WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Ivan Reitman from 2014

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

From 2014, Marc talks with filmmaker Ivan Reitman about his career, his movies and his relationship with his writer-director son, Jason. Ivan died on February 12, 2022 at age 75. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

yeah cosner was great in the movie he was great well you had a chance to see it i'm happy i sat down and watched a movie i was like i mean i've watched most of your movies we grew up with most of the movies and uh it uh yeah i teared up i thought cosner did a great job thank you uh it's called draft day draft day yeah that's what's in the nfl draft that's right i don't know anything And I teared up. I thought Cosner did a great job. Thank you. It's called Draft Day. Draft Day, yeah. That's what it's called. As in the NFL draft. That's right.

I don't know anything about football. I know nothing. And did it work for you? Yeah, it worked for me because it's a story. It's a human story about business, about politics, politics in terms of business. We watch a lot of movies where we don't know really the subject matter. Yeah. We don't have to know about how to operate a nuclear plant.

Yeah. And we get involved in the tension of those kinds of situations. Sure. It's going to blow up. Oh, my God, what are they going to do about it? And they've got to do this. Right. But we also don't watch a nuclear plant every Sunday

to see if it's going to blow. Yeah, well, that's an interesting analogy. Maybe we should. It's gone totally wrong. No, but it was very compelling, and I thought Cosner did an amazing job playing that character. I forget what a great actor he is. Yeah, you know, he's not had an opportunity

to stretch those muscles, I think, in a while. Yeah. And he's done some smaller roles just lately. Uh-huh. And here he gets to go full flower. Yeah. And he makes mistakes. I think that's one of the cool things about having a hero that makes mistakes and then sort of takes the whole movie to sort of fight his way out of it, hopefully.

I mean, you've been a filmmaker for, what, how long now, 35, 40 years? Yeah, if you include the really early ones, I think the first one was Cannibal Girls. We made for $12,000. I don't think I saw that one. You should. Is it available? I think it is on videotape somewhere. But I think if you looked online, you could find it.

I'm not so sure it's such a good idea. What was Cannibal Girls about? Well, it's Eugene Levy and Andrew Martin. They were the stars long before SCTV and all the movies that you got to love them with. We were all growing up in Canada and Toronto and we thought, hey, let's make a movie. I'd done a few shorts.

I knew them because we were all hanging around in Toronto. And, you know, let's improvise a feature. Yeah, so from SCTV, that's where we know them from and from the Christopher Guest movies. That's right, but this is like... They're kids. This is like 15 or years before those movies, I guess. Well, how old were they?

Were they 20? I mean... Yeah, something like that. Okay. Late teens were they? Were they 20? I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Okay. Late teens or early 20s, somewhere in that range. And yeah, we were all in college or just out of college. Right.

Yeah. So I think I raised $12,000. Uh-huh. Two for me or actually my father, I think. And five other people put in $2,000 each. That's how we did it. And it was harder to make movies then than it is today, actually, because the technology is all here. Most people have computers.

Most people have cameras that shoot really good digital stuff. And it syncs sound. You don't have to have an extra guy to do sound. Right. And there you had to have a crew. You don't have to have an extra guy to do sound. Right. And there, you had to have a crew. You had to have a crew. You had to buy 35-millimeter film, which is really expensive.

So, you know, we negotiated. The real problem is that's the movie I found out, oh, yeah, it's good to have a script. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even though they're very talented improv people, you know, it didn't all quite add up when we edited it together. Yeah.

Spent a year reshooting and reshooting until it sort of made this weird, goofy sense. And when you're shooting improvised footage, I mean, how do you know when to stop? When you run out of film? When you run out of budget? I mean. Yeah, that's, it sort of was the beginning of my training process as a director, just sort of trying to organize that kind of improvisation. And I know that seems like it fights that idea, but so it's talking to them, saying cut, having another conversation, doing another take, learning how to do coverage in a situation like that. And it's interesting because now that, you know,

that's fairly common in TV production and in some movies. I mean, Christopher Guest shoots like that. I don't think a lot of people shoot like that, but certainly there are some television models now that only do that. Like Larry, you know, like, yeah, Larry David does that. Yes. But I think they outline really carefully. They know where those stories are that. Yes. I think they outline really carefully. They know where those stories

are going. Right. So they have a premise for each scene that adds up into a structure that they've already agreed on. Right. And they're just really good. That's right. That's true. That also helps. Yeah. So Cannibal was

the first film thing you did. Yeah. I mean, was the first film thing you did. Yeah. I mean, I did a short in college called Orientation, which is really a precursor to Animal House. It was about the first couple of days in college of a freshman student. You know, and it was like a propaganda film for the clubs at the university. It turned out to be really funny. Actually, it showed at a film festival. Somebody from Fox Canada saw it, thought it was great because it got a great response.

They put up the money. They blew it up to $35,000, and it played in movie theaters. Really? It was on the head of the movie John and't know if you remember the movie John and Mary. It starred Mia Farrow, Mary, and Dustin Hoffman right after The Graduate. It was like his second movie. And everyone thought, oh, this is going to be a big hit. Unfortunately for them, orientation got way more laughs.

Was John and Mary a comedy? I think so. I have no idea what that movie is well look it up oh my god it's like one of those like those are big names and so it didn't really didn't make the canon of must-see movies no not that year but it was great for my film because my film looks so good i always got applause at the end of it which was kind of amazing for a little short but yeah it was my beginning well was that was that always the plan i mean where you grew up entirely in canada well czechoslovakia until five my parents and i escaped it literally literally bottom of the boat

escaped tell me what that means bottom of the boat i got some of this information from your son but i'd like to hear it from you. You know, I think they were going to, you know, it's the communists who were running, Stalinist communism in 1950. So they pushed the Germans out. This is now four years after the Germans are gone. And it's occupied by basically Russia. And that's when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were a country called Czechoslovakia.

And, you know, my father was just a real good capitalist and had built up some businesses. He was doing vinegar and stuff like that, making vinegar. Biggest vinegar guy in Czechoslovakia. Yeah. biggest vinegar guy in czechoslovakia yeah he when the communists came into the country i mean they were always there but when they basically took over the government which was i think in 49 you know they put my father in charge of all the vinegar factories at the supervisor but he knew it was only a matter of time before he was arrested like his brother had been arrested you know for you know because he was not a member of the party and, and they were planning to leave, uh, all this time.

And they were secretly converting a check crowns to American dollars. Your father was. Yeah. Uh, which was illegal. Yeah. And, um, but it was a way to get hard currency to, to help us get out. And, and sort of one July day, you know, I was called in. I was hanging out with my friends, and I was, I think, five.

Yeah. And they said, I remember saying to this kid I was playing with, well, I'll see you after dinner. Yeah. And the next thing I knew, I was putting on, like, four pairs of pants and shirts. They figured we couldn't make, we had to be secretive and yeah uh we took only one suitcase i kept trying to put my favorite toy was a slide projector ironically enough

with um disney cartoon characters like mickey mouse donald duck on them yeah and i just loved that damn thing and I just it was a big chunky thing that weighed about five pounds I kept trying to put it into this tiny suitcase and um I actually thought I snuck it in at the end because my mother which keeps saying look we have to go for a long time we don't have room to take that and anyway to make a very long story short the um we stuck ourselves onto a uh this boat i mean we had made they had made a deal with the captain paid him some hard currency to to nail us down in the hold of uh the boat to put the floor on top of you that's right so because they those boats were all inspected by the the communists yeah well

by the russian soldiers sure there yeah so we got out we got to vienna um how long was that do you have any recollection i don't know i think it was overnight i know i was down there because there was no bathrooms or anything and right they had given me a sleeping pill and they actually given me too much yeah and so when they finally put the candle on to see what was up, I was out cold, but my eyes were open like I was a dead guy. And needless to say, I wasn't dead. Yeah. But it scared the crap out of my parents.

Uh-huh. We got to Vienna. From Vienna, we got to France where we had an uncle. My mother's brothers lived there yeah stayed there for six months until we got a visa to immigrate to canada where we had another uncle wow and they started from nothing you know they didn't uh speak the language literally had no money how they how they avoid the germans oh that's an earlier story but yeah they, my mother was in Auschwitz and managed to survive that because she was in for the last year. But she was young and strong and got out.

And my father was kind of a freedom fighter guy. And he was running around, you know, killing people. Yeah, and just staying in the woods. Freedom fighter. I saw a movie about that. It's unbelievable. unbelievable yeah so it's all uh it's amazing what we are the products of and how we end up making comedy movies that become famous in america it's a it's just an interesting journey we go down right so your parent like your

father has this amazing you know determination clearly yeah they both did you know my mother was actually the braver one yeah it was her idea to escape yeah she was in Auschwitz and what were you told about that as a kid you know it wasn't good yeah so they get to where from Montreal no we got to well we landed in Halifax yeah and quickly came to Toronto where my uncle and aunt and cousin were. And we lived with them for a month or two. And then finally we got our own little apartment. My father went to work as a presser. My mother was a very handy seamstress.

And she did piecework. And was immediately pregnant with my sister's twins uh-huh and you know that's how they started their life there and what and what business did he end up going into do you stay a printer or presser or what happened well he ended up buying a dry cleaning store yeah and then a couple of them and then he sold those and he eventually bought this car wash property that has now become quite famous because, you know, we converted it first to a parking lot to honor our parents as the home of the Bell Lightbox, this lovely sort of film palace in the center of the city. That's beautiful. Thank you.

Yeah. And so was the original, so he didn't get back into vinegar, which is probably good. No, he tried to. Yeah? It wouldn't let him. You know, you had to, because the vinegar involves alcohol and things like that, and it was a kind of fixed business in Ontario. It was tough.

It was run by agencies that you had to know how to maneuver, and he was just an immigrant guy who could barely speak english and had no real money so there's no way to get there how did were they able to see your successes yes i'm happy to say yeah they uh you know you know i went to school i put on i had a music group i thought i was i always wanted to be a film composer. And so I went into, I studied music in college, and then I started making films. And Orientation was actually the one I was just talking about. It was the first film.

And they hung in there. My father clearly was the guy who said, hey, look, why don't you go into law or something like that, or accountancy or architecture? He was very concerned about how are you going to make a living in the music business. Uh-huh. But that was your dream? Initially, you wanted to be in a band?

Well, I wanted to be in the arts somehow. I started in a kind of folk singing group. It was the 60s after all. kind of folk singing group. It was the 60s after all. And, you know, it was the great Chris Gatsby. Was it A Mighty Wind? A Mighty Wind, yeah.

Sort of really brought back memories. Yeah. That was my life. Well, Jason said he remembers you playing guitar and that he's very moved by it all and that he came in here and saw my guitars and he's like, I have my dad's guitar. He does. He's really sweet about that.

It made a big impression on him. Yeah, he never heard my group because my group stopped playing long before he was born. Yeah. But it was a beginning. And, you know, we played the local folk clubs on weekends. Mm-hmm. It was during high school. And continued to do it into university, but I quickly got involved in the performance arts.

But there were no film classes. Yeah. They were non-existent in the late 60s. Maybe down here they started, but not where I was. We didn't even know what a film director did. Right. And I just sort of learned by doing. And your father, initially, he wasn't supportive?

Did he become supportive at some point? Yeah, he became very supportive. He knew somehow that I needed a future in the arts. Uh-huh. You know, and so he actually became very supportive, came to everything I did. Uh-huh you know um and so he he actually became very supportive came to everything i did uh-huh and um because he saw you had a passion for it i guess and um i was also very entrepreneurial and uh he he kind of got it he understood the sense of risk i mean these are people who risk everything a number of times in their lives.

Right. And survived and did very well. Yeah. Did he ever say anything to you that was, you know, that gave you a certain amount of faith? I mean, was there a point where, I imagine they'd be, initially they're afraid for your future. Well, surely. No, he was not really happy when I went into music. Yeah. But much later, and Jason may have told the story, because he now tells this story much better than I do. Yeah. I think after attending a kind of course in Montreal in 1967, I came home very excited to tell my dad,

you know, they've got these Subway shops, Subway sandwiches. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, Subway. Very common right now, but it was a really unique thing. And there weren't any in Toronto. And I said, wouldn't it be great? Like, you could put up a little bit of money. I'll run it. And I think we can do really well. And, you know, he looked at me kindly and he said, I'm sure if you wanted to run a subway sandwich shop, you'd do extraordinarily well, but there's not enough magic in it for you.

Right, yeah. And I told that story to Jason when he was sort of in pre-med at Skidmore, and it was clearly miserable. I didn't even know he was interested in movies. He was on the set of Animal House when he was like 13 or 14 days old and he'd be on all my sets because i tried to make it a point when i was directing at least to shoot during the summertime when the kids were available and my wife could all you know we could just set up camp wherever we were yeah yeah but uh so he was always around that and i was always

pissed because he didn't seem to pay any attention to me. He was so much more interested in what everyone else was doing. Right. And I actually thought he was just goofing off. Right. And he wasn't. He was really paying attention. Yeah, it sounded like it to me.

He's very thoughtful about his process, and I have to assume a lot of that he learned from you, one way or the other. Whether he was paying attention to you or not, it certainly had an impact. It was remarkable when he first came back to USC after I told him the magical subway sandwich story. And I told him, look, it's okay if you don't want to be a doctor. You know, going to the arts, you only go around once and do something that you love. And he decided to quit, and he talked his way into USC. And I don't know if he told you the story of his. Initially, as soon as he got back, he raised about $8,000 selling advertising to the local kind of shops that are around USC.

No, he didn't tell me that. He had a desk calendar that he invented that he was going to lay down on the desks of every freshman incoming student in the dorms. And so he went to the local dry cleaning store, to the pizza place, and said, look, I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to distribute 2,000 of them them and here's the cost for this little square and you'll be on you'll

be that square on every page and so when they want pizza they're going to call you and he sold it out and he profited and he netted out about a grant i said so jason what are you going to do with the a grant i was really proud of him for raising all this money yeah i said well i'm gonna i'm gonna direct the movie i said you want to direct is that really the first time i realized he was kind of interested in the movies and um uh you know it's i think the first movie was operation i think and yeah yeah yeah and um it's short that then went on to win everything it entered into. Yeah. That must have been a proud moment for you. Oh, it was extraordinary.

See, not only did he write and direct and really did a spectacular job of it, but he had the initiative to actually go raise the money. I think my wife and I, when we heard that he had raised the $8,000, I think we contributed a few thousand. I said, well, you'll probably need a little bit more, so here's a couple of grand. But he just, you know, he really did it all himself. Uh-huh. Do you think he had something to prove to you? I think he had something to prove to himself i think he had something to prove to himself it's what you finally have to do yeah when you when you got done with uh with college and you were he had a music focus and you made the first film i mean what what brought you around to

directing what jobs did you do in show business you know that that you had you arrive at what you became well college was a very kind of creative explosively creative time for me where i was a crappy high school student some somehow by the time i got to college um i decided i was just going to do well both in school and and also get involved in the school and that for me meant like i got you know i was reviewing it for the newspaper i i started directing in the dramatic society these weren't all courses this was because there were no course arts courses in the school it was really like clubs there were clubs you know um funded by the student society right from student fees so you're directing plays and writing for the plays i did a musical

i did a full scale version version of Little Abner. Directing? Yeah, directing it. And I really liked it, and there was a film club. And because they had done so well on the other clubs, the film club had gone bankrupt, as film clubs tend to do. And I sort of convinced the student council to sort of lend me a little bit, you know, to fund it a little bit.

And then I would turn it around. And I put two clubs together. I put the Film Society, which showed films, and the filmmaking club, the board, the film board together. And the money that we received from showing films went to pay for the movies that we made, kind of really the Hollywood system. And just instituted there at McMaster University.

It was very successful. And through that, I made that first film that I spoke about, Orientation. And after college, what did you start doing immediately? I actually started distributing films. I forgot about that. I had met, when I was out trying to sell cannibal girls, I met Bob Shea who ran new law and new line cinema now very famous company. Yeah.

And, um, and I became his Canadian distributor. Really? Yeah. I remember. And we, his first, the first movie they had was sympathy, sympathy for the devil. Jean-Luc Godard directed it. Sure. It's a weird movie.

Yeah, with the Rolling Stones doing Sympathy for the Devil. It was intercut with Radicals, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a goofy movie. Yeah. Not your thing, huh? Well, it was sort of my thing. I loved the Stones part of it, actually. Yeah, sure, sure.

And watching them in a recording studio. But I thought gadar generally was pretty pretentious but the um i'm gonna get letters about that or you will oh you think so i hope so if someone's writing his letters about what you say about gadar i got a good audience you sure do you know you know it was just um we would take it to universities and show it on basically what i was doing in college is what i started, we would take it to universities and show it on. Basically, what I was doing in college is what I started doing. We would do these one-night four-wall deals where we split the take with the college, part to us, part back to New Line in New York. And that was really, it allowed me to have a one-room office and sort of get going on stuff.

And so that's from there we did Cannibal Girls, I guess. And you stopped doing live stuff or you did, you know? No. Doug Henning, the star, one of the stars of Little Abner and who I went to school with at McMaster, the magician. What was his Broadway show? It was The Magic Show. I saw that.

Yeah, well, I produced it. I actually started. I was a kid. Yes. Yeah. I was barely Magic Show. I saw that. Yeah, well, I produced it. I actually started. I was a kid. Yes. Yeah. I was barely a kid. And the story of The Magic Show started as a show called Spellbound. Yeah.

Again, being entrepreneurial, I talked to a man named Ed Mirvish who ran the Royal Alexandra Theater, a beautiful theater, legit theater, just down the street from the car wash. Yeah. And I talked them into giving us two weeks at Christmas time to do this special magic show. And it all came, I'm telling the story backwards. Yeah.

But the, because I had also, my only job ever was to work for about six months on a startup cable television network, television station called City TV. Yeah. I was doing two shows there every week. One was Sweet City Women, which was a talk show five days a week. Yeah. For women, Sweet City Women. Yeah. days a week yeah uh for women sweet city women yeah and um the second show was a show called

greed which was a 90 minute live program on saturday night starting at eight o'clock against a hockey game right where god knows what we did but it was a 500 budget and there were sketches there was you know bikini girls of the week and there was there was an audience of sort of geriatric people that we picked up from the local old folks home and you were running the station i was running that show i was the producer director of that show anyway doug henning who i knew from school appeared on the talk show and yeah i said and we went out for coffee after i said so what do you want to do uh because I knew he was doing magic all around the place. And he said, well, if I could raise some money to do these big illusions, I'd like to do kind of, I was going to go on tour with a rock group and do these theatrical events with rock music and magic.

And I said, well, that sounds like it's going to be expensive to go from place to place why don't we do it as a kind of a theatrical show yeah and he said yeah okay that makes sense and he just wanted you know somebody to raise money for him right and um i was able to do that um and we started this show and amazingly um david cronenberg yeah wrote the book i directed and produced howard shore who we the musical director of saturday night live about five years later yeah um was my composer slash uh these are all canadian guys all all living together in toronto at this moment yeah and and Paul Schaefer the great pianist and from he was our band leader really yes and this is the show that went on and then we did this a really complex lovely show with magic tricks and stuff and that

eventually became the magic show that you saw on Broadway that's crazy and so this is Schaefer's first gig it's Sh's first gig it's uh it was my first foray into something like i had never done before and we ended up in new york now they all the magic show got totally converted into the show that you saw which was that frankly a much goofier show than what we did i just remember him walking around the stage with his like long hair and's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was the same illusions. What stuck was the magic. Right.

And they built this other book around it with another composer. Actually, Stephen Schwartz, the famous composer, did Pippin and Godspell, did the music for the magic show. It's unbelievable. But I got to hang around as the, they wouldn't let me direct it because I had not done much. Right. And, but I produced, co-produced it. And that was a big hit. Five years.

That's unreal. Yeah. And how did you meet all these other, you know, like the guys that are usually associated with Second City and, you know. I knew the Second City guys because we were all growing up together. A lot of them were in Canada.

So, you know, Dan Aykroyd, for example, was the announcer on Greed, the show I was just talking about. Come on. He was doing it straight or? No, he was funny. He was funny. You know, we'd just make up the show in the afternoon, a Saturday afternoon, and there we were live.

And you guys are, what, 20 years old? We're in our sort of mid-20s by now. We're sort of early 20s, somewhere in there. Yeah. And what happened is I had want, having now directed Cannibal Girls, I wanted to do, and I had produced a couple of horror movies as well in the meantime

for David Cronenberg. Which ones? Shivers and Rabbit. Those are early. Those are crazy. The first two. Yeah, yeah. I actually had directed more than he did by the time he was.

But he had written this wonderful script called Orgy of the Blood Parasites, which was Shivers. Yeah. Did you retitle it? Shivers, yeah, actually, um, did you retitle it? Uh, it shivers. Yeah. Actually I think it was my title and, um, and it was my brilliant idea to bring Marilyn chambers as the star of rabbit. And, um,

cause I was living in New York quite a bit. Um, and I'd seen her, uh, there used to be a really funny talk show on Robin bird or something like Goldstein Show. It was the one where they interviewed people in the... In the naked.

In the naked one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I saw her being interviewed, and she's really smart, actually, and lovely. Yeah. And I said, why not her as the star of Rabbit? It would be good for us. We were making it for like 100 grand.

Bring a different audience in. Well, it would give us for us. We were making it for like $100,000. Bring a different audience in. Well, it would give us notoriety. For $100,000, you don't get to... A lot of press. Yeah, you got a lot of press. And it was just kind of a way of bringing attention to that project, and it worked. Yeah, and so you're still friends with Cronenberg, I imagine? Yeah.

I saw him just about a year ago. I don't see him a lot anymore because he lives in toronto still and and made his career there extraordinary wonderful career so how do you get to know like you know from there how you like because i imagine we're moving towards animal house so how'd you get to know canny and those people well the um i cold called the publisher of the National Lampoon. It was always a kind of a favorite magazine of mine. And in the sort of

mid-70s when we're talking about it right now, it was this... Great. It was the thing. You know, it was the hippest comedy thing around. His name, I look up on the masthead, it's Matty Simmons. I call him up, I said, hey, I've got this show, Magic Show, on Broadway, but what I really want tothead, it's Matty Simmons. I call him up. I said, hey, I've got this show, Magic Show, on Broadway,

but what I really want to do is direct comedies, and let's do a comedy together. And he says, hey, look, we've got Hollywood bothering us a lot about making comedy movies, but we're talking about doing this sketch show. You want to produce it for us? You really, hey, after all, you've got a Broadway hit. I said, yeah. I'll do it i said i figured and

the deal i had with with maddie was i was going to produce the show i raised i think it was i can't remember 15 or 20 thousand dollars yeah and um not a lot not a lot but um uh i was going to produce the show and then if for some reason any part of that show became a movie, for sure I would get to produce it with Maddie, with the Lampoon, and perhaps direct it if I could convince the studio or whoever was going to finance the movie that I could direct it. I said, okay. And that's the reason I really did it. It was kind of a first step. And that show, this is before saturday night live and before lemmings uh it's the same it was right after lemmings it was the same right same period

yeah i think it was a year after lemmings right um it's a live show it's a live sketch show in this um and it's a place that we did in Midtown. It's in a little theater. And it had, here was the cast, and this is before any of these people were known. It was Gilda Radner and John Belushi, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Brian Murray, Bill's brother,

and Joe Flaherty. Unbelievable. So it was a a crazy talented group of people in their 20s yeah first time out i mean some of them had worked uh for the lampoon and the radio show some of them worked as not se tv but in second city in chicago right um but remarkably unknown and remarkably gifted and remarkably arrogant already. And they're just because they knew they were the best. And they were the best. It turned out, yeah, they were the best.

At sketch comedy. At being funny and special in a way that no one had ever seen before. And I remember the first rehearsal I was in with all of them. Now, I was the producer. I wasn't the all of them. And I was the producer. I wasn't the director. Belushi was basically directing it. Harold was kind of the intelligent, calm force that sort of when things went wrong, people would turn to as kind of a peacemaker. Yeah.

And so they're in the middle of working out some sketch. And they're arguing about something and i suddenly i don't know where i say hey wouldn't it be good if and i can't remember what the hell i said and they just stopped and looked at me like who's this asshole who's this guy talking to us i said whoops bill murray always bill you know it was winter timetime in New York, and he walked me over to where all the coats were. Yeah. And he took my scarf, which was on top of my coat, and he wrapped it really dangerously around my neck. Uh-huh.

And then he put the coat around my shoulders, and he patted me condescendingly on my back and said, Hey, man, thanks for dropping by. See you later. He kicked me out of my show. And that was my sort of first real experience trying to direct this remarkable group of people. And I said, God, what am I going to do? I'm supposed to be the producer. They don't really have a director.

And I decided I'd just tough it out and just keep coming back. Did you even build a relationship with them eventually? Yeah, I just had to. The wonderful thing that happened is when the show finally got on stage and was going in front of audiences, they needed someone to talk to. Someone from the outside. Someone who wasn't on that stage who could say, you know, I think that sketch is going too long.

Or why don't you invert this thing? Just little basic things. And I just sort of built a friendship with the group. Belushi was actually the first one who sort of befriended me, and that finally helped with everybody else. Because Belushi, unlike his sort of reputation, was actually very professional. And he was the one who was worried about that we didn't have enough signage on the streets.

And he would call me up on Sunday and say, look, there's not enough advertising and we're not going to make it. And the show turned out to be a big hit. And they were all extraordinary in it. Did you tour with it? We tried it out first in Toronto because we were booked into kind of a bar. They did the first show, and the show went great. And that's the only show we had.

It was about an hour long. And we thought they were going to clear the bar out and get a whole new group in for the 10 o'clock show. Yeah. And lo and behold, it's the same people. It's like, hey, they're drinking. They're not going anywhere. And I remember we were sort of crowded into this little back room.

Right. And everybody's going, the same audience is still over there. I remember it was Harold, and I think i wrote about this uh after uh harold passed away because it's such a remarkable thing to remember harold said well okay so let's just do it again let's just change the punch lines and we're going they're going on in like 10 minutes right and uh and they all sort of looked and it was an audacious thing to say but everybody sort of calmed down and said okay yeah that's great idea let's just change all the punchlines and uh it was like one of the greatest shows i had ever seen that second show

because it was funny in its whole new way and it was remarkably funny if you had seen the first show and seen the seen the turns on what because they they not only sort of just changed it and made it funny in itself it was funny because of what you remembered from the first show right okay it's like this remarkable adroit kind of comedy minds at work in panic right and but so the audience had actually seen it would have gotten more out of it than any audience right so the ones who were not drunk because there's some of them were so drunk they said said, hey, man, we just saw this. Right. And didn't actually hear the changes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The people who were paying attention, which was most of the audience, it was like one of those great events. And this was before, just at the beginning of the VCR era. So it was never recorded. It was never taped. And it's too bad, because it was just, the two shows together would have been a remarkable lesson in how to create comedy. And it was for you. And it certainly was for me.

And the memory of it is crisp. It's a big memory. That was an amazing thing to witness. Yeah. Now, as you move forward with this stuff, because it seems to me just talking to you, that you always very adept and and on top of the idea of that that film was a business now you're an entrepreneur and making movies is a business it's it's not you know the the the art form of making movies is what it is but you know you always wanted to make commercial movies well particularly back then there was no way to be there was no way to be making films unless you had some kind of at least minor business understanding.

You knew it was going to cost a lot of money. Even if it was a million dollars, that's a ton of money. Right. And that was extraordinarily cheap. So you had to sort of find a way to convince people that it was worth it to make the investment, even if it wasn't a studio. So now when you got Animal, how did your involvement, how did the Animal House evolve?

That was the first big movie, right? What was that? What was it? 79 or so. Okay, right before Meatballs. Yeah, what happened with Animal House, if you remember my deal with maddie simmons right so lauren michaels also a fellow canadian sort of shows up to the show and basically hires

most of the cats yeah i was gilda your show yeah yeah and um and he found many many other wonderful people after as well and um so and bill bill murray doesn't get on Saturday Night Live right away. He gets on another show with his brother, also called Saturday Night with Howard Cosell. And so the only person who didn't have a job was Harold. And I said, look, let's go write a movie based on this show because I knew that's the way that I get to be involved in some future National Lampoon film project. Right. And so the conversion of that show first became, believe it or not, Charlie Manson in high school.

Yeah. And because it was high school, it involved Doug Kenny, who had written the high school yearbook. That was a great parody. It was one of the great parodies that Lampoon ever put out. Yeah. And where I started my friendship with him. And then it became clear this was an extraordinarily hard-R, raunchy comedy,

and we probably shouldn't set it in high school, that we should set it in college. And that's when Chris Miller became part of the writing team because he had written these wonderful stories, mostly about his life at Dartmouth, where the main character, Pinto, which is really him, and his adventures in mostly the frat house, in the Delta house. And so now we have Harold and Doug Kenny and Chris Miller. And really the result of that was Animal House.

Wow. Which I wanted to direct. And it wasn't a lot. Studio was universal. They hated the scripts. And they finally got convinced to do it after a very long two-year gestation. And I said, please, I'd like to direct. I've been working on this for two years.

I got John Belushi here who is becoming famous as a result of his first year on Saturday Night Live. And they said, nah, because the only movie I'd done, Cannibal Girls, was not that impressive to them. Well, what had Landis done? Landis had done uh he then schlock which was no better than cannibal girls but but but just before animal house he had done the really the movie with the zucker brothers um kentucky fried movie oh right actually was

quite a big hit with belzer and a bunch of other guys yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we checked him out, and we hired him. And he turned out to be great. He did a great job. You like him? Yeah, I like him. I think he had wonderful energy. His tone is different than mine. Yeah.

And had I been so fortunate to direct it, probably it would have been a different movie. It wouldn't have, I don't think it would have been as hard-edged and as physical as Animal House became. And I think Animal House was better for it. A little raw, more raw. And I think the combination of the two of us together on that was, and of course, the brilliance of the writing. Yeah. Raw, more raw. And I think the combination of the two of us together on that was, and of course, the brilliance of the writing. Yeah.

Because it was really one of the great scripts that sort of created a new comedy language. Sure. It could change the game. It changed the game. You know what? It was the first time the baby boomers were sort of speaking their own words. Right. Their own comedy words.

Right. It had already started before that film, but in serious movies. Movies like Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde all had sort of, were kind of a fresh view on how movies would work. But it was the first time somebody was, MASH was kind of a stepping stone movie a few years before, and then boom, there was something. And Paul Mazursky was doing stuff, but he really was war generation, not post-war generation. Right, right, right.

And Animal House, weirdly, even though it was kind of a college picture set in 1962, written in 1978, 77, just sort of hit the button. The baby boom generation were all just postgraduate. And so it resonated in a whole new way. It resonated with kids my age. I mean, 13, 14, 15 years old, all the way through college. Yeah, and wonderfully, it's continued to resonate. People still put it up as one of the great comedies and still appreciate it.

And it was an extraordinary beginning for me. And it set you moving towards, I mean, I think Stripes, which you directed, and did you produce that as well? Yeah. That changed the game too. I mean, those were, like, that was a, you know. Well, then became, I had a really hot run after that. Meatballs too.

Yeah, well, Meatballs was, I saw, oh, God, you know, the studio was paying no attention to me once it became clear that Animal House was going to be a hit, even though I'd worked on the movie and sort of really fought for it to get made and had a lot to do with the writing of the script. Everybody else sort of got deals. And I said, God, I better start directing. And I called my friends up from toronto who i'd gone to school with back at mcmaster and i said let's do a summer camp movie and we literally this was in march and we wrote in a couple months and we were shooting in july or end of july we started shooting a week before animal house came out and um that's how fast it was turned around. I called up Bill, who I knew from my show.

He is yet to be on Saturday Night Live. He was going to be the new kid coming on. I think he had done one or two performances for Lauren during the year, that very first year, and then he was coming on as a full-time player. And a genius, comedy genius. Yeah. Very unique. Yeah, but Bill was busy golfing and playing softball, and he said, look, no thank you.

And I said, please, you've got to help me on this. And he refused to agree until the day before I started shooting, and I refused to hire anybody else. And I think he took pity on me. Really? I don't know but he finally agreed and um it was a big movie for him it was it it was his first big movie it turned out to be a real wonderful hit yeah as i was probably the most important movie for me because i was it was really the first real movie i directed and it sort of defined his early comedic persona.

Yeah. Yeah, and that lasted for years. Yeah, well, the combination of, I think, the movies that I directed, Meatballs, Stripes, and the two Ghostbusters really kind of were part of it. And then the movies that Harold directed, you know, Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, you know, that combination really set his comedic

persona. Yeah. And we're all really fortunate to have gotten to work with him. Yeah. It's amazing to me that, you know, Animal House Stripes, Ghostbusters, I mean, that defined, and Groundhog Day, you and Harold defined what modern film comedy was for years. Thank you. Do you feel that?

And I'm sure Harold thanks you as well. It's sad that he's gone, huh? Yeah. So now how did you not end up producing with him? Was he just running his own thing over there? Well, look, you know, I can understand it. Because I was producing and directing those movies that he was co-writing. And I think he wanted to direct

and it was time for him to go out on his own and sort of build his own reputation. And so I think Caddyshack, he was in, I think he wrote Vacation first, actually, and that was the first, and I had nothing to do with that. And so he got on to sort of his own world with that film that's another extraordinary movie directed in and when you see yourself in your evolution as

a filmmaker I mean obviously you're you're an amazing producer and you do both it looks like you produce more than you direct in in the overall picture right yes so I I see on here that that heavy metal was your production and I remember seeing that when i was a kid probably inappropriately yeah and it was uh yeah and it was uh you know because it was 81 well i wasn't that young i was it was i was graduating from high school so that was about right but i mean to to like well i remember that movie came out the whole ralph baxi thing and and then you know all those uh animators i mean how did you get involved with something like that? It seems like off the grid a little. Well, actually, the National Lampoon Magazine also published heavy metal.

So one of the publishers called me and said, because I had done well with the Lampoon because of Animal House, he said, well, would you be interested in this? And I was. I was a fan of the magazine. I was a fan of the illustrations. I was a fan of the illustrations. Yeah, that was amazing stuff. Yeah, it was fun.

And I basically directed that movie, even though I called myself. We had an animation director, but really I did all the voices. I got Candy in there as kind of the voice of Ben. It's just a wonderful time. Those guys were so good. It was such a generation of amazing comedians. Really was. So as your evolution as a filmmaker, when did you like, because I can see you continue doing comedies,

but then something started to change a little bit. I mean, you got attracted to a different type of comedy eventually. Well, well you know you grow older and you shift and you try to do different things so an early one for me was legal eagles with robert redford just after he'd won an academy award you know for ordinary people and that was a handful yeah uh to direct and we had like three quarters of a wonderful script and it's three quarters of a wonderful movie and uh it was just really interesting to work with him and deborah winger and daryl hannah right as the stars of that film and um you know that was right after ghostbusters an odd thing to sort of do and it was it was kind of cool and and did you see it like did you feel yourself changing in terms of like

you know moving away from from shticktick or from young people's movies necessarily? No. No, I mean, it was right after that I did Twins, which I certainly worked for young people as well as, you know, it was one of those silly ideas that sort of occurred. Because I, you know, I met Arnold just after I did Ghostbusters. So I'm up in Aspen. He was skiing with his family as I was. Right. He said, oh, you're the Ghostbusters guy.

And I said, yeah. I could be a Ghostbuster. And, you know, I took him at his word. Yeah. And Danny and I, DeVito, go way back when I was producing in Canada and he was supposed to co-star in a film that I was producing, a kind of big-time action movie with Don Stroud and Brenda Vaccaro. Yeah.

And he actually came up and it was about the time he was doing the great Michael Douglas-produced film. Von Fleur of the Cuckoo's Nest? Yeah, Von Fleur of the Cuckoo's Nest. And we couldn't get him into the country. I mean, we got him in the country, but he wasn't allowed to work. And so I had to turn him away. And we became friends after that.

He had a good sense of humor about it, fortunately. of that he had a good sense of humor about it fortunately and um you know i saw him at one of these disney cartoon events um with his family and my young family and and we he said let's do a film now together and and it was just about the time i saw schwarzenegger and i sort of that was it huh well i started thinking about it, and I pitched an idea to a couple of writers. I said, let's make them brothers. I think I was the one who said twins. And it went from there. When you look at it, because I talked to your son about this as well.

I mean, because he did Dave, which I thought was a great movie. Thank you. And that was very well received, wasn't it? Yes, very well received. And when you look at a script that you don't write, what is appealing to you? What makes you decide to do it? Well, it's like what happened on draft day. It's where I see characters that I sort of can get my head into and where there's both conflict and emotionality.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be funny at all. I mean, draft day wasn't particularly funny when I read the screenplay. And certainly Dave was. Yeah. But I did a lot of work with Gary Ross, who wrote a wonderful initial draft, and then we worked together for about six months and the same thing happened here on draft day so i get myself very involved in the in the development of the script but those are the two that i didn't get into right from the beginning there there were these wonderful gifts that came

to me uh over the transom and with with something like uh with withraft Day, I mean, you used a lot of great character actors surrounding Cosner. Well, I felt, you know, this has got to feel real. Yeah. You got to feel like these guys belong in these rooms, that they know football. Right. That they're, they have that call. There's a voice, it's a sound of a voice.

Right. I think it's partially the musical background that I have. I actually listen to the timbre of how they speak. It's not even how good an actor they are, although that's certainly very important. Right. But it's just the sound, the actual sound. It's what's remarkable about Costner. Costner is like Gary Cooper.

He's got this all-American thing about him, and it's the way he delivers the lines the actual sound of it i remember the i remember one of the first times i was sitting around with him i suddenly stopped and i said god you're so american yeah yeah you represent really what we think of as the best there's something really grounded and real and trustworthy uh and a kind of quiet dignity about him that has made all the roles that he's played really sing. And I thought that quality is what this guy has to be, is a guy who's under amazing pressure, makes mistakes, for makes mistakes and but still is the kind of guy that you know men want to follow and women want to right sleep with yeah it's it's it's it's it's a the compressed kind of character that he played that to me is the most challenging thing to see an actor do to hold back you know

because like he's got to hold back and and play his cards close to his chest through the whole movie. And the relief of that at the end is pretty phenomenal. Yeah. But it's also what real life is like. Most people don't get up and scream and pontificate. And they're boring to watch anyway. Right. And to be with.

Yeah. So it's the quiet strength that we admire. Right. And now when you work with actors, I mean, do you have a method that you do or do you just trust them? I mean, how do you direct? You know, I've learned to sort of speak to actors. It's a process. It's different than blocking. I've never sort of focused on, it's probably because I didn't go to film school. Right.

I think my films are actually visually elaborate, more elaborate than most comedy filmmakers have been. I think Ghostbusters is a very elaborately designed film. And Draft Day is, for a film that is really about people in rooms on telephones, is a very visually exciting film. But you used an interesting device as some sort of sweep. And, you know, there's almost like a take on the 70s stuff with the compartmentalizing of the screen. Well, because it's got, I had to create some kind of split screen technique

because there's a lot of phone calls. And just a standard split screen where people are on two edges seemed like it would get very dull very quickly. Yeah. So I just developed some new ideas. Using digital technology, I could take people out of their backgrounds. Right. I could violate that line that we understand. Oh, that's that place and that's that place.

Right. This other place. Yeah, they had some people, that's that place and that's that place. Right. This other place. Yeah, they had some people sort of floating until they kind of came into place. Well, their elbows would go and then suddenly their whole bodies were in this other room where the other guy was. And it's really what telephone calls. If you think of what a telephone call is, whether your eyes are open or closed and you're speaking, your ear is just taking all this information, and it's as if you're in the place with this other person. And so for you, the phone call is quite intimate. Right.

If you're watching two people talk on a phone, it's just kind of a dull thing. So I was trying to recreate that sort of sense of seeing these people be together in an environment, in a single environment, and make that work even though they're in two places. Yeah, well, you put it that way. It was very effective because now having just seen it two hours ago, and it's in my mind that you did get the feel that they were engaged. Yeah, and we quickly learned that we could do things that we could invent our own stuff, which is a whole scene.

It didn't have to be all that. We could just cut it in a traditional way and then suddenly go to that where it was most effective. One guy could be on a wide shot and the other guy could be in a close-up. We could sweep the screens across and now suddenly be in a different piece of coverage. I could edit within one half of the scene and not edit on the other side. And the most interesting thing for me was also when the scene was over, I could stay with both of them, even though they weren't talking to each other anymore. And because it allows the viewer to watch two responses to the same conversation in

their private moment. And because this is all about, you know, negotiations and what people are thinking and what are, and how people get affected emotionally through those kinds of things. It gave us a lot of internal emotional experience and knowledge by doing things like that. By being able to stay on the beats after. Yes. Which is interesting because it's a, there's a pivotal point in the able to stay on the beats after. Yes.

Which is interesting because there's a pivotal point in the movie where they have to watch footage to assess something that was suggested that they overlooked. That's right. The beat after the play. Yes. So the thought process is around creativity. As a director, you've got to be running on a lot of levels.

Yeah. And part of it is just instinctive, you know. I mean, we figured this out as we were doing it. And I had a sort of very early take on it done by these brilliant designers. And I said, wow, there's just so much opportunity in it. And it really encouraged me to shoot in a certain kind of way. Right. And are you a football fan?

Yeah. really encouraged me to shoot in a certain kind of way right and are you a football fan yeah yeah i mean i'm not one of those statistical guys who knows every player and what how they did and yeah i mean i basically know the rules yeah and um i follow the teams and i bet on the games on sundays i have a group of guys we hang out together on sunday mornings up in santa barbara and they've been doing it for about 25, 26 years. I've been involved for about 18 years with them. And it's a remarkable group of very sort of successful men from all walks of life. It's amazing to me because I don't watch sports at all.

It's not part of my life at all. And I was completely engaged in the movie. I love to hear that. And I got choked up. And I was completely engaged in the movie. I love to hear that. And I got choked up. And I hope your audience will hear it as well. Well, you know, I'm also a guy like, I like, you know, as whatever I claim to be. Well, it's not a matter of whatever I claim to be. I mean, I like, you know, arty things.

But I also like, you know, I cried at the right places. Right. But I also like, you know, I cried at the right places. And there was moments where I wanted to ask you, are you aware of where, you know, like, all right, this is where we're going to get the tears? No, not that way. I'm aware that certain scenes have an emotional impact. And I go for them. I mean, I'm sort of an old-fashioned guy in terms of I think I believe in a certain kind of structure in the storytelling. But I shake it up, and I'm optimistic about humankind. Yeah. I think it's come from what what my background is with my uh and with my

parents and so my my stories tend to be uplifting even what if they're raunchy or goofy or silly right um there's a kind of certain structure that i've i mean i didn't even notice it i wasn't conscious of it but i suddenly as i started to evaluate what I've done over these years, you become more aware. Oh, yeah, you're sort of doing that. And I just try to focus the moments. I think a good director needs to focus his moments and build them. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I talked to your son about it, and he emotionally does not play in the same ballpark that you do. Not at all. No. But he's compelled by, like, you know, when you talk to him, as I'm sure you have, you know, he says he'll find a moment that resonates the sort of, you know, grotesque but beautiful nature of human beings and celebrate those things and challenge himself to shed light in the darkness of characters that are hobbled. Yes. And celebrate them. But clearly his love of narrative has to come from you in some way, do you think? I would hope so.

No, but I think a movie like Young Adult, which I think is just like this really brilliant movie that he did. And I mean, it's just looking into this broken, alcoholic woman brilliantly played by Charlize Theron. And he wrote that and I think he just did it. It's such a special film. It's not a film that I could do. You know, I mean, I could get the performance, but it's really not in my DNA. And it's not who I became as a result of the way, you know,

I grew up and the struggle that I had to go through, which was a totally different struggle than he had to. He had to sort of overcome a kind of successful dad and living with success in his life and not becoming a fucked up kid. And he's just a great guy. All our children, knock wood, have turned out good. Yeah. You did something right.

I think it was mom who did something right. But you was mom oh yeah you did something right but you did produce up in the air for your son yes and the first time and actually the only time we technically worked together uh-huh and it was a really good experience for both of us i think uh-huh i don't know what he said but no no of course he well he i think that the interesting thing about him and it was completely coincidental that i talked to him is that there's an amazing amount of respect and for you but also he hears everything you say and and and you know and he he has absolute appreciation and respect for your wisdom in producing and directing and he's going to filter that through like it's not none of it's lost on him yes, but it has to go through his instrument.

Right. The most critical moment in our relationship, both as producer-director on that film and really as father-son, came in the middle of that movie, or during the editing process, where I was being a little critical of him and I was sort of

fighting too hard and he suddenly stopped and he said you're being too rough on me you're not treating me with enough respect and I looked at him like what I talk like this to all the guys and he said no um you know other producers I've worked with have treated me with more respect and it broke my heart. And I suddenly, but I stopped. And I really paid attention. And I realized, oh, I'm talking, you know, I'm talking presumptuously like his dad. And that's not the relationship here.

He's this extraordinary director that you're lucky enough to produce. Yeah. And, you know, he's written this brilliant movie, and we're in the middle of it, and you should pay more attention and treat him. And I probably wouldn't speak to directors of his caliber the way I was. And it was like this two-hour conversation we had in the middle of the day where we ended up both crying.

It makes me emotional just thinking about it right now. And it was a big turning point. And we both actually started listening in a different way. I think he shifted as well as a result of the conversation. And I found that since then, and our relationship was always good. I mean, we've had our normal strained moments, you know, when he was a younger guy and, you know, when you're going through high school and the stuff that you get into. He talked about dating that woman for years. Yeah, right. You'll have to explain that. You'll have to explain that.

But this was kind of this lovely adult moment between us that just has helped us. And it was a two-hour conversation. Yeah, at least. I remember being out in the parking lot and both of us bawling and sort of speaking in a, you know, just in a very direct, honest way to each other. Uh-huh and and there was no shouting no no quite the opposite right right i think we both wanted to hear each other right and to understand each other and i think there was a remarkable understanding actually finally but it had to get out in the open and he was brave enough you know to confront me at that moment and and i guess i was brave enough to sort of admit when i was wrong wow yeah and and do you could you see

yourself working together again now oh i'd love it and we do in a in a kind of unofficial capacity i think you know much like the relationship with harold ramus back at the beginning and after those movies where he had i think he felt that he had to at least initially build his brand and build his own legacy and his own, you know, most importantly, his own identity. And it was such an important part of it. It was important for him to realize there was no nepotism involved in his life, that he fought for everything. Right. And he really did. I mean, when I think of the things that I did for him, yes, I got to produce something there, but that was a gift to me.

Yeah. I think he had talked to me two years prior. I think it was about the time he did Thank You for Smoking. He said, you know've he always he always was encouraging me to do sort of more serious work because he felt that i could do it and it was very happy when i did dave uh dave and he was extraordinarily happy when i found draft day he loved that script and thought it would be a great thing for me to do at this time and but prior to that just before he started juno he had found this book up in the air and he

said you should direct this should go turn this into a movie and go buy it and so i did yeah um i read it and i didn't really understand it um or the way the book was right quite different than what the movie is and you know hired a bunch of really fancy uh writers yeah none of them could who could get it at all and we went through two or three drafts spent quite a bunch of really fancy writers. Yeah. None of them who could get it at all. And we went through two or three drafts, spent quite a lot of money, and could never get it right. And I remember at the Toronto Film Festival,

right after Juno had premiered, I knew he was ready for something else, and I saw him for dinner after the premiere. And I said, I think you should do dinner after the premiere and I said I think you should do up in the air you clearly love it you get it I don't get it I mean I get it I think I get it in terms of where you wanted what you want to do with it but I have not been able to find someone who can write it so why don't you give give it a shot and he thought about it for about a week and he

said okay I'm gonna give it a try and he like he he wrote a draft in like 40 days it was so much better than anything i'd we'd slaved over for a couple of years and um and it was just brilliant i said we got to do this and we we showed it to the studio they got it right away and you know we made the film that's an amazing story it's got me choked up it really is and and it you know just to hear you know that the mutual respect that you know that that he gave to you when i talked to him and it going back like that it's it's it i can't imagine the the the pride and depth of the relationship. It's a beautiful thing. It doesn't happen too often.

No, I guess not. Yeah. So you look forward to working with him again if you can. Yes. I'd like to work with my daughter, Catherine, who's like this brilliant actress, comedian, who's just on the cusp of getting that right part where people can see it.

She's gotten close a bunch of times and uh i would love to be that director but i'm worried that it'll sort of you know that whole nepotism it'll be too weird it'll be it will not help her it'll put a stink on it yeah so so you gotta wait it out gotta wait it out i think but she's got the stuff that's great and do you think that you did uh draft day because of jason's encouragement do you think that you did draft day because of Jason's encouragement? Do you think that he gave you confidence in that? No, I mean, that just was good news. That he was into it?

Yeah, that was kind of like just helped me be more confident about the choice. But I think I had – I read the script in the middle of the night and it was just like something I got from my agent, which never happens. I mean, I get scripts, but never something that I couldn't put down.

Right. And I read it in about an hour and I knew by the time I finished reading it that I wanted to make it. I wanted to direct it. Uh-huh. And the writers,

they live out of town, but they happen to be in the city and I met with them two days later. First words out of my mouth is look i don't know how but somehow i want to direct this i'm going to make it and um i got actually paramount at the time um bought it on my behalf and we worked on it a little bit and then finally we got the script where i wanted to shoot it which is about three or months later, and got Costner to want to do it. And Paramount, in their wisdom, decided to put in a turnaround. And fortunately, Lionsgate fell in love with it as well, and we just made it.

You've got a great supporting cast. You've got Leary in there. You've got Dennis Leary. Wow. What a talent. Yeah, he produced my show, my tv show him and jim oh good yeah yeah and uh yeah but he's he when he's cast right it's like spectacular you know what i mean it's just like that was just it's like a nice big meaty meal for him yeah yeah yeah

no he and there's something you know speaking of music yeah you know there's the something that in the musical rhythms between the way he talks and the way Costner talks. Yeah. They just make those scenes delicious. Yeah. Yeah. They're really great. It was an honor talking to you.

So much fun. And I'm glad I got to meet father and son in two days. Oh, thank you. Yeah. He had a good time. I know. He called me up this afternoon and said, hey, I hear you're doing. I just did it.

Oh, yeah. Great. No, it was beautiful. Thank you doing, I just did it. Oh, yeah, great. No, it's beautiful. Thank you, Mr. Reitman. Thank you.