1
00:00:01,600 --> 00:00:04,160
Speaker 1: Hey, that's Zach McNeice. I'm one of the producers of

2
00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:06,960
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing, and this week for our summer staff pick,

3
00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:09,320
Speaker 1: I want to share with you one of my favorite

4
00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:12,080
Speaker 1: episodes from all the way back in two thousand thirteen.

5
00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,040
Speaker 1: I love movies, and I really enjoyed listening to stories

6
00:00:16,079 --> 00:00:18,680
Speaker 1: from filmmakers about how they got their start and the

7
00:00:18,800 --> 00:00:22,760
Speaker 1: turning points that shaped their careers. Chris Columbus may not

8
00:00:22,840 --> 00:00:25,799
Speaker 1: be quite as recognizable a household name as some of

9
00:00:25,840 --> 00:00:28,240
Speaker 1: his peers in Hollywood, but I have no doubt that

10
00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:32,120
Speaker 1: you've seen and cherished many of his films. Here's Alec

11
00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:36,720
Speaker 1: with Chris Columbus. Chris Columbus has brought to the screen

12
00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:39,680
Speaker 1: some of the biggest American family films of the last

13
00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:44,839
Speaker 1: twenty years, Adventures in Babysitting Home Alone, Mrs Dowdfire. He

14
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:48,680
Speaker 1: also produced and directed the first two Harry Potter films

15
00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:53,519
Speaker 1: and produced the third as well. I'm a wizard and

16
00:00:53,560 --> 00:00:55,960
Speaker 1: that's something good at night, wager, once you trade up

17
00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 1: a little, you've made a mistake. I mean, I can't

18
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:07,600
Speaker 1: be a wizard. I mean, I'm just Harry. I've known

19
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:10,679
Speaker 1: Chris for a long time. We were in school together

20
00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:14,400
Speaker 1: at n y U I lived, started at Weinstein and

21
00:01:14,440 --> 00:01:17,520
Speaker 1: then um moved to Reuben. You were in Ruby as

22
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,319
Speaker 1: in Reuben, and I think that's where we met. Yeah.

23
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:22,920
Speaker 1: For Columbus, n y U was more than just a

24
00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:25,840
Speaker 1: place to learn the craft. He loved film school for

25
00:01:25,880 --> 00:01:28,320
Speaker 1: me was the only it was sort of the only

26
00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:31,520
Speaker 1: way out, you know. Um, I grew up in Both

27
00:01:31,520 --> 00:01:35,559
Speaker 1: of my parents were factory workers in Ohio. UM my

28
00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:39,520
Speaker 1: future was basically working at either my father's aluminum factory

29
00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:42,840
Speaker 1: or my mother's automotive factory. Literally didn't own them that

30
00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,640
Speaker 1: I was just be worried and they did. You could

31
00:01:46,640 --> 00:01:48,120
Speaker 1: own them, I could own them, and they made a

32
00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:51,360
Speaker 1: bad decision. I did. Although I don't think there's much

33
00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:54,280
Speaker 1: work there. But at the time that was it, you know,

34
00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:58,600
Speaker 1: and and the only escape really for me. Uh, we're

35
00:01:58,640 --> 00:02:01,000
Speaker 1: movies and what we're moving to you then there was

36
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:05,320
Speaker 1: no DVD, There was no Noble television. How did you?

37
00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:09,200
Speaker 1: Movies were the either the CBS late night movie. I

38
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:10,960
Speaker 1: would sneak out of bed and watch the late night

39
00:02:11,040 --> 00:02:15,640
Speaker 1: movie on CBS and just stay in the movie theaters

40
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:18,120
Speaker 1: on the weekend. There were only two theaters, two films

41
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:21,720
Speaker 1: would be two separate theaters. There was no multiplexus back then,

42
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:24,160
Speaker 1: and I would watch whatever film came into town over

43
00:02:24,200 --> 00:02:27,760
Speaker 1: and over, and I remember something clicked when I saw

44
00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:32,840
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Something really and I

45
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:35,960
Speaker 1: watched it three times and I just was amazed by

46
00:02:35,960 --> 00:02:40,000
Speaker 1: the movie. And I didn't at the time. There's no understanding,

47
00:02:40,040 --> 00:02:43,400
Speaker 1: there's no idea. No nobody knew about film schools. Nobody

48
00:02:43,440 --> 00:02:45,440
Speaker 1: knew that you could actually go to school and learn

49
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:47,360
Speaker 1: how to become I didn't even know what a director was.

50
00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:52,080
Speaker 1: So I put my energy into illustrating and writing comic books.

51
00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:54,880
Speaker 1: I thought still didn't understand the film concept, but I

52
00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:59,160
Speaker 1: started to draw Spider Man comics, Thor comics, Halt comics.

53
00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:04,600
Speaker 1: I wanted to job at Marvel in the Marvel that

54
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:06,880
Speaker 1: was my goal. I still love movies, but I didn't

55
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:11,519
Speaker 1: I didn't understand how to get completely and and so

56
00:03:11,760 --> 00:03:14,040
Speaker 1: the comic books and all of the kind This is

57
00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:16,480
Speaker 1: very naive of me, but all the comic book superheroes

58
00:03:16,480 --> 00:03:19,160
Speaker 1: lived in New York City. So this was this magical

59
00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:21,080
Speaker 1: place for me as a kid, because I'm drawing New

60
00:03:21,160 --> 00:03:24,679
Speaker 1: York City all the time, and I realized I was

61
00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:26,960
Speaker 1: spending about eight to twelve hours alone a day, and

62
00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:29,800
Speaker 1: I um, I wanted to work with people. I wanted

63
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,639
Speaker 1: to be with people. What did your parents think about that?

64
00:03:33,320 --> 00:03:34,760
Speaker 1: They thought I could go to art school that like

65
00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:36,800
Speaker 1: can't stay or something. You know that I could go

66
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:39,720
Speaker 1: to art school and I could um draw these comics

67
00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:43,280
Speaker 1: and that's fine. Then I saw The Godfather. The Godfather

68
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:48,080
Speaker 1: was re released in four I think, and re released.

69
00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:50,200
Speaker 1: And then the next movie I saw was Blazing Saddles.

70
00:03:50,200 --> 00:03:53,800
Speaker 1: I saw those two movies change my life, both ends

71
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:57,440
Speaker 1: of the spectrum. I realized with Blazing Saddles the possibilities

72
00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:00,120
Speaker 1: of what you could do with film We're endless. And

73
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:03,920
Speaker 1: Time magazine came out with a one page article about

74
00:04:04,080 --> 00:04:06,960
Speaker 1: film schools. I had never heard of film school and

75
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:08,920
Speaker 1: don't know what this could possibly be. And I read

76
00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:11,640
Speaker 1: about Martin Scorsese, and I read about Francis Ford Copeland.

77
00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:13,200
Speaker 1: I read about USC and U C l A and

78
00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:15,600
Speaker 1: N y U, and I said to my parents, this

79
00:04:15,640 --> 00:04:17,560
Speaker 1: is what I want to do. What did they say?

80
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:22,679
Speaker 1: They were extraordinarily supportive. They were amazingly supportive. Every other

81
00:04:22,800 --> 00:04:25,840
Speaker 1: relative in my family was not supportive. They said, oh,

82
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:28,320
Speaker 1: you're gonna, you're gonna saying you're gonna be back here

83
00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:31,240
Speaker 1: in two years. You can't handle New York City. Uh,

84
00:04:31,279 --> 00:04:33,479
Speaker 1: And it just it just was more fire. It was

85
00:04:33,560 --> 00:04:36,320
Speaker 1: just I was like, fuck you, I'm doing it. I

86
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:38,480
Speaker 1: got to New York and I remember my father drove

87
00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:41,960
Speaker 1: me up to Weinstein and he looked at the city

88
00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 1: and looked at the dorm and he said, let's go home.

89
00:04:44,279 --> 00:04:46,480
Speaker 1: I'll drive you back home now. And I said, no way,

90
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 1: no way. I was in. I was literally in oz.

91
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,039
Speaker 1: Weinstein doesn't look like the library at a community coach

92
00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:57,479
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union, right, exactly. It's a very but

93
00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:00,279
Speaker 1: I immediately fell in love with the city, and I

94
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:04,240
Speaker 1: knew that I had no choice but to succeed. I

95
00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:06,080
Speaker 1: had to find a way to succeed, or I would

96
00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:07,640
Speaker 1: be back in the middle of Ohio working in an

97
00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:12,160
Speaker 1: aluminum factory. And that's hideous. So you get there. Had

98
00:05:12,200 --> 00:05:15,640
Speaker 1: you ever touched any film equipment before? Uh? Yeah, super.

99
00:05:15,839 --> 00:05:18,919
Speaker 1: My parents did buy me a Super eight sound camera,

100
00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:22,839
Speaker 1: which enabled me to start to make films. Actually, I

101
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,320
Speaker 1: made a twenty minute film for my theology class. Because

102
00:05:26,320 --> 00:05:29,839
Speaker 1: I went to a very strict Catholic school, so it

103
00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:32,800
Speaker 1: was a theology class that was dealing with social issues.

104
00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:37,600
Speaker 1: So we made a film about abortion vasectomes. And I

105
00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 1: was very inspired at the time by remember SNL N

106
00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:45,640
Speaker 1: seventies six. Sn L had just come you know, we

107
00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,200
Speaker 1: would spend our Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. So

108
00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:51,400
Speaker 1: I was doing these basically commercial parodies that I had

109
00:05:51,480 --> 00:05:53,679
Speaker 1: versions that I had seen on SNL, and I screened

110
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:56,200
Speaker 1: it for the class. The class loved it. The priest

111
00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:00,880
Speaker 1: was horrified. And what happened is the feeling of showing

112
00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:04,360
Speaker 1: that movie and hearing those all of those kids laughing

113
00:06:04,880 --> 00:06:07,880
Speaker 1: in this small Ohio town really really hit me. I mean,

114
00:06:08,279 --> 00:06:10,080
Speaker 1: it's an addictive feeling, you know, what it's like being

115
00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:12,600
Speaker 1: on stage while showing your film and having people respond

116
00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:16,480
Speaker 1: to it became very addictive. So that fueled my desire

117
00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:18,120
Speaker 1: to get there as well. What did your parents say

118
00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 1: about all your politically incorrect film, very dark stuff back then?

119
00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:26,159
Speaker 1: You know, they they you know, my my mother went

120
00:06:26,240 --> 00:06:28,360
Speaker 1: with it. My father didn't really want to have much

121
00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:29,919
Speaker 1: to do with it. He figured okay that you know,

122
00:06:29,960 --> 00:06:32,040
Speaker 1: my father was most most of the time, my father

123
00:06:32,160 --> 00:06:34,680
Speaker 1: was under a car repairing it, you know, and in

124
00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:36,880
Speaker 1: the garage when he wasn't working or having a beer.

125
00:06:37,160 --> 00:06:39,880
Speaker 1: So I um, as long as he's not on the streets,

126
00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:43,680
Speaker 1: it's exactly my parents. Not onways, he's not taking drugs,

127
00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:46,839
Speaker 1: that's true, and that that actually, you know, my mother

128
00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:50,200
Speaker 1: was very supportive. My mother was probably much more supportive

129
00:06:50,240 --> 00:06:52,040
Speaker 1: than my father about what I wanted to do. And

130
00:06:52,120 --> 00:06:54,920
Speaker 1: she had she shared sort of that dark sense of

131
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:57,320
Speaker 1: humor that I had as well. So she supported those

132
00:06:57,360 --> 00:06:59,200
Speaker 1: of those movies and she watched I used to watch

133
00:06:59,320 --> 00:07:02,520
Speaker 1: SNL with her. She loved it. So you you get

134
00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:05,960
Speaker 1: to Weinstein, you had a super eight sound camera, but

135
00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:08,679
Speaker 1: you get to Weinstein and what's what are the first

136
00:07:08,839 --> 00:07:10,600
Speaker 1: recollections you have of that when you get there? To

137
00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:14,440
Speaker 1: go to n y U? Honestly n Yu. The night

138
00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,400
Speaker 1: I got there, Spawn drinking age was eighteen sponsored a

139
00:07:18,440 --> 00:07:20,760
Speaker 1: bar tour. Can you imagine them doing that these days?

140
00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 1: Eight to ten bars in the East Village. They would

141
00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:28,480
Speaker 1: take a group of freshmen and go to each bar Chumley's, mcsorley's.

142
00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:33,320
Speaker 1: And that's where I met my best friends, and that's

143
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:35,840
Speaker 1: where I met my future producing partner, Michael barn Nathan.

144
00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:39,680
Speaker 1: We met that first night night and Uh, yeah, you

145
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:42,800
Speaker 1: could be. I mean, the lawsuits are ridiculous. And we

146
00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:45,520
Speaker 1: met and we hit it off, and and there was

147
00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:48,000
Speaker 1: this I mean, you know what what it's like. You

148
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:52,160
Speaker 1: go into this community of everyone who shares your deepest

149
00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,600
Speaker 1: love of something like film, and you have someone to

150
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:57,280
Speaker 1: talk to about it. I had no one to talk

151
00:07:57,320 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 1: to about it in Ohio, you know, I was this

152
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:03,880
Speaker 1: everyone's come there from the aluminum factory. Finally I was

153
00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:06,840
Speaker 1: able to have arguments and discussions, and we would get

154
00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:11,480
Speaker 1: these into you remember these intense and passion discussions about directors,

155
00:08:11,520 --> 00:08:15,040
Speaker 1: you know, and and Frank Capra Was he really great?

156
00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:16,720
Speaker 1: Or was he? You know? Was he much more of

157
00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:19,840
Speaker 1: a populous director? And you get into these fantastic discussions

158
00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:22,440
Speaker 1: that didn't exist for me in Ohio. So I was

159
00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:25,760
Speaker 1: in you know, it was like Christmas morning every day

160
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:29,280
Speaker 1: at NYU. So when you go to film school, did

161
00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:31,600
Speaker 1: you go there when you started to become a wash

162
00:08:31,680 --> 00:08:33,800
Speaker 1: and all that process? Did you love it? And you

163
00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:35,000
Speaker 1: ate it up? And you said more and more and

164
00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:37,520
Speaker 1: more you love the technical No, actually I don't. I

165
00:08:37,520 --> 00:08:40,080
Speaker 1: mean the technical side of it. I have very little

166
00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:43,199
Speaker 1: interest in it. I want to know as much as

167
00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:45,080
Speaker 1: I need to know so I can go onto a

168
00:08:45,120 --> 00:08:47,440
Speaker 1: set and block a scene with actors. But I'm much

169
00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:50,360
Speaker 1: more and I was, I've always been this way. I'm

170
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:53,200
Speaker 1: much more interested in connecting with the actors on a

171
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:55,640
Speaker 1: set because what I've seen as a producer over the years,

172
00:08:55,880 --> 00:08:57,560
Speaker 1: as I saw it as a writer when I was

173
00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:02,200
Speaker 1: just starting out directors, A lot of directors tend to

174
00:09:02,200 --> 00:09:06,400
Speaker 1: be afraid of actors, which it drives me insane. I

175
00:09:06,440 --> 00:09:10,040
Speaker 1: cannot understand. They're suspicious of actors. They're suspicious of actors.

176
00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 1: They don't want to discuss, you know, it's this whole thing. Well,

177
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:15,520
Speaker 1: if an actor has a question, as he challenged, I

178
00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:18,280
Speaker 1: love that. I love that back and forth, that discussion that,

179
00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:21,559
Speaker 1: you know, I thought it was kind of cool. And

180
00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:25,640
Speaker 1: the Apocalypse Now documentary when Brando and Coffler were sitting

181
00:09:25,679 --> 00:09:30,640
Speaker 1: there for six days discussing, discussing his character. I love

182
00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:33,320
Speaker 1: that about actors. So I'm much more drawn to working

183
00:09:33,360 --> 00:09:36,920
Speaker 1: with the actors than I am working, you know, figuring

184
00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:38,920
Speaker 1: out what lens I need to use. I know what

185
00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:40,560
Speaker 1: I want the film to look like, I know how

186
00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:42,960
Speaker 1: I wanted to feel, But I don't need to know

187
00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:44,760
Speaker 1: the numbers. I just want to make sure that when

188
00:09:44,760 --> 00:09:47,320
Speaker 1: I get on that set, those actors and I that

189
00:09:47,400 --> 00:09:49,240
Speaker 1: we trust each other no matter what kind of film

190
00:09:49,240 --> 00:09:51,080
Speaker 1: it is. So there must be moments, though, where you're

191
00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:54,160
Speaker 1: sitting there on the set of a Harry Potter film

192
00:09:54,160 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 1: and Roger Deakins, who is one of the greatest cinematographers

193
00:09:57,160 --> 00:10:00,000
Speaker 1: of his generation, is there, and do you sit there

194
00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:02,400
Speaker 1: and say, what do you think Roger? What lends you?

195
00:10:02,400 --> 00:10:05,360
Speaker 1: You defer to him about all the cinematography to do.

196
00:10:05,480 --> 00:10:07,480
Speaker 1: Sometimes that don't go no, no, I think it's this,

197
00:10:07,679 --> 00:10:10,120
Speaker 1: or I think you must have an opinion. Oh completely,

198
00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:12,600
Speaker 1: It's not like yeah completely. In other words, I don't

199
00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:15,240
Speaker 1: abdicate all that to something. No. No, I I do

200
00:10:15,320 --> 00:10:18,760
Speaker 1: my homework. I storyboard everything. Um, I do my own

201
00:10:18,760 --> 00:10:20,480
Speaker 1: shot list in the morning. I know exactly if I

202
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:22,840
Speaker 1: want to use a crane or a dolly or And

203
00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:25,760
Speaker 1: I also don't there there's the other side of me

204
00:10:25,960 --> 00:10:27,840
Speaker 1: where I've seen directors who only want to deal with

205
00:10:27,840 --> 00:10:30,199
Speaker 1: the actors and don't want to block the scene and

206
00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:32,040
Speaker 1: leave that all up to the cinematographer. I'm sure you've

207
00:10:32,040 --> 00:10:33,920
Speaker 1: seen that as well, But I and I'm not interested

208
00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:36,920
Speaker 1: in that. I want to have the control certainly of

209
00:10:36,960 --> 00:10:39,800
Speaker 1: the visual look of the film. But I don't need

210
00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:42,679
Speaker 1: to get again, I don't need to say I want

211
00:10:42,720 --> 00:10:45,000
Speaker 1: afford to here. I don't. That means nothing to me.

212
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:47,200
Speaker 1: What means something to me is to look through the

213
00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:49,640
Speaker 1: camera and know if I've got it right. But it's

214
00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:52,880
Speaker 1: as I said, it's much more important. The writing is

215
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:56,280
Speaker 1: extraordinarily important to me. And the connection with the actors

216
00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:58,720
Speaker 1: and the crew as well. You know. I I've seen

217
00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,440
Speaker 1: a lot of directors work and there's no connection with people,

218
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:03,920
Speaker 1: and I hate that. I just hate those directors who

219
00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:06,000
Speaker 1: sort of build a wall up around them. And maybe

220
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 1: maybe it works for them. I'm sure it works for

221
00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 1: some of them. But for me, it's a matter of

222
00:11:09,520 --> 00:11:12,000
Speaker 1: connecting with almost every person on that set. So when

223
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:15,080
Speaker 1: I leave the set, they all feel that they've had

224
00:11:15,120 --> 00:11:17,000
Speaker 1: a great day. I know it's a weird thing to say,

225
00:11:17,040 --> 00:11:20,600
Speaker 1: but it's very important to me that that the person

226
00:11:20,720 --> 00:11:22,600
Speaker 1: has the smallest job on the set feels as if

227
00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:25,200
Speaker 1: he's he or she has contributed something that day. You know.

228
00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:29,199
Speaker 1: And then when you left, NYU, what did you do?

229
00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:32,920
Speaker 1: I left n y U. I had Actually I was

230
00:11:33,000 --> 00:11:38,920
Speaker 1: lucky enough I had left. But in seventy eight, I

231
00:11:39,040 --> 00:11:43,599
Speaker 1: had written, um, something interesting happened that I had a scholarship.

232
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:47,160
Speaker 1: I had this great scholarship that got me through ny

233
00:11:47,240 --> 00:11:50,520
Speaker 1: U the first year, and my mother would call me.

234
00:11:50,559 --> 00:11:52,320
Speaker 1: You remember, we had those pay phones at the end

235
00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:54,800
Speaker 1: of our dorm hallways. It's no cell phones. So every

236
00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:56,520
Speaker 1: Sunday I would go to the payphone a call home,

237
00:11:56,559 --> 00:12:00,960
Speaker 1: and my mother would say, Chris, don't forget to go

238
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:03,040
Speaker 1: to the Burt Stars office and sign. I had to

239
00:12:03,080 --> 00:12:05,240
Speaker 1: sign some papers. So I would renew my scholarship and

240
00:12:05,240 --> 00:12:08,120
Speaker 1: I would say, Mom, no problem, I'd forget. I'd be

241
00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:11,280
Speaker 1: doing something. That went on for six weeks. The seventh

242
00:12:11,320 --> 00:12:14,400
Speaker 1: week I called. She was screaming at me, said you

243
00:12:14,440 --> 00:12:18,079
Speaker 1: lost the scholarship. I said, oh, christ I lost the scholarship.

244
00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:21,080
Speaker 1: She goes, this summer you're gonna have to work at

245
00:12:21,120 --> 00:12:26,079
Speaker 1: the aluminum factory. So so I went back. I went

246
00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:29,360
Speaker 1: back to Ohio and I was working basically swing shifts.

247
00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,280
Speaker 1: I would work day shifts, afternoon shifts, and night shifts.

248
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:34,959
Speaker 1: After your first year, my first year, did your mother

249
00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:37,000
Speaker 1: make you a little necklace with a little piece of aluminium?

250
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:39,880
Speaker 1: Moment after that, in the shape of a crucive thing.

251
00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:44,640
Speaker 1: Don't don't sunk up on it any Oh god, I

252
00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:46,599
Speaker 1: so anyway, So I realized if I was on the

253
00:12:46,720 --> 00:12:49,679
Speaker 1: night shift, I could read. So that first year I

254
00:12:49,800 --> 00:12:52,560
Speaker 1: was just read, you know, novels for eight hours. I

255
00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:55,920
Speaker 1: had to do it again after my sophomore year. So

256
00:12:55,960 --> 00:12:58,120
Speaker 1: I went back my sophomore year and I realized if

257
00:12:58,120 --> 00:13:01,880
Speaker 1: I could get on the night shift for the entire summer,

258
00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:04,840
Speaker 1: I could write a screenplay. So what I did is

259
00:13:05,040 --> 00:13:09,800
Speaker 1: I remember these gigantic, hulking cylinders of aluminum, and I

260
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:12,880
Speaker 1: would sneak behind the aluminum corps and sit there with

261
00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:15,960
Speaker 1: a notepad, and I wrote my first screenplay, a screenplay

262
00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:18,400
Speaker 1: called Jocks about high school football, my experiences with high

263
00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:20,720
Speaker 1: school football. And I was a terrible football player, but

264
00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:24,520
Speaker 1: I I, you know, it was very person Sorry, yeah,

265
00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,720
Speaker 1: I suited up. And I brought that back to my

266
00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:29,240
Speaker 1: writing teacher, a guy named Jesse Cornbluth, who gave it

267
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:31,440
Speaker 1: to his agent. And his agent was a guy named

268
00:13:31,480 --> 00:13:35,160
Speaker 1: Ron Bernstein who still works in New York. And Bernstein

269
00:13:35,160 --> 00:13:37,560
Speaker 1: took me on as a client my junior year. A

270
00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:40,840
Speaker 1: producer since passed away, Steve Friedman optioned it for five

271
00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 1: grand So your professional career, which was which began as

272
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:47,839
Speaker 1: a writer, as a screenwriter. W was leveraged by Corn Bluth,

273
00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:50,840
Speaker 1: who was your teacher at n YU. Yeah, that five grand,

274
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 1: preventing me from ever having to go back to the

275
00:13:53,280 --> 00:13:57,959
Speaker 1: aluminium factory. Um. So that was my junior year, and

276
00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:01,400
Speaker 1: then my senior year I decided to not right because

277
00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:03,719
Speaker 1: I was getting writing offers, which was great, you know,

278
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:05,760
Speaker 1: but I was in college and I wanted to take

279
00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:08,040
Speaker 1: that time to do my senior film, my senior thesis.

280
00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:11,040
Speaker 1: So I did a senior film that year, and then

281
00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:13,079
Speaker 1: when I was out, you know, after college, I just,

282
00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:15,680
Speaker 1: uh my agents started to get me writing gigs and

283
00:14:15,720 --> 00:14:19,720
Speaker 1: I started writing after as soon as I graduated. Basically,

284
00:14:21,280 --> 00:14:26,520
Speaker 1: I lived on twenties New York between six and seven. Um.

285
00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:29,280
Speaker 1: One school you were in Chelsea. So when school ended,

286
00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:31,040
Speaker 1: you decide you're gonna stay in New York. Yeah. I

287
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:33,080
Speaker 1: decided to stay in New York because I again, I

288
00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:35,680
Speaker 1: was always very wary of going to l A. I

289
00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:38,160
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but why were you wary of it?

290
00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:40,360
Speaker 1: Even then? You know? The weird thing is I have

291
00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:42,880
Speaker 1: so many friends who think of l A as like

292
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:45,440
Speaker 1: that's where all the films are made. That's where that's

293
00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:48,040
Speaker 1: where the magic happens. But for me, I was I

294
00:14:48,080 --> 00:14:49,960
Speaker 1: just at that point, after four years in New York,

295
00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:52,080
Speaker 1: I felt very comfortable in New York and had this

296
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:55,280
Speaker 1: vision of being able to make every film in Manhattan,

297
00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:58,120
Speaker 1: or writing in Manhattan and living in Manhattan. I was

298
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:00,200
Speaker 1: kind of out of work and I couldn't figure out

299
00:15:00,280 --> 00:15:01,920
Speaker 1: what I was going to do next. And a friend

300
00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:05,480
Speaker 1: of mine, Mitch, said, you know, there hasn't since Jaws,

301
00:15:05,600 --> 00:15:08,440
Speaker 1: there really hasn't been a great movie that's featured. He

302
00:15:08,520 --> 00:15:10,440
Speaker 1: used the word monster. There has not been a great

303
00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: monster movie made. And I said, that's a good idea.

304
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 1: That's interesting. And in the loft I lived in, we

305
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:20,000
Speaker 1: had these mice scurring around on the floors and I

306
00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:21,640
Speaker 1: would sleep with my hand raped over the bed and

307
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:23,000
Speaker 1: mice would go by in the middle of the night.

308
00:15:23,040 --> 00:15:25,720
Speaker 1: I thought, these tiny creatures are frightening. So I spent

309
00:15:25,800 --> 00:15:29,000
Speaker 1: the next six weeks writing the script called Gremlin's and

310
00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:30,840
Speaker 1: I wrote it on spec. I wasn't paid for it,

311
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:34,040
Speaker 1: and I sent it to my agent, who um liked

312
00:15:34,080 --> 00:15:36,080
Speaker 1: the script but felt it was a little dark, and

313
00:15:36,120 --> 00:15:39,440
Speaker 1: still sent it to about fifty producers and studio executives

314
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:43,400
Speaker 1: and everyone passed on it, and Spielberg. Steven Spielberg was

315
00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:46,440
Speaker 1: leaving his office on a Friday and passed his secretary's

316
00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:48,520
Speaker 1: desk and it was sitting there. That's why so much

317
00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,000
Speaker 1: of this business is luck. He passed the script and

318
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:54,920
Speaker 1: saw the title and said that looks interesting, picked it up,

319
00:15:55,600 --> 00:15:58,560
Speaker 1: read it that weekend, and decided he wanted to option

320
00:15:58,600 --> 00:16:00,600
Speaker 1: the movie. Now I didn't know this. I gotta call

321
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:03,040
Speaker 1: up my loft bar. Nathan answers the phone and says,

322
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:06,280
Speaker 1: as someone on area says, it's Steven Spielberg, I get

323
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:08,360
Speaker 1: I get the phone. He goes, Chris, it's Steven Spielberg.

324
00:16:08,920 --> 00:16:12,800
Speaker 1: I was stunned, and um, yeah, he flew me out

325
00:16:12,840 --> 00:16:15,240
Speaker 1: to l A. I got to meet Spielberg and that

326
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:20,280
Speaker 1: sort of that. And I lived in l A for

327
00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:22,160
Speaker 1: nine months at that point. So what happens in that

328
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:24,640
Speaker 1: nine months He's giving you notes, or there's creative people

329
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 1: he would give me notes. Now, Gremlins was sort of

330
00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:29,320
Speaker 1: off and running, and someone else was even rewriting it

331
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:32,040
Speaker 1: as I was working on another script for Stephen. For

332
00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:35,000
Speaker 1: some strange reason, I had sort of carte blanche. I

333
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,440
Speaker 1: could go into his office whenever I wanted. He whether

334
00:16:38,480 --> 00:16:40,040
Speaker 1: he liked me, I don't know what it was. But

335
00:16:40,760 --> 00:16:43,120
Speaker 1: I had an office three doors down from him. I

336
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:45,440
Speaker 1: would just go down there whenever he would be sitting

337
00:16:45,440 --> 00:16:49,120
Speaker 1: there with Richard Gere or or uh or Warren Beatty.

338
00:16:49,200 --> 00:16:51,000
Speaker 1: One time he's like, Chris, come on in, would he

339
00:16:51,280 --> 00:16:53,520
Speaker 1: and I would start to talk to him about ideas.

340
00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:56,520
Speaker 1: One day he's looking through these old EC comic books

341
00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,520
Speaker 1: and he says, look at this title, Chris, the goon Children.

342
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:01,560
Speaker 1: And I said, the goon Children, that's a cool title.

343
00:17:02,240 --> 00:17:05,200
Speaker 1: And we came up with this story together about these

344
00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:07,920
Speaker 1: kids who find a treasure map, and it was The Goonies.

345
00:17:08,520 --> 00:17:11,840
Speaker 1: I would write three pages of Goonies, run to Steven's office,

346
00:17:11,880 --> 00:17:14,200
Speaker 1: give it to him. He would make some notes. I

347
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:16,160
Speaker 1: would run back to my office and make the changes.

348
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,480
Speaker 1: And we finished that script in about six weeks. Then

349
00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:22,840
Speaker 1: I wrote Young Sherlock Holmes with him, kind of in

350
00:17:22,840 --> 00:17:25,919
Speaker 1: the same way for Amblin, And that's when I and

351
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:31,000
Speaker 1: that's when I redirected Goonies. Richard Donner Dick Donner directed Goonies,

352
00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:35,880
Speaker 1: and who directed Young Sherlock Holmes Barry Levinson. Yeah, so

353
00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:40,560
Speaker 1: it was. So you have Steven Spielberg producing your films

354
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:44,040
Speaker 1: and your three doors down from him and Richard Donner,

355
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 1: who directed Superman. I'm gonna I want to tell people

356
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:49,560
Speaker 1: in the audience who don't remember this Timeline and Levinson

357
00:17:49,800 --> 00:17:53,080
Speaker 1: was directed many great films they direct. Those are your

358
00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:55,000
Speaker 1: first two movies. That could mean well, Gremlins is the

359
00:17:55,000 --> 00:17:57,879
Speaker 1: first one as well. Joe Dante. Yeah, so you go

360
00:17:57,920 --> 00:18:01,080
Speaker 1: from Joe Dante to Donner to bar E Levenson for

361
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: the first three films that your name was on the script. Yeah,

362
00:18:03,640 --> 00:18:06,440
Speaker 1: and your name was on as the writer of all three.

363
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:08,919
Speaker 1: You know, it was kind of a heavy experience. At

364
00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:12,600
Speaker 1: the same time, I always knew, this is what I

365
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:14,160
Speaker 1: need to be do, This is what I should be doing,

366
00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:16,880
Speaker 1: This is what I have to be doing. What did

367
00:18:16,880 --> 00:18:20,040
Speaker 1: you learn from Spielberg? Spielberg was like graduate school of

368
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:24,560
Speaker 1: filmmaking for me. Spielberg was like, um, I learned shortcuts

369
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,720
Speaker 1: and I learned basically, it was a Billy Wilder quote

370
00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:30,640
Speaker 1: that Stephen you know, nailed into my head every day,

371
00:18:30,680 --> 00:18:35,120
Speaker 1: which was don't tell the audience something more than once.

372
00:18:35,640 --> 00:18:37,520
Speaker 1: I learned how to edit material, I learned how to

373
00:18:37,520 --> 00:18:39,880
Speaker 1: write better. Dialogue, and I learned how to be much

374
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:43,000
Speaker 1: more visual as a writer from Stephen. So it was

375
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 1: a great relationship, you know, um and still is a

376
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,600
Speaker 1: great relationship to this day. We have the opportunity to

377
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:51,120
Speaker 1: work together a couple of years ago. So I I

378
00:18:51,200 --> 00:18:53,159
Speaker 1: really loved that time. But at the same time, I

379
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,600
Speaker 1: needed to get back to Manhattan. Why. I don't know.

380
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:58,040
Speaker 1: I just felt like I missed I missed it. I

381
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:00,080
Speaker 1: mean it was It's a very simple did you of

382
00:19:00,119 --> 00:19:02,840
Speaker 1: a sense? Because I find other people have the same thing,

383
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:06,080
Speaker 1: It's better for me to stay here for my career.

384
00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:08,439
Speaker 1: You didn't think of all those lines. Now, I I

385
00:19:08,480 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 1: don't think at the time, I was able to articulate it.

386
00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:14,640
Speaker 1: You know, twenty years down the road, now I can

387
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:17,200
Speaker 1: look back and and understand why I did it, Because

388
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:21,800
Speaker 1: I was seeing the beginning of people losing touch with reality.

389
00:19:21,880 --> 00:19:24,159
Speaker 1: Why do directors not have long careers. They don't have

390
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,800
Speaker 1: long careers because they become extremely successful. Then they move

391
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:33,080
Speaker 1: into these huge mansions and live an isolated life. They

392
00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:34,959
Speaker 1: watch movies in their screening room. They don't do their

393
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 1: own grocery shopping, they don't pump their own gas, they

394
00:19:37,000 --> 00:19:39,320
Speaker 1: don't get out there on the street. At the end

395
00:19:39,359 --> 00:19:41,720
Speaker 1: of all that, you've lost connection to real people. What

396
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:44,760
Speaker 1: are you making movies about, even if they're fantasy films.

397
00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:46,920
Speaker 1: Even again, I did not realize it at the time.

398
00:19:46,920 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 1: I realized it years later. I realized the reason I

399
00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:52,520
Speaker 1: went back to New York was to connect with everyone again,

400
00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:55,600
Speaker 1: so I could go to the corner superrette and buy

401
00:19:55,640 --> 00:19:57,679
Speaker 1: a carton of orange hues for forty dollars, you know,

402
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:00,680
Speaker 1: so I could see people every day, take my dry

403
00:20:00,680 --> 00:20:03,000
Speaker 1: cleaning and take my laundry. And that hasn't changed to

404
00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:05,800
Speaker 1: this day. I have not changed, you know. I have

405
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,919
Speaker 1: a great housekeeper now in San Francisco. But for the

406
00:20:08,960 --> 00:20:12,720
Speaker 1: most part, again because I'm a director and nobody really

407
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:14,920
Speaker 1: knows what the hell I look like, I'm anonymous. Yeah,

408
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:21,639
Speaker 1: but you've yeah, you've kept this very low profile. Nobody

409
00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 1: knows what I do in San Francisco. I mean, I

410
00:20:23,560 --> 00:20:27,720
Speaker 1: have a couple of friends. But I love it. It's fantastic.

411
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:31,680
Speaker 1: They're all conscious choices you made, not I think some

412
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:34,719
Speaker 1: of them were subconscious. At the beginning, the only thing

413
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,920
Speaker 1: that mattered to me about becoming a director was longevity.

414
00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:41,320
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that my career would last

415
00:20:41,440 --> 00:20:45,000
Speaker 1: for decades no matter what I was doing, And I

416
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:48,720
Speaker 1: felt that part of that has been this ability to

417
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:50,800
Speaker 1: sort of hide in plain sight in a weird way.

418
00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:58,280
Speaker 1: Now I understand it, Director Chris Columbus. After the break,

419
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 1: we'll hear about the faithful cast of McCauley culkin in

420
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:15,360
Speaker 1: Home Alone. So you're a writer and you do Gremlins,

421
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:19,719
Speaker 1: and you do Goonies and you do Young Sherlock Holmes.

422
00:21:20,280 --> 00:21:23,080
Speaker 1: Is the notion of you directing a film? Is it

423
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:28,400
Speaker 1: starting to percolate? Do you go to Spielberg and say,

424
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: I want to direct this one? Now? It came. It

425
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 1: started with Jesse corn Blooth. Jesse Cornbluoth put into my

426
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: head at n y U the only way you're gonna

427
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 1: get to become a director is by writing a few

428
00:21:39,760 --> 00:21:44,840
Speaker 1: successful screenplays after Young Sherlock Holmes. Then I realized Gooneys

429
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,040
Speaker 1: and Gremlins had been successful enough that maybe I could

430
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 1: get a directing gig. My agents sent me a copy

431
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,120
Speaker 1: of the script called Adventures in Babysitting Elizabeth with Elizabeth

432
00:21:53,119 --> 00:21:57,639
Speaker 1: Shoe and Anthony Rapp. I love this, I love the script.

433
00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:00,199
Speaker 1: I thought this is something I could do, and I

434
00:22:00,240 --> 00:22:03,160
Speaker 1: had great producers Linda Oaps and Deborah Hill, who were

435
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 1: very supportive of me as the first time director. They

436
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,119
Speaker 1: agreed to let me direct the movie, and that was

437
00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,359
Speaker 1: the first day on the set was a little little horrifying.

438
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:15,639
Speaker 1: So it was the thing I had dreamed about my California.

439
00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:18,399
Speaker 1: Now we shot it in Canada. It was my dream

440
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 1: to be directing a film. Yet at the same time

441
00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 1: I realized I had to go hunt to the set

442
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: and face two D fifty people and tell them what

443
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: to do, and you've never done it before. I got

444
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:32,000
Speaker 1: over my fear pretty quickly because I had to. It's

445
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 1: like jumping off. Do you still have an apprehension about

446
00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:36,679
Speaker 1: that now? When it's first day of school, and I

447
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: mean shooting. It's not Chris who was drawing his Marvel comics,

448
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:45,320
Speaker 1: Chris that was hiding behind the aluminum spools writing scripts

449
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:47,359
Speaker 1: and everything one everybody else has taken a nap at

450
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:51,399
Speaker 1: the aluminum factory. It's not Chris alone. There's the writer

451
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 1: director who has this kind of monastic process. Then there's

452
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:55,720
Speaker 1: the guy that's got to go out and be the

453
00:22:55,840 --> 00:22:57,360
Speaker 1: captain of the ship. On the deck of the ship

454
00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 1: with two or three hundred people there so that's a

455
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,560
Speaker 1: skill you had to develop, correct, I think so. But

456
00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:06,639
Speaker 1: I again, because well, definitely, so. You know, I was

457
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,879
Speaker 1: terrifying the first couple of days. But then I realized, Yeah,

458
00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: I realized that a lot of these crew guys, we're

459
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,359
Speaker 1: like beating animals because directors. There are so many directors

460
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 1: who are such assholes. They're so kind of cruel and angry,

461
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: and they're working something out on the set of the film. Yeah,

462
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: and I thought, that's not gonna work. That won't work

463
00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:29,320
Speaker 1: for me. And I realized after three or four weeks

464
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 1: that people were responding just to the fact that I

465
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,639
Speaker 1: was not grumpy in the morning, that I wasn't piste

466
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: off all the time, the fact that I was genuinely

467
00:23:37,320 --> 00:23:40,440
Speaker 1: a pretty happy guy, and I really valued what everybody

468
00:23:40,480 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: was doing. If somebody made a mistake, I wasn't ready

469
00:23:42,359 --> 00:23:44,960
Speaker 1: to rip their head off. I just I understood it.

470
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: By the end of that movie, I really I learned

471
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 1: a valuable lesson how to earn the respect of the

472
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: crew and your actors. So you're there, you make the film,

473
00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 1: and what happens. The film opened to like seven million

474
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:02,120
Speaker 1: dollars back then, which was a perceived disaster. So I'm

475
00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:05,720
Speaker 1: thinking I'm never gonna work again. What happened is the

476
00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 1: second weekend, it did something that no film some certain

477
00:24:10,359 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 1: films do, few films do, which is a shot up

478
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 1: in attendance. So we did better the second weekend. Getting

479
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,560
Speaker 1: that news that we increase was shocking, and it was

480
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: great for the movie, and it was great. I was

481
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 1: able to go off and make another film then, and uh,

482
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:28,480
Speaker 1: what do you go do? I did a film that

483
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: I wrote, I pitched a film to Jeffrey Katzenberg, and

484
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: I went off and wrote something else instead, a movie

485
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: called Heartbreak Hotel about my own obsession with Elvis Presley.

486
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: The movie opens on a Friday. I read Roger Ebert's

487
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: review calling it one of the worst films here. I'm

488
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: driving across country with my wife at that point, because

489
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,199
Speaker 1: we edited in l A for two months, and we

490
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: get By the time we get to the probably in

491
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: the Texas somewhere, this is Wednesday, the movie is already

492
00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: playing on a double bill in the afternoon. They've already

493
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,000
Speaker 1: the theater owners to get it out of there, as

494
00:25:01,040 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: if if it was a nuclear way. So um, once again,

495
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's over. I'll go back to writing At

496
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: the time my first child, Eleanor, was born, and I

497
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: got a script from John Hughes. We both have the

498
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: same agent. Um. He said, do you want to do

499
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:21,679
Speaker 1: the third Christmas Vacation movie. I was like, that's not

500
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:24,639
Speaker 1: really I didn't dream of becoming a filmmaker to do

501
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,040
Speaker 1: that particular movie. But I thought I needed the gig

502
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 1: and John Muses supporting me, so I started to do

503
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: that movie. I shot Second Unit, and I had such

504
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 1: a disastrous relationship with the star Chevy Chase, who you know,

505
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: it's no, he has no shortage of enemies. Uh. It

506
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 1: was so disastrous and so humiliating for me, just based

507
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,920
Speaker 1: on three meetings that I quit. I said that John,

508
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 1: I can't do this. I cannot make He's like, you know,

509
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: Chevy's a complicated guys, he's a rich food. I said,

510
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. He treat he when I

511
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: first walked in. He thought I was an assistant. So

512
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't really work this way I and

513
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: so I I quit and then I was really I

514
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: thought I was really in trouble. And John and I

515
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,080
Speaker 1: got along great. So John sent me the script for

516
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:22,880
Speaker 1: Home Alone Again. Luck plays into it and I fell

517
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: in love with the script. I thought it was a

518
00:26:24,080 --> 00:26:25,920
Speaker 1: great script. I think he wrote it in two days.

519
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: I loved him, loved him, I mean his life and

520
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: how he went and how he kind of left and

521
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: you know, gave up and moved back to Chicago. I'm

522
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: not gave up, but he kind of kind of walked

523
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 1: away from It. Was always so sad to me because

524
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: I thought, God, I mean, I was hoping I could

525
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:42,919
Speaker 1: become the next John Candy in his career and the

526
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: grown leading, crazy uncle Buck of the next garage of

527
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 1: films of his. I loved working with him, loved him.

528
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,959
Speaker 1: What was your experience like? It was exactly the same. Um,

529
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: I walked off of a movie that he had given me.

530
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: So there was never a reason for him to call

531
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 1: me back. But it for some strange reason, I think

532
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: he respected that or he understood it, and being chevy,

533
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: he understood. Yeah, I think so, and he uh, you know,

534
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: when I read this script, I thought, this is a gift,

535
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: this script. The script is really really important. And John,

536
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: the only concern I had was I had a you know,

537
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: I had a newborn at the time, and John liked

538
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,679
Speaker 1: to work from about tenant when he was right when

539
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: he was a producer in writing. You know, he wrote

540
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,360
Speaker 1: all night long. So we would be doing pre production

541
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 1: during the day on Home Alone, and then for story meetings,

542
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: I'd go to his house in Like Forest and we'd

543
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: work from ten to about five in the morning. So

544
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: I was getting during the pre production hours of Home Alone,

545
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: I was getting about two hours sleep, and John half

546
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: of the time just on. He told these great stories.

547
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,720
Speaker 1: So he would tell stories you probably remember, and smoke

548
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: and these stories would go on for three hours before

549
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: we ever got into the movie. The fact that we

550
00:27:53,080 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: were making a movie he gave me once he saw

551
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: the first day of dailies from Home Alone. He gave

552
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 1: me an amazing amount of freedom a filmmaker, and that

553
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:04,360
Speaker 1: really felt great. I was I felt no pressure because

554
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,440
Speaker 1: I always to this day feel like I'm gonna walk

555
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: on a movie and get fired. But with John, he

556
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: made me feel very secure and created sort of a

557
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:15,360
Speaker 1: safe atmosphere for me. Immediately, who cast McCauley, Well, John

558
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 1: put him an Uncle Buck, and John said you should

559
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: see this kid, But John never said cast him. So

560
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 1: McCauley came up to my New York apartment. He and

561
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: his father the first kid I met, and he was

562
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: incredibly charming, terrific. But I said to John, just because

563
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 1: I felt like I wanted to be responsible, I said

564
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 1: I should meet some other kids. So I met about

565
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: three hundred other kids and then came back around a mccaullary.

566
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 1: Let me get back to you. I'm gonna be three kids,

567
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,960
Speaker 1: and I had to do my job. But McCauley was

568
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: the first one you saw. McCauley was the first one

569
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: I saw, and he was you know, it was. It

570
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: was an interesting situation, kind of like the kids in

571
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: in Harry Potter a little bit. McAuley had only done

572
00:28:54,840 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: one or two movies, so he would do a line.

573
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: He would he would say one line, maybe two lines,

574
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: and then get distracted. So a lot of that film

575
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: is cut into pieces just so we could get his

576
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: performance together. But what happened on screen, it was amazingly charming.

577
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 1: And you had Heard is the father. John heard, yeah,

578
00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: and Catherine is the mother, and I heard thought he

579
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: was making heard who I love? But I loved him

580
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: in Cutter his Way, remember cut his Way one of

581
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:25,280
Speaker 1: the great performances. But while he was making Home Alone,

582
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: he thought he was making the biggest piece of ship

583
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:29,720
Speaker 1: in the world, and he was he was a pain

584
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: in the ass, a little fit. He comes back on

585
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:36,480
Speaker 1: home alone too, and the first day he's shooting, I

586
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: yell action. He breaks character and he said, I just

587
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:42,719
Speaker 1: would like to say to Chris and the crew, I

588
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: owe you a big apology. Made a great movie the

589
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: first time, and I'm here to support you. Wow, we

590
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 1: have it in dailies. I still have a tape of that.

591
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:52,360
Speaker 1: And I got to work with John Candy for the

592
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: first time. And John Candy came in for one day

593
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: of shooting. We had it for one day and he

594
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,280
Speaker 1: has like six scenes in the movie. So we shot

595
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: for twenty four hours, four hours straight and Candy kept going.

596
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 1: He just would could continue to improvise. And it was

597
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: my first sort of foray into improvisation. That's director Chris Columbus.

598
00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,040
Speaker 1: When we come back, Columbus talks about working with another

599
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: brilliant improviser, Robin Williams. Yeah, I'm Alec Baldwin and you're

600
00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: listening to here's the thing. Chris Columbus says he wanted

601
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: to work with Robin Williams ever since he saw him

602
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: in Good Morning Vietnam. Five years later, Columbus got his chance.

603
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: I feel like I've known you for years. Maybe we

604
00:30:55,480 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: knew each other in another life. I would love for

605
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: you to come and work with us. Who would I great?

606
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:11,360
Speaker 1: Mrs doubt Fire, a film about a divorced father who

607
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: dresses as a Scottish nanny to trick his ex wife

608
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: into hiring him to care for their kids, won a

609
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 1: Golden Globe for Best Comedy. Robin Williams won a Globe

610
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 1: for Best Actor. But before all that would happen, Before

611
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: the filming even began, Chris Columbus had to meet Williams

612
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: for lunch, and I was terrified. I had worked with

613
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: guys like Passy who I admired, and Dan Stern, but

614
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,480
Speaker 1: Robin was a true superstar at the time, and I

615
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: was I was nervous about how it would go. And

616
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 1: we just we hit it off immediately, you know, we

617
00:31:42,720 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: wanted to. We really connected. Much of Mrs doubt Fire

618
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 1: was shot in San Francisco, and Columbus took the opportunity

619
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: to move his growing family out west. It's a great

620
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 1: place to raise a family, and I felt Manhattan would

621
00:31:56,760 --> 00:32:00,160
Speaker 1: be a little difficult. Um we were about to our

622
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: third kid, and I thought, and two of the kids

623
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: have been born at Lenox Hill in Manhattan. You know,

624
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 1: I can't. And I was having I was walking down

625
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: the street man Anne with my toddler, and I couldn't

626
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: hear what she was saying to me. I couldn't you

627
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 1: know she's telling And I thought, I gotta I've gotta

628
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: be in a calmer place. And I also fell in

629
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:18,959
Speaker 1: love with the city. San Francisco is a great city.

630
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: And I had in the relationship with Robin was still

631
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 1: is terrific. Had a great relationship with Robin. And with

632
00:32:24,920 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 1: Robin again, it's like it's like a steroid version of

633
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 1: John Candy, where you John liked to improvise, but Robin

634
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: lives to improvise. So it was almost like seeing a

635
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: Springsteen concert where he has to exhaust himself after four

636
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: and a half hours of playing before you can go

637
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: to sleep at night. With Robin, it was the same thing.

638
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: We would shoot anywhere from twelve to fifteen takes for

639
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,320
Speaker 1: each scene, and we would start with a very structured

640
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 1: script to take and then move off of the script

641
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: and change every And that's why that picture had to

642
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,239
Speaker 1: be shot with two or three cameras because do the

643
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: exectit Fox. Know that when you're going in to make

644
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: a film and you have someone who's is varied and

645
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: who's is uh, who says uh, what's the word? You know,

646
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: as spontaneous as he is, did you call them up

647
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 1: after the first week of shooting and say, fellas, just

648
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: tear off the budget. We gotta start all over again.

649
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,520
Speaker 1: Now we stayed under We stayed not under budget, but

650
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: we stayed on budget. Maybe we went over one or

651
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 1: two days because he is fast, He's lightning fast, and

652
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: we shot with two or three cameras. We understood the

653
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: cost benefit analysis of his improvisations. He wasn't somebody who

654
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 1: was over the indulgence. No, And you had actors. You

655
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: had Sally Field and Pierce Brosnan acting across from this guy,

656
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: not knowing what he was going to say on take

657
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: number five or six. So we had to have a

658
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: camera on them because he's I mean, the word genius

659
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: has used a lot these days. But he he comes

660
00:33:52,680 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: up with these things so quickly he doesn't remember that

661
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: he said them in the next take. It's just he's possessed.

662
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: I sometimes tell people shooting Mrs Doutfire, I was like

663
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: shooting a documentary, and by the time we got to

664
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: the editing room with millions of feet of film. At

665
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:08,919
Speaker 1: the time, we weren't shooting digitally yet. We had four

666
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:10,840
Speaker 1: or five different versions of the film. We had the

667
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:13,480
Speaker 1: PG version, the PG thirteen, the R in the n

668
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: C seventeen. I showed Marcia, who was the producer, because

669
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 1: the film needed to be PG thirteen, so we knew

670
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:22,280
Speaker 1: we couldn't have an R rated version of Mrs Doutfire.

671
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: I showed Marcia cut of the film and then Robin

672
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: wanted to see it with an audience, and that was

673
00:34:27,080 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: the sort of the thing that sealed the deal, because

674
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: the audience really responded. It was like it really was

675
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,439
Speaker 1: a huge It wasn't that intrusive about cutting the film,

676
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: and he just as long as they from worked in

677
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: front of an audience, he was happy left alone. That

678
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: was it. It's just every day he we developed this

679
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: sense of trust after a couple of weeks, and I

680
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: would it was incredibly exhausting shoot, working fourteen hours a day,

681
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: and I'd get home at night and just poured myself

682
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: a glass of wine and the phone to ring. It

683
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: was Robin Howard Daily's how how was I in daily

684
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: so he was he was very very obsessive in terms

685
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: of his own performance, and doubt Fire sort of received

686
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: mixed reviews. So for me, I because because of my

687
00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: love of film history and because my love of certain films,

688
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: I was, you know, I'd always get there was a

689
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: level of keeping it very real by reading what some

690
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:18,480
Speaker 1: of these people were saying. Now some I should probably

691
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: be have a tougher skin and say, I don't give

692
00:35:20,880 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 1: a ship what they're saying. So with doubt Fire, there

693
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: was a sense that we had created a movie that

694
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,799
Speaker 1: was very successful, a lot of people fell in love with,

695
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: but it didn't for me personally. I didn't get to

696
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,240
Speaker 1: that point where I wanted. You know, I always wanted

697
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: to have that level of critical success and commercial success

698
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: as well, and I just wasn't there yet. So I

699
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,800
Speaker 1: managed to stay hungry. I mean, there was a feeling

700
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: of me that I needed to accomplish a lot more

701
00:35:46,560 --> 00:35:49,320
Speaker 1: and I really still feel that way. I still felt

702
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:51,160
Speaker 1: that there's a long way to go there. Back on

703
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: dobt Fire, felt that there was a long way to go.

704
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 1: So the collaboration with you did nine months after that,

705
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: with Hugh Grant and Hugh and uh, how did that

706
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 1: movie do? That movie did okay, but that was the

707
00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:07,879
Speaker 1: you know, that was the blow job weekend, So that

708
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: was a that happening while you were shooting and when

709
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:12,719
Speaker 1: it was released being no, no, no no. We were scheduled,

710
00:36:12,760 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 1: we were doing a press const exciting. This is insane.

711
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: So we're doing an the international press conference on a

712
00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:21,279
Speaker 1: movie with you. I realized, now I want to make

713
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 1: a movie with you, just so as a gag, I

714
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: can get dressed up as a woman, as a cross

715
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: dresser and solicit a detective on Hollywood Boulevard, just as

716
00:36:28,680 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 1: a gag. What if you got arrested? I wanted the

717
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: goal is he get arrested just to get arrested. And

718
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 1: then when I'm down to the police, said, I going

719
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: to go officer, can I explace some of you? This

720
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: is really just funk with Chris Columbus, and I really

721
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:40,839
Speaker 1: wanted to. I wanted the sex scandal on the set

722
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: of it was and it happened. I never I never

723
00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: saw it coming. He was like the most completely yeah,

724
00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 1: I guess, button down, really conservative guy, always prepared for work,

725
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:56,920
Speaker 1: did a great job. We were doing the international press

726
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,280
Speaker 1: conference in l A. The movie was finished. The movie

727
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: was screen off the charts and audiences were loving it.

728
00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: So I thought, wow, this is gonna be a bigger

729
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: hit than down Fire. So we screened the movie on

730
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:10,840
Speaker 1: a Friday night for the press. I go out to

731
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 1: dinner with Hugh, Jeff gold Bloom, and Laura Dern. We

732
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:17,960
Speaker 1: have this great dinner. I drive Hugh back to the hotel.

733
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: He says, oh, John Hughes sent me a script. Would

734
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:22,640
Speaker 1: you would you mind looking at it? I don't know

735
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: if I should do. It was a hundred one Dalmatians.

736
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: So I walked up to his hotel room, took the script,

737
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: and I said, okay, get a good night's sleep. We

738
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: have a press conference tomorrow. I go to sleep. My

739
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: phone rings. It's six fifty nine. It's bar Nathan. He says,

740
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: turn on the TV. I said, what, he goes turn

741
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: on the TV. I turned on the news channel two

742
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 1: five seven mug shots. I'm like, what the fund did

743
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:53,400
Speaker 1: he do? So there's a hundred fifty international journalist that

744
00:37:53,560 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: I was doing a press conference with. Hugh. Hugh was disappeared.

745
00:37:57,000 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: He was at his agent's house. He's gone, he didn't come.

746
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: He got it was me facing all of course, amazing.

747
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:06,320
Speaker 1: He does this the night before a press conference. Perfect,

748
00:38:06,400 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: and he's he since said that he did it because

749
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 1: he didn't like the movie, which he loved the movie,

750
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: so that's not why he did what. He went to

751
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: solicitor Proster because he was so depressed about the so

752
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: depressed about the film, he had to have a prostitute.

753
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 1: I got, I gotta try that. Hugh Grants well publicized

754
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: arrest didn't completely kill nine months. It's still made over

755
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty three million dollars. Mrs Doubtfire grossed

756
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: over four hundred and forty million dollars worldwide. The Harry

757
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:39,240
Speaker 1: Potter films did even better. Two years ago, Chris Columbus

758
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: produced The Help, a much smaller film, which earned a

759
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:47,040
Speaker 1: Best Picture Oscar nomination. Clearly, Chris is skilled at selecting

760
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: the right material to work with, or maybe he just

761
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: surrounds himself with the right people. It was my daughter,

762
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: because she was the one who tried to convince me

763
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: for about a year and a half to read the

764
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,520
Speaker 1: Harry Potter books. And finally when I did and I

765
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: realized wanted to make the movie. There were twenty five

766
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: other directors who were in line. They called it at

767
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,959
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers a bake off. They said, Okay, we're going

768
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 1: to meet all of these directors, and whoever we you

769
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 1: know feel will make the best movie will hire UM.

770
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: So I was in line because Spielberg had dropped out.

771
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg had dropped it was the one he was

772
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 1: going to direct the film. I think he wanted to

773
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 1: combine the two books, add some cheerleaders and stuff, and

774
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 1: I think that she wasn't you know, Joe Rolling was

775
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: not up for that. So for whatever reason, Stephen backed

776
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 1: backed away from the films, and then it was a

777
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,200
Speaker 1: group of literally twenty five people. I had the last

778
00:39:40,239 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: meeting because I wanted to rewrite the script for the

779
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:47,080
Speaker 1: studio UM. And what I did is I spent four,

780
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: no eleven days, staying up to about two or three

781
00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: in the morning rewriting the Harry Potter script. Steve Clubs

782
00:39:52,400 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: wrote a brilliant script. I just wanted to rewrite it

783
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 1: with some camera cues, some add some scenes from the

784
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 1: book that weren't in there. And when I went in

785
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: to meet with Warner Brothers and they said, why do

786
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 1: you want to make this movie? And I said, because

787
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 1: I've rewritten it. For you for free. Now, no one

788
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:10,680
Speaker 1: ever does anything for free in Hollywood, so uh, it

789
00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 1: took it. Still took them a few weeks to say yes,

790
00:40:12,760 --> 00:40:15,800
Speaker 1: but I did get the gig. They and I realized

791
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: I still there was still one obstacle. I had to

792
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: fly to Scotland to meet with j K. Rowling. That

793
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: was my sort of last interview, and if I fucked

794
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: that up, I wouldn't have gotten the job. So I

795
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: flew to Scotland, met with Joe, who I was expecting.

796
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:30,439
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen many photographs of her at that point.

797
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 1: I was expecting Miss Marple. I was expecting some sixty

798
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: year old, heavy set woman in a flow floral dress.

799
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 1: And it was She's she's younger than we are. She's

800
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: she's very, very funny, one of the funniest people I've

801
00:40:44,000 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: ever met, sharp as attack, and we hit it off immediately.

802
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: We spent three she spent three hours listening to me.

803
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: I had diarrhea of the mouth because I was telling

804
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:54,359
Speaker 1: her the kind of movie I wanted to make. At

805
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:56,000
Speaker 1: the end of it, she said, that's exactly the kind

806
00:40:56,000 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: of film I want to make, and I knew I

807
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: got the job. Once I knew I got the job.

808
00:41:00,840 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: I was fucking scared out of my wits. Everyone was

809
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: obsessed about who was going to be cast in the movie,

810
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: how we how how we were going to design Hogwarts,

811
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: what was Quidditch going to be like? And I thought

812
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: the only way to get through this not to be

813
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: so I'm not standing in a corner unable to face

814
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 1: my crew, was to just sort of bury my head

815
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: and start to work. You just I just just sort

816
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: of went through every day, moved I moved my family

817
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 1: to London, and went through every day making the best

818
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: movie possible. And the great thing is there were a

819
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,400
Speaker 1: core of us at the time, four of us, Joe Rolling,

820
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: David Haym and Steve Clovis and myself, and we'd meet

821
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: every couple of days, talk about the script, talk about

822
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,640
Speaker 1: the movie. And it was that core that really helped

823
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,040
Speaker 1: me shape what eventually became all eight movies. And again,

824
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,880
Speaker 1: and she was around during the screenwriting process or around

825
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: the shooting as well. Roll Now she only came out

826
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: for one day during the shooting, just to visit. She

827
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,880
Speaker 1: wasn't that interested in the shooting. As you can if

828
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 1: her a visitor ont a set, it's not that exciting

829
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: after about two hours. She came out. When we were

830
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: shooting diagon Alley. But during the screenwriting, during the rewriting process,

831
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 1: and during some of the design work, you know, I

832
00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: would take her through the Harry Potter Factory, I called it.

833
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 1: We would walk through the art department and I would

834
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: show her what I was thinking of for diagon Alley

835
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,680
Speaker 1: or Green Gots or Hogwarts of the Wizarding Robes, and

836
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: she just was always very collaborative. She'd say, oh, like

837
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: the wand she was very very specific about everything that

838
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: Harry's wand couldn't have any specific design to it because

839
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: it was from an old tree. That wouldn't It was

840
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: just a little crooked and you And it was that

841
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,839
Speaker 1: kind of specific comments that really sort of helped me

842
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: find where I was going. I never was off the

843
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 1: rails though, because we did we did share a similar

844
00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: i think, vision for what we wanted the movie to be.

845
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: And I she would give us also indications that the

846
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: films we're gonna get the books. There were only three

847
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,040
Speaker 1: books at the time. Remember, we're gonna get progressively darker,

848
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: and this had to be sort of the first one

849
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: was sort of like the storybook version of Harry Potter

850
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: or it's his origin story. It's still a little dark,

851
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 1: and Hogwarts had to feel like the most welcoming place

852
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:08,080
Speaker 1: in the world. And then we get little indications that

853
00:43:08,080 --> 00:43:10,280
Speaker 1: it's going to start to fall apart as we move forward.

854
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: We set that all into motion, that the movies would

855
00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: get darker and darker and darker. Did you did you

856
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:19,319
Speaker 1: have a sense did you say, I think I've got

857
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: this film version of these books, I've got the recipe. Unfortunately, not,

858
00:43:24,600 --> 00:43:28,440
Speaker 1: not until we were finished. We knew we were We

859
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:31,360
Speaker 1: knew things were going well. So even though the kids

860
00:43:31,360 --> 00:43:33,439
Speaker 1: had not had a lot of experience and acting, they

861
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: were amazingly charming on screen and they felt like those characters.

862
00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:41,640
Speaker 1: I think the first day that we really felt that

863
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: we were on the right track. As we shot the

864
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: the the the opening of the Great Hall and we're

865
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,839
Speaker 1: on this huge crane and the kids are walking in

866
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: and are her. Visual effects guy John Richardson attached four

867
00:43:56,719 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty candles to strings that were all burned.

868
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 1: They everyone had to light all these candles. There weren't

869
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: any CGI candles in the shot. And I remember sitting

870
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: in Daily's and seeing the shot where the camera cranes

871
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 1: up through the floating candles and realizing, Oh, I think

872
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 1: we're onto something. Uh, and so that all felt good.

873
00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: We still had no Yeah, it was fun. That's cool.

874
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: That's cool. Yeah. What was it like to work One

875
00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: of my favorite actors I ever worked with was Gamben.

876
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: Oh god, he was he. I remember I prea such

877
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: a character. I produced the movie that that he you

878
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: know when he Richard Harris was Dumbledore for two films. Now,

879
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:37,359
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. Yeah, that was one of

880
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 1: the funniest people I've ever met. Harris and he first

881
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 1: himself as Harris. Yes, and he Harris do this and

882
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: Harris count be seen doing this. On the first day

883
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: of shooting with Richard Harris, he tells me that he's

884
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,719
Speaker 1: learned the wrong scene that he It was seen at

885
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,640
Speaker 1: the end of the movie's It was one of the

886
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: final scenes for Dumbledore. We having to shoot at first,

887
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 1: and he didn't learn it, and he explained to me

888
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: that he had learned something else. I don't know if

889
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: he was telling me the truth. Um. And that's the

890
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: kind of guy he was. He was constantly he would

891
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 1: always try to piss off Maggie Smith by calling her

892
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:17,880
Speaker 1: Dame Maggie, Oh, Dame Maggie. It was so fun to watch.

893
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you he was such a

894
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 1: bad boy. Um. The things that he got away with

895
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 1: in his time just never never. You couldn't get away

896
00:45:27,200 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 1: with it today. But anyway, So Harris was in the

897
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,840
Speaker 1: first two. Then he passed away. The last thing he

898
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: said to me. I went to visit him in the

899
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: hospital room, and I knew he was dying. I saw

900
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: when he was dying, and he had he was sitting

901
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:43,879
Speaker 1: there and he lost about twenty pounds. And we never

902
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 1: really knew what he was dying. I was, he wouldn't

903
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,279
Speaker 1: tell us and he didn't think he was dying. So

904
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: I went to visit him, and as I'm leaving, I

905
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 1: said goodbye to him, and he says, don't you ever

906
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,600
Speaker 1: fucking replace me as Dumbledore? And I said, okay, that's

907
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: the last thing he said. So and that was the

908
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: last thing he said to me. Uh. And then Gambin

909
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: came in and came in. Who was he was a character? Yeah,

910
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:13,800
Speaker 1: he's he's an interesting guy, but he he's conservative compared

911
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: to Harris. The last film you directed, uh was Percy Jackson.

912
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,320
Speaker 1: Percy Jackson. Yeah, feature. Yeah, so if that was released

913
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:29,080
Speaker 1: in ten, you shot that in two thousand nine. So

914
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: you haven't directed a feature in four years. No, And

915
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: part of that was because of the of The Help. Um.

916
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: There was a writer director named Take Taylor who wrote

917
00:46:40,880 --> 00:46:43,120
Speaker 1: a script who was a sort of a director that

918
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: I had supported over the years. He did a lot

919
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,080
Speaker 1: of short films, was an actor in l A and

920
00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,240
Speaker 1: I knew him through one of my daughter's school associates.

921
00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:51,680
Speaker 1: He would always come when he come to San Francisco,

922
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: he'd sit down and meet with me and show me

923
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: what he was working on. He came into my office

924
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:56,360
Speaker 1: one day and said, this is my first feature that

925
00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: I want to make. My best friend wrote this book,

926
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: The Help, and I said, I read the script and

927
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,279
Speaker 1: I said, this is a fantastic movie. I wanted to

928
00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 1: direct it. And Tate was like, I want to direct,

929
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: and I want you to support me so I don't

930
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: get fired. So I brought the script to a lot

931
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:13,240
Speaker 1: of studios. At the same time, the book was starting

932
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 1: to heat up again. It was one of those books

933
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,600
Speaker 1: that every woman was reading on the beach. Um and

934
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg and I sort of reunited to do it.

935
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: Steven and I met um in London. He said, what

936
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: do you think of this guy, Tay Taylor? I said,

937
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 1: incredibly talented, he wrote a brilliant script. Steven said, as

938
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: long as you promised that you'll be on the set

939
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: every day. I said, but when I produced a movie,

940
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 1: I like to go for the first week, and then

941
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,759
Speaker 1: those guys financed the DreamWorks. Streamworks financed it. We shot

942
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 1: in Mississippi in the summertime a couple of years ago,

943
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: and I knew were on the set every day. I

944
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,520
Speaker 1: was there every day. It was fantastic. I was gonna say,

945
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 1: what's that like for you to be the pure producer. Well,

946
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: as I said, usually I just if I'm the producer,

947
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: I like to go for a couple of days, make

948
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 1: sure it's it's all in good hands, and I don't

949
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:59,320
Speaker 1: like to go off and direct or write with it

950
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:01,240
Speaker 1: in this situation, and so I made a promise to Stephen.

951
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: I was there the entire time. And the interesting thing was,

952
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,640
Speaker 1: because of the level of performances in that film, getting

953
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 1: actually just being able to watch these actresses perform every day,

954
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:18,840
Speaker 1: Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone. It

955
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: just was an amazing sort of front row seat to

956
00:48:22,600 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: these these performances, and Tait was just wonderful with the actresses.

957
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: He was just he's an actor himself. Again, that connection

958
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: is really helpful. So for me it was it was

959
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: a bit of a learning experience again, it just it

960
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: opened up another sort of part of filmmaking that I

961
00:48:37,520 --> 00:48:39,560
Speaker 1: want to get. I was gonna say, do you want

962
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: to make films like that? Because my last question for

963
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 1: you is, here's a guy who the flame for you

964
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 1: that you were drawn to from things I've read about

965
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: you were movies like The Godfather, But you haven't made

966
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 1: a movie like The Godfather, And I'm wondering is that

967
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:55,879
Speaker 1: a direction you want to go in? Now you see

968
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 1: a movie like The Help, and you see do you

969
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,239
Speaker 1: want to do more? Not even so much racially, but

970
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 1: much more kind of intense drama. Here's the thing I'm

971
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 1: not particularly uh. I'm not saying I'm not happy with

972
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: the movies I made, but I still have a long

973
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,520
Speaker 1: way to go. Hopefully I can live long enough to

974
00:49:12,560 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 1: get to where I really will be happy with it.

975
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:17,839
Speaker 1: Maybe it won't happen, but what I really really want

976
00:49:17,880 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: to do, I would like to make the kind of

977
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: movies that you and I grew up on, which are

978
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 1: the kind of movies. Look Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Serpico.

979
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:30,399
Speaker 1: All of those movies were movies that we're not only

980
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: about something, but but we're great dramatic films with an

981
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: enormous sense of humor. By the way, all the films

982
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: I mentioned are very funny at times, yet at the

983
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: same time they reached a huge audience. And to me,

984
00:49:40,960 --> 00:49:42,960
Speaker 1: that's what it was about. I didn't want to make

985
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 1: a film that was so special in Indian tiny that

986
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: it wouldn't reach a wide audience. I always felt that

987
00:49:50,680 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: when I was watching movies like Butch Cassidy and The

988
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: Sundance Kid, and I was watching Dog Day Afternoon, the

989
00:49:55,560 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: performances were so amazing and so authentic and real, and

990
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: those movies found an audience. Now, unfortunately, most of those

991
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:07,839
Speaker 1: types of films are being made for television. So yeah,

992
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: and aproposal that you've made films now, written, directed and

993
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: produced huge films, some of the biggest films of the

994
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:19,280
Speaker 1: last twenty five years. You've been doing this for twenty

995
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:21,720
Speaker 1: five years. How has the business changed in the twenty

996
00:50:21,719 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: five years from your standpoint? Well, you know, when I

997
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:28,280
Speaker 1: get harder to get that movie made. You're talking about

998
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:32,600
Speaker 1: that Sydney Lamette esque drama. Yeah, I've spent the better

999
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: part of the last year and a half writing films

1000
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:39,239
Speaker 1: like that, but I can't. It's very, very difficult to

1001
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:42,600
Speaker 1: get them made in an environment that really is only

1002
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: interested in either sequels or superhero films. If you walked

1003
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 1: into a studio executive's office in nineteen seventies eight and

1004
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 1: said you wanted to make Spider Man, yeah, comic books,

1005
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,560
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's the lowest form of entertainment. Well,

1006
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: now we're in a situation where that's mostly what's being made,

1007
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:06,239
Speaker 1: So it's difficult to help kind of you know, was

1008
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:08,839
Speaker 1: made because the book was so successful and we made

1009
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:11,280
Speaker 1: it for twenty eight million dollars, which for a period

1010
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:15,919
Speaker 1: piece is relatively inexpensive. So if we can find that

1011
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: way to do more of those films, I'd love to

1012
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: do them. And that's probably one of the reasons I

1013
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 1: haven't directed. The help is really gotten into my head

1014
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 1: in a big way and said you can make these

1015
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:27,520
Speaker 1: movies and people will go see them. And where I've

1016
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,920
Speaker 1: gotten into trouble in my career, movies like bi centennial

1017
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 1: man movies like Beth Cooper Again, when I did them

1018
00:51:33,480 --> 00:51:35,080
Speaker 1: for fun, and when I thought, oh, this will be fun,

1019
00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:36,399
Speaker 1: I'll just go out and make a movie like we're

1020
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,399
Speaker 1: back in film school. It's not the case anymore. There's

1021
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 1: much more responsibility. Chris Columbus won't stop making movies, but

1022
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:51,720
Speaker 1: he has taken a slight detour. This first novel, House

1023
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: of Secrets, a middle school fantasy adventure, is out this year.

1024
00:51:56,320 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: Chris sent an early draft to J. K. Rowling. She

1025
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:02,399
Speaker 1: said it was too fast paced, slowed down. She told

1026
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: him deepen the characters and work on the complexity. Chris

1027
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,680
Speaker 1: Columbus says he and his co author Ned Vizzini took

1028
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:16,080
Speaker 1: that advice to heart. I hope you enjoyed this conversation

1029
00:52:16,120 --> 00:52:19,400
Speaker 1: with director Chris Columbus. Here's the Thing is produced by

1030
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:23,280
Speaker 1: Kathleen Riso, myself, Zach mcneie, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineer

1031
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: is Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich.

1032
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:29,919
Speaker 1: I'm Zach McNee HELEC. Baldwin will be back next week.

1033
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:32,800
Speaker 1: Here's the Things brought to you by iHeart Radio.