Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspired their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. The only thing
Speaker 1: that mattered to me about becoming a director was longevity.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that my career would last
Speaker 1: for decades. I make what to change the world. I
Speaker 1: think that's any reason to do anything, and getting a
Speaker 1: group of people in to start a conversation with the
Speaker 1: community and with the society you live in is going
Speaker 1: to be the greatest thing you can do Today. I
Speaker 1: talked with two movie directors who have each had enormous
Speaker 1: success with very different types of films. Stephen Daldry got
Speaker 1: his start in theater. He's British, and his transition to
Speaker 1: filmmaking appeared effortless. His first three films, Billy Elliott, The Hours,
Speaker 1: and The Reader featured complicated characters and serious topics class struggle,
Speaker 1: the search for Life's Purpose and war crimes. Each film
Speaker 1: also earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Director. My
Speaker 1: first guest, Chris Columbus, has brought to the screen some
Speaker 1: of the biggest American family films of the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: Adventures in Babysitting Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire. He also produced
Speaker 1: and directed the first two Harry Potter films and produced
Speaker 1: the third as well. I'm a Wizard and a Something
Speaker 1: Good at Night Wager. Once you trade up a little, No,
Speaker 1: you've made a mistake. I mean, I can't be a wizard.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm plus Harry. I've known Chris for a
Speaker 1: long time. We were in school together at n y U.
Speaker 1: I lived, started at Weinstein and then um moved to Reuben.
Speaker 1: You were in Reuben, as in Reuben and I think
Speaker 1: that's where we met. For Columbus, n y U was
Speaker 1: more than just a place to learn the craft. He loved.
Speaker 1: Film school for me was the only It was sort
Speaker 1: of the only way out, you know. UM. I grew
Speaker 1: up in a Both of my parents were factory workers
Speaker 1: in Ohio. UM My future was basically working at either
Speaker 1: my father's aluminum factory or my mother's automotive factory. Literally
Speaker 1: didn't own them that. I was just be working and
Speaker 1: they did. You could own them them. I did. Although
Speaker 1: I don't think there's much work there. But at the
Speaker 1: time that was it, you know, and and the only
Speaker 1: escape really for me. Uh, we're movies And what were
Speaker 1: movies to you? Then? There was no DVD, there was
Speaker 1: no Noble television. How did you movies were the either
Speaker 1: the CBS Late Night movie. I would sneak out of
Speaker 1: bed and watch the late night movie on CBS and
Speaker 1: just stay in the movie theaters on the weekend there
Speaker 1: were only two theaters, and I would watch whatever film
Speaker 1: came into town over and over. And I remember something
Speaker 1: clicked when I saw Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid,
Speaker 1: and I watched it three times and I just was
Speaker 1: amazed by the movie. And I didn't Nobody knew about
Speaker 1: film schools. Nobody knew that you could actually go to
Speaker 1: school and learn how to become I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what a director was. Um So I put my energy
Speaker 1: into illustrating and writing comic books. I thought. I still
Speaker 1: didn't understand the film concept, but I started to draw
Speaker 1: Spider Man comics, Thor comics, Halt comics. I wanted a
Speaker 1: job at Marvel in the Marvel that was my goal.
Speaker 1: I still love movies, but I didn't I didn't understand
Speaker 1: how to completely. And yeah, and so the comic books
Speaker 1: and all of the this is very naive of me,
Speaker 1: but all the comic book superheroes lived in New York City.
Speaker 1: So this was this magical place for me as a kid,
Speaker 1: because I'm drawing New York City all the time. Then
Speaker 1: I saw The Godfather. The Godfather was re released, and
Speaker 1: then the next movie I saw was Blazing Saddles. I
Speaker 1: saw those two movies change my life, both ends of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. I realized with Blazing Saddles, the possibilities of
Speaker 1: what you could do with film were endless. And Time
Speaker 1: magazine came out with a one page article about film schools,
Speaker 1: and I read about Martin Scorsese, and I read about
Speaker 1: Francis Ford Coppeland. I read about USC and U, C
Speaker 1: l A and n y U, and I said to
Speaker 1: my parents, this is what I want to do. What
Speaker 1: they say. They were extraordinarily supported. They were amazingly supportive.
Speaker 1: Every other relative in my family was not supportive. I
Speaker 1: got to New York and I remember my father drove
Speaker 1: me up to Weinstein and he looked at the city
Speaker 1: and looked at the dorm, and he said, let's go home.
Speaker 1: I'll drive you back home now, and I said, no way,
Speaker 1: no way. I was in I was literally in oz
Speaker 1: and I knew that I had no choice but to succeed.
Speaker 1: I had to find a way to succeed or I
Speaker 1: would be back in the middle of Ohio working in
Speaker 1: an aluminum factory. So you get there. Had you ever
Speaker 1: touched any film equipment before? H yeah? Super. My parents
Speaker 1: did buy me a Super eight sound camera, which enabled
Speaker 1: me to start to films. Actually, I made a twenty
Speaker 1: minute film for my theology class because I went to
Speaker 1: a very strict Catholic school, so it was a theology
Speaker 1: class that was dealing with social issues. So we made
Speaker 1: a film about abortion of the sectomes. And I was
Speaker 1: very inspired at the time by remember SNL just nine
Speaker 1: seventies six. Sn L had just come. You know, we
Speaker 1: would spend our Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. So
Speaker 1: I was doing these basically commercial parodies that I had
Speaker 1: versions that I had seen on sn L, and I
Speaker 1: screened it for for the class. The class loved it.
Speaker 1: The priest was horrified, Um, what did your parents say
Speaker 1: about all your politically incorrect films? Very dark stuff back then?
Speaker 1: You know? They You know, my my mother went with it.
Speaker 1: My father didn't really want to have much to do
Speaker 1: with it. He figured, okay that you know, my father
Speaker 1: was most most of the time, my father was under
Speaker 1: a car repairing it, you know, and in the garage
Speaker 1: when he wasn't working or having a beer. So I um,
Speaker 1: as long as he's not on the streets, it's exactly
Speaker 1: my parents, not only not taking drugs, that's true. You know,
Speaker 1: my mother was very supportive. My mother was probably much
Speaker 1: more supportive than my father about what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And she had She shared sort of that dark sense
Speaker 1: of humor that I had as well. I used to
Speaker 1: watch SNL with her. She loved it. So you you
Speaker 1: get to Weinstein, you have a super eight sound camera,
Speaker 1: but you get to Weinstein and what's what are the
Speaker 1: first recollections you have of that when you get there?
Speaker 1: To go to n y U? Honestly, n Yu. The
Speaker 1: night I got there, drinking age was eighteen sponsored a
Speaker 1: bar tour. Can you imagine them doing that these days?
Speaker 1: Eight to ten bars in the East Village. They would
Speaker 1: take a group of freshmen and go to each bar Chumley's,
Speaker 1: ms o Orley's. And that's where I met my best friends.
Speaker 1: And that's where I met my future producing partner, Michael Barnathan.
Speaker 1: We met that first night bart Nights and and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could be. I mean, the lawsuits are ridiculous, and
Speaker 1: we met. I mean, you know what it what it's like.
Speaker 1: You go into this community of everyone who shares your
Speaker 1: deepest love of something like film, and you have someone
Speaker 1: to talk to about it. I had no one to
Speaker 1: talk to about it in Ohio, you know. I was
Speaker 1: this everyone's come there from the aluminum factory. And then
Speaker 1: when you left n y U, what did you do?
Speaker 1: I left n y U. I had actually I was
Speaker 1: lucky enough I had left, but in sight, I had
Speaker 1: a scholarship. I had this great scholarship that got me
Speaker 1: through ny U the first year, and my mother would
Speaker 1: call me. You remember, we had those pay phones at
Speaker 1: the end of our dorm Hallways's no cell phone. So
Speaker 1: every Sunday I would go to the payphone a call home,
Speaker 1: and my mother would say, Chris, don't forget to go
Speaker 1: to the Burstar's office and sign. I had to sign
Speaker 1: some papers so I would renew my scholarship and I
Speaker 1: would say, Mom, no problem. That went on for six weeks.
Speaker 1: The seventh week I called. She was screaming at me, said,
Speaker 1: you lost the scholarship. This summer, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: work at the aluminum factory. So so I went back.
Speaker 1: I went back to Ohio, and I was working basically
Speaker 1: swing shifts. I would work day shifts, afternoon shifts, and
Speaker 1: night shifts. After your first year, my first year, I
Speaker 1: realized if I was on the night shift, I could read.
Speaker 1: So that first year I was just read, you know,
Speaker 1: novels for eight hours. I had to do it again
Speaker 1: after my sophomore year. So I went back my sophomore
Speaker 1: year and I realized if I could get on the
Speaker 1: night shift for the entire summer, I could write a screenplay.
Speaker 1: So what I did is I remember these gigantic, hulking
Speaker 1: cylinders of aluminum, and I would sneak behind the aluminium
Speaker 1: cores and sit there with a notepad, and I wrote
Speaker 1: my first screenplay, a screenplay called Jocks about high school football,
Speaker 1: my experiences with high school football. And I was a
Speaker 1: terrible football player, but I I you know, it was
Speaker 1: very very sorry. Yeah, I suited up and I brought
Speaker 1: that back to my writing teacher, a guy named Jesse Cornbluth,
Speaker 1: who gave it to his agent, some guy a producers
Speaker 1: since passed away. Steve Friedman optioned it for five grand.
Speaker 1: That five grand prevented me from ever having to go
Speaker 1: back to the liminary factory. And then when I was out,
Speaker 1: you know, after college, I just, uh, my agents started
Speaker 1: to get me writing gigs. A friend of mine, Mitch, said,
Speaker 1: you know, there hasn't since Jaws, there really hasn't been
Speaker 1: a great movie that's featured. He used the word monster.
Speaker 1: There has not been a great monster movie made. And
Speaker 1: I said, that's a good idea. That's interesting. And in
Speaker 1: the loft I lived in, we had these mice scurring
Speaker 1: around on the floors and I would sleep with my
Speaker 1: hand draped over the bed and mice would go by
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. I thought, these tiny
Speaker 1: creatures are frightening. So I spent the next six weeks
Speaker 1: writing the script called Gremlin's and I sent it to
Speaker 1: my agent, who um liked the script but felt it
Speaker 1: was a little dark, and still sent it to about
Speaker 1: fifty producers and studio executives and everyone passed on it.
Speaker 1: And Spielberg Steven Spielberg was leaving his office on a
Speaker 1: Friday and passed his secretary's desk, and it was sitting there.
Speaker 1: That's why so much of this business is luck. He
Speaker 1: passed the script and saw the title and said that
Speaker 1: looks interesting, picked it up, read it that weekend, and
Speaker 1: decided he wanted to option the movie. Now I didn't
Speaker 1: know this. I gotta call up my loft bar. Nathan
Speaker 1: answers the phone and says, as someone on air says,
Speaker 1: that's Steven Spielberg. Remember I get I get the phone.
Speaker 1: He goes, Chris, it's Steven Spielberg. I was stunned. And
Speaker 1: I lived in l A for nine months at that point,
Speaker 1: So what happens in that nine months? He's giving you
Speaker 1: notes or there's creative people. He would give me notes.
Speaker 1: Now Gremlins was sort of off and running, and someone
Speaker 1: else was even rewriting it. As I was working on
Speaker 1: another script for Stephen. For some strange reason, I had
Speaker 1: sort of carte blanche. I could go into his office.
Speaker 1: He would be sitting there with Richard Gere or or
Speaker 1: uh or Warren Beatty. One time he's like, Chris, come
Speaker 1: on in, would he and I would start to talk
Speaker 1: to him about ideas. One day he's looking through these
Speaker 1: old ec comic books, and he says, look at this title, Chris,
Speaker 1: the goon Children. And I said, the goon Children, that's
Speaker 1: a cool title. And we came up with this story
Speaker 1: to other about these kids who find a treasure map,
Speaker 1: and it was the Goonies. I would write three pages
Speaker 1: of Goonies, run to Steven's office, give it to him.
Speaker 1: He would make some notes. I would run back to
Speaker 1: my office and make the changes. Then I wrote Young
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes with him, kind of in the same way.
Speaker 1: What did you learn from Spielberg? Spielberg was like graduate
Speaker 1: school of filmmaking. For me. Spielberg was like, UM, I
Speaker 1: learned shortcuts. Basically, it was a Billy Wilder quote that Stephen,
Speaker 1: you know, nailed into my head every day, which was,
Speaker 1: don't tell the audience something more than once. I learned
Speaker 1: how to edit material, I learned how to write better dialogue,
Speaker 1: and I learned how to be much more visual as
Speaker 1: a writer from Stephen. So it was a great relationship,
Speaker 1: you know, um, and still is a great relationship to
Speaker 1: this day. We have the opportunity to work together a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, so I really loved that time.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I needed to get back
Speaker 1: to Manhattan. Why. I don't know. I just felt like
Speaker 1: I missed I missed it. I mean it was it's
Speaker 1: very simple. But did you have a sense, because I
Speaker 1: find other people have the same thing, it's better for
Speaker 1: me to stay here for my career. You didn't think
Speaker 1: of long those lines, No, I I don't think at
Speaker 1: the time, I was able to articulate it. You know,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years down the road, now I can look
Speaker 1: back and and understand why I did it. Because I
Speaker 1: was seeing the beginning of people losing touch with reality.
Speaker 1: Why do directors not have long careers. They don't have
Speaker 1: long careers because they become extremely successful. They move into
Speaker 1: these huge mansions and live an isolated life. They watch
Speaker 1: movies in their screening room. They don't do their own
Speaker 1: grocery shopping, they don't pump their own gas, they don't
Speaker 1: get out there on the street. At the end of
Speaker 1: all that, you've lost connection to real people. What are
Speaker 1: you making movies about? I realized the reason I went
Speaker 1: back to New York was to connect with everyone again.
Speaker 1: So I could go to the corner superrette and buy
Speaker 1: a carton of orangees for forty dollars. That hasn't changed
Speaker 1: to this day. I have not changed. You know, I
Speaker 1: have a great housekeeper now in San Francisco. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, again because I'm a director and nobody
Speaker 1: really knows what the hell I look like, I'm anonymous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you've yeah, you've kept this very low profile. The
Speaker 1: only thing that mattered to me about becoming a director
Speaker 1: was longevity. I wanted to make sure that my career
Speaker 1: would last for decades, no matter what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and I felt that part of that has been this
Speaker 1: ability to sort of hide in plain sight in a
Speaker 1: weird way. Now I understand it. So you're a writer
Speaker 1: and you do Gremlin's, and you do Goonies and you
Speaker 1: do Young Sherlock Holmes. Is the notion of you directing
Speaker 1: a film? Is it starting to percolate? Do you go
Speaker 1: to Spielberg and say, I want to direct this one? Now?
Speaker 1: It came. It started with Jesse corn Blooth. Jesse Cornbluth
Speaker 1: put into my head at n y U, the only
Speaker 1: way you're gonna get to become a director is by
Speaker 1: writing a few successful screenplays. After Young Sherlock Holmes, then
Speaker 1: I realized Gooneys and Gramlin had been successful enough that
Speaker 1: maybe I could get a directing gig. My agent sent
Speaker 1: me a copy of the script called Adventures in Babysitting
Speaker 1: Elizabeth with Elizabeth Shoe and Anthony Rapp. I love this.
Speaker 1: I love the script. I thought this is something I
Speaker 1: could do, and I had great producers, Linda Oaps and
Speaker 1: Deborah Hill, who were very supportive of me as the
Speaker 1: first time director. The first day on the set was
Speaker 1: a little little horrifying. It was my dream to be
Speaker 1: directing a film, Yet at the same time I realized
Speaker 1: I had to go hunt of the set and face
Speaker 1: two fifty people and tell them what to do, and
Speaker 1: you've never done it before. I got over my fear
Speaker 1: pretty quickly because I had to. It's like jumping off.
Speaker 1: Do you still have an apprehension about that now? When
Speaker 1: it's first day of school and I mean shooting. It's
Speaker 1: not Chris who was drawing his Marvel comics, Chris that
Speaker 1: was hiding behind the aluminum spools, writing scripts and everything one.
Speaker 1: Everybody else has taken a nap at the aluminum factory.
Speaker 1: It's not Chris alone. There's the writer director who has
Speaker 1: this kind of nastic process. Then there's the guy that's
Speaker 1: got to go out and be the captain of the
Speaker 1: ship on the deck of the ship with two or
Speaker 1: three people there. So that's a skill you had to develop, correct,
Speaker 1: I think so, But I again, because well, definitely. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I was terrifying the first couple of days,
Speaker 1: but then I realized, Yeah, I realized that a lot
Speaker 1: of these crew guys, we're like beaten animals because directors.
Speaker 1: There are so many directors who are such assholes. They're
Speaker 1: so kind of cruel and angry, and they're working something
Speaker 1: out on the set of the film. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: thought that won't work for me. And I realized after
Speaker 1: three or four weeks that people were responding just to
Speaker 1: the fact that I was not grumpy in the morning,
Speaker 1: that I wasn't piste off all the time, the fact
Speaker 1: that I was genuinely a pretty happy guy and I
Speaker 1: really valued what everybody was doing, and if somebody made
Speaker 1: a mistake, I wasn't ready to rip their head off.
Speaker 1: I just I understood it. So you're there, you make
Speaker 1: the film, and what happens. The film opened to like
Speaker 1: seven million dollars back then, which was perceived disaster. So
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm never gonna work again. What happened is
Speaker 1: the second weekend. It did something that no film some
Speaker 1: certain films do, A few films do, which is a
Speaker 1: shot up in attendance. So we did better the second weekend.
Speaker 1: I was able to go off and make another film.
Speaker 1: Then what do you go do? I pitched a film
Speaker 1: to Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I went off and wrote something
Speaker 1: else instead, a movie called Heartbreak Hotel about my own
Speaker 1: obsession with Elvis Presley. The movie opens on a Friday.
Speaker 1: I read Roger Ebert's review calling it one of the
Speaker 1: worst films here. Um, once again, I'm thinking it's over.
Speaker 1: I'll go back to writing. At the time, my first child, Eleanor,
Speaker 1: was born and I got a script from John Hughes.
Speaker 1: We both had the same agent, and he said, do
Speaker 1: you want to do the third Christmas Vacation movie. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's not really I didn't dream of becoming
Speaker 1: a filmmaker to do that particular movie. But I thought
Speaker 1: I needed the gig and John muses supporting me, so
Speaker 1: I started to do that movie. I shot Second Unit,
Speaker 1: and I had such a disastrous relationship with the star
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase, who you know, he has no shortage of enemies.
Speaker 1: It was so disastrous and so humiliating for me, just
Speaker 1: based on three meetings that I quit. I said that John,
Speaker 1: I can't do this, I cannot make He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: Chevy's a complicated guy, He's a rich food. I said,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. He treats. He when I
Speaker 1: first walked in, he thought I was an assistant. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I can't really work this way I and
Speaker 1: so I quit. And then I was really I thought
Speaker 1: I was really in trouble. And John and I got
Speaker 1: along great. So John sent me the script for Home
Speaker 1: Alone again luck and I fell in love with the script.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a great script. I think he
Speaker 1: wrote it in two days. I loved him, loved him,
Speaker 1: I mean his life and how he went and how
Speaker 1: he kind of left and you know, get up and
Speaker 1: moved back to Chicago. Not gave up, but he kind
Speaker 1: of kind of walked away from It. Was always so
Speaker 1: sad to me because I thought, God, I mean, I
Speaker 1: was hoping I could become the next John Candy in
Speaker 1: his career and the grown leading crazy uncle Buck of
Speaker 1: the next barage of films of his I loved working
Speaker 1: with him, loved him. What was your experience like it
Speaker 1: was exactly the same. Um, I walked off of a
Speaker 1: movie that he had given me for some strange reason.
Speaker 1: I think he respected that or he understood it, and
Speaker 1: being chevy, he understood. Yeah, I think so, and he uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when I read this script, I thought, this
Speaker 1: is a gift, this script, the script is really really important.
Speaker 1: And the only concern I had was I had a
Speaker 1: you know, I had a newborn at the time. And
Speaker 1: John liked to work from about tenant when he was
Speaker 1: right when he was a producer in writing. You know,
Speaker 1: he wrote all night long. So we would be doing
Speaker 1: pre production during the day on Home Alone, and then
Speaker 1: for story meetings, I'd go to his house in Like
Speaker 1: Forest and we'd work from ten to about five in
Speaker 1: the mornings. I was getting during the pre production hours
Speaker 1: of Home Alone, I was getting about two hours sleep,
Speaker 1: and John told these great stories. So he would tell
Speaker 1: stories you probably remember, and smoke and these stories would
Speaker 1: go on for three hours before we ever got into
Speaker 1: the movie. The fact that we were making a movie.
Speaker 1: Who cast McCauley, Well, John put him an uncle Buck
Speaker 1: and John said you should see this kid. But John
Speaker 1: never said cast him. So McCauley came up to my
Speaker 1: New York apartment. He and his father the first kid
Speaker 1: I met, and he was incredibly charming, terrific. But I
Speaker 1: said to John, just because I felt like I wanted
Speaker 1: to be responsible, I said I should meet some other kids.
Speaker 1: So I met about three hundred other kids and then
Speaker 1: came back around a mccaully. Let me get back. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be three kids, and I had to do my job.
Speaker 1: But McCauley was the first one you saw, you know,
Speaker 1: it was. It was an interesting situation, kind of like
Speaker 1: the kids in in Harry Potter a little bit. McAuley
Speaker 1: had only done one or two movies, so he would
Speaker 1: do a line, one line, maybe two lines, and then
Speaker 1: get distracted. So a lot of that film is cut
Speaker 1: into pieces just so we could get his performance together.
Speaker 1: But what happened on screen, it was amazingly charming. And
Speaker 1: you had Heard is the father? John heard yeah, and
Speaker 1: Catherine is the mother, and I heard thought he was
Speaker 1: making heard who I love? But I loved him in
Speaker 1: Cutter his Way, remember cut his Way one of the
Speaker 1: great performances. But while he was making Home Alone, he
Speaker 1: thought he was making the biggest piece of ship in
Speaker 1: the world and he was. He was a pain in
Speaker 1: the ass, a little fit. He comes back on home
Speaker 1: alone too, and the first day he's shooting, I yell action.
Speaker 1: He breaks character and he said, I just would like
Speaker 1: to say to Chris and the crew, I owe you
Speaker 1: a big apology. Made a great movie the first time,
Speaker 1: and I'm here to support you. Wow, we have it
Speaker 1: in dailies. I still have a tape for that. And
Speaker 1: I got to work with John Candy for the first time.
Speaker 1: And John Candy came in for one day of shooting.
Speaker 1: We had it for one day and he has like
Speaker 1: six scenes in the movie. So we shot for twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, twenty four hours straight and he kept going.
Speaker 1: He just would continue to improvise, and it was my
Speaker 1: first sort of foray into improvisation. John would do a
Speaker 1: script to take and then he would start to play
Speaker 1: Blinky Polka King of the Midwest. And he loved improvising.
Speaker 1: He was he was brilliant at it. I had a
Speaker 1: few hits a few years ago. That's why you know.
Speaker 1: Just Polka, Polca, Polca, Old Folca, No in Twin Lakes, Polka, do'mahugie, Polka,
Speaker 1: kiss Me Polca, polka twist. In a minute, Chris Columbus
Speaker 1: talks about working with another brilliant improviser, Robin Williams. We've
Speaker 1: come to this planet looking for intelligent life. Would happened
Speaker 1: to be in America. Don't ask for the dream cap.
Speaker 1: I want you on the lost wile. Well, it's just
Speaker 1: suddenly a rough meeting and it's not going very well
Speaker 1: for me. I'll tell you that this is Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Take a listen to our archive where
Speaker 1: you can hear more interviews with artists, dollars and performers.
Speaker 1: Turns out Chris Columbus isn't the only one with a
Speaker 1: mother who was a die hard SNL fan. My mom
Speaker 1: really loved Saturday Night Live. She loved it. She I
Speaker 1: remember her talking about Chevy Chase and she would say like, oh,
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase, he's so funny. You just look at his face.
Speaker 1: And you want to listen to my interview with comedian
Speaker 1: Fred Armison And here's the thing, Dot Org, I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Chris Columbus
Speaker 1: says he wanted to work with Robin Williams ever since
Speaker 1: he saw him in Good Morning, Vietnam. Five years later,
Speaker 1: Columbus got his chance. I feel like I've known you
Speaker 1: for years, maybe we knew each other in another life.
Speaker 1: I would love for you to come and work with us.
Speaker 1: Who would I great, would be an honor to us,
Speaker 1: to us start for business relationship. Mrs Doubtfire, a film
Speaker 1: about a divorced father who dresses as a Scottish nanny
Speaker 1: to trick his ex wife into hiring him to care
Speaker 1: for their kids, won a Golden Globe for Best Comedy.
Speaker 1: Robin Williams won a Globe for Best Actor. But before
Speaker 1: all that would happen, Before the filming even began, Chris
Speaker 1: Columbus had to meet Williams for lunch, and I was terrified.
Speaker 1: I had worked with guys like Passy who I admired,
Speaker 1: and Dan Stern, but Robin was a true superstar at
Speaker 1: the time, and I was I was nervous about how
Speaker 1: it would go. And we just we hit it off immediately,
Speaker 1: you know, we wanted to. We really connected. Much of
Speaker 1: Mrs doubt Fire was shot in San Francisco, and Columbus
Speaker 1: took the opportunity to move his growing family out west.
Speaker 1: It's a great place to raise a family, and I
Speaker 1: felt Manhattan would be a little difficult. I was walking
Speaker 1: down the street man and with my addler, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't hear what she was saying to me. I couldn't
Speaker 1: you know she's telling And I thought, I gotta I've
Speaker 1: gotta be in a calmer place. And I also fell
Speaker 1: in love with the city. San Francisco is a great city,
Speaker 1: and I had in the relationship with Robin was still
Speaker 1: is terrific. Had a great relationship with Robin. And with
Speaker 1: Robin again, it's like it's like a steroid version of
Speaker 1: John Candy, where you John liked to improvise, but Robin
Speaker 1: lives to improvise. So it was almost like seeing a
Speaker 1: Springsteen concert where he has to exhaust himself after four
Speaker 1: and a half hours of playing before you can go
Speaker 1: to sleep at night. With Robin, it was the same thing.
Speaker 1: We would shoot anywhere from twelve to fifteen takes for
Speaker 1: each scene, and we would start with a very structured
Speaker 1: script to take and then move off of the script
Speaker 1: and change everything. And that's why that picture had to
Speaker 1: be shot with two or three cameras, because do the exectit.
Speaker 1: Fox know that when you're going in to make a
Speaker 1: film and you have someone who's is varied and who's
Speaker 1: is uh, who says uh, what's the word? You know,
Speaker 1: as spontaneous as he is. Did you call them up
Speaker 1: after the first week of shooting and say, fellas, just
Speaker 1: tear up the budget. We gotta start all over again.
Speaker 1: Now we stayed under We stayed not under budget, but
Speaker 1: we stayed on budget. Maybe we went over one or
Speaker 1: two days because he is fast, He's lightening fast, and
Speaker 1: we shot with two or three cameras. We understood the
Speaker 1: cost benefit analysis of his improvisations. He wasn't somebody who
Speaker 1: was over the indulgence. No, And you had actors. You
Speaker 1: had Sally Field and Pierce Brosnan acting across from this guy,
Speaker 1: not knowing what he was going to say on take
Speaker 1: number five or six. So we had to have a
Speaker 1: camera on them because he's I mean, the word genius
Speaker 1: has used a lot these days. But he he comes
Speaker 1: up with these things so quickly. He doesn't remember that
Speaker 1: he said them in the next take. It's just he's possessed.
Speaker 1: I sometimes tell people shooting Mr Stuff I was like
Speaker 1: shooting a documentary. And by the time we got to
Speaker 1: the editing room, with millions of feet of film. At
Speaker 1: the time, we weren't shooting digitally yet. We had or
Speaker 1: five different versions of the film. We had the PG version,
Speaker 1: the PG thirteen, the R in the n C seventeen.
Speaker 1: I showed Marcia, who was the producer, because the film
Speaker 1: needed to be PG thirteen, so we knew we couldn't
Speaker 1: have an R rated version of Mrs Do Fire. I
Speaker 1: showed Marcia cut of the film, and then Robin wanted
Speaker 1: to see it with an audience, and that was the
Speaker 1: sort of the thing that sealed the deal, because the
Speaker 1: audience really responded. It was like it really was a
Speaker 1: huge He wasn't then intrusive about cutting the film, and
Speaker 1: he just as long as the film worked in front
Speaker 1: of an audience, he was happy. He left. That was it.
Speaker 1: It's just every day he we developed this sense of
Speaker 1: trust after a couple of weeks, and I would it
Speaker 1: was incredibly exhausting shoot, working fourteen hours a day, and
Speaker 1: I'd get home at night and just poured myself a
Speaker 1: glass of wine and the phone to ring. It was
Speaker 1: Robin Howard Daily's how how was I in? Daily? So
Speaker 1: he was he was very very obsessive in terms of
Speaker 1: his own performance and dot Fire sort of received mixed reviews.
Speaker 1: So for me, I because because of my love of
Speaker 1: film history and because of my love of certain films,
Speaker 1: there was a level of keeping it very real by
Speaker 1: reading what some of these people were saying. Now, some
Speaker 1: I should probably be have a tougher skin and say,
Speaker 1: I don't give us what they're saying. So with doubt Fire,
Speaker 1: there was a sense that we had created a movie
Speaker 1: that was very successful a lot of people fell in
Speaker 1: love with, but it didn't for me personally. I didn't
Speaker 1: get to that point where I wanted. You know, I
Speaker 1: always wanted to have that level of critical success and
Speaker 1: commercial success as well. I just wasn't there yet. So
Speaker 1: I managed to stay hungry. I mean, there was a
Speaker 1: feeling of me that I needed to accomplish a lot more,
Speaker 1: and I really still feel that way. I still felt
Speaker 1: that there's a long way to go there. Back on
Speaker 1: doubt Fire, felt that there was a long way to go. Mrs.
Speaker 1: Doubt Fire grossed over four hundred and forty million dollars worldwide.
Speaker 1: The Harry Potter films did even better. Two years ago,
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus produced The Help, a much smaller film which
Speaker 1: earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Clearly Chris is skilled
Speaker 1: at selecting the right material to work with, or maybe
Speaker 1: he just surrounds himself with the right people who greeky you,
Speaker 1: Harry Potter. I'm Marti Granger. So when these books one
Speaker 1: of these juggernauts come, who first comes to you and
Speaker 1: says you're going to direct those as a film? It
Speaker 1: was my daughter, because she was the one who tried
Speaker 1: to convince me for about a year and a half
Speaker 1: to read the Harry Potter books. And finally when I
Speaker 1: did and I realized I wanted to make the movie.
Speaker 1: There were twenty five other directors who were in line.
Speaker 1: They called it at Warner Brothers a bake off. So
Speaker 1: I was in line because Spielberg had dropped out. Steven
Speaker 1: Spielberg had dropped He was the one that was going
Speaker 1: to direct. He was going to direct the film. I
Speaker 1: think he wanted to combine the two books, add some
Speaker 1: cheerleaders and stuff, and I think that she wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Rolling was not up for that. So I had
Speaker 1: the last meeting because I wanted to rewrite the script
Speaker 1: for the studio um And when I went in to
Speaker 1: meet with Warner Brothers, and they said, why do you
Speaker 1: want to make this movie? And I said, because I've
Speaker 1: rewritten it for you for free. Now, no one ever
Speaker 1: does anything on Hollywood, so it took it. Still took
Speaker 1: them a few weeks to say yes, but I did
Speaker 1: get the gig. There was still one obstacle. I had
Speaker 1: to fly to Scotland to meet with j K. Rowling.
Speaker 1: So I flew to Scotland met with Joe, who I
Speaker 1: was expecting. I hadn't seen many photographs of her at
Speaker 1: that point. I was expecting Miss Marple. I was expecting
Speaker 1: some sixty year old, heavy set woman in a floral dress.
Speaker 1: And it was She's she's younger than we are. She's very,
Speaker 1: very funny, one of the funniest people I've ever met,
Speaker 1: sharp as attack and we hit it off immediately. We
Speaker 1: spent three she spent three hours listening to me. I
Speaker 1: had diarrhea of the mouth because I was telling her
Speaker 1: the kind of movie I wanted to make. At the
Speaker 1: end of it, she said, that's exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: film I want to make, and I knew I got
Speaker 1: the job. Once I knew I got the job, I
Speaker 1: was scared out of my wits. Everyone was obsessed about
Speaker 1: who was going to be cast in the movie, how
Speaker 1: we were going to design Hogwarts, what was Quidditch going
Speaker 1: to be like? And I thought, the only way to
Speaker 1: get through this so I'm not standing in a corner
Speaker 1: unable to face my crew, was to just sort of
Speaker 1: bury my head and start to work and again. And
Speaker 1: she was around during the screenwriting process or around the
Speaker 1: shooting as well. Now she only came out for one
Speaker 1: day during the shooting, just to visit. She wasn't that
Speaker 1: interested in the shooting, as you can if you're a
Speaker 1: visitor at a set, it's not that exciting. After about
Speaker 1: two hours. She came out when we were shooting diagon Alley.
Speaker 1: But during the screenwriting, during the rewriting process, and during
Speaker 1: some of the design work, you know, I would take
Speaker 1: her through the Harry Potter Factory, I called it. We
Speaker 1: would walk through the art department and I would show
Speaker 1: her what I was thinking of for diagon Alley, or
Speaker 1: green Gots or Hogwarts of the Wizarding Robes, and she
Speaker 1: just was always very collaborative. She'd say, oh, like the
Speaker 1: wand Harry's wand couldn't have any specific design to it
Speaker 1: because it was from an old tree that wouldn't it
Speaker 1: was just a little crooked and you And it was
Speaker 1: that kind of specific comments that really sort of helped
Speaker 1: me find where I was going. I never was off
Speaker 1: the rails though, because we did we did share a
Speaker 1: similar I think, vision for what we wanted the movie
Speaker 1: to be. And I know she would give us also
Speaker 1: indications that the films we're gonna get the books there
Speaker 1: were only three books at the time. Remember, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get progressively darker, and this had to be sort of
Speaker 1: the first one was sort of like the storybook version
Speaker 1: of Harry Potter. It's his origin story. It's still a
Speaker 1: little darker, and Hogwarts had to feel like the most
Speaker 1: welcoming place in the world. And then we get little
Speaker 1: indications that it's going to start to fall apart as
Speaker 1: we move forward. We set that all into motion that
Speaker 1: the movies would get darker and darker and darker. Did
Speaker 1: you did you have a sense did you say, I
Speaker 1: think I've got this film version of these books, I've
Speaker 1: got the recipe. Unfortunately, not not until we were finished.
Speaker 1: We knew we were We knew things were going well.
Speaker 1: So even though the kids had not had a lot
Speaker 1: of experience and acting. They were amazingly charming on screen,
Speaker 1: and they felt like those characters. I think the first
Speaker 1: day that we really felt that we were on the
Speaker 1: right track as we shot the the opening of the
Speaker 1: Great Hall and we're on this huge crane and the
Speaker 1: kids are walking in and are her. Visual effects guy
Speaker 1: John Richardson attached four hundred and fifty candles to strings.
Speaker 1: Everyone had to light all these candles, and I remember
Speaker 1: sitting in Daily's and seeing the shot where the camera
Speaker 1: cranes up through the floating candles, and realizing, Oh, I
Speaker 1: think we're onto something. Uh, And so that all felt good.
Speaker 1: We still had no Yeah, it was fun. That's cool.
Speaker 1: The last film you directed was Percy Jackson. Percy Jackson, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the feature. Yeah. So if that was released in ten,
Speaker 1: you shot that in two thousand nine. So you haven't
Speaker 1: directed a feature in four years. No, And part of
Speaker 1: that was because of the of the help. There was
Speaker 1: a writer director named Take Taylor, sort of a director
Speaker 1: that I had supported over the years. He did a
Speaker 1: lot of short films, was an actor in l A.
Speaker 1: When he come to San Francisco, he'd sit down and
Speaker 1: meet with me and show me what he was working
Speaker 1: and he came into my office one day and said,
Speaker 1: this is my first feature that I want to make.
Speaker 1: My best friend wrote this book, The Help. I read
Speaker 1: the script and I said, this is a fantastic movie.
Speaker 1: I wanted to direct it, and Tait was like, I
Speaker 1: want to direct, and I want you to support me
Speaker 1: so I don't get fired. So Steven Spielberg and I
Speaker 1: sort of reunited to do it. Steven and I met
Speaker 1: in London. Steven said, as long as you promised that
Speaker 1: you'll be on the set every day. I said, but
Speaker 1: when I produce a movie, I like to go for
Speaker 1: the first week and dream Works. Streamworks financed it. We
Speaker 1: shot in Mississippi in the summertime a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and you were on the set every day that I
Speaker 1: was there every day. It was fantastic. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: what's that like for you to be the pure producer? Well,
Speaker 1: as I said, usually I just if I'm the producer,
Speaker 1: I like to go for a couple of days, make
Speaker 1: sure it's it's all in good hands, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to go off and direct or write. In this situation,
Speaker 1: so I made a promise to Stephen. I was there
Speaker 1: the entire time. And the interesting thing was, because of
Speaker 1: the level of performances in that film, getting actually just
Speaker 1: being able to watch these actresses perform every day, Viola Davis,
Speaker 1: Bryce Dallas Howard and Emma Stone. It just was an
Speaker 1: amazing front row seat to these these performances. And Tate
Speaker 1: was just wonderful with the actresses. He was just he's
Speaker 1: an actor himself. Again, that connection is really helpful. So
Speaker 1: for me it was it was a bit of a
Speaker 1: learning experience. It opened up another sort of part of
Speaker 1: filmmaking that I want to get. I was going to say,
Speaker 1: do you want to make films like that? Because my
Speaker 1: last question for you is, here's a guy who the
Speaker 1: flame for you that you were drawn to from things
Speaker 1: I've read about you were movies like The Godfather, But
Speaker 1: you haven't made a movie like The Godfather, And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering is that a direction you want to go in?
Speaker 1: Now you see a movie like The Help, and you
Speaker 1: see do you want to do more? Not even so
Speaker 1: much racially theme, but much more kind of intense drama.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing I'm not particularly uh. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I'm not happy with the movies I've made, but I
Speaker 1: still have a long way to go. Hopefully I can
Speaker 1: live long enough to get to where I really would
Speaker 1: be happy with it. Maybe it won't happen, But what
Speaker 1: I really really want to do, I would like to
Speaker 1: make the kind of movies that you and I grew
Speaker 1: up on, which are the kind of movies. Look Dog
Speaker 1: Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Serpico. All of those movies were
Speaker 1: movies that we're not only about something, but but we're
Speaker 1: great dramatic films with an enormous sense of humor. By
Speaker 1: the way, all the films I mentioned are very funny
Speaker 1: at times, yet at the same time they reached a
Speaker 1: huge audience. And to me, that's what it was about.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make a film that was so
Speaker 1: special and Indian tiny that it wouldn't reach a wide audience.
Speaker 1: I always felt that when I was watching movies like
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and I was watching
Speaker 1: Dog Day Afternoon, the performances were so amazing and so
Speaker 1: authentic and real, and those movies found an audience. Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: most of those types of films are being made for television.
Speaker 1: So yeahs that you've made films now it directed and
Speaker 1: produced huge films some of the biggest films of the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years. You've been doing this for twenty
Speaker 1: five years. How has the business changed in the twenty
Speaker 1: five years from your standpoint? Well, you know when I
Speaker 1: set harder to get that movie made. You're talking about
Speaker 1: that Sydney lamente esque drama. Yeah, I've spent the better
Speaker 1: part of the last year and a half writing films
Speaker 1: like that, but I can't It's very, very difficult to
Speaker 1: get them made in an environment that really is only
Speaker 1: interested in either sequels or superhero films. If you walked
Speaker 1: into a studio executive's office in nineteen seventies eight and
Speaker 1: said you wanted to make Spider Man comic books, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that's the lowest form of entertainment. Well, now
Speaker 1: we're in a situation where that's mostly what's being made,
Speaker 1: so it's difficult to help kind of you know, was
Speaker 1: made because the book was so successful and we made
Speaker 1: it for twenty eight million dollars, which for a period
Speaker 1: piece is relatively inexpensive. So if we can find that
Speaker 1: way to do more of those films, I'd love to
Speaker 1: do them. And that's probably one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: haven't directed The Help is really gotten into my head
Speaker 1: in a big way and said, you can make these
Speaker 1: movies and people will go see them. And where I've
Speaker 1: gotten into trouble in my career, movies like bi Centennial Man,
Speaker 1: movies like Beth Cooper. Again, when I did them for fun,
Speaker 1: and when I thought, oh, this will be fun, I'll
Speaker 1: just go out and make a movie like We're back
Speaker 1: in film. It's not the case anymore. There's much more responsibility.
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus won't stop making movies, but he has taken
Speaker 1: a slight detour. His first novel, House of Secrets, a
Speaker 1: middle school fantasy adventure, is out this year. Chris sent
Speaker 1: an early draft to J. K. Rowling. She said it
Speaker 1: was too fast paced. Slow down. She told him deepen
Speaker 1: the characters and work on the complexity. Chris Columbus says
Speaker 1: he and his co author Nid Vezzini took that advice
Speaker 1: to heart. Coming my conversation with theater and film director
Speaker 1: Stephen Daldry, He's had three Oscar nominations for Best Director,
Speaker 1: but still fantasizes about other careers town country planning, traffic lights,
Speaker 1: Really interested in traffic lights, subway sist you're an engineer
Speaker 1: mass transit systems. This is Alec Baldwin. I'm Alec Baldwin
Speaker 1: and you're listening to here's the thing. Stephen Daldry grew
Speaker 1: up in the theater. He began directing plays at age sixteen.
Speaker 1: He went on to run several theaters before spending most
Speaker 1: of the nine nineties at the Royal Court in London.
Speaker 1: Since two thousand one, he spent more time making movies.
Speaker 1: His most recent film, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, starred
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. But Stephen Doldry still chooses
Speaker 1: projects based on the same criteria he you When he
Speaker 1: was working with fringe theater groups. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: you who you make stuff for? I always make stuff
Speaker 1: for myself and my you know, you make stuff for
Speaker 1: your friends, yourself and see whether it makes any sense
Speaker 1: to you. Your first film was Billy Elliott. Correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that was that was a really weeny one to
Speaker 1: you know, That's what I mean. So obviously you see
Speaker 1: where like that was. That was a small film and
Speaker 1: then you we we made that literally we made it
Speaker 1: for next to nothing. And is there a difference for
Speaker 1: you and making films and producing shows and directing shows
Speaker 1: in the theater. The difference between the two a big difference.
Speaker 1: One is in the theater, everybody's in the same room,
Speaker 1: so everybody can see what the beast is. Everyone can
Speaker 1: see what it's made. And you start at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and you finish the people you start with, the people
Speaker 1: you finish with, and the movie is that the people
Speaker 1: you you prep with, the people you shoot with, and
Speaker 1: the people you shoot without the people you finish with.
Speaker 1: And the people think it's more like a relay race
Speaker 1: making a movie. To me, it's more like cooking, you know,
Speaker 1: Like there's a guy that makes the let us out
Speaker 1: in California, there's a guy that grew the tomatoes and Georgia,
Speaker 1: and none of them ever meeting each other or know
Speaker 1: each other, they ship at all. And you cut it
Speaker 1: up into a salad and mix it all together. And
Speaker 1: that's why it's it's more lonely because it's so compartmentalized
Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, And I mean I remember the first
Speaker 1: day that I ever shot anything on film, and you know,
Speaker 1: suddenly around the camera people are saying these extraordinary things
Speaker 1: to me, like you know, rolling, you know, all these things.
Speaker 1: When was that billion it? And people are going, they're
Speaker 1: saying all these strange words, you know, and then everyone's
Speaker 1: looking at me and I'm going, what are they doing?
Speaker 1: And you go, oh, I'm meant to say action? People
Speaker 1: really say that do thing? I thought it was some
Speaker 1: sort of like joke. And since then, I've never really
Speaker 1: liked saying action, which is why I prefer just to
Speaker 1: keep rehearsing and roll the camera while we're rehearsing, and
Speaker 1: then eventually he's into. Some people don't want to say
Speaker 1: the word action. I find a bizarre on myself, and
Speaker 1: when it freaks the actors out, actually do it now,
Speaker 1: turn on Now. It's not very intimate, it's not and
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's like an assault on the
Speaker 1: outer I directed a film once and I couldn't stand that.
Speaker 1: I really didn't care for it. But I wonder. I've
Speaker 1: always wondered if I had the nation to absorb more
Speaker 1: about lighting and cutting and editing, and has that been
Speaker 1: a big thing for you. There's that journey of learning
Speaker 1: more about how films are put together. And I love editing.
Speaker 1: You do. It's my favorite bit of a pressure. It is.
Speaker 1: A film is written three times. You write it to
Speaker 1: start it you, then you rewrite it as you make it,
Speaker 1: and then you do the final and proper right as
Speaker 1: you put it all together. And it's like a jigsaw
Speaker 1: puzzle if you like jigsaw puzzles, if you love making movies.
Speaker 1: But it's actually putting the pieces together, finding out the rhythms.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine that the experience of editing makes
Speaker 1: anyone a better filmmaker in terms of teaching you what
Speaker 1: you need to have in the Can people say to me,
Speaker 1: you know, what should idea to learn how to make
Speaker 1: a film? Just getting by a final clup prom and
Speaker 1: just start shooting stuff and then just start editing, and
Speaker 1: you'll learn everything you need to know about making a
Speaker 1: movie from editing it. Did you feel that you had
Speaker 1: learned everything that you needed to learn about directing actors
Speaker 1: from your years in the theater in England? In terms
Speaker 1: of directing actress for film, was there a difference? It
Speaker 1: was the same. I think it's the same. Well, let
Speaker 1: it rip. Most of my life, you know, all my
Speaker 1: life has been spent in the theater, you know, and
Speaker 1: all you need to work out with an actor is
Speaker 1: how to talk to them. And actors come with their
Speaker 1: own method like you you know, you've come with your
Speaker 1: own methodology of where you've picked up and usually act
Speaker 1: as a lot of actors, particularly American actors, if I
Speaker 1: may dare to say this, come from some notion, some
Speaker 1: they've picked up some ideas of what acting might be
Speaker 1: or what what a methodology might be. It's easier in Europe.
Speaker 1: It's easier in England because usually people have got to
Speaker 1: shared methodology and other words, there's a language that people
Speaker 1: sort of understand that you can actually have a conversation
Speaker 1: about what what literally you're meant to be doing at
Speaker 1: any one particular time. A lot of American actors got
Speaker 1: lost in this idea of the method or some sort
Speaker 1: of notion of character. They keep going on about when
Speaker 1: my character this, or and even what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Where did you get this idea of character from. It's
Speaker 1: easier in Europe because people tend to be more strictly
Speaker 1: come from a a training whereby the common training a
Speaker 1: common training, because there's a lot of training going on here,
Speaker 1: but that training is a different kind of training. It's
Speaker 1: a different sort of training. So the difficulty is just
Speaker 1: finding a language to talk to actors so you can
Speaker 1: be honest. I think that. You know. One time I
Speaker 1: was watching a concert and I was watching some famous
Speaker 1: musician like Tom Petty. He was performing at a benefit
Speaker 1: and I turned to a friend of mine and I
Speaker 1: had this chill run up my spine, and I said,
Speaker 1: do you see what these people are doing. They're all
Speaker 1: doing the same thing at the same time, and they're
Speaker 1: all of one at the same time. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen in the theater and enacting a lot
Speaker 1: of times it does in England. No, No, it's really hard.
Speaker 1: It's the only people. Sometimes people are doing their own thing.
Speaker 1: What is the job of the doctor? The job of
Speaker 1: the doctors. You've got one job is to make sure
Speaker 1: everybody's in the same show. And you can have fantastic films,
Speaker 1: fantastic fantastic theater. There in one show, he's in another show,
Speaker 1: she's doing something else. They're all being brilliant in their
Speaker 1: own way, but they're on the same space. Getting everybody
Speaker 1: in the same spaces the hardest thing. But what's your methodology?
Speaker 1: Where were you? If I was to ask you what
Speaker 1: you do you define your acting in a particular way? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends. I mean, I try to think of it
Speaker 1: in terms of rhythm, there's a key you play in
Speaker 1: you have you have to pace it up. It has
Speaker 1: to be fast, you have to make the audience catch
Speaker 1: up to you don't put a lot of unearned policies.
Speaker 1: And there really paces a big part of it. But
Speaker 1: did you train? Yeah? I went to n y U.
Speaker 1: And as I get older, everything is technical. I mean
Speaker 1: I literally mark my minds in the scripts that I
Speaker 1: do now, like a musical score, stop, hard, constant, here, move,
Speaker 1: dip rise, all these things. Emphasis Before that, though, it
Speaker 1: was all about authenticity. I would say that method acting
Speaker 1: was about like if you said to me, which I
Speaker 1: want you to do this, I'd say, well, I've got
Speaker 1: to go meet a bunch of surgeons. Let's go find
Speaker 1: that how hard surgeons really behave in the operating room,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to do anything as an authentic
Speaker 1: And then of course there's that famous Walter math on
Speaker 1: line where they said to Walter Math, how do you
Speaker 1: want to go observe some surgery and he said, no,
Speaker 1: I'm a movie actor. No one expects me to know
Speaker 1: anything about surgery. So we're just gonna fake it and
Speaker 1: indicate it. And you're absolutly right, about the technical. I
Speaker 1: mean in England we do tend to be more technical.
Speaker 1: But I'm connecting, you know even remember you know I
Speaker 1: work with male Streep on a movie, and you know
Speaker 1: a Mail has this extraordinary emotional ability. But she does
Speaker 1: pause before the verb. And I know why you're doing
Speaker 1: it because you think I can't cut away. I can
Speaker 1: absolutely show you I can cut away from you even
Speaker 1: if you pause before the verb. And she knew she
Speaker 1: was pausing before the verb. Well, she she definitely is
Speaker 1: a maestro. She is she's her Nicholson that they know
Speaker 1: every trick there is to force the cut in the
Speaker 1: film or to deny the cut in the film. But
Speaker 1: I think that it is thrilling when you do a
Speaker 1: piece and you have a director who can help you.
Speaker 1: I've had to do what the modern actress had to do,
Speaker 1: which is to come prepared to be self directing in
Speaker 1: case you didn't have anything from me, agonizing because I'd
Speaker 1: rather come and have you say to me, but of
Speaker 1: course it's this, and I would don't you realize it's this?
Speaker 1: And you have got all fond of information, but I
Speaker 1: would go crazy. But I find it really crazy when
Speaker 1: it is come in self prepared because they've done some
Speaker 1: journey that they get and you go, well, well this
Speaker 1: is and again you get they're showing your photographs of
Speaker 1: a trip they went on without you. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: they again in this comment you're my character and you're
Speaker 1: don't look, it's not your character. Okay, it's ours, and
Speaker 1: we're going to make it up. Now. Interesting, I've never
Speaker 1: heard that. Every further it's ours, it's ours, it's not
Speaker 1: your character. I'm going to remember that it's ours. Well,
Speaker 1: my character wouldn't do that. Well, let's change the character then,
Speaker 1: because we're going to do that. You know what is
Speaker 1: let's talk about a character they wouldn't do that. That's right,
Speaker 1: let's change you. What do you miss about running up
Speaker 1: by side the court which everybody just adores the work
Speaker 1: there and loves the court. You miss it? I miss it,
Speaker 1: and I suspect I'm going to run another favor. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's too much fun. It's about community. It's about having
Speaker 1: a community of people that you know you're staying with
Speaker 1: for a period of time, the number of years you
Speaker 1: commit yourself to and trying to do something you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know why you make work. I mean I
Speaker 1: make work to change the world. I think that's any
Speaker 1: reason to do anything. And getting a group of people
Speaker 1: in to start a conversation with the community and with
Speaker 1: a society you live in is going to be the
Speaker 1: greatest thing you can do. Can you do both right
Speaker 1: now or now? You certainly can't make movies in mouth here, don't.
Speaker 1: Movies are too obsessive. It's it's like it's it's two
Speaker 1: years of your life, just whatever you do, it's two years.
Speaker 1: Two years is fast compared to the years it took
Speaker 1: to turn Billy Elliott into a musical. What does it
Speaker 1: feel like when you're darks hmm, so it feels good.
Speaker 1: We made this little film. Nobody was really nobody was
Speaker 1: interested by the way. You know, a kid who wants
Speaker 1: to be a dancer, you know, please. But we took
Speaker 1: it to Can and the first showing in Can, for
Speaker 1: some unknown reason, Elton John was there and the party
Speaker 1: afterwards out and said, you know, this is going to
Speaker 1: be better on stage. I mean, it's a great movie,
Speaker 1: but I want to write the music for this on stage.
Speaker 1: And we went it's out on John and I met
Speaker 1: him before you know, it's like, oh my god, you
Speaker 1: know what, No if but now, and then he kept
Speaker 1: on going for what did you say no? Because we
Speaker 1: just finished the film and you just weren't ready to
Speaker 1: think about this, not even ready for it. But he
Speaker 1: kept he was persistent and carried on, and he would
Speaker 1: literally start writing stuff and write songs, and he'd ring
Speaker 1: me up in my kitchen and I put him on
Speaker 1: speaker phone and he said, look, how about this one?
Speaker 1: And I'd be cooking in my kitchen and then e
Speaker 1: speaker phone, and he really didn't fall into a kind
Speaker 1: of a Lewis Carroll hole there. I think the stage
Speaker 1: show is better than the movie. It's found its natural home.
Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing? How that is a big part of
Speaker 1: this business. How you do fall into a hole one
Speaker 1: day you weren't sitting there. I would imagine at the
Speaker 1: court saying I've got to get out of here and
Speaker 1: make films. You know, it doesn't happen to you every day, though,
Speaker 1: that life changes in the second right, one such turning
Speaker 1: point for you, I think from what I could gather
Speaker 1: from reading, was that you were a clown's apprentice. Correct us.
Speaker 1: I was interested in circus when I was finishing university,
Speaker 1: so I I suppose I sought out this guy called
Speaker 1: Elder Milette. He was in a great Italian clown and
Speaker 1: then I went to work with him in Italy. I
Speaker 1: worked in a year indoor fe It was a hard circus.
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't What does that mean? I love that.
Speaker 1: What does it mean a hard circus? A hard circus
Speaker 1: is it's three shows daily, hard schedule, hard schedule. I
Speaker 1: was in charge of the giraffes as well. I had
Speaker 1: to look after the giraffes and then we would travel
Speaker 1: by train and then I would take the giraffes off
Speaker 1: the train and put them into their little drive, the giraffes.
Speaker 1: So it really is like you see in these period
Speaker 1: movies where it's like dumb, like Greatest Show on Earth everything,
Speaker 1: where it's there's everyone's multitasking everyone. You're the clown and
Speaker 1: you're claiming the giraffe pen driving the draft through these Pompeii,
Speaker 1: you know, me the drafts and Pompeii. And people talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, the animals being mistreated, which I you know,
Speaker 1: people have different opinions about, but the people being so mistreated,
Speaker 1: the people who were they mistreated by management, management themselves.
Speaker 1: The hierarchy a lot of drinking, love, very very tough living.
Speaker 1: It was a hard life. We were basically going to
Speaker 1: be training in Italy for a year and then we
Speaker 1: were going to go off to Moscow State Circus. When Nicole,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, we're going off to Moscow, and now
Speaker 1: I just went, you know what, I've done this for
Speaker 1: a year. I'm off. You're filmmaking experiences. It sounded a
Speaker 1: moment ago when we were talking like they've been relatively
Speaker 1: emotionally secure experiences for you as a filmmaker, and you've
Speaker 1: been very content and happy making films. Filmmaking hasn't been
Speaker 1: another hard circus for you people. I do understand a
Speaker 1: lot of filmmakers have a very hard time making films,
Speaker 1: and I've been blessed. I mean, I've got friends of
Speaker 1: mine who have had experience of sitting in the trailer
Speaker 1: and spending your whole time trying to defend what you're
Speaker 1: doing and fighting and cutting and and I haven't had
Speaker 1: that experience. But a lot of that is because of Scott.
Speaker 1: Ridden for me has always been a huge filmmaker support,
Speaker 1: fighting for me in the right way. Do you find
Speaker 1: something out about yourself every film you make? Is there
Speaker 1: a part of you that you lay bare, that you
Speaker 1: weren't aware of. When you make a m everything's therapy,
Speaker 1: don't you find it is every piece of work you make.
Speaker 1: You you have to explore yourself, the Reader? What was
Speaker 1: the therapy for which I love that film? By the way,
Speaker 1: I was just I was completely spend with him. I
Speaker 1: worship her, Okay, I worship her. I can't go I'm
Speaker 1: unabashed about him. I am completely immune to all the
Speaker 1: charms of all movie actresses except her. I saw her
Speaker 1: in a war show and I gradually swallowed my time.
Speaker 1: She's fantastic, um, the Reader. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in Germany as a kid. I spent you know,
Speaker 1: learned German and spent a lot of time there. And
Speaker 1: the idea of a country crippled for many generations by
Speaker 1: something that happened, and how it was still coming to
Speaker 1: terms with what it went through and where I went
Speaker 1: through it and collective guilt. So for me it was
Speaker 1: an expiration of my school days in Germany. And what
Speaker 1: about The Hours? Well, The Hours is a complicated film
Speaker 1: about the one thing that that all the films that
Speaker 1: I may tend to having common is they're all about
Speaker 1: loss in one way or another and what the nature
Speaker 1: of loss is. Everybody has it at some point in
Speaker 1: their lives, and that was a studying three women who
Speaker 1: are going through a profound sense of loss. Loss is
Speaker 1: really my subject. Your two women when the oscar coming
Speaker 1: out of your how did you feel about that? It's
Speaker 1: been enormously gratified enormously. I mean, it's always fantastic when
Speaker 1: your actors do well, isn't it. Did you find that
Speaker 1: Kate and Nicole Kidman in the hours who won the
Speaker 1: oscar for that film, did you find that they came
Speaker 1: to the party with that British sense of working in
Speaker 1: the shared experience with you? Were they more in line
Speaker 1: with that? They are? They were and up for rehearsal.
Speaker 1: I love rehearsing, and Nicole rehearse forever. Kate rehearsed forever
Speaker 1: on this film. We rehearse forever. You know, it's part
Speaker 1: of the process. And do you rehearse well. I've done
Speaker 1: films where we did some rehearsal, and remember one time
Speaker 1: they had a very formalized rehearsal process, but it was
Speaker 1: constantly interrupted by the department heads coming in and summoning
Speaker 1: the director to go and look at something and he
Speaker 1: run out, so we know we had his attention, you know, fleetingly.
Speaker 1: But I've I've done films where we had I would
Speaker 1: crave that, I'd love that. You don't have to answer
Speaker 1: this question because they's going to embarrass you. But open
Speaker 1: I'll just tee up this boat. You're a very charismatic man.
Speaker 1: You're very charming, and you're very seductive. You have a
Speaker 1: kind of a very seductive veneer to you, And I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: do you think that that helps you with what you do?
Speaker 1: Because when the guy walks in the room or the woman,
Speaker 1: because I worked with a woman directors, but this mostly men,
Speaker 1: let's face it. And when that guy walks in the
Speaker 1: room and he looks like a high school shop teacher
Speaker 1: with a bunch of pen sticking out of his pocket,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe if it doesn't have any kind
Speaker 1: of cheat to him at all. You're a very seductive
Speaker 1: guy and you're a very very kind of appealing guy.
Speaker 1: Do you find that that works for you? Do you
Speaker 1: use that to your advantage when you're directing? Don't smirk
Speaker 1: at me, do you? I didn't I consciously, you don't
Speaker 1: consciously try to seduce the people you work with. It's
Speaker 1: always going to be a love affair with your actors.
Speaker 1: If you're not in love with him, it's not going
Speaker 1: to pan out. You literally have to fall in love
Speaker 1: and they with you, and they with you, and then
Speaker 1: you can do. Your actors fall in love with you.
Speaker 1: I try to make them. You do, don't you. I
Speaker 1: bet you they do, because it's so intimate. It's such
Speaker 1: a pride in such a and it requires such honesty.
Speaker 1: But one day, I'd love to talk to you about
Speaker 1: a play. Should we do one? I'd love to do
Speaker 1: a play. I don't know if you're gonna have time.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna be any time to a play with me?
Speaker 1: Good God. Now we're gonna do one of the public
Speaker 1: I'm sure they'll love it. Let's see the hours the
Speaker 1: reader extremely close with Tom Hanks and sound a book,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna stop all that to go to a
Speaker 1: play with me? I don't think so. I think I
Speaker 1: can hear your publicist really screaming. Now she's calling your
Speaker 1: agent right now. Stephen Daldry has yet to call, but
Speaker 1: I'll give him time. He's currently directing the film adaptation
Speaker 1: of the children's novel Trash, starring Martin Sheen and Rooney Mara,
Speaker 1: to be released next year. I'm Alec Baldwin and Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing. Take a listen to our archive more in
Speaker 1: depth and honest conversations with artists, policy makers, and performers
Speaker 1: like Kathleen Turner. So I did cata lot to move honestly.
Speaker 1: Michael Douglas was calling me up, and Jack Nickoson was
Speaker 1: calling me up. Warm Baby was calling up and saying,
Speaker 1: don't do it, don't do it, don't do it. You
Speaker 1: know they'll just kill you. Yeah, And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't understand. I'm better on stage, and I think
Speaker 1: I am. Go to Here's the Thing dot org to
Speaker 1: hear more. Here's the Thing is produced by Emily Botine
Speaker 1: and Kathy Russo with Chris Bannon, Jim Briggs, ed Herbstman,
Speaker 1: Melanie Hoops, Monica Hopkins, Trey k Sharon Machee and Lou Okowski.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Larry Josephson and the Radio Foundation. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to here's the Name.