Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus has brought to the screen some of the
Speaker 1: biggest American family films of the last twenty years, Adventures
Speaker 1: in Babysitting Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire. He also produced and
Speaker 1: directed the first two Harry Potter films and produced the
Speaker 1: third as well. I'm a Wizard and a Thumping good
Speaker 1: Night Wager. Once you trade up a little, No, you've
Speaker 1: made a mistake. I mean, I can't be a wizard.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just Harry. I've known Chris for a
Speaker 1: long time. We were in school together at n y U.
Speaker 1: I lived, started at Weinstein and then um moved to Reuben.
Speaker 1: You were in Ruby, I was in Reuben, and I
Speaker 1: think that's where we met. Yeah. For Columbus, n y
Speaker 1: U was more than just a place to learn the craft.
Speaker 1: He loved film school for me was the only It
Speaker 1: was sort of the only way out, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a Both of my parents were
Speaker 1: factory workers in Ohio. UM My future was basically working
Speaker 1: at either my father's aluminum factory or my mother's automotive factory.
Speaker 1: Literally didn't own them that I was just be working,
Speaker 1: and I think they did. You could own them now,
Speaker 1: could own them the decision I did, although I don't
Speaker 1: think there's much work there. But at the time that
Speaker 1: was it, you know, and and the only escape really
Speaker 1: for me. Uh, we're movies, And what were movies to you? Then?
Speaker 1: There was no DVD, there was no noble television. How
Speaker 1: did you? Movies were the either the CBS Late night movie.
Speaker 1: I would sneak out of bed and watch the late
Speaker 1: night movie on CBS and just stay in the movie
Speaker 1: theaters on the weekend. There were only two theaters. Two
Speaker 1: films would be two separate theaters. There was no multiplexus
Speaker 1: back then. And I would watch whatever film came into
Speaker 1: town over and over. And I remember something clicked when
Speaker 1: I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Something really
Speaker 1: and I watched it three times and I just was
Speaker 1: amazed by the movie. And I didn't at the time.
Speaker 1: There's no understanding, there's no idea. No nobody knew about
Speaker 1: film schools. Nobody knew that you could actually go to
Speaker 1: school and learn how to become I didn't even know
Speaker 1: what a director was. So I put my energy into
Speaker 1: illustrating and writing comic books. I thought, I still didn't
Speaker 1: understand the film concept. But I started to draw Spider
Speaker 1: Man comics, Thor comics, Halt comics. I wanted a job
Speaker 1: at Marvel in the Marvel that was my goal. I
Speaker 1: still love movies, but I didn't I didn't understand completely.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and so the comic books and all of
Speaker 1: the This is very naive of me, but all the
Speaker 1: comic book superheroes lived in New York City. So this
Speaker 1: was this magical place for me as a kid because
Speaker 1: I'm drawing New York City all the time. And I
Speaker 1: realized I was spending about eight to twelve hours alone today,
Speaker 1: and I, um, I wanted to work with people. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be with people. What did your parents think
Speaker 1: about that? They thought I could go to art school
Speaker 1: that like can't state or something, you know that I
Speaker 1: could go to art school and I could, um draw
Speaker 1: these comics and that's fine. Then I saw The Godfather.
Speaker 1: The Godfather was re released in four i think, and
Speaker 1: re released. And then the next movie I saw was
Speaker 1: Blazing Saddles. I saw those two movies change my life,
Speaker 1: both ends of the spectrum. I realized with blazing saddles.
Speaker 1: The possibilities of what you could do with film were endless,
Speaker 1: and Time magazine came out with a one page article
Speaker 1: about film schools. I had never heard of film school
Speaker 1: and don't know what this could possibly be. And I
Speaker 1: read about Martin Scorsese, and I read about Francis Ford Coppeland.
Speaker 1: I read about USC and U, C l A and
Speaker 1: n y U, and I said to my parents, this
Speaker 1: is what I want to do. What did they say?
Speaker 1: They were extraordinarily supported. They were amazingly supported. Every other
Speaker 1: relative in my family was not supportive. They said, oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna be saying you're gonna be back
Speaker 1: here in two years. You can't handle New York City. Uh,
Speaker 1: And it just it just was more fire. It was
Speaker 1: just I was like, fuck you, I'm doing it. I
Speaker 1: got to New York and I remember my father drove
Speaker 1: me up to Weinstein and he looked at the city
Speaker 1: and looked at the dorm and he said, let's go home.
Speaker 1: I'll drive you back home now. And I said, no way,
Speaker 1: no way. I was in. I was literally in oz.
Speaker 1: Weinstein does look like the library at a community coach
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union right exactly. It's a but I
Speaker 1: immediately fell in love with the city, and I knew
Speaker 1: that I had no choice but to succeed. I had
Speaker 1: to find a way to succeed or I would be
Speaker 1: back in the middle of Ohio working in an aluminum factory.
Speaker 1: And that's hideous. So you get there. Had you ever
Speaker 1: touched any film equipment before? H yeah? Super. My parents
Speaker 1: did buy me a super great sound camera which enabled
Speaker 1: me to start to make films. Actually, I made a
Speaker 1: twenty minute film for my theology class because I went
Speaker 1: to a very strict Catholic school, so it was a
Speaker 1: theology class that was dealing with social issues. So we
Speaker 1: made a film about abortion vasectomes. And I was very
Speaker 1: inspired at the time by remember SNL n seventies six.
Speaker 1: Sn L had just come. You know, we would spend
Speaker 1: our Saturday nights watching Saturday Night Live. So I was
Speaker 1: doing these basically commercial parodies that I had versions that
Speaker 1: I had seen on SNL, and I screened it for
Speaker 1: the class. The class loved it. The priest was horrified.
Speaker 1: And what happened is the feeling of showing that movie
Speaker 1: and hearing those all of those kids laughing in this
Speaker 1: small Ohio Town really really hit me. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: an addictive feeling, you know what it's like being on
Speaker 1: stage while showing your film and having people respond to
Speaker 1: it became very addictive. So that fueled my desire to
Speaker 1: get there as well. Your parents say about all your
Speaker 1: politically incorrect film, very dark stuff back then, you know,
Speaker 1: they You know, my my mother went with it. My
Speaker 1: father didn't really want to have much to do with it.
Speaker 1: He figured, okay that you know, my father was most
Speaker 1: most of the time, my father was under a car
Speaker 1: repairing it, you know, and in the garage when he
Speaker 1: wasn't working or having a beer. So I um, as
Speaker 1: long as he's not on the streets, it's exactly my parents.
Speaker 1: Not only he's not taking drugs, that's true, and that
Speaker 1: that actually you know, my mother was very supportive. My
Speaker 1: mother was probably much more supportive than my father about
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, and she had she shared
Speaker 1: sort of that dark sense of humor that I had
Speaker 1: as well. So she supported those of those movies and
Speaker 1: she watched I used to watch SNL with her. She
Speaker 1: loved it. So you you get to Weinstein you had
Speaker 1: a super eight sound camera, but you get to Weinstein
Speaker 1: and what's what are the first recollections you have of
Speaker 1: that when you get there? To go to n y U? Honestly,
Speaker 1: n Yu. The night I got there, Spawn drinking age
Speaker 1: was eight team sponsored a bar tour. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: them doing that these days? Eight to ten bars in
Speaker 1: the East Village. They would take a group of freshmen
Speaker 1: and go to each bar Chumley's, mcsorley's. And that's where
Speaker 1: I met my best friends, and that's where I met
Speaker 1: my future producing partner, Michael barn Nathan. We met that
Speaker 1: first night and and uh yeah, you could be said,
Speaker 1: I mean, the lawsuits are ridiculous. And we met and
Speaker 1: we hit it off, and and there was this I mean,
Speaker 1: you know what it what it's like you go into
Speaker 1: this community of everyone who shares your deepest love of
Speaker 1: something like film, and you have someone to talk to
Speaker 1: about it. I had no one to talk to about
Speaker 1: it in Ohio, you know, I was this everyone's come
Speaker 1: there from the aluminum factory. Finally I was able to
Speaker 1: have arguments and discussions and we would get these into
Speaker 1: you remember these intense and passion discussions about directors, you know,
Speaker 1: and and Frank Capra was he really great? Or was
Speaker 1: he you know, was he much more of a populous
Speaker 1: to director? And you get into these fantastic discussions that
Speaker 1: didn't exist for me in Ohio? So I was in
Speaker 1: you know, it was like Christmas morning every day at
Speaker 1: n y U. So when you go to film school
Speaker 1: did you go there when you started to become a
Speaker 1: wash and all that process? Did you love it? And
Speaker 1: you ate it up? And you said more and more
Speaker 1: and more you love the technical No, actually I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean the technical side of it. I have very
Speaker 1: little interest in it. I want to know as much
Speaker 1: as I need to know so I can go onto
Speaker 1: a set and block a scene with actors. But I'm
Speaker 1: much more and I was. I've always been this way.
Speaker 1: I'm much more interested in connecting with the actors on
Speaker 1: a set because what I've seen as a producer over
Speaker 1: the years, as I saw it as a writer when
Speaker 1: I was just starting out. Directors, a lot of directors
Speaker 1: tend to be afraid of actors, which it drives me insane.
Speaker 1: I cannot understand. They're suspicious of actor. They're suspicious of actors.
Speaker 1: They don't want to discuss, you know, it's this whole thing. Well,
Speaker 1: if an actor has a question, as he challenged, I
Speaker 1: love that. I love that back and forth, that discussion
Speaker 1: that you know, I thought it was kind of cool
Speaker 1: and the Apocalypse Now documentary, when Brando and Coffler were
Speaker 1: sitting there for six days discussing discussing his character. I
Speaker 1: love that about actors. So I'm much more drawn to
Speaker 1: working with the actors than I am working, you know,
Speaker 1: figuring out what lens I need to use. I know
Speaker 1: what I want the film to look like. I know
Speaker 1: how I wanted to feel, But I don't need to
Speaker 1: know the numbers. I just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: when I get on that set, those actors and I
Speaker 1: that we trust each other no matter what kind of
Speaker 1: film it is. So there must be moments, though, where
Speaker 1: you're sitting there on the set of a Harry Potter
Speaker 1: film and Roger Deakins, who is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: cinematographers of his generation, is there, and do you sit
Speaker 1: there and say, what do you think Roger? What lends
Speaker 1: you defer to him about all the cinematography to do.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that don't go no, No, I think it's this,
Speaker 1: or I think you must have an opinion. Oh completely,
Speaker 1: It's not like yeah. Complete. In other words, I don't
Speaker 1: abdicate all that to something. No. No. I I do
Speaker 1: my homework. I storyboard everything. Um, I do my own
Speaker 1: shot list in the morning. I know exactly if I
Speaker 1: want to use a crane or a dolly or a
Speaker 1: And I also don't there there's the other side of
Speaker 1: me where I've seen directors who only want to deal
Speaker 1: with the actors and don't want to block the scene
Speaker 1: and leave that all up to the cinematographer. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've seen that as well, but I and I'm not
Speaker 1: interested in that. I want to have the control, certainly
Speaker 1: of the visual look of the film. But I don't
Speaker 1: need to get again, I don't need to say I
Speaker 1: want to fordy here. I don't. That means nothing to me.
Speaker 1: What means something to me is to look through the
Speaker 1: camera and know if I've got it right. But it's
Speaker 1: as I said, it's much more important. The writing is
Speaker 1: extraordinarily important to me. And the connection with the actors
Speaker 1: and the crew as well. You know, I I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of directors work and there's no connection with people,
Speaker 1: and I hate that. I just hate those directors who
Speaker 1: sort of build a wall up around them and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it works for them. I'm sure it works for
Speaker 1: some of them. But for me, it's a matter of
Speaker 1: connecting with almost every person on that set. So when
Speaker 1: I leave the set, they all feel that they've had
Speaker 1: a great day. I know it's a weird thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's very important to me that that that the
Speaker 1: person has the smallest job on the set feels as
Speaker 1: if he's he or she has contributed something that day.
Speaker 1: You know. And then when you left n y U,
Speaker 1: what did you do? I left n y U. I
Speaker 1: had actually I was lucky enough I had left, but
Speaker 1: in seventy I had written, um, something interesting happened. That
Speaker 1: I had a scholarship. I had this great scholarship that
Speaker 1: got me through ny U the first year. And my
Speaker 1: mother would call me. You remember, we had those pay
Speaker 1: phones at the end of our dorm hallways's no cell phone.
Speaker 1: So every Sunday I would go to the payphone a
Speaker 1: call home, and my mother would say, Chris, don't forget.
Speaker 1: To go to the Burstar's office and signed. I had
Speaker 1: to sign some papers so I would renew my scholarship.
Speaker 1: And I would say, Mom, no problem. I'd forget. I'd
Speaker 1: be doing something That went on for six weeks. The
Speaker 1: seventh week I called. She was screaming at me, said,
Speaker 1: you lost the scholarship. I said, oh, christ, I the scholarship.
Speaker 1: She goes this summer, you're gonna have to work at
Speaker 1: the aluminum factory. So so I went back. I went
Speaker 1: back to Ohio, and I was working basically swing shifts.
Speaker 1: I would work stay shifts, afternoon shifts, and night shifts.
Speaker 1: After your first year, my first year, did your mother
Speaker 1: make you a little necklace with a little piece of
Speaker 1: aluminium after that, in the shape of a crucive. Don't
Speaker 1: sunk up on it? Oh god? I so anyway, so
Speaker 1: I realized if I was on the night shift, I
Speaker 1: could read. So that first year I was just read,
Speaker 1: you know, novels for eight hours. I had to do
Speaker 1: it again after my sophomore year. So I went back
Speaker 1: my sophomore year, and I realized, if I could get
Speaker 1: on the night shift for the entire summer, I could
Speaker 1: write a screenplay. So what I did is I remember
Speaker 1: these gigantic, hulking cylinders of aluminum, and I would sneak
Speaker 1: behind the aluminum cores and sit there with a notepad,
Speaker 1: and I wrote my first screenplay, a screenplay called Jocks
Speaker 1: about high school foot ball, my experiences with high school football,
Speaker 1: and I was a terrible football player, but I I
Speaker 1: you know, it was very person Sorry. Yeah, I suited
Speaker 1: up and I brought that back to my writing teacher,
Speaker 1: a guy named Jesse Cornbluth, who gave it to his agent.
Speaker 1: And his agent was a guy named Ron Bernstein who
Speaker 1: still works in New York. And Bernstein took me on
Speaker 1: as a client my junior year. A producer since passed away.
Speaker 1: Steve Friedman optioned it for five grands. So your professional career,
Speaker 1: which was which began as a writer as a screenwriter,
Speaker 1: was leveraged by corn Bluth, who was your teacher at
Speaker 1: n Y. Yeah, that five grand prevented me from ever
Speaker 1: having to go back to the liminary factory. Um. So
Speaker 1: that was my junior year, and then my senior year
Speaker 1: I decided to not right because I was getting writing offers,
Speaker 1: which was great, you know, but I was in college
Speaker 1: and I wanted to take that time to do my
Speaker 1: senior film, my senior thesis. So I did a senior
Speaker 1: film that year, and then when I was out, you know,
Speaker 1: after college, I just, uh, my agent started to get
Speaker 1: me writing gigs, and I started writing after as soon
Speaker 1: as I graduated. Basically, I lived on twenties between six
Speaker 1: and seven. Um, one school, you were in Chelsea. So
Speaker 1: when school ended, you decide you're gonna stay in New York. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I decided to stay in New York because I, again,
Speaker 1: I was always very wary of going to l A.
Speaker 1: I I don't know why. Why were you wary of
Speaker 1: it even then? You know. The weird thing is I
Speaker 1: have so many friends who think of l A as
Speaker 1: like that's where all the films are made, that's where
Speaker 1: that's where the magic happens. But for me, I was
Speaker 1: I just at that point, after four years in New York,
Speaker 1: I felt very comfortable in New York and had this
Speaker 1: vision of being able to make every film in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: or writing in Manhattan and living in Manhattan. I was
Speaker 1: kind of out of work and I couldn't figure out
Speaker 1: what I was going to do next. And a friend
Speaker 1: of mine, Mitch, said, you know, there hasn't since Jaws,
Speaker 1: there really hasn't been a great movie that's featured He
Speaker 1: used the word monster. There has not been a great
Speaker 1: monster movie made. And I said, that's a good idea
Speaker 1: that's interesting. And in the loft I lived in and
Speaker 1: we had these mice scurring around on the floors, and
Speaker 1: I would sleep with my hand raped over the bed
Speaker 1: and mice would go by in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: I thought, these tiny creatures are frightening. So I spent
Speaker 1: the next six weeks writing the script called Gremlin's and
Speaker 1: I wrote it on spec. I wasn't paid for it,
Speaker 1: and I sent it to my agent, who um liked
Speaker 1: the script but felt it was a little dark, and
Speaker 1: still sent it to about fifty producers and studio executives
Speaker 1: and everyone passed on it. And Spielberg. Steven Spielberg was
Speaker 1: leaving his office on a Friday and passed his secretary's
Speaker 1: desk and it was sitting there. That's why so much
Speaker 1: of this business is luck. He passed the script and
Speaker 1: saw the title and said that looks interesting, picked it up,
Speaker 1: read it that weekend, and decided he wanted to option
Speaker 1: the movie. Now I didn't know this, I gotta call
Speaker 1: up my loft. Barnathan answers the phone and says it's
Speaker 1: someone on air. Says he's Steven Spielberg. I get I
Speaker 1: get the phone. He goes Chris it's Steven Spielberg. I
Speaker 1: was stunned, and um, yeah, he flew me out to
Speaker 1: l A. I got to meet Spielberg and that sort
Speaker 1: of That was teen eight two, and I lived in
Speaker 1: l A for nine months at that point. So what
Speaker 1: happens in that nine months He's giving you notes or
Speaker 1: there's creative people. He would give me notes. Now, Gremlins
Speaker 1: was sort of often running, and someone else was even
Speaker 1: rewriting it as I was working on another script for Stephen.
Speaker 1: For some strange reason, I had sort of carte blanche.
Speaker 1: I could go into his office whenever I wanted. He
Speaker 1: whether he liked me, I don't know what it was,
Speaker 1: but I had an office three doors down from him.
Speaker 1: I would just go down there whenever he would be
Speaker 1: sitting there with Richard Gere or or or Warren Beatty.
Speaker 1: One time he's like, Chris, come on in, would he
Speaker 1: and I would start to talk to him about ideas.
Speaker 1: One day, he's looking through these old EC comic books
Speaker 1: and he says, look at this title, Chris, the goon Children.
Speaker 1: And I said, the goon Children, that's a cool title.
Speaker 1: And we came up with this story together about these
Speaker 1: kids who find a Treasure Map, and it was the Goonies.
Speaker 1: I would write three pages of Goonies, run to Steven's office,
Speaker 1: give it to him. He would make some notes. I
Speaker 1: would run back to my office and make the changes,
Speaker 1: and we've finished that script in about six weeks. Then
Speaker 1: I wrote Young Sherlock Holmes with him, kind of in
Speaker 1: the same way for Amblin, and that's when I and
Speaker 1: that's when I redirected Goonies. Richard Donner Dick Donner directed Goonies,
Speaker 1: and who directed Young Sherlock Holmes Barry Levinson. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it was so you have Steven Spielberg producing your films
Speaker 1: and your three doors down from him and Richard Donner,
Speaker 1: who directed Superman. I'm gonna I want to tell people
Speaker 1: in the audience who don't remember this timeline. And Levinson
Speaker 1: was directed many great films they direct. Those are your
Speaker 1: first two movies that could mat well. Gremlins is the
Speaker 1: first one as well. Joe Dante. Yeah, so you go
Speaker 1: from Joe Dante to Donner to Barry Levinson for the
Speaker 1: first three films that your name was on the script
Speaker 1: and your name was on as the writer of all three.
Speaker 1: You know, it was kind of a heady experience. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I always knew this is what I
Speaker 1: need to be do, This is what I should be doing,
Speaker 1: This is what I have to be doing. What did
Speaker 1: you learn from Spielberg? Spielberg was like graduate school of
Speaker 1: filmmaking For me. Spielberg was like, UM, I learned shortcuts
Speaker 1: and I learned basically, it was a Billy Wilder quote
Speaker 1: that Stephen, you know, nailed into my head every day,
Speaker 1: which was, don't tell the audience something more than once.
Speaker 1: I learned how to edit material, I learned how to
Speaker 1: write better dialogue, and I learned how to be much
Speaker 1: more visual as a writer from Stephen. So it was
Speaker 1: a great relationship, you know, um, and still is a
Speaker 1: great relationship to this day. We have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: work together a couple of years ago. So I I
Speaker 1: really loved that time. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: needed to get back to Manhattan. Why. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just felt like I missed I missed it. I
Speaker 1: mean it was it's very simple. Did you have a sense,
Speaker 1: because I find other people have the same thing, it's
Speaker 1: better for me to stay here for my career. You
Speaker 1: didn't think of all those lines, No, I I don't
Speaker 1: think at the time I was able to articulate it.
Speaker 1: You know, twenty thirty years down the road, now I
Speaker 1: can look back and and understand why I did it,
Speaker 1: because I was seeing the beginning of people losing touch
Speaker 1: with reality. Why do directors not have long careers. They
Speaker 1: don't have long careers because they become extremely successful. Then
Speaker 1: they move into these huge mansions and live an isolated life.
Speaker 1: They watch movies in their screening room. They don't do
Speaker 1: their own grocery shopping, they don't pump their own gas,
Speaker 1: they don't get out there on the street. At the
Speaker 1: end of all that, you've lost connection to real people.
Speaker 1: What are you making movies about, even if they're fantasy films.
Speaker 1: Even again, I did not realize that at the time.
Speaker 1: I realized it years later. I realized the reason I
Speaker 1: went back to New York was to connect with everyone again,
Speaker 1: so I could go to the corner superrette and buy
Speaker 1: a carton of orange hues for forty dollars, you know,
Speaker 1: so I could see people every day, take my dry cleaning,
Speaker 1: and take my laundry. And that hasn't changed to this day.
Speaker 1: I have not changed, you know. I have a great
Speaker 1: housekeeper now, in San Francisco. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: again because I'm a director and nobody really knows what
Speaker 1: the hell I look like. I'm anonymous. Yeah, but you've yeah,
Speaker 1: You've kept this very low profile. Nobody knows what I
Speaker 1: do in San Francisco. I mean, I have a couple
Speaker 1: of friends. But I love it. It's fantastic. They are
Speaker 1: all conscious choices you made, not I think some of
Speaker 1: them were subconscious. At the beginning, the only thing that
Speaker 1: mattered to me about becoming a director was longevity. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that my career would last for decades,
Speaker 1: no matter what I was doing, and I felt that
Speaker 1: part of that has been this ability to sort of
Speaker 1: hide in plain sight in a weird way. Now I
Speaker 1: understand it. So you're a writer and you do Gremlin's
Speaker 1: and you do Goonies and you do Young Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1: Is the notion of you directing a film? Is it
Speaker 1: starting to percolate? Do you go to Spielberg and say,
Speaker 1: I want to direct this one? No, it came. It
Speaker 1: started with Jesse Cornbluth. Jesse Cornbluth put into my head
Speaker 1: at n y U the only way you're gonna get
Speaker 1: to become a director is by writing a few successful
Speaker 1: screenplays after young Sherlock Holmes. Then I realized Gooneys and
Speaker 1: Gremlins had been successful enough that maybe I could get
Speaker 1: a directing gig. My agent sent me a copy of
Speaker 1: the script called Adventures in Babysitting Elizabeth with Elizabeth Shoe
Speaker 1: and uh Anthony Rapp. I love this. I love the script.
Speaker 1: I thought this is something I could do. And I
Speaker 1: had great producers, Linda Oaps and Deborah Hill, who were
Speaker 1: very supportive of me as a first time director. They
Speaker 1: agreed to let me direct the movie and that was
Speaker 1: the first day on the set was a little little horrifying.
Speaker 1: It was the thing I had dreamed about my California.
Speaker 1: Now we shot it in Canada. It was my dream
Speaker 1: to be directing a film. Yet at the same time
Speaker 1: I realized I had to go hunt to the set
Speaker 1: and face two fifty people and tell them what to do.
Speaker 1: You've never done it before. I got over my fear
Speaker 1: pretty quickly because I had to. It's like jumping off.
Speaker 1: Do you still have an apprehension about that now? When
Speaker 1: it's first day of school and I mean shooting. It's
Speaker 1: not Chris who was drawing his Marvel Comics, Chris that
Speaker 1: was hiding behind the aluminum spools writing scripts and everything
Speaker 1: while everybody else has taken a nap at the aluminum factory.
Speaker 1: It's not Chris alone. There's the writer director who has
Speaker 1: this kind of monastic process. Then there's the guy that's
Speaker 1: got to go out and be the captain of the
Speaker 1: ship on the deck of the ship with two or
Speaker 1: three people there. So that's a skill you had to develop, correct,
Speaker 1: I think so, But again because well, definitely so, you know,
Speaker 1: I was terrifying the first couple of days. But then
Speaker 1: I realized, Yeah, I realized that a lot of these
Speaker 1: crew guys, we're like beaten animals because directors, there are
Speaker 1: so many directors who are such assholes. They're so kind
Speaker 1: of cruel and angry, and they're working something out on
Speaker 1: the set of the film. Yeah, and I thought, that's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. That won't work for me. And I
Speaker 1: realized after three or four weeks that people were responding
Speaker 1: just to the fact that I was not grumpy in
Speaker 1: the morning, that I wasn't piste off all the time,
Speaker 1: the fact that I was genuinely a pretty happy guy,
Speaker 1: and I really valued what everybody was doing, and if
Speaker 1: somebody made a mistake, I wasn't ready to rip their
Speaker 1: head off. I just I understood it. By the end
Speaker 1: of that movie, I really I learned a valuable lesson
Speaker 1: how to earn the respect of the crew and your actors.
Speaker 1: So you're there, you make the film, and what happens.
Speaker 1: The film opened to like seven million dollars back then,
Speaker 1: which was a perceived disaster, so I'm thinking I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna work again. What happened is the second weekend. It
Speaker 1: did something that no film some certain films do, few
Speaker 1: films do, which is a shot up in attendance. So
Speaker 1: we did better the second weekend. Getting that news that
Speaker 1: we increased was shocking, and it was great for the movie,
Speaker 1: and it was great. I was able to go off
Speaker 1: and make another film then, and uh, what do you
Speaker 1: go do? I did a film that I wrote. I
Speaker 1: pitched a film to Jeffrey Katzenberg, and I went off
Speaker 1: and wrote something else instead, a movie called Heartbreak Hotel
Speaker 1: about my own obsession with Elvis Wesley. The movie opens
Speaker 1: on a Friday. I read Roger Ebert's review, calling it
Speaker 1: one of the worst films. Here, I'm driving a cross
Speaker 1: country with my wife at that point because we edited
Speaker 1: in l A for two months and we get by
Speaker 1: the time we get to the probably in the Texas somewhere,
Speaker 1: this is Wednesday. The movie is already playing on a
Speaker 1: double bill in the afternoon. They've already the theater to
Speaker 1: get it out of there is if if it was
Speaker 1: a nuclear way. So um, once again, I'm thinking it's over.
Speaker 1: I'll go back to writing. At the time, my first child, Eleanor,
Speaker 1: was born, and I got a script from John Hughes.
Speaker 1: We both had the same agent, UM, and he said,
Speaker 1: do you want to do the third Christmas Vacation movie.
Speaker 1: I was like, that's not really I didn't dream of
Speaker 1: becoming a filmmaker to do that particular movie. But I
Speaker 1: thought I needed the gig and John Hues is supporting me,
Speaker 1: so I started to do that movie. I shot Second Unit,
Speaker 1: and I had such a disastrous relationship with the star
Speaker 1: Chevy Chase, who you know, it's no he has no
Speaker 1: shortage of enemies. Uh. It was so disastrous and so
Speaker 1: humiliating for me, just based on three meetings that I quit.
Speaker 1: I said that John, I can't do this, I cannot
Speaker 1: make He's like, you know, Chevy's a complicated guy. He's
Speaker 1: a rich food. I said, let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: He treats he when I first walked in, he thought
Speaker 1: I was an assistant. So I'm like, I can't really
Speaker 1: work this way I and so I quit, and then
Speaker 1: I was really I thought it was really in trouble.
Speaker 1: And John and I got along great. So John sent
Speaker 1: me the script for Home Alone Again Luck plays into it,
Speaker 1: and I fell in love with the script. I thought
Speaker 1: it was a great script. I think he wrote it
Speaker 1: in two days. I loved him, loved him, I mean
Speaker 1: his life and how he went and how he kind
Speaker 1: of left and you know, gave up and moved back
Speaker 1: to Chicago. I'm not gave up, but he kind of
Speaker 1: kind of walked away from It was always so to
Speaker 1: me because I thought, God, I mean, I was hoping
Speaker 1: I could become the next John Candy in his career
Speaker 1: and the grown leading crazy uncle Buck of the next
Speaker 1: barage of films of his. I loved working with him.
Speaker 1: What was your experience like? It was exactly the same. Um,
Speaker 1: I walked off of a movie that he had given me,
Speaker 1: So there was never a reason for him to call
Speaker 1: me back. But I, for some strange reason, I think
Speaker 1: he respected that or he understood it, and being chevy,
Speaker 1: he understood. Yeah, I think so, and he uh, you know,
Speaker 1: when I read this script, I thought, this is a gift,
Speaker 1: this script. The script is really really important. And John,
Speaker 1: the only concern I had was I had a you know,
Speaker 1: I had a newborn at the time, and John liked
Speaker 1: to work from about tenant when he was right when
Speaker 1: he was a producer and writing. You know, he wrote
Speaker 1: all night long. So we would be doing pre production
Speaker 1: during the day on Home Alone, and then for story meetings,
Speaker 1: I'd go to his house in like Forest and we'd
Speaker 1: work from ten to about five in the morning. So
Speaker 1: I was getting during the pre production hours of Home Alone,
Speaker 1: I was getting about two hours sleep, and John half
Speaker 1: of the time just on He told these great stories.
Speaker 1: So he would tell stories you probably remember, and smoke
Speaker 1: and these stories would go on for three hours before
Speaker 1: we ever got into the movie. The fact that we
Speaker 1: were making a movie he gave me once he saw
Speaker 1: the first day of dailies from Home Alone. He gave
Speaker 1: me an amazing amount of freedom as a filmmaker. And
Speaker 1: that really felt great that I was. I felt no
Speaker 1: pressure because I always to this day feel like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna walk on a movie and get fired. But with John,
Speaker 1: he made me feel very secure and created sort of
Speaker 1: a safe atmosphere for me. Immediately, Well, John put him
Speaker 1: an Uncle Buck, and John said, you should see this kid,
Speaker 1: but John never said cast him. So McAuley came up
Speaker 1: to my New York apartment. He and his father the
Speaker 1: first kid I met, and he was incredibly charming, terrific.
Speaker 1: But I said to John, just because I felt like
Speaker 1: I wanted to be responsible, I said I should meet
Speaker 1: some other kids. So I met about three hundred other
Speaker 1: kids and then came back around a mccaullary, get back
Speaker 1: to you job. I'm gonna go kids, and I had
Speaker 1: to do my job. Was the first one you saw.
Speaker 1: McCauley was the first one I saw, and he was
Speaker 1: you know, it was. It was an interesting situation, kind
Speaker 1: of like the kids in in Harry Potter a little bit.
Speaker 1: McAuley had only done one or two movies, so he
Speaker 1: would do a line. He would he would say one line,
Speaker 1: maybe two lines, and then get distracted. So a lot
Speaker 1: of that film is cut into pieces just so we
Speaker 1: could get his performance together. But what happened on screen,
Speaker 1: it was amazingly charming, and you had Heard is the father?
Speaker 1: John heard yeah, and Catherine is the mother. And I
Speaker 1: heard thought he was making Heard who I love. But
Speaker 1: I loved him and Cut his Way, Remember Cut his
Speaker 1: Way one of the great performances. But while he was
Speaker 1: making Home Alone, he thought he was making the biggest
Speaker 1: piece of ship in the world. And he was. He
Speaker 1: was a pain in the ass, a little fit. He
Speaker 1: comes back on Home Alone too, and the first day
Speaker 1: he's shooting, I yell action. He breaks character and he said,
Speaker 1: I just would like to say to Chris and the crew,
Speaker 1: I owe you a big apology. Made a great movie
Speaker 1: the first time, and I'm here to support you. Wow,
Speaker 1: we have it in dailies. I still have a tape
Speaker 1: for that. And I got to work with John Candy
Speaker 1: for the first time. And John Candy came in for
Speaker 1: one day of shooting. We had him for one day
Speaker 1: and he has like six scenes in the movie. So
Speaker 1: we shot for twenty four hours, twenty four hours straight
Speaker 1: and Candy kept going. He just would continue to improvise,
Speaker 1: and it was my first sort of foray into improvisation.
Speaker 1: John would do a scripted take and then he would
Speaker 1: start to play myself, Glinsky hard Polka King of the Midwest,
Speaker 1: and he loved improvising. He was he was brilliant at it.
Speaker 1: I had a few hits a few years ago. That's
Speaker 1: why you know. Just Polka, Polca, Polca Oolca, No twin Lakes, Polka,
Speaker 1: i'mafugie Polka A kiss me Polka, Polka Twish In a minute,
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus talks about working with another brilliant improviser, Robin Williams. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Chris Columbus says he wanted to work with Robin Williams
Speaker 1: ever since he saw him in Good Morning Vietnam. Five
Speaker 1: years later, Columbus got his chance. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: known you for years. Maybe we knew each other in
Speaker 1: another life. I would love for you to come and
Speaker 1: work with us. Who would I great? Who would Mrs
Speaker 1: doubt Fire, a film about a divorced father who dresses
Speaker 1: as a Scottish nanny to trick his ex wife into
Speaker 1: hiring him to care for their kids, won a Golden
Speaker 1: Globe for Best Comedy. Robin Williams won a Globe for
Speaker 1: Best Actor. But before all that would happen. Before the
Speaker 1: filming even began, Chris Columbus had to meet Williams for lunch,
Speaker 1: and I was terrified. I had worked with guys like Passy,
Speaker 1: who I admired, and Dan Stern, but Robin was a
Speaker 1: true superstar at the time, and I was I was
Speaker 1: nervous about how it would go. And we just we
Speaker 1: hit it off immediately, you know, we wanted to. We
Speaker 1: really connected. Much of Mrs Doubtfire was shot in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and Columbus took the opportunity to move his growing family
Speaker 1: out west. It's a great place to raise a family,
Speaker 1: and I felt Manhattan would be a little difficult. Um
Speaker 1: we were about to have our third kid, and I thought,
Speaker 1: and two of the kids have been born at Lenox
Speaker 1: Hill in Manhattan, you know, I can't. And I was
Speaker 1: having I was walking down the street man Anne with
Speaker 1: my toddler, and I couldn't hear what she was saying
Speaker 1: to me. I couldn't you know she's telling And I thought,
Speaker 1: I gotta I've gotta be in a calmer place. And
Speaker 1: I also fell in love with the city. San Francisco
Speaker 1: is a great city, and I had in the relationship
Speaker 1: with Robin was still is terrific. Had a great relationship
Speaker 1: with Robin, and with Robin again, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: a steroid version of John Candy, where you John liked
Speaker 1: to improvise, but Robin lives to improvise. So it was
Speaker 1: almost like seeing a Springsteen concert where he has to
Speaker 1: exhaust himself after four and a half hours of playing
Speaker 1: before you can go to sleep at night. With Robin,
Speaker 1: it was the same thing. We would shoot anywhere from
Speaker 1: twelve to fifteen takes for each scene, and we would
Speaker 1: start with a very structured script to take and then
Speaker 1: move off of the script and change everything. And that's
Speaker 1: why that picture had to be shot with two or
Speaker 1: three cameras because do the exectit. Fox know that when
Speaker 1: you're going into make a film and you have someone
Speaker 1: who's is varied and who's is uh, who says uh,
Speaker 1: what's the word? You know, as spontaneous as he is,
Speaker 1: did you call them up after the first week of
Speaker 1: shooting and say, felons, just tear up the budget. We
Speaker 1: gotta start all over again. Now we stayed under We
Speaker 1: stayed not under budget, but we stayed on budget. Maybe
Speaker 1: we went over one or two days because he is fast.
Speaker 1: He's lightning fast. And we shot with two or three cameras.
Speaker 1: We understood the cost benefit analysis of his improvisations. He
Speaker 1: wasn't somebody who was over the indulgence. No, and you
Speaker 1: had actors. You had Sally Field and Pierce Brosnan acting
Speaker 1: across from this guy, not knowing what he was going
Speaker 1: to say on take number five or six, so we
Speaker 1: had to have a camera on them because he's I mean,
Speaker 1: the word genius has used a lot these days, but
Speaker 1: he he comes up with these seeings so quickly he
Speaker 1: doesn't remember that he said them in the next take.
Speaker 1: It's just he's possessed. I sometimes tell people shooting this stuff,
Speaker 1: I was like shooting a documentary. And by the time
Speaker 1: we got to the editing room with millions of feet
Speaker 1: of film. At the time, we weren't shooting digitally yet.
Speaker 1: We had four or five different versions of the film.
Speaker 1: We had the PG version, the PG thirteen, the R
Speaker 1: in the n C seventeen. I showed Marcia who was
Speaker 1: the produced because the film needed to be PG thirteen,
Speaker 1: so we knew we couldn't have an R rated version
Speaker 1: of Mrs Do Fire. I showed Marcia cut of the film,
Speaker 1: and then Robin wanted to see it with an audience,
Speaker 1: and that was the sort of the thing that sealed
Speaker 1: the deal, because the audience really responded. It was like
Speaker 1: it really was a huge He wasn't then intrusive about
Speaker 1: cutting the film, and he just as long as the
Speaker 1: film worked in front of an audience, he was happy.
Speaker 1: He left. That was it. It's just every day he
Speaker 1: we developed this sense of trust after a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and I would it was incredibly exhausting shoot, working fourteen
Speaker 1: hours a day, and I'd get home at night and
Speaker 1: just poured myself a glass of wine and the phone
Speaker 1: to ring. It was Robin Howard Daily's how how was
Speaker 1: I in? Daily? So he was. He was very very
Speaker 1: obsessive in terms of his own performance, and dot Fire
Speaker 1: sort of received mixed reviews. So for me, I because
Speaker 1: because of my love of film history and because my
Speaker 1: love of certain films, I was, you know, I'd always
Speaker 1: get there was a level of keeping it very real
Speaker 1: by reading what some of these people were saying that
Speaker 1: some I should probably be have a tougher skin and
Speaker 1: say I don't give a ship what they're saying. So
Speaker 1: with doubt, Fire there was a sense that we had
Speaker 1: created a movie that was very successful, a lot of
Speaker 1: people fell in love with, but it didn't for me personally.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to that point where I wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: I always wanted to have that level of critical success
Speaker 1: and commercial success as well, and I just wasn't there yet.
Speaker 1: So I managed to stay hungry. I mean, there was
Speaker 1: a feeling of me that I needed to accomplish a
Speaker 1: lot more, and I really still feel that way. I
Speaker 1: still felt that there's a long way to go there
Speaker 1: back on doubt fire, felt that there was a long
Speaker 1: way to go. So the collaboration with you did nine
Speaker 1: months after that with Hugh Grant and Hugh and uh,
Speaker 1: how did that movie? Did? Okay? But that was the
Speaker 1: you know, that was the blow job weekend, So that
Speaker 1: was a that happening while you were shooting and when
Speaker 1: it was released being no, no, no, no. We were scheduled,
Speaker 1: we were doing a press const exciting, this is insane.
Speaker 1: So we're doing and the international press conference on a
Speaker 1: movie with you. I realized, now I want to make
Speaker 1: a movie with you just so as a gag, I
Speaker 1: can get dressed up as a woman, as a cross dresser,
Speaker 1: and solicit a detective on Hollywood Boulevard just as a gag.
Speaker 1: What if you got arrested? I wanted the goal is
Speaker 1: get arrested, just to get arrested, and then when I'm
Speaker 1: down to the place I want to go, officer, can
Speaker 1: I explain something to you? This is really just funk
Speaker 1: with Chris Columbus, and I really wanted to. I wanted
Speaker 1: the sex scandal on the set of it. It was,
Speaker 1: and it happened. I never I never saw it coming.
Speaker 1: He was like the most completely yeah, I guess, buttoned down,
Speaker 1: really conservative guy, always prepared for work. Did a great job.
Speaker 1: We were doing the international press conference in l A.
Speaker 1: The movie was finished. The movie was screening off the
Speaker 1: charts and audiences were loving it. So I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a bigger hit than down Fire.
Speaker 1: So we screened the movie on a Friday night for
Speaker 1: the press. I go out to dinner with Hugh, Jeff
Speaker 1: gold Bloom, and Laura Dern. We have this great dinner.
Speaker 1: I drive Hugh back to the hotel. He says, oh,
Speaker 1: John Hughes sent me a script. Would you would you
Speaker 1: mind looking at it? I don't know if I should do.
Speaker 1: It was a hundred one Dalmatians. So I walked up
Speaker 1: to his hotel room, took the script, and I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: get a good night's sleep. We have a press conference tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I go to sleep. My phone rings at six fifty nine.
Speaker 1: It's barn Nathan. He says, turn on the TV. I
Speaker 1: said what. He goes turn on the TV. I turned
Speaker 1: on the news channel two five seven mug shots. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what the fund did he do? So there's a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty international journalist that I was doing a press conference
Speaker 1: with Hugh. He was disappeared. He was at his agent's house.
Speaker 1: He's gone, he didn't come. He got it was me
Speaker 1: facing all of the amazing. He does this the night
Speaker 1: before a press conference. Perfect and he's He since said
Speaker 1: that he did it because he didn't like the movie,
Speaker 1: which he loved the movie, so that's not why he
Speaker 1: did what. He went to solicitor prost because he was
Speaker 1: so depressed about the depressed about the film, he had
Speaker 1: to have a prostitute. I got, I gotta try that.
Speaker 1: Hugh Grants well publicized arrest didn't completely kill nine months.
Speaker 1: It's still made over a hundred and eighty three million
Speaker 1: dollars Mrs Doubtfire grossed over four hundred and forty million
Speaker 1: dollars worldwide. The Harry Potter films did even better. Two
Speaker 1: years ago, Chris Columbus produced The Help, a much smaller film,
Speaker 1: which earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Clearly Chris is
Speaker 1: skilled at selecting the right material to work with, or
Speaker 1: maybe he just surrounds himself with the right people. It
Speaker 1: was my daughter because she was the one who tried
Speaker 1: to convince me for about a year and a half
Speaker 1: to read the Harry Potter books, and finally when I
Speaker 1: did and I realized I wanted to make the movie.
Speaker 1: There were twenty five other directors who were in line.
Speaker 1: They called it at Warner Brothers a bake off. They said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to meet all of these directors, and whoever
Speaker 1: we you know, feel will will make the best movie,
Speaker 1: will hire um. So I was in line because Spielberg
Speaker 1: had dropped out. Steven Spielberg had dropped it was the
Speaker 1: one he was going to direct the film. I think
Speaker 1: he wanted to combine the two books, add some cheerleaders
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I think that she wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: Joe Rolling was not up for that. So for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Stephen backed backed away from the films, and then it
Speaker 1: was a group of literally twenty five people. I had
Speaker 1: the last meeting because I wanted to rewrite the script
Speaker 1: for the studio UM And what I did is I
Speaker 1: spent four, no eleven days, staying up to about two
Speaker 1: or three in the morning rewriting the Harry Potter script.
Speaker 1: Steve Clubs wrote a brilliant script. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: rewrite it with some camera cues, add some scenes from
Speaker 1: the book that weren't in there. And when I went
Speaker 1: in to meet with Warner Brothers and they said, why
Speaker 1: do you want to make this movie? And I said,
Speaker 1: because I've rewritten it for you for free. Now, no
Speaker 1: one ever does anything for free and Hollywood, so uh.
Speaker 1: It took it. Still took them a few weeks to
Speaker 1: say yes, but I did get the gig. They and
Speaker 1: I realized I still there was oh one obstacle. I
Speaker 1: had to fly to Scotland to meet with j. K. Rowling.
Speaker 1: That was my sort of last interview, and if I
Speaker 1: fucked that up, I wouldn't have gotten the job. So
Speaker 1: I flew to Scotland, met with Joe, who I was expecting.
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen many photographs of her at that point.
Speaker 1: I was expecting Miss Marple. I was expecting some sixty
Speaker 1: year old, heavy set woman in a flot floral dress.
Speaker 1: And it was She's she's younger than we are. She's
Speaker 1: she's very, very funny, one of the funniest people I've
Speaker 1: ever met, sharp as attack, and we hit it off immediately.
Speaker 1: We spent three she spent three hours listening to me.
Speaker 1: I had diarrhea of the mouth because I was telling
Speaker 1: her the kind of movie I wanted to make. At
Speaker 1: the end of it, she said, that's exactly the kind
Speaker 1: of film I want to make, and I knew I
Speaker 1: got the job. Once I knew I got the job,
Speaker 1: I was fucking scared out of my wits. Everyone was
Speaker 1: obsessed about who was going to be cast in the movie,
Speaker 1: how we how how we were going to design Hogwarts,
Speaker 1: what was Quidditch going to be like? And I thought
Speaker 1: the only way to get through this not to be
Speaker 1: so I'm not standing in a corner unable to face
Speaker 1: my crew, was to just sort of bury my head
Speaker 1: and start to work. You just I just just sort
Speaker 1: of went through every day, moved, I moved my family
Speaker 1: to London and went through every day making the best
Speaker 1: movie possible. And the great thing is there were a
Speaker 1: core of us at the time, four of us, Joe Rolling,
Speaker 1: David Haym and Steve Clovis and myself, and we'd meet
Speaker 1: every couple of days, talk about the script, talk about
Speaker 1: the movie. And it was that core that really ship
Speaker 1: helped me shape what eventually became all eight movies. And again,
Speaker 1: and she was around during the screenwriting process or around
Speaker 1: the shooting as well. Rolling Now she only came out
Speaker 1: for one day during the shooting just to visit. She
Speaker 1: wasn't that interested in the shooting, as you can if
Speaker 1: you're a visitor at a set, it's not that exciting.
Speaker 1: After about two hours. She came out when were shooting
Speaker 1: diagon Alley. But during the screenwriting, during the rewriting process,
Speaker 1: and during some of the design work, you know, I
Speaker 1: would take her through the Harry Potter Factory, I called it.
Speaker 1: We would walk through the art department and I would
Speaker 1: show her what I was thinking of for diagon Alley,
Speaker 1: or Green Gots or Hogwarts or the Wizarding Robes. And
Speaker 1: she just was always very collaborative. She'd say, oh, like
Speaker 1: the wand She was very very specific about everything that
Speaker 1: Harry's wand couldn't have any specific design to it because
Speaker 1: it was from an old tree. That wouldn't It was
Speaker 1: just a little crooked and you And it was that
Speaker 1: kind of specific comments that really sort of helped me
Speaker 1: find where I was going. I never was off the
Speaker 1: rails though, because we did we did share a similar
Speaker 1: I think, vision for what we wanted the movie to be.
Speaker 1: And I know she would give us also indications that
Speaker 1: the films we're gonna get the books there were only
Speaker 1: three books at the time. Remember, we're gonna get progressively darker,
Speaker 1: and this had to be sort of the first one
Speaker 1: was sort of like the storybook version of Harry Potter.
Speaker 1: It's his origin story. It's still a little darker, and
Speaker 1: Hogwarts had to feel like the most welcoming place in
Speaker 1: the world. And then we get little indications that it's
Speaker 1: going to start to fall apart as we move forward.
Speaker 1: We set that all into motion, that the movies would
Speaker 1: get darker and darker and darker. Did you did you
Speaker 1: have a sense did you say, I think I've got
Speaker 1: this film version of these books, I've got the recipe. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: not not until we were finished. We knew we were
Speaker 1: We knew things were going well. So even though the
Speaker 1: kids had not had a lot of experience and acting,
Speaker 1: they were amazingly charming on screen and they felt like
Speaker 1: those characters. I think the first day that we really
Speaker 1: felt that we were on the right track as we
Speaker 1: shot the the the the opening of the Great Hall
Speaker 1: and we're on this huge crane and the kids are
Speaker 1: walking in and are her. Visual effects guy John Richardson
Speaker 1: attached four hundred and fifty candles to strings that were
Speaker 1: all burned. They everyone had to light all these candles.
Speaker 1: There weren't any c g I candles in the shot.
Speaker 1: And I remember sitting in Daily's and seeing the shot
Speaker 1: where the camera cranes up through the floating candles and realizing, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think we're onto something here. Uh. And so that
Speaker 1: all felt good. We still had no Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 1: That's cool, that's cool. Yeah. What was it like to
Speaker 1: work One of my favorite actors I ever worked with
Speaker 1: was Gamben. Oh god, he was he would I remember,
Speaker 1: I pret such a character I produced the movie that
Speaker 1: that he you know when he Richard Harris was Dumbledore
Speaker 1: for two films. Now let me tell you something you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one of the funniest people I've ever met.
Speaker 1: Harris and he first himself as Harris. Yes, and he
Speaker 1: and Harris Conk be seen doing this. On the first
Speaker 1: day of shooting with Richard Harris. He tells me that
Speaker 1: he's learned the wrong scene that he was seen at
Speaker 1: the end of the movie's It was one of the
Speaker 1: final scenes for Dumbledore. We happen to shoot at first
Speaker 1: and he didn't learn it, and he explained to me
Speaker 1: that he had learned something else. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he was telling me the truth. Um. And that's the
Speaker 1: kind of guy he was. He was constantly he would
Speaker 1: always try to piss off Maggie Smith by calling her
Speaker 1: Dame Maggie. Oh, Dame Maggie. It was so fun to watch.
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you he was such a
Speaker 1: bad boy. Um. The things that he got away with
Speaker 1: in his time just never never. You couldn't get away
Speaker 1: with it today. But anyway, So Harris was in the
Speaker 1: first two then he passed away. The last thing he
Speaker 1: said to me. I went to visit him in the
Speaker 1: hospital room and I knew he was dying. I saw
Speaker 1: when he was dying, and he had he was sitting
Speaker 1: there and he lost about twenty pounds, and we never
Speaker 1: really knew what he was dying. I was, he wouldn't
Speaker 1: tell us and he didn't think he was dying. So
Speaker 1: I went to visit him, and as I'm leaving, I
Speaker 1: said goodbye to him and he says, don't you ever
Speaker 1: fucking replace me as Dumbledore? And I said, okay, that's
Speaker 1: the last thing was dead. So and that was the
Speaker 1: last thing he said to me. Uh, And then Gambon
Speaker 1: came came in. Who was he was a character? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's an interesting guy, but he he's conservative compared
Speaker 1: to Harris. The last film you directed, uh was Percy Jackson.
Speaker 1: Percy Jackson. Yeah, yeah, so if that was released in
Speaker 1: you shot that in two thousand nine. So you haven't
Speaker 1: directed a feature in four years. No, And part of
Speaker 1: that was because of the of the help Um. There
Speaker 1: was a writer director named Tate Taylor who wrote a
Speaker 1: script who was a sort of a director that I
Speaker 1: had supported over the years. He did a lot of
Speaker 1: short films, was an actor in l A and I
Speaker 1: knew him through one of my daughter's school associates. He
Speaker 1: would always come when he come to San Francisco. He'd
Speaker 1: sit down and meet with me and show me what
Speaker 1: he was working. And he came into my office one
Speaker 1: day and said, this is my first feature that I
Speaker 1: want to make. My best friend wrote this book, The Help,
Speaker 1: and I said, I read the script and I said,
Speaker 1: this is a fantastic movie. I wanted to direct it
Speaker 1: and take it. Was like, I want to direct, and
Speaker 1: I want you to support me so I don't get fired.
Speaker 1: So I brought the script to a lot of studios.
Speaker 1: At the same time, the book was starting to heat
Speaker 1: up again. It was one of those books that every
Speaker 1: woman was reading on the beach. Um and Steven Spielberg
Speaker 1: and I sort of reunited to do it. Steven and
Speaker 1: I met Um in London. He said, what do you
Speaker 1: think of this guy, Tay Taylor. I said, he's incredibly talented.
Speaker 1: He wrote a brilliant script. Steven said, as long as
Speaker 1: you promised that you'll be on the set every day.
Speaker 1: I said, but when I produced a movie, I like
Speaker 1: to go for the first week, and those financed the DreamWorks.
Speaker 1: Streamworks financed it. We shot in Mississippi in the summertime
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and you were on the
Speaker 1: set every day. Was there every day. It was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, what's that like for you to
Speaker 1: be the pure producer. Well, as I said, usually I
Speaker 1: just if I'm the producer, I like to go for
Speaker 1: a couple of days, make sure it's it's all in
Speaker 1: good hands. And I don't like to go off and
Speaker 1: direct or write with in this situation. So I made
Speaker 1: a promise to Stephen. I was there the entire time.
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing was because of the level of
Speaker 1: performances in that film, getting actually just being able to
Speaker 1: watch these actresses perform every day, Viola Davis and Bryce
Speaker 1: Stallas Howard and Emma Stone. It just was an amazing
Speaker 1: sort of front row seat to these these performances. And
Speaker 1: Tate was just wonderful what the actresses. He was just
Speaker 1: he's an actor himself. Again, that connection is really helpful.
Speaker 1: So for me it was it was a bit of
Speaker 1: a learning experience. Again, it just it opened up another
Speaker 1: sort of part of filmmaking that I want to get.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, do you want to make films
Speaker 1: like that? Because my last question for you is, here's
Speaker 1: a guy who the flame for you that you were
Speaker 1: drawn to from things I've read about you were movies
Speaker 1: like The Godfather, but you haven't made a movie like
Speaker 1: The Godfather, and I'm wondering, is that a direction you
Speaker 1: want to go in? Now you see a movie like
Speaker 1: The Help, and you see do you want to do more?
Speaker 1: Not even so much racially theme, but much more kind
Speaker 1: of intense drama. Here's the thing, I'm not particularly uh.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm not happy with the movies I've made,
Speaker 1: but I still have a long way to go. Hopefully
Speaker 1: I can live long enough to get to where I
Speaker 1: really would be happy with it. Maybe it won't happen,
Speaker 1: But what I really really want to do, I would
Speaker 1: like to make the kind of movies that you and
Speaker 1: I grew up on, which are the kind of movies
Speaker 1: look Dog Day Afternoon, The Godfather, Serpico. All of those
Speaker 1: movies were movies that we're not only about something, but
Speaker 1: but we're great dramatic films with an enormous sense of humor.
Speaker 1: By the way, all the films I mentioned are very
Speaker 1: funny at times, yet at the same time they reached
Speaker 1: a huge audience, And to me, that's what it was about.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to make a film that was so
Speaker 1: special and Indian tiny, that it wouldn't reach a wide audience.
Speaker 1: I always felt that when I was watching movies like
Speaker 1: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, and I was watching
Speaker 1: Dog Day Afternoon, the performances were so amazing and so
Speaker 1: authentic and real, and those movies found an audience. Now, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: most of those types of films are being made for television.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and aproposal that you've made films now, written,
Speaker 1: directed and produced huge films, some of the biggest films
Speaker 1: of the last twenty five years. You've been doing this
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. How has the business changed in
Speaker 1: the twenty five years from your standpoint? Well, you know
Speaker 1: when I get harder to get that movie made you're
Speaker 1: talking about that Sydney lamente esque drama. Yeah, I've spent
Speaker 1: the better part of the last year and a half
Speaker 1: writing films like that, but I can't. It's very, very
Speaker 1: difficult to get them made in an environment that really
Speaker 1: is only interested in either sequels or superhero films. If
Speaker 1: you walked into a studio executive's office in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight and said you wanted to make Spider Man comic books,
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's the lowest form of entertainment. Well,
Speaker 1: now we're in a situation where that's mostly what's being made,
Speaker 1: so it's difficult to help kind of you know, was
Speaker 1: made because the book was so successful and we made
Speaker 1: it for twenty eight million dollars, which for a period
Speaker 1: piece is relatively inexpensive. So if we can find that
Speaker 1: way to do more of those films, I'd love to
Speaker 1: do them. And that's probably one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: haven't directed. The help is really gotten into my head
Speaker 1: in a big way and said, you can make these
Speaker 1: movies and people will go see them. And where I've
Speaker 1: gotten into trouble in my career, movies like bi centennial Man,
Speaker 1: movies like Beth Cooper. Again, when I did them for
Speaker 1: fun and when I thought, oh, this will be fun,
Speaker 1: I'll just go out and make a movie. Like we're
Speaker 1: back in film school. It's not the case anymore. There's
Speaker 1: much more responsibility. Chris Columbus won't stop making movies, but
Speaker 1: he has taken a slight detour. His first novel, House
Speaker 1: of Secrets, a middle school fantasy adventure, is out this year.
Speaker 1: Chris sent an early draft to J. K. Rowling. She
Speaker 1: said it was too fast paced. Slow down, She told him,
Speaker 1: Deepen the characters and work on the complexity. Chris Columbus
Speaker 1: says he and his co author Nid Vezzini took that
Speaker 1: advice to heart. This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening
Speaker 1: to hear who's the thing.