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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Chris Columbus has brought to the screen some of the

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Speaker 1: biggest American family films of the last twenty years, Adventures

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Speaker 1: in Babysitting Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire. He also produced and

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Speaker 1: directed the first two Harry Potter films and produced the

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Speaker 1: third as well. I'm a Wizard and a Thumping good

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Speaker 1: Night Wager. Once you trade up a little, No, you've

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Speaker 1: made a mistake. I mean, I can't be a wizard.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just Harry. I've known Chris for a

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Speaker 1: long time. We were in school together at n y U.

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Speaker 1: I lived, started at Weinstein and then um moved to Reuben.

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Speaker 1: You were in Ruby, I was in Reuben, and I

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Speaker 1: think that's where we met. Yeah. For Columbus, n y

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Speaker 1: U was more than just a place to learn the craft.

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Speaker 1: He loved film school for me was the only It

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Speaker 1: was sort of the only way out, you know. Um.

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a Both of my parents were

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Speaker 1: factory workers in Ohio. UM My future was basically working

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Speaker 1: at either my father's aluminum factory or my mother's automotive factory.

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Speaker 1: Literally didn't own them that I was just be working,

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Speaker 1: and I think they did. You could own them now,

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Speaker 1: could own them the decision I did, although I don't

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Speaker 1: think there's much work there. But at the time that

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Speaker 1: was it, you know, and and the only escape really

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Speaker 1: for me. Uh, we're movies, And what were movies to you? Then?

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Speaker 1: There was no DVD, there was no noble television. How

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Speaker 1: did you? Movies were the either the CBS Late night movie.

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Speaker 1: I would sneak out of bed and watch the late

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Speaker 1: night movie on CBS and just stay in the movie

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Speaker 1: theaters on the weekend. There were only two theaters. Two

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Speaker 1: films would be two separate theaters. There was no multiplexus

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Speaker 1: back then. And I would watch whatever film came into

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Speaker 1: town over and over. And I remember something clicked when

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Speaker 1: I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Something really

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Speaker 1: and I watched it three times and I just was

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Speaker 1: amazed by the movie. And I didn't at the time.

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Speaker 1: There's no understanding, there's no idea. No nobody knew about

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Speaker 1: film schools. Nobody knew that you could actually go to

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Speaker 1: school and learn how to become I didn't even know

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Speaker 1: what a director was. So I put my energy into

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Speaker 1: illustrating and writing comic books. I thought, I still didn't

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Speaker 1: understand the film concept. But I started to draw Spider

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Speaker 1: Man comics, Thor comics, Halt comics. I wanted a job

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Speaker 1: at Marvel in the Marvel that was my goal. I

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Speaker 1: still love movies, but I didn't I didn't understand completely.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, and so the comic books and all of

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Speaker 1: the This is very naive of me, but all the

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Speaker 1: comic book superheroes lived in New York City. So this

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Speaker 1: was this magical place for me as a kid because

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Speaker 1: I'm drawing New York City all the time. And I

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Speaker 1: realized I was spending about eight to twelve hours alone today,

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Speaker 1: and I, um, I wanted to work with people. I

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Speaker 1: wanted to be with people. What did your parents think

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Speaker 1: about that? They thought I could go to art school

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Speaker 1: that like can't state or something, you know that I

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Speaker 1: could go to art school and I could, um draw

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Speaker 1: these comics and that's fine. Then I saw The Godfather.

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Speaker 1: The Godfather was re released in four i think, and

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Speaker 1: re released. And then the next movie I saw was

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Speaker 1: Blazing Saddles. I saw those two movies change my life,

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Speaker 1: both ends of the spectrum. I realized with blazing saddles.

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Speaker 1: The possibilities of what you could do with film were endless,

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Speaker 1: and Time magazine came out with a one page article

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Speaker 1: about film schools. I had never heard of film school

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Speaker 1: and don't know what this could possibly be. And I

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Speaker 1: read about Martin Scorsese, and I read about Francis Ford Coppeland.

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Speaker 1: I read about USC and U, C l A and

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Speaker 1: n y U, and I said to my parents, this

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Speaker 1: is what I want to do. What did they say?

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Speaker 1: They were extraordinarily supported. They were amazingly supported. Every other

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Speaker 1: relative in my family was not supportive. They said, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna be saying you're gonna be back

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Speaker 1: here in two years. You can't handle New York City. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And it just it just was more fire. It was

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Speaker 1: just I was like, fuck you, I'm doing it. I

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Speaker 1: got to New York and I remember my father drove

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Speaker 1: me up to Weinstein and he looked at the city

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Speaker 1: and looked at the dorm and he said, let's go home.

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Speaker 1: I'll drive you back home now. And I said, no way,

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Speaker 1: no way. I was in. I was literally in oz.

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Speaker 1: Weinstein does look like the library at a community coach

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Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union right exactly. It's a but I

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Speaker 1: immediately fell in love with the city, and I knew

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Speaker 1: that I had no choice but to succeed. I had

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Speaker 1: to find a way to succeed or I would be

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Speaker 1: back in the middle of Ohio working in an aluminum factory.

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Speaker 1: And that's hideous. So you get there. Had you ever

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Speaker 1: touched any film equipment before? H yeah? Super. My parents

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Speaker 1: did buy me a super great sound camera which enabled

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Speaker 1: me to start to make films. Actually, I made a

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Speaker 1: twenty minute film for my theology class because I went

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Speaker 1: to a very strict Catholic school, so it was a

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Speaker 1: theology class that was dealing with social issues. So we

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Speaker 1: made a film about abortion vasectomes. And I was very

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Speaker 1: inspired at the time by remember SNL n seventies six.

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Speaker 1: Sn L had just come. You know, we would spend

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Speaker 1: our Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. So I was

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Speaker 1: doing these basically commercial parodies that I had versions that

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Speaker 1: I had seen on SNL, and I screened it for

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Speaker 1: the class. The class loved it. The priest was horrified.

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Speaker 1: And what happened is the feeling of showing that movie

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Speaker 1: and hearing those all of those kids laughing in this

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Speaker 1: small Ohio Town really really hit me. I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: an addictive feeling, you know what it's like being on

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Speaker 1: stage while showing your film and having people respond to

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Speaker 1: it became very addictive. So that fueled my desire to

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Speaker 1: get there as well. Your parents say about all your

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Speaker 1: politically incorrect film, very dark stuff back then, you know,

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Speaker 1: they You know, my my mother went with it. My

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Speaker 1: father didn't really want to have much to do with it.

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Speaker 1: He figured, okay that you know, my father was most

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Speaker 1: most of the time, my father was under a car

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Speaker 1: repairing it, you know, and in the garage when he

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Speaker 1: wasn't working or having a beer. So I um, as

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Speaker 1: long as he's not on the streets, it's exactly my parents.

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Speaker 1: Not only he's not taking drugs, that's true, and that

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Speaker 1: that actually you know, my mother was very supportive. My

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Speaker 1: mother was probably much more supportive than my father about

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Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, and she had she shared

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Speaker 1: sort of that dark sense of humor that I had

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Speaker 1: as well. So she supported those of those movies and

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Speaker 1: she watched I used to watch SNL with her. She

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Speaker 1: loved it. So you you get to Weinstein you had

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Speaker 1: a super eight sound camera, but you get to Weinstein

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Speaker 1: and what's what are the first recollections you have of

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Speaker 1: that when you get there? To go to n y U? Honestly,

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Speaker 1: n Yu. The night I got there, Spawn drinking age

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Speaker 1: was eight team sponsored a bar tour. Can you imagine

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Speaker 1: them doing that these days? Eight to ten bars in

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Speaker 1: the East Village. They would take a group of freshmen

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Speaker 1: and go to each bar Chumley's, mcsorley's. And that's where

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Speaker 1: I met my best friends, and that's where I met

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Speaker 1: my future producing partner, Michael barn Nathan. We met that

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Speaker 1: first night and and uh yeah, you could be said,

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Speaker 1: I mean, the lawsuits are ridiculous. And we met and

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Speaker 1: we hit it off, and and there was this I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know what it what it's like you go into

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Speaker 1: this community of everyone who shares your deepest love of

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Speaker 1: something like film, and you have someone to talk to

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Speaker 1: about it. I had no one to talk to about

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Speaker 1: it in Ohio, you know, I was this everyone's come

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Speaker 1: there from the aluminum factory. Finally I was able to

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Speaker 1: have arguments and discussions and we would get these into

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Speaker 1: you remember these intense and passion discussions about directors, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and Frank Capra was he really great? Or was

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Speaker 1: he you know, was he much more of a populous

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Speaker 1: to director? And you get into these fantastic discussions that

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Speaker 1: didn't exist for me in Ohio? So I was in

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Speaker 1: you know, it was like Christmas morning every day at

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Speaker 1: n y U. So when you go to film school

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Speaker 1: did you go there when you started to become a

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Speaker 1: wash and all that process? Did you love it? And

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Speaker 1: you ate it up? And you said more and more

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Speaker 1: and more you love the technical No, actually I don't.

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Speaker 1: I mean the technical side of it. I have very

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Speaker 1: little interest in it. I want to know as much

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Speaker 1: as I need to know so I can go onto

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Speaker 1: a set and block a scene with actors. But I'm

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Speaker 1: much more and I was. I've always been this way.

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Speaker 1: I'm much more interested in connecting with the actors on

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Speaker 1: a set because what I've seen as a producer over

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Speaker 1: the years, as I saw it as a writer when

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Speaker 1: I was just starting out. Directors, a lot of directors

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Speaker 1: tend to be afraid of actors, which it drives me insane.

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Speaker 1: I cannot understand. They're suspicious of actor. They're suspicious of actors.

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Speaker 1: They don't want to discuss, you know, it's this whole thing. Well,

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Speaker 1: if an actor has a question, as he challenged, I

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Speaker 1: love that. I love that back and forth, that discussion

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Speaker 1: that you know, I thought it was kind of cool

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Speaker 1: and the Apocalypse Now documentary, when Brando and Coffler were

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Speaker 1: sitting there for six days discussing discussing his character. I

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Speaker 1: love that about actors. So I'm much more drawn to

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Speaker 1: working with the actors than I am working, you know,

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Speaker 1: figuring out what lens I need to use. I know

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Speaker 1: what I want the film to look like. I know

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Speaker 1: how I wanted to feel, But I don't need to

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Speaker 1: know the numbers. I just want to make sure that

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Speaker 1: when I get on that set, those actors and I

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Speaker 1: that we trust each other no matter what kind of

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Speaker 1: film it is. So there must be moments, though, where

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Speaker 1: you're sitting there on the set of a Harry Potter

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Speaker 1: film and Roger Deakins, who is one of the greatest

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Speaker 1: cinematographers of his generation, is there, and do you sit

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Speaker 1: there and say, what do you think Roger? What lends

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Speaker 1: you defer to him about all the cinematography to do.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes that don't go no, No, I think it's this,

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Speaker 1: or I think you must have an opinion. Oh completely,

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Speaker 1: It's not like yeah. Complete. In other words, I don't

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Speaker 1: abdicate all that to something. No. No. I I do

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Speaker 1: my homework. I storyboard everything. Um, I do my own

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Speaker 1: shot list in the morning. I know exactly if I

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Speaker 1: want to use a crane or a dolly or a

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Speaker 1: And I also don't there there's the other side of

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Speaker 1: me where I've seen directors who only want to deal

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Speaker 1: with the actors and don't want to block the scene

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Speaker 1: and leave that all up to the cinematographer. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you've seen that as well, but I and I'm not

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Speaker 1: interested in that. I want to have the control, certainly

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Speaker 1: of the visual look of the film. But I don't

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Speaker 1: need to get again, I don't need to say I

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Speaker 1: want to fordy here. I don't. That means nothing to me.

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Speaker 1: What means something to me is to look through the

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Speaker 1: camera and know if I've got it right. But it's

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Speaker 1: as I said, it's much more important. The writing is

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily important to me. And the connection with the actors

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Speaker 1: and the crew as well. You know, I I've seen

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Speaker 1: a lot of directors work and there's no connection with people,

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Speaker 1: and I hate that. I just hate those directors who

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Speaker 1: sort of build a wall up around them and maybe

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Speaker 1: maybe it works for them. I'm sure it works for

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Speaker 1: some of them. But for me, it's a matter of

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Speaker 1: connecting with almost every person on that set. So when

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Speaker 1: I leave the set, they all feel that they've had

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Speaker 1: a great day. I know it's a weird thing to say,

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Speaker 1: but it's very important to me that that that the

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Speaker 1: person has the smallest job on the set feels as

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Speaker 1: if he's he or she has contributed something that day.

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Speaker 1: You know. And then when you left n y U,

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Speaker 1: what did you do? I left n y U. I

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Speaker 1: had actually I was lucky enough I had left, but

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Speaker 1: in seventy I had written, um, something interesting happened. That

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Speaker 1: I had a scholarship. I had this great scholarship that

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Speaker 1: got me through ny U the first year. And my

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Speaker 1: mother would call me. You remember, we had those pay

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Speaker 1: phones at the end of our dorm hallways's no cell phone.

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Speaker 1: So every Sunday I would go to the payphone a

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Speaker 1: call home, and my mother would say, Chris, don't forget.

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Speaker 1: To go to the Burstar's office and signed. I had

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Speaker 1: to sign some papers so I would renew my scholarship.

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Speaker 1: And I would say, Mom, no problem. I'd forget. I'd

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Speaker 1: be doing something That went on for six weeks. The

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Speaker 1: seventh week I called. She was screaming at me, said,

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Speaker 1: you lost the scholarship. I said, oh, christ, I the scholarship.

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Speaker 1: She goes this summer, you're gonna have to work at

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Speaker 1: the aluminum factory. So so I went back. I went

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Speaker 1: back to Ohio, and I was working basically swing shifts.

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Speaker 1: I would work stay shifts, afternoon shifts, and night shifts.

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Speaker 1: After your first year, my first year, did your mother

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Speaker 1: make you a little necklace with a little piece of

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Speaker 1: aluminium after that, in the shape of a crucive. Don't

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Speaker 1: sunk up on it? Oh god? I so anyway, so

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Speaker 1: I realized if I was on the night shift, I

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Speaker 1: could read. So that first year I was just read,

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Speaker 1: you know, novels for eight hours. I had to do

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Speaker 1: it again after my sophomore year. So I went back

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Speaker 1: my sophomore year, and I realized, if I could get

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Speaker 1: on the night shift for the entire summer, I could

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Speaker 1: write a screenplay. So what I did is I remember

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Speaker 1: these gigantic, hulking cylinders of aluminum, and I would sneak

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Speaker 1: behind the aluminum cores and sit there with a notepad,

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Speaker 1: and I wrote my first screenplay, a screenplay called Jocks

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Speaker 1: about high school foot ball, my experiences with high school football,

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Speaker 1: and I was a terrible football player, but I I

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Speaker 1: you know, it was very person Sorry. Yeah, I suited

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Speaker 1: up and I brought that back to my writing teacher,

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Speaker 1: a guy named Jesse Cornbluth, who gave it to his agent.

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Speaker 1: And his agent was a guy named Ron Bernstein who

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Speaker 1: still works in New York. And Bernstein took me on

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Speaker 1: as a client my junior year. A producer since passed away.

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Speaker 1: Steve Friedman optioned it for five grands. So your professional career,

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Speaker 1: which was which began as a writer as a screenwriter,

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Speaker 1: was leveraged by corn Bluth, who was your teacher at

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Speaker 1: n Y. Yeah, that five grand prevented me from ever

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Speaker 1: having to go back to the liminary factory. Um. So

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Speaker 1: that was my junior year, and then my senior year

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Speaker 1: I decided to not right because I was getting writing offers,

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Speaker 1: which was great, you know, but I was in college

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to take that time to do my

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Speaker 1: senior film, my senior thesis. So I did a senior

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Speaker 1: film that year, and then when I was out, you know,

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Speaker 1: after college, I just, uh, my agent started to get

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Speaker 1: me writing gigs, and I started writing after as soon

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Speaker 1: as I graduated. Basically, I lived on twenties between six

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Speaker 1: and seven. Um, one school, you were in Chelsea. So

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Speaker 1: when school ended, you decide you're gonna stay in New York. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I decided to stay in New York because I, again,

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Speaker 1: I was always very wary of going to l A.

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Speaker 1: I I don't know why. Why were you wary of

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Speaker 1: it even then? You know. The weird thing is I

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Speaker 1: have so many friends who think of l A as

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Speaker 1: like that's where all the films are made, that's where

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Speaker 1: that's where the magic happens. But for me, I was

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Speaker 1: I just at that point, after four years in New York,

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Speaker 1: I felt very comfortable in New York and had this

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Speaker 1: vision of being able to make every film in Manhattan,

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Speaker 1: or writing in Manhattan and living in Manhattan. I was

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Speaker 1: kind of out of work and I couldn't figure out

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Speaker 1: what I was going to do next. And a friend

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Speaker 1: of mine, Mitch, said, you know, there hasn't since Jaws,

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Speaker 1: there really hasn't been a great movie that's featured He

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Speaker 1: used the word monster. There has not been a great

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Speaker 1: monster movie made. And I said, that's a good idea

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Speaker 1: that's interesting. And in the loft I lived in and

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Speaker 1: we had these mice scurring around on the floors, and

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Speaker 1: I would sleep with my hand raped over the bed

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Speaker 1: and mice would go by in the middle of the night.

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Speaker 1: I thought, these tiny creatures are frightening. So I spent

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Speaker 1: the next six weeks writing the script called Gremlin's and

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Speaker 1: I wrote it on spec. I wasn't paid for it,

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Speaker 1: and I sent it to my agent, who um liked

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Speaker 1: the script but felt it was a little dark, and

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Speaker 1: still sent it to about fifty producers and studio executives

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Speaker 1: and everyone passed on it. And Spielberg. Steven Spielberg was

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Speaker 1: leaving his office on a Friday and passed his secretary's

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Speaker 1: desk and it was sitting there. That's why so much

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Speaker 1: of this business is luck. He passed the script and

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Speaker 1: saw the title and said that looks interesting, picked it up,

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Speaker 1: read it that weekend, and decided he wanted to option

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Speaker 1: the movie. Now I didn't know this, I gotta call

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Speaker 1: up my loft. Barnathan answers the phone and says it's

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Speaker 1: someone on air. Says he's Steven Spielberg. I get I

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Speaker 1: get the phone. He goes Chris it's Steven Spielberg. I

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Speaker 1: was stunned, and um, yeah, he flew me out to

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Speaker 1: l A. I got to meet Spielberg and that sort

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Speaker 1: of That was teen eight two, and I lived in

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Speaker 1: l A for nine months at that point. So what

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Speaker 1: happens in that nine months He's giving you notes or

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Speaker 1: there's creative people. He would give me notes. Now, Gremlins

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Speaker 1: was sort of often running, and someone else was even

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Speaker 1: rewriting it as I was working on another script for Stephen.

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Speaker 1: For some strange reason, I had sort of carte blanche.

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Speaker 1: I could go into his office whenever I wanted. He

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Speaker 1: whether he liked me, I don't know what it was,

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Speaker 1: but I had an office three doors down from him.

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Speaker 1: I would just go down there whenever he would be

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Speaker 1: sitting there with Richard Gere or or or Warren Beatty.

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Speaker 1: One time he's like, Chris, come on in, would he

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Speaker 1: and I would start to talk to him about ideas.

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Speaker 1: One day, he's looking through these old EC comic books

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Speaker 1: and he says, look at this title, Chris, the goon Children.

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Speaker 1: And I said, the goon Children, that's a cool title.

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Speaker 1: And we came up with this story together about these

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Speaker 1: kids who find a Treasure Map, and it was the Goonies.

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Speaker 1: I would write three pages of Goonies, run to Steven's office,

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Speaker 1: give it to him. He would make some notes. I

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Speaker 1: would run back to my office and make the changes,

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Speaker 1: and we've finished that script in about six weeks. Then

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Speaker 1: I wrote Young Sherlock Holmes with him, kind of in

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Speaker 1: the same way for Amblin, and that's when I and

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Speaker 1: that's when I redirected Goonies. Richard Donner Dick Donner directed Goonies,

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Speaker 1: and who directed Young Sherlock Holmes Barry Levinson. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: it was so you have Steven Spielberg producing your films

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Speaker 1: and your three doors down from him and Richard Donner,

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Speaker 1: who directed Superman. I'm gonna I want to tell people

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Speaker 1: in the audience who don't remember this timeline. And Levinson

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Speaker 1: was directed many great films they direct. Those are your

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Speaker 1: first two movies that could mat well. Gremlins is the

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Speaker 1: first one as well. Joe Dante. Yeah, so you go

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Speaker 1: from Joe Dante to Donner to Barry Levinson for the

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Speaker 1: first three films that your name was on the script

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Speaker 1: and your name was on as the writer of all three.

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Speaker 1: You know, it was kind of a heady experience. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, I always knew this is what I

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Speaker 1: need to be do, This is what I should be doing,

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Speaker 1: This is what I have to be doing. What did

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Speaker 1: you learn from Spielberg? Spielberg was like graduate school of

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Speaker 1: filmmaking For me. Spielberg was like, UM, I learned shortcuts

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Speaker 1: and I learned basically, it was a Billy Wilder quote

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Speaker 1: that Stephen, you know, nailed into my head every day,

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Speaker 1: which was, don't tell the audience something more than once.

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Speaker 1: I learned how to edit material, I learned how to

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Speaker 1: write better dialogue, and I learned how to be much

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Speaker 1: more visual as a writer from Stephen. So it was

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Speaker 1: a great relationship, you know, um, and still is a

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Speaker 1: great relationship to this day. We have the opportunity to

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Speaker 1: work together a couple of years ago. So I I

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Speaker 1: really loved that time. But at the same time, I

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Speaker 1: needed to get back to Manhattan. Why. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I just felt like I missed I missed it. I

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Speaker 1: mean it was it's very simple. Did you have a sense,

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Speaker 1: because I find other people have the same thing, it's

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Speaker 1: better for me to stay here for my career. You

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Speaker 1: didn't think of all those lines, No, I I don't

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Speaker 1: think at the time I was able to articulate it.

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Speaker 1: You know, twenty thirty years down the road, now I

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Speaker 1: can look back and and understand why I did it,

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00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:03,760
Speaker 1: because I was seeing the beginning of people losing touch

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Speaker 1: with reality. Why do directors not have long careers. They

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00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:10,879
Speaker 1: don't have long careers because they become extremely successful. Then

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00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:15,560
Speaker 1: they move into these huge mansions and live an isolated life.

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Speaker 1: They watch movies in their screening room. They don't do

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Speaker 1: their own grocery shopping, they don't pump their own gas,

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Speaker 1: they don't get out there on the street. At the

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Speaker 1: end of all that, you've lost connection to real people.

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Speaker 1: What are you making movies about, even if they're fantasy films.

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Speaker 1: Even again, I did not realize that at the time.

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Speaker 1: I realized it years later. I realized the reason I

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Speaker 1: went back to New York was to connect with everyone again,

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Speaker 1: so I could go to the corner superrette and buy

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Speaker 1: a carton of orange hues for forty dollars, you know,

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Speaker 1: so I could see people every day, take my dry cleaning,

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Speaker 1: and take my laundry. And that hasn't changed to this day.

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Speaker 1: I have not changed, you know. I have a great

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Speaker 1: housekeeper now, in San Francisco. But for the most part,

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Speaker 1: again because I'm a director and nobody really knows what

396
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Speaker 1: the hell I look like. I'm anonymous. Yeah, but you've yeah,

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00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:04,840
Speaker 1: You've kept this very low profile. Nobody knows what I

398
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Speaker 1: do in San Francisco. I mean, I have a couple

399
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Speaker 1: of friends. But I love it. It's fantastic. They are

400
00:20:10,680 --> 00:20:14,920
Speaker 1: all conscious choices you made, not I think some of

401
00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 1: them were subconscious. At the beginning, the only thing that

402
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 1: mattered to me about becoming a director was longevity. I

403
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that my career would last for decades,

404
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,159
Speaker 1: no matter what I was doing, and I felt that

405
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:31,680
Speaker 1: part of that has been this ability to sort of

406
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:33,720
Speaker 1: hide in plain sight in a weird way. Now I

407
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:37,680
Speaker 1: understand it. So you're a writer and you do Gremlin's

408
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:42,080
Speaker 1: and you do Goonies and you do Young Sherlock Holmes.

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Speaker 1: Is the notion of you directing a film? Is it

410
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Speaker 1: starting to percolate? Do you go to Spielberg and say,

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Speaker 1: I want to direct this one? No, it came. It

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Speaker 1: started with Jesse Cornbluth. Jesse Cornbluth put into my head

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Speaker 1: at n y U the only way you're gonna get

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Speaker 1: to become a director is by writing a few successful

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Speaker 1: screenplays after young Sherlock Holmes. Then I realized Gooneys and

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Speaker 1: Gremlins had been successful enough that maybe I could get

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Speaker 1: a directing gig. My agent sent me a copy of

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Speaker 1: the script called Adventures in Babysitting Elizabeth with Elizabeth Shoe

419
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Speaker 1: and uh Anthony Rapp. I love this. I love the script.

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Speaker 1: I thought this is something I could do. And I

421
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Speaker 1: had great producers, Linda Oaps and Deborah Hill, who were

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00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: very supportive of me as a first time director. They

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Speaker 1: agreed to let me direct the movie and that was

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Speaker 1: the first day on the set was a little little horrifying.

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Speaker 1: It was the thing I had dreamed about my California.

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Speaker 1: Now we shot it in Canada. It was my dream

427
00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,160
Speaker 1: to be directing a film. Yet at the same time

428
00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 1: I realized I had to go hunt to the set

429
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:48,600
Speaker 1: and face two fifty people and tell them what to do.

430
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:51,840
Speaker 1: You've never done it before. I got over my fear

431
00:21:51,920 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: pretty quickly because I had to. It's like jumping off.

432
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,520
Speaker 1: Do you still have an apprehension about that now? When

433
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,280
Speaker 1: it's first day of school and I mean shooting. It's

434
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: not Chris who was drawing his Marvel Comics, Chris that

435
00:22:04,080 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: was hiding behind the aluminum spools writing scripts and everything

436
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 1: while everybody else has taken a nap at the aluminum factory.

437
00:22:11,160 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 1: It's not Chris alone. There's the writer director who has

438
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:16,880
Speaker 1: this kind of monastic process. Then there's the guy that's

439
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:18,680
Speaker 1: got to go out and be the captain of the

440
00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 1: ship on the deck of the ship with two or

441
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 1: three people there. So that's a skill you had to develop, correct,

442
00:22:25,119 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: I think so, But again because well, definitely so, you know,

443
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:30,840
Speaker 1: I was terrifying the first couple of days. But then

444
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 1: I realized, Yeah, I realized that a lot of these

445
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,919
Speaker 1: crew guys, we're like beaten animals because directors, there are

446
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: so many directors who are such assholes. They're so kind

447
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: of cruel and angry, and they're working something out on

448
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 1: the set of the film. Yeah, and I thought, that's

449
00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:50,000
Speaker 1: not gonna work. That won't work for me. And I

450
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 1: realized after three or four weeks that people were responding

451
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:55,680
Speaker 1: just to the fact that I was not grumpy in

452
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: the morning, that I wasn't piste off all the time,

453
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: the fact that I was genuinely a pretty happy guy,

454
00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:03,199
Speaker 1: and I really valued what everybody was doing, and if

455
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:05,200
Speaker 1: somebody made a mistake, I wasn't ready to rip their

456
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: head off. I just I understood it. By the end

457
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: of that movie, I really I learned a valuable lesson

458
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:13,400
Speaker 1: how to earn the respect of the crew and your actors.

459
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: So you're there, you make the film, and what happens.

460
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:21,520
Speaker 1: The film opened to like seven million dollars back then,

461
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: which was a perceived disaster, so I'm thinking I'm never

462
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:29,679
Speaker 1: gonna work again. What happened is the second weekend. It

463
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 1: did something that no film some certain films do, few

464
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: films do, which is a shot up in attendance. So

465
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 1: we did better the second weekend. Getting that news that

466
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,720
Speaker 1: we increased was shocking, and it was great for the movie,

467
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:45,479
Speaker 1: and it was great. I was able to go off

468
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: and make another film then, and uh, what do you

469
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:52,280
Speaker 1: go do? I did a film that I wrote. I

470
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:55,640
Speaker 1: pitched a film to Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I went off

471
00:23:55,680 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: and wrote something else instead, a movie called Heartbreak Hotel

472
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: about my own obsession with Elvis Wesley. The movie opens

473
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: on a Friday. I read Roger Ebert's review, calling it

474
00:24:04,560 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: one of the worst films. Here, I'm driving a cross

475
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 1: country with my wife at that point because we edited

476
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 1: in l A for two months and we get by

477
00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,479
Speaker 1: the time we get to the probably in the Texas somewhere,

478
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,439
Speaker 1: this is Wednesday. The movie is already playing on a

479
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: double bill in the afternoon. They've already the theater to

480
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,359
Speaker 1: get it out of there is if if it was

481
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: a nuclear way. So um, once again, I'm thinking it's over.

482
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: I'll go back to writing. At the time, my first child, Eleanor,

483
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: was born, and I got a script from John Hughes.

484
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 1: We both had the same agent, UM, and he said,

485
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: do you want to do the third Christmas Vacation movie.

486
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 1: I was like, that's not really I didn't dream of

487
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:48,280
Speaker 1: becoming a filmmaker to do that particular movie. But I

488
00:24:48,280 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 1: thought I needed the gig and John Hues is supporting me,

489
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: so I started to do that movie. I shot Second Unit,

490
00:24:55,240 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: and I had such a disastrous relationship with the star

491
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase, who you know, it's no he has no

492
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: shortage of enemies. Uh. It was so disastrous and so

493
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:14,560
Speaker 1: humiliating for me, just based on three meetings that I quit.

494
00:25:14,640 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 1: I said that John, I can't do this, I cannot

495
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: make He's like, you know, Chevy's a complicated guy. He's

496
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: a rich food. I said, let me tell you something.

497
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,399
Speaker 1: He treats he when I first walked in, he thought

498
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: I was an assistant. So I'm like, I can't really

499
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:33,480
Speaker 1: work this way I and so I quit, and then

500
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: I was really I thought it was really in trouble.

501
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,960
Speaker 1: And John and I got along great. So John sent

502
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:44,239
Speaker 1: me the script for Home Alone Again Luck plays into it,

503
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with the script. I thought

504
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: it was a great script. I think he wrote it

505
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: in two days. I loved him, loved him, I mean

506
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: his life and how he went and how he kind

507
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: of left and you know, gave up and moved back

508
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: to Chicago. I'm not gave up, but he kind of

509
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: kind of walked away from It was always so to

510
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: me because I thought, God, I mean, I was hoping

511
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: I could become the next John Candy in his career

512
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: and the grown leading crazy uncle Buck of the next

513
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: barage of films of his. I loved working with him.

514
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: What was your experience like? It was exactly the same. Um,

515
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,960
Speaker 1: I walked off of a movie that he had given me,

516
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: So there was never a reason for him to call

517
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: me back. But I, for some strange reason, I think

518
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:27,679
Speaker 1: he respected that or he understood it, and being chevy,

519
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,919
Speaker 1: he understood. Yeah, I think so, and he uh, you know,

520
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: when I read this script, I thought, this is a gift,

521
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: this script. The script is really really important. And John,

522
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: the only concern I had was I had a you know,

523
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 1: I had a newborn at the time, and John liked

524
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: to work from about tenant when he was right when

525
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: he was a producer and writing. You know, he wrote

526
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 1: all night long. So we would be doing pre production

527
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: during the day on Home Alone, and then for story meetings,

528
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,160
Speaker 1: I'd go to his house in like Forest and we'd

529
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: work from ten to about five in the morning. So

530
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,160
Speaker 1: I was getting during the pre production hours of Home Alone,

531
00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: I was getting about two hours sleep, and John half

532
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: of the time just on He told these great stories.

533
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,080
Speaker 1: So he would tell stories you probably remember, and smoke

534
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,400
Speaker 1: and these stories would go on for three hours before

535
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: we ever got into the movie. The fact that we

536
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:18,600
Speaker 1: were making a movie he gave me once he saw

537
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 1: the first day of dailies from Home Alone. He gave

538
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,239
Speaker 1: me an amazing amount of freedom as a filmmaker. And

539
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: that really felt great that I was. I felt no

540
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: pressure because I always to this day feel like I'm

541
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: gonna walk on a movie and get fired. But with John,

542
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: he made me feel very secure and created sort of

543
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: a safe atmosphere for me. Immediately, Well, John put him

544
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: an Uncle Buck, and John said, you should see this kid,

545
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: but John never said cast him. So McAuley came up

546
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:46,919
Speaker 1: to my New York apartment. He and his father the

547
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: first kid I met, and he was incredibly charming, terrific.

548
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: But I said to John, just because I felt like

549
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: I wanted to be responsible, I said I should meet

550
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:57,520
Speaker 1: some other kids. So I met about three hundred other

551
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: kids and then came back around a mccaullary, get back

552
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: to you job. I'm gonna go kids, and I had

553
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: to do my job. Was the first one you saw.

554
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: McCauley was the first one I saw, and he was

555
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,360
Speaker 1: you know, it was. It was an interesting situation, kind

556
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,199
Speaker 1: of like the kids in in Harry Potter a little bit.

557
00:28:16,240 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: McAuley had only done one or two movies, so he

558
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: would do a line. He would he would say one line,

559
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: maybe two lines, and then get distracted. So a lot

560
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: of that film is cut into pieces just so we

561
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: could get his performance together. But what happened on screen,

562
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 1: it was amazingly charming, and you had Heard is the father?

563
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,040
Speaker 1: John heard yeah, and Catherine is the mother. And I

564
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: heard thought he was making Heard who I love. But

565
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 1: I loved him and Cut his Way, Remember Cut his

566
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: Way one of the great performances. But while he was

567
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 1: making Home Alone, he thought he was making the biggest

568
00:28:49,680 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: piece of ship in the world. And he was. He

569
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 1: was a pain in the ass, a little fit. He

570
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: comes back on Home Alone too, and the first day

571
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: he's shooting, I yell action. He breaks character and he said,

572
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: I just would like to say to Chris and the crew,

573
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: I owe you a big apology. Made a great movie

574
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: the first time, and I'm here to support you. Wow,

575
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 1: we have it in dailies. I still have a tape

576
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: for that. And I got to work with John Candy

577
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 1: for the first time. And John Candy came in for

578
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: one day of shooting. We had him for one day

579
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: and he has like six scenes in the movie. So

580
00:29:22,080 --> 00:29:25,120
Speaker 1: we shot for twenty four hours, twenty four hours straight

581
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: and Candy kept going. He just would continue to improvise,

582
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: and it was my first sort of foray into improvisation.

583
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: John would do a scripted take and then he would

584
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 1: start to play myself, Glinsky hard Polka King of the Midwest,

585
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: and he loved improvising. He was he was brilliant at it.

586
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: I had a few hits a few years ago. That's

587
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: why you know. Just Polka, Polca, Polca Oolca, No twin Lakes, Polka,

588
00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: i'mafugie Polka A kiss me Polka, Polka Twish In a minute,

589
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:10,880
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus talks about working with another brilliant improviser, Robin Williams. Yeah,

590
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.

591
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus says he wanted to work with Robin Williams

592
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: ever since he saw him in Good Morning Vietnam. Five

593
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: years later, Columbus got his chance. I feel like I've

594
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 1: known you for years. Maybe we knew each other in

595
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: another life. I would love for you to come and

596
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: work with us. Who would I great? Who would Mrs

597
00:30:52,040 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: doubt Fire, a film about a divorced father who dresses

598
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: as a Scottish nanny to trick his ex wife into

599
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 1: hiring him to care for their kids, won a Golden

600
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: Globe for Best Comedy. Robin Williams won a Globe for

601
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: Best Actor. But before all that would happen. Before the

602
00:31:09,040 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: filming even began, Chris Columbus had to meet Williams for lunch,

603
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 1: and I was terrified. I had worked with guys like Passy,

604
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: who I admired, and Dan Stern, but Robin was a

605
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: true superstar at the time, and I was I was

606
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: nervous about how it would go. And we just we

607
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: hit it off immediately, you know, we wanted to. We

608
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: really connected. Much of Mrs Doubtfire was shot in San Francisco,

609
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,720
Speaker 1: and Columbus took the opportunity to move his growing family

610
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: out west. It's a great place to raise a family,

611
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 1: and I felt Manhattan would be a little difficult. Um

612
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: we were about to have our third kid, and I thought,

613
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 1: and two of the kids have been born at Lenox

614
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: Hill in Manhattan, you know, I can't. And I was

615
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 1: having I was walking down the street man Anne with

616
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: my toddler, and I couldn't hear what she was saying

617
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: to me. I couldn't you know she's telling And I thought,

618
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 1: I gotta I've gotta be in a calmer place. And

619
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: I also fell in love with the city. San Francisco

620
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,200
Speaker 1: is a great city, and I had in the relationship

621
00:32:04,200 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: with Robin was still is terrific. Had a great relationship

622
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: with Robin, and with Robin again, it's like it's like

623
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: a steroid version of John Candy, where you John liked

624
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: to improvise, but Robin lives to improvise. So it was

625
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: almost like seeing a Springsteen concert where he has to

626
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: exhaust himself after four and a half hours of playing

627
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: before you can go to sleep at night. With Robin,

628
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: it was the same thing. We would shoot anywhere from

629
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: twelve to fifteen takes for each scene, and we would

630
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 1: start with a very structured script to take and then

631
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:43,920
Speaker 1: move off of the script and change everything. And that's

632
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 1: why that picture had to be shot with two or

633
00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: three cameras because do the exectit. Fox know that when

634
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: you're going into make a film and you have someone

635
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: who's is varied and who's is uh, who says uh,

636
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: what's the word? You know, as spontaneous as he is,

637
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:00,400
Speaker 1: did you call them up after the first week of

638
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: shooting and say, felons, just tear up the budget. We

639
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: gotta start all over again. Now we stayed under We

640
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: stayed not under budget, but we stayed on budget. Maybe

641
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:09,880
Speaker 1: we went over one or two days because he is fast.

642
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: He's lightning fast. And we shot with two or three cameras.

643
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: We understood the cost benefit analysis of his improvisations. He

644
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: wasn't somebody who was over the indulgence. No, and you

645
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 1: had actors. You had Sally Field and Pierce Brosnan acting

646
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: across from this guy, not knowing what he was going

647
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: to say on take number five or six, so we

648
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: had to have a camera on them because he's I mean,

649
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: the word genius has used a lot these days, but

650
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,440
Speaker 1: he he comes up with these seeings so quickly he

651
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: doesn't remember that he said them in the next take.

652
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,920
Speaker 1: It's just he's possessed. I sometimes tell people shooting this stuff,

653
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: I was like shooting a documentary. And by the time

654
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: we got to the editing room with millions of feet

655
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: of film. At the time, we weren't shooting digitally yet.

656
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 1: We had four or five different versions of the film.

657
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:56,560
Speaker 1: We had the PG version, the PG thirteen, the R

658
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,880
Speaker 1: in the n C seventeen. I showed Marcia who was

659
00:33:59,920 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: the produced because the film needed to be PG thirteen,

660
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: so we knew we couldn't have an R rated version

661
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: of Mrs Do Fire. I showed Marcia cut of the film,

662
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:09,440
Speaker 1: and then Robin wanted to see it with an audience,

663
00:34:09,840 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: and that was the sort of the thing that sealed

664
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: the deal, because the audience really responded. It was like

665
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: it really was a huge He wasn't then intrusive about

666
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: cutting the film, and he just as long as the

667
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: film worked in front of an audience, he was happy.

668
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,359
Speaker 1: He left. That was it. It's just every day he

669
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: we developed this sense of trust after a couple of weeks,

670
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: and I would it was incredibly exhausting shoot, working fourteen

671
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: hours a day, and I'd get home at night and

672
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: just poured myself a glass of wine and the phone

673
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,520
Speaker 1: to ring. It was Robin Howard Daily's how how was

674
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: I in? Daily? So he was. He was very very

675
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: obsessive in terms of his own performance, and dot Fire

676
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: sort of received mixed reviews. So for me, I because

677
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,279
Speaker 1: because of my love of film history and because my

678
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 1: love of certain films, I was, you know, I'd always

679
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 1: get there was a level of keeping it very real

680
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: by reading what some of these people were saying that

681
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: some I should probably be have a tougher skin and

682
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 1: say I don't give a ship what they're saying. So

683
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 1: with doubt, Fire there was a sense that we had

684
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: created a movie that was very successful, a lot of

685
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: people fell in love with, but it didn't for me personally.

686
00:35:15,440 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: I didn't get to that point where I wanted, you know,

687
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,720
Speaker 1: I always wanted to have that level of critical success

688
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,399
Speaker 1: and commercial success as well, and I just wasn't there yet.

689
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: So I managed to stay hungry. I mean, there was

690
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: a feeling of me that I needed to accomplish a

691
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: lot more, and I really still feel that way. I

692
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 1: still felt that there's a long way to go there

693
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 1: back on doubt fire, felt that there was a long

694
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:40,279
Speaker 1: way to go. So the collaboration with you did nine

695
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:44,399
Speaker 1: months after that with Hugh Grant and Hugh and uh,

696
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,040
Speaker 1: how did that movie? Did? Okay? But that was the

697
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 1: you know, that was the blow job weekend, So that

698
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:53,600
Speaker 1: was a that happening while you were shooting and when

699
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: it was released being no, no, no, no. We were scheduled,

700
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,200
Speaker 1: we were doing a press const exciting, this is insane.

701
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: So we're doing and the international press conference on a

702
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 1: movie with you. I realized, now I want to make

703
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 1: a movie with you just so as a gag, I

704
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 1: can get dressed up as a woman, as a cross dresser,

705
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:12,479
Speaker 1: and solicit a detective on Hollywood Boulevard just as a gag.

706
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 1: What if you got arrested? I wanted the goal is

707
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 1: get arrested, just to get arrested, and then when I'm

708
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: down to the place I want to go, officer, can

709
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:20,879
Speaker 1: I explain something to you? This is really just funk

710
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: with Chris Columbus, and I really wanted to. I wanted

711
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: the sex scandal on the set of it. It was,

712
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:29,160
Speaker 1: and it happened. I never I never saw it coming.

713
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 1: He was like the most completely yeah, I guess, buttoned down,

714
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,479
Speaker 1: really conservative guy, always prepared for work. Did a great job.

715
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: We were doing the international press conference in l A.

716
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: The movie was finished. The movie was screening off the

717
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: charts and audiences were loving it. So I thought, wow,

718
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a bigger hit than down Fire.

719
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: So we screened the movie on a Friday night for

720
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 1: the press. I go out to dinner with Hugh, Jeff

721
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: gold Bloom, and Laura Dern. We have this great dinner.

722
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: I drive Hugh back to the hotel. He says, oh,

723
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: John Hughes sent me a script. Would you would you

724
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: mind looking at it? I don't know if I should do.

725
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: It was a hundred one Dalmatians. So I walked up

726
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: to his hotel room, took the script, and I said, Okay,

727
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,400
Speaker 1: get a good night's sleep. We have a press conference tomorrow.

728
00:37:14,760 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: I go to sleep. My phone rings at six fifty nine.

729
00:37:18,239 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: It's barn Nathan. He says, turn on the TV. I

730
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,280
Speaker 1: said what. He goes turn on the TV. I turned

731
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: on the news channel two five seven mug shots. I'm like,

732
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 1: what the fund did he do? So there's a hundred

733
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 1: fifty international journalist that I was doing a press conference

734
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,959
Speaker 1: with Hugh. He was disappeared. He was at his agent's house.

735
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,360
Speaker 1: He's gone, he didn't come. He got it was me

736
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: facing all of the amazing. He does this the night

737
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 1: before a press conference. Perfect and he's He since said

738
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,160
Speaker 1: that he did it because he didn't like the movie,

739
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:55,920
Speaker 1: which he loved the movie, so that's not why he

740
00:37:55,960 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: did what. He went to solicitor prost because he was

741
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:01,319
Speaker 1: so depressed about the depressed about the film, he had

742
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: to have a prostitute. I got, I gotta try that.

743
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 1: Hugh Grants well publicized arrest didn't completely kill nine months.

744
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: It's still made over a hundred and eighty three million

745
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: dollars Mrs Doubtfire grossed over four hundred and forty million

746
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: dollars worldwide. The Harry Potter films did even better. Two

747
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:25,280
Speaker 1: years ago, Chris Columbus produced The Help, a much smaller film,

748
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Clearly Chris is

749
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: skilled at selecting the right material to work with, or

750
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: maybe he just surrounds himself with the right people. It

751
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: was my daughter because she was the one who tried

752
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: to convince me for about a year and a half

753
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 1: to read the Harry Potter books, and finally when I

754
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,399
Speaker 1: did and I realized I wanted to make the movie.

755
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: There were twenty five other directors who were in line.

756
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:52,760
Speaker 1: They called it at Warner Brothers a bake off. They said, Okay,

757
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,760
Speaker 1: we're going to meet all of these directors, and whoever

758
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: we you know, feel will will make the best movie,

759
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: will hire um. So I was in line because Spielberg

760
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: had dropped out. Steven Spielberg had dropped it was the

761
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: one he was going to direct the film. I think

762
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: he wanted to combine the two books, add some cheerleaders

763
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I think that she wasn't you know,

764
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: Joe Rolling was not up for that. So for whatever reason,

765
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,160
Speaker 1: Stephen backed backed away from the films, and then it

766
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: was a group of literally twenty five people. I had

767
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: the last meeting because I wanted to rewrite the script

768
00:39:26,040 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 1: for the studio UM And what I did is I

769
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 1: spent four, no eleven days, staying up to about two

770
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: or three in the morning rewriting the Harry Potter script.

771
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:37,640
Speaker 1: Steve Clubs wrote a brilliant script. I just wanted to

772
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: rewrite it with some camera cues, add some scenes from

773
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 1: the book that weren't in there. And when I went

774
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: in to meet with Warner Brothers and they said, why

775
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: do you want to make this movie? And I said,

776
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: because I've rewritten it for you for free. Now, no

777
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: one ever does anything for free and Hollywood, so uh.

778
00:39:54,080 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: It took it. Still took them a few weeks to

779
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: say yes, but I did get the gig. They and

780
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: I realized I still there was oh one obstacle. I

781
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:03,720
Speaker 1: had to fly to Scotland to meet with j. K. Rowling.

782
00:40:04,160 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: That was my sort of last interview, and if I

783
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: fucked that up, I wouldn't have gotten the job. So

784
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: I flew to Scotland, met with Joe, who I was expecting.

785
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen many photographs of her at that point.

786
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: I was expecting Miss Marple. I was expecting some sixty

787
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,440
Speaker 1: year old, heavy set woman in a flot floral dress.

788
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,920
Speaker 1: And it was She's she's younger than we are. She's

789
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: she's very, very funny, one of the funniest people I've

790
00:40:27,480 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 1: ever met, sharp as attack, and we hit it off immediately.

791
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: We spent three she spent three hours listening to me.

792
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: I had diarrhea of the mouth because I was telling

793
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 1: her the kind of movie I wanted to make. At

794
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:39,480
Speaker 1: the end of it, she said, that's exactly the kind

795
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: of film I want to make, and I knew I

796
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: got the job. Once I knew I got the job,

797
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 1: I was fucking scared out of my wits. Everyone was

798
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:50,640
Speaker 1: obsessed about who was going to be cast in the movie,

799
00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: how we how how we were going to design Hogwarts,

800
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: what was Quidditch going to be like? And I thought

801
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:57,720
Speaker 1: the only way to get through this not to be

802
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: so I'm not standing in a corner unable to face

803
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: my crew, was to just sort of bury my head

804
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,520
Speaker 1: and start to work. You just I just just sort

805
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: of went through every day, moved, I moved my family

806
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,399
Speaker 1: to London and went through every day making the best

807
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,480
Speaker 1: movie possible. And the great thing is there were a

808
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: core of us at the time, four of us, Joe Rolling,

809
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: David Haym and Steve Clovis and myself, and we'd meet

810
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: every couple of days, talk about the script, talk about

811
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: the movie. And it was that core that really ship

812
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,520
Speaker 1: helped me shape what eventually became all eight movies. And again,

813
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,320
Speaker 1: and she was around during the screenwriting process or around

814
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:37,480
Speaker 1: the shooting as well. Rolling Now she only came out

815
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: for one day during the shooting just to visit. She

816
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: wasn't that interested in the shooting, as you can if

817
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: you're a visitor at a set, it's not that exciting.

818
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:47,480
Speaker 1: After about two hours. She came out when were shooting

819
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 1: diagon Alley. But during the screenwriting, during the rewriting process,

820
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,360
Speaker 1: and during some of the design work, you know, I

821
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: would take her through the Harry Potter Factory, I called it.

822
00:41:57,560 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: We would walk through the art department and I would

823
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 1: show her what I was thinking of for diagon Alley,

824
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: or Green Gots or Hogwarts or the Wizarding Robes. And

825
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: she just was always very collaborative. She'd say, oh, like

826
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:12,000
Speaker 1: the wand She was very very specific about everything that

827
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: Harry's wand couldn't have any specific design to it because

828
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 1: it was from an old tree. That wouldn't It was

829
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: just a little crooked and you And it was that

830
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:24,319
Speaker 1: kind of specific comments that really sort of helped me

831
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:26,120
Speaker 1: find where I was going. I never was off the

832
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:29,240
Speaker 1: rails though, because we did we did share a similar

833
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 1: I think, vision for what we wanted the movie to be.

834
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:34,279
Speaker 1: And I know she would give us also indications that

835
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: the films we're gonna get the books there were only

836
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: three books at the time. Remember, we're gonna get progressively darker,

837
00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: and this had to be sort of the first one

838
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: was sort of like the storybook version of Harry Potter.

839
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: It's his origin story. It's still a little darker, and

840
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: Hogwarts had to feel like the most welcoming place in

841
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:51,719
Speaker 1: the world. And then we get little indications that it's

842
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:53,720
Speaker 1: going to start to fall apart as we move forward.

843
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: We set that all into motion, that the movies would

844
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: get darker and darker and darker. Did you did you

845
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,799
Speaker 1: have a sense did you say, I think I've got

846
00:43:02,880 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 1: this film version of these books, I've got the recipe. Unfortunately,

847
00:43:07,800 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: not not until we were finished. We knew we were

848
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: We knew things were going well. So even though the

849
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: kids had not had a lot of experience and acting,

850
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: they were amazingly charming on screen and they felt like

851
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 1: those characters. I think the first day that we really

852
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: felt that we were on the right track as we

853
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: shot the the the the opening of the Great Hall

854
00:43:31,320 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: and we're on this huge crane and the kids are

855
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:38,240
Speaker 1: walking in and are her. Visual effects guy John Richardson

856
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: attached four hundred and fifty candles to strings that were

857
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 1: all burned. They everyone had to light all these candles.

858
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: There weren't any c g I candles in the shot.

859
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: And I remember sitting in Daily's and seeing the shot

860
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: where the camera cranes up through the floating candles and realizing, Oh,

861
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: I think we're onto something here. Uh. And so that

862
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: all felt good. We still had no Yeah, it was fun.

863
00:44:00,719 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: That's cool, that's cool. Yeah. What was it like to

864
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: work One of my favorite actors I ever worked with

865
00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 1: was Gamben. Oh god, he was he would I remember,

866
00:44:09,920 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: I pret such a character I produced the movie that

867
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: that he you know when he Richard Harris was Dumbledore

868
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 1: for two films. Now let me tell you something you. Yeah,

869
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: that was one of the funniest people I've ever met.

870
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: Harris and he first himself as Harris. Yes, and he

871
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,200
Speaker 1: and Harris Conk be seen doing this. On the first

872
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: day of shooting with Richard Harris. He tells me that

873
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: he's learned the wrong scene that he was seen at

874
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: the end of the movie's It was one of the

875
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: final scenes for Dumbledore. We happen to shoot at first

876
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: and he didn't learn it, and he explained to me

877
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: that he had learned something else. I don't know if

878
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: he was telling me the truth. Um. And that's the

879
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,520
Speaker 1: kind of guy he was. He was constantly he would

880
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 1: always try to piss off Maggie Smith by calling her

881
00:44:56,400 --> 00:45:01,360
Speaker 1: Dame Maggie. Oh, Dame Maggie. It was so fun to watch.

882
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you he was such a

883
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 1: bad boy. Um. The things that he got away with

884
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: in his time just never never. You couldn't get away

885
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: with it today. But anyway, So Harris was in the

886
00:45:12,840 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 1: first two then he passed away. The last thing he

887
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: said to me. I went to visit him in the

888
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: hospital room and I knew he was dying. I saw

889
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:24,320
Speaker 1: when he was dying, and he had he was sitting

890
00:45:24,320 --> 00:45:27,359
Speaker 1: there and he lost about twenty pounds, and we never

891
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 1: really knew what he was dying. I was, he wouldn't

892
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 1: tell us and he didn't think he was dying. So

893
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 1: I went to visit him, and as I'm leaving, I

894
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: said goodbye to him and he says, don't you ever

895
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: fucking replace me as Dumbledore? And I said, okay, that's

896
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: the last thing was dead. So and that was the

897
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: last thing he said to me. Uh, And then Gambon

898
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: came came in. Who was he was a character? Yeah,

899
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:57,280
Speaker 1: he's he's an interesting guy, but he he's conservative compared

900
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: to Harris. The last film you directed, uh was Percy Jackson.

901
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: Percy Jackson. Yeah, yeah, so if that was released in

902
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 1: you shot that in two thousand nine. So you haven't

903
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,120
Speaker 1: directed a feature in four years. No, And part of

904
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: that was because of the of the help Um. There

905
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: was a writer director named Tate Taylor who wrote a

906
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:26,680
Speaker 1: script who was a sort of a director that I

907
00:46:26,719 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: had supported over the years. He did a lot of

908
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: short films, was an actor in l A and I

909
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,759
Speaker 1: knew him through one of my daughter's school associates. He

910
00:46:33,760 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: would always come when he come to San Francisco. He'd

911
00:46:35,360 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: sit down and meet with me and show me what

912
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:38,279
Speaker 1: he was working. And he came into my office one

913
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: day and said, this is my first feature that I

914
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,280
Speaker 1: want to make. My best friend wrote this book, The Help,

915
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: and I said, I read the script and I said,

916
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,279
Speaker 1: this is a fantastic movie. I wanted to direct it

917
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: and take it. Was like, I want to direct, and

918
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: I want you to support me so I don't get fired.

919
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:55,240
Speaker 1: So I brought the script to a lot of studios.

920
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 1: At the same time, the book was starting to heat

921
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,720
Speaker 1: up again. It was one of those books that every

922
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,320
Speaker 1: woman was reading on the beach. Um and Steven Spielberg

923
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: and I sort of reunited to do it. Steven and

924
00:47:05,520 --> 00:47:08,279
Speaker 1: I met Um in London. He said, what do you

925
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:10,440
Speaker 1: think of this guy, Tay Taylor. I said, he's incredibly talented.

926
00:47:10,480 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: He wrote a brilliant script. Steven said, as long as

927
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 1: you promised that you'll be on the set every day.

928
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: I said, but when I produced a movie, I like

929
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: to go for the first week, and those financed the DreamWorks.

930
00:47:20,400 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: Streamworks financed it. We shot in Mississippi in the summertime

931
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and you were on the

932
00:47:25,960 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: set every day. Was there every day. It was fantastic.

933
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:30,880
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what's that like for you to

934
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: be the pure producer. Well, as I said, usually I

935
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:36,640
Speaker 1: just if I'm the producer, I like to go for

936
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,319
Speaker 1: a couple of days, make sure it's it's all in

937
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:40,759
Speaker 1: good hands. And I don't like to go off and

938
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: direct or write with in this situation. So I made

939
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:45,959
Speaker 1: a promise to Stephen. I was there the entire time.

940
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing was because of the level of

941
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: performances in that film, getting actually just being able to

942
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: watch these actresses perform every day, Viola Davis and Bryce

943
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: Stallas Howard and Emma Stone. It just was an amazing

944
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: sort of front row seat to these these performances. And

945
00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 1: Tate was just wonderful what the actresses. He was just

946
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,320
Speaker 1: he's an actor himself. Again, that connection is really helpful.

947
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: So for me it was it was a bit of

948
00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: a learning experience. Again, it just it opened up another

949
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,319
Speaker 1: sort of part of filmmaking that I want to get.

950
00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:23,720
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, do you want to make films

951
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: like that? Because my last question for you is, here's

952
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: a guy who the flame for you that you were

953
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: drawn to from things I've read about you were movies

954
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:35,080
Speaker 1: like The Godfather, but you haven't made a movie like

955
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: The Godfather, and I'm wondering, is that a direction you

956
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 1: want to go in? Now you see a movie like

957
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,080
Speaker 1: The Help, and you see do you want to do more?

958
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: Not even so much racially theme, but much more kind

959
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 1: of intense drama. Here's the thing, I'm not particularly uh.

960
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not happy with the movies I've made,

961
00:48:52,520 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: but I still have a long way to go. Hopefully

962
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:56,560
Speaker 1: I can live long enough to get to where I

963
00:48:56,640 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: really would be happy with it. Maybe it won't happen,

964
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: But what I really really want to do, I would

965
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: like to make the kind of movies that you and

966
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:05,920
Speaker 1: I grew up on, which are the kind of movies

967
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:10,919
Speaker 1: look Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Serpico. All of those

968
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,919
Speaker 1: movies were movies that we're not only about something, but

969
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: but we're great dramatic films with an enormous sense of humor.

970
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:19,879
Speaker 1: By the way, all the films I mentioned are very

971
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: funny at times, yet at the same time they reached

972
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: a huge audience, And to me, that's what it was about.

973
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:27,399
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make a film that was so

974
00:49:28,719 --> 00:49:32,480
Speaker 1: special and Indian tiny, that it wouldn't reach a wide audience.

975
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,359
Speaker 1: I always felt that when I was watching movies like

976
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,720
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and I was watching

977
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:41,319
Speaker 1: Dog Day Afternoon, the performances were so amazing and so

978
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: authentic and real, and those movies found an audience. Now, unfortunately,

979
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: most of those types of films are being made for television.

980
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:55,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, and aproposal that you've made films now, written,

981
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: directed and produced huge films, some of the biggest films

982
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:02,279
Speaker 1: of the last twenty five years. You've been doing this

983
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. How has the business changed in

984
00:50:04,760 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 1: the twenty five years from your standpoint? Well, you know

985
00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: when I get harder to get that movie made you're

986
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: talking about that Sydney lamente esque drama. Yeah, I've spent

987
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: the better part of the last year and a half

988
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: writing films like that, but I can't. It's very, very

989
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:25,720
Speaker 1: difficult to get them made in an environment that really

990
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: is only interested in either sequels or superhero films. If

991
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 1: you walked into a studio executive's office in nineteen seventy

992
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: eight and said you wanted to make Spider Man comic books,

993
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:41,000
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's the lowest form of entertainment. Well,

994
00:50:41,040 --> 00:50:45,960
Speaker 1: now we're in a situation where that's mostly what's being made,

995
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:49,719
Speaker 1: so it's difficult to help kind of you know, was

996
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: made because the book was so successful and we made

997
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:54,760
Speaker 1: it for twenty eight million dollars, which for a period

998
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:59,399
Speaker 1: piece is relatively inexpensive. So if we can find that

999
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: way to do more of those films, I'd love to

1000
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:03,239
Speaker 1: do them. And that's probably one of the reasons I

1001
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: haven't directed. The help is really gotten into my head

1002
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: in a big way and said, you can make these

1003
00:51:08,600 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 1: movies and people will go see them. And where I've

1004
00:51:11,000 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 1: gotten into trouble in my career, movies like bi centennial Man,

1005
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: movies like Beth Cooper. Again, when I did them for

1006
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:18,560
Speaker 1: fun and when I thought, oh, this will be fun,

1007
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:19,879
Speaker 1: I'll just go out and make a movie. Like we're

1008
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:21,879
Speaker 1: back in film school. It's not the case anymore. There's

1009
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: much more responsibility. Chris Columbus won't stop making movies, but

1010
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: he has taken a slight detour. His first novel, House

1011
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: of Secrets, a middle school fantasy adventure, is out this year.

1012
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: Chris sent an early draft to J. K. Rowling. She

1013
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 1: said it was too fast paced. Slow down, She told him,

1014
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: Deepen the characters and work on the complexity. Chris Columbus

1015
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: says he and his co author Nid Vezzini took that

1016
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: advice to heart. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening

1017
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: to hear who's the thing.