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