Hey humans. How's it going? Susan, Ruth here. Thanks.
Listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast.
This is episode 363,
and I had a conversation with George Gallo,
the one and only George is a producer, screenwriter, and director.
I think of bad boys, middle Men, one of my personal favorites, midnight Run,
and dozens of other films.
He's also an impressionist painter and exceptional one I might add.
And he is a musician. I interviewed George twice, once in 2021,
and again, recently in 2023. Uh,
the first time was in anticipation of a film that he did called
The Comeback Trail, but it was plagued by a distribution issues.
And so I,
I was waiting for the film to come out in America and I thought, oh,
I'll just wait for that, you know,
right before that to put out the show and just all this stuff happened,
so didn't end up doing that. And I contacted him, I said, Hey,
do you mind if we talk again, cuz there's more questions I have,
I wanna dig in a little deeper. And he's so kind with his time and said yes.
And the second time we chatted, uh, it was great.
We talked about philosophy and art and music and really dug in.
We even talked about his, uh, love story with his wife Julie.
And I love that cuz I love asking people about their love stories. Anyway,
I think you're gonna dig this one. I am delighted by George.
He and I actually have a lot in common with the different things that draw our
artistic, uh, desires and what sparks us.
So I had a blast chatting with him. Okay, check out,
hey human podcast.com for links and to learn about my guests in the show,
check out Susan ruth.com to learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors.
Follow Susan Ruth. And hey, human podcast on social media.
You can find my records. Yes, records, album, CDs,
whatever you wanna call it. Downloads on Spotify, apple music, Amazon music,
or wherever you get your music. Look for my most recent record.
All I ever wanted was everything, but there's others too. Surfacing to Breathe.
How to Say Goodbye, there's an ep, there's all sorts of stuff.
Check out my relationships and sex show with sexologist and healthcare
practitioner, Mara Edelman, that's on YouTube under Are We There yet?
Podcast show and rate review and subscribe to, Hey,
human podcast on iTunes, Spotify, really anywhere you get your podcasts,
it's probably there, . Check it out, rate it, and review it.
It's very helpful and I appreciate it. All right, thank you for listening.
Be well. Be kind,
be love and bloom where you're planted. Yeah.
All right, here we go. George Gallo, welcome to Hey Human.
Hey, good to be here. You only be called Susan or Suzy,
or what do you like what, what do I call Susan?
Susan, I like to be called. Yeah, I, that's, that's my preference for.
Sure. Okay. You got it. Susan.
. Thank you. I never felt like a sue or a Suzy,
and I barely feel like a Susan. So.
That's interesting cuz I, I, you know, obviously I've been,
my name is George my whole life, but I never really related to that either,
you know, I mean, like, that's the name they get. It's my, I'm a junior,
that was my father's name. So, uh.
That's, I always wonder about that with juniors and thirds and fourth if they,
there's an identity loss in that at all.
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I don't know. Maybe perhaps to some degree,
but, uh, that happens a lot in Italian families. They get the dad's name,
you know, I, I know, I know Jews skip a generation, right? Mm-hmm.
, but Italians, uh, they don't do that. So there,
there were a lot of juniors in my family.
Yeah.
The Jews are not supposed to name anyone after anyone that is still living.
Still.
Still a living. Yes. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Yeah. Which is, yes, there are workarounds. For example,
my name's Susan means Lily of God and Hebrew.
And so if I were to have a daughter, I could name her Lily. And it's,
it's like naming her Susan, but not.
Got it.
So within the Jewish tradition,
you'll find a lot of Susan Lilly who says they go down the line.
Well, my father came from a family of 13 kids. Whoa. So yeah,
they were busy. The, the, those, uh, those Italians.
But my father was the second youngest kid.
And, uh, I think they'd run outta names, uh, because all the names were Italian.
And George is not really an Italian name. And my,
my father was born very close to, I think it was Abraham Lincoln.
I think he was born like within a day or two of Abraham Lincoln's birthday.
And so my grandfather, Vito, that's a very Italian name,
wanted to name my father Abraham,
but I think my grandmother said, no way.
So then George for George Washington. And so that's, uh,
because that was a few days also within.
And so that's how I ended up with George. But, uh.
My father's real name is Abraham, actually. Is.
That right?
Yeah.
Abraham's a beautiful name, I guess, in an Italian fa Abraham Gallo.
That's an interesting name. That is sort of like Quentin Tarantino.
Like Quentin is not a really an Italian name that I'm.
Aware of. I was wondering if, is that his real name or is that a stage?
It sure sounds like a stage name and Yeah, it does. And if, and if not,
he was destined for stardom.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a, not to go too far off track, but Well, go.
Ahead.
A friend of mine, uh, somehow accidentally, he got, uh,
one tickets. And within the tickets were these invitations to,
uh, I believe it was a Golden Globes ex. The, somehow it got mixed in,
it was probably meant for someone else.
And so he went with a friend of his to the, to this thing,
and they're sitting at the table trying not to have any attention beyond them.
You know, they're eating their chicken or whatever, just trying to lay low.
And this man came up and sat down and started chatting with them.
And he said, Hey, can I, I've got, and he had a script on him, apparently,
and he gave them to read the Kill Bill script. It was Quin Tarantino.
I wanna know what they thought. So it was very surreal.
That's hysterical.
Yeah. And they said he was very nice, very chatty, and, you know, pretty wild.
Yeah. He lives up the street from me.
Oh, okay.
Yeah. I don't see him very often, but, you know.
Well, okay. Let's get into you. You.
Alright? What do you want now?
Oh, how many siblings did you have? If.
Your me, just me. I'm an only child.
Whoa. Did you have to,
did your parents have to sign a contract with the Pope to ?
Um, well, my father, my father got married very late in life and,
and so did my mother. So I think, uh, I think they barely squeezed one out.
Yeah.
Cuz that's not so very common in a Catholic fa I'm assuming you're Catholic.
Yeah, yeah. Um, no, it, uh, but like I say, my dad basically, uh,
lived through the Depression and then fought in the Second World War by the time
he got back, you know, I think he was in his late thirties already,
and he didn't get married until somewhere in his early forties.
And then my mom was also, I think mid thirties when she had me,
which is very late back then, mid to late thirties. So yeah.
Yeah. Practically an old maid for God's sake. Yeah.
Pretty much. Yeah. And she might, my, I'm half German, can't tell from the,
the radio obviously, but I'm, I'm very tall. And, uh, so the,
the height came from my mom's side of the family.
Interesting. Did your father, was he very present or did the,
being in the war and what a war, you know,
did that distance him from the family at all?
No, not, no. I mean, uh, I mean, it's very interesting in that,
in my family in particular, most of them didn't have kids.
It's really interesting. Aunt Laura had my, my father's sister had one kid,
but he, my uncle Frank fought in the war,
so he didn't get back to late Aunt Laura. And Dominic was also in the Navy.
So, and then he stayed till a few years after the war. By the time he came back,
they didn't have kids. My Aunt Rose, uh,
was in love with a pilot who died during the war.
And so she never got married after that. She felt Deloy to him.
And, uh, yeah, she lived to me like in her nineties, and she lived alone.
And I asked her a couple times and she said, no, my heart belonged to that man.
And that was it.
Oh God, that breaks my heart.
Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people in my family did not have children. Do you have.
Kids?
No, and I don't have any war stories either. We just didn't have kids.
Yeah.
No. With your wife. Uh, yeah, I have a few more stories with her, but, uh,
.
But Julie, that's Julie in the background for everybody wondering.
Um, no, it just never happened, you know, and we were, I don't know,
we just maybe were kids too, maybe too much for children ourselves, you know,
but, uh, animals lots. We, but we've saved maybe thousands of animals. .
Yeah. How many cats doing with the 4th of July firework? Well.
We, uh, our cats, we only have one kitty cat right now. The great princess,
Sophie Renee. Oh, I'm sorry. We had eight at one point.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah. We were saving everything in the neighborhood. The word got out,
you feed one cat. Yeah. And then you let them in,
then the word gets out all over the neighborhood. It's, it's suddenly they say,
Hey, up to that house over there, they'll feed you. They'll take you in. Yeah.
So.
Yeah, there's a top cat that's getting the word out.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. Do you remember that cartoon Top cat.
Top cat? Yes. The, the individual leader of the gang, right? Yeah. Da da da,
ta da. He's an, they.
Had, yeah, had a great song.
Most tip. Top, top Cat.
Yeah. Great song. That's how Oldie, yeah. Uh,
childhood was good. Then you grew up on the East Coast?
Yeah, east coast, yeah. Portchester, New York, Westchester County. Uh,
my father was from the Bronx, so he, he moved up to Portchester, uh,
where he met my mom. And, uh, yeah,
grew up in Westchester County in Portchester, which was sort of an interesting,
it's sort of a, uh, Westchester County's a wealthy county,
but Portchester was sort of a,
a very working class place with a lot of factories. So it was, it was, uh,
in between two very wealthy towns, but Portchester itself was a little more, uh,
certainly a working class place. Uh, yeah, it was a great childhood. I mean,
I have a lot of fond memories of it. You know, I, I, uh, um, you know, I,
if I go back, I haven't been back now in about five years, but I get choked up,
you know, when I walk, uh, walk around those old streets, you know.
It's also quite beautiful.
I have, I, for me, it, look, I love the East coast. It's, it's, it's, I just do,
I, I, where are you, where are you right now?
I'm in Los Angeles.
You are? Well, me too. I,
I sometimes miss it tremendously, like, uh,
like a big hole in my heart almost for it, you know? It's so beautiful.
I love the seasons. I love what they do to your body, you know,
I love the feeling of springtime and your body a reawakening,
and then going through the summer, and then you feel the fall coming,
and then you feel like the earth going back to sleep, you know?
And then you have the winter, which is wonderful. And I, I love,
you know, I, you know, the cold and I, I, and I just, all those changes,
I really love them because you, I feel,
you feel a lot more connected to the earth in a lot of ways. I mean, I look,
again, I don't,
I'm not putting down la but it's basically 78 degrees all the time, and sunny,
which I guess is not a terrible thing. ,
especially if you like to be outdoors and play golf or tennis or whatever you're
doing. But I do miss, I do miss those smells too, if you're from the east, the,
the way the spring used to smell when all the buds started to pop and,
and the autumn had that wonderful just smell to it in the,
I don't know, I just, it is pretty special.
I grew up in the Pacific Northwest,
so I get the whole idea of the smells related to seasons.
Where, where in the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle, basically. Seattle.
Seattle's pretty, yeah, pretty. We, yeah, I like Seattle a lot. And then we,
we went to a place called Woodby Island. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. We have a, a friend of ours had a place there and, uh,
just, just wonderful. We walked along the, the water all the time.
There were these jets flying over, landing all the time. There's a,
some sort of air base there or something.
Yeah, there's a naval base in Woodby Island.
Yeah. Yeah.
Be quiet for about 10 minutes and somebody's come screaming over your head. And.
Yeah, there's a lot of little islands that go all around the sound and, uh,
really lovely, really beautiful. And of course,
Pacific Northwest's got a rainforest and lots of great pine trees and evergreens.
And Oh, no, it's gorgeous. I'm also a landscape painter, you know? Yeah. So I,
I, I love being in nature, just quiet with a paintbrush.
That's really my true love, you know?
That's what you started in the creative arts, that was your beginnings.
Yeah, that was, it started it out painting. And then, you know, it's funny,
I was doing everything at once.
I was also playing like every musical instrument I could get my hands on.
I was making movies, uh, with a super eight camera and a 16 millimeter camera.
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, I just,
so I was doing everything at once and, you know, uh, and then, uh,
I guess the movie sort of took over because I love the idea of comedy
and drama, and it is a visual medium, you know?
So I could use whatever I knew about music and, and,
and visuals in order to make movies.
Well, I think all those art forms are storytelling, art forms. I tell you,
I'm a painter as well. And a summary, are you? Yeah. And I,
I always say all of it is storytelling.
That's all it is.
Yeah.
Yes. You're 100% correct.
And you are, you're an impressionist.
Yeah, I would say I'm an impressionist. Yeah. It's certainly, uh, I,
I studied with a, a Russian, uh, uh, teacher.
I was his apprentice for a few years. And, uh, yeah, he was a,
one of those real hardcore Russian impressionists, you know, studied in, uh,
studied in Moscow, Eastern Europe. And, uh, yeah, I just,
there's something I I love about that directness, you know,
just the paint in the, just, I just,
to me it's ju it's breathtaking and to do so much with like,
an economy of, of means, you know, it's, it's not labored painting. It's more,
uh, reactionary painting, you know? So, uh, that's, that's what I love about it,
you know.
And oil is, it's a lesson in patience as well. If you were taught by a rush,
and I assume you're doing oils.
Yeah, we were, yeah. They're all oils. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Probably is my favorite thing to do because with painting it,
it is final in that I don't need to get a permission from anyone.
Hey, I'm gonna put some blue over here. Is that okay with the committee ?
You know, and you could just work at the speed of thought, you know, uh, that,
that's the fun part of painting for me. Whereas a movie,
you can have an idea and 10 years down the road,
you're still hoping it gets made. You know, it,
sometimes it's hard to grow as a filmmaker if you're always stymied, you know,
if you, if you wanna do something really, really bad. I mean,
like with the movie I just did,
Josh and I wrote that screenplay a dozen years ago, and it, you know,
then when it started to come back to life,
you almost forget why you wanted to make it in the first place. I mean,
are you talking about the comeback trail? Yeah.
Because it comes back to you eventually,
and then you get reignited you get excited. But, you know, it was,
it was something, I, I mean, the whole history of the Comeback Trail I is,
is sort of crazy in that it goes back to my high school days
actually, where the idea first sort of came to me. Uh,
the comeback trail happened because I was making movies already when I was 18,
and with,
with a super eight cam was a G a F 8 0 5 sound camera.
I still remember it. I used to buy the Kodachrome 40 in the little black case,
and you'd flip open the case and you'd put it in and close the case, and,
and it had a little microphone and you could actually record sound.
And I would talk all my friends into making these movies with me. Yeah.
So anyway, a a bunch of buddies, those same guys I was making movies with,
we went to a comic book convention in New York City at a hotel,
and I ended up leaving the convention,
and I was wandering around the lobby of the hotel,
and I heard a 16 millimeter projector rattling away in a room,
in a conference room. And I opened the door and there were like, about,
I don't know, I'd say about a dozen people in the room. And I threw,
was a bunch of folding chairs. So I, of course,
invited myself in and nobody stopped me.
And I sat and I was watching the 16 millimeter print of an unfinished movie,
and it still had all the splice marks in it and everything, and, and raw sound.
And it was a movie called The Comeback Trail with Buster Crab and, uh,
Chuck McCann. And it was, uh,
a guy there by the name of Harry Herwitz who had made the movie,
but they were just looking at pieces of the movie.
They never really finished it. And the movie was pretty crude.
And I mean, and the people involved in it certainly would admit to that,
you know, they were making it on a shoestring.
But the idea that they were trying to kill an actor and a stunt to collect the
insurance, I just thought was hysterical.
And I never forgot that idea. And I thought about it for years.
And then I moved to Los Angeles and I started selling screenplays.
And I started to get a career as a writer and then as a writer director.
And for years, I tried to find their rights to the Comeback Trail,
and I could never find them because the movie was officially never released.
And I would have lawyers looking into it, and they'd say, well,
they could track it only so far, but Harry Hurwitz had passed away.
So I was just, I, I was just, didn't know what to do.
And then my assistant at the time was my assistant, became my writing partner.
Josh came to work for me, Josh Poder. And then I would always,
every once in a while I bring up the comeback trail and how I really wanted to
make this movie. And to the point where I think he was like,
maybe you oughta stop thinking about this,
cuz it's just one of those crazy things that's just gonna haunt you to your
grave. It's never gonna happen. And then by chance,
15 years ago, I was asked to do a,
there was a screening of Midnight Run, uh, at, uh,
Phil Rosenthal's house, and I was asked to speak at it. So it was great. He,
Phil used, Phil had this beautiful screening room in his house.
They have all these people over and surf pizza to everybody.
And so I became part of that film, uh, group,
and they ran movies and I would go watch them once in a while. But like I said,
I was gonna speak after midnight Run was, was over. And, uh,
as I was going in there, maybe about 50, 60 people there,
as I was going in, this lovely woman comes up to me and says, uh,
are you George Gallo? And I said, yeah. And she said,
I just wanna let you know this was my husband's favorite movie. And I said,
that's so sweet, thank you. And I said, uh, uh, what's your name? And she said,
joy Hurwitz. And I said, are you in any relation to Harry Hurwitz? And she said,
Harry was my husband. And I was like, oh my God. I,
I said, I said, uh, I,
I wanna talk to you about this movie he did called The Comeback Trail.
And she went the Comeback Trail. How do you know about that? Like,
12 people saw that movie, it was never released.
And I told her the story I just told you, I said, I saw a very early cut of it.
And I said, it's, I've always wanted to take that idea and remake that movie.
And she said, I, so I said to her, who owns the rights? And she said, I do.
And I said, okay, do you want to partner up with me? And she said, sure,
partner. So that was 15 years ago. Whoa.
Talk about divine intervention.
I know really is.
And then so Josh and I wrote various drafts of it and it made us laugh
and it made my wife laugh. But you never know. Like, are you afraid? You know,
does your wife just think it's funny cuz it's you and she already knows you're
an idiot. So she's just laughing at your jokes or, and then Josh is,
is Josh so emotionally invested in it that he just thinks it's funny cause he
co-wrote. But I would give it to friends and they'd say, George,
this is hysterical. You know, and they'd all say the same thing.
You're never gonna get it made though, because it's a movie about Hollywood.
It's a movie about making a movie.
It's a movie about producers of all things they're making are Western and nobody
makes Westerns anymore.
So it's just check the boxes of all the reasons why no one's ever gonna make it.
And I was thinking, yeah, but how about all the reasons?
Maybe all in one movie makes it unique because, you know, you, you wouldn't,
you know, do 12 things wrong. But anyway, I gave it, like I said,
I tried to go the normal studio route and same thing.
Couldn't stop Laughing Pass, you know? So it was very, very frustrating.
And then again, divine Intervention.
This movie was obviously, you know, destined to happen.
Robert De Niro calls me up and we talk from time to time,
but you know,
sometimes we talk a lot and then sometimes we don't talk for a few years.
But he called me up out of the blue and he said, Georgie, it's Bob. I went,
Hey Bob, you know, what a surprise, you know? And he said, uh,
do you have anything funny? And I said, yeah, well, why do you ask?
He goes, well,
I just did the Irishman and I played this sort of dark psychopath
for eight months and I got a cleanse, the palette, you know,
I gotta do something like really just silly. And I says, man,
I've got something that's almost like three stooges silly. And he said,
send it to me. So I sent it to him and two days later he called me back,
he goes, this is hysterical. How come nobody's making this? I said, man,
I don't know. I said, do you wanna do it with me? And he goes, I'm in.
And that was how it got made. And they got, after that I called Morgan Freeman,
who I knew very well, cuz I did two movies with him. And then I called, uh,
Bob, called Tommy Lee Jones, cuz they know each other.
And that's sort of how it happened.
When you have screenwriters who have a huge track record.
I mean, your your CV is long, and that,
that until a big name is attached to it, it still doesn't matter what.
That just blows my mind.
No, it doesn't matter. And it's really, really a, a amazing, you know, it,
it doesn't matter, uh,
it might get me in the door in that people love
Midnight Run or Bad Boys or, you know,
some of the movies that I've done that have written.
So people always say they're excited to read,
but really until there's a big piece of talent attached, you know,
unless it's something so of that moment, you know,
like the way a lot of studios work is, they don't really,
it's not the way it used to be. You know?
And I've been around decades now doing this.
When I started,
thankfully the studios were always interested in Gimme the New Idea,
gimme the New Idea, pitch me something new, pitch me something new. And for me,
that was like music to my ears.
So like The Midnight Run or Wise Guys or Bad Boys, those were all ideas.
Ideas I had, I came up with, you know,
and today that's much more,
more difficult now it's like they want something that was based on a hit movie
that was also based on a hit TV show that was based on a hit novel that was
based on a hit idea that was, uh, a huge hit in,
in China or, or Asia or India or,
so they don't want anything new. They're not interested in it or based,
or comic books which have millions of eyeballs. You know,
this idea of the newer, the idea of the original screenplay, you know, has,
has gone the way of the, of the, uh, you know, of I would say of the,
of the blacksmith and the, uh, you name it, you know,
think of some 18th century invention, the cotton gin. I don't know, you know,
wherever, you know, it's really, there's just very little interest in it.
Now, I don't understand regurgitation,
politic is so bizarre to me. And what a loss,
what a what a great loss for art in general.
Yes, I understand both sides of it. I understand on a commercial level,
but he's already the problem. In my first sentence,
I understand if you wanna spend 250 million just to make something
and then an additional two 50 to three 50,
400 million to market it,
you're in for $700 million and you better hope that somebody
knows what this thing is. I think,
you know, so obviously, you know, they want to maximize profits.
Part of the problem for me is, you know,
other than these giant tent pole movies,
I don't know why movies really cost that much money. You know? Uh,
it's sort of crazy to me.
Yeah, it.
Is. I mean, you know, you could take over countries with this money ,
you know, and, and it's like, you, it,
it is so nuts to me to be you're in for 700,
800 million to make a movie that goes by in 90 minutes. It's so crazy to me.
Yeah. You know, you can make amazing cinema for
like 1% of that money.
Yeah. I always talk about the movie Tangerine,
which I thought was a fantastic movie, and it was shot on an iPhone.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's why, like, I love Steven Soderberg,
what he's doing now. He's shooting things on iPhones and, and, uh, and I think,
look, a lot of it is because I'm older. Uh,
I'm 65 years old, you know,
I grew up in the seventies when there was that whole new Hollywood resurgence
going on. And you had all those amazing filmmakers. You had,
Scorsese was a kid starting out. And George Lucas,
this all pre Star Wars too, you know, and Spielberg and was,
you had just done Sugarland Express and Jaw started to change things in
1975. But you had Peter Bogdanovich, William Friedkin,
who I just think The Exorcist and the French connection.
I just watched them last week, both of them.
It doesn't get any better than that, you know? Yeah. These were real movies.
Yeah. You know, these, I mean, these were real movies and, you know,
they were sort of,
they were commercial and then they were sort of anti commercial at the same
time, which was part of their appeal. You know, cinema for me, for me,
always had this kind of, you know, semi underground, uh,
hip cool thing about it. It was cutting edge, you know? It wasn't like,
you know, was supposed to shake you up and be different,
was supposed to slap you around a little bit. Make you think,
make you feel things that even confuse you, confound you, you know,
it wasn't a lot of Pablo to me, which is what a lot of it's turned into.
So I'm a bit of a throw. I'm not a bit, I am a throwback. And that I much,
I much prefer making those kinds of movies. The problem is,
I think a lot of people today, unless they're,
they either are my age or have a tremendous, uh,
love of movies and cinema, uh,
don't get the references today when they see a smaller movie, they go, ah,
this is cheap. This is shit. You know, as opposed to, wow,
this is a cool different little movie these people put together.
But if you don't understand, look, if you were starting out today,
I don't see how any of these people,
like if you think about Robert Altman or Scorsese or any one of those guys,
if they were starting out today,
I don't know if they would get the reception today that they got,
then these were guys in their sellers, you know,
trying to make something different, you know? Uh, and.
Today also they believed in space. I, i, I say this a lot,
that there was a time when movies really took advantage of
time, of space and time and the feel of of a
suspenseful moment or of walking to a telephone to take a call or
any of that stuff was all part of the dynamic of what people were seeing.
And it, it, yes, it really brought you in and now it's just boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom.
To me it's maddening. Like, I, I I I, I just did a little action movie,
uh, called Vanquish with Ruby Rose and,
and Morgan Freeman and the whole opening. I took my sweet ass time,
cuz I'm trying to lure you in Now. If you have attention Deficit syndrome,
then you, you get, I think people see, I also think that, look again,
there was, I think people today have a lot of anxiety.
If you have a lot of anxiety, then you, you tend to have control issues.
So if you have control issues, what does that mean?
You don't wanna feel anything.
You want things to move quick cuz you don't want to be settled, you know? Right.
You, a lot of times you don't wanna laugh. That's another control issue.
I'm just not gonna laugh. I'm not gonna laugh. This is not funny. This is a,
I don't, like, this is not funny because you just aren't,
you're trying to maintain some kind of control.
And the truth of it is you're not in control. You're not in control of shit.
Okay. Like, you know, you may think you are, but you're just not. So, like,
to me it's like surrender. Just surrender, man. Yeah, I agree. Surrender.
It's gonna be over anyway.
It's the people trying to figure out the magic trick while they're watching The
Magician. It's like, yes, just enjoy the magic trick. Just.
Enjoy, you know what? You're a hundred percent right.
Cuz if I read one more stupid thing where the person says,
I figured the movie up from the very beginning. Oh, okay, well good for you.
Good for you. You didn't go for the ride.
I knew we were gonna Las Vegas all along. Well, good for you.
That's what it said. We're going from New York to Vegas. It's like,
so you figured it out, say like in a Hitchcock movie is Yeah.
You can figure out who the killer is. That's not the the funnest.
I'm going for the ride.
There is, I mean,
obviously we live in a society now that is breakneck and our brains have been
reprogrammed. Do we know this to have an attention problem?
But there's also in the zeitgeist,
the feeling of don't think something unless someone else has thought at first.
So you are being, that's why they're called influencers, right?
That there's this,
somehow we've deemed a certain set of society to tell us how to
think and feel and be.
And if those people aren't thinking and feeling and being a certain way,
then we just, as you say, stay in a, in a stasis of some sort.
Well, you know what, I'm not a sheep. I don't need a,
I don't need a sheep herder. You know what I'm saying? Sure. I'm okay.
I'll be a lone wolf. I'm fine with that. You know. But then.
We have Alli, we have movies like Moonlight or Bottle Rocket or, uh, I Dunno,
Silkwood, which is still a pretty big movie,
but still about a topic that isn't exactly a, you know, feel good. You know,
there are, there are movies Yes. That happen that, that,
that do do quite well. That have said, you know what, fuck you,
I'm gonna do what I want.
Well, look, I have to tell you, I think there's a massive hunger for it,
you know?
I do too. I agree. I.
Think movies,
I think there's more room for these kinds of films than people think.
Because look, again, if I were the guy spending hundreds of millions of dollars,
I don't know if I would be so cavalier myself. I mean,
it's very easy for me to not be spending money on making movies. So, oh,
what I would do is I believe in my heart that there's a much bigger
appetite for these films, then studios are letting on. You know?
That's pretty, I yeah, I do too. Because I mean,
how long can you watch the same old shit? Just because it's moving quickly? I,
I, you know, that's, I don't know, it's, to me, it's like,
I like putting a lot of sugar on a turd. I guess it's three, I guess. Yeah.
I'm still like a turd to me somehow. But anyway, but yeah.
But if people are used to eating turds, then they're like, oh, I know this,
I know this turd.
Well I know this turd, you know, you're a hundred percent right.
George Harrison said a great quote, you know, the, uh,
and for those who don't know,
he was the lead guitarist for a little band called The Beatles. He said, uh,
if you listen to Garbage every day,
how do you know when you heard something good?
Right?
So yeah, there you go.
Yeah, I agree. Is it tricky because you work with a lot of,
uh,
seasoned actors where they came up in an era of movies where
things were at a,
at a pace where you could be in the moment in real time. And,
and now things are like, go, go, go, go, go.
Is that tricky to direct them? Are they frustrated?
No, they love it. They love it. And I have to tell you, like again, even with,
uh, on Comeback Trail, you know, a lot of times I,
cuz most directors tell actors to hurry up,
I'm always telling them to slow down. Mm. You know,
like even when we're doing comeback trail, like slow down, slow down, slow down.
Feel the moments. Feel the moments. It's okay. When I was doing Vanquish,
I said to uh, to, to Ruby Rose cuz she was spitting out the lines. I said, Ruby,
Ruby, slow down, slow down. Just it's okay. Slow down. She came over,
she gave me a hug. She goes, she goes, I've been doing a lot of television.
That's all I do. Tell me to hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. He says, okay,
but not everybody in this movie's on 80 cups of coffee. You know what I mean?
Where, you know, it's okay to have a conversation,
like a normal fucking conversation like you would have on a sofa with somebody.
I don't know. I feel it. Dunno how to run on day one. Long pause. Long pause.
Makes you lean in silences. Make you lean in. Mm-hmm.
silences engage you. When things are going so fast,
then you're, I find you're not engaged. How can I keep up with it?
Silence is its own character sometimes.
Yes. Hello. Thank you. But again,
if you have those control issues or attention deficit syndrome,
the thing can never move fast enough. Mm-hmm. .
And the other thing I'd like to do is,
I'd like to smack everybody in the back of their head,
why are people on their goddamn phones during movies? Why are there heads down?
What is this?
That's, yeah, that's a major bummer.
I love seeing movies in theaters and it's, it's,
it's amazing to me when you look around like, can I have your phone? Like,
there's a thing.
Happening. I know. And then they go, it's,
or or they say it's boring cuz they're not engaging, but they're, you know, I,
man, oh man.
We sound like really old people, I guess. But it's, I'm, I'm with you. I,
I am long for, I I've said this before on this show,
is that to me,
going to an something like a concert or a movie or a play or
anything like, or a reading,
it's as much about watching this incredible performance in its intended format,
but it's also about the communion of all the people in the audience that are
taking it in. Yes.
Yes. And, and, and it,
it's just a form of distraction and it's a form of not being engaged.
And God forbid you start feeling something, you know, if that,
that's the point of this. I wanna be moved. I wanna laugh.
I wanna forget about me for a goddamn minute. You know,
I wanna forget about, I wanna get drawn into something else. Mm-hmm.
, I mean, that's the joy of it, isn't it?
Think you ever hear a piece, piece of music,
you start getting tears in your eyes. I mean,
that's where you wanna go with this stuff. Yeah.
That's the whole point of making it for a guy who's been talking for the last
half hour and won't shut up. I'm not normally like this,
this is the most I've spoken all, all week. I, I'm not a narcissist.
You know what I mean? That, that, to me, that's all narcissism. I, I like to,
I wanna be overtaken, but I want, I wanna,
I wanna hear about things I know nothing about. I, I, I freely admit that I,
that I know nothing. The older I get, the more I realize I, how, how much,
you know, when you're young, you think you know every goddamn thing.
When you get old, you start, I don't know shit's Right.
I just thought I knew stuff, you know? That's right. Yeah. You know,
so I wanna learn. I wanna, you know, and I think that keeps you young.
I wanna learn, I wanna experience stuff. I wanna Oh really? No kidding.
Isn't that exciting? Isn't that interesting? I never looked at life that way.
Right.
It's an empathy, uh, meter. It's an, it,
it draws you into another experience and reminds you of your own humanity.
Yeah. Listen to you. That's great.
When you first started out, let's, let's pick Bad Boys for example.
So here was a movie that featured two, you know, black leads at a Time that,
that was a little probably risky for studios. Was that tricky to say? You know,
this is what I see. Is that the, is that what you envisioned?
Well, as much as I would like to take credit for that,
it was not written that way originally. It was written for,
for for one black guy and a white guy. The script sat around for quite a while.
That script I wrote prior to Midnight Run, which I wrote midnight Run in 80.
I was on kind of a roll. I, the first one I,
I wrote that got made was called Wise Guys. That was Danny DeVito and Joe PIs,
whatever that Brian De Palmer directed. Right after that,
I wrote Bad Boys and I sold that to Paramount and that sat there for like 10
years. Then right on the heels of that I wrote Midnight Run. And that got made,
that exploded. That changed my life.
And then I wrote and directed a couple of movies. Uh,
I wrote and directed 29th Street. I dunno if you're familiar with that.
I do. Yeah. That's a, to me that's a, a great example of,
of characters of just like feeling everything.
There's so much feeling in that. I don't know how to describe it exactly, but.
God bless you. , my wife is just said how terrific you are. Thank you.
How come? I don't know. You better.
. Well, we'll change all that.
Come I to have a drink. Oh, I.
Love it. Yeah.
Alright. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah,
that was a big loving kind of New York punch in the face,
uh, comedy drama. Certainly. You had a lot of, I really,
uh, it is loosely based on a true story,
but I put a lot of my own experiences of growing up, uh,
in an Italian family in that movie. Then, uh,
trapped in Paradise was like a big kind of commercial Christmas movie.
And then then Bad Boys got Made after that.
So that was quite a few years of John Combine.
So you didn't make the decision to have uh.
No, they changed it up, but they, they,
there were a few writers came on after me. Yeah. Which was really interesting.
Every time the history thing about Bad Boys to do was, every time, uh,
Don Simpson came back to me, me, to do a rewrite on Bad On Bad Boys,
uh, I was always doing another movie. They first came back to me on, uh,
29th Street, and then they were, they had two other actors and then fell apart.
I mean, obviously it was meant to be the way they made it, you know, with, uh,
Martin Lawrence and, and, and Will Smith. But then I, they called me,
I was in Canada saying, Hey,
you wanna do a pass on Bad Boys for two African African-American leads?
And I, I says, I'm in Canada, I'm making trapped in paradise.
So they hired two o two other sets of rioters,
but then the movie came out and was a huge head.
It was still the same basic idea.
Yeah. Is that a, a weird space when you first experienced,
I'm sure by now, you know,
you've written so many movies and things happen with rewrites and things.
But in the beginning when you wrote something and then have other people come in
and rewrite, is that the fir the beginning? Was that weird?
Yeah, it was weird. And I was, I've been very,
very blessed in that it hasn't really happened to me other than that
one time, uh, I mean, midnight Run,
I was the soul writer wise guys. I was the soul writer.
So I started out that way. Mm.
So I kind of established that I got lucky and I was tenacious. I would never,
you know, I would never lay down if the studio wanted more changes,
I would do everything I could to make it happen. You know? And I, I, uh,
I wasn't like, uh, I have a lot of friends that are terrific writers.
I mean terrific writers, but they would say, I could say the F word.
I think I said it once already. Yeah.
Yeah.
, they would say fuck off to the studio
long before I would, and as a result,
didn't get as many movies made as I did. But, you know,
I always tried to keep my eye on the prize, which was,
I always felt that if I left the movie, I,
even though I might not always love the notes,
I was still somewhat in control of its destiny. Mm-hmm.
It always seemed worth it for me to hang on. And then plus the, you know, I,
I got called on to fix a lot of movies,
a lot of scripts that I didn't get credit for, but I was always getting called,
you know, uh, especially if somebody wanted kind of snappy dialogue or,
or.
Yeah. You've got, your dialogue is great. It's, thank you. Yeah.
Comes from growing up in a very dysfunctional family.
Absolutely. When you made the transition into directing,
how did that change your writing? Because now you're.
That is a great question.
It definitely changed my writing when I wrote Midnight Run. See, I,
I had, obviously, I knew I was never gonna direct it. So it's funny,
from a screenwriting perspective, I always say this,
if you're home in the coziness of your, you know, in your,
of your workspace, you don't, and you're not gonna direct the movie,
you don't mind writing things like it's the coldest ever.
It's snowing, it's raining, it's pelting people so hard.
Their flesh is coming off.
People walk into rooms and it's freezing and steam is coming out of their
mouths. Or it's,
you are in the middle of the Mojave Desert and there's not a person in sight
for,
for 50 miles in every direction and they fall into a raging river and get
swept up and blah, blah, blah, blah. So when you start directing, you go,
how the fuck am I gonna shoot that? You know?
Or I'm not going out to the goddamn Mojave desert in August. Are you nuts?
You know, so you start writing a little differently. You know, it's, it's, uh,
it's, when I wrote Midnight Run, like I say again, I I, if you think about it,
there's helicopter chases that lead to a big chase through a thing,
down a cliff. They fall into a raging river. I mean, I, you know,
I was just writing this shit cuz I was having a good time.
And then Marty Bras who director of the movie,
I think fucking flawlessly said to me, boy,
you really threw a lot of shit in here. You know, there's like, uh,
normally that stuff is in one, uh, you know,
one of those scenes is in one movie. We had them all back to back, you know.
So now when I write stuff, I think if I write the word night,
I go, is there any chance I could do this in the daytime?
Cuz I hate being up at four o'clock in the morning trying to shoot. Cuz I,
I'm just exhausted. Like, for instance, trapped in Paradise,
which I knew I was gonna direct, I wrote, but I was also
34 years old when I wrote, now I'm 65, so that's Jesus Christ.
30 years ago I was young and stupid.
So writing a blizzard, that all takes place in one night. As you remember,
that movie all takes place in one night during the worst snow storm of the year.
I would never write that today.
Or I would write it and give it to somebody else. Say, here you go, do this.
I did this. I'm not doing it again. Yeah. So it does change your writing.
If you were to go back in time and change one of your films,
is there something that stands out?
Yeah, you, these are great questions. Look,
if I'm gonna be completely honest with you, I think that there is,
I'd like to change all of them probably. Yeah. You know, we always,
I I think Midnight Run is pretty flawless, but I, I didn't direct that film,
but all the ones that I've directed, every time I look at them,
I like to trim something or, uh, what the fuck?
Why did I go to that fucking angle for, you know, or, or, or whatever, you know.
But all of them I look at. But see, the problem is you can never,
it's very funny when you make a movie, this happens a lot when you paint too.
You, you'll know this as a painter,
there are things that you won't accept in your own work that you'll completely
accept in other people's work. Like,
a lot of times I will look at my movies and I go,
they're taking too long in my mind, or, uh,
or they're getting too Cutty or blah, blah, blah, blah. But if it's,
if you're not emotionally attached to it in that it's yours,
you can look at another movie and go, oh, I love that it's doing this. You know?
So I don't really, I think there's that thing that happens.
And I also think when you're looking at a movie that you can change,
like your own movie, you look at it in a highly analytical way,
which is important on the one hand because you're trying to make it work,
whatever that means. But at the same time,
it's a very negative way to watch the movie because you watch it so many
times and you become so analytical during the process that
you can start ruining what's right about it.
And you sometimes just end up making it different and not better.
So that happens, you know, you're a painter that happens when you're painting.
Mm-hmm. . Like,
you could go to a museum and look at another painting. You go, man,
that thing's terrific. If you did it, you'd say, I gotta fix that eye.
That thing sucks. You know? But that's because you're,
you're being analytical and it, that two, two things are always at work.
I think when you, when you're working as an artist, uh,
which is part of your brain is super analytical working on it,
and then there's the whole emotional side that's creating it.
And you gotta learn to shut the analytical side off sometimes,
which is a very hard thing to do because you gotta go, I'm overanalyzing this.
I'd never analyzed anything the way I'm analyzing this, I mean,
you don't need a piece of pie and go, no, no, no. I think I use some paprika.
No, I think I use cinnamon. I think there was a combination.
I you just enjoy the fucking pie, right? So you don't,
you don't pick everything to pieces that, that you're watching.
You just enjoy it. So I would probably change all of them a little bit.
Mm. There's actually one movie I did that I think is pretty,
yeah. I did a movie called Middlemen. I dunno if you ever saw that.
That's about the, I I have not seen it. It's the one about the internet, uh,
people.
Calling. Yeah. That movie I feel like I really got. Right.
It's over the top where I want it to be. It's poignant where I want it to be.
It moves just the way I wanted it to go. It good pace.
It takes its time where it's supposed to. I'm really happy with that movie.
It's at Wolf of Wall Street. I feel, I watched the trailer.
I haven't seen the movie of Middle Men's. And it,
when I was watching the trailer in preparation to speak with you, I thought, oh,
Wolf of Wall Street definitely pulled from these concepts. Look.
I gotta tell you, I, I can't speak for that.
But there's another movie that won a lot of awards that the
director, it's not Wolf of Wall Street, it's another movie.
They pilfered that movie left and right. I,
it really middlemen was a movie that got it.
The release of the movie was sort of screwed up in what happened in Paramount.
I think they botched the release Middlemen is a movie. It's really funny.
I, I read a review. I read a review in a paper, a newspaper,
the San Francisco newspaper, uh,
basically bashed the movie and said that it, the,
it it filled them with a tremendous amount of anxiety. And I was like,
that was the fucking point. .
That's the, I was just gonna say that's.
That was the point. It was supposed.
Like a compliment.
Yeah. Mean, I said, wow, you be, it worked.
It's like you don't even realize that that's, cause to me it was,
that entire movie was like, you know, like using a drug terminology or,
because all those people were on drugs, you know, in the movie,
they're all cod up and they're all porn stars and lunatics. Sure.
It's not like you're on a three day bender and, and,
and an airplane flies over the house and you're certain that that airplane knows
you're doing coke in your house. It was that kind of anxiety. It, it, you know,
it, it was a, these were very, very anxious,
desperate people. So yes, of course,
for two hours of watching that it's gonna make you feel anxious.
We tried to make the cutting anxious. We, uh,
I told people to cross eyelines all the time, which is in filmmaking, you know,
you're always over the shoulder. Right shoulder the left shoulder. You know,
I purposely crossed eyelines. I did all these things on purpose,
so you would never quite feel settled or, or comfortable. But anyway,
so it made him feel anxious. So.
Whereas if that movie came out today,
it would of course be lauded for that.
I would hope so. Well, listen, everything I've done,
I tried to do a little bit different. You know, I didn't look, there's guys,
men and women that have amazing careers who they kind of keep
making the same movie over and over and over again.
And I've tried to make them all somewhat different, you know? Um, I mean,
I definitely play around with the same themes a lot, but, uh,
most of my themes are about some kind of redemption. These movies, you know,
which probably sort of a Catholic idea going back to the beginning of the
interview. But the, they, they're, they're, uh, or certain, you know, uh,
certainly a religious notion of,
of re redeeming oneself for past sins. I mean,
certainly middlemen is that midnight run, is that 29th Street? Is that 29th.
Street? Yeah, it did that to me, there's a feeling of even, uh,
which I think this is a,
just a true statement that in the horrors of just being a human being,
it's weirdly hilarious.
Yeah. , you're right, you're right. A hundred percent.
You have to acknowledge that, you know, that, that this is so awful.
It almost crosses over into, or it does cross over. Yes.
I mean, look, I mean, look, we've all seen something so horrible. If you like,
you know, you're with somebody you love and trust, okay?
And you're driving down the road, you see something so horrible,
you quiet and you're mortified.
And 10 seconds later you could start getting the giggles. It was so awful.
You know, because it, you know, like Julie's father, oh,
Richard told me the most horrible story. Him Don't out him.
She says, yes. He's, he's passed. No, I'm gonna tell the story,
but I, he told this story about an,
an accident that happened up on the grapevine. What? That's.
He's freaking out over there. Well, I don't.
Even know story. Well, lemme tell a story said No, don't, I'm not incriminating.
Alright. It would've been a loving story. I forget it.
I know what story. It's, forget it. Ok. I'll tell you another story.
I'm the world's biggest animal lover. Okay. Leaving Julie's father out of it. I,
I got permission from, from God, okay. And I'm walking down, we,
we were filming a movie called Local Color. Okay.
We just finished the movie and I was walking back to, uh, we,
we had a Winnebago, the Winnebago, we were driving from New Orleans to, uh,
California. Me, Julie's cousin Brad and the driver Eddie.
And we, we just had breakfast. We finished the movie.
This story's awful too. I'm walking back, you're already smiling.
We're walking back from breakfast.
But I'm about a 200, 300 feet ahead of the other two guys.
And I come across something and I'm looking at it on the side of the road.
It's like a residential street. And I'm like, what the fuck is that thing?
And I'm looking at it, and it looks like a big piece of,
uh, like black poster board,
but it's cut out in the shape of a dog. And I'm looking at it,
I'm looking at it, and then I realize it's got eyes and some teeth.
And I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ. That's, that was a dog.
Oh God. And it was so awful. I mean, obviously it'd been there forever. Okay.
And then, but it was like literally like an inch in height. It just,
there was every bug on earth had had their day,
and there was just this thing left. There were no bones, nothing,
just a couple of canine teeth. And so like,
the remains of what looked like an eye. And I literally,
it was so awful.
I started getting the giggles and I sat on the curb and I was like,
it was, and I'm an animal lover. It was so horrible.
And Julie's cousin walks by Brent, he goes, what are you laughing at?
I couldn't even talk. I just was pointing. And then he looked at me, he goes,
what? And then he went, whoa. Jesus Christ. And then he started laughing,
and then Eddie was laughing. So like,
that's a very long-winded way of saying I agree with you. Sorry. Yeah.
Well, I mean, look at people like Norman Lear or Mel Brooks,
or who could take really dark,
dark concepts and find the humor in them,
whether they're looking, whether they're poking fun and saying, you know,
it ironically, or if they're just shining the light.
Well, I mean, that to me is the genius of Mel Brooks. I think, you know,
I agree. You can't, uh, again, when people start to get, uh, let's see,
perturbed about his subject matter, uh, uh, it,
the reason it's funny is because he's poking just tremendous
fun at a lot of human stupidity. You know? And.
Horror. And horror. I.
Mean, and horror. The stupidity of racist racism. The stupidity of,
I mean, God bless Mel Brooks,
that he could make a comedy about Adolf Hitler 20 years
after the Holocaust. I mean, you know,
he didn't do it a hundred years after he did it. He did it in 1966, was it?
Or 67. The Holocaust was the end of 40, 19 45.
So 22 years later, he's making springtime for Hitler in Germany. Mm-hmm.
, don't be stupid. Be as smart. Come and join the Nazi party.
I mean, man, that's.
Yeah.
That's guts and that's balls and good for him, man.
Mm-hmm. . I agree. I agree.
And it takes the power away.
Oh, I completely agree.
And I think nuance is lost on a lot of people these days,
which is an unfortunate, that's an unfortunate thing with the pendulum swings,
is as we lose nuance and.
Yeah. And listen, I get all the outrage. I do. I just think, you know,
in the end, uh, it's, you know,
all horror is one tick away from being funny. Yeah.
Ke peel some of their stuff. It's just genius. Genius, genius.
And like one of their, like their sketch, do you know ke peel's work?
No.
Oh God. They do a whole sketch where they're up on the,
they're on the slave block and all the,
the people around them are being sold and they're getting more and more pissed
off that they're not being chosen. Like, what the hell's wrong with us?
You know? And it becomes this whole thing. It's such a genius sketch.
Wow.
About a horrific, a.
Horrific thing. Horrific. But it is also funny. That's very, yeah. Yeah.
I've also made the same joke too, being a Catholic,
cuz I was an alt altered boy. And then, you know, my wife asked me,
were you ever molested? And I said, no. Like, I was pissed. And I was like,
what? I wasn't good enough that some priest didn't grab my thing. You know,
what the fuck, what am I chopped liver? Yeah. I mean, so.
Right, right.
And and maybe that's the trick is that if within our own horrors
there is wiggle room,
but once you step outside your own horrors into someone else's,
that's where things get dicey, perhaps.
Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'll.
Be the last to understand how humans work. .
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, again, I do go back to the notion that, uh,
art isn't supposed to be polite. It is supposed to smack us around a little bit.
Sure.
I agree. You know.
It's, um, if people were politically correct during the Renaissance,
we wouldn't have had the Sistine Chapel, you know,
we wouldn't have a lot of things, you know, uh, the, you know,
the real artist is always bucking against that stuff, you know? That's right.
That's right. We wouldn't have the vibrator for God's sakes. That.
You know what, I think, uh, I think, uh, mark Twain said that.
definitely the comeback trail. Very exciting.
It is very, very exciting. The movie won four film festivals already.
I know. And I won a couple Life achievement awards as a result of it. I,
I'm very proud of it. It is definitely, you know,
getting back to that Mel Brooks idea,
it is definitely a total throwback to laughing at everything.
I mean, it's also got a very poignant story at the center of, you know,
that holds it all together because it really is about,
a lot of it's about aging and feeling worthless and, uh,
and then making a comeback from those things,
feeling like your time has passed when it really hasn't.
So it has a meta level too, cuz you used actors obviously, who, uh,
in Hollywood terms, of course, have gone, you know,
are on the other side of their usefulness for,
for lack of a better word, which is ridiculous. I've never understood that.
The ageism thing, the,
the greatest thing in the whole world is the experience of living for art.
Yeah. I mean, uh, we do celebrate youth a lot in this country.
And youth is great in that, uh, you know,
you have boundless energy and the whole world seems new and, uh,
but there's nothing wrong with some wisdom.
Amen to that.
A what is it? Uh, youth and strength, that's fantastic. But it is no fantastic.
But it is no match, match for, uh,
age and cunning and wisdom, you know? So it's, uh.
It's the, the, the great joke about the, the steer and the young.
Yes. One of my favorites.
Yeah. So great. I love that one.
Can we say that joke?
Yeah, of course. Would you like to tell it?
You tell the joke. I'm, I'll mess it up.
So the steer and the,
the younger bowlers are next to each other and they're looking down over the
field of all these cows. And the,
the younger one looks up to the older one, says,
let's run down this hill and fuck one of them cows. And this,
the old steer looks at 'em and says, let's walk down and fuck all of them.
. Which I love that joke.
. I think it's a great joke. It's a great joke. .
I know a lot of good jokes I can't tell on your show, but when you come over.
I, I'm happy to hear them all. Yes, absolutely. I mean,
I could ask you a million questions, but I, I'll save it for cocktails. Alright,
we'll.
Do that. We'll do a part two.
Yeah. Great. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening.
Thank you so much. You did a phenomenal job.
. Thank you.
. Susan, I can't wait to meet you.
I right back at you. I'm very excited. I'm.
Looking at your books. I wanna see if I read any of the same, same books.
What do you got back there?
Uh, so many books. So many, many, many, many books.
Is that Kermit?
Uh, no. This is a puppet. Yes. But it's not ker me.
Oh.
He is green. However, um, yeah. All sorts of, I'm a big reader. Are.
You?
I'm a fan of books. Yeah.
Yeah, me too. I, I, you know, one point, I think I read like every,
I must have read every sci-fi book ever written.
I went through a whole period of.
There's a whole section of, uh, Neil here, Neil Stevenson.
Wow. All right. We're definitely gonna be buddies. Yeah. I can't wait from my,
you never met my wife Julie?
Not yet. No. I've, I only know David so far. Oh, wait.
A minute. How do the hell do you know him?
Uh, we met at a party last week.
you. Oh, wow. You're old friends. Okay.
Yeah, we just hit it off, you know.
Oh, that's great. That's really fantastic. What I've.
Gotta say that I keep saying this about Los Angeles.
Every person I have been fortunate enough to meet,
I feel like I've known for a thousand years. That's great.
Wow. Yeah. That's great. Well, it, well, God bless Dave's. Terrific.
Have a wonderful afternoon. Enjoy your 4th of July.
I most certainly will. Hello? Hi,
how are you? Can you see me okay? Yeah.
I can see you well, thanks.
Okay.
How you doing?
I'm okay. Yeah, it's.
Good to see you. You look great.
Oh, thank you. So do you.
Thanks. I'm in a new place from the last time we talked.
Is that right? It looks very pretty. The carpet's nice and.
Thank you. Yeah.
It's a nice piece of artwork there on the.
Actually my mother's college roommate drew that really my last time I was at my
parents' house, I was like, Hey guys, that's down in the basement.
Nobody ever looks at that. Can I take it? And, uh, that's great. And say,
let me take it. Yeah. It's pretty fun. Anyway, enough about all that.
I didn't know what we talked about last time or down,
I'm sure I'm gonna end up being redundant, but.
So we recorded you were,
you had had finished shooting the Comeback Trail.
Yes. Still hasn't come out yet.
It still has not come out, so.
No, it's impossible. It, it's so, it's so horrible what's going Yeah, it's,
it's tied up in a lawsuit.
Oh, no, I didn't know that.
Yeah, so it's an arbitration going on and, uh, between the,
uh, distributor and the producers and I, I don't know what the answer.
It's just terrible.
Yeah. I'm sorry about that.
It's a terrific movie.
Yeah, I know. Y'all are really proud of it. And it is,
I think it's something that people don't realize that making the movie is,
is just one of the multitudes of steps one takes in order to get a
movie done and out.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, it's supposed to, in the meantime,
I did two films that came out, you know?
Yeah. Ritual Killer.
Yeah. Which is not, I was told,
I think it's was the number one video on demand for two weeks. Not bad.
Congratulations.
Thank you. That was a rough shoot in that, uh,
I don't wanna speak disparagingly. Let's put it this way. It, it, uh,
it was difficult because, ah, shit,
I'll just say it. I,
I thought the script needed a tremendous amount of work and, and, uh,
and so we kind of, we changed it as we went.
So we were juggling a lot of things while we were shooting. And, and I,
I'm happy with the outcome. I, I, uh, the people who get it will really get it.
And the people who don't get it, it'll just fly over their head. You know,
if you are a film buff, the way I, I am a film buff. I love movies and,
and I love painting and music and, and literature. You know,
what I wanted to do with that film was I wanted to, uh,
model it in a way where the, the, the thrillers of today,
to me, it's interesting because thrillers and, uh,
they tend to be the movies where filmmakers stretch you, you know,
because you can do all kinds of really cool directorial things in the thriller
that you can't really do in a comedy. Cuz in a comedy,
you're trying to just tell the story and make people laugh.
And if you start getting too, let's say precious with, uh,
a cinematic notions, you, you'll detract from the laughs, you know,
because you'll get caught up in something else.
And I watched so many thrillers, and I, cuz I,
I haven't really done one like this before, and I watched a bunch of them.
And the ones that I,
I seemed to gravitate more towards were the ones that were done in the seventies
because like William Friedkin movies, I, I,
they seemed far more believable to me and less, uh,
I don't know how to describe it, just less.
Formulaic.
Formulaic and tricky, you know? And it tricked out directory,
you know, they're just, they're very simply told. So I said, well, you know,
what I'll do is I'll just tell this one, like, one of those movies,
like a throwback to the seventies. I'll just be very in your face,
very, uh, un I can't find the word that I'm looking for.
Un almost like an yeah, unpretentious, uh,
a very un uh, not self-conscious way of making the movie. Like,
now I'll do this and I'll reflect this off of that. And, you know, uh,
so I just told it in a very sort of, uh, in your face way,
and people who know those movies really get what I did.
And the people who don't know those movies won't get what,
they just won't get it. They might think it's, I don't know.
I don't know what they'll think. But it,
it's definitely a throwback to a to a very specific kind of filmmaking.
I feel like that time, I talk about this a lot with my filmmaker friends,
that there was a time when filmmakers allowed their
audiences to rise to the occasion.
Yes. That is not the case today. Uh, I, I think audiences today,
or not all of them, I don't mean to speak paint with one broad brush,
but a lot of people seem to go online in trash movies.
They always talk about how bored they are and that it's boring and that it's
boring and it's not moving quickly and enough, and that it's boring.
And they're, and it's bo it's all they talk about, it's boring.
I fell asleep after five minutes. I'm like, really?
You are so exhausted as a human being that five minutes of a movie knocked you
on your ass and made you go to sleep. I dunno if I believe that. I, I,
but I do think there's a, you know, I'm not one, you know,
when I watch a movie that I need to see 72 different angles of a person drinking
a cup of coffee, you know, to me it's like,
I don't understand all of that cu stuff, you know,
unless you're making some sort of comment on that type of filmmaking. You know,
I.
Think it works in a movie like everywhere. Everything Everywhere all at once.
Because that yes, that, that made sense.
That movie in a lot of ways was all about style and all kinds, but,
but not every movie lends itself to that kind of narrative. So, uh, yeah.
You know, if you start covering other types of stories that way,
it just might come off as ludicrous. At least that, that's how I saw this. And,
and, uh.
Well, that's the issue of, of having to cater to gold to the goldfish brain,
right? If you're catering to the goldfish brain,
you are in the conundrum of creating the goldfish brain. What do you, what.
Does that mean? I've never heard that before. Tell.
Me that. So the goldfish brain is the brain that needs some,
a change of pay or has, is for they say, goldfish,
forget what they've seen or experienced about every three to seven seconds.
Like, oh, a castle. Oh look, a castle. Oh my God, there's a castle here.
That's the goldfish brain. Right? Oh my.
God.
And I think that unfortunately we as a society, uh,
have not, we've allowed people to eat paste for so long,
and the people who've been eating the paste have forgotten what steak tastes
like. A apologies to vegans everywhere, but the metaphor No, that's ok.
The metaphor stands is that,
that there are certain filmmakers who are not afraid to serve a fine
eight course meal and say,
do you remember when you used to take in and taste
and smell and see, and hear and feel the experience?
It's a meditative process. We've forgotten what that feels like.
God bless you. Yeah. I mean that, look, I mean,
I don't watch movies to be distracted. I watch a film to go somewhere else.
Right? And if that somewhere else is a soft, sweet,
wonderful place that needs to take its time, you know,
in order to lure me in or hypnotize me in some way, then so be it.
But I don't watch movies to be constantly stimulated and then constantly
stimulated. If I'm not constantly stimulated, I start to get bored. And, and I,
I just don't understand that I, I'm, I always think to myself,
how would these people go to a museum and look at paintings that are really
standing still? Yeah. I could look at a, I could look at a great painting for,
for an hour.
You're also a painter and your work has a lot of depth. You, you,
in my opinion, as somebody who has taken your work in you,
there are,
there are many levels to what's happening between the color and the light and
the substance and the subject. There's a lot happening.
And it, it does, it does any kind of art form. I,
I believe a disservice to, uh, again,
I go with the food metaphor.
If you gobble down a seven course meal in 30 seconds, what's the fucking point?
No, you're a hundred percent right. You know, I mean, whether you,
you appreciate the Jackson Pollock's work or not, you know,
Jackson Pollock said something really profound in that.
He said,
in order to truly appreciate a painting or a piece of
music, or a piece of literature, a piece of art, you know, whatever it is,
photograph movie,
you have to find a way to leave your personal shit at the door.
You know? And you have to view it almost from the soul of a child
and allow it to come in.
Because if you're sitting there and you bring all your shit into the,
into the experience,
then all you're doing is fighting it and fighting it and fighting it,
and you're not letting it work you emotionally.
You're just thinking and thinking and thinking,
and you're trying to outthink it, and then you get angry at it,
and then you get bored with it. Because who can sustain that for two hours,
you know, where this constant fighting, and I, I, I think, I mean,
the fun of going to the movies, at least for me,
this probably makes me sound like Father time when we were younger,
okay.
Prior to cell phones and the internet and all of this fucking nonsense that I
just consider to be constant distractions, you know,
that you can't get out of your own head for two seconds and you gotta make sure
if you're still relevant. And that's a, that's like a mental illness. I mean,
that's, if every five seconds,
you gotta make sure that you're still on everyone's minds. I mean,
the idea of going to the movies was to become a captive audience.
It was to surrender to this thing and completely take it in.
And then having hopefully done that,
you could make intelligent decisions and have intelligent discussions
about what you just saw. Did it reach you? Did it sweep you away?
Did it scare you? Did it make you think?
But if you're constantly like this, gimme more, gimme more gimme.
You're not engaging with it. You have to meet all of these things halfway,
you know, otherwise, there's just no fucking point. I mean, of all movies,
I went with a friend. We went to see a James Bond movie. I mean,
those movies move pretty quickly. And this, this woman was sitting, uh, uh,
about a two hours and she was just constantly on the phone.
And why did she go to the theater? She should have just sat in the lobby Right.
And talked to her friends. I, I don't, I mean, look, it's her life. But I, I,
I don't understand it. I I, it, it sort of depresses me. Yeah.
It is depressing. And I mean, we spoke about this the last time we talked,
is that, did we, yeah. That movies.
Why I haven't changed much in the last.
. Well, no, I mean, that movies are a com. Uh, uh, it's a communion.
It's, it's a, it's a letting go. It's a vulnerability. We as, as viewers,
become vulnerable to the story that's being told to us. And also,
as you pointed out, to be able to take our ego out of it. But at the same time,
the whole time,
we can touch ourselves through the lens of this other human. It's,
it's like this great lesson in humanity when we walk out of a theater.
Oh my God, this writer felt things I've felt, or this, this,
this director or this cinematographer. Right. They saw the world the way,
way I see it. What a, what a beautiful communion that is.
Yes. And, and ultimately, I can't think of a,
a better way to spend your time is to it. It is. It's, it's a shared experience.
And you walk out feeling better about life, better about yourself. You, uh,
I mean, which is, or.
Worse or worse, I went, or worse. Yeah. I saw, I saw the movie, the Irish movie,
uh, the Quiet Girl, uh, in the theater, uh, when I was in Nashville. And,
uh, at the end of that, it's a beautiful, it's such a beautiful movie. It, it's,
it'll make your heart fall out. But it's beautiful. And the thing about it is,
having my heart fall out reminds me of what it feels like to be a human being on
this planet. Yeah. And I sat and I cried for a good, you know, five,
six minutes.
God bless you.
And then I collected myself,
and I went out and I met my friend in the lobby who had to go to the bathroom to
wipe her eyes.
And we talked about that film for an hour or two afterward as we went on the
rest of our evening. And that's, to me,
such a gorgeous experience. That's why, that's why every, that's why the,
the Greeks believe that the gods were whispering in their ears. You know, God.
Bless you.
.
No, I mean it, I don't get to hear this that often. Good for you, pal.
Good for you. Give you, give me hope. People like you give me hope.
Cuz sometimes I just think the human race is fucking done. And I just.
It's up to people who create to lift them out of that.
They don't have to just stare at shadows. Yeah. You know, Plato,
they don't have to just, they can actually experience the reality of,
of their feelings and their experiences and all this stuff,
even if it's in a conduit sense.
And that goes for silly little comedies too, because sometimes we forget.
. Cause you could say a lot, making people laugh. What, what I'm,
what I'm, what I'm stunned about. And I'm very, uh,
hopeful when I hear you talk, when, when you even talk about Greek mythology.
Like, cuz I love all that stuff.
I think all great storytelling goes back to that, you know, Hollywood is in,
in many ways is sort of a brain dead place. You know,
for a place that's supposed to be a, a, a manufacturer of, of, of,
uh, of entertainment. You know,
when you start talking about Icarus or Dataless and you could see the
fucking, they're glazed over,
they don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I get like, okay,
well I can't help you if you don't, you know, if you don't,
if you can't go back to the, well, if you don't know where it all starts,
you know, I, I, you know what I mean?
I do know what you mean. But there is the hope.
I think that if they have not drunk, drunk from that, well,
that whatever they're seeing or hearing or experiencing in the moment will
then somehow spark that thing, that God moment in their own brain.
And I don't mean God religious, I mean God.
I know what you mean. Yeah.
The, all, everything that then will make them go, well, I wonder,
I wonder what that that's about. And have them,
it elicit a desire to go deeper, not only in themselves,
but in the.
World. Oh, good for you. God bless you, pal.
But I think they're out there. I think there are people.
I, I could, I'm looking forward to meeting them.
Tell me about, we,
the one thing we didn't talk about really the last time we chatted, and again,
it's been two years, if you could believe it. Uh, that you paint,
as I mentioned.
And I think it's interesting because a lot of people with a creative,
especially one who is as prolific as you are in a particular medium, right?
As a filmmaker and a writer are that they think, oh,
well that's your lane.
And here you are expressing and creating beautiful things in, in paintings.
Did you experience any kind of pushback? Like, oh no,
you can't be both things or you can't be seven things. You have to be.
Oh, I, I, listen, I, I, I'm also a musician. You know, I,
I don't pay attention to that stuff. And it's funny in that it's,
it's interesting that a person who, it's interesting maybe, perhaps,
I don't know that for me,
that the word artist is not something that I would generally self apply,
you know? But even though I write screenplays, I direct movies,
I paint pictures, I play various musical instruments. I do. And I love doing it.
I never thought the reasons why I do it,
other than I really just love doing it. You know? And I never,
I never saw any of this stuff as a way to make money. I mean, the,
I'm not saying that everything I, I ever did. I didn't,
I didn't do a few jobs for money here and there. I did certainly.
But I don't know, I just always felt like
I just did these things as I wanted to, and I had to.
And I don't know exactly what it all means and,
and why one does this. I mean, you know, sometimes I think,
you know, you have to be pretty committed, you know, to, to,
you know, I'm always thinking about colors and paint application and design,
I think of a lot. And, you know,
playing one edge off another edge in a painting and, and, uh,
you know, focal points and center of interests.
And how do you tell the deepest story with just one
image? You know, like, uh, and I have all these thoughts for paintings. Like,
they'll just, I don't know where they come from.
They'll come where something touches me. And I don't know why. I,
I did a painting, uh, a couple of years ago.
I was walking on the beach down in Zuma Beach and I,
I walking in beautiful. But it was late in the day,
long shadows and seaweed, you emerald green, you know,
mixed with the blue of the water. And, and I,
I came upon these giant rocks and there was a wedding going on.
There was a, uh, like, and maybe six people just by the water.
And they were getting married. And I was like, wow, what an image this is.
You know, the sun was just blasting
a against these figures. And I, so I painted it, you know, I did it from memory.
I, I, uh, you know, I ran home and I started drawing all these pictures of,
you know, these figures on this big beach.
And she was wearing a wedding gown and he was wearing a tuxedo. I mean,
it was just fun. You know, I, what does it mean? I, I don't know.
But it touched me in a, in some way, and I wanted to paint it. It's so,
I don't know, man, I,
I just do these things cuz they mean something to me personally.
And then hopefully they mean something to somebody else. I, I think,
I think the mistake you can make if you're an artist is that you start to dig
a hole for yourself and then you have to do these
things for you first. And, and that's like the,
the opposite of narcissism, if it makes any narcissism,
is doing something to,
to be light or to fill some hole in yourself.
And that's non-ending. That never stops.
If you're constantly singing for your supper to get some sort of, uh,
some sort of emotional payoff that is never enough.
That to me is like a narcissistic thing.
I can never get enough applause. I can never get enough love.
And it's about me and me and me and I,
the opposite of that to me is, is I hate to use words like brave cuz I,
when it comes to the arts, I always think like the artist is brave. I'm like,
no,
a brave person is a is a person who volunteers to go into a burning
building to save a child. That's brave. Okay. I don't know if I could do that,
you know? But, but I would say, uh,
a more lonely approach, uh, is that you do it for you first.
And, and, and if it, and if you,
and if you're honest with yourself and you're honest in the way you do
everything, then you, people will respond to it.
You know? And the more you learn to trust that thing where
you know you're getting it, you know, not like, what do you think?
Am I any good? Will you love me another 10 minutes? You know? Um,
if you're not doing it that way, but you're doing it for you first.
And it's like a muscle that you start to strengthen and
you know, when you're getting it and you know when you have a good idea. And,
and, and if somebody else doesn't get it, they don't fucking get it. It's like,
that's okay. You know? That's okay. I, I just,
where I wished people were different and, you know,
human beings were different is that they,
they judge very harshly and say horribly mean things,
but about people who are doing stuff. I think ultimately,
if you're a creative person, a really creative person, you don't talk that way.
Only a non-creative person could say, add that shit cuz the second,
you know what it's like to write something the second you try to paint
something, you know,
those are places you don't go anymore because you appreciate when somebody else
is doing something. Well, cuz how fucking hard it is, you know?
And even if you're really good at something, it's still hard.
It doesn't get easier.
Just because you had a good day yesterday doesn't mean shit today.
When you're in for the long haul as an artist, something.
That you can't not do. Uh, that's the other thing of it.
And maybe it's not even inside of you. Maybe it's,
it might be some sort of loop to the universe going and it's going through you
and then back out again. And is has little to do with you.
You're just the one holding the paintbrush or the, you know,
the computer keyboard. But I.
Can't just think that, cause I, I, I think that, uh,
if you're doing it the right way, if you're not,
if you're not doing it the other way, you know,
which is you're in your head. But if you're doing it the right way,
I feel, I don't know how to describe it.
I feel very close to God. You know,
I feel like I'm in the best possible hands when I've stripped away all that
bullshit. You know? And you don't get to feel that way that often,
except in the moment of creating something,
in the moment of truly loving another person. But those are rare things,
you know? Uh, generally, you know, you're trying to,
you know, you're trying to negotiate and you're trying to get through life and,
you know, uh, but those moments where you're really still, and you go, okay,
I'm gonna connect to this other thing, whatever that thing is, and, uh,
try to say something in, in,
in a language that in some ways hasn't even been spoken yet.
You know, you're trying to reach for something, you know,
and you're going deep inside. And that's,
that's like spiritual stuff. I think.
There is a universal language to truth with a capital t I think when
anyone experiences truth with a capital T in anything,
they recognize it on a, um,
on a deep d n a level.
Yeah, they do. They do.
Yeah.
And it, there's no bullshit in it, you know? And how often does that happen?
You know, I may have said this quote last time,
but one of my favorite quotes is from a guy named Robert Henri.
Did we talk about this? Mm.
I don't think so.
Robert Henri wrote a book called The Art Spirit,
and he was a teacher, uh, at the, uh,
at the art students league, uh, in like, probably in the early 19 hundreds.
And he, he, uh,
his students were some of like the greatest American painters of 20th
century. When you look at his list of students, it's like Jesus Christ,
the people that he inspired.
And my favorite quote of his was, and he was a great painter himself.
He said, uh, he never set out to do good work,
but instead lived a life where good work would become inevitable.
And I think that to me is a great way as an artist to live your life.
It's like every day you're just kind of in that space,
whether you're doing it or not. And you're always staying true.
You're always saying true. You don't fill the brain up with bullshit.
You keep that well clean and that's the well you're dipping from. And if you,
and if you think that way and you live that way,
you kind of end up having to do good work. It does. You, you can't not.
I think anytime you're creating something, getting out of one's own way, own,
because the mind is a, is a liar, , a lot of times.
Well,
mind is a complete fucking liar because the mind to me gets attached to ego.
And once ego comes into anything, yeah, fuck, it just destroys everything.
It destroys relationships. It certainly destroys art. You know,
I know people who,
they get stuck and they keep making the same mistakes decade after decade.
I'm in my sixties now, okay? So I can say decade after decade.
They just don't grow. They don't grow very much as artists. They,
their lives don't grow because they stay stuck.
Well, curious mind will serve one until their last breath.
Yes. I don't can I don't take this the wrong way. I,
I don't remember you being this smart. I don't re I, I mean,
I hope you take that the right way. I, I had a lot of fun in the last interview,
but this is like, man, oh man, you, you really,
you really think about this stuff, don't you?
I do. Thank you. It's a very sweet of you to say. No, I.
Meant, I mean it, I meant it. I dunno if it came out the right way. I just.
Oh, it's a, it's a huge compliment. I appreciate it. Yeah. Um.
I don't get to talk to many people who are like on this sp on this
wavelength, you know,
because a lot of times when you have these deeper conversations,
people get nervous and they disengage a lot, I noticed. And I think, but.
They, they get nervous because they're afraid. As, as you pointed out, when you,
when you walk into a room,
you're okay with not being the smartest person in the room.
And I think people are really afraid to be looked at as not the smartest person
in the room. But see, if you come in, again, that's ego.
If you come in with that bubble around you,
it's certainly gonna limit your life on a lot of levels.
Yeah. Because you'll never grow. How do you grow if you're not open?
I don't know. I don't know.
Uh.
I think curiosity is a, is a beautiful thing, you know?
And why would we limit ourselves and say, no,
I don't wanna know that today. Or I don't wanna be that today. No,
as much as possible be as much as possible. That's why, that's why we're here.
Yeah. This.
Is the whole point of it.
That was something that really stood out to me with your artwork. Uh, when,
when your lovely wife Julie started posting when I started pulling her on
Facebook. And she's a huge champion, obviously, of you. And, uh,
she posts your paintings.
And I thought what's really interesting about your work is that although it is
a tangible image, you know, it's usually a,
a landscape and buildings and, you know, cottages and these, and pastoral,
you know, that kind of thing. But there was, there's a mysticism to,
I don't know what you do to those paintings, but they have like,
this thing that comes off of them that feels very mystical to me
at least. That's.
Very, that's very kind. I feel the same way about those places.
I feel espe I did a, a bunch of the ones, the ones that you're talking about,
uh, especially I,
I feel it's very interesting.
A lot of things go through my mind when I'm painting. Uh, not,
not as much when I'm, I'm writing cuz you know,
the writing is more like I'm entertaining myself or I'm making myself laugh.
You know, the, the painting to me is a deeper place.
A lot of those places that I paint that I have those feelings about are places
that I visited as a child and went back to as an
adult when I made the paintings.
And when I'm making those paintings,
a lot of thoughts go through my head, like
how quick life goes by,
how much has changed since the last time I've seen these places.
I may never come back to these places again. I, I, I get,
I get very aware of my mortality and you know,
it's a shame cuz I can't imagine the world without me in it, , but, uh,
. But, but I,
that was a joke. I, I, but I do,
I feel like you say mystical,
I feel some sense of tremendous beauty and
longing and, uh, I feel, uh,
a sense of gain and a sense of loss.
Certainly there's something melancholy about it to me, you know,
and I'm feeling those things and I'm sure it's getting into the
work. You know, like if I see some old barn in, in a field, uh,
you know, I think about, man,
that barn was built 180 years ago that the person that first built that frame
was long gone. And who even knows who that person is? I mean,
you know, and they're on the ground and they're gone and they're, there's,
does their family know about this? And, you know, I get, and I, but you know,
it's funny, I, I, uh, I had those feelings even as a kid.
And I guess everyone's,
I mean obviously everyone's different and some kids are more in, uh,
let's say in tune with something or attuned to something. Uh,
I'll give you, for instance,
I have never told this to anybody that I can remember,
but when I was a little kid, we were in a car. My parents and I,
we were driving Aou around in Washington, outside of Washington,
Washington DC in a suburb.
And our car pulled up next to an old man
cuz my father was lost. And he wanted directions.
And it was this old man standing on a corner, impeccably dressed.
It was on a Sunday and it was sort of a gray day,
impeccably dressed with a hat, you know, and a beautiful scarf. I just like,
I remember like it was yesterday in a beautiful raincoat. And uh,
obviously he was wearing a suit underneath, you know,
and you could see his perfectly, uh,
pressed pants and shiny shoes.
And he had such a class about him.
And my father asked him for directions and he was very soft spoken.
Had to be in his, I would say like, certainly in his eighties,
but like a super well preserved eighties,
like really beautifully,
uh, tremendous pride in this man, you know, like nicely manicured nails.
And he was talking with his hands, he was showing my dad the directions. And,
and then we drove away. And I remember looking at him in, in the rear,
in the back of the car as a little kid getting smaller and smaller on the
street. And I never told, even told Julie this.
Uh, and I knew I was never going to see that man again. I,
I must have been like six or seven years old.
But I felt such a deep connection to that guy, you know?
And that I, I, as a early on as a kid,
I started to see this again, it, it's not even explainable,
but I saw the sort of bigger picture of life and I was very
emotionally impacted by these things. You know,
I could tell you lots of stories like that, you know,
and I try to put that in the work.
What you're describing to me,
and the feeling I get when I look at your work is a sense of brigadoon
that you have been gifted a moment and then it's gonna,
and then trying to find that moment again. Yeah. Might be impossible.
Right? No, yeah, I know what you mean. I know. You mean there's like,
there's places I want to go back to. I, it's funny, like I,
there's this old broken down stonewall in upstate New York. It's probably with,
you know,
like give those where they pile those stones on and they kind of go zigzaggy
through hillsides and stuff. And I remember years ago, years ago, years ago,
years ago, I, I'm in my late sixties now,
and then I,
I must have been early twenties and I was lugging all this painting gear,
you know, when I was a stronger man, I could carry all that shit around and,
but I couldn't paint, you know? So that, that's the sort of the,
the tragic irony of youth. It's uh, you know,
you're filled with piss and vinegar and you can't really do it yet.
And then you get older. Now it's more difficult for me to carry the,
the gear cuz everything hurts, but I could paint the shit out of it now,
you know, , I just have to get there and carry all the stuff.
But I think about that wall once in a while that I sat on.
I remember I was so fucking and tired and I just sat on this wall with all this
shit tripod and bags of paint and wind blowing this canvas
around with some ugly, horrible thing I'd tried to paint. And I,
I remember looking at this wall and I was like, oh no, there's a painting.
Look at that thing. Zigzags up that hill and it's like, into these clouds,
it almost looks like heaven. And there were some crows flying in the distance.
And I was like, man, if I could just capture that now that says something.
And I think about it a lot. And I mean, I think about it once a week. I like to,
I'd like to go back there. I just gotta find it.
I know all I know it's off route 18 a uh, but I'll find,
if I were to drive around up there, I'm sure I'd find. But, uh,
I think about things like that.
You are present in your life. That's the, that's the misfortune of, yes,
these handheld computers do a lot for us, but the one thing they can't do is,
is see everything around it. We lose so much,
we lose so much by being so a self-absorbed,
as you spoke of being so connected to one's own ego instead of outside of
oneself.
And then just being so driven by this thing that keeps our
eyes downward. How did you and Julie meet? I'm curious.
Julie and I met, uh,
you want the truth or you want the.
Uh, yeah, the truth.
We were drunk. No, I'm kidding. Uh, no, not at all.
It's actually a very sweet way, way that we, we met. I was, uh,
she was a waitress and I was
fucking broke. I had just come out to la I don't think I was in LA a week.
And, uh,
I was with a friend and I was wondering how on earth
I was gonna become a filmmaker. You know,
I was one of only 10 million people to save my idea, you know,
didn't know anybody. And I'm like, how am I gonna crack this thing?
How am I gonna get in? You know,
the funny thing is I felt confident always that I would,
but I just didn't, I just wasn't sure how it was going to happen.
And I was talking to my buddy and uh, I turned,
and I just saw Julie come out of the kitchen with those blue
eyes and that dark hair carrying like eight
plates of food, like four in each arm. I said,
that's gotta be the most amazing thing I've ever seen. That beautiful woman.
I'm Italian carrying all that food. That's the girl I'm gonna marry.
I said it to my friend, I, the second I saw her, I says, I'm gonna,
that's the girl I'm marrying. And he goes, you're fucking dopey.
You've been out here 10 minutes. You know, there's plenty of fish in the sea.
And I was like, no, that's the one. I got a feeling about this. You know?
And so I, I asked her out and uh,
you know, I remember I said, look, I said, you're beautiful. And I said,
I'm sure every guy in the world is hitting on you. So I'm like,
idiot number 523. I says, I don't even want your number. I said,
here's my number. And I throw myself at the mercy of the court, uh,
and if you wanna call me, you want I'll, you'll have a great time.
And if you don't, you know, she called, she and I asked her why. She goes,
you made me laugh, . So.
That's everything. And.
We've been together ever since.
What I admire about the, the, the way the, from,
just from what I've been on to glean ob obviously through social media and our
conversations, is I think it's tricky for artists,
for people with artists' hearts to feel
the ability to get so vulnerable that they let someone else in completely.
And you two seem to have each other's backs so completely.
And it's a really lovely thing to see.
Yes, it took,
it took a long time to get there because we were
both, you know, like, uh,
we were both incredibly feisty and very,
uh, uh,
very quick with our words towards each other. Like, we were like,
obviously we were very attracted to each other very quickly.
But Julie and I, if,
if we could say things to each other that were quite like
a nasty version of a Neil Simon play, you know, I mean, oh geez,
we could, yeah, we could just, and, and, and she doesn't break,
you know, she'll, she'll just keep coming at you. And then I would too,
you know? Um, oh really? We were like, we would fence that way,
you know, you know, and when you're young, you'd just stupid in,
in a lot of ways and you don't realize how good you have it.
And I don't need to shit. You know? And,
and then over time,
I think we really grew to understand that
we really, really loved and respected the other person a lot.
And that you can't fuck with, you know, it's too precious.
So it took a, it took a while to get there.
How many years have you been married?
We've been together 40 years. She was like 18.
I was 25. I robbed the cradle, that's for sure. and I married up.
So we've been together 40 years. We lived together for quite a while.
I'd say we lived together. She could tell you to the minute, you know, I'm,
I'm not as good at this stuff as she is. She goes, oh no, it's,
she knows exactly everything.
I would say we lived together about eight or nine years before we got married.
Cause a couple of people who we knew got married and then got divorced
and we were like, oh fuck, they were so happy. What happened there? This,
maybe this marriage thing isn't such a good idea. But then we, we,
we got married and we've been together the whole time. I.
Love it. I like hearing people's love stories.
Yeah. Yeah. Ours is, uh,
we are very much alike in that we're very much homebodies.
You know, she, uh, like if she was a,
a girl that wanted to run around and look at this and see the world and
go to this party and talk to this asshole, i,
i that it wouldn't it, I'm not that guy. I'm like,
I don't give a fuck. I'm not going there. Fuck that I'm not doing.
And she doesn't want to either. Like when we get invited to something,
we're like, oh shit. You know, .
So like Covid for us was the fucking best, you know,
we didn't have to go anywhere, you know, we went to the supermarket,
we cooked, stayed home, and we had a few friends over, you know.
But generally that's what we will make. You know, we don't like, uh.
You're hunker downers.
We are, we don't like these big McGills, you know, and.
Yeah. You know. Well, tell me what's coming for you, uh, artistically? What's,
what's in the shoot?
I have, uh, in, in the art world, I'm gonna have a show.
Uh, I was invited to have a show. I mean,
I've been invited to back to the Butler Institute to do a big show there cuz I,
I had about 72 paintings.
I had a big show there in 2015. They invited me back.
But it's such a pain in the ass to frame and crate and ship
like a hundred paintings and I paint big paintings.
So that's a big pain. So locally,
there's a great gentleman by the name of Rand Gladden who runs photo
chem in Santa Monica.
And it's a giant space and it's where they process film.
And they also,
that's where a lot of actors go to do voiceover work and stuff like that.
So there's a lot of big movie stars walking in and out of that building.
And Rand said, why don't you hang some of your artwork cuz it's such a giant,
beautiful space.
So I'm gonna bring about a dozen big paintings there and I'm gonna hang them
there and have, there's gonna be a little reception and stuff. And,
and where are you physically? I.
Live in Santa Monica.
Santa Monica. Good. Then you'll Yeah, please. You're invited. Okay. I mean.
I am there. I can't wait.
Okay, great. So there's that. And then I've got, uh, I've got two movies.
I I've got one gigantic movie that's supposed to go next January.
I wrote the script with Nick Langa. Nick wrote Green Book.
It's about Carlo Gambino, the, the gangster. But it's, it's, uh,
it's told through the eyes of Jimmy Breslin, who,
who was a newspaper reporter in New York who he won the Pulitzer Prize for,
for writing stories about New York City street life.
And he was a real street guy himself. He was one of these really tough,
kind of Irish brawler guys, you know, brilliant writer. And he,
he wrote a piece about Carlo Gambino when Carlo died,
and he basically stayed awake for three days going door to door to door,
piecing together this story of who this gangster was.
And that's really the point of view of the movie. It's Jimmy going door to door.
And then it,
he gets told all these different stories about the rise of this
gangster. So that's like a big, like 80 million, uh,
movie that we're gonna shoot in Italy, in New York.
What's it called?
Gambino. Oh.
Okay. Is DeNiro in it?
DeNiro will be in it, yes. Yeah, I have to talk to him about it. But yeah,
I wrote a part for Morgan Freeman. We don't know who Carlo Gambino is yet,
but Gian Carlo Gini is on board. Salvatore Esposito,
uh, signed up. Uh, who else has signed up? I, I'm hoping to hear, uh,
today about the CIO del Turro. So it's gonna be a beautiful cast.
That's a.
Hell of a cast.
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh,
I'm hoping my friend Brendan Frazier will play Jimmy Breslin. I, he's,
I love Brendan. He's one of my dearest friends and I, I wrote the part for him,
so.
Please give him my congratulations. It could happen to a nicer, nicer human.
Yeah.
We're from the same part of the world Pacific Northwest.
I love the way Aronofsky ended that film, cuz it could have,
he could have made a lot of choices there. And,
and I thought it was a really lovely way to end. But fuck man,
I gotta say the movies that are adapted from plays might be some of
my most favorite because it's, they're so insular. You never,
you never break out of this, this cocoon that they've allowed us into. And it's,
it just keeps you there so fully What a film. Yeah. Anyway,
kudos to, to him.
Yeah, I will, I'll, I'll, I'll tell him. Uh,
and then I'm doing to continue babbling about myself.
Then there's this other thing that I also wrote with Nick Langa, this big,
just ridiculous over the top comedy that I believe is
happening, I'll know within a few days,
but it's called The Big House and it's sort of like stir crazy.
It's these two guys end up in jail, totally innocent.
And one is a, is a Broadway choreographer,
and the other one is the a celebrity chef that used to be on the Food Network.
And they both came on on very hard times and they're best friends and they end
up in jail for something they didn't do. And the warden, this is just a,
like I say, it's a big comedy. He is like Nathan Lane,
he's just like very arts artsy, fary, uh, uh,
let's say socially progressive warden. And he's like,
I've never seen a guy like this.
He wants John Traval to teach the men how to sing and dance,
you know, and he,
they wanna put on this big Broadway type show with all these prisoners. Yeah,
John. I wrote it for John and, and, uh, I want to, yeah, I want him to do it.
And, uh, Martin Lawrence to play the Celebrity Chef,
and he teaches the men how to cook.
And what ends up happening is that the show gets so big that they're gonna,
they're literally gonna open it out of the prison and they get permission from
the governor to do this big Christmas show.
And some of the inmates want to use it to escape.
And the other inmates are just there for the show.
And during the course of the show,
they fall in love with show business so much,
they start getting applause for the first time. They,
they don't know whether or not they wanna escape. They want to. It's,
it's really, it's like I said, it's called the Big House. The script is a riot.
I I literally,
and I I'm hoping that happens first and then I can go do Gambino.
Oh, I love it. Those are great projects. You,
you work with a lot of the same people over and over again.
Yes. They are suckers for, for gluttons, for Punishment. Uh, I love working,
you know, look,
when you work with somebody for a long time and then it's like a marriage,
you know, you, you, you grow to trust them and they grow to trust you. And,
and it's just a good time. And you know, if you're gonna be like,
you used to use the word vulnerable, you know, when you're performing, you know,
you are vulnerable. If you're not, like, like Cop said, they,
they ever ask him, they, they asked him is he ever scared?
And he says he's only scared when he is doing it. Right. You know? Yeah. So,
and you wanna be able to try stuff and be scared, you know,
and.
Yeah. It's a, life is a high wire act over a pit of fire with alligators. Right.
Listen.
To you.
But that's what makes it beautiful.
And you mentioned Icarus and all the while you're on the, the tie rope,
you're knitting your, you're knitting together your wings,
you're hoping for the.
Best. Yes. Are you a Facebook friend with Julie?
I am.
Okay, good. All right. So then you guys talk. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic. Okay,
well we, we should all, uh, we should get together.
I would love that. I What music do you play? Tell me about that really quickly.
Cuz we'd never discussed that before.
What kind of music do I play? Uh,
I mean, you know, you're.
Already better than I am. Do you ever play your songs in your.
Movies? I did once I, I a joke song I wrote, I,
I I, I was in Double Take in the Country Bar. I've written a lot of songs.
Oh my gosh. Do you ever perform.
No, never have. I mean, I do to the drunks here in the house.
Sure. When is your art show?
I don't know. I'm assuming in a couple of months.
It's fun to have shows.
It, it is, yeah. And, and, uh, as a general rule,
I get very nervous when I see them.
I feel both a sense of pride and excitement and nervousness
about how, how they're gonna get received, you know? But, uh, yeah.
But to your point before, it's is everybody,
everybody gets to have their own experience with a thing. And that's that you,
once you've created the thing,
you have to let it go into the universe and be what it's gonna be.
I noticed the Jackson Pollock,
cause I had appreciated Jackson Pollock for who he was within the,
the realm of art and, and history of art.
But it wasn't until I saw Jackson Pollock up close and I saw the little bits of
things, the cigarettes and the, and the bottle caps and this, that,
and I remember standing in the museum staring at all these little pieces and
thinking, uh,
like I could see him painting and all the days that went by and what
each little thing must have meant, and then what it meant to me. And again,
ac we're reaching across decades and holding hands
with the artist. You know, it's hard to explain.
I know what you mean. No, I know what you mean. I, I I, I, I feel the same way.
It's like, you know, like Van Gogh is dead, you know, but he's not with us.
But when you look at those paintings, it's like
he's still breathing. It's like there, his, his life is in those breaststrokes,
you know, I I I I get choked up. I I just get choked up.
Yeah. That.
We're a couple of softies. That's.
I know. Have you seen that, uh, Dr. Who episode where they bring, uh,
van Gogh to his museum?
Yes, I did. And I was so beautiful in the ending stand. I'm gonna get,
goddammit, you're gonna make me cry.
All those people are standing around admiring his work. I saw with Julie,
we both got all choked up.
Seen it 30 times. Every time I watch it, I cry. It's so beautiful.
And he can't believe that all those people are looking at his work in that
museum. I, I, I know. Yeah. It's so beautiful. All right.
Fuck you for making me cry.
George, you're lovely. Thank you for your time. Thank you.
Much. Thank you. Yeah.
Please keep me, keep me in, uh, in the loop of all the things. And if you have.
I I will. And don't be a stranger. Please. Let, let, let's communicate more.
Okay?
Yeah. And if you ever wanna get together and play, get songs at each other,
you let me know.
Alright, that sounds like a good time.
Have a lovely afternoon.
You too. God bless. All right, my friend.
Thanks for listening everybody. Bye.
Bye.
Reach review and subscribe to Hey, human on iTunes, Spotify,
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