Speaker 1: You're listening to play back a Variety podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Variety Awards editor Chris Tapley. We've got director Scott Cooper
Speaker 1: in the house today. Scott made a big splash with
Speaker 1: his two thousand nine directorial debut Crazy Heart, which one
Speaker 1: Jeff Bridges a long overdue and well deserved Oscar. He
Speaker 1: went on to make what I think is a highly
Speaker 1: underrated film two thousand thirteens, Out of the Furnace with
Speaker 1: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Woody Harrelson, the late
Speaker 1: great Sam Shepard, an embarrassment of riches on that cast.
Speaker 1: He followed that up with Black Mass starring Johnny Depp
Speaker 1: as Boston gangster Whitey Bulger. His new film is the
Speaker 1: emotionally draining Western Hostile, starring Bailee Rosamond Pike, and West
Speaker 1: Study among many others. The film will premiere to Tell
Speaker 1: You Right Film Festival later this weekend before heading up
Speaker 1: to Toronto in about a week. Scott, thanks for coming
Speaker 1: on the show man. Thanks Chris, great to be here.
Speaker 1: I want to start with your past life as an actor.
Speaker 1: Yatch watch your X Files episode this morning. What I
Speaker 1: would love to show my Kids that titled rush as
Speaker 1: I recall, Yeah, it's heavy actually that you get to
Speaker 1: play an X files villein at the height of that
Speaker 1: show's popularity. Yes, uh, as I recall young serial killer
Speaker 1: who um has daddy issues and and uh, David Dukovany
Speaker 1: brings him to justice. That was. Yeah, that was that
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. Actually, I think Vince Gilligan
Speaker 1: maybe I wrote that episode really certainly was was a
Speaker 1: writer on the show. Yeah, two Virginians. Yeah, totally. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, just your life as an actor. You're an
Speaker 1: actor for about ten years or so. Uh, and and
Speaker 1: what I guess did you retain of that that helped
Speaker 1: you parlay into your career as a filmmakers The question, Well,
Speaker 1: it's a good question and one that I'm asked often. Um.
Speaker 1: I did have an unremarkable career as an actor, but
Speaker 1: out of that came a lot of great relationships. One
Speaker 1: of them would be my work with Robert Duval, who
Speaker 1: has become a great friend and confidante, and um, someone
Speaker 1: who sees early cuts of my films, reads early drafts
Speaker 1: of my screenplays. And we had done a film just
Speaker 1: after that called Gods in Generals, and we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about the craft of of acting, and Mr Duval
Speaker 1: always felt that even great actors overly complicated their characters
Speaker 1: and what they thought they needed to bring to each
Speaker 1: part and more importantly, to each moment. And he always
Speaker 1: said to me that acting begins at zero and ends
Speaker 1: at zero. Have no idea where you're going to take
Speaker 1: the scene. If you come to a scene with preconceived
Speaker 1: notions that you've worked out in your trailer or in
Speaker 1: your hotel room the night before, then you're going to
Speaker 1: give a very emotionally stunted performance and you aren't going
Speaker 1: to be open to listening to other actors, which is
Speaker 1: the most important part of acting, certainly is is listening
Speaker 1: and responding, and to do it in a very subtle fashion. UM.
Speaker 1: He also recommended that I watch a lot of documentaries,
Speaker 1: certainly older documentaries that that before people became really comfortable
Speaker 1: with the camera, because now everybody has a camera and
Speaker 1: everybody's essentially on and there's so many reality TV shows
Speaker 1: that are anything but but real. UM. And one of
Speaker 1: them that's probably one of my all time favorite films
Speaker 1: was UM Barbara Copples Harlan County, USA, and I just
Speaker 1: thought the behavior in that film and stakes of that
Speaker 1: film are incredible, a masterpiece, and and really I just
Speaker 1: have taken what little experience I had as an actor,
Speaker 1: but most importantly that with Mr Duval and channel that
Speaker 1: into my work and never really over complicating my direction
Speaker 1: to actors. And I also like to give direction two
Speaker 1: actors when nobody else can hear that direction. I think actors,
Speaker 1: as most performers are, sometimes can be can be insecure.
Speaker 1: So anytime that a director and I've had them do
Speaker 1: that bark out direction the entire crew to here, I
Speaker 1: think is is the wrong way to do it. And
Speaker 1: I really revere actors. I respect actors immensely. It takes
Speaker 1: a lot of artistic courage to really bear their souls
Speaker 1: for the lens and hopefully for a receptive audience. Um
Speaker 1: So I take great pains to make sure that actors
Speaker 1: are very comfortable. Is that unusual too? It's to do
Speaker 1: private kind of counsel like that. I found it to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But but I think it's certainly the way I like
Speaker 1: to work. Um So that I have a very genuinely
Speaker 1: intimate relationship with the actor because as an actor, I
Speaker 1: know the difficulty in trying to bring a character to life. Uh.
Speaker 1: And certainly the material that I have have chosen to
Speaker 1: make and to write is sometimes psychologically more challenging than others.
Speaker 1: And I ask a lot of actors on an emotional level, um,
Speaker 1: and in some way an intellectual level, UM, because they
Speaker 1: the actors that I that I that I work with,
Speaker 1: tend to embody their characters in ways that maybe other
Speaker 1: actors don't, and through that their character stays with them
Speaker 1: even after I call cut. I really like to do
Speaker 1: most of my work obviously between action and cut. But
Speaker 1: but um, once we call cut, and sometimes the work
Speaker 1: stays with them when they go back to their hope
Speaker 1: tells or to their homes. And and that can be
Speaker 1: taxing for an actor. And uh, and I'm very cognizant
Speaker 1: of that. And and again I really revere them. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been tempted to cast yourself any of these movies? No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. I mean, I think it's enough to direct
Speaker 1: and produce them. Funnily, Jeff Bridges asked me when we
Speaker 1: were he and I were reading through the script of
Speaker 1: Crazy Heart if I would play his son. At one time,
Speaker 1: Heath Ledger was going to play that and Heath unfortunately
Speaker 1: passed and and um, and I said, Jeff, they're far
Speaker 1: better choices than I. I said, and you know, having
Speaker 1: never directed anything, this is this is gonna be enough
Speaker 1: for me just to to direct the film right at
Speaker 1: producing it didn't have much money. And um, and then
Speaker 1: Duval has asked me a couple of times too, being
Speaker 1: some things with him. But I I really feel like
Speaker 1: I've found what I'm best at, what I'm better at. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: when you set off to this new career and and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know what, just broadly speaking, I'm what
Speaker 1: I'm curious about is like what where your inspirations films specifically,
Speaker 1: filmmakers specifically, but also like what was not out there
Speaker 1: in the world that you wanted to put out there
Speaker 1: in the world. Well generally, I UM, even when I
Speaker 1: was an actor, I tend to respond more to world
Speaker 1: cinema than American films, UM, because I think those films
Speaker 1: tend to be deeply humanistic, which is I hope what
Speaker 1: my work is. Um. The dar Damn Brothers really influenced me. UM.
Speaker 1: I love Karasawa's work, Michael Hannikey's work, and there's a
Speaker 1: real humanity, uh saget ray in their work. Uh, that
Speaker 1: that I wanted that I felt like, certainly as an
Speaker 1: actor that was speaking to me, and then as a
Speaker 1: filmmaker and then one who became the father you you
Speaker 1: feel like you want to show an uncompromising and an
Speaker 1: unvarnished truth that maybe is underrepresented in cinema. And I
Speaker 1: felt that I could take some of the things that
Speaker 1: I was feeling after I think we were all feeling
Speaker 1: somewhat of a post traumatic stress disorder after nine eleven
Speaker 1: in this this type of loss and harrowing loss, that
Speaker 1: that for some reason it affected what I was reading,
Speaker 1: what films I was attracted to, UM, what I ultimately
Speaker 1: thought that I wanted to express UM. And then the
Speaker 1: economic crisis, which led to in a sense, out of
Speaker 1: the furnace, UM, people who who were really, really suffering, UM,
Speaker 1: who don't live in Los Angeles and New York, and
Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time, and I'm from an
Speaker 1: area that's certainly not Los Angeles or New York, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell their stories. So I thought I
Speaker 1: could do that in a in a a very genuine
Speaker 1: way and and UM, and hope that I've ad shoot
Speaker 1: that hostiles. Uh, you know you know my affinity for
Speaker 1: this genre. Uh, you were kind enough to invite me
Speaker 1: up to the set, which was a great time. I
Speaker 1: think it's really special to spend some time on a
Speaker 1: Western set because I just don't make a lot of
Speaker 1: these up there in Georgia O'Keefe country, the gorgeous landscapes,
Speaker 1: northern New Mexico coast ranch, yeah, about an hour north
Speaker 1: of Santa Fe. What does being in that environment do
Speaker 1: for you? Kind of put you in the zone, right, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I have um ever since Crazy Heart, it's been critical. Actually,
Speaker 1: I won't make the film if if I don't shoot
Speaker 1: where I think the film either does take place or
Speaker 1: should take place. I did shoot in New Mexico and
Speaker 1: Texas for Crazy Heart, uh still country of western Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: for Out of the Furnace, of course, Boston for Black Mass,
Speaker 1: And I felt that in telling this story, this journey
Speaker 1: from New Mexico to Montana, that I could shoot in
Speaker 1: New Mexico and then we went north into call Rato
Speaker 1: and it really abuse the production with a sense of place,
Speaker 1: the actors with a sense of place, because literally where
Speaker 1: we were shooting at times twelve thousand feet above sea level,
Speaker 1: you really feel it, and you can see it in
Speaker 1: even the horses. Um, you can certainly see it in
Speaker 1: the actors and and at times quite a punishing shoot.
Speaker 1: But I think compared to what I know, compared to
Speaker 1: what people had to live through, this was this was nothing, um,
Speaker 1: but it really abused the the production with a sense
Speaker 1: of place, from production design to costumes, to camera, to sound,
Speaker 1: certainly to the performers and the animals. And then you also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't done myself any favors by making
Speaker 1: the film and the gangster genre and now in the
Speaker 1: Western genre. I think some of the best films ever
Speaker 1: made or in those two genres. So you're immediately climbing
Speaker 1: this huge mountain that you're in variably compared to the
Speaker 1: best directors and best films ever made. But but for me,
Speaker 1: it felt like the only way to tell the story
Speaker 1: would have been the way that John Ford would have
Speaker 1: told the story, or Howard Hawks would have told it,
Speaker 1: or Anthony Mann. So, um, I think it was the
Speaker 1: only way to do it was to do it in
Speaker 1: a very harsh setting that became softer as we went north,
Speaker 1: but um, no, less harsh, and you're at the whim
Speaker 1: of the elements the whole time, delays on set, whatnot,
Speaker 1: Lots of lots of rain, a lot of the monsoon season,
Speaker 1: lots of lightning, rattlesnakes if you bear um, psychologically challenging
Speaker 1: material horses, great actors who pushed you to become a
Speaker 1: better director. Um. And working again with with Christian, who's
Speaker 1: you know, one of my closest friends is made it
Speaker 1: all the worthwhile. Yeah, talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: this project came to you. It's somewhat on your dual. Yeah. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: I received a call that that that there was an
Speaker 1: older lady who had really liked my work and that
Speaker 1: she had something she thought that I should see and read.
Speaker 1: And of course I thought that because Out of the
Speaker 1: Furnaces is a little more difficult to digest and say
Speaker 1: crazy Heart, Um, I thought she was referring to crazy Heart,
Speaker 1: And as it turned out she was was an admirer
Speaker 1: of Out of the Furnace, And that kind of piqued
Speaker 1: my interest, um, because that that was a film that,
Speaker 1: like most of mine, that are quite divisive, but but
Speaker 1: people really feel strongly one way or the other about
Speaker 1: that film. So I appreciate that she that she liked
Speaker 1: what it was that I was attempting to say with
Speaker 1: with that film. And we spoke and she said, I
Speaker 1: have a piece of material that I think you should see.
Speaker 1: And I hear that often of course, um, and I
Speaker 1: generally like to write my own stories or I like
Speaker 1: to adapt things that have that that maybe can lead
Speaker 1: me into a direction of a story that I wanted
Speaker 1: to tell. And I said, well, I'd love to read it.
Speaker 1: And she told me, she said, well, what's written by
Speaker 1: my late husband, Donald Stewart. And it didn't ring a
Speaker 1: bell um that he had won an oscar for Costa
Speaker 1: Goss's UH film Missing with m Jack Lemon and Sissy Space.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, you know, I'd love to read this.
Speaker 1: So she sent it over and it had a very
Speaker 1: compelling kind of seed of a story about UH, an
Speaker 1: aging cavalry officer who's tasked with escorting a group of
Speaker 1: Native Americans home from New Mexico to Montana. And I
Speaker 1: felt that I could take that seed in eight two,
Speaker 1: when I had set the picture and make it feel
Speaker 1: more relevant and more current because of the racial vision
Speaker 1: that we are feeling as a nation, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to personalize the characters in the story in a way
Speaker 1: that would make it feel very current even though it
Speaker 1: was five years ago. And I told her us that
Speaker 1: I think this, this is a really interesting piece. Um,
Speaker 1: how would you feel if I took just this as
Speaker 1: a as a as a launching point And she said great,
Speaker 1: she'd love it. So Um, that's how it came to me,
Speaker 1: and that's how it started. I didn't meet Donald Stewart.
Speaker 1: He died and and it's unfortunate because we certainly wouldn't
Speaker 1: have hostiles without him, and I think that that he
Speaker 1: would be proud of what he originally envisioned. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you got into my next question there, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, it found it to be a draining experience.
Speaker 1: The emotion kind of lodges in your throat from the
Speaker 1: first scene and does not relent even you know, once
Speaker 1: the catharsis of the film is complete. Really it sticks
Speaker 1: to your bones, as they say. But you know, the
Speaker 1: deals and themes of reconciliation and healing that I found
Speaker 1: to be resonant. As you say, you wanted to speak
Speaker 1: to the modern climate, so I guess speak a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. Yeah. When we set out to
Speaker 1: make the film, as I was writing it, I didn't
Speaker 1: foresee the division that that we now find ourselves in. UM.
Speaker 1: Certainly Donald Trump was was not UM. Certainly I didn't
Speaker 1: take take it seriously that he would be our president. UM.
Speaker 1: But I think probably what I wasn't realizing as much
Speaker 1: as as I should have, because I lived in Virginia
Speaker 1: a long time ago, is that if you don't live
Speaker 1: in New York or l A or San Francisco or Boston,
Speaker 1: just just how deeply people are suffering and just how
Speaker 1: why the divide is between those people who have and
Speaker 1: those who don't. And I'm not quite sure or why
Speaker 1: I didn't understand it as fully as I as I
Speaker 1: thought that I did. But as I was working on
Speaker 1: the screenplay and starting casting, and certainly as we were shooting,
Speaker 1: it became more apparent that these type of division, this
Speaker 1: type of division was was really really vast and and
Speaker 1: was um the topic of the day, and it certainly
Speaker 1: still is if you if you look at what just
Speaker 1: happened in Charlottesville, my my home state, just terribly tragic
Speaker 1: and slide, Yes, yeah, terribly tragic and and and sad.
Speaker 1: So what I wanted to do with this film and
Speaker 1: it's it's always weird talking about themes and what it
Speaker 1: is you want to say, because you want the audience
Speaker 1: to take short away something from the film that you
Speaker 1: don't have a director telling them what he meant. But
Speaker 1: I saw an opportunity to make a film about inclusion
Speaker 1: and understanding others, ways of lives, reconciliation, as you said, forgiveness,
Speaker 1: all these sort of things that we as Americans need,
Speaker 1: uh to better understand to make this country heal, because
Speaker 1: I don't think uh we even Robert Duval and I
Speaker 1: discussed this today, and of course he's much older than
Speaker 1: I am. He said he's never seen it this bad,
Speaker 1: and and certainly I haven't. And my father said, this
Speaker 1: far exceeds even with Nixon and Vietnam, and and it's
Speaker 1: and it's a real shame and and and it's the
Speaker 1: politics of anger and hate that that's infiltrating this nation.
Speaker 1: And I just hope that a film like this can
Speaker 1: speak to the type of healing and inclusion that we
Speaker 1: as Americans need, because I fear for my children's future
Speaker 1: if if, if in fact, we don't um. So hopefully
Speaker 1: this film through uh Christian Bale's character's journey of healing
Speaker 1: and understanding and without giving too much away, and and
Speaker 1: and reconciliation can speak to those people who have such
Speaker 1: disparate views. Speaking of Christian, Uh, he's up for a
Speaker 1: tribute this weekend at the Festival, much deserved. I think
Speaker 1: that's a big coup for the festival. Actually, he doesn't
Speaker 1: do those things too often. No, No, he doesn't. Christian
Speaker 1: is is um probably the least selfish. And I'm not
Speaker 1: just saying this because he's my closest friend, but he's
Speaker 1: the least selfish actor I've ever worked with. He's a
Speaker 1: lot like uh, Jeff Bridges in fact, where the less
Speaker 1: you see of these men in public, the more likely
Speaker 1: you're going to believe what you see on screen. You
Speaker 1: don't see Christian doing television ads. You don't see him
Speaker 1: unless Paparassi become very crafty in any of these magazines. Um.
Speaker 1: He tries not to be photographed. He he lives a
Speaker 1: very private life, is a wonderful husband and father, and
Speaker 1: and is solely devoted to his family and to his work. Um.
Speaker 1: So I was surprised that that he was open to
Speaker 1: celebrating his his career because he hey, he's still so
Speaker 1: young and he's been working though for thirty years. Um,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't normally like to call attention to himself.
Speaker 1: He likes his parts to speak for himself. UM. I'm
Speaker 1: just happy that that they're honoring his work because, um, he's,
Speaker 1: for my tim bucks, the best actor working. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about how that relationship sparked. I mean after Furnace,
Speaker 1: you guys we're looking for something else to do together. Obviously,
Speaker 1: as you say, you're close friends. Now, so just what
Speaker 1: sparked that relationship? Both you've spoken to professionally, I think
Speaker 1: your your admiration f him is clear, but just personally,
Speaker 1: how does that relationship spark on that set? Well? Interestingly,
Speaker 1: people often say to me, wow, he must be extremely intense,
Speaker 1: Uh to work with or just just to just to
Speaker 1: hang around with. People tend to be somewhat intimidated by Christian.
Speaker 1: But he couldn't be a lighter guy. He has a
Speaker 1: great sense of humor. He's very funny. I'm not afraid
Speaker 1: to make fun of himself. Um, all these sort of
Speaker 1: things that people of course don't see because he's so
Speaker 1: he's so private. So I know this deeply humanistic side
Speaker 1: of Christian, and I kind of tasked myself stupidly with
Speaker 1: writing for actors without even knowing knowing them. I wrote
Speaker 1: Crazy Heart for Jeff Bridges. I've never met Jeff, and
Speaker 1: just through a fate of luck, was able to get
Speaker 1: him to play the part of bad Blake. And I
Speaker 1: wrote Out of the Furnace for Christian long at my
Speaker 1: Christian thought that he was the only guy to embody this,
Speaker 1: and thankfully he said yes. Um and I like to
Speaker 1: see actors in ways that you rarely see them, and
Speaker 1: I hope that that I, together Christian and I have
Speaker 1: shown a side of him and Out of the Furnace
Speaker 1: that that people hadn't quite seen before, and I think
Speaker 1: that can speak for his part in Hostiles. UH great
Speaker 1: range Um fully embodies the character. There are a few
Speaker 1: actors that you see on screen that you really believe
Speaker 1: can do what you're seeing them do. Christian, there's no question.
Speaker 1: And what you see him do the way he rides
Speaker 1: a horse, the way he uh moves into battle, the
Speaker 1: way that he takes care of his men, or Rosamund
Speaker 1: Pike uh young widow whom he meets on the trail. Um,
Speaker 1: because I know Christian is a deeply, deeply humanistic person.
Speaker 1: Um and there's a sense of trust there that's critical
Speaker 1: for an actor and a director, but when you're closest
Speaker 1: friends as we are, UH, there's a sense of trust
Speaker 1: that Christian knows that I will only show him in
Speaker 1: the light that he intends that I intend, and in
Speaker 1: a way that will fully embellish the character in a
Speaker 1: way that that that I perhaps didn't write. And that's
Speaker 1: what great actors do. They take they take writing, whether
Speaker 1: it's good or not, and they completely elevated. And Christian
Speaker 1: does that with every moment, and I know that he's
Speaker 1: going to do that. UM. And there's just a sense
Speaker 1: of trust that we have as as close friends that
Speaker 1: it comes from spin ending countless hours together when we
Speaker 1: aren't working in our families, vacation together. We we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time together as families and UH. And
Speaker 1: it certainly makes the work UM that much richer. And
Speaker 1: certainly what another thing I learned from Jeff Bridges is
Speaker 1: it's it isn't the result of the film. How it
Speaker 1: does is that the box office I thought that really
Speaker 1: means a lot to me. But certainly with awards and
Speaker 1: those sort of things, it's it's about the experience that
Speaker 1: you've had and I've had two incredible experiences with Christian
Speaker 1: that that will not be easily surpassed. You mentioned Rosamond there.
Speaker 1: I think some people might think it was Gone Girl
Speaker 1: that led to this casting decision, but it wasn't talk
Speaker 1: about that because I think this is interesting. No, I've
Speaker 1: always admired her work. US incredible actors, lots of range,
Speaker 1: and you can see this very fierce intelligence um that
Speaker 1: radiates on screen. But I happened to come across a
Speaker 1: massive attack video and and I was mesmerized by her performance,
Speaker 1: very fearless performance. And however long this video is six
Speaker 1: minutes long. Of course, I was well aware of her work,
Speaker 1: and I sent it to Christian. I said, I think
Speaker 1: this is our Rosalie, almost certain this is our Rosalie
Speaker 1: character she portrays in Hostiles. And Christian wrote back, oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's perfect. She's incredible, And it was just
Speaker 1: in those moments. Of course, no dialogue, and there isn't
Speaker 1: a great deal of dialogue and Hostiles um that you
Speaker 1: could see a real resilience and strength, but in a
Speaker 1: very odd way that doesn't quite jump out at you
Speaker 1: in this particular video. So then I asked to skype
Speaker 1: with her a center whatever my latest draft was, and
Speaker 1: and she really responded to that. But while we were skyping,
Speaker 1: she lives in London, her children, her young her young
Speaker 1: boys were climbing all over her. And what I loved
Speaker 1: is that she didn't have them sequestered away somewhere, but
Speaker 1: allowed them while we're skyping, to just play with her.
Speaker 1: And she would talk to them while we were skyping.
Speaker 1: Of course, we've never met, and she was so maternal,
Speaker 1: and I could see her that this deep love that
Speaker 1: she had for her children, as you know, as most
Speaker 1: mothers would. But I just happened to see that in
Speaker 1: this particular skype session, and I thought, for someone who's
Speaker 1: going to suffer great loss as she does in the film, um,
Speaker 1: she clearly exhibits that, not only in her other work,
Speaker 1: but certainly in these few moments skyping. And then of
Speaker 1: course this massive attack video that I think is pretty genius.
Speaker 1: The physicality on display in that video too, I mean
Speaker 1: it's just a commitment. You can really sense. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: she's an extremely committed actress. I mean, she did tell
Speaker 1: me it was the most difficult film that that she
Speaker 1: had made, but um, she never complained. And then I'd
Speaker 1: love to talk about Sam Shepard a little bit. She
Speaker 1: don't mind, Sam, I mean we lost him recently. Well
Speaker 1: you know, obviously one of the greats uh was in
Speaker 1: your film Out of the Furnace and I'm so bummed
Speaker 1: I never got to meet this man. But what did
Speaker 1: Sam Shepherd mean? Do you? Because I understand you guys
Speaker 1: are very close. Oh Sam, I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: clearly haven't gotten over and I and I won't get
Speaker 1: over to I wearing a jacket now that he gave me.
Speaker 1: Um that yeah, Chris, well, um, I'll never forget. When
Speaker 1: I sent him Out of the Furnace, his agent called
Speaker 1: me and said, so, Sam's going to call you. She
Speaker 1: didn't tell me whether he had read the script. Sam's
Speaker 1: gonna call you, and you're going to see a number
Speaker 1: from Paris come up on your cell phone. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, of course Sam Shepherd's calling me from Paris.
Speaker 1: This is this just makes perfect sense. And the first
Speaker 1: thing he said to me, he said, well, this seems
Speaker 1: like a cousin to Barry Child and I love this
Speaker 1: title I'm in And I literally couldn't fill my legs
Speaker 1: at that point. And then he went on to say
Speaker 1: what he liked about the writing, and and and of
Speaker 1: course then we made the film together, which was an
Speaker 1: incredible experience. Sam come into me once after a scene
Speaker 1: with Christian and Sam suit, wow, that guy's good. I said, yes, Sam,
Speaker 1: he is. And he had he had made Jesse James,
Speaker 1: the Fascination of Jesse James with Casey. So they were pals.
Speaker 1: So we're really it it. It made a very difficult film,
Speaker 1: very heavy film, much much lighter. And and then I
Speaker 1: screened the film for him when I had finished, and
Speaker 1: I was nervously waiting outside the theater in New York.
Speaker 1: And he came out, and he had had had visibly
Speaker 1: been moved, and and he embraced me, and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, um, you know, he said, well we're two
Speaker 1: p's in a pod. He said, Kendred Spirits, that I
Speaker 1: love it. And for for a man who didn't speak much,
Speaker 1: that probably not more to me than almost anybody. Um.
Speaker 1: Then we stayed close after that, and he would read screenplays.
Speaker 1: We would talk about horses. He had a farm in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: in a ranch in Santa Fe and and he would
Speaker 1: watch he watched Black Masks. We chatted about that. We
Speaker 1: would talk about politics, were talking about literature. Uh. He
Speaker 1: would invite me to see some of the work he
Speaker 1: was working on. UM. I would read some of his
Speaker 1: his his work, and it really was this great relationship.
Speaker 1: And he and he gave me a book UM that
Speaker 1: he inscribed, Cruising Paradise. And then he also gave me
Speaker 1: a book of letters between him and Joseph chacken Um
Speaker 1: from the seventies and eighties. And I reread those letters often,
Speaker 1: and and those letters speak to a man who's a
Speaker 1: national treasure, who's one of our great artistic minds, a
Speaker 1: man of real courage and can fiction, and UM, a
Speaker 1: man who won't be replaced. What I find fascinating about
Speaker 1: that whole situation is no one knew he was suffering,
Speaker 1: No he and suffering the way he did. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've I've been told and read that that's probably, you know,
Speaker 1: the worst way one can die when you suffer from
Speaker 1: a L. S luke Eric's disease. And and how difficult
Speaker 1: that is because your mind so sharpen, your body is
Speaker 1: just starting to atrophy. And and Sam, but he he
Speaker 1: never really uh, he never really complained. And and you
Speaker 1: know that really said a lot to me, for sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, here to the extent that you can
Speaker 1: or want to talk about your next project, which has
Speaker 1: been announced, it's Hell Helms on his trail about Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King's assassin, James Earl Ray. Uh. You know we
Speaker 1: were talking earlier about reconciliation and hate, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the answer to this question kind of seems obvious,
Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna ask, why make this movie? Right? Well? Uh?
Speaker 1: If not now? When um, clearly, UM, what Dr King
Speaker 1: meant to me, meant to me and so many others
Speaker 1: can be easily drowned out by the very loud voices
Speaker 1: of hate that that have a much larger megaphone now
Speaker 1: than they have in the in the very recent past. Um,
Speaker 1: I certainly want to honor his legacy, what he meant
Speaker 1: to UM, the non violent struggle, because regardless of what
Speaker 1: some people say they're there, there's the non violent struggle,
Speaker 1: and then there's the other side. Right then we all
Speaker 1: know what that means, UM, and I want to honor
Speaker 1: what he what he meant to someone like me, to
Speaker 1: his followers. And also when I was was nine years old,
Speaker 1: I was at my grandfather's farm in Tennessee and was
Speaker 1: around midnight one night, and his hunting dogs were baying
Speaker 1: loudly embarking, and next thing you know, there are red
Speaker 1: lights and blue lights and state troopers and FBI and
Speaker 1: and state police all converging on my grandfather's farm and
Speaker 1: we all run outside, and the state trooper says to
Speaker 1: my grandfather, he says, some men have escaped from Brushy
Speaker 1: Mountain State Prison, which is quite a ways away, and
Speaker 1: they've stolen your truck and they've crashed it. And we
Speaker 1: have him treated among those men as James Earl Ray.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, my gosh, how close I
Speaker 1: was to a man who was forever altered the course
Speaker 1: of history. And I will, of course, in no way,
Speaker 1: UM paint this man in any light other than than
Speaker 1: what he deserves to be painted in. UM. And it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly not a difficult No, it's not an easy
Speaker 1: film to make. It's it's quite difficult, UM. But I
Speaker 1: think I have a handle on the material too, to
Speaker 1: tell in a very sensitive fashion and one that can
Speaker 1: really speak to the times in which we lived. Because
Speaker 1: James Earl Ray was really influenced by the rise of
Speaker 1: the demagogue named George Wallace. And he gave a lot
Speaker 1: of people permission to speak through hatred and bigotry and violence.
Speaker 1: That one obviously has come together quickly here in the
Speaker 1: last few months. But what else on the horizon for you?
Speaker 1: What are you? What are you hoping to make? What
Speaker 1: do you want to launch into? Well, I've I've long
Speaker 1: wanted to make h William steinn adaptation of Lie Down
Speaker 1: on Darkness that, um, I'm very fond of. But that's
Speaker 1: that's a very difficult project and finding the right casting
Speaker 1: is critical and um and perhaps I was not as
Speaker 1: fearless as I should have been trying to make it sooner,
Speaker 1: but perhaps, um, perhaps at at some point. But it
Speaker 1: appears that hell Hound on his trail is is is
Speaker 1: going to be next in the process of refining the
Speaker 1: script and and casting now. And I don't mean just
Speaker 1: to sound disrespectful, but is there do you want to
Speaker 1: go easier on yourself? Well, my wife often asks that question,
Speaker 1: just emotionally speaking. You know, Chris, I'm not quite sure
Speaker 1: why I'm drawn to the darker recesses of the human psyche. Um,
Speaker 1: but I know that there's a kid's movie in me somewhere,
Speaker 1: and it's not Battle Royale. Well, let's get that. One
Speaker 1: of these days. The movie is called Hostiles. It will
Speaker 1: be out, uh, you know sometimes it's fall. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: on the market, actually on one of the hot acquisition titles,
Speaker 1: so keep an eye out for that. It's playing Tell
Speaker 1: You're Right this weekend in Toronto next week thanks to
Speaker 1: Lot Scott coming on real appreciated, great pleasure, Chris, Thank you, buddy, Eat,
Speaker 1: Eat and Fair.