when you hear it if you're available to hear it. But you can create a discipline where you try to sample stuff. Like why is Gucci good now? Because if it's new creative director, who picked it? Pinot picked them. Why did Pinot pick them? How does Pinot pick directors? I mean,

Starting point is 01:33:45 how does that work? You start going that way. I'm so interested in your questions. I could just ask questions all day, but last question. We're winding down. We are winding down. The countdown clock. I've read, and there are a lot of things that are inaccurate on the internet, but that's, you've said writing notes of gratitude always strengthens me. I don't know if that's true, but do you write gratitude notes? Yes, I have a gratitude journal that somebody gave to me, a tech titan. I said, what are you doing? And he writes in this gratitude journal.

Starting point is 01:34:23 So every day he tries to address this piece of paper. We, Veronica and I, gave them away at our wedding. We had, every person got a gratitude journal. And I try to, because I want to stay in my lane. I don't want to enter someone else's lane in terms of their life choices or their value system or their economics or their lack of economics. I want to have compassion, but I want to be in my lane. And being in my lane, I can have gratitude, like thank you for the health that I have right now

Starting point is 01:34:55 that animates my entire life, my mind, my life, my physicality. So I want to be in that zone. Well, I think that's the perfect place to wrap up. At Brian Grazer on all social media, thank you so much for a wonderful time. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Grazer. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off.

Starting point is 01:35:23 Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that

Starting point is 01:35:45 I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #279: The Most Curious Man in Hollywood — Brian Grazer

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Pet Camera - EBO Air 2

The Tim Ferriss Show - #279: The Most Curious Man in Hollywood — Brian Grazer

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.