Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's award season and we're re listening to some of
Speaker 1: our favorite interviews with Oscar winners. Cameron Crowe won his
Speaker 1: OSCAR for Almost Famous. In his speech, he gives a
Speaker 1: nod to Billy Wilder. Stay listening to our conversation to
Speaker 1: hear just how that friendship came about. Imagine it's the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the golden years of rock and roll, and
Speaker 1: you are one of the biggest rock stars in the world.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're David Bowie, and this cutting edge magazine
Speaker 1: that everyone in the industry is taking notice of sends
Speaker 1: a reporter to interview you and in walks a sixteen
Speaker 1: year old boy. Cameron Crowe is still probably best known
Speaker 1: for his personal story the child prodigy who convinced Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone to let him in bed with rock superstars at
Speaker 1: age sixteen, as told in his brilliant coming of age
Speaker 1: movie Almost Famous, for which he received an Academy Award
Speaker 1: for Best Screenplay. But before he won that Oscar, Cameron
Speaker 1: Crow spent his high school years on tour with the
Speaker 1: Legends of Rock. My dream kind of ended with a
Speaker 1: story on the cover of Rolling Stone. I was like,
Speaker 1: that may never happen, And then it happened when I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, so it was like, okay, let's recalibrate the dream.
Speaker 1: But when you when you go to make movies, was
Speaker 1: that inevitable? Did you always say that's what I'm gonna do. No, No,
Speaker 1: that that happens. That was a bonus thing that was
Speaker 1: coming from a family that worshiped Mike Nichols in Elaine
Speaker 1: May and that stuff was playing. And my mom would
Speaker 1: take me to see Cardinal Knowledge on opening weekend, argue
Speaker 1: with the theater owner to get me in. I'll take
Speaker 1: him outside if anything's coming up. Of course she's like, stay,
Speaker 1: don't leave. She wants me to see it all. And
Speaker 1: um and some movies were a big part of our world,
Speaker 1: and Yahn and Ben Functors kept me doing stories that
Speaker 1: were inching towards cinema. So I got to kind of
Speaker 1: blend a little bit. Were you thinking cinema during that
Speaker 1: time too? Because um, I loved Sissy SpaceX, loved Carrie
Speaker 1: and loved um you know what she was starting to
Speaker 1: do with alt Men, And so my daughter, coal Miner's
Speaker 1: daughter daughter came together while we were on assignment for
Speaker 1: a cover story for Rolling Stone. It was Annie Leawood's
Speaker 1: and me and Sissy who said, oh, let's go see
Speaker 1: Loretta Len. I have to turn her down for this project.
Speaker 1: She's been trying to get me to do her life
Speaker 1: story for six months, so I have to go and
Speaker 1: actually face to face say no, we'll come with me.
Speaker 1: So we all go, yeah, cover that. So we rode
Speaker 1: trip to a Loretta Lynn show with Sissy spacek Alec.
Speaker 1: Loretta Lynn closed Sissy in about ten minutes. It's like
Speaker 1: as soon as she saw Sissy they got into it. Boom,
Speaker 1: she was going to play that part that Wonner an oscar.
Speaker 1: And it was just one of those great moments where
Speaker 1: I get to be fly on a wall for this
Speaker 1: stuff and starting to see how films happen. But um,
Speaker 1: that was a dream that was really far away at
Speaker 1: that does it also a time out when Yon leaves
Speaker 1: the West Coast and goes to New York. It will
Speaker 1: kind of come together where like, you're done with that
Speaker 1: now that Yahn's you're not going to New York, can
Speaker 1: we talk about going to New York? No? I was
Speaker 1: continuing with them, and you live on the West Coast.
Speaker 1: I stayed in l A and kind of worked in
Speaker 1: that office and and stayed independent because I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be somebody who would be given an assignment and
Speaker 1: have to do it. So I was always kind of
Speaker 1: a freelancer, but I had an editor position, so it
Speaker 1: was kind of the perfect thing. And then it grew
Speaker 1: into the idea of telling the story about kids from
Speaker 1: a kid's point of view. And I had been writing
Speaker 1: all these stories about like Rod Stewart's and Crosbie Stills
Speaker 1: and Nash, and you would hear them talk about the fans,
Speaker 1: and you would see the fans follow them through the situations.
Speaker 1: But at certain point I was kind of like, let's
Speaker 1: just let's just turn the observation over to those people
Speaker 1: who follow Rod Stewart, for example, And and the stories
Speaker 1: just became endless, just interviewing people. And that grew into
Speaker 1: a desire to capture characters. And the first when you
Speaker 1: wrote the book Fast Times, and it wasn't a novel,
Speaker 1: that was a real story. It's a nonfiction the Truman
Speaker 1: capody of Rock and Rome. Who tells you you're going
Speaker 1: to make that as a movie, How does it become
Speaker 1: a movie? Um? Art Linson and Irving as Off and
Speaker 1: a few people that they kind of knew the music
Speaker 1: world and knew my writing, liked the book a lot.
Speaker 1: And Art Linson, I remember, really loved Spicoli the surfer,
Speaker 1: and that always felt like a great character if we
Speaker 1: were able to get the right guy to do it.
Speaker 1: Sean isn't necessaritionbod who comes into Nails with the reading.
Speaker 1: He wasn't necessarily the guy. And uh, and we heard like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's this guy. He's like kind of a young de
Speaker 1: Niro guy. He's really good. He's from Malibu. Let's let's
Speaker 1: read him. So he came in. There were three of
Speaker 1: us in the room and he said, I know how
Speaker 1: to do this part. We're like, great, do it. No,
Speaker 1: I'll do it when you hire me. I'm not giving you.
Speaker 1: For some reason, we just decided to hire him without
Speaker 1: ever seeing him do it. It was kind of like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck happened? And and he was staying in
Speaker 1: character of the whole movie. How us call him? Jeff
Speaker 1: and I would try and get him to do parts
Speaker 1: of the character before it was time to actually film,
Speaker 1: wouldn't do it. And then he just busted out with
Speaker 1: the character on the day and we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this is the guy's bicycle. Yeah, it's like a documentary version.
Speaker 1: Hard to believe that other, you know, with the other
Speaker 1: Chameleon things he did Falcon and the Snowman and things
Speaker 1: like that. Very strange way I met him. I don't
Speaker 1: remember when I met him, but I remember first seeing
Speaker 1: him there and thinking he was like this, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: crazy comic genius. He was like a Peter Sellers to
Speaker 1: me almost. He just completely occupied the character and all
Speaker 1: the classic lines. And I want to bore everybody with
Speaker 1: But people who are not familiar with the movie, you know,
Speaker 1: people on lude should not drive all that. We all
Speaker 1: were gagging, laughing. We watched everybody watches fast times you
Speaker 1: watched the movie for Sean Penn's performance, and we would
Speaker 1: just be gagging, laughing. And there was there was some
Speaker 1: really and in the middle of the laughing and in
Speaker 1: the middle of the kind of madness of it, and
Speaker 1: and and Ray Walston and ordering the pizza and everything
Speaker 1: is is Jennifer Jason Lee story. And I made a
Speaker 1: movie with her. I know who's there's nobody deeper than her.
Speaker 1: She one of the deepest actresses I've ever worked with him.
Speaker 1: Very real. Yeah, she's cool. She was ready for the
Speaker 1: movie to be even more raw and real. I mean
Speaker 1: there was some conversation in the movie. First came out
Speaker 1: like this is a hard are this is really more
Speaker 1: than we want to see from our young kids today.
Speaker 1: And she was the just wanted to say, like, I
Speaker 1: wish it was ex there was there was nudity on
Speaker 1: me that they cut out that I wish they had
Speaker 1: kept in, which which was like super bold and like
Speaker 1: you know, visionary knew where she was headed. The thing though,
Speaker 1: was Tann and all those guys calling this movie is like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna best theater. This is a piece of crap.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be making movies like that. We we snuck
Speaker 1: it through, and when they started to see it, they
Speaker 1: realized that Amy Heckerling had gone for the raw truth,
Speaker 1: you know, of like what Jennifer Jason Lee's character had
Speaker 1: gone through, gotten pregnant and an abortion. Amy had this
Speaker 1: brilliant kind of take on it, which was let's just
Speaker 1: show it. How was it for you when you saw it? Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean it was like this, let's shoot that. So
Speaker 1: she had this very naturalistic, funny approach that when people
Speaker 1: saw it they laughed. The thing, though, was Bicoli was
Speaker 1: our magic. That was our bit of magic. And and
Speaker 1: the studio and the people involved in the movie. Maybe
Speaker 1: Art Arlenson knew the potential there, but everybody who made
Speaker 1: those plants like on opening weekend, we're gonna drive around,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get together. We'll pick you up, we'll pick
Speaker 1: you up, we'll come and get you we'll all go together,
Speaker 1: we'll get like two cars will caravan. As it gets
Speaker 1: closer to the to the weekend that the movie comes out,
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm gonna be out of town. Um, are
Speaker 1: you gonna go? I can't make it. So it turned
Speaker 1: out nobody would go and do like a victory tour
Speaker 1: of the theaters for fast Time. So I got in
Speaker 1: a car and drove to Arizona to to go to
Speaker 1: my friend's wedding that didn't think I would be able
Speaker 1: to go to. Oh was I available to go to
Speaker 1: his wedding? And I went with a buddy. And we
Speaker 1: can start to get close to Phoenix, Tucson where we're going,
Speaker 1: and and we're like, let's go to the theater. Let's
Speaker 1: just see the empty theater. Showing fast times. We go in,
Speaker 1: it's packed. There's already kids who have gotten the checkerboard vans,
Speaker 1: gone to the mall and gotten them and come back
Speaker 1: to see the movie. And I'm saying Coli drives them
Speaker 1: into the theater and and and saves the movie. Really,
Speaker 1: they never caught up because they cut our theaters the
Speaker 1: last minute. They were like, nobody in the East Coast
Speaker 1: is gonna go see this movie, and then like those
Speaker 1: theaters ended up being packed. You've never written a screenplay before.
Speaker 1: I had not. You're with the book. How the people,
Speaker 1: even though it's a small movie, done this research alc.
Speaker 1: You're like the busiest guy. How did they get you
Speaker 1: to do that? I mean, how did you get them available?
Speaker 1: It's like they bought the book and they were like,
Speaker 1: let him let him write it. Let him write it
Speaker 1: twelve dollars and maybe he'll pay us fifty coffee. Was
Speaker 1: Amy on board? Then? Were you did you? Script was done?
Speaker 1: Script was done and Tom Mount again, the guy at Universal,
Speaker 1: was kind of our secret patron, you know, helping us
Speaker 1: out and everything. I said, I got this great idea,
Speaker 1: who could direct it? He's done this film eraser Head.
Speaker 1: He's really a talented guy, David Lynch is his name,
Speaker 1: and uh, I saw a racer. Of course racer. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, if you'll read the script app resolutely,
Speaker 1: So I give him the script and he was really
Speaker 1: great about and David Lynch like drove back a couple
Speaker 1: of days later in a I believe it was a
Speaker 1: white VW bug and very politely said, fun story. Not
Speaker 1: really what I think I'm going to be doing. It's
Speaker 1: a bad David Lynch, but he he, he appreciated it
Speaker 1: enough so that they kept looking. And then Amy had
Speaker 1: done this short called Getting It Over with Not a
Speaker 1: Young Girl Losing a Virginity. It was fantastic, and so
Speaker 1: we're like, let's let's go Gorilla Lo Fi and make
Speaker 1: it Where do you right after Fast Times? We did
Speaker 1: when when you so you wrote the screenplay, the film
Speaker 1: comes out and eventually becomes this kind of this called
Speaker 1: classic comedy. So are you like fully smitten? Then you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going down that road now far less? Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: essays that kind of right. I always feel like it's
Speaker 1: been journalism all the time, but it was kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, a morphous trying to get to what the
Speaker 1: story would be. I was trying to tell other people's stories,
Speaker 1: but the more almost famous became utterly personal the more
Speaker 1: it became the movie it should be. Wasn't there something before?
Speaker 1: Almost between many? But it's like that was the first
Speaker 1: thing that I went I want to get into the music.
Speaker 1: That started characters and music because it was so fun
Speaker 1: putting the music on fast times. That you could take
Speaker 1: a song like Somebody's Baby, which like in this part
Speaker 1: of the movie, it's just kind of nice pop, but
Speaker 1: if you put it over a kid having premature ejaculation,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, it's like kind of psychedelic and
Speaker 1: the and the song you'll never forget as you remember it.
Speaker 1: And then later you run into Jackson Brown, He's like,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot. I thought I was writing you a
Speaker 1: nice little ballad, and now I'm like a poster boy
Speaker 1: for jacking off and coming too fast. It's like it
Speaker 1: was like thank you, Jackson, Jackson and and uh, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of like the beginning of Wow, you
Speaker 1: can use these songs and really make the music character,
Speaker 1: and that became you see people that are doing that,
Speaker 1: though when you think that they're not doing that well
Speaker 1: with without naming names and judge. But I'm just saying
Speaker 1: for me. I'll see movies sometimes and I'll be like,
Speaker 1: enough enough of you telling I get it. We're in
Speaker 1: the seventies, I get it. I get it. Your script
Speaker 1: is a nimick and you want to bolst it with
Speaker 1: you know, knights and white satin or something. I'll get it.
Speaker 1: They're great. Music is gonna make your movie great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they just use it for a minute while somebody's
Speaker 1: car door opens and then shuts, rather than like let
Speaker 1: the song play. Of course, as he was always the
Speaker 1: guy that could give you a fast buzz of like,
Speaker 1: here's the guy that knows music, and he's gonna give
Speaker 1: you this Ronnett's record, and it's gonna rip your soul out.
Speaker 1: You know this because he knows when you're cocaine all
Speaker 1: of a sudden with Ray, you and Ray are Jones
Speaker 1: and yeah, or or you're looking at that helicopter and
Speaker 1: Nielsen is has got that track going and you're like,
Speaker 1: take me there. Cameron Crowe is a master of the moment.
Speaker 1: The needle drops, the song comes on, and you're there
Speaker 1: filled with teenaged longing. Lloyd Dobbler holding up the boom
Speaker 1: box and Say Anything. Jerry McGuire, as you had me
Speaker 1: at Hello and Comic Perfection, Sean Penn's puckished stoner. Jeff Spicoli,
Speaker 1: Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?
Speaker 1: Learned about Cuba having some food? Mr Spicoli, You're on
Speaker 1: dangerous ground here. You're causing a major disturbance on my time.
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this, Mr hann If I'm here
Speaker 1: and you're here, doesn't that make it our time? We
Speaker 1: certainly did nothing wrong with a little feast on our time.
Speaker 1: After the break, Cameron Crowe tells me what John Cusack
Speaker 1: was like on the set of Say Anything. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl, used by Cameron Crowe to give
Speaker 1: an unsentimental retro rock Field to a montage sequence in
Speaker 1: two thousand elevens we bought a Zoo. Now more from
Speaker 1: my conversation with crow about going from screenwriting success to
Speaker 1: taking full creative control of his films. What's the first
Speaker 1: one you directed? Uh, Say Anything? James L. Brooks. He said, like, okay,
Speaker 1: we have two other people that we've always talked about
Speaker 1: and if if the second one on that list, the
Speaker 1: second one is no, you really got to think about it.
Speaker 1: And the second one was in fact Lawrence Caston, who
Speaker 1: who said, you know, if I was prolific and did
Speaker 1: a movie a year, I would do this. But I'm
Speaker 1: doing um Accidental Tourists, and that's going to be my
Speaker 1: movie in the next two years. But I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: the studio and telling James Brooks is right and you
Speaker 1: should direct it. So that got me the directing job.
Speaker 1: On anyone say anything, how did you find that the
Speaker 1: first time you directed? What was it like for you
Speaker 1: to direct characters? And how was that change? Scared? Today?
Speaker 1: Cusack is the lead Cusack it was. It was a
Speaker 1: wide shot in a nursing home, and he gave the
Speaker 1: speech and I kind of turned around to everybody and said,
Speaker 1: I like it. It's good. I think we have it,
Speaker 1: and they kind of like, hey, come, come, come over,
Speaker 1: here gets some look of one. You have to do
Speaker 1: a thing called coverage. You have to shoot it from
Speaker 1: other angles, other angles. Let's go other angles. Everyone terrified.
Speaker 1: I went to the trailer and and just like was
Speaker 1: in an upright fetal position and Clay Griffith my good
Speaker 1: buddy who's like been production designer for all the movies lately,
Speaker 1: Claire Griffith says, you gotta get outside of the trailer
Speaker 1: and you should go have lunch with the crew and
Speaker 1: tell the crew just by being there that you're with
Speaker 1: them and you're all making the movie together. And it
Speaker 1: was like the greatest advice. I left the trailer obviously
Speaker 1: never left hanging with it. It's the only way to
Speaker 1: make a movie is to love your crew and to
Speaker 1: be with them. About the actress actors, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: until we're halfway through what great partners they could be.
Speaker 1: Like John Mahoney and Cusack are like these Chicago brawlers.
Speaker 1: They're like they just want to tear your scene thirty takes.
Speaker 1: Like Johnny be like, let me do one where I
Speaker 1: throw John Mahoney across the table. You're supposed to be
Speaker 1: kind of like the nonviolent guy. Well, let me just
Speaker 1: do one where I do this. And it's like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: let's do that. Let me make out with him, let
Speaker 1: me kiss them on the mouth. Yeah. We kind of
Speaker 1: found through collaboration, like how to get a really good
Speaker 1: language first time director style on that movie, and I
Speaker 1: fell in love with directing actors, and you're worked with
Speaker 1: him again. Since then, you worked with the one time,
Speaker 1: tried to a couple of times and we've missed. But
Speaker 1: I think that the times so for you there is
Speaker 1: is there a the notion that you have kind of
Speaker 1: a battery with them as a direct and an actor.
Speaker 1: You think I can get movies made with the guy.
Speaker 1: It's like Scorsese with Leo. Now he's a DeNiro. I
Speaker 1: love that. That's you know why I'll always call you
Speaker 1: when you have to say anything, just a quick question.
Speaker 1: When we were going over movies that we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about, there were so many like super strong leading
Speaker 1: man movies like just you know, double fisted, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you the story, I'm gonna I'm gonna hit my
Speaker 1: mark and give it to you. Man. It was like,
Speaker 1: there are not many of those movies made anymore. And
Speaker 1: I saw them on that list, and I was like, damn,
Speaker 1: studios used to make movies that we're both personal and
Speaker 1: universal and and and without a lot of fear, it seemed.
Speaker 1: And and so now there's these cannon of movies that
Speaker 1: are that are feeling like they're from the distant past.
Speaker 1: Which is strange because we gotta start making like these
Speaker 1: movies that are kind of our version of that. Today.
Speaker 1: It's there's a lot of whimsical stories being told, but
Speaker 1: I just like to like, straight up, look, tell you
Speaker 1: an American story quality. Then there was Woodstock on the list,
Speaker 1: of course, equally important in every way. It's like, I'm
Speaker 1: obsessed with it too. And Monterey Pop. Monterey Pop is amazing.
Speaker 1: For the crowd shots. Monterey Pop has the most beautiful
Speaker 1: crowd shots. They're like comfortable, Oh my god, they're so great,
Speaker 1: and they also tell you that thing of like in
Speaker 1: nine seven, it wasn't all the sixties. It was still
Speaker 1: like there were dudes from the fifties still there in
Speaker 1: the shots. You know, they go to the show too.
Speaker 1: They just they didn't get the manual for the Moon
Speaker 1: to wear. They're still wearing like, you know, a little
Speaker 1: skinny black tie. And you see these things in Monterey
Speaker 1: Pop and just go wow. Somebody was there at the
Speaker 1: right time with the camera just captured the generation changing
Speaker 1: and it was crazy. The end of that the end
Speaker 1: of that time, we're like, I always get so upset
Speaker 1: when people say the sixties was for nothing, But I
Speaker 1: want to get back to something you said, which is
Speaker 1: about Monterey and wood Stock, which is on the board
Speaker 1: of the Hampton's Film Festival, and we have our festival,
Speaker 1: so we do give me shelter, and we find out
Speaker 1: the Masals is Insect Harbor visiting his daughter who lives there.
Speaker 1: We bring him into interview him. It's sold out and
Speaker 1: everybody comes in and everybody like, no, there's no dope
Speaker 1: in the room, but you can smell. Everyone gets a
Speaker 1: contact high. This is really true, Alex. This is like
Speaker 1: the the souvenirs of that era. People are are gravitating
Speaker 1: to so strongly, like that's why they showed up for
Speaker 1: give me shelter. I want to see Richie Furay, you
Speaker 1: know who packed a nice sized theater singing Buffalo Springfield types.
Speaker 1: It's like that they people are there for the things
Speaker 1: that moved them in their lives shows. So bring him back,
Speaker 1: Will and Grace. Yeah. But and if and if Will
Speaker 1: and Grace comes back with the feeling that you got
Speaker 1: that contact high the first time and they have, You're like,
Speaker 1: they're in that's a miracle now. But but I know
Speaker 1: that you did reunion with Elton John and us couple
Speaker 1: numbers from Lee. Um, I know that you did the
Speaker 1: reunion with him. Why didn't you make more movies like that,
Speaker 1: like concert films? Why didn't you marry? We're doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the movies have taken me like a long
Speaker 1: time because they take a long time to write and
Speaker 1: then I you know, maybe put one aside for a
Speaker 1: while and start a new one. So it's like, as
Speaker 1: I've kind of streamlined that process a little bit, there's
Speaker 1: a room to do music stuff. So we're we're actually,
Speaker 1: um gonna do a couple of documentaries and a few
Speaker 1: and a few music things. One thing I guess I
Speaker 1: can say is, um, we're gonna do a little documentary.
Speaker 1: David Crosby, who I first met when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: he's you know, more prolific now that he's been a
Speaker 1: long time. He's at a point in his life where
Speaker 1: he's just got a lot to say, and I think
Speaker 1: with a with a lack of a lot of talking
Speaker 1: heads and leaving it with him just telling you almost
Speaker 1: all just a very personal thing. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: some stuff you'll agree with, some stuff you won't. But
Speaker 1: it's this between me you, this is my life. Like
Speaker 1: I love that tone, that tone. So we're gonna do
Speaker 1: that with David Crosby, who's wonderful. And I just well,
Speaker 1: you know the music, you know, listen, we made almost famous.
Speaker 1: And here's this note that comes to the mail like immediately,
Speaker 1: and it's from Alec Baldwin. I'm like, fuck, open it up.
Speaker 1: And it's like, I loved your movie. I love led Zeppelin.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you put tangerine in the movie, Aleck.
Speaker 1: That's the way, that's the way, and and and I
Speaker 1: was like, like, Baldwin knows that's the way. And Zeppelin, yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: And fandom, that fandom, and you do good and you
Speaker 1: don't do you can't because I just think you have
Speaker 1: to sign on for the people that you love creatively
Speaker 1: and personally. Take the ride. Lennon can make mind games,
Speaker 1: he can make you know. It's one of the in
Speaker 1: between records. Don't leave him. He's John Lennon. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like you just have to stay for the ride
Speaker 1: or your fair weather. You get that from your mother
Speaker 1: for a little bit, your lack of pretentiousness. Well, you
Speaker 1: want an Academy Award for screenwriting, As I reminded your children, Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you for that I told your children, I said,
Speaker 1: Rocket Roll Hall of Fame, and your father want an Oscar.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, no pressure, but but but but
Speaker 1: but what you're doing well by the way, but but
Speaker 1: you're but you're but but I think it's super important.
Speaker 1: And I think you can even make movies that way.
Speaker 1: You can. You can be loving with the point you're
Speaker 1: staying to make with a movie and stay open and
Speaker 1: and be open to your actors too, because generally, not
Speaker 1: every time, but generally a movie will have your spirit,
Speaker 1: your the movie will have your signature somewhere. Even even
Speaker 1: in movies where like you know, Penny Marshall came in
Speaker 1: at the last minute and replaced so and so it's
Speaker 1: it's a Penny Marshall movie. The director's personality seeps in Hallelujah.
Speaker 1: And and I love playing with that. I love playing
Speaker 1: with like the sensibility, the and the feeling that the
Speaker 1: movie is going to give you. Music helps the relationship
Speaker 1: on the set, Like when we've been able to work together,
Speaker 1: it's it's really been wonderful to have like the environmental
Speaker 1: version of directing where where we all are together kind
Speaker 1: of vibing, and there are relationships that are separate and
Speaker 1: the characters are part of it and we're doing this
Speaker 1: thing together. I think that feeling gets into the movie.
Speaker 1: So Jerry mc would you say that, Jerry McGuire, that
Speaker 1: blows things open for you. That's a big hit movie.
Speaker 1: That's you got number one in the call sheet there.
Speaker 1: I just came from London shooting with him and no, No,
Speaker 1: it's a singular experience. Number one. When you work with
Speaker 1: Tom is you can never complain that you're tired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can never complain that you're in pain. That's
Speaker 1: what happened once Tom broke his leg in October, like
Speaker 1: really fucking smashed his legs and he's back to working
Speaker 1: like nine weeks or wherever the was. So when you
Speaker 1: work with him, I love him the best. So you
Speaker 1: could do the movie that obviously changes everything for you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When he said yes that that that change things. But
Speaker 1: but he said it in a way, Alec that like
Speaker 1: you know, your friends take your sense. You know, if
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise says yes, you lose your power. You can't
Speaker 1: do a thing. It just becomes a freight train that's
Speaker 1: out of control. And it's a freight It's a Hollywood
Speaker 1: freight train. You'll be lucky if you see the back
Speaker 1: of the caboose and and you get terrified. And then
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise calls from England. So I read your script.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm the right guy for you. Let me
Speaker 1: come out and read it for you. You're like, wait,
Speaker 1: you want to come out and read it? Yeah? Why
Speaker 1: why not know if it's right for both of us?
Speaker 1: Let me read it for you. See if I'm the
Speaker 1: guy for you. And he was that guy from the
Speaker 1: moment he got off and and and hope to work
Speaker 1: with him again. And when you do the movie and
Speaker 1: the movie becomes a success because you you know, you
Speaker 1: make small movies and you're like everybody. You start off
Speaker 1: in one place and then you end up in another place.
Speaker 1: How does that change once the movie makes a lot
Speaker 1: of money and you're directing movies with big movie stars.
Speaker 1: Two people except back and go whatever you want, Cameron,
Speaker 1: whatever you want, baby, You do get easier, you do well,
Speaker 1: we never knew that, Jeremy, Why I was going to
Speaker 1: do that? Well, it's the same old thing you know of.
Speaker 1: Is it an in between movie? Because it's sports and
Speaker 1: it's also a romance and sports guys don't want to
Speaker 1: see romance and romance is confusing people. You're confusing people.
Speaker 1: So there was a big there's a big issue about
Speaker 1: you know, is this one of those Robin Williams movies
Speaker 1: that you know and you're like, I just remember being
Speaker 1: in these rooms when everybody said, you don't have a star,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? Now we have one, and
Speaker 1: they're like, what are we gonna do? So you know,
Speaker 1: over Thanksgiving weekend, Bob Cooper cut together, like one of
Speaker 1: the executives who just arrived I think, cut together a
Speaker 1: version that was both and we watched it. It was like, fuck,
Speaker 1: football can live with Rene Zellweger running through a street
Speaker 1: and you're feeling love and romance. It's like it can work.
Speaker 1: And it was a very very interesting thing because like
Speaker 1: it was the first Tom Cruise movie that had like
Speaker 1: not I want to see. So they were doing testing
Speaker 1: and they were going like, you know, you're gonna get
Speaker 1: killed by the Preacher's wife. It's coming out the same
Speaker 1: way you're gonna get killed. You know, this is a
Speaker 1: changing of the guards, this is a new day, and
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna be Preacher's wife. Tom was doing
Speaker 1: the Cooper movie already at that time, came from London
Speaker 1: to New York and said, boys, I'm gonna do some promotion.
Speaker 1: And he started on a Monday. Did Rosie, did, Larry King,
Speaker 1: did everything. By the end of the week, our numbers
Speaker 1: were way high. Preachers One was starting to go down
Speaker 1: and he basically blew us a kiss and went back
Speaker 1: to England. In the movie opened, it was the brawn
Speaker 1: of him coming to say, okay, guys, I act for free.
Speaker 1: This is what you pay me for. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: him everything I got for this movie. And then when
Speaker 1: that movie comes out and that's a huge hit, that's
Speaker 1: when you decide you want to do. You feel like
Speaker 1: the back pocket. Now we can now we can do
Speaker 1: like the Labor of Love. And they were great. We
Speaker 1: did it for DreamWorks and s be Brook said shoot
Speaker 1: every word, which I've never heard before or since. And uh,
Speaker 1: we started with the casting imperatives. There no finish we say.
Speaker 1: We started to run. We started to run long and
Speaker 1: I got a message back like Steven says, shoot every
Speaker 1: other word for a while. The no, there was no
Speaker 1: casting imperative. In fact, you will dig this um. It
Speaker 1: was gonna be Brad Pitt as the Billy crude up character,
Speaker 1: and um, we we worked on it, and it just
Speaker 1: he started to drift away. I still haven't had the
Speaker 1: definitive conversation with him on why it didn't work out
Speaker 1: but didn't work out, but somewhere I have Brad Pitt
Speaker 1: and Natalie Portman trying out for Penny Lane, and the
Speaker 1: portrait of the two of them together is is riveting,
Speaker 1: but a completely different movie. And Spielberg said, cast anybody
Speaker 1: wants as long as he's right. And it came down
Speaker 1: to Billy and Christian Bale and they both were great,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of like, I'm gonna go with
Speaker 1: Billy and he learned how to play guitar in six
Speaker 1: weeks and was the guy of Destiny. He was the
Speaker 1: guy of Destiny and they let me make it, you know,
Speaker 1: with with all the so called bells and whistles, which
Speaker 1: really was being being able to shoot up with John
Speaker 1: Toll and get all the sets, ride and go back
Speaker 1: to Sandy. Yeah, it's told the only person to win
Speaker 1: the Oscar back to back years, brave heart. I love
Speaker 1: he's great, and I think he worked on Monterey popper Woodstockers.
Speaker 1: I mean he actually was there shooting for part of
Speaker 1: that era, so he knew what real he knew what
Speaker 1: authenticity was. And led Zeppelin said yes, and let us
Speaker 1: use the music, which was incredible to go to England
Speaker 1: and show the movie to led Zeppelin with the editor
Speaker 1: and sit in a small room on the one day
Speaker 1: that Jimmy and Robert like spend together going over Zeppelin business.
Speaker 1: We're in the back row. It's just like five of us.
Speaker 1: And every time the two heads of Jimmy Page and
Speaker 1: Robert Plant would come together to talk talking about something,
Speaker 1: we play What are they what are they talking about?
Speaker 1: What are they talking about? And and um, and then
Speaker 1: it was over. They they were kind of emotional, and
Speaker 1: Robert Plant said, I have a I have a bottle
Speaker 1: of Kludes I've been saving since nineteen eighty and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna take one tonight. And then we went across the
Speaker 1: street and talked about the music and Jimmy Page says,
Speaker 1: I would like one of our acoustic songs, one more
Speaker 1: of our acoustic songs in there, and I'll let you
Speaker 1: have it for free, just find a place for it.
Speaker 1: And I was like, damn, you're supposed to be the
Speaker 1: people that say no music for anyone, And so they said,
Speaker 1: like the movies coming from the right place, and how
Speaker 1: great is Jeff Buckley, And they just started talking about
Speaker 1: Jeff Buckley, Page and Plant like fans exactly what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, like the way you want to hear musicians
Speaker 1: you love talking about the musicians they love. And it
Speaker 1: was Jeff Buckley who unfortunately died playing immigrant song I've heard.
Speaker 1: I loved all the musicians that helped us on Almost Famous,
Speaker 1: because they all pitched in, they all gave us like
Speaker 1: a good price on the music and love that we
Speaker 1: played so much of it. Writer director, journalist Cameron Crowe
Speaker 1: After the Break Cameron Crowe on what it feels like
Speaker 1: after the success of Jerry McGuire and Almost Famous to
Speaker 1: have a movie fall flat in the eyes of the
Speaker 1: outside world, Plus the story of his definitive interview with
Speaker 1: the great Billy Wilder, which became the book Conversations with Wilder.
Speaker 1: This song is led Zeppelin's Tangerine, which Crowe uses to
Speaker 1: amp up the nostalgia as the tour bus drives away
Speaker 1: at the end of Almost Famous, m h, this is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: Baby That's led Zeppelin's Misty Mountain Hop, also from Almost Famous,
Speaker 1: another great use of song, capturing the swelling pride of
Speaker 1: Will the Cameron Crow character when he loses his virginity.
Speaker 1: Now back to the real Cameron Crow on making a
Speaker 1: movie that is not the hit? Is it painful? Is
Speaker 1: its soul searching? Do you get in a minivan and
Speaker 1: drive cross country and meditate to great? What do you
Speaker 1: do in the wake of the one we sait there
Speaker 1: and go I miscalculated something. You definitely do that. Um,
Speaker 1: but you also know that sometimes time is the component
Speaker 1: that's not in play yet and over time stuff that
Speaker 1: I've done and movies that I appreciate that other people done.
Speaker 1: Time adds a little something, sometimes takes it away, but
Speaker 1: it adds something. So some of the movies, like Elizabethtown,
Speaker 1: got a strange reaction when it first came out. I
Speaker 1: love Elizabethtown. I love what we did, and I love
Speaker 1: the purpose of elizabeth Town. Not everybody got it. But
Speaker 1: as it's for my dad, as as Almost Famous was
Speaker 1: very much a kind of portrait of my mom. I
Speaker 1: wanted to I wanted to say something about my dad.
Speaker 1: And Um, as time goes on, more and more people
Speaker 1: really get that movie, like really get it. Like when
Speaker 1: people started to say to me, I saw your movie
Speaker 1: or I read something that you wrote, and it kind
Speaker 1: of changed my life. It took me a long time
Speaker 1: to to kind of wrap my head around that, and
Speaker 1: then it became something that I was so proud of.
Speaker 1: And if you're able to just like touch people in
Speaker 1: a in a certain way, they remember you forever. They
Speaker 1: remember the movie of the line or the character forever.
Speaker 1: So I just love the game. It's really they're all
Speaker 1: gonna so. So the thing is, like Kirsten Dunce's care
Speaker 1: actor in Elizabethtown, for example, like understood, less understood, now
Speaker 1: kind of understood again. What's the acronym the guy came
Speaker 1: up with to describe her character Ani Pixie dream Girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it was Lucille Ball, so you know, totally Mary
Speaker 1: Tyler more and um and that character was patterned after
Speaker 1: a real person. So it's kind of authentic too. But
Speaker 1: the thing is it's disappointing, but then you never lose
Speaker 1: the desire to get back on the horse and just
Speaker 1: like you know, but stand doing what you're doing, meaning
Speaker 1: maybe it doesn't perform because it is a business according
Speaker 1: to plan. When you go right back into it the
Speaker 1: same way you do it. You don't change the way
Speaker 1: you're doing. When I first started out, like given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do it, my thing was like I want
Speaker 1: to make movies about the people that never get movies
Speaker 1: made about them. And I still believe that, I still
Speaker 1: like say anything. Was that for me? Like a guy
Speaker 1: like Lloyd? I mean it was patterned after my next
Speaker 1: door neighbor really, who was just a completely unique, soulful
Speaker 1: guy lived died at a very young age, was like
Speaker 1: a young motivational speaker, and was a you know, fledgling kickboxer.
Speaker 1: I was trying to figure out the main male character
Speaker 1: in the script, and this guy knocked on my door
Speaker 1: and said, I'm from Alabama. I'm here in town. My
Speaker 1: father is under investigation for income tax and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be doing some kickboxing later tonight. Would you like to
Speaker 1: come see me? And I'm like, no, I'm busy trying
Speaker 1: to come up with a creative character. Wait a minute, hey,
Speaker 1: come back, yeah, come back? And that that guy actually
Speaker 1: I didn't go watch him kickbox, And I said I
Speaker 1: might and go out to like Samernardino and watch him kickbox.
Speaker 1: I didn't make it. Next morning, I hear like, boom
Speaker 1: in our apartment place, boom, boom, boom. What's happened? I
Speaker 1: go downstairs. He's got a bag hanging from the pipes
Speaker 1: in the in the parking lot, parking garash and he's
Speaker 1: working out again. And he turns around and guys black
Speaker 1: and Blue. He was decimated in his fight and and
Speaker 1: I said, I guess it didn't go too well. And
Speaker 1: he goes. He goes, I'm back at next Friday, and
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna do well and I want you there.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is a warrior for optimism.
Speaker 1: I love this and this is life. No, I didn't
Speaker 1: go why, But I went and hung with him a
Speaker 1: lot and we watched a lot together. So he you're
Speaker 1: not making a movie about him? Um in the end.
Speaker 1: In the end, Lloyd was based on Diane was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the main character. When we first started doing
Speaker 1: Say Anything, the Ione Sky character was the main character.
Speaker 1: Lloyd kind of took over along with Lowell, my next
Speaker 1: door neighbor and um. And that was another thing. It's
Speaker 1: like real life is going to deliver you some of
Speaker 1: the best stories. Like you just sit tight and listen
Speaker 1: and watch because life is the best writer now, of course.
Speaker 1: And when you love movies, classic films, whether they were
Speaker 1: in the TCM wheelhouse or not, people will say to me,
Speaker 1: who you know? Who do you want to work with?
Speaker 1: Who do you want to work with? I said, well,
Speaker 1: who do you think I want to work I want
Speaker 1: to work with Bogarts. I wanna work with John Houston,
Speaker 1: William Old and I just wanted to I just watched
Speaker 1: Bridge on the River Quiet the other day again. So
Speaker 1: for you, how does the connection happen? How do you
Speaker 1: get the hook into Wilder and meet Wilder? You know,
Speaker 1: I I fell in love with his stuff when we
Speaker 1: were working on Jerry McGuire. I just fell in love
Speaker 1: with the stuff, and and the apartment spoke to me
Speaker 1: in such an amazing way. I got like a vintage
Speaker 1: poster and I wanted to go visit Billy Wilder and
Speaker 1: have him sign it. And I did, and he was
Speaker 1: kind of where at his office, Uh in Beverly Hills.
Speaker 1: You're an established director who just wants to meet him? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so there was a there was an appointment made
Speaker 1: like two o'clock. So I go to this little office
Speaker 1: building and uh, and I have like my poster and
Speaker 1: a tube and everything, and two goes and to third
Speaker 1: e goes, and three goes, three thirty and uh, I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready to leave, and like four o'clock, here comes
Speaker 1: Billy Wilder like crossing the street, and I'm like, excuse me,
Speaker 1: Mr Wilder, Cameron Crow, I'm here. CIA was supposed to
Speaker 1: call you to tell you that had an appointment. I
Speaker 1: got no call. I got no call from c A.
Speaker 1: Why don't they call me for work? Why don't they
Speaker 1: call me for work? If they call me, they should
Speaker 1: call me for work. Well, well, okay, who am I
Speaker 1: signing this poster? You want to sign a poster? What
Speaker 1: to sign a poster? Camera? Get me a fucking tie.
Speaker 1: Go up to his office and um, he signs the
Speaker 1: poster and starts talking to me about carry Grant And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm sitting in fucking Billy Wilder's office and
Speaker 1: he's telling me carry Grant stories. Thinks I'm like a
Speaker 1: p a for somebody at CIA. He hasn't quite put
Speaker 1: it together. Starts telling at about like they should have
Speaker 1: called me for this and that, and you know, Schindler's
Speaker 1: list was mine at a certain point, like that's great,
Speaker 1: Mr Wilder. I'm making a movie and myself and I
Speaker 1: would like you to play a part in it. I'm
Speaker 1: not an actor, Hire an actor, but it's great. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like you're a sports agents mentor. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you come and find I come and dad do it.
Speaker 1: I do what I do. I come and I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: I went to get some cigars. I brought him back
Speaker 1: some cigars. Jerry McGuire comes together. We're in the rehearsals.
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to get a hold of him.
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise is standing there, and Cruise goes, when do
Speaker 1: we get to meet Billy Wilder. I go, let me
Speaker 1: call him. It's I call his office, and you know, miracle,
Speaker 1: he picks up the phone. Mrs Wilder, it's camera crow.
Speaker 1: Who I'm the guy. I'm doing this movie with Tom
Speaker 1: Cruise and we talked about a part, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: just at the rehearsals. So maybe you can come and
Speaker 1: just be a part of it. You know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to piss ice water on you right now. I'm not
Speaker 1: an actor. Hire an actor. You're bothering an old man.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say goodbye. To you now goodbye, click
Speaker 1: and now like Tom Cruise is standing there with Bonnie
Speaker 1: Hunt like Wendsy counting, and I said, I think he's
Speaker 1: not in a good mood today, and you know, I'll try.
Speaker 1: And it's like raining and terrible kind of moody situation. Cruise,
Speaker 1: who you know it goes, Let's go to him right now,
Speaker 1: come on, where's your keys? Let's go. So now I'm
Speaker 1: driving through the rainy streets with Tom Cruise going please
Speaker 1: don't let me get an accident because it is Tom
Speaker 1: crumbal and number one to the car traveling. So we
Speaker 1: get to the office, think goodness, Billy Wilder is still there.
Speaker 1: He opens the door, he looks annoyed. Then he looks
Speaker 1: next to me and sees it's Tom Cruise and suddenly says,
Speaker 1: come in, come in, Come in, come in, and proceeds
Speaker 1: to flirt with Tom Cruise the whole time where they're
Speaker 1: like perfect, just loving, lashing him with nose like Tom's like,
Speaker 1: we really want you to play this part. No, no,
Speaker 1: you must hire an actor. No no, no, no no no.
Speaker 1: I mean why wouldn't want to be in a movie
Speaker 1: when you why you tell me, why why would you
Speaker 1: make such a movie, what is the perfect I'm going, oh, fuck,
Speaker 1: Billy Wilder, do not unravel the movie and rehearsal with
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise because Tom's like, tell him the movie. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's sports agent, like kind of like tell him a story.
Speaker 1: And while there's listening and it's not sparkling with love
Speaker 1: for this story, and Cruiz is looking at him and
Speaker 1: looking at me, and I'm going, I'm now gonna everything's
Speaker 1: gonna be shipped because of this, while there goes, how
Speaker 1: will you have a sympathy for such a sports agent?
Speaker 1: How will you have sympathy? Why? You know, a little
Speaker 1: kid tells him to funk off in the beginning, and
Speaker 1: his heartbreaks, and he I think Lemon should have had
Speaker 1: more problems with him in the apartment. I think Lemon
Speaker 1: should have had a limp, So something like a limp
Speaker 1: would have helped us with the sympathy, and and Cruises
Speaker 1: looking at me, and I'm going, well, I think Jeremy
Speaker 1: is a very sympathetic character. And I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: love it. I think you're gonna love Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, especially you,
Speaker 1: he says to Tom and and delighted and we leave
Speaker 1: and uh, and of course he doesn't play the part.
Speaker 1: We hire the the business affairs guys guy at try
Speaker 1: Star who is so not an actor but was fan
Speaker 1: pastic movie comes out first week, goes by phone rings,
Speaker 1: It says Billy Wilder on the on the caller, I
Speaker 1: d so I'm shipping already. I picked up Hello, Mr
Speaker 1: Cameron Crow. I enjoyed your picture. Who is this guy
Speaker 1: who played my part? Well, he wasn't really not. He
Speaker 1: was good. He was good. I liked him very much.
Speaker 1: I liked the Billy Bob Thornton movie this year a
Speaker 1: little bit more than yours. But yours is good. Yours
Speaker 1: is good. Uh, come and visit me if you'd like
Speaker 1: to do something for your column. And I go, I
Speaker 1: don't really have a column, but I'm gonna come visit you.
Speaker 1: He says, the same place. I'll be there tomorrow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I went and just started interviewing him for my column,
Speaker 1: which didn't exist, Archer and turned into the book, which
Speaker 1: he argued against, like, do do they really care about me?
Speaker 1: Do they really want a book of me talking to they? Really?
Speaker 1: Does this generation really care? And in the course of
Speaker 1: these interviews Alec like, you know, Sam Mendis would show up,
Speaker 1: and Curtis handsOn would come along on some of these things,
Speaker 1: and and and Jerry Moss, her Balbert's partner was was
Speaker 1: Billy's you know, music friend, and he would come along
Speaker 1: on stuff. And Billy just started to really get into
Speaker 1: the idea of this book project. And he he said,
Speaker 1: one night, and this was like a huge thing. We
Speaker 1: went out to dinner with his wife and Audrey was amazing,
Speaker 1: and Audrey goes to the bathrooms and now it's just
Speaker 1: the two of us. I've been interviewing Billy Wilder for
Speaker 1: about a year and a half and he goes, Okay,
Speaker 1: is this book really going to come out? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. And he said, because if this was all
Speaker 1: just for you, that's fine. And I realized he was
Speaker 1: basically telling me, you know, if you if you wanted
Speaker 1: film school with Billy Wilder, that's that's cool. But what
Speaker 1: I sensed was I'd like to read it before I
Speaker 1: check out, you know, like I'd like the book to
Speaker 1: come out at a point where when I live in
Speaker 1: the same world, because I'm not the youngest guy in
Speaker 1: the world. So I threw it into overdrive. We finished
Speaker 1: the book. He loved the book, Alec, it was great.
Speaker 1: Vandity Fair asked him to right before he died, asked
Speaker 1: him what was on his bedstand and he said Conversations
Speaker 1: with the Wild, A fitting tribute to two incredible talents.
Speaker 1: In his films, Cameron Crowe has used songs from Simon
Speaker 1: and Garf, Uncle Yes, Rod Stewart, Blue Read, Peter Gabriel,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, and several cuts from another band We both
Speaker 1: love the Who, for example getting in tune in the
Speaker 1: opening scenes of Jerry McGuire underlining Tom Cruise's intensifying emotions
Speaker 1: as he writes his mission statement. As an actor who
Speaker 1: has worked with Cameron Crowe, I can confirm he's the
Speaker 1: greatest partner you could possibly have in filmmaking. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.