WEBVTT - Chris Columbus and Stephen Daldry 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:04.800 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.560 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:09.640 --> 0:00:13.840 hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions change 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:19.480 their careers, what relationships influenced their work. The only thing 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:22.280 that mattered to me about becoming a director was longevity. 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:25.680 I wanted to make sure that my career would last 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.600 for decades. I make what to change the world. I 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.320 think that's any reason to do anything, and getting a 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.760 group of people in to start a conversation with the 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:35.760 community and with the society you live in is going 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.720 to be the greatest thing you can do Today. I 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.920 talked with two movie directors who have each had enormous 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:47.280 success with very different types of films. Stephen Daldry got 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:50.720 his start in theater. He's British, and his transition to 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:55.480 filmmaking appeared effortless. His first three films, Billy Elliott, The Hours, 0:00:55.520 --> 0:01:00.560 and The Reader featured complicated characters and serious topics class struggle, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.320 the search for Life's Purpose and war crimes. Each film 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.920 also earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. My 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:12.160 first guest, Chris Columbus, has brought to the screen some 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:15.520 of the biggest American family films of the last twenty years, 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:20.840 Adventures in Babysitting Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire. He also produced 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.560 and directed the first two Harry Potter films and produced 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.479 the third as well. I'm a Wizard and a Something 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.360 Good at Night Wager. Once you trade up a little, No, 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:37.000 you've made a mistake. I mean, I can't be a wizard. 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.360 I mean I'm plus Harry. I've known Chris for a 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.480 long time. We were in school together at n y U. 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:50.800 I lived, started at Weinstein and then um moved to Reuben. 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:52.600 You were in Reuben, as in Reuben and I think 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:56.600 that's where we met. For Columbus, n y U was 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.160 more than just a place to learn the craft. He loved. 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.080 Film school for me was the only It was sort 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.880 of the only way out, you know. UM. I grew 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.360 up in a Both of my parents were factory workers 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:12.080 in Ohio. UM My future was basically working at either 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.239 my father's aluminum factory or my mother's automotive factory. Literally 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.760 didn't own them that. I was just be working and 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:24.440 they did. You could own them them. I did. Although 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.040 I don't think there's much work there. But at the 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.440 time that was it, you know, and and the only 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:34.040 escape really for me. Uh, we're movies And what were 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.160 movies to you? Then? There was no DVD, there was 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.120 no Noble television. How did you movies were the either 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.240 the CBS Late Night movie. I would sneak out of 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.440 bed and watch the late night movie on CBS and 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:50.480 just stay in the movie theaters on the weekend there 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.320 were only two theaters, and I would watch whatever film 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.760 came into town over and over. And I remember something 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.960 clicked when I saw Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.000 and I watched it three times and I just was 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:06.679 amazed by the movie. And I didn't Nobody knew about 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.240 film schools. Nobody knew that you could actually go to 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:10.840 school and learn how to become I didn't even know 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:14.320 what a director was. Um So I put my energy 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.120 into illustrating and writing comic books. I thought. I still 0:03:18.120 --> 0:03:20.520 didn't understand the film concept, but I started to draw 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:24.600 Spider Man comics, Thor comics, Halt comics. I wanted a 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:29.200 job at Marvel in the Marvel that was my goal. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.959 I still love movies, but I didn't I didn't understand 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.840 how to completely. And yeah, and so the comic books 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.000 and all of the this is very naive of me, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.800 but all the comic book superheroes lived in New York City. 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.200 So this was this magical place for me as a kid, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:47.560 because I'm drawing New York City all the time. Then 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.560 I saw The Godfather. The Godfather was re released, and 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:53.600 then the next movie I saw was Blazing Saddles. I 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:57.240 saw those two movies change my life, both ends of 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.880 the spectrum. I realized with Blazing Saddles, the possibilities of 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.880 what you could do with film were endless. And Time 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:08.080 magazine came out with a one page article about film schools, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.840 and I read about Martin Scorsese, and I read about 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:12.920 Francis Ford Coppeland. I read about USC and U, C 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:15.280 l A and n y U, and I said to 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:16.680 my parents, this is what I want to do. What 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:22.000 they say. They were extraordinarily supported. They were amazingly supportive. 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:25.600 Every other relative in my family was not supportive. I 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.720 got to New York and I remember my father drove 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.200 me up to Weinstein and he looked at the city 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:33.520 and looked at the dorm, and he said, let's go home. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.680 I'll drive you back home now, and I said, no way, 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.080 no way. I was in I was literally in oz 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.640 and I knew that I had no choice but to succeed. 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:45.520 I had to find a way to succeed or I 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.240 would be back in the middle of Ohio working in 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.839 an aluminum factory. So you get there. Had you ever 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.720 touched any film equipment before? H yeah? Super. My parents 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:58.640 did buy me a Super eight sound camera, which enabled 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.839 me to start to films. Actually, I made a twenty 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.000 minute film for my theology class because I went to 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.360 a very strict Catholic school, so it was a theology 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.360 class that was dealing with social issues. So we made 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:16.080 a film about abortion of the sectomes. And I was 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.360 very inspired at the time by remember SNL just nine 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.960 seventies six. Sn L had just come. You know, we 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.560 would spend our Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. So 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:29.720 I was doing these basically commercial parodies that I had 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:31.560 versions that I had seen on sn L, and I 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:34.720 screened it for for the class. The class loved it. 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.880 The priest was horrified, Um, what did your parents say 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:43.400 about all your politically incorrect films? Very dark stuff back then? 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:47.200 You know? They You know, my my mother went with it. 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.320 My father didn't really want to have much to do 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:51.000 with it. He figured, okay that you know, my father 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.320 was most most of the time, my father was under 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.000 a car repairing it, you know, and in the garage 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.159 when he wasn't working or having a beer. So I um, 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.839 as long as he's not on the streets, it's exactly 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.359 my parents, not only not taking drugs, that's true. You know, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.440 my mother was very supportive. My mother was probably much 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.760 more supportive than my father about what I wanted to do. 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.760 And she had She shared sort of that dark sense 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:15.600 of humor that I had as well. I used to 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.960 watch SNL with her. She loved it. So you you 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.239 get to Weinstein, you have a super eight sound camera, 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.000 but you get to Weinstein and what's what are the 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.160 first recollections you have of that when you get there? 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.800 To go to n y U? Honestly, n Yu. The 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.479 night I got there, drinking age was eighteen sponsored a 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:36.880 bar tour. Can you imagine them doing that these days? 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.920 Eight to ten bars in the East Village. They would 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:43.240 take a group of freshmen and go to each bar Chumley's, 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.600 ms o Orley's. And that's where I met my best friends. 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.919 And that's where I met my future producing partner, Michael Barnathan. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.600 We met that first night bart Nights and and uh, yeah, 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.520 you could be. I mean, the lawsuits are ridiculous, and 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.440 we met. I mean, you know what it what it's like. 0:07:01.480 --> 0:07:05.160 You go into this community of everyone who shares your 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.040 deepest love of something like film, and you have someone 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:10.600 to talk to about it. I had no one to 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.640 talk to about it in Ohio, you know. I was 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:17.040 this everyone's come there from the aluminum factory. And then 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.920 when you left n y U, what did you do? 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:23.640 I left n y U. I had actually I was 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:29.840 lucky enough I had left, but in sight, I had 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.680 a scholarship. I had this great scholarship that got me 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.280 through ny U the first year, and my mother would 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:39.120 call me. You remember, we had those pay phones at 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:41.600 the end of our dorm Hallways's no cell phone. So 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:43.560 every Sunday I would go to the payphone a call home, 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:47.680 and my mother would say, Chris, don't forget to go 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.080 to the Burstar's office and sign. I had to sign 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.000 some papers so I would renew my scholarship and I 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.040 would say, Mom, no problem. That went on for six weeks. 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.840 The seventh week I called. She was screaming at me, said, 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.760 you lost the scholarship. This summer, you're gonna have to 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:06.840 work at the aluminum factory. So so I went back. 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.040 I went back to Ohio, and I was working basically 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.080 swing shifts. I would work day shifts, afternoon shifts, and 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.960 night shifts. After your first year, my first year, I 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.040 realized if I was on the night shift, I could read. 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:21.120 So that first year I was just read, you know, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.840 novels for eight hours. I had to do it again 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:27.280 after my sophomore year. So I went back my sophomore 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.440 year and I realized if I could get on the 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:33.720 night shift for the entire summer, I could write a screenplay. 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.840 So what I did is I remember these gigantic, hulking 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.559 cylinders of aluminum, and I would sneak behind the aluminium 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.120 cores and sit there with a notepad, and I wrote 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.920 my first screenplay, a screenplay called Jocks about high school football, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:49.720 my experiences with high school football. And I was a 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.640 terrible football player, but I I you know, it was 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.360 very very sorry. Yeah, I suited up and I brought 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.000 that back to my writing teacher, a guy named Jesse Cornbluth, 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.240 who gave it to his agent, some guy a producers 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.800 since passed away. Steve Friedman optioned it for five grand. 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:08.880 That five grand prevented me from ever having to go 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.800 back to the liminary factory. And then when I was out, 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:14.480 you know, after college, I just, uh, my agents started 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.880 to get me writing gigs. A friend of mine, Mitch, said, 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:20.400 you know, there hasn't since Jaws, there really hasn't been 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.360 a great movie that's featured. He used the word monster. 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.840 There has not been a great monster movie made. And 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.240 I said, that's a good idea. That's interesting. And in 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:33.200 the loft I lived in, we had these mice scurring 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:34.599 around on the floors and I would sleep with my 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.400 hand draped over the bed and mice would go by 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:37.840 in the middle of the night. I thought, these tiny 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.640 creatures are frightening. So I spent the next six weeks 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.880 writing the script called Gremlin's and I sent it to 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.080 my agent, who um liked the script but felt it 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.080 was a little dark, and still sent it to about 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.800 fifty producers and studio executives and everyone passed on it. 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.600 And Spielberg Steven Spielberg was leaving his office on a 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:59.680 Friday and passed his secretary's desk, and it was sitting there. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:02.480 That's why so much of this business is luck. He 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.520 passed the script and saw the title and said that 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.440 looks interesting, picked it up, read it that weekend, and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.400 decided he wanted to option the movie. Now I didn't 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.040 know this. I gotta call up my loft bar. Nathan 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.640 answers the phone and says, as someone on air says, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:18.920 that's Steven Spielberg. Remember I get I get the phone. 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.600 He goes, Chris, it's Steven Spielberg. I was stunned. And 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.680 I lived in l A for nine months at that point, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.640 So what happens in that nine months? He's giving you 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:29.160 notes or there's creative people. He would give me notes. 0:10:29.240 --> 0:10:31.520 Now Gremlins was sort of off and running, and someone 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:33.600 else was even rewriting it. As I was working on 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.800 another script for Stephen. For some strange reason, I had 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:39.559 sort of carte blanche. I could go into his office. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.839 He would be sitting there with Richard Gere or or 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.080 uh or Warren Beatty. One time he's like, Chris, come 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:48.160 on in, would he and I would start to talk 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:50.600 to him about ideas. One day he's looking through these 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.080 old ec comic books, and he says, look at this title, Chris, 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.559 the goon Children. And I said, the goon Children, that's 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.800 a cool title. And we came up with this story 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:02.320 to other about these kids who find a treasure map, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.400 and it was the Goonies. I would write three pages 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:08.199 of Goonies, run to Steven's office, give it to him. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.560 He would make some notes. I would run back to 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.120 my office and make the changes. Then I wrote Young 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.560 Sherlock Holmes with him, kind of in the same way. 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.679 What did you learn from Spielberg? Spielberg was like graduate 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.560 school of filmmaking. For me. Spielberg was like, UM, I 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.880 learned shortcuts. Basically, it was a Billy Wilder quote that Stephen, 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.800 you know, nailed into my head every day, which was, 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:34.600 don't tell the audience something more than once. I learned 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.240 how to edit material, I learned how to write better dialogue, 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.280 and I learned how to be much more visual as 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.760 a writer from Stephen. So it was a great relationship, 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.760 you know, um, and still is a great relationship to 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:47.880 this day. We have the opportunity to work together a 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.960 couple of years ago, so I really loved that time. 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:52.439 But at the same time, I needed to get back 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.400 to Manhattan. Why. I don't know. I just felt like 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.400 I missed I missed it. I mean it was it's 0:11:57.559 --> 0:11:59.640 very simple. But did you have a sense, because I 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.960 find other people have the same thing, it's better for 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.560 me to stay here for my career. You didn't think 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.719 of long those lines, No, I I don't think at 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.320 the time, I was able to articulate it. You know, 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.079 twenty thirty years down the road, now I can look 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.559 back and and understand why I did it. Because I 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:20.040 was seeing the beginning of people losing touch with reality. 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:22.400 Why do directors not have long careers. They don't have 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.959 long careers because they become extremely successful. They move into 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:31.120 these huge mansions and live an isolated life. They watch 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:32.920 movies in their screening room. They don't do their own 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.040 grocery shopping, they don't pump their own gas, they don't 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.240 get out there on the street. At the end of 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.680 all that, you've lost connection to real people. What are 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.400 you making movies about? I realized the reason I went 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.200 back to New York was to connect with everyone again. 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.240 So I could go to the corner superrette and buy 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.160 a carton of orangees for forty dollars. That hasn't changed 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.960 to this day. I have not changed. You know, I 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.040 have a great housekeeper now in San Francisco. But for 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.720 the most part, again because I'm a director and nobody 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.200 really knows what the hell I look like, I'm anonymous. Yeah, 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:09.360 but you've yeah, you've kept this very low profile. The 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:11.920 only thing that mattered to me about becoming a director 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.880 was longevity. I wanted to make sure that my career 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.120 would last for decades, no matter what I was doing, 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.240 and I felt that part of that has been this 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:25.280 ability to sort of hide in plain sight in a 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.600 weird way. Now I understand it. So you're a writer 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.560 and you do Gremlin's, and you do Goonies and you 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:36.440 do Young Sherlock Holmes. Is the notion of you directing 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:42.160 a film? Is it starting to percolate? Do you go 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.480 to Spielberg and say, I want to direct this one? Now? 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.040 It came. It started with Jesse corn Blooth. Jesse Cornbluth 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.400 put into my head at n y U, the only 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:53.160 way you're gonna get to become a director is by 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:57.880 writing a few successful screenplays. After Young Sherlock Holmes, then 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:01.160 I realized Gooneys and Gramlin had been successful enough that 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.560 maybe I could get a directing gig. My agent sent 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.600 me a copy of the script called Adventures in Babysitting 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:11.360 Elizabeth with Elizabeth Shoe and Anthony Rapp. I love this. 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:13.640 I love the script. I thought this is something I 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.920 could do, and I had great producers, Linda Oaps and 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.560 Deborah Hill, who were very supportive of me as the 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.200 first time director. The first day on the set was 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:26.080 a little little horrifying. It was my dream to be 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:28.800 directing a film, Yet at the same time I realized 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:30.960 I had to go hunt of the set and face 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:33.880 two fifty people and tell them what to do, and 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.640 you've never done it before. I got over my fear 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.880 pretty quickly because I had to. It's like jumping off. 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.320 Do you still have an apprehension about that now? When 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.080 it's first day of school and I mean shooting. It's 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.800 not Chris who was drawing his Marvel comics, Chris that 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.960 was hiding behind the aluminum spools, writing scripts and everything one. 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:55.640 Everybody else has taken a nap at the aluminum factory. 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.440 It's not Chris alone. There's the writer director who has 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:01.720 this kind of nastic process. Then there's the guy that's 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:03.520 got to go out and be the captain of the 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:05.600 ship on the deck of the ship with two or 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:09.640 three people there. So that's a skill you had to develop, correct, 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:13.320 I think so, But I again, because well, definitely. So, 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.320 you know, I was terrifying the first couple of days, 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.040 but then I realized, Yeah, I realized that a lot 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:23.440 of these crew guys, we're like beaten animals because directors. 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.040 There are so many directors who are such assholes. They're 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:29.560 so kind of cruel and angry, and they're working something 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:31.160 out on the set of the film. Yeah, and I 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:34.440 thought that won't work for me. And I realized after 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.680 three or four weeks that people were responding just to 0:15:37.720 --> 0:15:39.880 the fact that I was not grumpy in the morning, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.080 that I wasn't piste off all the time, the fact 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:45.200 that I was genuinely a pretty happy guy and I 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.440 really valued what everybody was doing, and if somebody made 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.360 a mistake, I wasn't ready to rip their head off. 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.080 I just I understood it. So you're there, you make 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.960 the film, and what happens. The film opened to like 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:01.480 seven million dollars back then, which was perceived disaster. So 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:05.240 I'm thinking I'm never gonna work again. What happened is 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.520 the second weekend. It did something that no film some 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.240 certain films do, A few films do, which is a 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.840 shot up in attendance. So we did better the second weekend. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:18.040 I was able to go off and make another film. 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:20.960 Then what do you go do? I pitched a film 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.360 to Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I went off and wrote something 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.000 else instead, a movie called Heartbreak Hotel about my own 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:30.360 obsession with Elvis Presley. The movie opens on a Friday. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.760 I read Roger Ebert's review calling it one of the 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:37.680 worst films here. Um, once again, I'm thinking it's over. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.560 I'll go back to writing. At the time, my first child, Eleanor, 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.680 was born and I got a script from John Hughes. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:47.800 We both had the same agent, and he said, do 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:51.960 you want to do the third Christmas Vacation movie. I 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:54.720 was like, that's not really I didn't dream of becoming 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.080 a filmmaker to do that particular movie. But I thought 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.600 I needed the gig and John muses supporting me, so 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:03.760 I started to do that movie. I shot Second Unit, 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.040 and I had such a disastrous relationship with the star 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.960 Chevy Chase, who you know, he has no shortage of enemies. 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:19.000 It was so disastrous and so humiliating for me, just 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:21.880 based on three meetings that I quit. I said that John, 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:26.239 I can't do this, I cannot make He's like, you know, 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.280 Chevy's a complicated guy, He's a rich food. I said, 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:31.960 let me tell you something. He treats. He when I 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.280 first walked in, he thought I was an assistant. So 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.560 I'm like, I can't really work this way I and 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.280 so I quit. And then I was really I thought 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.800 I was really in trouble. And John and I got 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:47.160 along great. So John sent me the script for Home 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:51.040 Alone again luck and I fell in love with the script. 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:52.399 I thought it was a great script. I think he 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:55.800 wrote it in two days. I loved him, loved him, 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:58.080 I mean his life and how he went and how 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.320 he kind of left and you know, get up and 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.040 moved back to Chicago. Not gave up, but he kind 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.040 of kind of walked away from It. Was always so 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.280 sad to me because I thought, God, I mean, I 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.200 was hoping I could become the next John Candy in 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.879 his career and the grown leading crazy uncle Buck of 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:16.040 the next barage of films of his I loved working 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.639 with him, loved him. What was your experience like it 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.480 was exactly the same. Um, I walked off of a 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.359 movie that he had given me for some strange reason. 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.080 I think he respected that or he understood it, and 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:31.080 being chevy, he understood. Yeah, I think so, and he uh, 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.000 you know, when I read this script, I thought, this 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.240 is a gift, this script, the script is really really important. 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.159 And the only concern I had was I had a 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:43.679 you know, I had a newborn at the time. And 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.320 John liked to work from about tenant when he was 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:48.439 right when he was a producer in writing. You know, 0:18:48.520 --> 0:18:51.720 he wrote all night long. So we would be doing 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.560 pre production during the day on Home Alone, and then 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:56.359 for story meetings, I'd go to his house in Like 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.480 Forest and we'd work from ten to about five in 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.560 the mornings. I was getting during the pre production hours 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.960 of Home Alone, I was getting about two hours sleep, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.680 and John told these great stories. So he would tell 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.400 stories you probably remember, and smoke and these stories would 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.480 go on for three hours before we ever got into 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.359 the movie. The fact that we were making a movie. 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.200 Who cast McCauley, Well, John put him an uncle Buck 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:20.840 and John said you should see this kid. But John 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:24.439 never said cast him. So McCauley came up to my 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.520 New York apartment. He and his father the first kid 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:31.320 I met, and he was incredibly charming, terrific. But I 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:33.760 said to John, just because I felt like I wanted 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:35.800 to be responsible, I said I should meet some other kids. 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:37.600 So I met about three hundred other kids and then 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.239 came back around a mccaully. Let me get back. I'm 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.200 gonna be three kids, and I had to do my job. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.119 But McCauley was the first one you saw, you know, 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.000 it was. It was an interesting situation, kind of like 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:53.000 the kids in in Harry Potter a little bit. McAuley 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:54.920 had only done one or two movies, so he would 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.320 do a line, one line, maybe two lines, and then 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.640 get distracted. So a lot of that film is cut 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.040 into pieces just so we could get his performance together. 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.399 But what happened on screen, it was amazingly charming. And 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.120 you had Heard is the father? John heard yeah, and 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.240 Catherine is the mother, and I heard thought he was 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:16.720 making heard who I love? But I loved him in 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:18.679 Cutter his Way, remember cut his Way one of the 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.879 great performances. But while he was making Home Alone, he 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:24.840 thought he was making the biggest piece of ship in 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:26.720 the world and he was. He was a pain in 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.040 the ass, a little fit. He comes back on home 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:34.119 alone too, and the first day he's shooting, I yell action. 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.080 He breaks character and he said, I just would like 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.919 to say to Chris and the crew, I owe you 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.240 a big apology. Made a great movie the first time, 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.480 and I'm here to support you. Wow, we have it 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:47.560 in dailies. I still have a tape for that. And 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.800