Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from I Heart Radio. This week we're featuring two
Speaker 1: incredible authors, Sam Wasson, Observer of Hollywood and its artists,
Speaker 1: and the Pulitzer Prize winning New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright.
Speaker 1: Here's my interview with Sam Wasson. From My guest today
Speaker 1: is author Sam Wasson. Whether he's writing about directors such
Speaker 1: as Blake Edwards, Paul Mazerski, or the history of improv,
Speaker 1: a consistent theme running through Wasson's books is the perseverance
Speaker 1: and talent required to make art in Hollywood. His latest book,
Speaker 1: The Big Goodbye, is about the seminal film Chinatown. How
Speaker 1: Much You Were? How Much you Want? I just want
Speaker 1: to know what you're worth? Over ten millions? Yes? Why
Speaker 1: are you doing it? How much better can you eat?
Speaker 1: What can you buy that you can't already afford? The future?
Speaker 1: Mr Gitts the future. This is the love theme from
Speaker 1: Chinatown by the film's composer Jerry Goldsmith. In The Big Goodbye,
Speaker 1: Wasson chronicles the friendships of the four men at the
Speaker 1: heart of the nineteen four classic producer Robert Evans, screenwriter
Speaker 1: Robert Town, director Roman Polanski, and the movie star Jack Nicholson,
Speaker 1: and what was at stake for each one in making
Speaker 1: this definitive film. Sam Wasson grew up in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and fell in love with the movies. Early on. I
Speaker 1: was a movie love. It was actually Bullets over Broadway.
Speaker 1: I went nuts. I thought, oh, film is not just
Speaker 1: dialogue and performance. It's visual component. It's a complete sensual experience.
Speaker 1: That Bullets was so beautiful and so funny. It knocked
Speaker 1: me out when I saw it. That was the end.
Speaker 1: It's the ultimate art form, combining all the other art forms.
Speaker 1: You finished film school, yeah, USC First I went significantly.
Speaker 1: I went to Wesleyan for film school in Connecticut and
Speaker 1: studied with Janine Basinger, who's the Hollywood historian on the planet.
Speaker 1: Knows more about Hollywood than anyone ever has I think
Speaker 1: ever ever will have. And it's just obvious when you
Speaker 1: talk to her, and she really teaches a tour theory
Speaker 1: of Hollywood. So I got a deep, four year long
Speaker 1: survey of the greatest and there was no deconstruction, there's
Speaker 1: no you know, film theory. It's film as film. And
Speaker 1: that was my film education. And then I went to
Speaker 1: USC which was kind of a bust for what for
Speaker 1: film production. I directed one film myself and I just
Speaker 1: wouldn't say hate it, but I didn't care for at all.
Speaker 1: You know, being responsible for cajoling the work, especially actors.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of managing, isn't it. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's as a much managing as art. Whereas if you're acting,
Speaker 1: or if you're starring, or if you're writing, there's very
Speaker 1: little bullshit that you have to deal with. It's purer.
Speaker 1: I think, well, when I was acting and mid that
Speaker 1: I directed a film, I remember that when you're when
Speaker 1: you make films and you're starring in films, you know,
Speaker 1: years ago for me, you could be in your trailer
Speaker 1: and they would knock on the door and say, well,
Speaker 1: the producer I would like to talk to you, or
Speaker 1: the head of the studio is here visiting, he'd like
Speaker 1: to talk to you, and I'd say tell him I'm
Speaker 1: asleep and just and you could hide in the trailer,
Speaker 1: as opposed to when you're directing. You can't do that.
Speaker 1: You can't. You have to. They come to work and
Speaker 1: they're like, let's let's talk about how you're over over schedule. Here.
Speaker 1: That's an amazing thing about directing is that you're you're
Speaker 1: really in reality. You're interfacing with reality all the time,
Speaker 1: and other art forms you don't. You can be in
Speaker 1: your imagination, but when you're making a movie, there's so
Speaker 1: much ship that you have to do. You're making a
Speaker 1: building from scratch. So you finished, you did four years
Speaker 1: at Wesleyan. Yeah, and then you wanted more film school.
Speaker 1: And then I and everyone was said, oh, you want
Speaker 1: to make movies, you gotta go to film school. You
Speaker 1: gotta go to USC. And so I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: at USC. Of course, that's where you know, you go
Speaker 1: to Juilliard. If you want to do Lincoln Center, you
Speaker 1: go to USC. If you want to do you know,
Speaker 1: Man's Chinese. So Wesleyan was more film theory, and USC
Speaker 1: it was about film production. Yeah, it was film study.
Speaker 1: I mean it was filmed. It was watching movies and
Speaker 1: talking about filmmaking. But at what point do you stop
Speaker 1: and see you I don't think I'm gonna make movies.
Speaker 1: Well I'm not totally convinced that I'm not going to,
Speaker 1: but at that moment it was a combination of two things.
Speaker 1: I looked around and I saw that my fellow classmates
Speaker 1: were completely invested in the Hobbit thing, and I felt
Speaker 1: instantly lonely and realized that I was experiencing a microcosm
Speaker 1: of what it was gonna look like out in the
Speaker 1: real working world. And I thought, you know, maybe the
Speaker 1: Hollywood that I grew up in is no longer the Hollywood.
Speaker 1: That is the Hollywood that I grew up outside of.
Speaker 1: And I was right. And then the book thing just happened.
Speaker 1: How it was actually Janine Basinger Wesley and said why
Speaker 1: don't you write a book? I never thought of it.
Speaker 1: And I picked Blake because I wanted to pick who
Speaker 1: I thought was the greatest writer director of comedy alive
Speaker 1: who had not been celebrated. Now Blake. My ex wife,
Speaker 1: Kim Basinger did a man who loved women with Blake,
Speaker 1: and that's when I first met Julie. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're so right. I mean, he's so under a pre
Speaker 1: I think Victor Victoria is one of the ten funniest
Speaker 1: movies I've ever seen in my life. Ever. I love
Speaker 1: Victor Victoria. I loved ten. I love a movie he
Speaker 1: made that a lot of people probably don't know about,
Speaker 1: called What Did You Do? In the War Daddy, Dick Sean,
Speaker 1: Dick Sean, and Dick Sewn. I'll just say this, Dick
Speaker 1: Seawn is a drag scene in the movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I don't know what else you need, but but Blake, Blake.
Speaker 1: I I always thought that Blake was people look at
Speaker 1: slapstick somehow, with the exception of Chaplin, who is revered
Speaker 1: as poetic because he is, everyone else looks at slapstick
Speaker 1: as this low form. You know, slapstick is dumb, it's
Speaker 1: for children, it's childish, And so I think Blake got
Speaker 1: a bum rap because of that, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: elevate him and say this is sophistic. Someone can fall
Speaker 1: off a fucking chair and it's still be nol coward
Speaker 1: and that's what Victor Victoria is. Okay, So then you
Speaker 1: do after Blake your next book Fifth Avenue five AM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So fifthven and five M is your next books? Why Missurski,
Speaker 1: what did he do to you that made you want
Speaker 1: to write a home Because to write a book, as
Speaker 1: you know, you spending a lot of time in your
Speaker 1: life with that person. Yeah, Missouriski was just just love
Speaker 1: for the work, enthusiasm for the man who I had
Speaker 1: met a couple of times, and actually it ties to Blake.
Speaker 1: As much as I loved the work, Blake left me
Speaker 1: with such a scar in my heart. Why why he
Speaker 1: personally was so sadistic to you? Yeah, sadistic to me,
Speaker 1: and he was that way to you as his as
Speaker 1: his boswell here it was astonishing. I was young. I
Speaker 1: don't know. You could probably tell me how old I was.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I was young. And he would cancel
Speaker 1: on me, and I'd be in the car on the
Speaker 1: way over and he would cancel on me with not
Speaker 1: giving any reason. And then he would call me up
Speaker 1: and he would say, you know, get in the car,
Speaker 1: come on over. And I would get in the car
Speaker 1: and he would cancel on me. It was a real
Speaker 1: dance of death. And I finally got in there a
Speaker 1: couple of times. But um, it was open hostility. It
Speaker 1: was like nothing, and it was a real abusive codependent relationship.
Speaker 1: So Missourski is platformed off of Blake. How why? Because
Speaker 1: I we're getting into the therapy portion of the conversation.
Speaker 1: But of course I blame myself for the way I was,
Speaker 1: you know, and I guess I wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: I knew how to do this, and then it wasn't
Speaker 1: going wrong because of me. And so I wanted to
Speaker 1: be with someone that I was comfortable with and obviously idolized,
Speaker 1: and those two things dovetailed perfectly. And Paul was nothing
Speaker 1: like Blake I take it. Oh, no, Missour's keys. You know,
Speaker 1: it turns out people are like their movies. Blake edwards
Speaker 1: movies are sadistic and we love them for it, and
Speaker 1: Paul's movies are loving and warm and we love him
Speaker 1: for it. But because comedy is finally about rage, to
Speaker 1: find a nurturing director of comedy and Nichols wouldn't be
Speaker 1: would qualify in this case is a rare thing. And
Speaker 1: so I'm interested in funny people, and funny people and
Speaker 1: good people don't always go together. So to find in
Speaker 1: Missouriski funny and mench to the core was a beautiful
Speaker 1: thing and is what what his movies are about. Wells
Speaker 1: interesting you mentioned Nichols because Nichols is a very good example.
Speaker 1: A lot of these big directors I worked with and
Speaker 1: had very small parts, you know, Stone, Marty, Woody, Nichols.
Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't have leading roles in these films.
Speaker 1: And when I worked and I did the movie Working Girl,
Speaker 1: one of the first films I did, and I worked
Speaker 1: with Mike. You could tell that Mike was someone who
Speaker 1: had come through a gauntlet. He had worked his way,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't mean this as a criticism.
Speaker 1: He had come through a gauntlet where in the way
Speaker 1: that you move through the film business, and you have
Speaker 1: and Polanski reminds me of this as well in your book.
Speaker 1: Mike was someone who had in the way that you
Speaker 1: You'll take the good ideas wherever they come from. You'll
Speaker 1: take the good advice wherever it comes from, and you're
Speaker 1: going through the jungle if you will. And eventually you
Speaker 1: realize that the person you can rely on, the person
Speaker 1: has that typically not always maybe, but who typically has
Speaker 1: the best ideas is yourself. And you grow to rely
Speaker 1: on yourself and you don't want anybody to talk you
Speaker 1: out of what you're keen on. That's improvising. That's because
Speaker 1: Mike is an improviser. I mean, does that think that?
Speaker 1: Why did you write that book? Why did you write
Speaker 1: about improv Well? Two reasons. One, I do believe it
Speaker 1: is the great American art form. I do believe that,
Speaker 1: and the other reason I wanted to meet Elaine. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know Elane. I wanted to celebrate Elane because
Speaker 1: she created this. She's a national treasure. You're referring to
Speaker 1: Elaine May. Yes, she is, as you know, you know,
Speaker 1: tough to get a hold of. I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it, and my heart is still not whole.
Speaker 1: There's still a dark Elaine part in the heart. It
Speaker 1: belongs to her. Describe for me with the relationship between
Speaker 1: you spend a good amount of time in the book,
Speaker 1: and the relationship between Town and Polanski. So the film
Speaker 1: of Chinatown, the shooting script, the scenes that were shot,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming that eventually a script is compiled and
Speaker 1: is and is bound if you will, Then is the
Speaker 1: shooting script is that more Polanski than Town? Well, Town
Speaker 1: obviously generated it, and then Polanski for years he was
Speaker 1: generating it. And Town is a very slow writer and
Speaker 1: a very expansive writer. I mean he writes big and
Speaker 1: then struggles to cut down to structure. So when Polanski
Speaker 1: comes in in the last two or so weeks or
Speaker 1: a month or whatever it was, Polanski really structures it.
Speaker 1: So I guess the answer is yes. So the structure
Speaker 1: is Roman, no question about it. But the material is Town.
Speaker 1: Now Town who had his writing partner Edward Taylor? And
Speaker 1: Taylor was someone described that relationship. Taylor was someone who
Speaker 1: did a lot of work uncredited, I think nearly all
Speaker 1: of it on Was he ever credited? Did you mention
Speaker 1: that in the book? What did he get a credit anywhere?
Speaker 1: And not on a Town movie? He got a credit,
Speaker 1: a writing credit on a movie called w I Warshowski
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner picture. Edward Taylor got credited for that. Um,
Speaker 1: but he never got a writing credit on a Robert
Speaker 1: Town movie. UM, never wanted one. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that is when you have a guy, here's four men
Speaker 1: who are fairly um, I'm not obsessed with success, They're
Speaker 1: obsessed with greatness, their legacy. I mean you could you
Speaker 1: could find tune all four men. What did they had
Speaker 1: something in common? But there was a little bit distinctive
Speaker 1: what Nicholson wanted Evan so forth. But for Taylor to
Speaker 1: be in the rooms with these people and writing these
Speaker 1: seminal films, why do you think he didn't want any credit?
Speaker 1: What was it about? Well, there's stated reasons and then
Speaker 1: there's unstated reasons. And the stated reasons were, and this
Speaker 1: is Taylor either from his own writing or or what
Speaker 1: he told to other people, were one, he didn't want
Speaker 1: to deal with the bullshit of show business. He just
Speaker 1: wanted to punch in, punch out right the scenes, do
Speaker 1: the creative work, and not have to deal with the
Speaker 1: haggling of the negotiations and and egos and despair and
Speaker 1: all that stuff that comes with having your name on something.
Speaker 1: There's a certain amount of freedom that you get to say,
Speaker 1: no one's going to know that I was here. So
Speaker 1: there was that. Then there was the long term friendship
Speaker 1: that he had with Town, going all the way back
Speaker 1: to their years at Pomona when they were in college.
Speaker 1: So he felt a kind of loyalty to Town, which
Speaker 1: manifested as subordinating himself to Towns, you know, quite obvious
Speaker 1: need to be a star. And then there were all
Speaker 1: these speculative secret reasons about secrets that they might have
Speaker 1: had on each other. Uh. Then there was of course
Speaker 1: Edwards alcoholism and Town really being a support to take aller,
Speaker 1: you know, because Taylor got paid for this, and Taylor
Speaker 1: in his heart really did believe, you know, these are
Speaker 1: Towns movies which they were in so far as town
Speaker 1: generated them, and I'm just helping Robert with his movie.
Speaker 1: He convinced himself of that that it really was more town.
Speaker 1: And also there are people like that who what they
Speaker 1: convinced and they have a certain kind of personality. I've
Speaker 1: known a couple of myself where through attitude is better
Speaker 1: the crumbs off your table than nothing at all. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. So there's deep pathological stuff that we can't
Speaker 1: even get into. But that's the type that you're describing.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that you see in this movie
Speaker 1: is the death of that studio executive like Evans. You
Speaker 1: mentioned a piece of very well known history, the advent
Speaker 1: of Jaws and what Jaws does to marketing and films
Speaker 1: and how the business old changes in the wake of that.
Speaker 1: But you tell it so well, I mean, you tell
Speaker 1: it really wonderful. You you make everybody really see the
Speaker 1: impact that that once these guys knew there was big
Speaker 1: money in them, there are hills. Everything changes. What was
Speaker 1: it a about Evans that he wanted to have great
Speaker 1: films that made money and one awards. He loved it.
Speaker 1: He loved it, He loved show business, He loved movies,
Speaker 1: he loved people, he loved talent. It's actually that simple.
Speaker 1: I asked him this question. I said, Evans, is it
Speaker 1: as simple as you bet on talent? Do you have
Speaker 1: an easy job? And he said, you goddamn right. That
Speaker 1: was and and and it's true. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: have the courage, that's the question. Do you have the
Speaker 1: courage to say, yes, I believe you are talented. Here's
Speaker 1: the check. Then you're a great studio executive because even
Speaker 1: if the movie fails, even if it is a steaming
Speaker 1: piece of ship humiliation to everyone on the planet, at
Speaker 1: least you go to bed thinking I picked a good guy.
Speaker 1: I picked the right people to do that. That's a
Speaker 1: pride that what executive can now go to sleep saying that?
Speaker 1: You know the Evans is and you mentioned Zanek and
Speaker 1: people like that who are running with the studios. Back then,
Speaker 1: some of them were people who knew how to make movies.
Speaker 1: But they knew people who knew how to make movies,
Speaker 1: and they knew how to bring them together, and they
Speaker 1: seduced them into communion to join them on this venture. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean Goldman's maxim turns out to be right. I
Speaker 1: believe nobody does know anything. I believe nobody knows anything.
Speaker 1: Those people who end up being the most successful are
Speaker 1: the people who have the who are the strongest to
Speaker 1: adhere to their great taste. And those guys Zane, all
Speaker 1: those great guys had exactly that. Now, Evans, of course
Speaker 1: you you you do a wonderful job in the book.
Speaker 1: This is a prism through which you learn a lot
Speaker 1: about the movie business, in the history of the movie business.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great, great book. And you also learn
Speaker 1: what a seminal year of this is in nineteen for
Speaker 1: so many great movies. May and Evans is someone who
Speaker 1: you know, is that white hot period in the seventies,
Speaker 1: the studios are making Paint Your Wagon and Finnian's Rainbow
Speaker 1: and all that stuff is tanking, and then along comes
Speaker 1: and Robert Osborne said this to me when we co
Speaker 1: hosted TCM together. He said, you know, I just hate
Speaker 1: Easy Rider, because Easy Riders, the movie that comes along
Speaker 1: and just changes everything. The movie is becomes so real
Speaker 1: and so ugly and so and and and so nasty
Speaker 1: and so and they're they're like documentaries. Nicholson becomes a star,
Speaker 1: if you will, on the back of that movie. In
Speaker 1: sixty nine let me get into the seventies and what happens, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, just like Hollywood being Hollywood, Easy Rider is
Speaker 1: a hit. So then they all fall over themselves trying
Speaker 1: to get the next one now, unlike today where they
Speaker 1: fall over themselves trying to get the next one. Back
Speaker 1: then making a movie was relatively inexpensive enough that they
Speaker 1: could understand the next one being well, let's try another
Speaker 1: little movie based on a you know, based on a
Speaker 1: couple of guys. You know, the modesty of the Easy
Speaker 1: Rider project could be replicated, and that is a recipe
Speaker 1: for creativity. And so that's what they did after that
Speaker 1: absolutely cynical undertaking insofar as Hollywood is doing what it's
Speaker 1: always done, But because the economics of the system are
Speaker 1: conducive to creativity and the people calling the shots are
Speaker 1: genuinely interested in art, it can flower Polanski's wife. He
Speaker 1: makes the movie Rosemary's Baby, which I can't say enough
Speaker 1: about that movie. And the more I watched that movie,
Speaker 1: that's one of the ones I've downloaded on my computer
Speaker 1: because of that remarkable balance he has. You have Ruth
Speaker 1: Gordon in this like right up to her toes are
Speaker 1: right on the line of camp in that, and yet
Speaker 1: they're Sydney Blackmer playing her husband who's his velvety, and
Speaker 1: the cast is Alicia Cook. You have the creepy and
Speaker 1: the sour and the sweet and the yeared in the
Speaker 1: pleasant everything harmony, and the same is true for this movie.
Speaker 1: The same is true. Polanski is a master of casting master.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought definitely down to I mean,
Speaker 1: who is Bert Young in Chinatown? Talk about juicy? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so it's an embarrassment of riches that we never
Speaker 1: get The movie is so fertile in talent that we
Speaker 1: never get down to the Bert Young of it all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do obscure Bert Young. Diane Lad how about that
Speaker 1: dead on the floor and just a perfect, perfect portrait
Speaker 1: of a nervous actress all the way through performing, down
Speaker 1: to the very end when he pulls out the sag card,
Speaker 1: And that is an l that is also inside. That's
Speaker 1: a little gift to an Angelino to see that, Oh yes,
Speaker 1: she was an actress. Of course she was, And you
Speaker 1: play it back in your mind and and the whole
Speaker 1: psychology of the actress just kind of harmonizes with what
Speaker 1: you've seen. Fucking Polanski casting that movie. I mean, how
Speaker 1: do you do you can't tell. How do you teach
Speaker 1: the ability to cast? That has to be one of
Speaker 1: the things like like, yeah, you don't have you have
Speaker 1: to have you have to sense that that person can
Speaker 1: do even if you have to push them, even if
Speaker 1: they have to dig down, you know, you know. Gary
Speaker 1: Oldman became a star doing Sid Nancy. Gary Olden became
Speaker 1: a star doing Sid Nancy and won an oscar playing Churchill.
Speaker 1: Talk about that journey as an actor in terms of
Speaker 1: the disposition of the character. Now, Polanski, his wife is killed,
Speaker 1: he does Rosemary's Baby. It's it's released in sixty eight.
Speaker 1: His wife is killed in sixty nine. He comes and
Speaker 1: does this movie I guess in seventy three. It's released
Speaker 1: in seventy four, correct, And what Polanski is showing up
Speaker 1: now to shoot Chinatown? Which Polanski shows up Now he's changed,
Speaker 1: how from the horrors of what happened to his wife.
Speaker 1: He's been devastated, He's been devastated, and he's he left town.
Speaker 1: And it should be said, not just because his wife
Speaker 1: and child and friends were murdered by them, not just
Speaker 1: because of the emotional residue of the grief but because
Speaker 1: the town turned on him in a way, the town
Speaker 1: in the panic around figuring out who the killer was.
Speaker 1: We didn't know who the killer was. There was speculation that, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's Polanski. His movies are enough from you. I
Speaker 1: learned that from your book. And it's a tribute to
Speaker 1: his friends, Dick Silbert, Jack, Warren Batty Evans, the people
Speaker 1: who were really his friends, who stuck by him and
Speaker 1: supported him in that. I mean the grief to compound
Speaker 1: on top of the grief, the paranoia of the town
Speaker 1: closing in on you. I can't even make a word
Speaker 1: to come out of that. We were They put him
Speaker 1: back together again, so to speak, his friend, They put
Speaker 1: him back together. He's got a bunch of friends. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of also what this book is about, secretly
Speaker 1: for me, is a good bunch of friends, because that's
Speaker 1: what I dream of, That's what a good Hollywood should
Speaker 1: feel like. One thing that was just really assaulted me
Speaker 1: from the book was that idea that back then and
Speaker 1: it never crossed my mind. It never occurred to me
Speaker 1: that Polanski was someone who people he was a suspect
Speaker 1: and some people's and now the whole and now the
Speaker 1: whole town. The whole community lived in terror in the
Speaker 1: way that lived in terror. And I should add to
Speaker 1: compound to make this even fucking worse. He didn't know
Speaker 1: who the killer was, so he's suspecting his friends. Maybe
Speaker 1: it is Warren, Yes, maybe it is Warren. You know
Speaker 1: he's trying to get sampled. What was he trying to get?
Speaker 1: Like blood samples off of steering wheels in the carpeting
Speaker 1: cars and all this ship. That's an amazing part of
Speaker 1: the book. I mean, it's enough for an opera right there.
Speaker 1: I mean people say it's a Greek tragedy, I mean
Speaker 1: Roman Polanski. That's to say nothing of what we all
Speaker 1: know is coming, but just that incident right there, unimaginable.
Speaker 1: Author Sam Wasson, If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. When we come back, Wasson talks
Speaker 1: about the reception of the film's shocking ending and it's
Speaker 1: remarkable score. I'm Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing Because Chinatown was Jack Nicholson's first real
Speaker 1: turn as a leading man. He paid attention to every
Speaker 1: last detail, down to his wardrobe, to inhabit Jake Giddis.
Speaker 1: I mean it was deep in him too, because Town
Speaker 1: wrote it for him. Town observed Nicholson. They were in
Speaker 1: Jeff Corey's acting class, and and improvised improvisation was heavy
Speaker 1: in that class. And so Jack is a great improviser.
Speaker 1: So Town really became a master of Jack, whatever that means,
Speaker 1: and so learned learned how to just hit it right
Speaker 1: to him. Sometimes I think the guy that can nail
Speaker 1: Chinatown and especially that ending and that in that last line,
Speaker 1: the guy that can nail that ending you right with
Speaker 1: great detail and great insight into the shooting of that
Speaker 1: final scene and the car driving off in that long shot,
Speaker 1: and the actor that pulls the gun and shoots her.
Speaker 1: You know, they're the whole kind of existential on wi
Speaker 1: of the whole thing. At the end, Uh, forget about it.
Speaker 1: Jacob's Chinatown, I thought to myself, that's Polanski. In the
Speaker 1: wake of his wife being butchered that way, Yes, like
Speaker 1: his mother's killed. His father says to him, how you
Speaker 1: have it in there? Move it, move it, the prompt
Speaker 1: from the father, But you just keep moving, just keep moving.
Speaker 1: And Polanski was certainly primed to nail because of all
Speaker 1: the horrors he'd been through. And it's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: a more horrific ending to a major Hollywood movie. It's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine. And when the film was screened for
Speaker 1: the executives, what was there you write about this? What
Speaker 1: was their response to the film? You know, you tried
Speaker 1: your best, Evans, you know, Sue Manger's was like, what
Speaker 1: are you? What were you Connie? What were you thinking?
Speaker 1: I can't do Sue, you can do it. You know,
Speaker 1: they're filing out in the director's guilt. Um was it
Speaker 1: Freddie Fields who had a sort of shiit eating grin
Speaker 1: on his Freddie Freddie and Evans were never sympathical. But
Speaker 1: then it got good reviews. Yeah, yeah, then it did well.
Speaker 1: It did Yeah, and I won a lot of awards.
Speaker 1: Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Jack didn't win. Who
Speaker 1: won that? You? Oh? Oh? Art Carney arc from from Missourski,
Speaker 1: from Missoursky, even Missoursky. When I Jack's oscar and hands
Speaker 1: it not so fast, Jack hands it to Art Carney. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think even Paul was a little embarrassed of that
Speaker 1: was it going in style. No, it was Harry, Uh huh.
Speaker 1: Let's see Chinatown. Let's see Wow. Okay, it sounds like
Speaker 1: an SETV sketch from the makers of Chinatown. From the
Speaker 1: comes a story of a man and his cat. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I love the part of
Speaker 1: the story because I'm obsessed with musical score. Describe how
Speaker 1: there was the path with the score for Chinatown. One
Speaker 1: composer who then what happens? His name was Philip Lambro,
Speaker 1: and um, he wrote, I don't have the language to
Speaker 1: even describe what music I mean. You can actually find
Speaker 1: the score on YouTube. And it was an atonal, edgy, expressionistic, weird,
Speaker 1: you know, not melodic, not what you think of his Hollywood,
Speaker 1: certainly not what you think of his forties glamour Hollywood.
Speaker 1: And it didn't work. And this was like in the
Speaker 1: final moments before you know, scoring comes in at the
Speaker 1: very end. And what happened was Evans called Goldsmith and
Speaker 1: said you got to save my life and and Goldsmith
Speaker 1: said all right. And ten days later and and ten
Speaker 1: days sounds like a legend, you know, sounds like fable
Speaker 1: fiction stuff. I got ten days confirmed all over the place.
Speaker 1: It really was ten days. I mean, if it wasn't
Speaker 1: ten it was eleven days. You know, he turned around
Speaker 1: a masterpiece in no time. This is another reason why
Speaker 1: Evans is Evans only people like Evans can pick up
Speaker 1: the phone and get somebody like Goldsmith to write a
Speaker 1: score for one of the greatest movies in the world
Speaker 1: in ten eleven days or wherever the funk it is.
Speaker 1: And it also tells you that Evans was beloved on
Speaker 1: a personal level. Yes, you know you could make those calls.
Speaker 1: You make those calls and someone says yes and turn
Speaker 1: and turns it around, and Evans supervised the score. You know.
Speaker 1: Music was so important to Evans, so important to Evans,
Speaker 1: even though he's fucked up on on Godfather by not
Speaker 1: you know, Nino wrote a pushing back on Rits. Okay,
Speaker 1: But Evans loves music because he's finally in his heart
Speaker 1: just a romantic and a softie. And also music is
Speaker 1: a major part of post production, and that's where Evans
Speaker 1: can come in and get his hands in there. Sometimes
Speaker 1: he gets his hands a little too much in there,
Speaker 1: as as as copal and Knows and suffered by but
Speaker 1: that's the shadow side of Evans. But music allows him
Speaker 1: to allow him to do that. Author Sam Wasson, and
Speaker 1: now from our archives, my interview with Lawrence Right from
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, My guest today. Author Lawrence Right thinks
Speaker 1: a lot about religion. He wants to know why people
Speaker 1: choose one faith over another, especially when what they choose
Speaker 1: seems quote absurd or dangerous to an outsider. This question
Speaker 1: has led Right to investigate some of the world's most
Speaker 1: complicated and secretive organizations, from the People's Temple in Jonestown
Speaker 1: to the Church of Scientology. His book on Al Qaeda
Speaker 1: won the Politz Surprise in two thousand seven. Lawrence Right
Speaker 1: has a unique firsthand experience as to the power of belief.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Dallas and the Methodist Church, and
Speaker 1: there was despite the fact that Methodism doesn't have a
Speaker 1: reputation as being kind of a you know, hell fire
Speaker 1: and Brimstone, the first of the churches that we went
Speaker 1: to in Dallas really was that. And then we graduated
Speaker 1: to the Methodist Church downtown. My dad taught Sunday school
Speaker 1: for many, many years. You know, Dallas back at that
Speaker 1: time was the most pious city in America. We had
Speaker 1: the largest Methodist Baptist I think, the largest Episcopal church
Speaker 1: and one of the largest Catholic churches in the entire country.
Speaker 1: And at the same time we had the highest murder
Speaker 1: rate and the highest divorce rate, you know, all the
Speaker 1: things that go along with excessive piety. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was and I was very pious as a teenager. I
Speaker 1: was in a group called Young Life and m genuinely
Speaker 1: or you were responding to pressure, No, I was. I was, well,
Speaker 1: there was part of those things. It was you know,
Speaker 1: I had moved around a lot as my dad was
Speaker 1: a banker and we moved, uh, quite a lot, and
Speaker 1: it was hard for me to establish roots. So when
Speaker 1: I got to Dallas and this, you know, Young Life
Speaker 1: came out. It was a social club for me. But
Speaker 1: also it was the first time I understood the you
Speaker 1: can binge yourself into the shape of the organization the
Speaker 1: way it wants you to be. And also the more
Speaker 1: pious you are, sort of the higher you climb, the
Speaker 1: more important. So I got to be part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well you just say those things and it's and you
Speaker 1: want to believe him. I was not consciously trying to
Speaker 1: deceive anyone. At the same time, you know what to
Speaker 1: say your your heartfelt, andy, but at the same time
Speaker 1: you realize that there's there's an approval system here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think that that experience um was formative in
Speaker 1: some ways for me to be so interested in religious
Speaker 1: matters and why, you know, I people are always, you know, reporters,
Speaker 1: especially fascinated by politics. But you can have strong political
Speaker 1: views and it doesn't affect your life at all, But
Speaker 1: if you have strong religious views, they probably dictate much
Speaker 1: of your behavior. Is puzzling to me. Why with most
Speaker 1: journalists it's just embarrassing to ask about what people believe
Speaker 1: because it's not supposed to matter. Due to leave the
Speaker 1: area to go to college, I went to Tulane in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, which was a city least like Dallas that
Speaker 1: I could find and you could buy beer and woolworth
Speaker 1: and you could drink at eighteen and uh there you
Speaker 1: know a lot of things of very pious theory. At
Speaker 1: that time. I kind of shed that, but I was
Speaker 1: actively looking for a way to live a more bohemian life.
Speaker 1: I felt very constricted in Dallas. Was writing something that
Speaker 1: was on your mind even at an early age. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I took a creative writing class, you know, I was
Speaker 1: not a discissed school paper. Now. I used to like
Speaker 1: doing that stuff though. And then um, after I graduated, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the Venom War was going on, and uh,
Speaker 1: I became a conscientious objector and spent two years of
Speaker 1: alternative service teaching in Cairo. And that's where I became
Speaker 1: involved for the first time with the Arab world. And
Speaker 1: when the boy from Dallas becomes a conscientious objector, how
Speaker 1: did that go off? Back home? You know, I my
Speaker 1: dad was a war hero, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: like him. I was in our otc. I expected, you know,
Speaker 1: to to follow in his footsteps. But you know, there
Speaker 1: was this parallel problem going on, which was the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: which was despicable different and it was. It was a
Speaker 1: bad war. And you know, for a person, a young
Speaker 1: man like me who wanted to serve his country but
Speaker 1: did not want to kill people for the wrong reason
Speaker 1: or risk my life for something I didn't believe in,
Speaker 1: it just was a terrible My father and I had horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible fights about Vietnam. Do you have any brothers? No,
Speaker 1: I had two younger sisters, so you were you were
Speaker 1: the scion. Did you ever make peace with him? About that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I wrote a memoir about growing up in
Speaker 1: Dallas during the Kennedy assassination and in America during the
Speaker 1: Vietnam Era. And in the process of doing that, I
Speaker 1: talked to my parents a lot, and I let them
Speaker 1: read the manuscript and it was a very healing experience
Speaker 1: for all of us. I think I first became familiar
Speaker 1: with you, and you're writing in the Olympia Washington story.
Speaker 1: He was entitled Remembering Satan, which you wrote as a
Speaker 1: book as well. These were excerpts in the book. There
Speaker 1: was a two part lengthy excerpt in the edition of
Speaker 1: The New Yorker. And I first became familiar with you.
Speaker 1: And I mean I was just supposed, you know, like
Speaker 1: knocked out by this piece. I thought, you know, how
Speaker 1: on earth is this possible? Had you written pieces like that,
Speaker 1: I mean the scientology piece, the book and Going Clear,
Speaker 1: which we're gonna get to that obviously, and this piece, uh,
Speaker 1: there's uh, there's some fascinating people either putting themselves or
Speaker 1: putting other people through some living hell. Here was this
Speaker 1: the first such piece you wrote? The Olympia piece. No,
Speaker 1: I think I had written about you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of different even wrote about Satanists and you know, people
Speaker 1: of all sorts of I mean, if you're a reporter
Speaker 1: and you have a passport to write about anybody, um,
Speaker 1: and I took full advantage of that. But that remembering
Speaker 1: satan is kind of uh stereotypical type of article that
Speaker 1: I like to write about, which is um. For one thing,
Speaker 1: it's a discreet world. You know, in this case, it
Speaker 1: was you know, this world inside Olympia, Washington that had
Speaker 1: been infected by these hysterical memories of Satanic ritual abuse
Speaker 1: which never occurred. But a man was convicted of these crimes.
Speaker 1: He confessed to them because he remembered them, and there
Speaker 1: was other than his memory. There was no evidence, if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, no one else was sentenced to prison.
Speaker 1: Only Paul went to prison. What's this relationship with his
Speaker 1: family now? Or do you even know? It's very broken
Speaker 1: as far as I haven't talked to Paul in a
Speaker 1: couple of years. But you know he's married again. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he started another life. And but you know, it's
Speaker 1: an example of how the mind can be so persuaded
Speaker 1: of you know, a fall reality that and I think
Speaker 1: everybody is capable of that. I don't you want to
Speaker 1: know if I would say that not capable of that,
Speaker 1: but creating a false reality. One of the things that
Speaker 1: has been an education to me as a reporter when
Speaker 1: I'm out interviewing people that have been, for instance, in
Speaker 1: al Qaeda or you know, people that have come out
Speaker 1: of you know, I've interviewed the children of Jim Jones,
Speaker 1: and you know, as talk to people who went into scientology,
Speaker 1: they're not crazy people. Then they're not stupid, and you
Speaker 1: know they're they're often you know, if there's a commonality,
Speaker 1: there's idealism. Uh, you know, they're a longing to make,
Speaker 1: you know, change history, makes something of yourself and uh
Speaker 1: that's you know, maybe that's one of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: elements of our human nature, is that we it's the
Speaker 1: better parts of our nature that sometimes lead us into
Speaker 1: real dangerous areas. With the better parts of the natures
Speaker 1: of Jones is children, Well, you know they were they
Speaker 1: were essentially captive to him. So but and they survived,
Speaker 1: thank god. They were all playing basketball in a tournament
Speaker 1: and Georgetown, Guiana, so they weren't a killing when the
Speaker 1: killings went down. But the it's always to me, it
Speaker 1: is always uh underscored the danger of these kinds of
Speaker 1: fanatical belief systems. Uh. There were these three boys U
Speaker 1: two adopted. UH. Stephen was a natural son and he
Speaker 1: looked very much like his father, Jim Jones, with the
Speaker 1: kind of Cherokee cheek bones. And he's very tall and striking,
Speaker 1: handsome man. And M. Then there was Jim Jones Jr.
Speaker 1: Who was black. UM and Uh adopted. And then the
Speaker 1: third adopted son was Tim. Who is this big red
Speaker 1: headed guy. Tim. These boys when I talked to him,
Speaker 1: Waco was going on at that time, the Branch Davidian episode,
Speaker 1: and Tina Brown was the editor of the New Yorker,
Speaker 1: and she wanted me to go to Waco. And I said,
Speaker 1: they're more reporters and Waco than there are Branch Davidians.
Speaker 1: I just but I was. I was convinced that this
Speaker 1: must you know, I had seen the children, some of
Speaker 1: the children that were sent out. I thought that must
Speaker 1: have happened before. And I found these three boys who
Speaker 1: had never then grown men, never told their story before.
Speaker 1: And I don't know why they were willing to talk
Speaker 1: to me. But Tim, when I got to him, UH,
Speaker 1: he's he demanded that we do it in a restaurant,
Speaker 1: in a public place, because he didn't want to cry,
Speaker 1: and he had never told his wife, his current wife,
Speaker 1: what had happened. Man, he wanted to say this story
Speaker 1: one time. Now, bear in mind, Tim Jones is a
Speaker 1: massive fellow. He can he can press a hundred pounds
Speaker 1: with either arm. You know, he is a immense physical presence.
Speaker 1: And we went to the restaurant and within a few
Speaker 1: minutes he was pounding the table and sobbing because Tim
Speaker 1: is the one who had to go into the jungle
Speaker 1: and identify nine people his real parents, his adoptive parents,
Speaker 1: his wife at the time, and his children, everybody lying
Speaker 1: on the ground and U It makes an impression. Did
Speaker 1: he ever confide to you or or even just discussed
Speaker 1: to you what he thought was going on there? What
Speaker 1: he thought? Joy? They all knew that their dad was
Speaker 1: crazy and that he had what was he doing there?
Speaker 1: You know, he was giving these suicide drills regularly. You know,
Speaker 1: they break out the what was the purpose of jonestown?
Speaker 1: Oh well, they stated purpose was two they were Jones
Speaker 1: was intensely paranoid. He had the feeling that the government
Speaker 1: was persecuting him, which was not really true. At all
Speaker 1: but one night, the entire which disappeared. You know, they
Speaker 1: all went secretly to this little South American country with it,
Speaker 1: you know, in the in the middle of the jungle.
Speaker 1: They've been preparing it, the boys. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: just a you know, it's like a you know, a
Speaker 1: little summer camp type of thing. They built quanset huts
Speaker 1: and so on, and they were living near a river
Speaker 1: and they built an air strip. I remember reading on
Speaker 1: this thing online where they said that Jonestown was this
Speaker 1: training ground where they were breading MK ultra operatives who
Speaker 1: were capable of committing murder on behalf of the government
Speaker 1: and then they'd have a memory of it. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that that's true, but I remember reading
Speaker 1: that once. I was fast when I was writing about
Speaker 1: remembering Satan, when I was doing the you know, the
Speaker 1: multiple personalities were supposed to be the product of Satanic
Speaker 1: ritual abuse, and there was a big rise in multiple
Speaker 1: personality disorder, and one of the theories was that the
Speaker 1: multiples had been created by the CIA in order that
Speaker 1: one personality could become a spy and you know, deliver
Speaker 1: messages that other personalities inside the same human being wouldn't
Speaker 1: know about Lawrence, writes New Yorker article The Orphans of Jonestown,
Speaker 1: came out for the fifteenth anniversary of the V eight
Speaker 1: massacre that killed over nine people. Listen to more conversations
Speaker 1: with writers who take on complicated issues, like David Simon,
Speaker 1: who wrote the TV show The Wire but started out
Speaker 1: as a beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun. I think
Speaker 1: it was very fair as a reporter. You know, some
Speaker 1: of poverty is about personal responsibility, and some of it
Speaker 1: is not. Some of it is systemic and a result
Speaker 1: of societal forces that are profound. Take a listen in
Speaker 1: our archives that here's the thing dot Org. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. You're listening to. Here's the thing. My guest.
Speaker 1: Lawrence Wright prefers taking notes on index cards over using
Speaker 1: a computer. You can only imagine the number of cards
Speaker 1: right used for his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood, and
Speaker 1: the Prison of Belief. After it was published in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney asked right if he
Speaker 1: considered an adaptation. We'd worked together before. You know, I
Speaker 1: had done this book about al Qaeda called The Looming Tower,
Speaker 1: and I had just my little acting venture. I Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't more travel with it. You know, I just
Speaker 1: hate touring, you know, doing the book tour thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had seen Anna Davere Smith do fires in the
Speaker 1: mirror at the Public Theater and I was the first
Speaker 1: time I could see the journalism and he could be married.
Speaker 1: And I fascinated by that. So I did a one
Speaker 1: man show called My Trip to al Qaeda, and I
Speaker 1: did it off Broadway for about six weeks and in
Speaker 1: a few other cities, and Alex saw me do it
Speaker 1: in Washington. We decided to make it into a documentary,
Speaker 1: which we did for HBO. We hit it off. Alex
Speaker 1: Is is a is a his nickname from childhood as
Speaker 1: Tiger and his well chosen name. And he's a very
Speaker 1: skillful storyteller. And it takes those qualities to take something
Speaker 1: as complicated about an organization as vindictive and litigious as
Speaker 1: the Church of Scientology. It takes somebody like Alex to
Speaker 1: put together a movie like he's just done. One of
Speaker 1: the things I thought when I saw the film, and
Speaker 1: I mean all my friends and people who know me personally, Uh,
Speaker 1: it wasn't lost to my friends with it. About a
Speaker 1: week after that I was back on a plane to
Speaker 1: London to go shoot a film with Tom Cruise. And
Speaker 1: Tom is a friend of mine, and um, I mean
Speaker 1: I consider him a friend in the business sense, but
Speaker 1: we don't get to see each other then often. But
Speaker 1: he's always very kind and as people who know Tom know,
Speaker 1: he's a great person to be in the trenches of
Speaker 1: movie making with. He's very hard working and very very
Speaker 1: um passionate about the work. But when I saw the film,
Speaker 1: one thing I didn't get And maybe it's there, maybe
Speaker 1: it was in the book and maybe it's in the film,
Speaker 1: but I it was I mean, I watched this film
Speaker 1: with intense scrutiny. There wasn't any sense to me of
Speaker 1: what are the people who are in scientology and remain
Speaker 1: in scientology and who are dedicated this, What do they
Speaker 1: perceive they're getting out of it? Because I have some
Speaker 1: opinions about that what people have told me, Well, what
Speaker 1: does it do for them? And why are they there?
Speaker 1: Especially when people go into scientology, they don't you know,
Speaker 1: they don't go into it because it's a cult. They
Speaker 1: go into it oftentimes because they're looking for something as well,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they are spiritual seekers or there. You know,
Speaker 1: you might be one of those people that goes down
Speaker 1: on the subway and someone says, would you like to
Speaker 1: take our personality tests? You know, and um, sure, Oxford
Speaker 1: capacity analysis. It sounds like, you know, might be and
Speaker 1: you know, well if we see that you have a
Speaker 1: little trouble of communicating with people that's true, well we
Speaker 1: you know, we can say we can help you with that.
Speaker 1: Or in the case of Paul Haggis, um, you know,
Speaker 1: he had a girlfriend that he was having trouble with
Speaker 1: and say we we have a course that can help
Speaker 1: you in your relationships in pain. And the truth is
Speaker 1: oftentimes they can help. It's like going into therapy. People
Speaker 1: do benefit from it. So this initial exposure to scientology
Speaker 1: is often very positive to people. What about the people
Speaker 1: like Travolta, people who seem to have the world on
Speaker 1: a silver platter and everything is going their way, Well,
Speaker 1: that wasn't true. When he got in. He was a
Speaker 1: you know, troubled young man who was in his first
Speaker 1: movie in Mexico. He confided to an actress who was
Speaker 1: on the set. You know, he's having these difficulties and
Speaker 1: she was a scientologist, and she gave him some auditing
Speaker 1: which is what scientology calls his therapy, and gave him
Speaker 1: a copy of Dinetics and so on. He had an
Speaker 1: experience which happens to a lot of scientologists when they're
Speaker 1: being audited. He went exterior. In other words, he had
Speaker 1: an out of body experience. He had a sense that
Speaker 1: he had left his corporal being and could look around
Speaker 1: the room and you know, see things behind him and
Speaker 1: so on. At the time he was taking a course
Speaker 1: when he tried out for this Welcome Back Carter, the
Speaker 1: teacher had everybody in the class turned their direction. I
Speaker 1: think it was CBS Studios, you know, but telepathically send
Speaker 1: the message to the executives that the John Travolta is
Speaker 1: right for the role. And he got the part. And
Speaker 1: so he always credited Scientology was putting him in the
Speaker 1: big time, as he said, so you know, in that sense,
Speaker 1: he really did feel that it had changed his life.
Speaker 1: But it's one thing to get into it and it's
Speaker 1: another thing to get out of it. If you are
Speaker 1: a star like Travolta was at one time the biggest
Speaker 1: star in the world, and uh, you have put your
Speaker 1: name down again and again and again. As a scientologist,
Speaker 1: you're identified with it and they have tapes of you, yes,
Speaker 1: discussing your moments, right like if you and I were
Speaker 1: sitting in a Scientology auditing session right now, and you're
Speaker 1: my auditor, and you know, and I'm holding the cans
Speaker 1: which are attached to the E meter, and you're probing,
Speaker 1: uh and asking me very impersonal questions about my life
Speaker 1: and and things that I would not want to disclose
Speaker 1: to anyone else except in this very confidential confessional atmosphereiating
Speaker 1: material that is actually secretly recorded, sometimes videoed, And then
Speaker 1: it becomes apparent to you that if you decide to
Speaker 1: leave UM, the church may use some of that against you.
Speaker 1: And I talk heard that. I talked to a guy
Speaker 1: whose assignment was to go through all those old auditing
Speaker 1: sessions on John Travolta and find stuff they could use
Speaker 1: against him because they were worried that he was he
Speaker 1: was gonna go over the wall. Right in the piece
Speaker 1: in the film, The one thing I found that was
Speaker 1: disturbing was that there are celebrities and wealthy public figures
Speaker 1: who tie a certain amount of their money millions of
Speaker 1: dollars to this organization, a second tier, if you will,
Speaker 1: and this is my description the second tier if you will.
Speaker 1: Are you know, middle Americans, middle income who often go
Speaker 1: into debt, often go into dangerous amounts of debt and
Speaker 1: unwise amounts of debt in order to pay for these
Speaker 1: ordering courses for them to give money to the church.
Speaker 1: And then there's people who are poor, who have nothing,
Speaker 1: who wind up trading in kind services. They become you know,
Speaker 1: they become like a labor force for them, and then
Speaker 1: they get forty cents an hour, acording to the film,
Speaker 1: and and and they're doing a lot of work that
Speaker 1: benefits other people. In the film, they're saying that these
Speaker 1: people are maintaining the hangar of cruises airplanes. Well, not
Speaker 1: only maintained it. What they did was refurbish it. They
Speaker 1: built all the furniture, they painted it. They you know,
Speaker 1: they essentially took an empty hangar and made it into
Speaker 1: an office in a place for his planes and all
Speaker 1: these elaborate Have you ever been in his hangar burbank Well,
Speaker 1: and he's got you know these you know, big the
Speaker 1: cows and stuff like that, you know, banners hanging down.
Speaker 1: It's it's a pretty swank environment. And they handcrafted a
Speaker 1: limousine for him and oversaw the reconstruction of his tour bus,
Speaker 1: and they, you know, refurbished his house. And these are
Speaker 1: people who are paid fifty dollars a week. Many of
Speaker 1: them joined as children, so you know, they're impoverished and
Speaker 1: they there, they have no place to go they have,
Speaker 1: you know, and if if they do, they don't know
Speaker 1: what they were then But of course maybe it may
Speaker 1: be the case that their families and all are in
Speaker 1: the church and if they left, none of those people
Speaker 1: would ever speak to them. And do you think the
Speaker 1: people who were the beneficiaries of this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: do they know what's happening. There's no question that Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise knows what's going on inside the Sea Org. And
Speaker 1: I hold Tom to account. I single him out in particular.
Speaker 1: And because they're only two ways that the abuses that
Speaker 1: we chronicle in the movie and in my book, there
Speaker 1: are only two ways that they can be addressed, and
Speaker 1: one is that the I. R. S. Decides well, maybe
Speaker 1: we should re examine that tax exemption that we were
Speaker 1: bludgeoned into given them. In explain for people who don't know.
Speaker 1: But this is a fascinating part of the film. It
Speaker 1: was during the time that Hubbard was alive or was
Speaker 1: the settlement reached after Hubbard does after he died, and
Speaker 1: and apparently he had a brigade and had been raising
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and he had and he had
Speaker 1: a lot of cash at his disposal and was just
Speaker 1: shelling the I R S and litigation to maintain their status.
Speaker 1: And finally the IRS just caved and said, well, here's
Speaker 1: the situation that described would have David Muscavage found himself
Speaker 1: in after Hubbard died. Uh he wrestled control of this organization.
Speaker 1: And Hubbard had decided not to pay the taxes, and
Speaker 1: so by the Church of Scientology was a billion dollars
Speaker 1: in arrears and it didn't have a billion dollars. And
Speaker 1: so this was an existential moment for the church. They
Speaker 1: had to get a tax exemption. And moreover, the I
Speaker 1: R S hated them because, you know, in the eighties
Speaker 1: Hubbard had infiltrated all these you know, the Justice Department,
Speaker 1: the I R S, Food and Drug Administration had all
Speaker 1: these Scientology spies inside the government until the FBI broke
Speaker 1: it open and what was called Operations Snow White, and
Speaker 1: twelve people went to prison, including Hubbard's wife. So the
Speaker 1: I R S, among other government agencies did not look
Speaker 1: kindly on the Church of Scientology. So how do you
Speaker 1: just imagine how you would go about getting a tax
Speaker 1: exemption from the I R S. Well, the Scientology way
Speaker 1: was to launch twenty four hundred lawsuits against the I
Speaker 1: R S and individual agents, to hire private investigators to
Speaker 1: follow agents around to go to conventions where they might
Speaker 1: be drinking too much or fooling around. I don't have
Speaker 1: a billion dollars to pay the taxes, but I've got
Speaker 1: fifty million to lop some grenades. Yes, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: and they they they they won, and they wanted. My
Speaker 1: personal feeling it is twofold one is I think that
Speaker 1: the I R S just did cave because the deal
Speaker 1: that the deal on the table was, will give you
Speaker 1: the exemption and and all those lawsuits will go away?
Speaker 1: And they did. And so did they say, well, will
Speaker 1: we'll give you the exemption to take away those lassus?
Speaker 1: Would you have to pay us some amount of this
Speaker 1: money in a million dollars? And that's all that's the
Speaker 1: I R S that's fired. And moreover, there was such
Speaker 1: an overwhelming exemption. The church has manifold different entities, you know,
Speaker 1: but even Hubbard's novels are considered to be scripture and
Speaker 1: taxes and uh, in the church now has the authority
Speaker 1: to determine which parts of itself should be tax exempt.
Speaker 1: Who was it in the film? If I remember correctly,
Speaker 1: there's someone I think there's an individual use site who
Speaker 1: says to Hubbard early in his career, the only way
Speaker 1: you're going to get rich is if you start a
Speaker 1: religious They were about ten people he said that too,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I think that Hubbard really, I
Speaker 1: think he really did believe that. But let me get
Speaker 1: back to that question of you know, just to touch
Speaker 1: back on Tom Cruise before we finish that, if the
Speaker 1: if the I r S re examined after the licking
Speaker 1: it took from from scientology, if it decided to go
Speaker 1: back and re examine that, that might force change inside
Speaker 1: the church. But I haven't seen any evidence that the
Speaker 1: r S has the appetite to do this. Almost the
Speaker 1: Senator on the West Coast, the Senator Ron Wyden, is
Speaker 1: looking into this, and so you know, that's a possible.
Speaker 1: But the other way that change and reform could come
Speaker 1: in scientology is that some of the celebrity megaphones turn
Speaker 1: around in the other direction. And demand change. And nobody
Speaker 1: has benefited more from Scientology than Tom Cruise. Nobody is
Speaker 1: more identified in the public with the Church of Scientology
Speaker 1: than Tom Cruise. Nobody has brought lured more people into
Speaker 1: the church than Tom Cruise. If you ask people name
Speaker 1: one member of the Church of Scientology, that's the one
Speaker 1: and Uh and moreover, it's a powerful I mean if
Speaker 1: you look at you know, he was the number one
Speaker 1: box office star, so he had volta than uh than
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise, and you know, and also Will Smith who
Speaker 1: started a Scientology school. Although he says he's not a scientologist,
Speaker 1: he was one of the time he was number one.
Speaker 1: So you have one to three the most powerful actors
Speaker 1: in among the moral And if you're a young actor
Speaker 1: standing out in central casting waiting to get maybe he's
Speaker 1: not a bad idea. If I stopped by this center, well,
Speaker 1: when you're standing in line, they'll be passing out brochure
Speaker 1: saying how to get an agent, how to get ahead
Speaker 1: and the business. Come to the celebrity center where to
Speaker 1: make that direct link. Yes, and he also back in
Speaker 1: the old days, the acting UH schools like the Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Playhouse was run by Yes who was my teacher.
Speaker 1: He was apparently a wonderful teacher, and he was a scientologist.
Speaker 1: And I think when so many of these young people
Speaker 1: they when they come, you know, it is a young
Speaker 1: person's game when they get into it. So many of
Speaker 1: the people that went into scientology, and this is true
Speaker 1: of anybody that tries to become an actor. Many people
Speaker 1: who try to become an actor, they leave high school.
Speaker 1: They don't go to college. You have to go right away.
Speaker 1: Nearly everyone we're talking about is un education. And so
Speaker 1: you're in your vulnerable intellectually vulnerable, and and also you
Speaker 1: are risking everything. Your friends are going off they're going
Speaker 1: to get law degrees and stuff like that, and you
Speaker 1: are out in you know, Hollywood, eating dog food, hoping
Speaker 1: to be a movie star. There's a sense of inadequacy
Speaker 1: that you haven't filled in the great blanks that all
Speaker 1: your friends are doing. And and so you alongcome scientologists,
Speaker 1: which says, why bother none of that? Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: you can supersede all that because well we will get you.
Speaker 1: You will you will learn the secrets of the universe,
Speaker 1: and you'll acquire superhuman powers. And that's and also just
Speaker 1: being noticed at all at that level is, you know,
Speaker 1: very powerful, because you know, I'm sure you've done this
Speaker 1: a million times. But I remember once when I was
Speaker 1: out in l a and I was a Norman Lear's
Speaker 1: company and I I walked into a room in the
Speaker 1: lobby and there were about forty guys who were blond
Speaker 1: and six ft two and extremely handsome, and and I
Speaker 1: felt small and brown and uh. And you know, but
Speaker 1: there was a sign saying no actors passed this point.
Speaker 1: And I was able to walk past this point and
Speaker 1: all those blue eyes in my direction, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I thought, one of those guys, one of those guys
Speaker 1: is going to have his life change, and everybody else
Speaker 1: is gonna go home and some of them become lawnmowers
Speaker 1: or something like that. But that's the risk to have
Speaker 1: the Church of Scientology come along, maybe in that same
Speaker 1: room and passing out brochure is saying that we can
Speaker 1: help you. And and by the way, on the brochure
Speaker 1: that might have a picture of Tom Cruise or somebody
Speaker 1: like that. It's a very powerful lure. If you also
Speaker 1: appreciate lauren writes work. There's a lot more to consume.
Speaker 1: Nine books, five plays, countless articles, the documentary film based
Speaker 1: on his book Going Clear, Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison
Speaker 1: of Belief is currently available on HBO on Demand and
Speaker 1: HBO Go. And if you're ever in Austin you might
Speaker 1: be able to catch him playing keyboard in the Blues collective.
Speaker 1: Who Do Right said of playing in a band quote,
Speaker 1: I decided a while ago that I would only do
Speaker 1: things that are really important or really fun. This is
Speaker 1: really fun. This is Alec Baldwin you're listening to. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing.