Speaker 1: Look out. It's only films to be buried with. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to films to be buried with. My name
Speaker 1: is Brett Goldstein. I'm a comedian and actor, a writer,
Speaker 1: a director, a napkinfold artist, and I love films. As
Speaker 1: Jonathan Swift once said, may you live every day of
Speaker 1: your life by listening to the Singing in the Rain
Speaker 1: soundtrack every morning I hear you joined the Swift. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's a lovely idea. Why it would get repetitive?
Speaker 1: Who my kid and is not going to get repetitive?
Speaker 1: It's fucking amazing. Every week I'm avit a special guest over.
Speaker 1: I tell them they've died. Then I get them to
Speaker 1: discuss their life through the films that meant the most
Speaker 1: of them. Previous guests include Barry Jenkins, Kevin Smith, Sharon Stone,
Speaker 1: and even Ked Brambles. But this week it's the brilliant actor, writer, producer, director, artist,
Speaker 1: all around genius mister Jim Cummings. Head over to the
Speaker 1: Patreon at patreon dot com forward slash Brett Goldstein, where
Speaker 1: you get an extra twenty minutes with Jim. I think
Speaker 1: we go deep. We talk about beginnings and endings. You
Speaker 1: get a frankly insane secret from him. You also get
Speaker 1: the whole episode uncut as a video. Check it out
Speaker 1: Patreon dot com. Forward Slash Brett Golstein Ted Lasso Season
Speaker 1: two is now all available on the Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 1: You can watch the whole show in Mongo Have a
Speaker 1: Laugh and a Cry. Super Bob, the film we made
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, is now available on Amazon Prime in
Speaker 1: the States and in the UK. So get to that.
Speaker 1: And you can watch Soulmates on Amazon Prime. So Jim Cummings,
Speaker 1: Jim Cummings is a truly inspiring artist. I rarely use
Speaker 1: that word artist, but I think it applies to him.
Speaker 1: He's everything I want in an artist. He had a vision,
Speaker 1: he went out and he made his own shit. He's
Speaker 1: fucking amazing. He makes his own films, rights, directs, acts, producers,
Speaker 1: get shit done. It's incredible and they're all fucking brilliant.
Speaker 1: He's got a new film out called The Beta Test,
Speaker 1: which I saw and it's brilliant. I would recommend it.
Speaker 1: We recorded this a few weeks ago and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. There's some lovely stuff in here,
Speaker 1: and I think really gonna love it. So that is
Speaker 1: it for now. I very much hope you enjoy episode
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five of Films to be Buried With. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to Films to be Buried With. It is
Speaker 1: I Brett Goldstein, and I am joined today by an actor,
Speaker 1: a writer, a producer, a creator, a hero, a man
Speaker 1: who will make shit happen, a man who will not
Speaker 1: let any system or studio or any ol fucking bullshit
Speaker 1: get in the way of being a true artist. He
Speaker 1: is a legend. Here is an inspiration. He's also a
Speaker 1: very lovely boy. Please welcome to the show the brilliant.
Speaker 1: It's mister Jim Kabegs. Thank you, Brett. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you said he will make should happen, and not make shit,
Speaker 1: which is all of our other areas. He will make
Speaker 1: good shit. You'll make good shit happened. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this right, Let's just tell let me let I'm very
Speaker 1: excited to see you. So let's just fucking climb down
Speaker 1: a second, shall we. It's fucking Oh can't dad listen?
Speaker 1: Oh great good, let's do it. I first heard of
Speaker 1: you because there is a brilliant comedian in England and
Speaker 1: filmmaker called Rachel Stubbings, Rachel and Stubbings, and she has
Speaker 1: a night that she puts on where she puts on
Speaker 1: like amazing work, and she put on your original short
Speaker 1: for thunder Road plus another short I'm afraid I don't
Speaker 1: remember what it was cooled, but where a guy is
Speaker 1: being resuscitated by the pool. It's already's okay, It's already's okay.
Speaker 1: And she put them both on and she was like,
Speaker 1: this guy is the fucking shit and they blew all
Speaker 1: of our little minds and then I think I'm message.
Speaker 1: I think I posted that short and I was like,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch this, and then you message and said
Speaker 1: I've seen you in Derek, and I said, what is
Speaker 1: going on? And then we add a cudo. It's been
Speaker 1: so so My story of that is exactly that of
Speaker 1: like you were the first real supporter of my shorts,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is this is somebody who
Speaker 1: I deeply respect in comedy because he's so good and
Speaker 1: Derek and so lovely, but also this complicated performer. It's very, very,
Speaker 1: very good. It was one of the first like real
Speaker 1: role models in modern British television. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I could I could do that I could do that,
Speaker 1: and and then you were doing stand up at south
Speaker 1: By Southwest the year that we won for the short
Speaker 1: film of thunder Road and we had been pen pals. No,
Speaker 1: you won for the feature that was it. Then that's
Speaker 1: when you won for the feature that was your audience Award. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was longer than I thought. Whoa whoa wo wo woa,
Speaker 1: and then and then we were trying to meet up
Speaker 1: and then we didn't. But then I think it was
Speaker 1: that same year I was in a bar in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and I saw someone that looked just like you
Speaker 1: across the bar, and I DM and I said, there's
Speaker 1: a guy that looks just like you in this bar
Speaker 1: in Los Angele And you were talking to someone and
Speaker 1: then you laughed and then looked at your phone and
Speaker 1: then looked up like mere cat. If you're like, where
Speaker 1: is this? Is you here? And I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, And then we doesn't hang up for a minute.
Speaker 1: It was great fun. It was really great. Now for
Speaker 1: those of you who don't know if anyone is listening
Speaker 1: and doesn't know, I mean, you really do have to
Speaker 1: watch all the Jim Cummings Jim Cummings eziz is work
Speaker 1: because it is really a phenomenal. But the thing about you,
Speaker 1: which is, you know it's not usual. You really fucking
Speaker 1: made shit happen. You just don't give a shit. You
Speaker 1: just you. You made a short and then you made
Speaker 1: a feature. You just did it. Yep, and you didn't
Speaker 1: let anyone get in your way. Tell me how your
Speaker 1: brain works? What were you ever were there? Was there
Speaker 1: any point in the process. Let's take Thunder the Road,
Speaker 1: which is a critically acclaimed, beloved film quite rightly so,
Speaker 1: that you made from a short in which you starred, wrote, produced,
Speaker 1: directed everything. Yeah, it's a it's a heck of an undertaking.
Speaker 1: Was there any point in the making of any side
Speaker 1: of that, the short and the feature where you thought,
Speaker 1: I'm what am I doing? What I've done every point,
Speaker 1: at every point you're doing of course, it's that like
Speaker 1: if you're making an independent film, it's every day you
Speaker 1: are questioning yourself and following into these like inadequacy traps.
Speaker 1: But I had had success with the short, and I
Speaker 1: had done it because I was a producer a college
Speaker 1: humor making the sketch comedies, and none of the stuff
Speaker 1: that I was doing was that impressive. As a producer
Speaker 1: and none of it was very important. And then I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to make something that I think could
Speaker 1: be good, and I'll shoot in a Saturday. And I
Speaker 1: booked a date two months out and I was like,
Speaker 1: I have to write something perfect for this thing. And
Speaker 1: that became the Thunder a short film. It was this
Speaker 1: pettiness that had built up to become admission in me.
Speaker 1: And then we shot it and it did very well.
Speaker 1: It won Sundance in south By Southwest as a short
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, and then nobody would take it seriously
Speaker 1: because the budget was so low. I think to make
Speaker 1: the feature it cost us one hundred and ninety grand
Speaker 1: American and so we ran a Kickstarter campaign to raise
Speaker 1: the funds to make the movie and we did it,
Speaker 1: and it became the feature that kind of blew up
Speaker 1: and became the sensation around the world. But I suggest
Speaker 1: now everybody do it, like there's no difference between what
Speaker 1: we did and what you can do and what really
Speaker 1: anybody else is doing, Like you could totally reproduce that
Speaker 1: on your own if you wanted to. I agree, and
Speaker 1: I'm always telling people that, but I also think watching
Speaker 1: your stuff, I'm genuinely curious about it. I watch your stuff,
Speaker 1: and I guy, yes, you may do all this yourself.
Speaker 1: You did it all yourself as an incredible achievement, but
Speaker 1: it's also really good, Like I do think you have
Speaker 1: to have some talent, like you happen to be very
Speaker 1: very good at acting and very good at writing and
Speaker 1: very good at directing. Like it's not just I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just wonder, like how much of it was trial
Speaker 1: and error on your partner? How much of it? Like
Speaker 1: did you storyboardy? Did you know exactly what you wanted?
Speaker 1: Like how did it? I knew exactly what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I didn't storyboard because I'm a terrible illustrator, but I
Speaker 1: shotlisted it and I thought about how the thing should be,
Speaker 1: especially for the future, and then for the short It
Speaker 1: was this Saturday that we had booked out that we
Speaker 1: had this like funeral home for six hours, and I
Speaker 1: had rehearsed it, you know, two months in advance on
Speaker 1: my drives to work. So I had a forty five
Speaker 1: minute drive to work in a forty forty five minute
Speaker 1: drive home, and it was just me doing it several
Speaker 1: times and crying and traffic and having this nervous breakdown
Speaker 1: that became the film for two months and it became
Speaker 1: Forensic Comedy. I was talking to Steve Coogan about that
Speaker 1: recently and he was like, oh, yeah, all of alan
Speaker 1: has to be very specific. It's like when he was
Speaker 1: coming up, it was all sketch and improv and he
Speaker 1: was like, no, this could be a different way to
Speaker 1: do it and nail it down. And I'm not good
Speaker 1: at improv. I'm terrible at improv, but I'm decent at
Speaker 1: planning all this stuff out from seeing it from the
Speaker 1: outside lens and then making it. So really, when I'm acting,
Speaker 1: it's just this kind of self directing. It's like I
Speaker 1: know how it's gonna look, and how much I should
Speaker 1: turn so the camera can't see me, all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. It's really weird. We're like in the
Speaker 1: mind while you're doing it. I'm never giving into the experience.
Speaker 1: It's more like all of the technical stuff, but because
Speaker 1: it rehearsed it so much looks okay, you can't tell
Speaker 1: the difference. I'm told by people, Wow, yeah, really weird.
Speaker 1: But no, really, all of the process of making things
Speaker 1: and growing to where we are now has just been
Speaker 1: a necessity of like nobody taking seriously and then how
Speaker 1: you have to make things to get it out of
Speaker 1: your body to like tell the story that you want
Speaker 1: to tell. And I think we're not alone in that,
Speaker 1: Like most independent filmmakers are struggling to getting ready taken seriously.
Speaker 1: And I mean my raison deetra is to be like
Speaker 1: there is no difference. If you do it on your own,
Speaker 1: you'll get it done faster. I mean, yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I agree. I may that I've made to all that.
Speaker 1: Tell me this though, Like I've watched your I've watched
Speaker 1: your new film which which is just about to come
Speaker 1: out or has just come out. It's come out in
Speaker 1: the UK on the fifteenth of October and it's out
Speaker 1: in America on the fifth of November. It's called The
Speaker 1: Beta Test. It is fucking brilliant. I really really loved it.
Speaker 1: It's fucking great. It's really great. It's great, O the
Speaker 1: ways that you're really great. It's really funny, it's really
Speaker 1: fight It's got one bit in it I wanted to
Speaker 1: tell you. I'll have to tell you off the name,
Speaker 1: which I'm like, that's one of the funniest moments I've
Speaker 1: seen this year. Like it's just such a funny original idea.
Speaker 1: There's some really funny stuff in it, but it's a
Speaker 1: very serious. It's a whole load of tones, something that
Speaker 1: you're particularly good at. Wait, what's the funny thing. You
Speaker 1: can spoil it? There's nothing. It's okay. It's a history.
Speaker 1: It's out. It's an historical diet. She talked about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she said it. Oh my god. It's my favorite moment
Speaker 1: because we do this whole montage. So what he's talking
Speaker 1: about is, there's this moment where my assistant says something
Speaker 1: to me, and then I'm thinking that she said it,
Speaker 1: and she says that she said something else, and then
Speaker 1: it goes into this weird, like Giallo style, spooky montage
Speaker 1: where I'm thinking about whether or not she said it,
Speaker 1: and then we completely debase that filmmaking by having my
Speaker 1: character at the end of ago now she said it,
Speaker 1: and then it cuts to me confronting her again, and
Speaker 1: it's this punchline. It's my favorite moment of the film.
Speaker 1: It's such a good gag as well, because those it's
Speaker 1: so far away. The punchline is so far away from
Speaker 1: the setup that you're like, I think we've moved on
Speaker 1: to you feel like you're in the home and you've
Speaker 1: seen it's really funny. It's really funny, but it's also
Speaker 1: like you do a thing quite especially like different very
Speaker 1: different tones. It's very serious and it's dark, and there's
Speaker 1: also if I may say, I was thinking about this
Speaker 1: because I keep debating sex in cinema. You see, you know,
Speaker 1: there's not much of it anymore. It's not much of
Speaker 1: it anymore, which I think is to do with pornography,
Speaker 1: and there's always an argument of do you need it,
Speaker 1: what's it for? And does it blah blah blah. I
Speaker 1: think there is a really excellent sex scene in your film,
Speaker 1: and it's really it's like a really good bit of
Speaker 1: story storytelling, and it's really good acting and like it's
Speaker 1: quite like a lot is going on to fight scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much happening in that scene. It's really just
Speaker 1: happening in their faces and how it's fucking great. And
Speaker 1: I also, I imagine not easy to film. No, it's
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable obviously, but because of that, because of this
Speaker 1: like generational political shift towards sanitized filmmaking, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to get any of that shot where like even in
Speaker 1: my mind I'm a I'm an American, I'm like the
Speaker 1: most puritan person that there is, and so I'm nervous
Speaker 1: about doing any of this stuff. But we had an
Speaker 1: mmacy coordinator for both scenes, and it was this kind
Speaker 1: of like it was more of a kung Fu scene
Speaker 1: in the practicing of it, and so both partners got
Speaker 1: to enact it as a comedy where like we both
Speaker 1: understood that sex is not supposed to be this like,
Speaker 1: it's not supposed to be pornographic. It's supposed to be hilarious,
Speaker 1: and so like in showing it, we got to lean
Speaker 1: into that stuff where it really feels like a fight
Speaker 1: scene between Virginia Newcam and me, and we were just
Speaker 1: laughing the whole time. It was great, Oh great, it's
Speaker 1: really good. It's great sex scene. Oh good, great sexy,
Speaker 1: great film, so much in it left it anyway. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's also you have that thing of which I like,
Speaker 1: is there are there are arguably sort of themes in
Speaker 1: all your films, and they seem to be the thing
Speaker 1: that connects them. Possibly is something to do with the
Speaker 1: death of masculinity and yeah, and yeah, but they're also
Speaker 1: a completely different, almost completely different genres and and they're wild,
Speaker 1: like I love that. You can't, guy, what is this
Speaker 1: is this film? And yeah, it's thoroughly entertaining. I mean,
Speaker 1: just prittyan, I mean, thank you. Yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: stuff with the three movies that we made where I'm
Speaker 1: the lead actor. It's all about somebody pretending to be
Speaker 1: someone that they're not and that facade, because that I
Speaker 1: find to be very comedic and dramatic. As soon as
Speaker 1: you break that facade, I guess that's what comedy is.
Speaker 1: You set up like a social standard and then somebody
Speaker 1: breaks it and that's what's funny. And then the same
Speaker 1: thing happens with like dramatic punchlines as well, where it's
Speaker 1: you know, you show somebody in the worst day of
Speaker 1: their life or you know, having a problem with their family,
Speaker 1: and it's not funny anymore, but it's you get to
Speaker 1: see them break that social boundary of asking somebody for
Speaker 1: help and it's tragic. But no, I realized, like that's
Speaker 1: the majority of the stuff that I do is watching
Speaker 1: somebody have a meltdown in the parking lot because they
Speaker 1: find it to be so hilarious and endearing. It's I
Speaker 1: fascinating that you I've heard, like I remember hearing about
Speaker 1: Russell cry was being interviewed about making The Nice Guys,
Speaker 1: and there's a scene in it where you know, he
Speaker 1: kicks in the door of a toilet and Ryan Gosson's
Speaker 1: in the toilet and the door guys back and forth
Speaker 1: about ten times, and he was like, we were forensic
Speaker 1: on it. We tried nine times, and we tried eleven times,
Speaker 1: and we found that ten times was the funniest. And
Speaker 1: I find it very interesting that sort of forensic like
Speaker 1: it sounds not fun. It's amazing, like as in I
Speaker 1: can see all the maybe every however you get there.
Speaker 1: I suppose it it, but no, I think it is
Speaker 1: this weird like psychological thing with watching video as well
Speaker 1: of like watching Roy perform, Sorry you perform, and it's
Speaker 1: like it seems to be very improv in these moments,
Speaker 1: and then the audience feels like a voyeur and enjoying,
Speaker 1: like real off the cuff, lightning in the bottle, Whereas
Speaker 1: with the stuff that I'm doing, I'm trying to recreate
Speaker 1: what you're doing. Of like I have all of this
Speaker 1: construct of the camera, movement, long takes, and then I
Speaker 1: try to produce authenticity and it's incredibly difficult. I'm very
Speaker 1: bad at it, but most people can't tell it seems
Speaker 1: Christ it's so amazing. But you're crying. I mean when
Speaker 1: you're crying, you're crying, right, Yeah, yeah, how's that happening?
Speaker 1: I have a list. I'm really bad, dude. This is
Speaker 1: such a confession. Nobody's asked me. Uh I A. I
Speaker 1: have a note memo on my iPhone of all the
Speaker 1: things that make me cry, and I like chart them
Speaker 1: anytime I'm watching a movie and I'll write it down
Speaker 1: and then when I need to cry for a scene,
Speaker 1: I'll bring up the iPhone and then I'll like read
Speaker 1: these things that made me cry. And it's pathetic of
Speaker 1: like inside out. Is that how you do it? I
Speaker 1: mean like, I don't know any other one, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm just fascinating. I'm absolutely fascinating anyone. There's there's one
Speaker 1: photograph of Prince William and Prince Harry at their mother's
Speaker 1: funeral and Prince Charles and he looks dumbfounded and confused
Speaker 1: and lost, and it's Prince William looking down at Prince
Speaker 1: Harry and she's obviously a bit older, and he's looking
Speaker 1: down and the photograph tells the story of like my
Speaker 1: dad's an idiot, I'm gonna have to raise this kid.
Speaker 1: And it's this heartbreaking photograph and I pull it up
Speaker 1: all the time and that's the thing that helps me
Speaker 1: to cry. It's so sad. And then like I have
Speaker 1: these anecdotes of like every flower shop in England sold there,
Speaker 1: gave their flowers away for free for the funeral, Like
Speaker 1: all of these things like that that I know will
Speaker 1: mess with me when I read them on set, and
Speaker 1: then it helps me to perform amazing. And then how
Speaker 1: and when you're directing as well, Oh yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to ask you. That's the thing I never
Speaker 1: fully get about if you are an actor director is
Speaker 1: do you watch back every take on the monitor or
Speaker 1: do you how does it work? No? So well, So
Speaker 1: for the thunder Road short, we did six full takes,
Speaker 1: and the sixth one, I was like, I think we
Speaker 1: got it, and then we watched that one. And then
Speaker 1: for the thunder Road feature, we did eighteen takes and
Speaker 1: we watched the eighteenth one and I was like, I
Speaker 1: think we got it. I think that was it. But
Speaker 1: but legitimately, if you're acting in the thing and directing.
Speaker 1: There are moments where you're feeling it and you go, now,
Speaker 1: I can do it better, And there are moments where
Speaker 1: you'll say that seven minutes into a thirteen minute long
Speaker 1: take and say, no, we got to do it again.
Speaker 1: It was like the last take that we did was
Speaker 1: better than this one, So I know I won't use
Speaker 1: this one. We can scribe and then move on to
Speaker 1: the next one. So it's really just a practical answer
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, that's not going to work. Amazing, amazing,
Speaker 1: And so you're I mean, it's not like that, that's
Speaker 1: not something you learned in acting school, Like I didn't
Speaker 1: go there, and so because because I didn't, this is
Speaker 1: just the best one that I know how to do it.
Speaker 1: But you're you're what you're describing, and I get you
Speaker 1: know what. I think I can relate it more to
Speaker 1: stand up, which is in stand up is something that
Speaker 1: like Steve Martin talks about in his book amazing book
Speaker 1: Born standing Up, where he talks about kind of I
Speaker 1: can't remember its exact word for it, but how your
Speaker 1: brain is in two places at once. You're you're in
Speaker 1: the moment, you're present, and you're reacting to the audience laughter,
Speaker 1: but your brain is also ten steps ahead, going okay,
Speaker 1: so now I need to do this. They're reacting to this,
Speaker 1: so I need to do this, and you are equally
Speaker 1: and equally standing back and analyzing everything. Your brain is
Speaker 1: just doing both at once. And that's you acting on
Speaker 1: film that you're directing. So yes, it's that living in
Speaker 1: the moment of like trying to make it seem authentic,
Speaker 1: but then also trying to live up to the script
Speaker 1: and the podcast. So, dude, when we do a screenplay,
Speaker 1: I'll record it like this in this very microphone as
Speaker 1: a podcast, and we'll do it. I'll play all the parts,
Speaker 1: and I'll put in music and sound design so that
Speaker 1: anybody that shows up on set can hear the movie
Speaker 1: a couple times before they show up, and it just
Speaker 1: becomes us trying to enact that and raise the ceiling
Speaker 1: of that podcast version of it. But it's a really
Speaker 1: effective way to make sure that the comedy and the
Speaker 1: drama and horror is working. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: the only reason we know. Like most filmmakers and they
Speaker 1: show up on set have never heard it come out
Speaker 1: of human vocal chords before, and so they don't know
Speaker 1: if it's going to work before rehearsal. That's like the
Speaker 1: one litmus test that we have before shooting. That's really
Speaker 1: really helpful, and so we already like Hitch apparently when
Speaker 1: he was on set, would be very bored and would
Speaker 1: eat the whole time because it was like, the movie's
Speaker 1: already done in my head. We just have to shoot
Speaker 1: the thing. And I find that to be so honest
Speaker 1: in a weird way with my kind of filmmaking, where
Speaker 1: it's like we just have to elevate the podcast version
Speaker 1: of it, and the actors are given that and they
Speaker 1: have to make it better and we kind of all
Speaker 1: speak the same language of the film before we show up.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that. I've never had that done that
Speaker 1: way that it's really really interesting, and you know what,
Speaker 1: it really works. It clearly really really works, because it
Speaker 1: also doesn't the films never look like that. They never
Speaker 1: feel no, they never feel machine tool to live in
Speaker 1: and ship their lives, you know what I mean. They
Speaker 1: feel alive. And that's fascinated. Every scene of Parasite was
Speaker 1: storyboarded and like every movement of the camera was part
Speaker 1: of the DNA of that thing, and bongingh is like
Speaker 1: a huge share of mine. David Fincher is the same
Speaker 1: way of like everything is done before they show up
Speaker 1: and they just have to make it work. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a very fun experience for actors to live
Speaker 1: in that space, But I love of working with actors
Speaker 1: and then having them come up with better stuff than
Speaker 1: I ever could have imagined. With the movie, it's so free, incredible.
Speaker 1: It's not it's incredible. Tactical, tactical. Yeah. Last question, last question,
Speaker 1: we'll wrap this up. Last question. Do you know what
Speaker 1: starts the next project for you? As in, is it
Speaker 1: one idea, is it a scene? Is it you know what?
Speaker 1: What is the thing that makes you guy? That's what
Speaker 1: I'm doing next with my second movie, The Wolf of Snowhallow.
Speaker 1: I was watching True Detective Season one and they kept
Speaker 1: on referring to the bad guy as the tall man.
Speaker 1: And then when you meet him, he's not that tall.
Speaker 1: And I was like, it's fine, he's a great actor,
Speaker 1: you know, it's fine, it's a great it's yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite TV shows of all time,
Speaker 1: on my favorite seasons television all time. And uh, and
Speaker 1: then he's not that tall and then I was like,
Speaker 1: that'd be so cool to have the bad guy be
Speaker 1: referred to as this tall guy and then at the
Speaker 1: end of the film you just see him stand up
Speaker 1: and it's like, yep, that's the bad guy. I just
Speaker 1: think I thought that was like such an interesting by
Speaker 1: a logical reveal, like a hitchcocky and reveal. And so
Speaker 1: that was the thing where I was like, that could
Speaker 1: be really cool, and I work backwards from there. But
Speaker 1: then with our new stuff, it's just the stuff that
Speaker 1: makes us actually laugh and actually cry. The things that
Speaker 1: we know that we specifically could do knock out the
Speaker 1: park of like, oh I could tell that story, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be good at this one. We have a thousand
Speaker 1: ideas for movies, but like the ones that really end
Speaker 1: up getting filmed, the ones that we know we love
Speaker 1: like truly affect us biologically. Of like I always say,
Speaker 1: if you have to ask if you're having a heart attack,
Speaker 1: you're not having a heart attack, and it's true. It's
Speaker 1: like you know it when it hits you and you
Speaker 1: have to call nine one one, And that's kind of
Speaker 1: us racing to screenplay format to make the thing. Jim Cummings,
Speaker 1: I I should have said this before we started fuck.
Speaker 1: I feel like an idiot. Actually I should have. I
Speaker 1: should have valued him with days and then we could
Speaker 1: have added with a nice chap. But I'd just say it.
Speaker 1: You've died. You're dead. Okay, you're kidding me. No, dead, dead,
Speaker 1: You're dead? This is it. How did you die? Probably
Speaker 1: the drink. Really the drink, the drink got you? How old?
Speaker 1: How old were you? It sounds like I was born
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty if I'm calling it the drink, um,
Speaker 1: I'm thirty five years old and I died. You died
Speaker 1: at thirty. I'm so used to this thing, man, like
Speaker 1: I'm so used to thinking that I'm dying tomorrow. Oh
Speaker 1: really tell me about that. Hang on, You literally drank
Speaker 1: yourself to death on purpose, by accident at thirty five.
Speaker 1: Certainly by accident. I got I got too excited watching
Speaker 1: like a Palos Ortentino film, and I fell down a
Speaker 1: flight of stairs drunk. Certainly, Okay, that's it? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so they still let's be clear on this. You felt
Speaker 1: you've died fully down at flat stair. Let's not blame
Speaker 1: the drink. The drink was ass. I blame the stairs.
Speaker 1: She fell down the stairs. You were very very equally
Speaker 1: to blame. Yeah, I was very excited. I was raving
Speaker 1: about this movie, talking to myself about the future cinema
Speaker 1: and fell down the stairs and instant death neck break.
Speaker 1: I think, so Jesus, I'm so sorry. Do you worry
Speaker 1: about death? I don't because I was dead for a
Speaker 1: long time before I was born, for millions and billions
Speaker 1: of years before I was born. So I think I'll
Speaker 1: be Okay. What do you think happens after you die?
Speaker 1: I think the people that loved you will feel very sad.
Speaker 1: Do you have a better answer? That's I'm wrong, tell
Speaker 1: me everything. There's a lot you genuinely. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not like I'm I'm impressed. I'm not sort of I'm
Speaker 1: not making fun of you when I say it's like
Speaker 1: you're genuinely like at peace with the idea of but
Speaker 1: there was nothing before, that'll be nothing after. It doesn't
Speaker 1: like you're like genuinely at peace with it. I'm very
Speaker 1: frightened by the process of not being able to breathe
Speaker 1: or with the last year, it's been horrifying to here
Speaker 1: are stories of I'm going to talk to your family
Speaker 1: through an iPad and that graphic violent death is not
Speaker 1: theft is not lost on me, But no, I don't.
Speaker 1: I try not to think about it because I'm I
Speaker 1: have such trouble engaging with life, Like I watched these
Speaker 1: Ghibli movies and I'll put on like long YouTube videos
Speaker 1: of Ghibli music and that kind of life pornography I
Speaker 1: forget to enjoy. And so because of that and me
Speaker 1: chasing that, I don't. I try not to think about
Speaker 1: death too much, even though I know it's it's right
Speaker 1: behind me, it's right in front of you now, So
Speaker 1: do you are you? Are you stressed by it? Sometimes?
Speaker 1: I definitely have that feeling of running out of time.
Speaker 1: My buddy Dan told me that he said there was
Speaker 1: a moment he had a panic attack in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: I was walking with him and we went to go
Speaker 1: pick up some light bulbs from a grocery store, and
Speaker 1: he walked out into the into the parking lot and
Speaker 1: he was talking about death, and he said, I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm walking out into the ocean and the shore
Speaker 1: keeps getting farther away, and I keep thinking, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: getting pretty deep out here. And at that moment, he
Speaker 1: dropped the light bulb packet and they all broke and
Speaker 1: he was like he had to go down on his
Speaker 1: knees and he was like, I don't know what's wrong
Speaker 1: with me. I don't know what's happening. And then I
Speaker 1: had to get him into the car. It was very terrified,
Speaker 1: but it was laughable for me, you know, as a
Speaker 1: non believer. I was like, Oh, you got nothing to
Speaker 1: worry about. Kids, It's fine, but it's terrible to see
Speaker 1: someone really stress out about the thing. And it's not
Speaker 1: from lack of understanding it. Like I feel like I
Speaker 1: spent my entire youth being thoughtful of mortality and you know,
Speaker 1: thinking about Christopher Higins on his deathbed and saw the
Speaker 1: geal cancer and like actually understanding the thing. But then,
Speaker 1: you know, pancakes are so wonderful and there's so much
Speaker 1: to life that you can love. You know, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it. I think it makes It's why I
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've said this before, but it's why I
Speaker 1: like con to bide small talk. I cannot abide it
Speaker 1: because I'm like, we're all gonna fucking die. I've noticed
Speaker 1: that I've seen some of your interviews, and it's really
Speaker 1: funny to watch someone ask you about your work and
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know. Yeah, I did that thing.
Speaker 1: It was one day of work. What do you want
Speaker 1: me to say? It's really funny. We're all gonna die.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So you're living constantly in the seventh Seal
Speaker 1: and you just want content, but we're all gonna die.
Speaker 1: You think this will fill a day? Sure? Anyway, Look,
Speaker 1: good news, good news. Actually there's a heaven surprise surprise,
Speaker 1: and that is a surprise I know. And it's really
Speaker 1: nice that stays filled with your favorite thing. What's your
Speaker 1: favorite thing? Quoran movies? It is wool to wool Quaran,
Speaker 1: like just everyweek, can't move for the stuff. It's everywhere.
Speaker 1: You can't move for our fun. Sorry's everywhere, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And he's knocking about asking answering any questions do you
Speaker 1: have about any of his stuff. He's very open to it. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Everyone's very excited to see you, they really are. They're
Speaker 1: huge fans and they want to hear about your life.
Speaker 1: But they want to hear about your life through film
Speaker 1: because that's what they like. And the first question they
Speaker 1: ask you is what's the first film you remember seeing?
Speaker 1: Jim Cummings. I remember my babysitter taking me to see
Speaker 1: one hundred and one Dalmatians in the theater, and I
Speaker 1: loved it. Obviously, it's so well it's so funny and
Speaker 1: so well made and so beautiful, and the music is wonderful.
Speaker 1: And that's the first movie where I remember thinking that
Speaker 1: was really cool. I'd love to make something like that,
Speaker 1: or like that's an entire world, a universe where you
Speaker 1: could create whatever you wanted to, and it didn't have
Speaker 1: to be filmed, it could be entirely animated. I remember
Speaker 1: I remember watching that as a six year old or
Speaker 1: whatever and going, yeah, that was pretty cool. Where was this?
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? I grew up in Metory, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: which is like fifteen minutes outside of New Orleans, and
Speaker 1: it would have been the Canal Place cinema in you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. Probably love it. You tell me before
Speaker 1: we started, if I may, how many siblings are you?
Speaker 1: How many are you? I have five sisters and two brothers,
Speaker 1: so there's eight of us together. I'm second to last.
Speaker 1: Too many, same parents, same parents. But the old joke,
Speaker 1: the older hal roach joke, was we had to put
Speaker 1: my mom up on a pedestal just to keep her
Speaker 1: away from my dad. Too much sex. That's outrageous. That's outrageous.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's fucking mad. Oh minute, that's too listen,
Speaker 1: that's too many people to have dinner with. Let line. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every night, especially every night, you get so bored. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's a bunch of Mormons basically that point, it's
Speaker 1: it's brutal one of eight and you're and you're number seven,
Speaker 1: lucky number seventy seven. Yeah. So when you, I mean, how,
Speaker 1: here's here's my problem with more than more than three kids,
Speaker 1: very difficult skides to Disney World. You can't keep track
Speaker 1: of them, you know what I mean. Yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: keep you gotta keep some unleashes, the younger ones, and
Speaker 1: then the older ones have to keep the other ones unleashes.
Speaker 1: And then you just look, you need to train, train,
Speaker 1: and you can't trade at that point, and you kirk
Speaker 1: enjoy anything. I don't think, and it's it's so weird
Speaker 1: to go. So we used to go to Europe. We
Speaker 1: used to go to Italy and it was nineteen of
Speaker 1: us with the extended families. We have to go to
Speaker 1: the imagine going to the fucking Vatican when nineteen people
Speaker 1: to enjoy the sixteen chapel and you're like, yeah, it's great,
Speaker 1: but we got to find a table for nineteen for
Speaker 1: luck because we're all starving. It's awful. At least at
Speaker 1: the Vaticans, the pipe's going good good. They definitely don't
Speaker 1: use contraception. Get good, Oh full blessing respect. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get the double, You get the double, Pope, you
Speaker 1: are welcome anytime. I hate kids, and I mean, it's
Speaker 1: no wonder you ended up performing a bit. It's it.
Speaker 1: It's weird because my older brother, my brother John, is
Speaker 1: two years older than me, and he was always the
Speaker 1: consummate performer and still is. And he's a lawyer for
Speaker 1: the CIA, so he's like not a yeah, so he
Speaker 1: like should have gone to SNL but then did the
Speaker 1: legal work. I'm sure he's listening right now, but I
Speaker 1: was always the observer of the rest of my siblings.
Speaker 1: He's listening the CIA. He's picked this out alive, Like, hey,
Speaker 1: my boss told me I should listen to his pocket.
Speaker 1: He fight, no, yeah, we didn't say CIA. We didn't
Speaker 1: say CIA. He said CIA. He was doing with anacy. Okay,
Speaker 1: bye bye. But he was always the performer, and I
Speaker 1: got to watch him be a comedian in high school
Speaker 1: and at the dinner table, and so I was always
Speaker 1: taking notes in a funny way. I was never the comedian.
Speaker 1: And then because I had such great surroundings as comics,
Speaker 1: I felt like I was the student of human behavior.
Speaker 1: And then that kind of made me a writer. But
Speaker 1: then I stole all of that to then, I guess
Speaker 1: perform it to pretend to be those types of people.
Speaker 1: I'm an introvert in real life, but then I pretended
Speaker 1: to be this extrovert in the films. Incredible. What's the
Speaker 1: film that scared you? The mice? Do you like being scared?
Speaker 1: Do you get scared? Oh? Man, this is so bad.
Speaker 1: I saw The Conjuring too, the James Juan film. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to hear you say that. Every time
Speaker 1: I say that, people are like really, I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: like really good. It's unbelievable. And I was in the
Speaker 1: cinema and I'm a huge fan of James Juan. I
Speaker 1: have all of these like drunken dms to him in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, being like, I'm such a
Speaker 1: supporter of yours. It's embarrassing, but I love that filmmaker
Speaker 1: so much, and we went to go and see it
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles and I took my girlfriend with me
Speaker 1: and we go in. It's probably four pm and the
Speaker 1: movie starts about ten minutes in and I said, I
Speaker 1: think we have to leave. It's like it's too this
Speaker 1: is too frightening. I hate this experience. We need to
Speaker 1: leave the movie. And then she was like, give it
Speaker 1: another ten minutes. We'll wait ten more minutes, and then
Speaker 1: she just kept me saying that all the whole movie
Speaker 1: of just like ten more minutes, ten more minutes. And
Speaker 1: the whole time I'm freaking out watching this thing. And
Speaker 1: the movie ends in such a beautiful way where it
Speaker 1: is this couple Eda Lorraine Warren and they're dancing listening
Speaker 1: to Elvis and they finally put on the Elvis song
Speaker 1: they've been talking about the whole movie, and the whole time,
Speaker 1: I'm terrified that somebody's gonna jump out and get them.
Speaker 1: But it's this fusion of romance and horror, and I've
Speaker 1: never seen that before done so well. He is such
Speaker 1: a master, and I was really floored by that expert.
Speaker 1: That's the scariest movie I've ever been to. It's a great.
Speaker 1: It is a fucking great guys training that film, Like,
Speaker 1: it really does its job extremely well, and I think
Speaker 1: it's underrated. I'm sure talked about it once, okay before,
Speaker 1: but it's underrated in terms of like because it's a sequel,
Speaker 1: because it's the country and it's kind of mainstream. You guy, like,
Speaker 1: it's the best version of that type of film. It's
Speaker 1: so well done. Fuck, it's scary, great, great shout. So
Speaker 1: you don't generally like horror, but you made one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you made one, your cheeky boys, wrong with you? I did?
Speaker 1: I mean too basically, yeah, the Wolf Snowhall is aware
Speaker 1: all film that. I don't think it's come out in
Speaker 1: the UK yet, but it was basically me trying to
Speaker 1: pretend to I guess like do Zodiac as a comedy
Speaker 1: where it's like a detective story with laughs and then
Speaker 1: and then this one. Yeah, this one's very frightening. The
Speaker 1: opening is very very frightening, and throughout the film it's
Speaker 1: a bit scary. But no, I love horror. I guess
Speaker 1: they function a bit like comedy where it's set up
Speaker 1: and payoff with it like set up and then a punchline.
Speaker 1: It just happens to be a scarer rather than a
Speaker 1: joke or like, you know, something to make you cry.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised Jordan Peel has had such a great
Speaker 1: career in horror bea because they line up so well. Agrees,
Speaker 1: what about crying? What's the film that made you cry
Speaker 1: the most? Team Cummings, no question. Inside Out, no question.
Speaker 1: I can't talk about it without crying. There's the moment
Speaker 1: in the film. I think I can talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's okay. Spoiler alert in the Pixar film Inside Out,
Speaker 1: where they're trying to get out of the situation and
Speaker 1: they have to use this magical wagon to fly out,
Speaker 1: and jes dude, it's fucking brutal. It's a suicide in
Speaker 1: a Disney film. Yeah, and it's like it's self sacrifice.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. And I'm watching it in a movie theater,
Speaker 1: and the whole time, the whole forty five minutes leading
Speaker 1: up to that, is teaching the audience how they think
Speaker 1: and the emotions in their brain. And then Bing Bong
Speaker 1: jumps off the back of the wagon and kills himself
Speaker 1: so that Joy can fly up and make it. And
Speaker 1: then he says, hey, fly to the moon for me,
Speaker 1: and then he disappears. He dies in this crazy moment,
Speaker 1: and I'm crying in the movie theater. Music is blaring
Speaker 1: at his beautiful and then I'm also thinking about why
Speaker 1: I'm crying, because the movie has taught me this literally
Speaker 1: like media literacy lesson I'm watching it is a It
Speaker 1: is an unbelievable gift that Pixar has given to young
Speaker 1: people to help them organize their brain. And I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything like that. I've never seen a sense it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I stand by. I think it was the greatest film
Speaker 1: of the last decade. I think it's truly incredible piece
Speaker 1: of work. Like it doesn't but that bing bong thing. Look,
Speaker 1: it's probably the most heroic death in all the film
Speaker 1: because not only does he make a sacrifice, but the
Speaker 1: sacrifice he makes will never be remembered. And he lies
Speaker 1: to her and he says, hey, I got a good
Speaker 1: feeling about this one. And then they get on the
Speaker 1: wagon and it goes sing louder and then jumps off
Speaker 1: and it's like and then the music swells and it's like,
Speaker 1: fuck you Pete doctor, you fuck her like and I'm
Speaker 1: crying in a theater full of people, and I'm humiliated,
Speaker 1: and it's well, I guess it's a paradox because ing
Speaker 1: Bong is killing himself and she'll never remember, but we'll
Speaker 1: never forget, and that's it's so great. So you just
Speaker 1: made the joke that they make in the film where
Speaker 1: at the end of the thing, Joy makes the top
Speaker 1: and it's just brutal experience that the filmmakers know that
Speaker 1: the audience is crying and Joy goes goodbye bing Bong
Speaker 1: and it's the dumbest name of all time, and the
Speaker 1: audience goes back to laughing, and then we go home
Speaker 1: with the rest of the movie, and it's like a
Speaker 1: complete cleanse of that horrible sadness such as life. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: out greats out. What's the film? People don't really like it.
Speaker 1: It's definitely not critically acclaimed, but you love it unconditionally
Speaker 1: and you think everyone else is a dumb dumb So
Speaker 1: so you reached out. You sent me that question. And
Speaker 1: I had written The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Speaker 1: because I had watched half of it and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, people are talking shit about this movie
Speaker 1: and they shouldn't be. And then I watched the second
Speaker 1: half and I was like, Yep, nope, I understand why
Speaker 1: people don't like this film, so I have to redact
Speaker 1: it from my list. The film that I think gets
Speaker 1: the worst reviews that is actually one of the best
Speaker 1: films of all time is The Beach, the Danny Boyle
Speaker 1: film with Leonardo Dicaprion. What an interesting shout interesting. It
Speaker 1: has like a twenty one percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It
Speaker 1: was panned when it came out because Homeboy had just
Speaker 1: done Titanic and all the sixteen year old girls that
Speaker 1: saw Titanic and fell in love with it. I love
Speaker 1: Titanic as well, but they were expecting something different. And
Speaker 1: The Beach is such an iconic, well made narrative about
Speaker 1: that type of dude at that age, and the soundtrack
Speaker 1: is amazing, and the cinematography is made the story to
Speaker 1: visual storytelling is amazing, and you just get to watch
Speaker 1: this guy grow up a bit and not be an
Speaker 1: asshole in this beautiful setting. He falls in love with
Speaker 1: this French girl. It feels like the kind of aspirational
Speaker 1: life that I wish I had at that age, you know.
Speaker 1: And I I saw it when I was about sixteen
Speaker 1: or fifteen, and it really became this anthem for me
Speaker 1: of what life could be. And I think that movie
Speaker 1: is so underrated. Yeah, I think that's that's a really
Speaker 1: good shout. I also think about that film because that
Speaker 1: was Danny Boyle had made three films Oh with Yuan McGregor,
Speaker 1: and I believe the legend is, yeah, he and Hu
Speaker 1: and McGregor fell out because you and McGregor was going
Speaker 1: to be in the beach, or assumed he was going
Speaker 1: to be in the beach, and then he kind of
Speaker 1: recast him and added and I wonder about people's lives,
Speaker 1: as in, at what point can you move on? Do
Speaker 1: you always? Did he owe it to him? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Life's complicated. Isn't it so terrible that even after being
Speaker 1: Obi wan Kenobi, like, even after getting put into those things,
Speaker 1: you still wonder what your life could be because of
Speaker 1: these like inadequacy traps that you set up in your
Speaker 1: mind as a performer, really like, oh I could have
Speaker 1: maybe my life could have been so much better if
Speaker 1: I'd done this thing. But that I mean, the movie
Speaker 1: flopped kind of. The movie wasn't well received. So what
Speaker 1: do you do? What's the film that you used to love?
Speaker 1: You loved it, and then you watched it reacently and
Speaker 1: for whatever reason that is your own, you don't like
Speaker 1: it anymore. Jim Cummings, Yeah, I watched. I watched Mission
Speaker 1: Impossible too, which was like a go too love it,
Speaker 1: which was a go too for me in high school.
Speaker 1: And I remember watching this like early John Woo stuff
Speaker 1: and be like, this is the height of cinema. This
Speaker 1: is like slow mode, doves flying, this is it. This
Speaker 1: is romance. And then I reached the age of reason,
Speaker 1: it seems, and watched it again and I was like,
Speaker 1: this guy is so cheesy, like like Tom Cruise is
Speaker 1: just so cheesy in this movie. Question what happens? I
Speaker 1: think about this a lot. You know the song Careless
Speaker 1: Whisper by George Michael. Do you know that song? Is
Speaker 1: that the burn? No? Yeah? Yeah, no, yeah, yeah you
Speaker 1: do know it? So that song for about since it
Speaker 1: came out for about I don't know how many years,
Speaker 1: fifty twenty years. Every year England they do the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame where people would vote on their favorite song,
Speaker 1: and I'd say for twenty years, Careless Whisper was number one,
Speaker 1: and then one day, all of a sudden, Careless whisper
Speaker 1: wasn't cool anymore. The sound of someone playing the saxophone
Speaker 1: was suddenly cheesy? Did it? It is loudly cheesy, but
Speaker 1: it used to be Like the day before it was
Speaker 1: the coolest thing ever. And I feel the same way
Speaker 1: about John Wu and Slow Moo Doves and all that
Speaker 1: there was. It was very cool and then suddenly suddenly
Speaker 1: it was very not cool. What happened? I think it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where it's like this uncanny valley
Speaker 1: where someone makes fun of it a whole bunch or
Speaker 1: tries to reproduce it in like music videos, and then
Speaker 1: it becomes the mainstream rather than this like iconic, you know,
Speaker 1: style of Chinese cinema, and then because of that, the
Speaker 1: guy can't do it anymore. And it's quite sad. Where
Speaker 1: it's like when you go back and watch some of
Speaker 1: these earlier films like Hard Boiled, that same stuff. It's
Speaker 1: like Hard Boils dope, you know, Like there's there's so
Speaker 1: many old films of his that use the same style
Speaker 1: and it works. But when you watch Tom Cruise hit it,
Speaker 1: it does. It does change things. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: we got older, Maybe it wasn't. It was never cool.
Speaker 1: And I was just fourteen when I saw it for
Speaker 1: the first time and thought it was dope. But I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it is this kind of like
Speaker 1: media literacy. Where got to a certain point with media
Speaker 1: literacy where it's like, oh, I know how to do that.
Speaker 1: That looks cheesy, Now what's not cheesy? I guess we're
Speaker 1: all kind of chasing to authenticity, and like cinematography matters
Speaker 1: in that sense. I don't know, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Like I guess that's just evolution.
Speaker 1: That's just like the evolution of audiences. We get we
Speaker 1: get more media literate, those same tricks don't work on
Speaker 1: us before. I do think, Yeah, I think in oh
Speaker 1: that guys Is, it becomes a thing of It's kind
Speaker 1: of been used so much by other people that it
Speaker 1: feels like a parody of itself. Perhaps, But when the
Speaker 1: when the original pleasant and guys back's doing it anyway,
Speaker 1: Jim Cummings, what is the film that means the mice
Speaker 1: to you? Not necessarily because the film itself is any good,
Speaker 1: but because the experience you had around seeing the film
Speaker 1: that will always make it special. I saw this film
Speaker 1: called Kreasha at south By Southwest twenty fifteen. I was
Speaker 1: a producer at the time and I hadn't done anything
Speaker 1: kr I Sha. It is unbelievable. And it was shot
Speaker 1: for thirty five grand in the director's house, in his
Speaker 1: mom's house, Tradeward Schultz, and I saw, Yeah, he made it,
Speaker 1: comes at night and waves, He's amazing, He's amazing. This
Speaker 1: is his first formalized feature. He had shot it once
Speaker 1: as a feature and it failed, and he turned it
Speaker 1: into a short film no joke, and then got the
Speaker 1: financing based on an award that he'd won to do
Speaker 1: it as a feature again, and that became the Kresha
Speaker 1: feature film that we all know today. But I saw
Speaker 1: it in a theater at south By in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: and it was shot for nothing and had great actors,
Speaker 1: and it was funny and tragic about something very important.
Speaker 1: And I left the theater. It was at noon, and
Speaker 1: I sprinted down Congress Street in a suit to get
Speaker 1: there and got in, and I was friends with the
Speaker 1: team already. But I spent the next two hours crying
Speaker 1: and calling family members while walking around the river in Austin,
Speaker 1: just because I was so blown away by the film,
Speaker 1: and that was in the March of twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 1: by October I was shooting the thunder Road short film.
Speaker 1: It inspired me more than anything to get off the
Speaker 1: couch and that anybody could do this stuff. That's really great. Also,
Speaker 1: of course, it took you two hours to call your family.
Speaker 1: There's fucking eight of them, that is, I only spending
Speaker 1: five minutes of eight. And he did the mad Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a solid joke. It's a good joke. I walked
Speaker 1: right into it. That's lovely that you spoken to him
Speaker 1: about that, right, they changed your life? Oh, no question.
Speaker 1: And then I became an associate producer because they didn't
Speaker 1: like the sound mix on it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: anything you need, like, I'm happy to do. And so
Speaker 1: I knew the guys at Skywalker Sound and so we
Speaker 1: drove up from LA to northern California to go and
Speaker 1: mix the film with Michael Simanic in the next like
Speaker 1: three weeks because I knew the movie had to be perfect.
Speaker 1: And then it hadn't been bought yet, and so during
Speaker 1: that time we were trying to send it to different people,
Speaker 1: and then A twenty four bought it with like I
Speaker 1: guess A three Picture deal for Trey, so it was
Speaker 1: like this huge moment for him, and I was like,
Speaker 1: all it takes is making movies in your backyard, literally
Speaker 1: casting your mom and your aunts and yourself as the
Speaker 1: lead part, and you know I could do that. I
Speaker 1: felt like watching David Fincher and Steven Spielberg and these
Speaker 1: behind the scenes videos, it was just like I could
Speaker 1: never do that. Those movies look too big. But then
Speaker 1: like seeing Trey do it, I was like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: could definitely be that guy. You know, I love that,
Speaker 1: love it. What's the film that you must relate to?
Speaker 1: Jim Cummings. I mean, Children of Men is like the
Speaker 1: movie that I I saw in theaters a bunch and
Speaker 1: I was like, this is the guy like Clive Owen's
Speaker 1: character in that film. THEO is such a nice guy
Speaker 1: and it's so he's also drunk, but he's also this
Speaker 1: like heartbreaking figure where he lost this child and then
Speaker 1: when this child comes into his life, he'll do anything
Speaker 1: to protect it as this love letter to his son.
Speaker 1: And it's so brutal and beautiful and had me laughing
Speaker 1: and crying and just in awe with the cinematography. I
Speaker 1: think like if there was one film to put on
Speaker 1: my headstone, even though it's not mine, it'd be that one.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm not alone. It's fucking unbelievable. Okay, you
Speaker 1: can have that. Yeah, yeah, you can have that for sure.
Speaker 1: Jim Cumming, what's the Yeah, what's the sexiest film you've
Speaker 1: ever said? Fuck? Man, that's a personal question. Yes it is, yeah, something,
Speaker 1: it's the screen in theaters. You got to clarify that,
Speaker 1: um sexy film? Yeah, I think uncut Gems is up there.
Speaker 1: I mean the Julia Fox is Soul that's a big one.
Speaker 1: Those those scenes are so perverted and so much fun
Speaker 1: to watch recently. That would be the big one. But
Speaker 1: then um yeah, but then match point, match point, match point, Yeah,
Speaker 1: match point. Although it ends in a you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of brutal murders, uh yeah, that stuff. And also
Speaker 1: like the way that the natural progression of flirtation then
Speaker 1: leads to this affair is so authentic and beautiful, I
Speaker 1: would say, and terrifying. I would say that that movie
Speaker 1: is probably the sexiest because she's such a tease and
Speaker 1: it's so aspirationous, like, oh, of course I want to
Speaker 1: stay with this woman, and then you realize why you shouldn't,
Speaker 1: and she's a nightmare to be around. And I think
Speaker 1: that kind of seduction and temptation is just so perfectly
Speaker 1: done that in the bait your test, riddle me this.
Speaker 1: There's a subcategory to this question troubling bone is worrying?
Speaker 1: Why dones? What's the film you found a rousing that
Speaker 1: you were joy you should I saw this movie called
Speaker 1: The Lore on the Criterion Channel and it's about mermaids.
Speaker 1: You know, it's one about mermaids. Yeah, it's a musical
Speaker 1: about mermaids. And I watched it recently and you have
Speaker 1: that feeling of like, wow, she's really hot. I know
Speaker 1: she's half she's half of a fish and they show
Speaker 1: the like fish vagina and it's really gross and you're like, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's not right. But also, unless I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's like it's very confusing. It's a very confusing film. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what I would say. It was like half spookiness
Speaker 1: and then half boner time. I guess it's the internal
Speaker 1: question do we laundry? And she just looked at me like,
Speaker 1: what is this one? What are you talking about? It's
Speaker 1: the internal question if you had to have sex with
Speaker 1: a mermaid, and you could have the top half as
Speaker 1: a woman or the bottom half as a woman, but
Speaker 1: the top five as a fish. Obviously you go with
Speaker 1: the top half. Obviously you go to the top half
Speaker 1: because because otherwise you're you're stuck with conversation. You spend
Speaker 1: the rest of your life with this person. The conversation
Speaker 1: bed be good. I'm just talking about you're you're having
Speaker 1: a fling. The Mermaids been very clear that she doesn't
Speaker 1: want anything more than one night. Then the bottom half
Speaker 1: the Mermaids. The Mermaids. The Mermaids in town were like
Speaker 1: a conference. And then she's going to be leaving and
Speaker 1: she's like, listen, nice rings. You're staying at a hotel.
Speaker 1: She's at the bar and she makes eyes at you
Speaker 1: before you get an elevator and you've got your groceries.
Speaker 1: And then you think, I don't you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and she says top half a bottom half half human,
Speaker 1: but it has to be the same all night. I
Speaker 1: think at that point i'd have to say bottom half,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. You want the bottom half as a woman.
Speaker 1: So you've got like a content and then you have
Speaker 1: to hold hand, eye or legs with the with the
Speaker 1: fish in the elevator. Yeah no, that never mind. Change
Speaker 1: I changed my answer. Its top. Yeah it's too late.
Speaker 1: You've you've got a top half fish nomad says. If
Speaker 1: she was asking with it, she you know what, she
Speaker 1: was flat. If she's with me, she'd definitely be happy
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, no question, Yeah, okay, that's a lovely story. Um. Objectively, objectively,
Speaker 1: what's the greatest film ever made? Might not be your favorite,
Speaker 1: but it's the greatest work in cinema. That's a really
Speaker 1: tough one because the difficult things is that, like sometimes
Speaker 1: filmmakers will make something that's incredibly well crafted that's very
Speaker 1: small and doesn't encompass all of humanity. So I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about like what you would print on the gold disc
Speaker 1: before you set it out into space to document humanity?
Speaker 1: Like that's the one film mhm, dude, I mean I
Speaker 1: hate to say it, Like Children of Men is so
Speaker 1: good with that of like it's so broad, it's like
Speaker 1: women and men's stories incorporated, and it's about life and
Speaker 1: pregnancy in the preservation of life, which is such a
Speaker 1: human you know story. I don't know, I think I
Speaker 1: think it has to be that. But then also like
Speaker 1: Citizen Kane is so great about ambition and failing and
Speaker 1: male ego, but then that doesn't really apply to half
Speaker 1: of humanity. Really, I don't know. I think I think
Speaker 1: i'd have to say, children, men, Okay, you can have
Speaker 1: children men. It's really something you can have. It. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: you can have That was the film that you could
Speaker 1: or have what's the most over and over again. I
Speaker 1: have the actual answer. The actual answer is home Alone
Speaker 1: because I used to watch as a kid, and instead
Speaker 1: of calling him Kevin, I used to call him home alone.
Speaker 1: So I would scream get him home alone, and my
Speaker 1: mom would make fun of me for it, even as
Speaker 1: an at all, Surely as a child of a home
Speaker 1: alone is a real aspiration. It's the best. You get
Speaker 1: to beat up the bad guys, and you're smarter than
Speaker 1: your parents, and they've wronged you somehow. It's great. He
Speaker 1: gets some fucking space. Jesus. Yeah, it's all I wanted,
Speaker 1: as like all these kids, I just wanted to have
Speaker 1: the house to myself. But then there was a time
Speaker 1: in high school where I watched Fight Club countless times,
Speaker 1: and then The Royal tenebombs countless times, and then I
Speaker 1: think the last Crusade is probably the movie that I
Speaker 1: would answer of like a movie that you've watched enough
Speaker 1: times to know every line in every moment. Right. I
Speaker 1: fucking loved the Last Crusade. I love it. It is
Speaker 1: unbelievable and to think that that, oh my god, he
Speaker 1: goes off the cliff in the tank and his dad
Speaker 1: has to watch him go off and then realize that
Speaker 1: he's lost his son, and then he climbs up behind
Speaker 1: them and it's a joke of like, yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: made it, and then we're all looking over at this tank.
Speaker 1: It's so funny. It's beautiful, really funny, the final bit
Speaker 1: where he's reaching let it go, let it go, Indianna.
Speaker 1: It's great, it's great, good, it's so sad. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we don't like to be negative, Jim Cummings. Everyone is
Speaker 1: doing their best. So this isn't just because you think
Speaker 1: it's bad. What's the worst film you ever saw? So okay,
Speaker 1: I mean there's it's bad. There's a plethora these days.
Speaker 1: The politically incorrect version of myself would want to answer
Speaker 1: a much more modern film, but I won't, and instead
Speaker 1: I saw a film recently that was on the Arrow
Speaker 1: Video channel, which I suggest everybody get it is an
Speaker 1: unbelievable gift that they have given us, But you have
Speaker 1: I think it's four bucks a month, and you can
Speaker 1: watch all of these like Sartana and Django movies and
Speaker 1: like all these crazy Giallo films from the nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: and seventies. All this stuff I would never have seen,
Speaker 1: but they have restored and it's an incredible service. Having
Speaker 1: said that, there's a film on the platform called The
Speaker 1: Baby from the nineteen seventies and you start watching it,
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, this is this psychological thriller shot in
Speaker 1: the same style in America, I think Italian directors and
Speaker 1: team and I had to turn it off and then
Speaker 1: I skimmed through it and I was like, yep, that's
Speaker 1: kind of where I thought it was going. And I
Speaker 1: watched it again recently, and I don't know how it
Speaker 1: got made, or rather like how the team didn't revolt
Speaker 1: in making the film of like this is not good,
Speaker 1: this is not going to be a good no. So
Speaker 1: that would be my answer to The Baby. I think
Speaker 1: it's seventy three. Baby is about kill baby. It's not
Speaker 1: it's about a woman. I won't spoil it, but it's
Speaker 1: about a guy in a diaper and this woman who's
Speaker 1: taking care of him, and it's very bad. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll miss him. You're in comedy, you're very funny.
Speaker 1: What's the film that made you laugh the most? Jim
Speaker 1: Cummings The Alan Partridge feature, Alpha Papa, the feature film.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. It is unbelievable, and I show it to
Speaker 1: people who aren't familiar with Steve or Allen and it
Speaker 1: works totally where it's like it's complete introduction to the
Speaker 1: guy in his fifties, you know, sixties, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and it's a belly laugh every minute. There's like and
Speaker 1: the way that the comedy works is that there's such
Speaker 1: a specific character and you get to see how the
Speaker 1: how his cogs and his brain are working, and that's
Speaker 1: the comedy. And as soon as you learn that language,
Speaker 1: it's like the height of comedy to me, of watching
Speaker 1: somebody lie and trying to keep things together. It's so
Speaker 1: much fun to watch. And um, I'll that's the movie.
Speaker 1: I cannot tell you how many times of laugh watching that.
Speaker 1: There's a bit in it as well that is like,
Speaker 1: in one line, incredibly moving and tells you everything and
Speaker 1: I can never fully remember it. Web Forwood, But like
Speaker 1: the Darren Boyd is, he's the placement, like holds him down.
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, do you remember? Yeah, what does he
Speaker 1: say to it? He goes, they're joking about it, and
Speaker 1: he's like pulled the gun on him, and he goes
Speaker 1: and he goes, he goes any last words and he goes,
Speaker 1: tell my kids I love him or yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't call me, so I guess, um, I guess
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's like this super sad moment. I was
Speaker 1: like sad, Oh my god. Probably probably, he says, I
Speaker 1: probably just tell my kids said love him? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: why don't you call me? No, Actually I should just
Speaker 1: tell him, yeah, tell him. It's a very sad moment. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's a joke in it that I've never I've
Speaker 1: never done, I've never heard so well in the word
Speaker 1: economy of comedy, where it's like how few letters and
Speaker 1: words you can put into a joke to make it work.
Speaker 1: And it's a moment when the guy who Pat Ferrell
Speaker 1: kidnaps everybody in the in the studio, he's holding everybody hostage,
Speaker 1: and he goes, um, he goes, this is my wife,
Speaker 1: and he holds up a picture of his wife and
Speaker 1: he goes, that was three months before the angels carried
Speaker 1: her to heaven. And sidekick Simon goes, there must have
Speaker 1: been a couple of them, and he hands it off
Speaker 1: and you never see what's in the photograph, but it's
Speaker 1: clearly a fat joke, and it's so brilliant, and it's like,
Speaker 1: you don't need to see the photograph. He tells that
Speaker 1: whole story. There must have been a couple of angels.
Speaker 1: It's so funny, it's so ugly. That's great. Well, Jim Cummings,
Speaker 1: you have been wonderful as completely as expected. However, if
Speaker 1: I may, when you were thirty five years old, you
Speaker 1: add what you called a little a little too much
Speaker 1: pleasure with the drink, and you were watching the Paolo
Speaker 1: Sarrantino film Life. You're watching Life, the underrated Life, so
Speaker 1: that's called Life Youth, Youth. You're watching the Underrated Youth,
Speaker 1: and you were like, this, why has this been underrated?
Speaker 1: This film is fucking great. I am loving this. And
Speaker 1: you had a glass of port in your hand because
Speaker 1: you're like and the eighth and you and you ran
Speaker 1: around the house looking for your fiance. You're like, you
Speaker 1: got to see this film. It's so good, it's so
Speaker 1: fucking good. You scream and she says, I'll be up
Speaker 1: in a minute, and you go, no, come up here now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trag you up. And you at the top
Speaker 1: of the stairs and you tripped and you went bish
Speaker 1: bash bush broke your neck dead at the moment of
Speaker 1: the stairs. Would you won't even bother the back because
Speaker 1: you're not scared of death? And you think it's nappy.
Speaker 1: I'm walking by with a coffin, you know what, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I knock. I'm like, I'd like checking on Jim. Tell
Speaker 1: him I enjoyed this film, answered the door. Your fiance
Speaker 1: is in a right state. I'm like, what's the mad baby?
Speaker 1: Don't call me baby. We've never met I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I was I was being too casual that that was
Speaker 1: like a joke. But I realized we've never met it.
Speaker 1: So I realized, actually, the whole big fair my husband
Speaker 1: just died. So what do you do? I said, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm just looking for him. She goes, Jim is just
Speaker 1: falling down the stairs. I go, it wasn't a drink,
Speaker 1: was it? She said, yeah, you've heard O fucking come
Speaker 1: down the stairs. You're a state. Your legs are over
Speaker 1: your head, your hands are behind your back. It's a
Speaker 1: it's impressive, but a mess. And I I do what
Speaker 1: I can. I picked the bits of you I can get,
Speaker 1: but I have to crack off bits of you because
Speaker 1: there's such a state like pull bits off like a
Speaker 1: chicken leg. Put you in the coffin. Your fiance helps me.
Speaker 1: I say, don't worry, you're you're you're probably in shock.
Speaker 1: Go and sit down. Watch the rest of you. As
Speaker 1: he goes, he did say it was good. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: actually really underrated. Go and enjoy yourself. She pops upstairs.
Speaker 1: I've put you in the coffins. I had misjudged the
Speaker 1: size of you. You're taller than night than you look
Speaker 1: on screen, and it's the smaller coffin. I thought, I
Speaker 1: put all the bits in the coffin, but it's jammed
Speaker 1: in there. He's jammed, jammed packed, and I mean there's
Speaker 1: no room in it. There's only enough room for me
Speaker 1: to slip one DVD into the side of the coffee
Speaker 1: with you, for you to take across to the other side,
Speaker 1: and on the other side, it's movie night every night.
Speaker 1: What film are you showing everyone when it's your turn?
Speaker 1: On the other side, Jim Cummings go the temptation to
Speaker 1: say children men again, but I'm not going to. The
Speaker 1: answer would be being there by how delightful? Okay good.
Speaker 1: I think that film says a lot about humanity and
Speaker 1: is about somebody pretending to be bigger than they are,
Speaker 1: and that's how we all feel together. And I love
Speaker 1: that film so much. It's really great at film. He's
Speaker 1: whatever whatever people project on it. Yep, he's nothing. It
Speaker 1: is unbelievable what they're able to do with that film
Speaker 1: where everybody can love that film. And he's a specific
Speaker 1: kind of goofy I understand, like funny Peter Sellers. But
Speaker 1: still it's so humanizing. It's still so much of our
Speaker 1: personalities of watching someone succeed, and that's how we all feel.
Speaker 1: I was in Doeville and I talked to Michael Shannon
Speaker 1: about it and he was, like, everybody says that I'm
Speaker 1: a great actor, and I look at these films that
Speaker 1: I've been in, these clips of me and movies, and
Speaker 1: I don't remember being on set. I don't remember any
Speaker 1: of these things. I am Chauncey Gardner, and people shouldn't
Speaker 1: be giving me the credit that I deserve. I'm a
Speaker 1: phantom and I go into a room and I act,
Speaker 1: and then that phantom disappears and I go on being myself.
Speaker 1: That is that is Chauncey Gardner, and I relate to
Speaker 1: it wholeheartedly. Interesting. Well, Jim Cummings, You've been wonderful, is it?
Speaker 1: And then you would like to tell people to watch,
Speaker 1: to look out for, to listen to. I'd say your
Speaker 1: next film. If I was, yeah, you've done this before. No, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: see the beta tests. The beta test is out right now.
Speaker 1: It's quite fun and I get to play an asshole
Speaker 1: talent agent and subvert the power dynamics of Hollywood. Oh oh,
Speaker 1: so I love how much you're shitting on agencies. I
Speaker 1: absolutely love it. I love it. I'm a huge fan
Speaker 1: of that. Dude. I was so nervous. We've gotten so
Speaker 1: much trouble. So I got dropped by Wome the week
Speaker 1: it came out. The day it came out, and I
Speaker 1: was very nervous, and I was like, oh no, did
Speaker 1: I do the wrong thing? Was I offensive? Was as
Speaker 1: terrible as I an asshole? I got sent to the
Speaker 1: principal's office and the next day Christopher Nolan's casting direct
Speaker 1: to reach out and was like, hey, Chris, thought you'd
Speaker 1: be good for this part. I was like, cool, if
Speaker 1: nothing else ever happens to me, I've done something cool well,
Speaker 1: and my heroes like it, and that's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Did you get done by your agency because of your films?
Speaker 1: Like enough? Agencies? The press that came out they don't
Speaker 1: watch independent films, so it was the press that was
Speaker 1: surrounding it that was like, oh, Jim is making fun
Speaker 1: of agencies, and they said, you know what, we're gonna
Speaker 1: leave you. We're gonna be cheering from the sidelines. It's
Speaker 1: what they said. Wow, that's funny. And it happens. It's normal.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, you make something radioactive and then it
Speaker 1: becomes radioactive. I should have expected it. It happens. Jim Cummings,
Speaker 1: you're a legend and an inspiration and your films are
Speaker 1: very very good. Thank you for doing the podcast. You
Speaker 1: have a wonderful death and enjoy the rest of heaven.
Speaker 1: I'm working on it. Good day to you, sir. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Brett. It's great talking to you. It
Speaker 1: was lovely talking to you. So it was episode one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five. Head over to patreon dot com
Speaker 1: forward slash Breck Goldstein for the extra twenty minutes of chat,
Speaker 1: secrets and video with Jim Cummings. Go to Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: give and five star rating, right about the film that
Speaker 1: means the most of you and why it's lovely to read,
Speaker 1: helps numbers blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much to Jim for doing this show. He
Speaker 1: was brilliant. Thank you for listening to it. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Scrubius pipping the distraction pieces and Network. Thanks to Buddy
Speaker 1: Piece for producing it. Thanks to ACAS for hosting it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Adam Richardson for the graphics at least allow
Speaker 1: them for the photography. Come and join me next week
Speaker 1: for a brilliant episode. We're one of my favorite comedians,
Speaker 1: mister Rory Scobell. Oh, I hope you're all well. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. So that is it for now. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, have a lovely week and please be excellent
Speaker 1: to each other as apress sh