Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview Edition,
Speaker 1: Live in Person Edition. Everybody. This is the first time
Speaker 1: I've actually met with a guest face to face since Boy,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember who the last person even was.
Speaker 1: I have to go back in the old calendar, but
Speaker 1: it was sometime and probably February or March. But today
Speaker 1: I had a great opportunity to sit down and talk
Speaker 1: to Todd Garner. Todd is the name you may not know,
Speaker 1: but if you start looking at his IMDb pay g
Speaker 1: will be a little intimidated because Todd is a movie
Speaker 1: producer and he has his fingerprints on a lot of
Speaker 1: big movies. He was the i think co president of
Speaker 1: production at Disney for ten years, and just a freelance
Speaker 1: producer for many many years I think after that, and
Speaker 1: before that, he's been doing it for a couple of decades.
Speaker 1: Movies like thirteen going on thirty and Triple X and
Speaker 1: the The Mall Cop series, which we have a fun
Speaker 1: little talk about, and h boy, you know, once we
Speaker 1: kind of got into the discussion, I realized just how
Speaker 1: many movies Todd has worked on. It's great and we
Speaker 1: had never met before, but he was in town working
Speaker 1: on a movie. He is the stuff you should know
Speaker 1: and movie crush listener, and he reached out just to
Speaker 1: say hi, and I said, let's get you in the studio.
Speaker 1: Turns out Todd is a great guy and he picked
Speaker 1: a great movie, one of my favorite all time comedies,
Speaker 1: the movie from One starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli
Speaker 1: and Sir John giel Good. Arthur, such a great film
Speaker 1: and we really had a great talk about it. So
Speaker 1: without any further delay, here we go with the super cool,
Speaker 1: super nice my new pal Todd Garner on Arthur. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here in person for the first time in sixteen
Speaker 1: months with somebody with a human and this is Todd Garner,
Speaker 1: everyone movie producer of Boy, Black Hawk Down, Anger, Management
Speaker 1: thirteen going on thirty, one of my all time guilty pleasures. Great.
Speaker 1: I love that funny story about that. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear it. Triple X, the new Mortal Kombat movie,
Speaker 1: many many, many more films, all very big studio films,
Speaker 1: and you're I think only my second producer. I had
Speaker 1: Merril Poster in which is a lot of fun and uh,
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk a little bit about producing, because
Speaker 1: I think there's such And by the way, you're you're
Speaker 1: very sneaky because I didn't know you had a podcast.
Speaker 1: You didn't even tell me that until I found it
Speaker 1: yesterday called the producer's guy, Todd Garner in Hollywood's Elite,
Speaker 1: which is great. I listened to the Cassiean l how
Speaker 1: do you say It Always? Episode this morning and the
Speaker 1: Walter Hill episode, which is just fantastic. His voice is
Speaker 1: just incredible, oh man, And I was glad to hear
Speaker 1: you like gushing. And I was like, all right, I
Speaker 1: don't feel bad because when I have people on here
Speaker 1: I love. I'm very sick of fantic too, and I'm
Speaker 1: just like, you're the best, and I love everything you've done.
Speaker 1: And it's like breaks all the rules of quote unquote interviewing.
Speaker 1: But you were all over Walter Hill. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gush over. I mean I started it because this
Speaker 1: very question, like what does the producer do? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: obviously the news is not great for producers really, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of one of the reasons behind it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was there was numerous reasons that was.
Speaker 1: One is to clear up misconceptions about what producers do,
Speaker 1: the real producers that you know, not the twenty five
Speaker 1: year old guys that are at bars passing out you know, cards,
Speaker 1: because that's one side of it. And then the Harvey
Speaker 1: Wine scenes clearly the other side of it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the working producers that make a make a living and
Speaker 1: really love what they do in our on set and
Speaker 1: do the work. And then and then weirdly, here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I was shooting a movie and uh, Neil Maritz, who
Speaker 1: has done all The Fast and the Furious is and
Speaker 1: my other friend Marty Bowen, who has done um a
Speaker 1: ton of movies, including the Twilight series. Uh, we were
Speaker 1: all sitting around having a beer and and and you know,
Speaker 1: I heard complaining like, oh man, the business is over,
Speaker 1: like we're screwed, we're dinosaurs. And I realized I had
Speaker 1: four movies shooting, Marty had five, and numerits like has
Speaker 1: was doing Passengers with Chris Pett and Lawrence as well
Speaker 1: as having The Fast. Like, guys, if if we're if
Speaker 1: we're putting that rhetoric out there that the business is over,
Speaker 1: what chance does any students have because because you know,
Speaker 1: most of the entertainment press dines in in and you know,
Speaker 1: doom saying because there's so much change right now in
Speaker 1: the business, and in terms of the way that the
Speaker 1: business is so rapidly changing, in terms of it's it's
Speaker 1: all content now in quotes and yeah, and and and
Speaker 1: I think that just scares the ship out of people
Speaker 1: with people don't understand it. But then you really look
Speaker 1: at the pure numbers of it. When you know, when
Speaker 1: Netflix is spending a billion dollars in content, and that
Speaker 1: was that was, you know, the big shark in the water.
Speaker 1: Everybody was terrified that was going to end the movie
Speaker 1: business and the theatrical going experiences over and then the
Speaker 1: pandemic hits, and and I just really wanted to counteract
Speaker 1: that in the way you're saying the sycophanic gushing. I
Speaker 1: really am in a positive person about the business. I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for thirty years, and I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't have a paycheck. I only get paid if
Speaker 1: a movie gets made. So I should probably be the
Speaker 1: most fearful negative person right out there. And I just
Speaker 1: couldn't do it because I remember being a young person
Speaker 1: coming up and wanting to be in the business and
Speaker 1: reading and studying the business and hearing the same doom
Speaker 1: bullshit then and so as a history of the movie
Speaker 1: business and really reading a ton and a ton of
Speaker 1: history about it, you just realize it's the same stuff.
Speaker 1: You know. And when when television started, movie businesses over.
Speaker 1: In fact, we even going back sound it's over. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to hear actors talk. And then from color like
Speaker 1: color is too it's too real. Nope, that's it. Over
Speaker 1: television for sure, it's going to kill them. It's gonna
Speaker 1: end it. And not only did it not kill the
Speaker 1: movie business, you could actually promote your movies on the
Speaker 1: television and sell them to television. And then vhs, Oh boy,
Speaker 1: that's it, right, you're just gonna record that's an in DVD.
Speaker 1: Oh god, pirating like it looks as good as the
Speaker 1: movie Pirating DVD. There, that's it. And it just never happens.
Speaker 1: It's just like the little engine that could. And so
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say to anybody who was interested
Speaker 1: in the movie business, and for sure young people, that
Speaker 1: it's not just go do it, follow your dream. I
Speaker 1: don't want to talk to anybody out of their dream.
Speaker 1: And it's a hard business for sure, but I just
Speaker 1: want It's always been hard, yeah, and I want to
Speaker 1: encourage people and if I can do it, anybody again.
Speaker 1: What was your start Like you talked about reading about
Speaker 1: the business and wanting to get into it. What what
Speaker 1: were you doing. I started in theater and high school.
Speaker 1: Originally I wanted to be an architect, and then I
Speaker 1: got into a drafting class and I was like, this
Speaker 1: sucks too much. I can't do this. It's just straight
Speaker 1: lines and protractors, really nerdy people with me. And then
Speaker 1: my buddy said, you gotta come try this improv class
Speaker 1: in in in theater and it was just awesome. I
Speaker 1: could run around and be funny and stupid, great looking
Speaker 1: girls in the theater department. Was so much better than drafting,
Speaker 1: and I just fell in love with it. And so
Speaker 1: at first kind of thought, well, maybe I'll be a director.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe a be a stand up comedian.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'll figure this out. What year was this.
Speaker 1: I graduated my school and eighty three, Okay. I was
Speaker 1: in the San Fernando Valley and none of my entire
Speaker 1: families in the business. Nobody knew anything about the In fact,
Speaker 1: my father stilt to this day, we'll send me an
Speaker 1: article like, great article I'm producing. I'm like, okay, he says,
Speaker 1: and you know, just doesn't still waiting for the other,
Speaker 1: you know, my finally, my I have a degree in
Speaker 1: economics and film from Occidental College and he's still waiting
Speaker 1: for that econ degree to kick in. I lived in
Speaker 1: the ego rog yeah, yeah, yeah, and so uh then
Speaker 1: I then I thought maybe would be a producer, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know anything about producing. So you know, you
Speaker 1: go and you see movies and you read the books
Speaker 1: and about special effects. And I made some student films
Speaker 1: in high school and then I went talk to Old College,
Speaker 1: which didn't have any film classes at all. But I
Speaker 1: got an internship. Back in the day when the industrial
Speaker 1: video was huge, they were spending so much money on
Speaker 1: because it's like this new thing where you could like
Speaker 1: teach people through video, right, So I got a job
Speaker 1: at Pacific bell Um as an intern in their in
Speaker 1: their in their you know, instructional video department. And then
Speaker 1: I learned how to edit, and so I really became
Speaker 1: an editor first. So I edited. We're editing out one
Speaker 1: inch and it was Ampex and Ampex had a system
Speaker 1: that was called the Ampex A system which is just
Speaker 1: base sleep meant Ampex Computerized editing, which is really a
Speaker 1: precursor to UM all of the new you know, software
Speaker 1: based systems and so not that many old timers wanted
Speaker 1: to learn. It Back in the day was all CMX.
Speaker 1: It had thousands of buttons that said, you know, like
Speaker 1: you know, dissolve right cut. This was like you had
Speaker 1: you was worked like a computer. And so I I,
Speaker 1: you know, I worked for Playboy, I worked for did
Speaker 1: cut music videos, I cut it, worked for the Olympics
Speaker 1: for so but and then I realized I'm just sort
Speaker 1: of getting further away from what I really want to
Speaker 1: do was produce, and I quit and went to work
Speaker 1: at Wells Fargo Bank, you know, because I thought maybe
Speaker 1: I'll go to business school. And then insanely, like the
Speaker 1: only person of my father's ever met in the movie
Speaker 1: in the movie Business, he was playing golf with this
Speaker 1: guy who worked at Paramount Television, and and my background
Speaker 1: seemed like I had wanted this job in my whole life,
Speaker 1: because I had a degree in economics. I worked in
Speaker 1: production and I got a job on their Senior Hall
Speaker 1: show as his as his Huntain at Paramount So I
Speaker 1: was on the lot and that really showed you, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, there's a movie and my deals now at
Speaker 1: Paramounts in my office is on the lot. Sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: And I was there and you know, played, you know, lunch,
Speaker 1: you'd go play basketball and Jason Bateman would be there.
Speaker 1: I realized that was it was done. And but I
Speaker 1: did also realize I didn't know how to read a script.
Speaker 1: So I went do you used to like extension? And
Speaker 1: took a class from Bob Greenblad, who was was the
Speaker 1: chairman of NBC and then was the chairman of Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: He was us a story editor at Lorimer at the
Speaker 1: time and taught me how to read a script. And
Speaker 1: then from there I got a job as an assistant
Speaker 1: in UH at Columbia Pictures, and then I got my
Speaker 1: job at Disney, and I was at Disney for ten years,
Speaker 1: and I became co president production after ten years. It's
Speaker 1: a long road, man, that's not It's so easy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and that's the other thing I tell people, you know,
Speaker 1: if ever I'm like speaking in classes or whatever, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Man. The road is never straight right ever,
Speaker 1: you know, and especially now with podcasts like your podcast
Speaker 1: and technology and you can get anything on the web
Speaker 1: now and you can you can shoot a movie on
Speaker 1: your phone. Yeah, I had to use Super eight such
Speaker 1: a pain in the app and uh so there's just
Speaker 1: the barrier to entry is almost non existent. Now, what
Speaker 1: kind of producer are you? Like? What is your what
Speaker 1: is your job entail day to day, movie to movie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so working in the studio system for you know, over
Speaker 1: ten years, I really got an edge of fast education
Speaker 1: and what makes a good producer. Um So I trained
Speaker 1: at the feet of Jerry Bruckheimer and Adam Sandler and
Speaker 1: guys like that that go to the set every day.
Speaker 1: Are there do the work? Um and and are the
Speaker 1: captains of the ship? You know? And then and then
Speaker 1: I also saw the managers that aren't producers and the
Speaker 1: hangers on that aren't pricers, and the people that you know,
Speaker 1: gave a little dough, they get a producer credit. I
Speaker 1: knew the difference, and I really wanted to be the former, right,
Speaker 1: beat on the ground, beat on the ground. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: Rob wriggle Um who who who have done a couple
Speaker 1: of things with he he he was in the Marines
Speaker 1: and he talks about producing like taking the beach right,
Speaker 1: and you take the beach of foot at a time,
Speaker 1: you know. And so if you're not there every day
Speaker 1: and sitting there physically, then you don't have a voice.
Speaker 1: You really don't. I mean, you can get a phone
Speaker 1: call from your in your office in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: you can make your best guests, but unless you're there
Speaker 1: to see the intricacies of why this decision happened, you
Speaker 1: can't really do it. So that's the kind of producer
Speaker 1: I wanted to be. Yeah and um and you know,
Speaker 1: and also just the kind of producer that was agnostic
Speaker 1: in terms of genre. I've done a ton of comedies
Speaker 1: because I love them, yeah, um, and I grew up
Speaker 1: with them, which is what we're gonna talk about today,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Stripes and Arthur and Raising Arizona and
Speaker 1: you know, all these movies that a lot of the
Speaker 1: Howard Hawks stuff. These are movies that I grew up
Speaker 1: with and completely fell in love with. So I have
Speaker 1: an affinity for the genre, and I love the people
Speaker 1: that make those movies. But I also wanted you know,
Speaker 1: I worked on No Brother, Where Arn't Tho, I worked
Speaker 1: on Love, I worked on you know, I worked on
Speaker 1: ed Wood and I worked on a lot of all
Speaker 1: those movies on the I done no brother yet actually
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and uh and you know I love those movies.
Speaker 1: Um not not my my biggest strength. There's that's a
Speaker 1: you know, it's a singular voice. And the people that
Speaker 1: produce those movies, you know, mostly are writer producers. But
Speaker 1: but the people that producers movies are really main working
Speaker 1: to give that person their voice work to h I mean,
Speaker 1: and and I think I was better suited as an
Speaker 1: executive to work in that job, to be able to
Speaker 1: just you know, I when when the Coen Brothers, who
Speaker 1: I'm madly in love with, came in to pitch me
Speaker 1: O brother, they basically just said it's white trash Home
Speaker 1: is Odyssey, And I said, right done, I got it.
Speaker 1: I'm in like, say no more. I mean, they can
Speaker 1: do whatever they want, though, right they Weirdly, what's funny
Speaker 1: is at that time because that was a touchdown picture
Speaker 1: at the time, you know, because Disney had bought Mirror
Speaker 1: Max and uh, Harvey was going through crazy transition. Now
Speaker 1: it's all now everybody knows why insane person, But people
Speaker 1: like you know, there were there are certain people that
Speaker 1: were like, let's try different distributors, and Oh Brother was
Speaker 1: a tough one for them because it wasn't cheap. And
Speaker 1: my boss Joe Roth at the time, he loves filmmakers
Speaker 1: so much that you know, Edward was a huge swing.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's black and Wood movie but someone no
Speaker 1: one knew about um, oh Brother, um and punch Unk
Speaker 1: love those kind of movies. He was just willing to
Speaker 1: just just go ahead and give them the resources that
Speaker 1: they need to make make them. And and a lot
Speaker 1: of those people that work in in in that kind
Speaker 1: of independent distribution, as you heard from the Cassium podast,
Speaker 1: they're really counting to nickels and dimes. You know when
Speaker 1: you used to go into those old offices at Merrimax
Speaker 1: in New York, they were just like final cabinets and
Speaker 1: you know it was just like the most bare bones. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they wanted to save every penny um and
Speaker 1: and we were, you know, we were really filmmaker friendly
Speaker 1: at that time. You know, you said something a second
Speaker 1: ago and just then filmmaker friendly and Joe Roth love filmmakers.
Speaker 1: You also hear stories about directors who hate actors, producers
Speaker 1: who hate writers, or filmmakers like, what is that all about? Well,
Speaker 1: have you ever built a house or been in any
Speaker 1: sort of construction, Not personally, but we renovated our house
Speaker 1: a couple few years. Yeah, I mean generally it's gonna
Speaker 1: go wrong. Yeah, I mean, it's always just always happens,
Speaker 1: you know, the general rule is going to cost twice
Speaker 1: as much, twice as long. And when you're in that pause,
Speaker 1: I think so much of it is is subjective in
Speaker 1: terms of like, well, I like my house to look
Speaker 1: like this, I like my walls to look like I
Speaker 1: like this kind of fixtures, And and perhaps the contractor
Speaker 1: or the designer is like, do you really want that
Speaker 1: concrete floor with the you know, you know Victorian outside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I want you. That's what I wanted, and
Speaker 1: so you So that's the kind of way the making
Speaker 1: a movie is right, because everybody has the movie in
Speaker 1: their head when they come in. Everybody, I don't care
Speaker 1: if you're the sound guy. You know, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I've been on a set and
Speaker 1: anybody comes in this is not the way I saw
Speaker 1: that set, because they're all reading the script, not the
Speaker 1: way I saw this at all. And and and I
Speaker 1: think that there's a there's a inherent in human beings,
Speaker 1: just an inherent insecurity. And so the insecurity is this
Speaker 1: is what I thought, And your insecurity lead you to
Speaker 1: go this is the way it should be. And um,
Speaker 1: I've done it so long. I know that feeling. I
Speaker 1: have it every day on the set where you go,
Speaker 1: that's not the way I said, Right, you have to
Speaker 1: just kind of go, okay, but you know this will
Speaker 1: this will be fine, you know, unless it's not. Though,
Speaker 1: how do you draw that distinction if your gut? Your
Speaker 1: gut is really pretty telling. Jim Brooks um had on
Speaker 1: his has on his monitor when he any films. And
Speaker 1: I learned this from Nancy Myers. She just has gut
Speaker 1: on her monitor and she she says she got that
Speaker 1: from Jim Brooks. And it's just this feeling you get
Speaker 1: when so I'll give you a perfect example. There's a
Speaker 1: scene in this movie and I was watching it and
Speaker 1: I had an idea and a lot was going on.
Speaker 1: We were late rain, you know, are they shooting in Atlanta?
Speaker 1: Really fun with the lightning every every day, So like
Speaker 1: a lot going on, Like it doesn't matter, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be fine. Is this what you're working on now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: moo working on a movie right now called Senior Year
Speaker 1: with Rebel Wilson and a wonderful filmmaker by the name
Speaker 1: of Alex Hardcastle who's worked in television. This is his
Speaker 1: first feature. And so you know, I'm very aware that,
Speaker 1: you know, I have a lot of opinions, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to do my best to help him
Speaker 1: make the best movie he can know and and Rebel
Speaker 1: to make the best I did isn't romantic with her
Speaker 1: as well. And so I had this idea, and I
Speaker 1: should probably say this idea, but I already know if
Speaker 1: I go say this idea, it's going to require a
Speaker 1: prop and everybody's going to be like, really, I mean
Speaker 1: and I and I go, I'll be fine. And I
Speaker 1: went to sleep, and I woke up next morning. I
Speaker 1: don't know, fuck it, I'm I should have said something.
Speaker 1: And I went to the director and I go, wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been better if the scene would have had this
Speaker 1: thing in it? And he goes, oh my god, I
Speaker 1: wish you would have said that, because even like thematically
Speaker 1: it's it's it would have worked better. And so we're
Speaker 1: going to reshoot it, you know, Yeah, and it's not
Speaker 1: that it was wrong. It's just that there was a
Speaker 1: better idea, and a better idea that's not it's low
Speaker 1: impact enough because it's a tiny little moment and it'll
Speaker 1: be very easy to read. So you do the math
Speaker 1: and see the math, and you go, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be He's not going to disrupt the whole world.
Speaker 1: But there are times when you know, if something look
Speaker 1: hopefully again, boots on the ground right, If you're a
Speaker 1: good producer, you've been on the tech scouts, you're not
Speaker 1: walking into a building going wait a minute, I didn't
Speaker 1: this is This isn't a church. We're supposed to be
Speaker 1: in a you know, in a school. What the hell
Speaker 1: is happening? You know, like, well, dude, you should have
Speaker 1: been on the scout, the four scouts. We did, so
Speaker 1: at some point you have to be in on it
Speaker 1: early enough. And inevitably is always going to be things.
Speaker 1: It's a visual medium, so it's always gonna be things
Speaker 1: where a joke or or a scene or or a
Speaker 1: character description is very well written, but visually it's impossible
Speaker 1: to get what you read right. It's either it's just
Speaker 1: too complicated, it's the audience won't it's not clean. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of times where something's written and it's
Speaker 1: great and you see it on its feet you're like,
Speaker 1: this isn't this isn't working the way we thought, and
Speaker 1: then you just have to adjust um. And that's and
Speaker 1: and so you know, a good producer will help the
Speaker 1: person make their movie and and support them and be
Speaker 1: and in a lot give them all the tools to
Speaker 1: be the best they can be, to to allow them
Speaker 1: to just throw the ball. Now with the first time filmmaker,
Speaker 1: is that something you enjoy or is this I've I
Speaker 1: gotta say I've never done the math, so this is
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say this, and it's probably total bullshit,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I've worked with more first time
Speaker 1: directors than anybody really well, because when I was doing
Speaker 1: when I was working with Jerry Bruckheimer, when I when
Speaker 1: I was at Disney, I worked on pretty much every
Speaker 1: movie from with Jerry, from Crimson Tied through Pirates of
Speaker 1: the Caribbean, that whole runny he had at Disney. I
Speaker 1: was there those little movies. Yeah, and he loves work.
Speaker 1: He loved working with quote unquote first time directors because
Speaker 1: most of the time they were commercial directors. So he
Speaker 1: started with Ridley and Scott and Tony Scott, Michael Bay
Speaker 1: and all these guys and really fell in love with
Speaker 1: them because you know, those guys have probably shot more
Speaker 1: film than anybody, you know, because they're just and they're
Speaker 1: trying different lenses and they know how to be economical
Speaker 1: was shot. So it really worked really well for the
Speaker 1: Bruckheimer Um and uh and so I worked with a
Speaker 1: lot of film first time filmmakers there, and comedy generally
Speaker 1: inspires a lot of first timers, like even Arthur Steve
Speaker 1: Gordon was the first time filmmaker, right, And it generally
Speaker 1: you get a lot of guys coming from TV or
Speaker 1: writers that break. So my last movie I did was
Speaker 1: called Vacation Friends with John Cena and Rayl Howry. Clay
Speaker 1: Tarver was the first time filmmaker, but he had run
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley. He was a writer that you know went
Speaker 1: on to run that show. Oh yeah. So it's like
Speaker 1: they're not like first time in the sense that they
Speaker 1: just like decided I was a farmer now, right. They
Speaker 1: have tons of experience, but not tons of experience, um
Speaker 1: for you know, maintaining a storyline for two hours, which
Speaker 1: is which is a different skill than even working in television.
Speaker 1: What about have you ever had like a literally like
Speaker 1: a fresh out of film school experience with someone or um,
Speaker 1: not that I can recall off top of my head.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, but um Yeah, generally those those
Speaker 1: filmmakers generally start in the independent world. You don't really
Speaker 1: get a lot of people come around a film school
Speaker 1: that go right into a big studio movie. They usually
Speaker 1: that is usually reserve for a cast in. And those
Speaker 1: guys that will go raise the money a couple million
Speaker 1: bucks for somebody to do that. Yeah, And I imagine,
Speaker 1: especially with the first time ors, it's it goes both ways.
Speaker 1: Like you have to instill confidence in them so that
Speaker 1: they believe in themselves. But for someone like you that's
Speaker 1: boots on the ground, they probably have a lot of
Speaker 1: confidence in you. You're not one of those producers that
Speaker 1: sweeps in there firing off notes and ideas, doesn't know
Speaker 1: what the fun is going on. Yeah. I feel like
Speaker 1: a really good producers like Homeland Security, if no explosions happened,
Speaker 1: you've done your job. Unfortunately, you'll never know, right, And
Speaker 1: so I always try to stay a mile ahead of
Speaker 1: everybody so that there's no it's always a soft place
Speaker 1: to land. You're not like going, what the hell is happening?
Speaker 1: So you're clearing the path out and the machete and
Speaker 1: exactly right. And and especially actors, I just want to
Speaker 1: make sure they're comfortable. You know. Look, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a it's a lot. It's a lot to ask somebody
Speaker 1: to leave their home for months at a time. It's
Speaker 1: a lot to ask somebody to be vulnerable enough to
Speaker 1: put themselves on a screen that's a hundred feet wide
Speaker 1: and sixty ft tall. Um. It's a lot to get
Speaker 1: them to be emotional, and it's it's a lot to
Speaker 1: be an actor. And so I really just want to
Speaker 1: make sure it's they're gonna have the best experience they've
Speaker 1: ever had on a movie. They're gonna be well taken
Speaker 1: care of, well fed, well rested. They're gonna be comfortable,
Speaker 1: They're not going to be dealing with a bunch of bullshit.
Speaker 1: And just then you're just free. It's like being a
Speaker 1: pitching coach, right, just free to let the guy throw
Speaker 1: the ball as fast as hard as you can. So
Speaker 1: interesting to hear you talk about it. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of people would say that they
Speaker 1: would expect a producer like one of the more important
Speaker 1: qualities to be compassion and empathy. I know. That's why
Speaker 1: I want to do that part of it. If you're good,
Speaker 1: that's why I want to do my podcast. I mean
Speaker 1: the people that I've got a hundred and eighty hours.
Speaker 1: If anybody wants to learn how to be a producer
Speaker 1: of just the best in the business, everybody, and I
Speaker 1: can recommend it. I listened to those two episodes this morning.
Speaker 1: It's great, Yeah, anybody I can think of, and and
Speaker 1: people at first making fun of me, It's like, oh, great, Todd,
Speaker 1: you just talking to your friends for an hour, and
Speaker 1: then as it went along, it's true. They're all my
Speaker 1: you know, all associates, if not friends. And it was
Speaker 1: deliberate that way because I wanted people to be intimate
Speaker 1: and people to not just give me the route. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you go to the set that to really
Speaker 1: talk about what inspired them and how they got into
Speaker 1: the business and how they think about movies and how
Speaker 1: they think about the nuts and bolts of the business,
Speaker 1: because it is you know, I was in Australia for
Speaker 1: five months shooting Mortal Kombat. It was hard. I quite
Speaker 1: enjoyed that movie. That's how we met. Well, this is
Speaker 1: the greatest thing is I admire you so much and
Speaker 1: I and I hear you talk about movies, and I
Speaker 1: generally agree with everything you say. And you have a
Speaker 1: pretty high browed taste. And so when you as soon
Speaker 1: as you guys started talking about video games, and I
Speaker 1: was like ship and then it was like you went
Speaker 1: Mortal Combat, like, oh god, I know it's coming. I
Speaker 1: just you know, because it's just that thing. You go,
Speaker 1: oh please please, and you go you've seen the Mortal Kombat,
Speaker 1: but we know, like, oh god, no it was and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, thank god, thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a lot of fune. It looked great.
Speaker 1: There was enough, I mean they captured the video game stuff.
Speaker 1: That was enough there for the video game fans in
Speaker 1: the Easter eggs to really get into. And you can
Speaker 1: talk about that for hours. It was a tough one.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a really tough but yeah, but being
Speaker 1: in Australia for five months away from it, you know,
Speaker 1: half a world away from your family where it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was in Adelaide, Australia, Okay, I have empathy for
Speaker 1: everybody because I'm doing it again, you know, and I
Speaker 1: have I have a wife and two kids, and I
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be away for from your
Speaker 1: family and to be lonely and to be sad. And
Speaker 1: that's not indicative for good comedy. So unless everybody's feeling
Speaker 1: um supported and taking care of it's hard to get
Speaker 1: good stuff out of people, right And I you know,
Speaker 1: and and I every movie, I go, well, I've seen
Speaker 1: it all now, you know. So most of the time,
Speaker 1: if something happens to somebody emotionally or they're going through something,
Speaker 1: I can say I've seen it before and help them
Speaker 1: because you have to be unflappable. Yeah. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: be the one that's freaking out, or if you do,
Speaker 1: you go into a separate room and do it alone.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: just being by myself and my condo silently freaking out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, um, you know, for sure, you don't want
Speaker 1: to look at the fireman and have him going, I
Speaker 1: don't know what is happening, where's the hose? You don't
Speaker 1: want it. You want the guy to go like, let's go,
Speaker 1: even if he's freaking out and so um again going
Speaker 1: back and reading like a lot of Hollywood history and
Speaker 1: reading about those old timers and those guys that really
Speaker 1: did it, they're just those guys, you know, they're just
Speaker 1: they're just the guys that just did nothing bother him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know the guy who you know, Bob, Bob Greenhead
Speaker 1: who produced Arthur. He produced all the Woody Allen movies.
Speaker 1: Really he's a New York guy. They had their offices
Speaker 1: in New York. You know, they would double bark thing
Speaker 1: be shot in New York in the eighties. Many those
Speaker 1: guys were just the guys I really admire in terms
Speaker 1: of just that sort of um like, yeah, just taking
Speaker 1: the beach. Yeah, that military idea, that's cool. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: want to hear your thirteen going I'm thirty story. Okay,
Speaker 1: so just this there's a couple, there's a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: but but not about thirteen thirty. There's always that moment
Speaker 1: where again, this is what happened with you and I
Speaker 1: Immortal Kombat. There's that moment where you know, you go
Speaker 1: your movie movie prod, Yeah, what have you done right?
Speaker 1: And you go, oh boy, here we go, because you
Speaker 1: know it's gonna be, What do you let when you
Speaker 1: do that? What's your go to? What are your first
Speaker 1: three movies? Your name of your own? It just depends
Speaker 1: in the person. If I would have met you would
Speaker 1: have been like, you know, I did Black Down, Punch Glove,
Speaker 1: and I did it over there? Arn't that? What else?
Speaker 1: Paul Lark? You know? And then but it's not so anyway,
Speaker 1: So uh, A couple of times it's happened where you
Speaker 1: just like one time I was this is not at
Speaker 1: I'll tell the thirteenth story real quick. But once time
Speaker 1: I was on a plane and they said, oh, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be this movie. I want to say, what the
Speaker 1: movie is it? It's gonna be this movie. It's it's
Speaker 1: a comedy, And like, oh boy, okay, I've already seen it.
Speaker 1: So I put my headphones on and my glasses is
Speaker 1: when they used to have a projected the main screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this dude, this dude next to me was laughing
Speaker 1: so hard, sixt year old man. And I'm like in
Speaker 1: my head, going, this movie is not I know that
Speaker 1: movie is not that fucking funny. Like, what the hell
Speaker 1: is this guy? He's being annoying, He's he mocking the
Speaker 1: movie this guy. I want to kill this guy. And
Speaker 1: I took my things off and it was maall cop
Speaker 1: and I went, I love this guy. I'm gonna enjoy this.
Speaker 1: So it's like, it's just this weird, tenuous thing that
Speaker 1: my ego was, like so fragile, right, So thirteen and
Speaker 1: thirty is this is a it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a personal story. So, um, my daughter, my wife and
Speaker 1: I lost a baby at birth, which is why I
Speaker 1: love Settle in This Travel so much. We told you,
Speaker 1: I told you i'd like that, love that movie because
Speaker 1: and um, one of the things was, you know, as
Speaker 1: we were going through this, we were in the hospital
Speaker 1: for a couple of days, and it happened to be
Speaker 1: New Year's Day, and Comedy Central does this thing on
Speaker 1: New Years Day where they put these movies up, comedies,
Speaker 1: and you know, for briefly, like an hour or so,
Speaker 1: my wife would be laughing and we both kind of
Speaker 1: forget where we're at. And it's just very much about
Speaker 1: like Sullivan's Travels when the guys are in jail watching um,
Speaker 1: the Three Stooges. And so I just love to make comedies.
Speaker 1: And I don't feel bad about making comedies. I think
Speaker 1: I can give people joy it. It's very helpful. So
Speaker 1: my daughter Molly, who's thirteen, she was being born and
Speaker 1: you know, we had a high risk doctor and it's
Speaker 1: very emotional and scared shitless and I'm just you know,
Speaker 1: crying and just praying everything's gonna be okay, and this
Speaker 1: nurse leans in and goes. I just have to say,
Speaker 1: is my favorite movie. Thank you. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is happening right now. Okay, it's better than you hating it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a really good movie. And it's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite music cues of any movie because I'm a
Speaker 1: billy Joel fan. Yeah, and that Vienna queue At so yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean and identified with that kids, So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, the younger version, and sure, I mean that.
Speaker 1: You know, I love that. That's why, isn't it. I
Speaker 1: have a few I have this woman that I've worked
Speaker 1: with a few on a few movies named Gena Matthews.
Speaker 1: We did that movie thirteen thirty. We did What Women
Speaker 1: Want Together, We did Asn't a Romantic Together. We did
Speaker 1: this other movie called All My Life Together. And so
Speaker 1: I love making those movies because and it's funny and
Speaker 1: I was thinking thinking about this the other day. I
Speaker 1: have a son who's twenty, and you know, when I
Speaker 1: when he was growing up, I was making Triple X, Black,
Speaker 1: Go Down and dude movies and action movies. And and
Speaker 1: my daughter now like even this movie in thirteen thirty
Speaker 1: and these and isn't a romantic I always try to
Speaker 1: like sneak in a little sin in there, um you
Speaker 1: know about in the film itself, just the theme of it,
Speaker 1: like isn't it romantic? Really is ultimately about loving yourself
Speaker 1: and not being caught up in the romantic comedy tropes.
Speaker 1: And and in this movie I'm making right now called
Speaker 1: Senior Years that way too. It's like, you don't need
Speaker 1: anybody to be successful. You just have to kind of
Speaker 1: do it yourself and pull yourself up by the bootstraps
Speaker 1: and and work, work hard, and and thirteen and thirty
Speaker 1: was the same thing. It was like, don't try to
Speaker 1: go for popularity, don't try to go for the things
Speaker 1: that are vacuous, and ye shallow, be be a real person.
Speaker 1: And then I tell my daughter all the time, like,
Speaker 1: especially for for for teenage girls, you don't need everybody
Speaker 1: to like you, right if you have to one or
Speaker 1: two really good friends You're fine because tantas are the
Speaker 1: only people that are going to be in your life
Speaker 1: later on life. You're not gonna have thirty friends, you know,
Speaker 1: pack of people. So that's I always trying to like
Speaker 1: sneak a little aspirin in the apple sauce that way
Speaker 1: you're a good guy producer. I'm trying. Yeah, I just again,
Speaker 1: like I watch It's It's it's an interesting thing. It
Speaker 1: must be like that's gonna be awful and you may
Speaker 1: want to cut it out, but it must be like
Speaker 1: being a good cop, Like if you see like they're
Speaker 1: shitty cops out there and you're like a good person
Speaker 1: who wants to do right by your community. And just
Speaker 1: seeing your whole your whole profession, just being yeah, shipped on.
Speaker 1: That's what I feel like about being a movie producer
Speaker 1: because like if you google movie producer right now, nothing
Speaker 1: good is going to come up first. I'm sure for
Speaker 1: a while you have to go through the Google search
Speaker 1: ual and I just don't Again, all my friends, these
Speaker 1: guys that are that I interviewed, every person and every
Speaker 1: man and woman that I interviewed is a good person
Speaker 1: and and they're making of the ship that's out there Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good to know. I'm glad you're putting that message
Speaker 1: out there too. Um. Very cool. Again the producer's guy
Speaker 1: Todd Garner in Hollywood's elite. Uh, if you love movies,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's getting a peek behind the curtain is
Speaker 1: so fun for me and I know a lot of
Speaker 1: fun for our listeners. I appreciate you talking about that stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we I talked to Jeff Probes about catering
Speaker 1: for about forty five minutes. So if you really want
Speaker 1: to get in the weeds deal, well, I think about
Speaker 1: does he feed those people for thirty nine days on
Speaker 1: that island? So if you want to get into the
Speaker 1: weeds about producing. Josh and I were actually on when
Speaker 1: he had his TV show, his talk show for a
Speaker 1: little while we were on the Jeff Probe Show. It
Speaker 1: was one of like two or three talk shows that
Speaker 1: we ever did. It also one of two or three
Speaker 1: episodes he did. So Yeah, he's great. He's the best.
Speaker 1: He's a really good friend of mine. He's probably I
Speaker 1: think he's the best host in the last twenty years.
Speaker 1: It was good. We used to It's funny. We got
Speaker 1: more ops like that earlier in our career. We don't
Speaker 1: get any asks anymore for anything. And maybe it's just
Speaker 1: because podcasting itself is so huge now. Yeah, we're just
Speaker 1: in the mix of yeah, a gazillion other people. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we used to do talk shows and all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's so funny too. It's like it's something in
Speaker 1: the world of podcasting. Podcasting becomes a world where you
Speaker 1: kind of kind of stay inside of your world too.
Speaker 1: I mean it's so big now you go on and
Speaker 1: you go on someone else's podcast. We were talking about
Speaker 1: Doak Shepherd earlier, like he's just he's a huge podcast
Speaker 1: and so you know, he doesn't need to go on
Speaker 1: anything else. He can just go on other people's podcasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a lot, yeah, more fun to do that.
Speaker 1: And because I'm kind of thinking now, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: lamenting that I don't want to go on. I never really,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was always very nerve wracking for me. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I worked with Joe Rogan on Here Comes to the
Speaker 1: Boom and he was talking about yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: about doing this podcast. I'm like, that's adorable. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm going to Denver and we get out
Speaker 1: of l A and I get him. Now, it's cute.
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You can have a microphone and awesome?
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah he's wealthy. Yeah yeah, good for him.
Speaker 1: All right, So you wanted to do raising Arizona and
Speaker 1: uh in that rat Dak Shepherd took it from you,
Speaker 1: and I think you put out a couple of more.
Speaker 1: But as soon as you said Arthur, I jumped on
Speaker 1: it because and this is no Lie Todd. I think
Speaker 1: from the age eleven two, probably eighteen or nineteen, it
Speaker 1: was my most scene movie. When I got into college,
Speaker 1: I started, you know, like spinal tapping with saddles, all
Speaker 1: these movies I watched over and over and over. But um,
Speaker 1: I h HBO ran it. It It was one of those
Speaker 1: HBO movies for me. Didn't see it in the theater.
Speaker 1: And I was an HBO kid who did nothing but
Speaker 1: sit around and watch movies or MTV, and Arthur was
Speaker 1: one of those movies. I thought it was the funniest
Speaker 1: fucking thing I had ever seen in my life. And
Speaker 1: by the way, and it holds up, totally holds up.
Speaker 1: And what's fascinating is I I didn't even have HBO.
Speaker 1: My I lived in San Fernando Valley, and so my
Speaker 1: one friend had a VHS machine, so we just went
Speaker 1: back and forth between Stripes, which also came out in
Speaker 1: the and and Arthur, and just went back and forth
Speaker 1: and back and forth and backup. I wasn't allowed to
Speaker 1: watch Stripes. Really, that's a fascinating by the way. You
Speaker 1: know that Arthur was PG at the time. Then it's
Speaker 1: interesting because it was pre PG thirteen, so I guess
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been our really. I guess maybe now
Speaker 1: it might have been. But I mean, you can't even
Speaker 1: make it now. First of all, within the first minute
Speaker 1: of the movie, he's picking up a prostitute and he
Speaker 1: drives hammered twice. Well, it's funny as an adult seeing
Speaker 1: it last night. I hadn't seen it in a while.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to see a movie, a comedy
Speaker 1: about an alcoholic and someone who's got a really, really bad,
Speaker 1: bad drinking problem, and it's so funny and he drives drunk,
Speaker 1: and like, there's no way you could do that stuff. Now, No,
Speaker 1: what's interesting about that movie? Yes, but first all, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't work. Should nothing about it. It shouldn't work. You
Speaker 1: have the it's the strangest catalysm and early is the
Speaker 1: strangest piece of casting, which is beautiful, works great, and
Speaker 1: it was every winger for it, which would have been
Speaker 1: amazing too. But and and again, playing drunk in a
Speaker 1: calm it is hard now if you go back and
Speaker 1: look at really just the way they made that movie.
Speaker 1: Steve Gordon was the first time he was a writer
Speaker 1: director script was around forever. The only other script feature
Speaker 1: script he wrote was the one and only With with
Speaker 1: Henry Winkler, who played basically gorgeous George. Yeah. So he
Speaker 1: had come up through some TV Barney Miller and those
Speaker 1: kind of television ships. Made a great TV writer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: made this one movie and and died of a heart
Speaker 1: attack six months later. Yeah, which I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know if a lot of people know that years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just tragic. Yeah, And everybody that read the script loved it.
Speaker 1: But it was again really hard even then, very hard really.
Speaker 1: And then what happened is thank god, Dudley did ten right.
Speaker 1: So Blake Edwards proved that Dudley could play drunk, which
Speaker 1: is still one of the funniest things I've been going
Speaker 1: down to Mexico. So Dudley could play drunk and it
Speaker 1: didn't feel like a bit. Yeah. And the thing about
Speaker 1: Dudley that movie, if you if that, the first five
Speaker 1: minutes of that movie should be should be every film
Speaker 1: school should be required to watch it because within five
Speaker 1: minutes you have everything you need to know. We talk
Speaker 1: about efficiency is set up so much on the show.
Speaker 1: This is the most efficient, so important. He first of
Speaker 1: the song, and the lyrics of the song say that
Speaker 1: this guy is stuck between the Moon and New York City,
Speaker 1: so he's obviously going through something amazing. Laugh is hilarious.
Speaker 1: First three lines of you know are hilarious. Then he
Speaker 1: pulls up and the first thing he does, he pulls
Speaker 1: up in his car and on the side it says
Speaker 1: a B so you obviously go okay, Well that must
Speaker 1: be his initials. He's holding a glass of scotch. He's
Speaker 1: got a driver who's completely ineffected, so this must happen
Speaker 1: all the time. Rolls on the window. There's two prostitutes
Speaker 1: and he says the douchy thing at first, which is
Speaker 1: he says, with a more attractive of you, please step forward.
Speaker 1: Neither of them do right. His face instantly changes, He
Speaker 1: gets that vulnerable look and in a very real Way says,
Speaker 1: with a person who finds me most attracted, stuff up
Speaker 1: and that everything you need to know. He's vulnerable, he's
Speaker 1: willing to be real. And then she walks up. He
Speaker 1: has a hilarious negotiation where he negotiates against himself. She
Speaker 1: then says who is that? He says, that's Arthur Box.
Speaker 1: She says, that's Arthur Bok. He won't tell something wrong
Speaker 1: with him? And he thinks for about five seconds and
Speaker 1: he goes, Yes, everything you need to know right there.
Speaker 1: And so you go, Okay, this guy's got a problem.
Speaker 1: He's vulnerable, he's not he's a nice guy. And he goes,
Speaker 1: we give her a hundred dollars. She got Kevan second right,
Speaker 1: So just and if you're in he's not like and again,
Speaker 1: not to disparage the sequels Russell, but like you watch
Speaker 1: Russell's performance, Russell has I never saw it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: bring myself to well, here's the difference between Russell and Dudley. Dudley,
Speaker 1: first of all, was he drinking in that movie? Was
Speaker 1: he a drunk or not? The whole movie of Arthur
Speaker 1: is about father's and it's about not wanting to be
Speaker 1: alone and so and they hit those beats a hundred
Speaker 1: times in the movie, and Arthur says out loud, gotta
Speaker 1: be twenty times. I don't like to be alone. And
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful moments in the movie is
Speaker 1: when he's when Sir John Gilgood says, I don't want
Speaker 1: you to be alone, and he has that flucked flicker
Speaker 1: in his eye where you go, oh, yeah, something's wrong
Speaker 1: with him, like ten minutes into the movie The First Night,
Speaker 1: the First Morning with the with the Press two and
Speaker 1: so the problem I think with Russell is Russell has
Speaker 1: this intelligence and his deviousness, and I think that the
Speaker 1: movie didn't work because Dudley never plays it that way.
Speaker 1: He never plays he's trying to get someone something over
Speaker 1: on somebody, never plays that he's smarter than anybody else.
Speaker 1: He never plays that he's gonna, you know, cause anybody damage.
Speaker 1: And I think that subtly people just looked at Russell
Speaker 1: went oh, he's so smart and so cunning that it
Speaker 1: felt a little cunning as opposed to you want to
Speaker 1: how this guy, you know, because on paper, first of all,
Speaker 1: I probably just couldn't have seen any Arthur remake. I
Speaker 1: just this movie is so special to me. But on paper.
Speaker 1: When I saw it was it was Russell, I was like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of perfect, Like, what a great casting choice. Um,
Speaker 1: I think interestingly and this this is sort of a
Speaker 1: silly thing to say, maybe, but I think part of
Speaker 1: what made Dudley Moore works so well was his size.
Speaker 1: He was a little guy, he was tinier than everyone.
Speaker 1: He wasn't threatening, he was I mean, he was a
Speaker 1: kid at heart anyway, and so it just sort of
Speaker 1: felt right. Russell is what's brand right, He's tall, He's
Speaker 1: gorgeous tall. Yeah, he's good looking, and it was just,
Speaker 1: I don't know, something about it just didn't feel like
Speaker 1: Arthur to me. Well, that's why he worked so well
Speaker 1: as Atticus Finch, you know, right, Atticas Finch is that
Speaker 1: his name? And Attics something in in forgetting Sarah Marshall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Attica's Finch was to kill the first anyway. He worked
Speaker 1: so well because he has that live kind of smarter
Speaker 1: than you. Um. Yeah. And the thing that's so great
Speaker 1: about Dudley is he's just so physical comedy. He's nothing
Speaker 1: better just even following at at Susan Johnson was very
Speaker 1: slowly following him, and just the themes of that movie
Speaker 1: if you think about just the just none of us
Speaker 1: want to grow up. It's a Peter Pan story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to grow up, and you're everybody
Speaker 1: fears being alone. And really that's just the subtle, the
Speaker 1: subtle nuances of just fathers. You know, he he has
Speaker 1: a dad who is American, he's English, So so what happenstance?
Speaker 1: This is a total lucky break. Dudley couldn't play it
Speaker 1: American because that's what I read. He would have been
Speaker 1: in his head the whole time. I've had this so
Speaker 1: many times, especially with Australian actors, where you go try
Speaker 1: to be funny and do American actors and you know
Speaker 1: that's the timing is very hard going in. You're processing,
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're not there, so at least hitting away.
Speaker 1: So subtly what they got is that John Gielgud raised him.
Speaker 1: And that's why as an English accent, I love that
Speaker 1: little subtext there, and just the whole thing with you
Speaker 1: were a great son at the end and that and
Speaker 1: then and then Susan Johnson has a father who's just
Speaker 1: a murderer, who just who will kill anybody who gets
Speaker 1: in his way. And then Liza has her dad who's
Speaker 1: just sweet and well meaning, but it's literally like please
Speaker 1: marry the ability. So everybody is dealing with their fathers
Speaker 1: and in different ways. It's just really really, really interesting.
Speaker 1: And there's no moms around in the movie at all.
Speaker 1: There's not one's grandma. Who's who's not? Who's the best? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The ballbuster And so when you have those that's why
Speaker 1: I got away with it because the vulnerability of him,
Speaker 1: the way he played the vulnerability, and those big themes
Speaker 1: helped propel all the other kind of more hard to
Speaker 1: swallow stuff. Yeah, I mean I have I have a
Speaker 1: note in here that, um, he had to have this
Speaker 1: sadness in him about his alcoholism. And they don't overwhelm
Speaker 1: you with it. But there are just a few beats
Speaker 1: in that movie really well placed. In fact, one early on,
Speaker 1: when he first goes into the restaurant with the with
Speaker 1: the lady you just picked up, uh, the he's at
Speaker 1: the table and you know as a kid, they recently
Speaker 1: had the whole country carpeted. And those are the jokes
Speaker 1: that I was dying at as a kid. You know,
Speaker 1: a little more obvious ones can it should have come
Speaker 1: in there and scrub your dick for you, Like those
Speaker 1: were so funny to me and they're still funny. But um,
Speaker 1: he's going on at the table and the old guy says,
Speaker 1: you know, we also understand you're very drunk, and you
Speaker 1: just it's a face acting thing. You see him realize
Speaker 1: I've done it again and I've embarrassed myself again. Uh
Speaker 1: And if those yeah, if those yeah, he does, and
Speaker 1: if those little beats weren't there, it would not have worked.
Speaker 1: Every time he's sitting at the table and he has
Speaker 1: a moment where he's holding the scotch and she says something,
Speaker 1: and he he goes, do you like me? And she
Speaker 1: goes yeah, and he see he stops and he goes, no, no,
Speaker 1: do you like me. It's like a little little moment, heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: and he has the best line I think of any
Speaker 1: movie in the last twenty years, which he says, not
Speaker 1: all people that are poets, not people who drank are poets.
Speaker 1: Some of us drink because we're not. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it just I just got like, that's the line. There's
Speaker 1: so many lines like that. Also, just like Sir John
Speaker 1: Gilgad saying again right to theme, she's Liza manarly says
Speaker 1: to John. So John, um, you take care of good
Speaker 1: care of him, don't you? And he goes, I do
Speaker 1: the job. I highly recommend. Right. It's just like those
Speaker 1: moments are so real, the aspirins are for you. There's
Speaker 1: so many real, amazing performances in that just just when
Speaker 1: else when my favorite ones which I didn't get as
Speaker 1: a kid and just really made me laugh. A lot
Speaker 1: of it went over my head. This is this is
Speaker 1: just a rhythm thing. He walks into lies his apartment
Speaker 1: and the first thing he tells the dad, if you
Speaker 1: could just see you and your under shirt could step back.
Speaker 1: But then he walks in and it is probably a
Speaker 1: thirty second tracking shot with John as he's taking in
Speaker 1: the entire thing, and you think he might go give
Speaker 1: him a command. He goes, he's such an asshole in
Speaker 1: that scene. It's funny. All he's doing is sort of
Speaker 1: disparaging the father. And yes, but she still you know,
Speaker 1: has stars in her eyes because she thinks he's a
Speaker 1: sweet guy. He can I kiss you on the cheek
Speaker 1: something you feel strongly? Yeah, he's yeah, I know this
Speaker 1: movie by heart itself. Me too. I I have to
Speaker 1: watch it alone because I will start just doing all
Speaker 1: the line now, and he you know, and then again
Speaker 1: you have those moments where Dudley plays it real where
Speaker 1: he says, I'm so unhappy I'm who I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: matter if I was here. I've never done anything in
Speaker 1: my life. Nobody loves me. And he says, helmet and
Speaker 1: your goggles and slaps him and he says, you little ship.
Speaker 1: Anybody would love to be you. And by the way,
Speaker 1: and he throws away, he goes and by the way,
Speaker 1: I love you. Yeah, it's just those moments. It's such
Speaker 1: a good movie. He was nominated for four Academy Awards,
Speaker 1: which doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, I'm really I mean, someone
Speaker 1: should do a documentary about Steve Gordon and then the
Speaker 1: making of this film, because you gotta know, you gotta
Speaker 1: wonder what else he had up as sleeve. Well, let
Speaker 1: me geek you out for a second. So, having done
Speaker 1: this for a long time and really now going back
Speaker 1: and looking at it, you can see speaking first time filmmaker. So, um,
Speaker 1: the producers were really you know, they were really wood
Speaker 1: easy guys. They owned New York. There were a bunch
Speaker 1: of different there were at that time. There were different camps.
Speaker 1: So there was the Woody camp, the Scorsese camp, and
Speaker 1: then the was his name, I'll think of it, and
Speaker 1: one other camp of a guy who did really kind
Speaker 1: of great Dog Day Afternoon, like great drums, and so
Speaker 1: the Woody camp, you could see they surrounded Steve Gordon,
Speaker 1: so Susan Morris is the editor who edited all of
Speaker 1: Woody's and then the the the Fred Schuler who was
Speaker 1: the DP. He did King of Comedy like, so you
Speaker 1: can see they like surround with him so that he
Speaker 1: could just focus on being funny, getting the best out
Speaker 1: of out of Dudley. And I found that really interesting.
Speaker 1: So in that movie started at Paramount, they couldn't cast it,
Speaker 1: and then they went to Orion. So Mike Metavoy also
Speaker 1: I've had on my podcast. He was the head of
Speaker 1: Orion at the time, and he bought that movie from
Speaker 1: Paramount and let him go make it. Did you talk
Speaker 1: to him about Arthur? Yeah, and and again because he
Speaker 1: had made a lot of movies with Woody and so
Speaker 1: those guys brought it to him and he trusted them
Speaker 1: and thought, that's funny. You guys know how to make
Speaker 1: these movies. It's not gonna cost a luck, go do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so those are the those are the fun things about
Speaker 1: the the total you know, you where you can really
Speaker 1: look at the movie and go oh and they just
Speaker 1: left him alone. Yeah. The casting of Lives of and
Speaker 1: La you mentioned earlier. Um, I remember as a kid thinking, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was eleven and it it. Now this
Speaker 1: sounds terrible, but I just remember as a kid thinking like,
Speaker 1: she's not very good looking, Like she's not who is that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't know who she was, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know any of her background or the Judy Garland stuff,
Speaker 1: And I just remember thinking like, why didn't they cast
Speaker 1: some bombshell because that's what you're used to seeing, and
Speaker 1: as an eleven year old, that's certainly what you want
Speaker 1: to see. But from the moment she steps on that screen,
Speaker 1: they just their chemistry. They're like, uh, some old, like
Speaker 1: married comedy couple that's been doing it for a hundred years.
Speaker 1: They're so good together. And it's what's funny about lies
Speaker 1: On that first scene in the berg darfs Is you
Speaker 1: can tell she's in a totally different movie. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: came with her whole wardrobe, hair, wearing that crazy the
Speaker 1: whole outfit, and it's like she just sees she steps
Speaker 1: on screen like I'm in I give a fuck, I
Speaker 1: don't care what everybody else is dressed as I'm in
Speaker 1: this movie in this outfit, big yellow coat, yellow coat
Speaker 1: and the red hat. But and and she's holding a
Speaker 1: Ferrari bag, so it's like she's she's, she's you know.
Speaker 1: And that's also what helped, because it wasn't just I.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's apocryphal because everybody says everybody
Speaker 1: was in every movie, you know, but I do. I
Speaker 1: did do some research, and they did want Debra Winger,
Speaker 1: and she just couldn't get her head around it. She
Speaker 1: would have been great, amazing recast in your head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's really great and they worked so well together. Um
Speaker 1: that scene and and it's it's sort of hard when
Speaker 1: you do a comedy like this to not just like
Speaker 1: say your favorite lines. So I've just cherry picked a few,
Speaker 1: but that scene has a couple of my favorites. Was
Speaker 1: when he's talking about the perfect crime and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, some girls were tied, so it's not a
Speaker 1: perfect crime, it's a good crime. And then Gilga goes,
Speaker 1: if she moded the tie, it would be the perfect
Speaker 1: crime exactly. He you know, I read I did her
Speaker 1: research for this a little bit. I did do some
Speaker 1: reading about it. He would literally turn the lives and goes,
Speaker 1: am I being funny, like what's happening? And everybody was like,
Speaker 1: just keep going, don't try. He was so good, so
Speaker 1: much one something all of that, he had so many
Speaker 1: good ones. And then you get to that crazy third
Speaker 1: act turn, just one of my favorite third acts in
Speaker 1: the movie ever, and just that moment where he says,
Speaker 1: I'm scared and you just everything just and he's not
Speaker 1: scared for him, He's scared for Arthur. Yeah, because he's
Speaker 1: amazed to being okay with dying. Yes, yeah, it occurred
Speaker 1: to me last night. How I've never really noticed that
Speaker 1: Arthur has learned so much from him. Arthur deals with
Speaker 1: his pain through jokes, because Hobson does, and Hobson he's
Speaker 1: He's dealing with his death through making humor out of it.
Speaker 1: And then just that turn where though he he everybody
Speaker 1: says you look like shit. Yeah, he says, you never
Speaker 1: seen me sober. Yeah. It's just so incredible. And there's
Speaker 1: two ways to read that scene where he's giving the
Speaker 1: toys to Hobson. One is that he's just a kid.
Speaker 1: The other doesn't know what to do the others he's
Speaker 1: trying to just distract Hobson, and you know with the
Speaker 1: train is obviously from his just that's their thing. But
Speaker 1: I just love that he gives him the hat and
Speaker 1: he goes, if I start to die, take this off me.
Speaker 1: It's not the way I want to be remembered. But
Speaker 1: you can see him just playing like here, just don't
Speaker 1: feel bad, Like he doesn't know how to deal with it,
Speaker 1: so he's just trying to distract him from this moment
Speaker 1: of dying. Yeah, and I think that stuff really works
Speaker 1: because you see the behind the scenes stuff that Hobson
Speaker 1: doesn't see, which is him in the hallway ordering these
Speaker 1: special meals and he doesn't want his last meal to
Speaker 1: be jello, and he stepped up. You know that the
Speaker 1: movie really needed that. I mean, it's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite third X too. Arthur only uses money to try
Speaker 1: to help other people or make people happy. It makes
Speaker 1: feel happy. And there's a really critical moment in the
Speaker 1: movie where he gives her the hundred thousand dollar check
Speaker 1: and she rips it up and the dad cries, which
Speaker 1: is one of the best acting moments, you just hear
Speaker 1: it for the other room, because that is really that
Speaker 1: kind of the crux of the whole thing of like
Speaker 1: money doesn't make you happy, right, but also has one
Speaker 1: of the greatest endings of all It doesn't suck. I
Speaker 1: took the money. I'm not crazy. But it's also about
Speaker 1: money can't buy you happiness. You have to find love.
Speaker 1: You have to find those people that love and take
Speaker 1: care of and it is it is hard to be alone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a it's a really fascinating movie because
Speaker 1: I think when most people first think of it, they
Speaker 1: do think of like all those great lines, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just doing great with you, like you think
Speaker 1: of all those, you know, just really hilarious lines. But
Speaker 1: the joke count is insane. It's just crazy. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you write a movie this densely packed with jokes.
Speaker 1: Neither and you'll have so much heart in drama. And
Speaker 1: I kept looking at like if there was some improv
Speaker 1: stuff too, Like I was like going, Wow, I wonder
Speaker 1: how much Dudley improv. I'd like to read the script.
Speaker 1: Well you can. The problem is, I mean not the problem.
Speaker 1: The amazing thing is you see one you know that
Speaker 1: maybe was an improv and then it ties in later,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't an improv because well unless they wrote
Speaker 1: it down and said, oh, we're gonna pay. Like these
Speaker 1: things was so carefully plotted, you know, and there's so
Speaker 1: many like little tangents, like just the scene with the
Speaker 1: guy who sells some flowers you need five, you know,
Speaker 1: and him five friends you feel in love, and then
Speaker 1: he says, by flowers for that girl you saw in
Speaker 1: the bus, Like he remembers these things and says to people,
Speaker 1: do this for your wife because you know, And then
Speaker 1: and then later on you know, and then and and
Speaker 1: just the fun of by tending green. I don't wear
Speaker 1: sweaters and he wear sweaters the whole movie. He's just
Speaker 1: saying that just to kind of, you know, appease the
Speaker 1: person he's buying it from. Just all these this little
Speaker 1: tiny things that are layered in that are pulled through
Speaker 1: so elegantly, and I gotta believe it came from sitcom
Speaker 1: writing where he just put it all in there and
Speaker 1: just insanely because Dudley so talented, they all worked. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because nine times out of ten, you know, like you
Speaker 1: go back and you look at the Judd movies. You
Speaker 1: know he's throwing they're not all working, so you pull
Speaker 1: them out and I see Dudley was I just think
Speaker 1: Dudley was such a master that they just kept them
Speaker 1: all in. Yeah. I mean the joke count is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And you know it has lines that I still say
Speaker 1: in my real life. I say, it doesn't suck a lot.
Speaker 1: And then whenever anyone says something about the light outside
Speaker 1: or look at the light on that thing, I always say,
Speaker 1: of course, you can't depend on that light. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite lines. Also one of the greatest pieces
Speaker 1: of editing Susan Morris, because what happens in that scene
Speaker 1: is he goes, fine, then I'm not gonna take the money.
Speaker 1: She's like, and the father's like, well fine, then you're
Speaker 1: cut off, and then you don't know the number, and
Speaker 1: he goes, you just lost seven dollars and door shut.
Speaker 1: You know when the lights are just right but it's
Speaker 1: all off camera. The first two lines does that kid,
Speaker 1: it's it's so yeah, and and again just a testament
Speaker 1: to Dudley. And I was watching it when I watched
Speaker 1: it this time, even like when he puts his drink
Speaker 1: on the on the fender there. That is not an
Speaker 1: improv because he's such a physical comedian. They must have
Speaker 1: put something because he puts it twice, and he does
Speaker 1: it and then but he doesn't overdo it like I
Speaker 1: could see another actor standing there for ten minutes acting
Speaker 1: like it's gonna fall. He just does a quick little
Speaker 1: beat each time. Well, that was one tangent was saying
Speaker 1: about the floral arrangement. The other tangent is berry Berry's wife.
Speaker 1: No need for that to be in the movie whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's one of my favorite scenes. It's got
Speaker 1: one of my favorite lines. My husband has a gun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for all I know he shot at while you
Speaker 1: were yelling at But also when I watched it again
Speaker 1: as an older person, you could say, is thematically, that
Speaker 1: is what you don't want to be, somebody who just
Speaker 1: is in a horrible relation ship, being beaten up, not happy,
Speaker 1: because he goes get back in there and give her
Speaker 1: what for. And then the first thing he says when
Speaker 1: he finally gets let into Susan's party, because don't you
Speaker 1: hate Perry's why? So again, that's the thing. You realize
Speaker 1: how confident he was because he had that in there,
Speaker 1: knowing he was going to leave that scene in there.
Speaker 1: I think now probably who knows, maybe in a preview
Speaker 1: that that scene is amazing, I might have cut that scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, to get to the ninety minutes that you
Speaker 1: know you need, because these movies back in the day
Speaker 1: weren't previewed like they are now, right, these comedies, you
Speaker 1: really relied more on your own gut. Yeah. Interesting, there
Speaker 1: was one line that I you know, when you see
Speaker 1: a movie that you know by heart, it's always interesting
Speaker 1: when you catch a line that you never caught before.
Speaker 1: And I was like, there's no way I know every
Speaker 1: word of this movie, but there was a line and
Speaker 1: I guess it was said and maybe I was a
Speaker 1: kid and I didn't understand it. But I actually had
Speaker 1: to subtitle it last night because I didn't know what
Speaker 1: he said. But after the tie theft scene, when he's
Speaker 1: talking about like how amazing she is, Geel could goes,
Speaker 1: she does have a sorta in eleanor Roosevelt clause And
Speaker 1: never caught that line. Great, and it really doesn't really
Speaker 1: even make sense, but coming from him, everything he says
Speaker 1: is a perfect put down. Yeah, he really and again
Speaker 1: Steve must have rewritten the script once lies it was
Speaker 1: cast because a lot of stuff is specific to her
Speaker 1: that wouldn't have worked again if you would have cast
Speaker 1: like right right, it would have been a little bit
Speaker 1: more on the nose. Yeah, casting is great. Oh and
Speaker 1: then and then again going to back to his vulnerability
Speaker 1: and why you love him. The whole date scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he takes her to a little carnival. Yeah, and stays
Speaker 1: pretty sober. I think he's drinking a little wine at dinner,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't get smashed. And they have this amazing
Speaker 1: thing where he's a kid and she's like, wow, I
Speaker 1: thought dating a millionaire would be different, and he's like
Speaker 1: having this joy, which is a total juxtaposition to where
Speaker 1: he took the prostitute right to the Plaza, right right
Speaker 1: right in the heart of everything and just kind of
Speaker 1: you made a big show of it, but with her,
Speaker 1: took her away and did something really personal and sweet
Speaker 1: with her. Well, it's all I think he was almost
Speaker 1: interested in thumbing his nose at the system that he's
Speaker 1: a part of by bringing her to the Plaza hotel
Speaker 1: at the beginning, But when he has you know, and
Speaker 1: the moments that make this movie so you know, it
Speaker 1: gives you an emotional tie. Are his sober moments, Like
Speaker 1: the drunk stuff is very flesh, but it's all those
Speaker 1: sober moments that really that's the heart of the film.
Speaker 1: The whole scene with the horse because I wish you
Speaker 1: had made love I was seeing in the morning, you know,
Speaker 1: and he can I kiss you and he kisses the horse.
Speaker 1: I wasn't talking about you, Like those are the ground
Speaker 1: and the subtlety of the performances too, and and being
Speaker 1: able to track that so like one of the most
Speaker 1: fascinating pieces of acting for me is he's in that
Speaker 1: bar with that rummy, who's great casting that guy which
Speaker 1: one terrible. The guy he says he's getting married, he
Speaker 1: doesn't there in the bar the day of the wedding.
Speaker 1: He's amazing. I have that sober for a mom He's amazing.
Speaker 1: And then he says, goes to your brother, yea, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to be alone, and then he tracks it to
Speaker 1: going to her still hammered, and then getting to the
Speaker 1: wedding a little less drunk, but still drunk to be
Speaker 1: able to walk down the aisle, and then that whole
Speaker 1: performance with you think he wants and then to the
Speaker 1: end being kind of sober again being but being in
Speaker 1: pain because you've been beat up, right, that's probably a
Speaker 1: week of shooting that you had to just know where
Speaker 1: you were. Well, yeah, and just but also just his
Speaker 1: performance of Okay, how where am I in relation to
Speaker 1: because because when he was drinking with that, it was
Speaker 1: five hours before his wedding, bitterman comes in and goes
Speaker 1: to have five hours Yeah, so it's like in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day basically morning. Yeah, and then and
Speaker 1: then he goes to get her at the dinner and
Speaker 1: he says, I'm getting married in twenty minutes. So he's
Speaker 1: got a track like how sober he is? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he does it perfectly. Yeah. I love that scene in
Speaker 1: the bar with that guy. Is he when Dudley Moore
Speaker 1: when Arthur starts to get all worked up, he gets
Speaker 1: up and tries to leave a couple of times, make
Speaker 1: a scene. He's not into that at all. It's real,
Speaker 1: He's like. And also when he when when Arthur is
Speaker 1: going to meet with Susan's dad in the Hampton's it's
Speaker 1: my favorite sequence of my favorite comedy. Yeah, well, think
Speaker 1: about he's driving drinking again out of the bottle and
Speaker 1: then he stops in front of the thing and does
Speaker 1: the laugh. Oh, and that's when you know he's there.
Speaker 1: He's there, and he can he can, he can face
Speaker 1: all the butler stuff. Are you sure you want to
Speaker 1: be a nightclub comic? It was amazing us. You did
Speaker 1: you hate this moose? That the moose stuff. The funniest
Speaker 1: line to me is right at the beginning with the moose. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, the way they had that shot framed
Speaker 1: down low, with that giant fucking moose nose in between them.
Speaker 1: And he makes a joke and looks at the moose
Speaker 1: and just because this is a tough room, but I
Speaker 1: don't have to tell you that, And then it goes
Speaker 1: where he says, don't talk about the moose anymore. And
Speaker 1: then he says I killed a man. And he just deadly,
Speaker 1: just slowly looks at it, doesn't see anything, but it's
Speaker 1: one you don't even see the most he just looks
Speaker 1: up like God, he's so brilliant. Was he nominated for this? Yes,
Speaker 1: he won the Golden Globe to well ordinary people one,
Speaker 1: so I'm assuming ordinary people want best pictures. I'm assuming
Speaker 1: it was somebody from ordinary people. I didn't look it up.
Speaker 1: Interesting but in in in eighty one he was nominated.
Speaker 1: He won Golden the Golden Globe for Best Comedic Actor
Speaker 1: but didn't win. But gil Good one and the song one, uh,
Speaker 1: the Arthur theme one, right, and the stream play was
Speaker 1: nominated and didn't didn't win either. I'm assuming ordinary people
Speaker 1: won that as well. Yeah, that song. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: a as soon as those opening notes hit with the
Speaker 1: Little Ryan, it was Oriyan that Orian logo, It's like,
Speaker 1: that does something to my psyche. You're in from my
Speaker 1: being eleven years old and seeing this movie a thousand times.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't think my parents they were
Speaker 1: pretty guard it about what I watched. But um, I
Speaker 1: think I just got away with this one. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: because it was PG. They didn't know bugs Bunny, they
Speaker 1: didn't know. They thought, oh it's fine, and some you know,
Speaker 1: these subtle jokes were being being fed to you. But
Speaker 1: it was a love story, you know, it was a
Speaker 1: really sweet movie. It wasn't it wasn't too tawdry. I
Speaker 1: mean it was so like alcoholism, wasn't the kind of
Speaker 1: you didn't think about it in the same way. Then
Speaker 1: you can play it for laughs. And even at the
Speaker 1: end he says, I'm gonna try to I promise I'll
Speaker 1: try to stay sober. He doesn't say I'm not going
Speaker 1: to drink anymore. There's no, there's no. And you realize
Speaker 1: when the grandmother says no, there's never been a Bach
Speaker 1: who has been a working class back she says, your
Speaker 1: your your son will be president or at center. You
Speaker 1: realize they've all. He's all they've got. Yeah, there's nobody else, right,
Speaker 1: So the line ends with him, and I was thinking
Speaker 1: also speaking of the Arthur remake, I was thinking about
Speaker 1: the sequel, Arthur on the Rocks. I did see that,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember much of what the problem is.
Speaker 1: His arc is so closed. It's over a right. So
Speaker 1: he starts off as a child and he ends as
Speaker 1: an adult. Even says I've grown up, right, and so
Speaker 1: you there's nowhere to go. Yeah, it's not like a
Speaker 1: superhero where then you just send Arthur on at a venture.
Speaker 1: It was a complete so they tried to reset, and
Speaker 1: so then you just ended up going through the same
Speaker 1: Well was even the plot, I don't know. He was
Speaker 1: married and drunk and having to to try. I can't
Speaker 1: remember what the actual plot was, but that was the
Speaker 1: ark of his character just reset and you're like when
Speaker 1: you saw this, like, why am I watching this again?
Speaker 1: You know that was the problem and that thing was
Speaker 1: great in it, but it's just such a perfect character
Speaker 1: arc of a guy who's growing up, a kid who's
Speaker 1: growing up. That's why we all loved it at our ages. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. And he also has that moment with Susan
Speaker 1: when he gets engaged a couple of I mean, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty pivotal scene. Um, he's being forced to do this,
Speaker 1: he does it anyway. He says this is who I
Speaker 1: am and basically like, this is who you're marrying. You
Speaker 1: know that. And then the second he pops the question
Speaker 1: and he says, yes, he wants to leave, he wants
Speaker 1: to go home, he feels sick, he wants to go
Speaker 1: pass out. Basically, Yeah, it's amazingly about that scene she
Speaker 1: orders food and he's just got a silver tray with
Speaker 1: a full glass of scotch. And do that move occasionally
Speaker 1: in restaurants, Yes, I'll let a drink on an empty plate.
Speaker 1: The two lines I sometimes say generally when I'm in Vegas.
Speaker 1: One is engine room with the house my child. God,
Speaker 1: it's so great. And the second one is I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need one. My doctors advised me I need the man.
Speaker 1: I've done the engine room thing because you rarely see
Speaker 1: an actual telephone in these days. So occasionally, if I'm
Speaker 1: actually in a place where I have a telephone, I'll
Speaker 1: pick it up and I'll go engine room where there's
Speaker 1: my drink and no one knows what that No, that's
Speaker 1: it's great. Um let me see here, I'm going through
Speaker 1: my notes. I think that like, structurally, they could you know,
Speaker 1: they could teach this in screen running class. It's and
Speaker 1: what I learned as a writer, and I've obviously I
Speaker 1: am not great at it, or else i'd be making
Speaker 1: movies right now. But I did learn a thing or
Speaker 1: two about what goes into a good script. And I
Speaker 1: think like the advice I would give if I ever
Speaker 1: talk about it is there are very few Charlie Kaufman's
Speaker 1: out there, like there there's a formula for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's because it works and it's what people are conditioned to.
Speaker 1: And good writing to me is I mean, if you
Speaker 1: can be Charlie Cauman, great, but um, don't try to
Speaker 1: be because you're gonna fail. Probably, Like stay within the
Speaker 1: formula and just do a really good job at it.
Speaker 1: Hit those act plot points as as like perfectly as
Speaker 1: you can at the thirty minute mark and at the
Speaker 1: whatever you know eighty you know, third act plot point,
Speaker 1: and make it great within those parameters, because people need
Speaker 1: to see movies that they understand. Generally, I think a
Speaker 1: lot of screenwriters suffer from worrying that there being two
Speaker 1: on the nose, which you can be obviously, but that
Speaker 1: if you look at Arthur, every scene restates the theme
Speaker 1: in some way. It's very on the nose yea. And
Speaker 1: sometimes he just says it out loud, I don't want
Speaker 1: to be alone, and sometimes he says I just want
Speaker 1: people like me, and sometimes he says, um, you know
Speaker 1: you're my father. It's so all of the themes of
Speaker 1: growing up, not being afraid of being an adult, not
Speaker 1: wanting to be alone, and our relationships with our fathers
Speaker 1: is restated in every scene. And so if you're a
Speaker 1: screenwriter that's starting out and are writing a screenplay, just
Speaker 1: make sure that you are every scene has a reason
Speaker 1: for being right. And that's the other thing I find
Speaker 1: as a lot of times people just want to be
Speaker 1: clever and or they'll say, well, the audience gets it.
Speaker 1: They're gonna, you know, and it's not that the audience
Speaker 1: is just stupid, they're very intelligent. But if you can,
Speaker 1: but it's your job to hide the cards. So if
Speaker 1: you just have a scene that's like, well this happened
Speaker 1: to me, I think it's interesting, and like, what the hell?
Speaker 1: This has nothing to do with the movie, every scene
Speaker 1: needs to not only move the plot forward, but move
Speaker 1: the characters forward and continue to restate the theme in
Speaker 1: some way, because that's what gets you emotionally invested in
Speaker 1: these characters. So that first five minutes of Arthur, you're
Speaker 1: just in because he said everything he needs to say.
Speaker 1: He's generous, he's a scoundrel, He's but he's vulnerable, he's
Speaker 1: lovable and this is clearly something he's struggling with and
Speaker 1: he wants to do better, but he doesn't know how.
Speaker 1: And so every scene kind of does that. And for us,
Speaker 1: I think the reason why um, people who saw it
Speaker 1: in their teens and as children love it so much
Speaker 1: is it really just is about fathers and our relationships
Speaker 1: with their dad and the In fact, she says it
Speaker 1: in one of the craziest lines of all time when
Speaker 1: she says, my mom moved out when I was six,
Speaker 1: and my dad raped me when I was twelve. He goes, well,
Speaker 1: you had six relatively good years, and then he says,
Speaker 1: don't worry, my father screwed me too. And it's it's
Speaker 1: a easy line that you probably couldn't say and of today,
Speaker 1: but it hits everything that he's about. He's trying to
Speaker 1: trying to deflect her pain through humor, and he's trying
Speaker 1: to relate to her by being vulnerable. Right. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a really good screenwriting exercise. Yeah, and it's like a
Speaker 1: tight rope. Like on the surface, it looks like just
Speaker 1: this sort of easy movie to make, but it's really not.
Speaker 1: It could this movie could have gone so wrong. Um,
Speaker 1: if you know, if anyone other than Dudley Moore, maybe
Speaker 1: I knew he thought about Jack Nicholson and he was
Speaker 1: trying to cast American. Yeah, I think you know, everybody
Speaker 1: always had Charles Groden in every Yeah, that's what I hear.
Speaker 1: It's always these things are apocryphal, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So funny, but he was a little too dry maybe
Speaker 1: for this. He also was very close on Pretty Woman, Oh,
Speaker 1: got right? Yeah, right, I think he might even screen
Speaker 1: tested with Julia. He's not a romantic lead though, or
Speaker 1: I think at the time, when you know he was
Speaker 1: doing so many good movies, you know, and different roles
Speaker 1: between Heaving eight and you know all, you know, all
Speaker 1: the all the movies that he was doing, I think
Speaker 1: people just were like, he's a star, let's give him interesting.
Speaker 1: I keep waiting on someone to pick my probably second
Speaker 1: favorite comedy of all time, Midnight Run. By the way,
Speaker 1: let me give you some insight about being a producer,
Speaker 1: so me too. I loved Midnight Run, which is why
Speaker 1: I made Jeelie. Oh Wow, where you go? Goodness again?
Speaker 1: There you go. We're Marty Brass can do no wrong.
Speaker 1: Like it's Marty Brest. He did Beverly Hills copy to that.
Speaker 1: Everybody has their moments, you know, and and and we
Speaker 1: had anybuddy, you know, we had done you know, Armageddon
Speaker 1: in Pearl Harbor with Ben and so it's just you know,
Speaker 1: it's again, it's a fly. It's like everybody says, it
Speaker 1: seems super easy to do, but one thing can go wrong.
Speaker 1: It's like the Space Shuttle. It just sort of drinks
Speaker 1: off into into space and you can't bring it back.
Speaker 1: Making a movie a good movie is incredibly difficult, and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone gets know how hard it is,
Speaker 1: because it's so easy to be an armchair critic and
Speaker 1: to come down on something, but making movies difficult, so hard,
Speaker 1: and especially now with you know, everybody has a microphone
Speaker 1: that is equal to any other microphone. And like, if
Speaker 1: you're on Twitter Entertainment Weekly and Frank from Burbank has
Speaker 1: the same Twitter feed, the same maybe one has more followers,
Speaker 1: but I can still get to you if you're he's
Speaker 1: dagging you, Frank ouch uh and but um yeah, And
Speaker 1: so it's it's it's nearly impossible to make a good movie,
Speaker 1: and so when it happens, it's it's joyous. And that's
Speaker 1: why I again being the crazy optimist that I am
Speaker 1: and being like what you say, a sycophant, um, I
Speaker 1: I I celebrate everybody's success. Also, I send emails and
Speaker 1: text to all my friends when they hit USA. Have
Speaker 1: to That's how it should be. It's so hard, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had I've had movies that I've done with the
Speaker 1: exact crew of a movie that did it huge hit
Speaker 1: just the movie before, and it just didn't work out.
Speaker 1: The same way, you know, And so anytime that alchemy
Speaker 1: comes together, you got to celebrate it. I send a
Speaker 1: note over and I send emails I do you know,
Speaker 1: I just celebrate him and I bring him my podcast
Speaker 1: and tell them how great they are, because it's really hard,
Speaker 1: and there are certain when you see guys. I just
Speaker 1: saw that I'm late to the party. I just saw
Speaker 1: the HBO documentary on Spielberg, and you look at that
Speaker 1: guy and you just realize, Okay, you he's the magician,
Speaker 1: and he's just so good at what he does. And
Speaker 1: then you watch the documentary and you realize how hard
Speaker 1: he works and how much he studies and how much
Speaker 1: prep work he does to be able to be the
Speaker 1: maestro on the day. Yeah, you know, I did. When
Speaker 1: I was working TV commercials, I did work with some
Speaker 1: of those big directors. I did a couple of Michael
Speaker 1: Bayer commercials and I worked with Tony Scott, and it
Speaker 1: was interesting to see the difference in those two guys
Speaker 1: on a set. And Tony Scott was the leader of
Speaker 1: the army. Everyone loved him. Everyone would go to battle
Speaker 1: with him, and he was constantly moving and just had
Speaker 1: so much positive forward momentum as a person, uh you know,
Speaker 1: a sense of play. Let's go do this, pick up
Speaker 1: a camera, let's go do that. And Michael Bay was
Speaker 1: just it was the worst, really god damn experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a d I think we went through like
Speaker 1: three a d s on that job, like throwing their
Speaker 1: walk He's into the Grand Canyon because they were so
Speaker 1: mad and he's intense, uh just berating. He was berating
Speaker 1: the stunt drivers and it was tough. And I I've
Speaker 1: made a couple of movies with them, so I honestly
Speaker 1: believe he wouldn't even understand that that happened. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think he's so he loves it so much
Speaker 1: and he's such a kid at heart. I think he
Speaker 1: just loves doing it. He wants to just go fast
Speaker 1: and be right. I think that he wouldn't even I
Speaker 1: think he would be like probably saw those pas and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, you're gonna have a beer. Like I
Speaker 1: don't think he That is true. Actually, he didn't turn
Speaker 1: his uh he was he was never turning his eye
Speaker 1: on us. In fact, I always tell the story that
Speaker 1: it's it was kind of great too because PA's were
Speaker 1: kind of invisible to him, so he could be having
Speaker 1: a meltdown in someone and I could be standing three
Speaker 1: ft from him and he's not like, what are you
Speaker 1: looking at? Get out of here. He just didn't even
Speaker 1: see me. Well, he's you know, he's also doing eighty
Speaker 1: five setups a day, you know. So he's on a
Speaker 1: ten million dollars Ford commercial or whatever he's and he
Speaker 1: doesn't need ten million dollars. He did the first Bad
Speaker 1: Boys for and he's just a maniac in that way.
Speaker 1: He just loves it and he wants to get every squeeze,
Speaker 1: every bit of juice out of the orange as he
Speaker 1: can as he's making the movie. And I think that
Speaker 1: that you're changing my mind on. He brings a lot
Speaker 1: of eggs. I've know the guy very well. I've done
Speaker 1: I've done, I did UM. I worked on Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: with him, and he did Armageddon at the studio when
Speaker 1: we were there, and and in the Rock and so
Speaker 1: I know him and I've been in the trend just
Speaker 1: with him. I've gone head to head with him on
Speaker 1: some things. But I but I, but I. What I
Speaker 1: love about him is that it's not punitive and it's
Speaker 1: not ego. It's all about the work, all right, And
Speaker 1: it's just a guy who is just like, let's go
Speaker 1: pick up and he's excited and and yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: he can like I'm glad to hear this perspective. And
Speaker 1: also he should never judge someone on three or four
Speaker 1: days out of their life, you know, but you're not.
Speaker 1: I think that's the way it works. And I don't
Speaker 1: think he would. I don't I think he'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't it great. I just think that there are
Speaker 1: certain I just think there are certain coaches too that
Speaker 1: are like, do you have you ever watched Last Chance?
Speaker 1: To you? Yeah, you know, you just see that coach
Speaker 1: And I just don't I don't think he I don't
Speaker 1: think he like hates those kids. I just think he
Speaker 1: thinks we're gonna win, and then if we win, you're
Speaker 1: all ships rise in the tide um. There are you know,
Speaker 1: I've worked with other directors that are just complete, you know,
Speaker 1: sociopathic assholes that just just mean people, right, um, And
Speaker 1: he's not that now, And you don't want to work
Speaker 1: with those those people, even even if they're great. Life's
Speaker 1: too short. Well, Todd, I feel like we could talk
Speaker 1: for another feen hours. Uh, this is awesome. I would
Speaker 1: love to hang out next time you're in Atlanta, anytime,
Speaker 1: go get some dinner or whatever. Anytime. Thank you for
Speaker 1: picking Arthur. Thank you. And if you're listening and you
Speaker 1: have not seen the original Arthur, my god, just watch it.
Speaker 1: It holds up. It's still so so funny, has so
Speaker 1: much heart, and especially when you know the story behind
Speaker 1: with the director making his one film and passing away
Speaker 1: so young. It's just kind of one of those legendary comedies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank all right everyone. I hope you enjoyed that as
Speaker 1: much as I did. I think you could tell by
Speaker 1: listening to this that Todd and I really hit it off.
Speaker 1: He was a super cool guy, very nice, nice man,
Speaker 1: and it's uh I really think it's awesome what he's doing,
Speaker 1: uh a in his career, just by being a good
Speaker 1: guy that's a producer, and also his podcast and kind
Speaker 1: of spreading the word about what producers do and how
Speaker 1: you can be a good guy and be a producer
Speaker 1: and you don't have to yell and scream and be
Speaker 1: a terrible human being. And I think so often, unfairly
Speaker 1: that's the the image that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: of the Hollywood movie producer. So thanks to Todd for
Speaker 1: coming on. Definitely check out his podcast. It's really great.
Speaker 1: I would just kind of scroll through and pick someone
Speaker 1: that sounds interesting. It's a good way to start. And
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for listening, and we'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: The movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant
Speaker 1: and Roel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson,
Speaker 1: and scored by Noel Brown here in our home studio
Speaker 1: at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.