Entertainment Series 6: Michael Mandaville / Producing “Taken” Trilogy / Novels / Storytelling

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Welcome to another episode of
Come Together

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So So.
California's nature, in

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particular, is incredible.
Well, they used to have a map in

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the studios in the 30s and it
would show the entire map of

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California and they would say,
oh, Catalina Island, Tunisia,

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and certain forests up north
would be Sherwood forests and on

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and on and on.
So if you wanted to film

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somewhere in Southern California
and you had this extremely

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varied coastline and interior
deserts of course galore, it's

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so it was actually fundamentally
a a map to the world in

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California for filming.
Unfortunately, I heard that they

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don't film very much there
anymore, that the other states

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offer much better tax incentives
and stuff like that, right?

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Absolutely.
Right now, Georgia is probably

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the number one, though I
understand New Jersey is in that

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arena offering a percentage.
But they also have what is seems

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to be a lot higher cost in terms
of you get 30% back, but things

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are 20% higher.
So you have to kind of weigh

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them all.
And there's a new show on

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Netflix, I think it's called
something on Lightning,

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defending the lightning or
something like that, about the

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assassination of James Garfield,
the president.

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Yes, I just saw that.
Did you watch it yet?

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I haven't I started watching it
but I did look it up and it was

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filmed in Budapest.
Cool, there you go.

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So.
So you could see a lot of things

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are fracturing as far as that
goes from California film

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production and what is generally
a very poorly run state in a lot

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of ways.
I still have the weather.

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Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I did though, right.

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I guess you still have the old
guard of Hollywood, I suppose,

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right?
Pardon me.

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And you have the old guard of
Hollywood.

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You have the weather and the old
guard.

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Well, you do.
I think a lot of that has gone

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away by the streaming platforms
that have changed a lot.

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The dynamics of TikTok and
YouTube have changed a lot of

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what the old guard is.
And in point of fact, I would

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actually go to a conference here
called Vigcon and a lot of

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people have never even heard
about it, particularly at the

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the Directors Guild, where I
would go the Producers Guild and

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which I'm the member and you
would mention them, oh, I'm

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going to Vigcon.
And they had no idea what that

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was.
What is it?

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When I first learned about it, I
said, oh, it's online video

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creators.
And so I went down there to the

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Anaheim Convention Center.
In the first year I went, they

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had one building, I think I went
a couple years ago.

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I didn't go this year for I was
travelling in Europe.

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But essentially then they had
every single building they were

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using at the Anaheim Convention
Center.

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And it is an enthralling multi
level video convention where you

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have both the community creators
and industry pros and you can

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always go there and learn very
cutting edge stuff.

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People that go, I got a million
followers this year and here's

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how I did it.
And Hollywood is always behind

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that curve because they have
institutional, what should we

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call it?
Weight.

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Yeah, and it and weight in terms
of wait before we institute

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anything.
So they're way behind the curve.

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And ultimately, it's interesting
that Vidcon was bought by

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Viacom, so Viacom went to them.
They Vidcon didn't go to Viacom,

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and they could actually see some
degree of the sea change as

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YouTube dominates even more so
than a lot of Hollywood.

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And it's immediacy, it's niche
marketing, its ability to have

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frenzied creativity without a
lot of gatekeepers.

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So it really was a massive
change that they haven't

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realized and I don't still don't
think they much have.

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They're not sure what to do with
it so.

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Yeah, it's cool to.
It's cool to see.

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What's cool to see also is that
there's so much because people

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say, you know, obviously, you
know, there's the glamorous part

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of Hollywood and there's the
much less glamorous part of

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Hollywood.
And then there's also what

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everyone dreams of and everyone
wants to be a part of, you know,

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like one way or the other, you
know, And I just like even like,

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you know, even myself, I
probably wouldn't be able to

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help but like want to get into a
couple of movies, you know, like

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I probably wouldn't like, yeah,
you probably wouldn't like pass

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up an opportunity to write a
script for, you know, or produce

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a great film for if if Disney or
Warner Brothers or or Sony or

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whoever knocks on your door.
And you say you don't say Sony

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who or Disney who, even though
relative to YouTube, you know,

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they are.
But like another hand, I want to

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do it, you know, like Mr. Beast
made those made those made that

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TV show with Amazon Prime and
and you know, it did outstanding

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numbers and and like he's but
like there's something about

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him.
He didn't have to go to prime.

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He has all the views that he
needs on YouTube and he has all

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the money he could dream of from
YouTube.

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You know, So there's something
about, there's something about

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like the romantic vision of
Hollywood that like, I think is

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still like, that's probably
what's keeping it afloat at the

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moment that like, but by
whatever degree, you know, it

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is, I'm sure that it's primarily
just, you know, the look, it's

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the Hollywood, you know.
I I agree, I think that you can

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get a certain legendary allure.
And some part of that allure is

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of course, oh, I want to go make
a movie and have a Hollywood

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life and that sort of thing.
And of course, there's an old

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saying that the most exciting
day in your life is the first

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day on a movie set, and the most
boring day in your life is the

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2nd.
Well, everything is a lot of

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hurry up and wait, and there are
a lot of work behind the scenes

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to capture.
One minute, 2 minutes, 3/5 of

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something, and it winds up being
a lot of work.

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And that being said, there's
still something amazing about

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seeing material come to life
from a script page that goes

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right up on the screen there.
Especially the big screen where

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you're going to actually see
people in sitting in the middle

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of the audience, having them
pulse with fear or, or

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excitement or thrills or comedy
or everything like that.

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That kind of infectious group
laughter and joy and all those

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emotions is something that you
really can't capture except in a

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movie theater, maybe in a
religious experience or a live

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performance, but it's pretty
rare.

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I'd, I tend to think, and that's
a a permanence you get that you

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don't get in a sporting event or
a live live event or a concert.

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You get this over and over and
over.

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And I certainly have classic
movies I still watch just

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because they're so well done.
And I think a lot of people

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gravitate towards those as well.
So there is definitely a great

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allure and I think a sense of
legend that you've become part

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of, no doubt.
Definitely.

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So tell me a little bit, tell us
a little bit about your

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experience because you know, I,
I, I, or at least your

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experience in Hollywood, because
I know that you had something to

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do with some of my, one of my, I
wouldn't even almost almost call

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that movie The like a prototype
of a genre.

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You know, that like, I think
that a lot of people,

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particularly streaming services,
probably have tried to replica,

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you know, replicate rather your,
you know, the, the, the, the

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films that you were part of.
But why don't you tell me a

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little bit about your
experiences?

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Sure.
Well, I'll give you a little bit

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of background, I guess, just to
tee it off.

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Sure.
I grew up in West Los Angeles,

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and my Aunt Molly, who worked at
20th Century Fox from about 1935

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to almost 1970, she was there 35
years.

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So when I was a kid, she would
actually take me over to Aunt

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Molly's studio, which was 20th
Century Fox.

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And there we would drive in the
gate.

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And because at the time my
mother was ill, and so she would

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babysit me, basically.
And so starting there, one of my

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first jobs was sorting a script
mimeograph, not photocopied.

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So it was that mimeograph that
you would hold up the page and

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smell it.
It smelled really good.

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I mean, that goes pretty far
back, but I was sorting a script

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called The Longest Day, which
was a World War 2 movie.

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And literally, I think I was
five and a half, six years old,

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and I got paid 1/4.
So that was my first film job.

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I also got See's Candy, by the
way.

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Marzipans.
Wow, wow, I.

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Know it was it was definitely a
very good payoff at the time,

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I'll say that.
And she put me in a couple of

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films as an extra, like Hello
Darling and No.

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Way the Barbra Streisand yes,
get out of here.

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That's my son's.
That's my that's been my son's

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favorite movie so far of his
life.

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That is, I'm in there somewhere.
And just how old are you?

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Anytime.
You, you were a kid.

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I think I was 6-7 somewhere.
Wow, amazing.

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That's so cool.
OK.

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So I did that in a movie called
The Great Race with Tony Curtis

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and a couple others.
I can't remember them, but I

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also met a lot of film makers
that she knew and she worked

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with Daryl Zanuck, who was the
head of the studio for a long

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time, and his son Richard
Zanuck.

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So through him, a lot of other
people would come by and I'd get

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to see them between Alfred
Hitchcock, William Wellman, John

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Ford, Reuben, I think Reuben
Mamoulian and a number of others

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I think.
So it was kind of, that's how I

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kind of worked there.
And then later on I always

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wanted to be in the film
industry.

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So one way or the other, I
started kind of doing that when

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I was 1618, somewhere in there,
a little bit on gripping

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electric PA work, etcetera, and
then went off to college at UC

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Santa Barbara, came back, I got
a degree in philosophy, which

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actually proves better than one
thinks in terms of critical

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thinking and a number of other
things.

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So there you go.
I want, I want, we'll circle

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back.
I want to hear about that after

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you, after you keep on going.
But I'm curious.

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About that, yeah.
And then then I basically went

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to work in the film industry,
did a lot of different kinds of

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jobs, industrial films,
etcetera, and finally worked as

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a director of development at a
particular company called Queens

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Cross Productions.
And as soon as he produced a

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film called Girlfriend From Hell
and no Ephraim, it was not a

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documentary.
It's it's based in a true story

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or Hollywood based in a true
story.

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Not my true story, but
somebody's I think right.

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And that started me off on that
road of actually.

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Then I undertook doing reshoots
on the film, which led me to do

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line production and.
Line production, I'm sorry.

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I want to ask a couple of
clarifications.

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So first of all, line
production, what's a producer

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do?
Because everyone always talks

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about producers and it feels
like it's a credit that's thrown

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around a lot or at least like it
almost feels like I spoke with

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someone, a gentleman that's a
music supervisor.

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And one thing that we were
talking about is that a lot of

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times if a student doesn't have
money to pay, you know, a

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particular talent, they'll throw
them on as a producer.

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If someone wants to get involved
in a project but isn't really

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want to act in there to be in
front, you know, attach the name

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to it necessarily, They, they,
you know, they'll get thrown on

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as a producer, but I'm but I
also know that producers really

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do things, you know, so like,
you know, how does that, how

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does that work?
What do?

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What do they do?
Oh, that's a great question,

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particularly in light of today's
world where indeed they throw

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that on there as a producer or
something.

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In a broad sense, you probably
have about 5 categories of

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producers.
You have an executive producer

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who might be a company
executive, and I'm going by if

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you want to kind of have
parameters and give people

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credit where credit is due.
So you have an executive

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producer who will be from a
company or you could have them

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put up money.
They could also oversee the

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production in terms of maybe
supplying a significant portion

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of the talent.
You have a producer who

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theoretically found the script
once to make the movie, knows

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how to put it all together in
its pre production phase and

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00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:41,200
work with the director and kind
of giving them some degree of

225
00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:45,080
objectivity about it.
How's this scene working or not?

226
00:13:45,520 --> 00:13:48,480
I've seen good ones that
actually are in there having

227
00:13:48,480 --> 00:13:52,320
good discussions about it,
watching the dailies, working

228
00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:56,640
everyday with crafting of the
scene with the director if they

229
00:13:56,640 --> 00:14:00,640
have that good bond.
And underneath that you would

230
00:14:00,640 --> 00:14:04,520
have maybe a Co producer or
associate producer, which can be

231
00:14:04,520 --> 00:14:07,600
a casting director at times or
somebody that's made a

232
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:11,400
significant contribution.
And then you have the line

233
00:14:11,400 --> 00:14:16,880
producer who overseas the entire
project for either a studio or

234
00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:19,680
the finance company or a
distributor.

235
00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:24,280
And they will have their hands
on everything from starting up

236
00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:26,960
the production in pre
production, going through

237
00:14:27,200 --> 00:14:32,760
production and at least a number
of weeks into post production,

238
00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:37,360
maybe between 246 depending on
what it is, and then hand it

239
00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:42,600
over to post production.
The distortions of today's

240
00:14:42,600 --> 00:14:47,080
Hollywood lie in the fact that
indeed you could go on to, I, I

241
00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:50,880
want to say it was an Al Pacino
movie called, let's say Axis

242
00:14:51,320 --> 00:14:53,440
Sally.
And I know about it because

243
00:14:53,440 --> 00:14:56,960
that's a World War 2 subject.
And I'm a bit of a World War 2

244
00:14:56,960 --> 00:15:03,120
history junkie.
And I think there were 38

245
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:08,640
producers on that project and
executive producers, producers,

246
00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:12,320
associate producers, maybe Co
executive producers, on and on

247
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,000
and on and on and on.
And so that's indeed where you

248
00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:18,880
get a lot of distortions where I
think people throw the title

249
00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:21,440
around quite a bit, right?
Right.

250
00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:23,640
It's become, I mean, it feels
like it's become a little

251
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:27,360
diluted, but you described it.
But the way you described it

252
00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:33,720
kind of make it sound a little
bit like a combination of, you

253
00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:37,120
know, the guy running the show,
you know, like making sure that

254
00:15:37,200 --> 00:15:40,240
everything's running, operating
smoothly, and then also kind of

255
00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:43,440
having a little bit of creative
vision or at least, you know,

256
00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:46,600
kind of offering some kind of
insights as to like, you know

257
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:48,720
what I mean?
Presumably they're working with

258
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:50,840
the director a little bit, you
know, Or a studio a little.

259
00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:54,120
Bit line producer or the
producer, I don't know.

260
00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:57,440
Whichever.
Probably the producer should be,

261
00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:00,480
although you've had them that
literally never show it up on

262
00:16:00,480 --> 00:16:03,480
set.
I've had that happen At the same

263
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:06,600
time, the line producer would
ideally work with the director

264
00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:09,000
to say, what do you need for
this scene and how can we make

265
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:11,560
it better?
I think there's always some good

266
00:16:11,560 --> 00:16:15,480
words to be able to say when
you're actually a line producer

267
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:19,560
is to start from the director's
vision and work outward.

268
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:23,680
A lot of times if if they're
smart, if a director is smart,

269
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:27,840
they will actually try and take
the resources, learn about what

270
00:16:27,840 --> 00:16:31,240
they have and don't have.
There's almost always a money

271
00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:37,720
limitation and then be able to
craft a scene to go, well, this

272
00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:41,240
is a simpler scene.
I don't need XY and Z.

273
00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:45,200
Let's save it for over here.
And so when you do have that

274
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,240
dialogue, you actually are
saving a lot of money, but also

275
00:16:48,280 --> 00:16:52,920
you just you can amplify another
scene because you say, well,

276
00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:55,120
we're going to have more extras,
deep background.

277
00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:57,560
We're going to have a different
skill set, A parent.

278
00:16:59,560 --> 00:17:04,000
One particular like restaurant
scene where I visited a friend,

279
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,240
they were able to save money and
in the restaurant have people

280
00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:11,560
that can actually were waiters
that actually and bartenders who

281
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:14,119
actually could spin the bottles
and do other things.

282
00:17:14,640 --> 00:17:18,440
And all of a sudden you are able
to amplify that little visual

283
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:23,400
acuity by taking the money from
one place and putting it to

284
00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:25,599
another.
And is that something that

285
00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:28,440
directors typically are not too
conscient of?

286
00:17:29,560 --> 00:17:30,960
Pardon me.
And that's some of the

287
00:17:30,960 --> 00:17:33,320
directors, I guess are not as
conscientious of if they

288
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:35,240
consider themselves to be more
creative, they're you're not

289
00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:37,760
thinking about budgets or how
much you know this is going to

290
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:39,680
cost.
It is how much this is going to

291
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:41,960
save.
Some of them don't think at all,

292
00:17:42,080 --> 00:17:48,200
and I think that is also at all.
And it doesn't even enter their

293
00:17:48,200 --> 00:17:53,080
mind at all.
And some are incredibly

294
00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:57,760
meticulously prepared and they
know exactly what they want with

295
00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:02,120
a a certain number of shots and
shot listing and preparation.

296
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:09,160
And others have which becomes
more rare is that they show up

297
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,440
on the day of the shoot and go,
OK, I'll figure it out today.

298
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:17,320
And I actually think that the
ones that do better and

299
00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:20,520
certainly deliver a film are the
ones that have a plan.

300
00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,920
But you're not afraid to deviate
from the plan when either

301
00:18:24,400 --> 00:18:28,480
circumstances prevail or an
opportunity presents itself,

302
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:31,120
Right.
Because you could have a plan.

303
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,840
And, you know, if Ephraim and
Michael are doing a scene and

304
00:18:34,840 --> 00:18:39,520
the director looks and goes, OK,
as it's written, it works.

305
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,160
Something you guys are doing
here is not making it work.

306
00:18:43,360 --> 00:18:45,920
Yeah.
So do I give an adjustment to

307
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:50,640
Ephraim to go?
You want to, from an emotional

308
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:54,920
point of view, you might sit and
say the director might say, OK,

309
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:59,280
Ephraim, if you don't get the
underlying tone, the secret code

310
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:03,080
from Michael somehow to get that
information out of them, you

311
00:19:03,080 --> 00:19:05,480
know, all hell breaks loose.
Something like that.

312
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:09,000
So it can be a different
emotional cue or it can be a

313
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:11,680
different setup where you
rearrange the furniture or

314
00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:13,960
something to give them more
blocking.

315
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:19,280
But the idea of the director is
to fix it, get the emotional

316
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:22,320
verve out of the scene that you
want and the shots and the

317
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:23,720
excitement.
So.

318
00:19:25,120 --> 00:19:28,720
But some of them have no clue
about the money at all and they

319
00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:33,160
don't particularly care.
Yeah, I don't think I would care

320
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,160
very much if I was in that
situation.

321
00:19:35,600 --> 00:19:38,760
I think I'd be like, this is my
image, this is my vision.

322
00:19:38,760 --> 00:19:41,880
I know I have XY and Z budget,
you know, and like, I'm just

323
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:43,920
going to do, I'm going to do
what I can out of that, you

324
00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:45,560
know?
But I think that, like you said,

325
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:49,440
they'd probably be better off,
you know, looking for, you know,

326
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:51,760
at least being open to, you
know, potential, you know,

327
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:53,320
changes.
There are potential

328
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:55,320
opportunities, you know.
Yeah.

329
00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:58,360
And I mean you, you don't dig as
a director, you wouldn't dig

330
00:19:58,360 --> 00:20:02,520
deep into a lot of the finance
budget arena.

331
00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:06,160
But you will have an assistant
director who sits there and

332
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:11,960
says, look, you from you have 32
shots on your list and the best

333
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:16,120
day you've ever done is 22.
So are we, are we going to get

334
00:20:16,120 --> 00:20:20,000
to an area later on today?
Where we're going to have a

335
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:21,760
question.
So are you going to combine

336
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:23,160
shots?
Are you going to be able to do

337
00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:25,360
something?
And I think that's good to have

338
00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:28,160
an honest appraisal like that
because I've seen people that

339
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:32,160
are so overly ambitious at the
end of the day, they're they're

340
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:36,080
just going wide to get whatever
they need to fulfill the day.

341
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:39,960
And even you may not have to
know all the budgeting arena,

342
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:42,320
but you want to know what you
have and what you could work

343
00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:44,560
with.
And I do think it's very smart

344
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:46,760
to say, look, well, let's
conserve the money and put it

345
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:51,040
over here in a broad sense
because you're mindful of of

346
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:55,920
everything going on around you.
So it's, it's a measured skill

347
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,320
and some have it, some don't.
And some just say, give me

348
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,320
everything and have it wait on
me and I'll decide.

349
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:06,400
And including very expensive
cranes that sit there and don't

350
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,840
get used.
So I think it's different skill

351
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:12,720
sets, but if you look at
directors like let's say Mike

352
00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:16,360
Nichols, he worked very well
with the actors.

353
00:21:16,360 --> 00:21:19,840
But my understanding is he
didn't set a lot of framing.

354
00:21:19,840 --> 00:21:24,680
In a lot of ways.
He'd rely on ADP and a camera

355
00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:26,960
operator who really had a lot of
skill in that regard.

356
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:28,720
He's director of of photography,
right?

357
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:31,960
Yeah.
So you get some that are very

358
00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:35,800
look like David Pincher is known
to be extremely technical

359
00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:42,840
knowing even more than his his
DIT is digital imaging tech.

360
00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:48,920
So he's equally as knowledgeable
about that particular technical

361
00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:51,680
function as that person on the
crew.

362
00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:55,560
He's he's the one that's
directing the new Tarantino

363
00:21:55,560 --> 00:22:00,200
script with it's continuing Once
Upon a Time in Hollywood.

364
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:03,680
I think I.
Think I thought it was.

365
00:22:03,800 --> 00:22:06,320
I thought it was David Fincher
that got the directing role.

366
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:07,400
But you know what?
Yeah.

367
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:09,960
It's a continuation of Once Upon
a Time in Hollywood.

368
00:22:10,240 --> 00:22:13,440
The script is still going to be
Tarantino, but it's it's

369
00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:16,160
adventures of Cliff Booth as
Brad Pitt and.

370
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,000
Oh really?
Oh no, that'll be fun.

371
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,120
And Netflix will be doing.
I'm real excited for it.

372
00:22:20,120 --> 00:22:23,400
I I thought Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood might have been my

373
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:28,680
favorite Tarantino movie.
Yeah, based on the whole time

374
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:32,440
period, based on the story based
and, and, and just I, I mean,

375
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:34,600
everything about that.
It's funny because the first

376
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:36,200
time I watched it, I actually
didn't get it.

377
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:38,440
And then I learned all about
Charlie Manson.

378
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:40,960
I learned about, you know,
Hollywood and the, you know that

379
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,280
that time period, you know the.
Branch and everything like that

380
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,880
and.
Then and then after I did a

381
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:49,840
whole bunch of homework, I went
back and I'm like, this movie is

382
00:22:49,840 --> 00:22:52,640
just a work of art.
Like, this is awesome, you know,

383
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,080
and, and it rose to the ranks
real quickly.

384
00:22:55,840 --> 00:22:59,600
He actually did such great work
in terms of that because he got

385
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:03,400
the ranch right and all the
characters associated with it

386
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:08,080
and the Bruce Lee scene,
everything like that was pretty

387
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:12,200
amazing.
And definitely the the nostalgic

388
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:16,040
side of Hollywood when filming
here was more predominant.

389
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:20,360
I, I did read that it, you know,
he did not use a lot of visual

390
00:23:20,360 --> 00:23:22,880
effects.
He actually went to a place and

391
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:25,640
would find these nostalgic areas
and yeah.

392
00:23:25,840 --> 00:23:29,200
He he likes to do that.
Yeah, yeah.

393
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:34,080
So I think and still uses film
and he's not going to give up

394
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,440
film.
And I think that's he and

395
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:39,320
Christopher Nolan.
And I don't know about Fincher

396
00:23:39,320 --> 00:23:43,000
now because I think he's gone
digital, but at the same time I

397
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,480
think that he certainly honors
Hollywood with its old school

398
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,720
mentality and everything and
loves film for the sake of film.

399
00:23:49,720 --> 00:23:51,640
So I have to give him credit on
that one.

400
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,080
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Tell me.

401
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,280
Tell me about Taken.
Sure, sure.

402
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,960
Taken because I, I, if you don't
mind, just a little, just a

403
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,840
little context.
I, you know, I probably, my dad

404
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,600
probably showed me that movie
when I was 14 or 15 for the

405
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:11,840
first time and I was born in 95.
I'm turning 30 in a couple of

406
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:15,760
weeks.
And, you know, so this must have

407
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:17,880
been the early, you know, early
to late 2000s.

408
00:24:18,200 --> 00:24:22,200
And I think taken two or three
was coming out in theaters

409
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,000
around that time.
And my dad's like, before we go

410
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,600
see it, let's watch the either
the first one or the 1st 2, I

411
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:31,520
don't remember.
And we and I and we probably

412
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,120
watched it 10 times that year.
You know, I mean we.

413
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:35,440
We.
We.

414
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:37,160
Loved it.
There's something that that

415
00:24:37,160 --> 00:24:39,240
movie also that we know I was
referring to that earlier.

416
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,320
It was like the I feel like the
prototype, you know, super, you

417
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:46,760
know, like particular, you know,
set of skills overcomes all the

418
00:24:46,760 --> 00:24:50,880
bad guys, you know, in one Great
Hall.

419
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,480
But tell me about the Tell me
about everything, about how that

420
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,680
movie got made and producing it
and working on it.

421
00:24:57,120 --> 00:25:02,880
Well, I had worked with a woman
in France and she was working

422
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:07,120
with Luc Besson's company.
My friend Marie and I had gone

423
00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:11,920
over there earlier, I think it
was about 2002 or so, and did a

424
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:16,200
movie there and got to know her.
And so we kind of traded

425
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:20,360
questions and information back.
And I think she had a couple

426
00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:23,040
things she sent my way and I did
the same.

427
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:28,000
And then she said, I have this
movie coming up called Taking

428
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:29,240
It.
We want to send you the script.

429
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,120
Take a look at it.
And we're going to have a number

430
00:25:32,120 --> 00:25:36,160
of weeks here shooting in the
United States and obviously more

431
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:40,000
in France.
And so she wanted to know if I

432
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:43,520
would be able to do that.
And so I received the script

433
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,760
taken and read it.
And I have to say, it's one of

434
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:51,960
the scripts that I read very
quickly right away and meaning

435
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:56,560
that the scripts I've been
given, if you could read them,

436
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,600
sometimes it takes a couple
hours to read a script,

437
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:05,920
sometimes it takes an hour or
something, in the case of Lethal

438
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:12,680
Weapon that I read and taken in
another script, I'm trying to

439
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:15,960
remember which one it was.
But all of those took about 3540

440
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:20,680
minutes to read talks.
And it's kind of, pardon me.

441
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,000
You just fly through them.
You just fly through them and at

442
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,320
the end of it, you actually put
down the script and go, now

443
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:30,000
that's a movie right there
because it it just rolled

444
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,920
really, really fast.
And it's written by Robert Mark

445
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,760
Hayman and Luke Bassan.
And Robert Mark Hayman is done.

446
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:39,920
I think he wrote the original
Karate Kid, but a lot of other

447
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:44,320
projects since then.
So he's a very, very seasoned

448
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:47,560
screenwriter.
And after reading it, I went, Oh

449
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,800
my gosh, this is this is thing
just moves and moves very quick.

450
00:26:52,360 --> 00:26:55,240
And I think the smart thing
about that is Luke Bassan, when

451
00:26:55,240 --> 00:27:00,720
he conceived the movie, made it
an American operative who

452
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:03,360
started off in America and then
comes back to America.

453
00:27:03,360 --> 00:27:06,760
So it's bookended, as it were,
who ends the story.

454
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,880
And that way you had a
immediately audience

455
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,040
identification with Americans
that would watch the movie.

456
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:20,240
And on that they said, well,
Liam Neeson wants to do it.

457
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:25,640
And at that point in his career,
Liam was, I think, searching for

458
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,440
some degree of like, well, what
do I do next kind of thing.

459
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,280
He was mostly a dramatic actor.
Oh, was he?

460
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,360
What was he up to previously?
Well, he did start it off.

461
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:40,200
I know in films like The Bounty
he played that.

462
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:44,000
He did a lot of dramas, period
piece movies.

463
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,400
OK.
Primarily, you know, Rob Roy.

464
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:52,280
He did a number of others, but
by and large, he wasn't really

465
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:57,080
an action.
And so he was a little, I think

466
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:01,120
befuddled at that some degree.
But he's always likable because

467
00:28:01,120 --> 00:28:04,400
I think men admire him and women
like him.

468
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:10,680
And so you, you hit that marker
on both where men look at him

469
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:12,960
and say, OK, I think that, you
know, he's a, he could be a

470
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,560
tough guy and, and I'd like to
be like that and women would

471
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:21,080
like to go out with him.
And so you you get both parts of

472
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,240
that equation there for the
marketing.

473
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:29,240
And so we started shooting that
film.

474
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:36,080
And I remember on the very first
day we were shooting up near

475
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,600
Hollywood Blvd.
And we had a couple scenes there

476
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,640
where his daughter tells him in
a restaurant and Wi-Fi, I want

477
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:45,040
to go to Europe.
And then we were going to shoot

478
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:48,560
down at the electronics store.
And I don't this did not make

479
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:53,040
the film.
This particular scene where he

480
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:57,640
buys the boom box that he got
for his daughter a radio later

481
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:05,840
at the party.
And at that time, what happened

482
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,600
is we were going to go down the
street to Hollywood Blvd. to an

483
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,920
electronic store, one we were
fixing up.

484
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,200
And his assistant, Liam's
assistant, came out and said,

485
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,000
Michael, Liam would like a word
with you.

486
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,520
And I said, OK, we'll see how
this goes.

487
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:27,120
And I went in there and he had
his contract actually laid out

488
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:32,400
on the table with a highlighter.
And I said, what's going on?

489
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,080
And he goes, well, I am 12 hours
portal to portal.

490
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:41,240
And that means that 12 hours
starting starts the clock

491
00:29:41,360 --> 00:29:45,400
ticking when he's picked up at
his hotel by his car and ends he

492
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:52,080
should return 12 hours later at
the end of the day, total of 12

493
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:58,400
hours back at his hotel, which I
was not informed.

494
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:05,640
So I said to Liam.
I said he goes, hey, pardon me.

495
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:09,120
Is that considered standard that
kind of 12 hour day?

496
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:12,240
In essence, yes.
And I think many actors do that

497
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,840
smartly because they don't want
to be working 14-16 hour days.

498
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:20,040
It takes a toll.
It's very difficult.

499
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,280
And particularly for actors who
are on screen, you can start to

500
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:25,880
see they're getting tired in
their face, which becomes a

501
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,520
makeup issue to some degree.
So you don't quite bounce back

502
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:33,200
as a 25 year old actor that when
you're slightly older, let's

503
00:30:33,200 --> 00:30:36,160
say.
And so there is that.

504
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,080
And so he pointed to his
contract.

505
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:40,080
He goes there, you could read
it.

506
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:42,160
And I said, no, it's OK, if
that's what you're telling me,

507
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,280
that's what it is.
And he go, I go, let me go check

508
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:47,800
where we are.
And I believe it was about 11.

509
00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,520
We were 11 hours and 20 minutes
into his day at that point.

510
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,440
So he goes, Michael, look, we're
not going to go get that other

511
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,800
scene now.
And then I I'm going to be back

512
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:03,280
at 12.
And I said, well, I said, well,

513
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:08,080
Liam, I have to wear the coat of
a pessimist, but I have the I

514
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,400
have the heart of an optimist.
So give me 3 minutes, I'll be

515
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:14,960
right back, OK.
And so I went out the door, I

516
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,480
got on the walkie-talkie.
I called the first AD.

517
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:23,680
Which is a DS an assistant
director.

518
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:25,000
Assistant director.
Thank you.

519
00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:27,680
The assistant director is
running the set and they're

520
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:31,520
actually down there on set,
putting it together and making

521
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,800
sure that we can get the
lighting time, the all the props

522
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:40,840
are ready, set, set deck, set
decoration, set dressing is

523
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:43,960
fine.
Making sure all that kind of

524
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:47,880
works right there on set, he's
the commander on the set.

525
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:49,560
Right there, the assistant
director.

526
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,440
Gotcha.
So I got on the walkie-talkie

527
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:55,080
and I checked with him and he
says yeah, we're probably 20

528
00:31:55,080 --> 00:31:57,560
minutes away lighting and then,
you know, we'll get Liam down

529
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:01,960
here and of course now we're
talking 11401145 and this isn't

530
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,960
going to happen.
So I said look, it's a one off

531
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,960
scene it it's isolated, meaning
we don't have continuity issues

532
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,440
from 1 scene to another where we
have to get it.

533
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:15,520
So I said, look, just scratch
the scene.

534
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:19,040
It's day one of what we're
shooting, and we'll figure out

535
00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:23,200
how to come back to it.
And he goes, OK.

536
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:26,880
And so then I went back in.
I spoke to Liam, and I said, OK,

537
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:29,400
we're going to scratch the
scene.

538
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,040
We'll get you in your car.
I've already told your driver,

539
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:33,400
and we'll get you back to the
hotel.

540
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,120
And I think he was very
surprised.

541
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:40,560
He came up and he went, what?
And I went, yeah, we're going to

542
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,600
do that.
And he goes, Are you sure?

543
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,360
And I said, sure.
I mean, I'm not going to burn

544
00:32:47,080 --> 00:32:49,800
goodwill on day one.
It makes no sense.

545
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:51,640
Yeah.
In that regard, if something

546
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:54,360
does come down the line, it's
beyond our control.

547
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,760
And I so he said, Are you sure?
And I go, yeah, we're we're

548
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:01,720
good, we'll figure it out.
And he goes, are you really

549
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,960
sure?
And then then he kind of took

550
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:07,640
his hands and put them on my
arms and shook me a little.

551
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:12,200
He goes, Are you sure?
And it was very funny.

552
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:14,160
I go, yeah, Liam, no, not a not
a problem.

553
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:17,120
We'll get you going.
And then, then the funny part

554
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,480
was we wound up talking for 20
minutes.

555
00:33:20,160 --> 00:33:23,120
Oh man, there you go, you spent
on the whole time.

556
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:25,000
Yeah.
Then we, they all of a sudden we

557
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,200
spent a little time doing that,
just talking.

558
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,720
And then so then he goes, OK,
and he changed and got in his

559
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,320
car and left.
And, and after that, the

560
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:37,360
director showed up concerned
about what was going on.

561
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,400
I said no problem.
I mean, we just have the scene

562
00:33:39,400 --> 00:33:42,720
we were going to go over.
Makes no sense to do this on day

563
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:46,840
one.
He concurred Pierre Morrell and

564
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:51,480
who's was steady Cam operator
doing his first big feature.

565
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:55,920
He done one previously called
District 13, I believe.

566
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:01,000
And so then Liam, you know, was
grateful for that.

567
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:04,920
And also in subsequently
whenever something came up and

568
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,440
he had a deal and there was
things not being done to his

569
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,400
deal, I made sure that they
could happen.

570
00:34:11,639 --> 00:34:15,199
And so you start to build
bridges and trusts there to make

571
00:34:15,199 --> 00:34:17,760
things work and work smartly, if
you know what I mean.

572
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,239
Yeah, definitely.
I think that's what I mean.

573
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,360
I feel I, I've heard some, I've
heard and read so many stories

574
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:32,400
in my life about how just the
extension of good faith, how far

575
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,360
that goes down the line and how,
how valuable that is.

576
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:40,199
And how people that, that make
these short term decisions and

577
00:34:40,199 --> 00:34:43,000
short term easy gain decisions,
but end up, you know,

578
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,040
compromising or showing that
they're compromising integrity

579
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:48,639
or loyalty.
Like they end up paying for it

580
00:34:48,639 --> 00:34:51,639
and everyone ends up, you know,
knowing that, you know, and they

581
00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:53,920
still might make it.
But like everyone knows that

582
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:55,480
what you're dealing with is what
you're dealing with.

583
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:59,040
And I think that that that comes
back to bite you eventually.

584
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:04,920
So the So what movie exploded or
did it it was AI know that it

585
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,720
was a as far as I'm concerned,
there's a cultural phenomenon,

586
00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:09,080
you know, but.
Very much so.

587
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,680
Very much so.
It just went in the theaters,

588
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,400
took right off.
I can't even tell you how many

589
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:18,240
people brought up when I could
say, Oh yeah, that's the movie.

590
00:35:18,240 --> 00:35:20,280
And it became quite the hot
ticket.

591
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,680
What was that like for you?
Was that crazy?

592
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,080
Pardon me.
Was that crazy?

593
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:29,680
It was definitely crazy in a lot
of regards because it became the

594
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,560
hot ticket.
I believe it had a Liam had a

595
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,360
resurgence of his career in
terms of, oh, you're an action

596
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:41,000
guy, which is literally a genre
that he had not really much been

597
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,640
in.
And subsequently, you could see

598
00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,760
a number of films that he did
after that before taken to, I

599
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:51,960
mean, just went crazy with the
idea of him being an action

600
00:35:51,960 --> 00:35:55,200
figure.
And so I, I don't think he

601
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:56,800
couldn't quite believe it
either.

602
00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:00,400
And that he was he was equally
as surprised.

603
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,120
But I think the film in
particular did so well at the

604
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:10,560
box office for its initial cost
and everything else, that Fox

605
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:14,080
knew they had something hot in
their hands and that a sequel

606
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,560
would be very good and
profitable, as well as the

607
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:20,760
third.
And at the same time, there was

608
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,520
actually very interesting
things.

609
00:36:22,720 --> 00:36:26,720
As a father, you're going to
feel this where, look, it's a

610
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:33,360
pretty simple mission here where
this bad guys have taken my

611
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:36,720
daughter and I'm going to get
her back and know what, no

612
00:36:36,720 --> 00:36:40,240
matter what.
And that in and of itself

613
00:36:40,240 --> 00:36:45,520
becomes, of course, a
galvanizing moment for fathers

614
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,040
everywhere to realize, OK,
here's a guy who is not going to

615
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,480
take any prisoners and he's
going to kill them all and get

616
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:55,160
her back.
And these are horrendous

617
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:02,000
traffickers.
And of which, personally, I have

618
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,800
0 mercy for.
I think that you have to be

619
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:10,840
amongst the worst, basically,
slavers, traffickers.

620
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:12,880
I mean the same kind of
mentality.

621
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:18,160
So I think you hit a very strong
emotional point there with

622
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:22,960
fathers, and I mean fathers
literally.

623
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,360
I saw them say, oh, I worked on
the Taken movie and they're

624
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:30,840
like, they literally would
straighten up and grow a spiny

625
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:33,800
from in front of me.
So they could be, they'd be

626
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,880
hunched over and then all of a
sudden they would be I'd kill

627
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:41,480
those sons of bitches too.
I must have had that reaction

628
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:46,880
100 times where they would be
just infuriated and say that's

629
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:51,160
exactly what I want to do.
And so I think it speaks very

630
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,680
well to the notion of myth and
storytelling that you have a

631
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,360
heroic figure willing to do
whatever it takes to get his

632
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,480
daughter back.
You can't ask for a a simpler

633
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:05,960
yet more profound story.
Yeah, exactly what it was.

634
00:38:06,520 --> 00:38:09,560
And I mean, do you have you have
a son or daughter?

635
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:10,360
What?
I both.

636
00:38:11,200 --> 00:38:13,200
I have both.
I have a 2 1/2 year old son and

637
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,360
a six month old daughter.
So, you know, you'll have a lot

638
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,560
of those feelings of protection,
which is the father's job and

639
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:22,880
exactly the father's job these
days.

640
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,560
And the idea that you're going
to protect your daughter is, I'd

641
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,560
say, in child.
But your daughter specifically

642
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,400
is something that's gone through
history as being one of the more

643
00:38:34,400 --> 00:38:38,400
noble virtues.
Yeah, so I think it really hit

644
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:44,040
on a on a, a primal level,
something that echoed pretty far

645
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:46,840
and wide in that regard with a
likeable character.

646
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:52,720
So, and certainly the action,
Pierre Morrell was a Steadicam

647
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:55,760
operator.
He knew how to look through the

648
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:59,760
barrel, look through the lens to
see how it would work.

649
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:07,280
You know, every day with action
and notably, I mean, the

650
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:13,120
relentless Press of Liam going
through these bad guys.

651
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:16,760
One of my favorite scenes, I'm
not sure what was yours, but one

652
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:21,040
of mine was when he went into
the kitchen full of these pond

653
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,280
scum and he was playing the
tape.

654
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,280
And they're like, oh, that's
you.

655
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:31,080
OK, now I've got you.
And then the guy says good luck

656
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:37,600
and Liam catches him and wipes
them out and then the bad guy

657
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,440
runs into the room afterwards
seeing all the dead bodies and

658
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:44,960
Liam pops up and gets him and
and one of the guys is running

659
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,560
down the stairs trying to escape
and he shoots.

660
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,560
Him, he was behind the body when
he did that, right?

661
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:51,600
That's right.
Yeah.

662
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:51,960
Yeah, yeah.
OK.

663
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:53,240
I remember what he was talking
about.

664
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:58,000
So that scene where you just go,
OK, they deserve to die, end of

665
00:39:58,000 --> 00:39:59,640
story.
I think it just.

666
00:40:00,240 --> 00:40:02,920
It wasn't any politically
correct nonsense of like, oh,

667
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:05,960
let me wound the guy or not, you
know this nonsense.

668
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,920
But it's a a bit of a avenging
Angel in a way.

669
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:15,840
And so, so I think definitely it
hit a very, very strong mark in

670
00:40:15,840 --> 00:40:19,640
that regard across the board for
both Liam, the film, the public

671
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:31,840
and and then when on Taken 2 was
shot in Istanbul, right?

672
00:40:32,600 --> 00:40:41,560
And so I, we did work in the US,
but also we had to go over there

673
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:45,440
to, I had to go over there to
Istanbul was a very funny

674
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:52,360
situation.
Should I just keep going?

675
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:52,960
Is that all?
Right.

676
00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:55,600
Or yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, I, I, I wanted to, I

677
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:57,400
wanted to ask, but you can, you
can continue.

678
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:03,160
I, I, I think I've heard at
least and I what when your

679
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,600
reaction, you do really well and
take you do incredibly intaken,

680
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:10,240
right.
And then there's a the studio

681
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:13,680
wants to, they probably want
three, maybe they want 4 if they

682
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,080
could try to squeeze out of it.
But we know that the student

683
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:20,360
that that where you're coming
from as a producer, finding a

684
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,440
great script that you can just,
you know, inhale and you know,

685
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:27,120
in 45 minutes and then turning
it into a great movie.

686
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:31,720
I know that there's sometimes
there's hesitancy to get

687
00:41:31,720 --> 00:41:34,640
involved in building these, you
know, franchises, at least from

688
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:37,360
a creative standpoint, right?
You're like, how many how many

689
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:39,320
times are you going to be?
How many times can I do this?

690
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,720
Or what potential is there?
How do you explore this in a new

691
00:41:41,720 --> 00:41:43,880
way?
You know, did you did you feel

692
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,000
like you wanted like you're
like, Hey, this is a great

693
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:48,640
opportunity to like make another
movie?

694
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:50,720
Or is this like, oh they kind of
want just another one of what I

695
00:41:50,720 --> 00:41:56,040
already did?
Well, a lot of that's generated

696
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,720
by Luke Basson and Robert Mark
Haman who wrote the scripts and

697
00:41:59,720 --> 00:42:02,960
they really are the ones who
come up with the plots and

698
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:07,680
everything else like that.
So Robert Mark Haben is very

699
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,520
seasoned, like I said, as a
writer.

700
00:42:10,520 --> 00:42:17,560
And Luke Basson really is really
has a whole different almost

701
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:21,040
column that he was in when he
started off his career.

702
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,600
You would get a lot of French
films, I would say that didn't

703
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,600
quite have the verve of action
that he did.

704
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:31,760
And so I think he really admired
that kind of high speed

705
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:36,680
testosterone driven world.
And so that was really his

706
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:42,480
metier that he created there as
kind of a personality and

707
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,200
producer in France.
So you think they were to

708
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:47,800
continue with it?
Pardon me, You think they were

709
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:49,920
happy to continue with that,
with that, with with this

710
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,400
storyline?
Well, they continued.

711
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,960
But indeed, I think Lee
impressed them to go, well, I'm

712
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,160
not going to be a part of
something that's just kind of a,

713
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:02,560
a, a rather pedestrian kind of
work.

714
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:10,120
So I know one, it might have
been between 2 taken two and

715
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,080
three, he said.
Well, you have to come up with a

716
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,800
good script, otherwise this is
just very bad parenting.

717
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:19,640
My daughter keeps getting
kidnapped.

718
00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:21,480
Well, what's going on here,
right?

719
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:25,440
And so you couldn't have her
just getting kidnapped over and

720
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,200
over and over and over and had
to be kind of a threat from a

721
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:32,800
different spot.
And so how does she participate?

722
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:36,480
Does she, what's her awareness
in relation to danger at this

723
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:43,200
point and take a a little more
active participation?

724
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,640
So I think that was definitely
something that they didn't want

725
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:50,640
to just say she's kidnapped
again and again and again.

726
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,160
You've kind of used that in the
first one, right?

727
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:56,640
So they definitely had a
consideration there.

728
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,120
And it's certainly been talked
about.

729
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:02,520
So is there a four coming out?
And I, I just can't see Liam

730
00:44:02,520 --> 00:44:06,200
wanting to do that.
And I think 3 is kind of a magic

731
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:07,920
number when you see a lot of
sequels.

732
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:14,080
If you look at well, at least
Indiana Jones I think was great

733
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:19,560
on one.
And then 3 is probably amongst

734
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,760
the it's one in three that are
my favorites.

735
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:27,480
And four, OK, five I have not
watched.

736
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,280
I have to say.
I just heard very bad things

737
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:30,840
about that.
I'm.

738
00:44:30,840 --> 00:44:35,200
Getting to the 5th of anything.
Yes, yeah, I think that's very

739
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:38,920
difficult to achieve.
The same with Die Hard.

740
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,160
I tended to think number one is
was amazing.

741
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:49,720
And I was actually driving down
Pico Blvd. late at night after

742
00:44:49,720 --> 00:44:58,000
working on a particular film.
And I'm driving down Pico and

743
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,840
I'm looking at Century City.
And that's when they blew the

744
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:07,640
roof with this explosion.
And I'm like, what's going on?

745
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,640
You know, I'd drive over there
going, my God, that building

746
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:14,120
blew up or something.
And they were filming and it was

747
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,920
very fun because.
Yeah.

748
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,560
So, you know, they did it late
at night, of course, so no

749
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:23,160
traffic and issues, but it was
one of those moments.

750
00:45:23,720 --> 00:45:25,280
Really crazy.
Really, really cool.

751
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:27,440
Really cool.
Yeah.

752
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:31,440
I, I think that I, I've heard
that there's direct correlation.

753
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:35,200
I, I don't know about direct,
but there is a correlation.

754
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,520
They, the sequels always make
more money in the box office,

755
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:41,560
but always drop off in the
ratings, right.

756
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:47,240
So typically speaking, right.
So they'll almost never lose

757
00:45:47,240 --> 00:45:51,440
money, but they won't speak to
the audience necessarily the

758
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,960
same way.
There's some, there's a couple

759
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,840
of strong, strong cases, Toy
Story or The Godfather or like

760
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:02,360
there, there's a couple of
movies where like the 1st and

761
00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:05,400
the second are like, and maybe
if you're lucky, the third is

762
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:08,960
really, really great.
But it is it is an anomaly.

763
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:10,120
It is.
It's hard to do.

764
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,120
It's very difficult to do.
And in fact, it's interesting

765
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:17,520
you brought up The Godfather,
because that's the the movie I

766
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:21,280
saw with my father when I was a
kid because that made me want to

767
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,880
make movies.
I said I'm really, yeah.

768
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,520
It really compelled me to say
I'm going to figure out how they

769
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:31,040
do this and I'm going to do it.
And that was the movie.

770
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:35,280
I could tell you where I sat and
what I thought and everything

771
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,480
about that.
And I literally, my, my son

772
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:41,760
bought me a great book by
Francis Ford Coppola about the

773
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:45,880
Godfather, The Notebook.
And so I have that.

774
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,880
Did you watch the show though?
The show with Miles Teller in it

775
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:52,440
about the making The Godfather
from Oh yeah.

776
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:54,320
In fact.
Yeah.

777
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:56,880
How was that?
I thought it was really well

778
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,080
done and I knew Betty Mccart,
but I hadn't realized she had

779
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,760
played through my friend Bob
Leckie, a producer.

780
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:09,240
Betty Mccart was a good friend
of his and I had not realized

781
00:47:09,240 --> 00:47:15,000
that she had played such a keen
role in The Godfather and I, I

782
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:20,320
was really surprised about that.
So I knew I had met her quite a

783
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:26,120
few times through Bob Leckie and
I thought they did a great job.

784
00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,680
I've heard stories about how
they had to deal with the

785
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,280
Colombo crime family back in New
York to get things done.

786
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:40,080
And in fact, the producer, Al
Ruddy spoke, and he always had

787
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:41,920
something very interesting to
say about that.

788
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:50,920
He spoke at a festival I saw I
was at, and he said that he

789
00:47:50,920 --> 00:47:54,440
literally was at Paramount.
They brought in a bunch of guys

790
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:58,040
that were mafia guys.
And the one thing they wanted to

791
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:03,240
do was take out the word mafia.
But he had the script there.

792
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:05,880
And he goes, OK, look, you guys
read the script.

793
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,760
Well, none of them really wanted
to read the script.

794
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:10,880
So he said, you read it, you
read it, you read it.

795
00:48:10,880 --> 00:48:13,360
No.
And the four guys, I guess 3 or

796
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:16,320
4 guys each kind of threw it off
to the other guy.

797
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,040
You have to read it.
You have to read it.

798
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:21,920
And he said, OK, we, I'll, I'll
take the word mafia out of the

799
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:24,400
script.
And they all said, OK, neither.

800
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:27,840
And none of them read it.
But the key point was the word

801
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:30,840
mafia was never in the script.
To begin with.

802
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:34,360
No, to begin with, but it
sounded like he was giving them

803
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:36,320
something, so they were happy
about it.

804
00:48:36,840 --> 00:48:43,280
And but that's what he said.
And so that one proviso was the

805
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:45,200
thing.
This thing of ours is what it

806
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:49,760
became, which is, you know, the
La Cusa Nostra vibe.

807
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:54,640
But they had taken that out.
So I thought it was very well

808
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:55,760
done.
In effect.

809
00:48:55,760 --> 00:49:00,160
A friend of mine who I went to
USC with for professional

810
00:49:00,160 --> 00:49:04,840
writing, Nikki Toscano, was the
showrunner on that.

811
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:08,520
Cool.
So, and she did a great job on

812
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:09,080
that.
Yeah.

813
00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:11,920
Wow, wow.
Do you read the book?

814
00:49:12,880 --> 00:49:16,680
Oh, many times.
The book was was phenomenal.

815
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:19,120
The book was really, really
spectacular.

816
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:21,360
It was it was so rich.
Yeah.

817
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:23,560
I, I watched that movie for the
first time in college.

818
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:25,680
I, I took a film class my first
semester.

819
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:32,880
I got AC plus in it because big
boss is 8:00 in the morning with

820
00:49:32,880 --> 00:49:37,720
a French professor that that had
a very, very difficult to

821
00:49:37,720 --> 00:49:41,360
navigate accent or very
difficult to, to discern.

822
00:49:41,720 --> 00:49:46,600
And, and just the combination of
being so early, most of the time

823
00:49:46,600 --> 00:49:50,800
I was hungover, exhausted, you
know, and then, and then also

824
00:49:50,840 --> 00:49:53,520
not being able to navigate what
the professor was saying most of

825
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:56,960
the time.
But we watched the Godfather and

826
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,720
that like snap that that's that,
that that I didn't watch

827
00:50:00,720 --> 00:50:04,800
anything to do with any kind of
mob or mafia organized crime

828
00:50:05,560 --> 00:50:08,560
until that point of my life
until I was probably 1819 years

829
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:11,400
old.
And maybe I was exposed to like

830
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,080
a scene or two from Goodfellas.
But like that would have been

831
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,880
it, you know, and and it just,
it just started me down this

832
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:19,960
path.
And it's such a cool.

833
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:24,040
I just did actually an episode
last week with with with a

834
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:28,360
gentleman, Dave Schwartz that is
history professor at University

835
00:50:28,360 --> 00:50:31,680
of Las Vegas that specializes in
gambling, in the history of

836
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:34,240
gambling and bedding the Mafia's
presence in Vegas.

837
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:39,440
Yeah, really, really cool.
And and we talked about Sinatra

838
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:41,880
a bunch and his relationship,
you know, his quote UN quote

839
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:44,920
informal relationship, you know,
and very.

840
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,680
Much so.
Very fascinating.

841
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,360
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's and, and
again, you know, there's, I

842
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:53,800
think there's a reason why, you
know, 60-70 years later, you

843
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:55,360
know, everyone's still making
these movies.

844
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,920
And, you know, it's still one of
the most actually Speaking of

845
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:00,720
scripts, it's so funny you say
that, you know, because we're

846
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:03,800
talking years when you mentioned
earlier how a script reads.

847
00:51:04,400 --> 00:51:08,680
My uncle had worked, my great
uncle had worked for ABC for

848
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,960
many, many years and was in the
Writers Guild.

849
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:13,680
And so he would always get
scripts sent to him till to the

850
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,640
till this day actually, you
know, for people hoping that

851
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,120
you'd vote on best on best, best
script.

852
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,120
And so he doesn't really read
them anymore or vote very much

853
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:26,000
anymore, But so he just hands a
bunch of them off to me and I

854
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,320
got the Irishman before I
watched it.

855
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:34,120
Oh, that's great.
And I read the script and was

856
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:38,200
like, this is incredible.
And then I watched the movie and

857
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:42,400
I hate to say it, but I was more
than a little disappointed

858
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:45,200
relative to what the script was.
I really, really was a little

859
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,160
let down.
There are those cases where you

860
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:51,240
actually see that and you're
like, OK, this is not quite up

861
00:51:51,240 --> 00:51:54,240
to the par of the script.
And it just, you know, it's

862
00:51:54,240 --> 00:52:01,200
written form supersedes it.
And it's, it's very fascinating

863
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:05,280
because when you mention a book
and then you have the script and

864
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:09,880
then you have the movie, there's
very few of those that make that

865
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:13,400
transition well where it equals
the book.

866
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:18,360
For me it was Silence of the
Lambs and The Godfather.

867
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:20,440
I would tend to put way up
there.

868
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:24,520
So in terms of being equally as
good as the book, and those are

869
00:52:24,520 --> 00:52:26,760
the only two I could really
think about right now.

870
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:36,520
And it becomes a very nuanced
sensibility to translate from a

871
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:39,480
book to a script to that.
What scenes are you deleting?

872
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:44,160
What are you leaving out as much
as what are you keeping in and

873
00:52:44,160 --> 00:52:47,640
then shortening the scenes to
make them more vital in terms of

874
00:52:47,640 --> 00:52:50,920
the the drama involved and
everything else.

875
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:53,200
And indeed, I've read a number
of scripts.

876
00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:55,280
Then you watch the movie and you
go, God, what happened?

877
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,160
They had a great start.
Yeah.

878
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,120
There's an old line in Hollywood
where, God, there's movies that

879
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:05,800
do not work at all and they're
made for $100 million.

880
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:09,400
And the question is, wait, you
had $100 million, but you

881
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:11,400
couldn't buy a script.
What happened?

882
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,520
Yeah, Yeah.
Yeah, but you know, you know how

883
00:53:15,520 --> 00:53:18,680
money's spent, especially,
especially living in the state

884
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:20,360
of California.
If you know how money's spent,

885
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,320
then you know that, you know,
the the amount of money you

886
00:53:23,320 --> 00:53:25,840
spend doesn't necessarily
correlate to a positive outcome.

887
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:28,080
You know, you got to have some
heart behind all.

888
00:53:28,360 --> 00:53:30,760
Not at all.
In point of fact, I think

889
00:53:30,760 --> 00:53:34,240
there's almost a inverse
relationship in some ways.

890
00:53:34,240 --> 00:53:36,680
When you are desperate and you
have to figure something out,

891
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:39,040
sometimes things work a lot
better.

892
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:42,000
You know the story about Rocky,
right?

893
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:47,320
No, please.
Well, Rocky was a movie shot in

894
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:53,720
1975 and I actually worked as
APA on it out of their office

895
00:53:53,720 --> 00:53:55,160
for a few days.
That was it.

896
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:59,920
But there was years later, I
talked to Billy Chardoff, who

897
00:53:59,920 --> 00:54:03,840
Robert Chardoff was the producer
on the project.

898
00:54:05,080 --> 00:54:10,000
And there was AI talked to him
specifically about this scene in

899
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:15,320
Rocky where he goes with his
girl who he wants to impress to

900
00:54:15,320 --> 00:54:17,520
the ice skating rink.
And they're running late.

901
00:54:18,040 --> 00:54:21,240
Well, the ice skating rink is
getting closed up.

902
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,840
The guy is literally closing up
the ice skating rink.

903
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:28,760
And I think at the time in the
movie, he says, Rocky says, OK,

904
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:32,360
I'll give you $50 if you could
open this up and let me and my

905
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:34,280
girl for 10 minutes skate
around.

906
00:54:35,000 --> 00:54:40,040
And in 1976, fifty dollars is
probably what people made in a

907
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:44,880
day, more or less in a lot of
ways, cost of living in

908
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:48,840
inflation and all that may not
seem like nothing now, but at

909
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:52,280
the same time back then.
So that was a lot of money.

910
00:54:52,280 --> 00:54:55,920
And particularly for a guy who
was down on his luck to have 10

911
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:59,600
minutes with his girl.
Well, the entire scene, that was

912
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:04,720
not the way it was written.
What happened was is they had a

913
00:55:04,720 --> 00:55:09,200
full blown ice skating rink.
And which means if you have an

914
00:55:09,200 --> 00:55:14,760
ice skating rink, 3400 extras,
you need to have skates, you

915
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:18,080
need to have medics.
People are going to take a fall

916
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,440
and give you all those people in
coordinate that they can

917
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:25,440
actually stand up on ice.
Or the ones that don't you have

918
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:29,480
to get pads for so they fall in
a very fun manner and not get

919
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,440
hurt.
You need extra workers.

920
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:36,400
You'll need restrooms, assistant
directors, all of extra food and

921
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,320
craft service.
So when you start to add it up

922
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:41,240
and they just did not have the
money.

923
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:44,200
So consequently when they
actually looked and they said we

924
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:48,440
don't have the money, somebody
smartly said well we'll just

925
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:51,480
have it closed and he pays the
money to open you needed.

926
00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:55,800
The so smart, So creative.
And in point of fact, it

927
00:55:55,800 --> 00:55:57,920
actually became a scene that was
memorable.

928
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:03,520
I mean, the guy is paying his
hard earned money for his girl

929
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,520
in a moment to be isolated and
to have a moment on the ice with

930
00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:13,040
her. 10 minutes that actually
elevated the scene by saying you

931
00:56:13,040 --> 00:56:16,120
meant you matter so much to me
that I'm going to pay this

932
00:56:16,120 --> 00:56:18,880
amount just to have 10 minutes
with you.

933
00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:21,520
And so you had infinitely a
better scene.

934
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:25,960
And of course, the the movie
history made with Stallone

935
00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,440
sticking to his guns to say,
'cause he was offered, I think,

936
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:35,720
I don't know, $250,000 or
something like that for the

937
00:56:35,720 --> 00:56:39,720
script without him in it.
And ultimately he took I think

938
00:56:39,720 --> 00:56:43,320
$20,000 or something for him to
be in it.

939
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,080
And he was so broke he had to
sell his dog.

940
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:48,600
Right, I heard about that part.
Then he had bought them back

941
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:50,240
once he when he bought it back,
right.

942
00:56:50,240 --> 00:56:52,480
Once he made.
I think he got $50.00 for the

943
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:56,920
dog and bought him back for
$10,000 or something.

944
00:56:57,800 --> 00:57:01,840
But I, I think there's a very
good story in that just simply,

945
00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:07,080
and he speaks very candidly
about the issue that he grew up

946
00:57:07,080 --> 00:57:13,000
in, like an old folks home.
He, I believe he has his jaw and

947
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:16,760
because it's a pinched nerve in
his cheek when he was being

948
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,720
born, literally the forceps
damaged a nerve, I believe.

949
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:26,840
So he speaks in that kind of
stilted fashion because of a

950
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:31,960
medical scenario and he grew up
in an old folks home.

951
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:34,880
He made his weights with a bar
and bricks that he would just

952
00:57:34,880 --> 00:57:38,080
kind of work out in.
And when he got his first agent,

953
00:57:38,480 --> 00:57:45,800
he literally went to this agent
manager's office, only guy in

954
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,160
there was just a one guy
operation.

955
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:50,200
He said I want you to be my
agent.

956
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:54,600
And the guy he slammed the door
in his face and said go away.

957
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:58,800
And he basically sat outside the
guy's door for 8 hours.

958
00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:01,360
Yeah.
And he opened the door and there

959
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:03,400
he was.
And he goes, OK, if you just

960
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,680
leave me alone, I'll be your
agent in essence, I guess so

961
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:11,600
there's a Great American story
there about perseverance and

962
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:17,960
about not taking no for an
answer and drive and belief.

963
00:58:18,360 --> 00:58:22,560
And I, I it's one of the Great
American success stories of the

964
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,960
screen.
I don't know of many people that

965
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:29,400
have persisted through such
difficult circumstances to get

966
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:32,320
where they wanted to go.
Yeah, yeah.

967
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:37,680
One thing that I I've realized
with my very short, you know,

968
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:40,760
experience, my very short and
limited life experience is that

969
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:43,520
what I've noticed is that what
what makes the difference

970
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:46,640
between making someone great or
not is just whether they're

971
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,640
willing to go a little bit
longer than everyone else's.

972
00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:50,760
Like whether they're willing to
just hang out.

973
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:56,160
Like, you know, you know, one
more episode, one more, you

974
00:58:56,160 --> 00:59:00,600
know, you know, casting, casting
call, one more script, one more

975
00:59:00,600 --> 00:59:03,800
page of writing, one more
productive hours spent today

976
00:59:03,800 --> 00:59:06,560
than yesterday.
And like just a little bit more.

977
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:09,520
And like then everyone else saw
you need just a little bit more,

978
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:12,960
you know, and then but that that
really just shows, you know,

979
00:59:13,400 --> 00:59:16,960
like that history is filled with
winners like that, you know,

980
00:59:16,960 --> 00:59:18,240
people that just stuck it with
that.

981
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:23,040
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you judge it by the

982
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:27,720
Olympics.
The Olympics certainly are

983
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:31,880
judged by what, hundredths of a
second more and you have a new

984
00:59:31,880 --> 00:59:36,840
record and you're now gold medal
winner or 1/4 of an inch more

985
00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:38,720
when you.
It's a very I tell joke, right,

986
00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:41,880
right, right.
Yeah, yeah, there's definitely a

987
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:49,880
joke in there, I guess you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

988
00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:53,880
But I, so when I, when I went
back to the script, one of the

989
00:59:53,880 --> 00:59:57,200
things that I noticed after I
watched The Irishman and I was a

990
00:59:57,200 --> 01:00:01,160
little disappointed by the
actual film, was I went back to

991
01:00:01,160 --> 01:00:05,040
the script and when I reread it,
I, I started hearing it in Joe

992
01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:08,360
Pesci's voice, in De Niro's
voice and whatever, you know,

993
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:10,800
because now that I know who's
who's playing which part.

994
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:14,400
And that did make a difference
for me as to how I perceived the

995
01:00:14,400 --> 01:00:16,520
script.
And so.

996
01:00:16,800 --> 01:00:19,840
What do you think, you know,
when people say, I wrote this,

997
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,440
this part with your voice, you
know, like with your voice in

998
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:26,720
it, you know, like I, I wrote
this script for Ben Affleck.

999
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:29,600
I wrote this script for Matt
Damon or for, you know, Margaret

1000
01:00:29,600 --> 01:00:34,640
Robbie.
Like, do do you think that doing

1001
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:38,080
that would, could compromises
the potential of the script

1002
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:41,760
because you're limiting your,
you know, the, the, the dialogue

1003
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:46,240
to one particular voice that you
have in your head or, you know,

1004
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:48,880
or do you think it's better to
go for the tightest script that

1005
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:51,680
you could think of and then see
who fills in the blanks better?

1006
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:57,000
Well, I definitely think it's
good when a character speaks to

1007
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:00,720
you in a particular voice
because I think there's a

1008
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:03,280
consistency that you can get
there.

1009
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:07,080
You hear this voice and you say,
oh, they wouldn't say it or they

1010
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:12,080
wouldn't say it that way.
And I've certainly had in novels

1011
01:01:12,080 --> 01:01:15,280
I wrote, there's a character I
had called Misses Font Leroy.

1012
01:01:15,280 --> 01:01:18,200
She's basically works at the US
Embassy in Paris.

1013
01:01:18,200 --> 01:01:23,920
And I got her voice in my head
and she talked for like 10 or 12

1014
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:27,000
pages and I couldn't stop her.
Wow.

1015
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:30,880
And so there is something
enthralling about that where all

1016
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:32,840
of a sudden I think you hit
flow.

1017
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:37,840
And when you're creating
something and I think even if

1018
01:01:37,840 --> 01:01:40,800
you are an actor, most actors
are going to sit and go, oh,

1019
01:01:40,800 --> 01:01:43,000
this is the character you want
me to play.

1020
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:47,400
And I think if they hear a
consistent voice, one that

1021
01:01:47,400 --> 01:01:52,080
sounds alive, one that says, Oh
yeah, I, I, I see this coming

1022
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:56,480
right off the page, that's a
greater attribute and asset to

1023
01:01:56,480 --> 01:01:59,880
have when you're pitching
somebody than not that somebody

1024
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:04,640
can identify, oh, this is not
generic at all.

1025
01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:09,800
It's definitely a point of view.
And, and so far as that goes,

1026
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:13,040
most actors will say, well, can
I do that point of view?

1027
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:20,920
So I think that is much more
enthralling and and enticing to

1028
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:24,920
an actor because they will sit
and say this is something where

1029
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:28,400
the voice is real.
And if the voice is real, then

1030
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:31,760
they could think, OK, leaping it
into the actuality of making a

1031
01:02:31,760 --> 01:02:36,120
movie makes even more sense and
actually has a greater

1032
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:40,560
probability of attracting them.
So if I were to pick one or the

1033
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:42,720
other on that road, that's the
one I would pick.

1034
01:02:43,480 --> 01:02:46,200
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
Tell me about novel writing.

1035
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:49,720
Because you you write fictional
novels, right?

1036
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:52,360
Right.
I've written a number of books,

1037
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:56,720
written a book on
counterterrorism for one after

1038
01:02:56,720 --> 01:02:59,120
911.
And at the same time I've

1039
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:02,160
written fictional novels, techno
thrillers.

1040
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:06,520
One book I have is set in Paris
called Murder in the City of

1041
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:10,320
Light and that hit number one on
Amazon a couple weeks ago on a

1042
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:12,160
number of.
Congratulations, it's a great

1043
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:15,080
name.
Pardon me, it's a great name

1044
01:03:15,080 --> 01:03:18,000
too.
Yeah, I think it, it definitely

1045
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:21,960
has gotten a lot of wings on
that and that helped out a lot.

1046
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:24,040
And then?
Congratulations, that's awesome.

1047
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:25,280
Thank you.
Thank you.

1048
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:29,040
And working to make that into a
series, ideally shooting in

1049
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:33,760
Paris or Romania where I came
back from this summer and it's

1050
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:36,280
known as Little Paris, Bucharest
is.

1051
01:03:36,640 --> 01:03:41,200
So we'll see what happens there.
And then I have another book

1052
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:45,840
that goes out in January called
7 Graves to Marrakech.

1053
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:52,840
So that's based on a scout that
I did in Morocco.

1054
01:03:53,520 --> 01:03:55,280
I met a friend of mine down
there.

1055
01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:57,640
I was in France.
It was actually during COVID.

1056
01:03:58,280 --> 01:04:02,760
And so I had to get on the plane
in Paris, went down there to

1057
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:07,880
Casablanca and he picked me up
and we toured Casablanca.

1058
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:13,960
Marrakech, Eswaria, I can never
say that, right?

1059
01:04:13,960 --> 01:04:17,000
But it's a beach city.
Eswaria.

1060
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:21,640
They have a they shot Game of
Thrones there along the cliffs

1061
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:25,360
in that city.
That was in Ireland, no?

1062
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:30,600
Morocco, Yeah.
Cool the cliffs but mohair,

1063
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:32,000
that's what it's called.
Or something like that.

1064
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:34,760
Clips of.
Mohair indeed in Ireland, and

1065
01:04:34,760 --> 01:04:36,880
yeah, they are in.
Ireland, that's a that's a

1066
01:04:36,880 --> 01:04:40,480
famous, that's a famous.
I thought I remember hearing the

1067
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:42,440
Harry Potter was definitely
filmed there.

1068
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:45,240
Princess Bride may have been
filmed there.

1069
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:48,600
And I believe I thought game of,
I thought part of Game of

1070
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:50,280
Thrones.
Maybe they did.

1071
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:52,040
I mean, I know they were in
Northern Ireland.

1072
01:04:52,040 --> 01:04:55,840
They were at the what they call
the Giant Steps, and I know they

1073
01:04:55,840 --> 01:04:59,960
probably shot there.
I think those are iconically

1074
01:04:59,960 --> 01:05:01,760
Irish.
So when you go to the coast of

1075
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:04,480
Mohair, you're going to go to
Ireland, you're probably going

1076
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:06,800
to shoot there, right?
There's no doubt.

1077
01:05:07,360 --> 01:05:08,520
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, OK.

1078
01:05:08,520 --> 01:05:09,880
So you went to these other
places.

1079
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:12,440
You're you're.
Yeah.

1080
01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:16,000
And then that's where they did
shoot Game of Thrones along the

1081
01:05:16,000 --> 01:05:21,520
Fort, the old Fort there on the
coast, on the cliffs and a place

1082
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:24,200
called Tucker Koos South of
Marrakech.

1083
01:05:24,920 --> 01:05:29,120
And so by doing that particular
scout, then I, I kept a lot of

1084
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:33,000
notes about things.
And like in Marrakech, we went

1085
01:05:33,000 --> 01:05:36,920
to the polo fields to check them
out, the, the town square,

1086
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:41,560
various alleys in the old city,
the old Medina.

1087
01:05:42,040 --> 01:05:45,880
And so I kept some very
meticulous notes and that became

1088
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:50,600
somewhat of the outline, a very
strong outline for the book, the

1089
01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:53,520
novel.
So I was able to do that and

1090
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:57,960
kind of build it up from there.
Is that usually your your quote

1091
01:05:57,960 --> 01:06:01,040
UN quote research project
process is to like get your

1092
01:06:01,720 --> 01:06:04,040
actually put your feet, you
know, wherever you want to write

1093
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:06,160
about and to actually visit the
place and check it out.

1094
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:12,200
Ideally, yes, because it's about
walking the steps and a lot of

1095
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,680
times you sit there and you say,
well, OK, if you want to go,

1096
01:06:15,680 --> 01:06:18,000
it's a in Paris.
I know Paris fairly well.

1097
01:06:18,000 --> 01:06:23,400
I think I've been there about 40
times or so, but it's, if you go

1098
01:06:23,400 --> 01:06:30,040
from, let's say, the Place de la
Republique and you want to walk

1099
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:32,880
it for some reason or you're
going to go into a different

1100
01:06:32,880 --> 01:06:35,440
arrondissement, Well, what's
around there?

1101
01:06:35,440 --> 01:06:39,720
What are you seeing and hearing
and tasting and everything else?

1102
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:43,520
And so it's very good to to do
that because you could really

1103
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:47,720
enliven the page.
So, and that's exactly what I

1104
01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:51,120
did in Morocco.
And so when I walked around

1105
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:56,200
Marrakech and you felt the
street vendors and the close in

1106
01:06:56,200 --> 01:07:00,520
and you would see, you know,
baskets of spices that are

1107
01:07:00,520 --> 01:07:03,720
extremely colorful.
It's it kind of enlivens it.

1108
01:07:03,720 --> 01:07:08,920
And that informed, for example,
the chief of intelligence for

1109
01:07:08,920 --> 01:07:11,480
Morocco, I made it his
grandfather to be a spice

1110
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:16,480
merchant, basically, and, and to
do colored dyes for clothing.

1111
01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:20,160
And then there's a unique part
of that that's there and part of

1112
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:23,080
the culture which is fascinating
to explore.

1113
01:07:23,080 --> 01:07:26,200
So absolutely, if you walk the
streets, you're going to pick up

1114
01:07:26,200 --> 01:07:28,200
a lot more.
It also makes the writing a lot

1115
01:07:28,200 --> 01:07:30,680
easier because you go, no,
that's where it is.

1116
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:34,080
Yeah.
So you kind of build into that

1117
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:35,440
reality.
I think it's great.

1118
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:38,720
And people can travel and read
the book and then enjoy the city

1119
01:07:38,720 --> 01:07:41,000
they're going to.
It's works right away.

1120
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:46,360
So when it comes to coming up
with a plot or coming up with a

1121
01:07:46,600 --> 01:07:50,960
concept, you know, I've spoken
to a bunch of writers, you know,

1122
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,120
a bunch of writers on the show
that I've done a lot of non

1123
01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:55,960
fictional work.
And you know, part of what they

1124
01:07:55,960 --> 01:07:59,320
say, especially if they don't
tend to be have that kind of

1125
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:02,000
mindset of being able to kind of
capture a whole story in their

1126
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:04,840
head and then, you know, keep
track of it while they're

1127
01:08:04,840 --> 01:08:08,320
elaborating on details.
Which I think is a super

1128
01:08:08,320 --> 01:08:10,640
incredible talent and something
I have a very hard time with.

1129
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:13,480
But what they do instead is they
say, OK, we just take it like,

1130
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:15,880
you know, we want to talk about
what it took to build a

1131
01:08:15,880 --> 01:08:18,920
successful business.
Here's a chunk of what you need

1132
01:08:18,920 --> 01:08:20,600
to know.
It's important to do accounting,

1133
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:22,520
you know, so let's write a
chapter on that and like the

1134
01:08:22,520 --> 01:08:25,040
point to do that.
What's your process for coming

1135
01:08:25,040 --> 01:08:27,520
up with a actual story?
And how do you keep track of the

1136
01:08:27,520 --> 01:08:31,040
narrative and the characters?
And you know what, what goes

1137
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:32,520
into it?
You know how, how do you, how do

1138
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:36,800
you, how do you do all that?
Oh boy, that's a good question.

1139
01:08:38,399 --> 01:08:40,560
That's the hardest part.
That's the most daunting part of

1140
01:08:40,560 --> 01:08:44,080
writing, I think is just is how
much you got to keep track of

1141
01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:47,160
and are you taking notes?
Do you have files and binders?

1142
01:08:47,319 --> 01:08:48,439
How do you how do you go about
it?

1143
01:08:49,279 --> 01:08:53,840
Well, let's see, I'm actually
working on a sequel to Murder in

1144
01:08:53,840 --> 01:09:01,479
the City of Light now, and I
make use of when I start writing

1145
01:09:01,479 --> 01:09:04,000
my first scripts and novels.
Of course, you sit and you go,

1146
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:07,560
OK, I actually did that on a
manual typewriter, believe it or

1147
01:09:07,560 --> 01:09:12,560
not.
But I mean, yeah, Well, what's

1148
01:09:12,560 --> 01:09:15,960
interesting is when you have a
manual typewriter, you want to

1149
01:09:15,960 --> 01:09:18,800
be sure about the scene because
you don't want to go through

1150
01:09:18,800 --> 01:09:22,600
that pain in the ass retyping.
Yeah, well, there is something

1151
01:09:22,600 --> 01:09:26,479
about not having a delete button
that makes you really question

1152
01:09:27,200 --> 01:09:29,319
yourself before you actually do
the work.

1153
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:32,520
And I think there is something
missing about that when you have

1154
01:09:35,560 --> 01:09:38,760
editorial or writing where you
could say, oh, don't worry, I'll

1155
01:09:38,760 --> 01:09:41,600
fix it later.
So I think there's a mental game

1156
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:45,000
you have to get in behind there,
as well as to be a bit

1157
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:52,760
determined and ruthless with
yourself, and I absolutely have.

1158
01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:57,800
Then when even working in Word
and then other programs like

1159
01:09:58,120 --> 01:10:01,760
Screenwriter or Final Draft,
those gave you an organizational

1160
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,800
capacity that was much, much
easier because you could put

1161
01:10:04,800 --> 01:10:08,560
together all the little cards
and then work out scenes in a

1162
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:10,560
linear.
Yeah, in a very good linear

1163
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:14,160
fashion.
So I use a couple different

1164
01:10:14,160 --> 01:10:18,200
tools, and in particular one is
called Plotter, which basically

1165
01:10:18,200 --> 01:10:22,800
is a deck of cards on the
screen, and that gives me very

1166
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:26,000
broad big picture strokes.
That's currently what I'm using

1167
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:28,920
right now.
And the nice part is that

1168
01:10:28,920 --> 01:10:32,040
Plotter actually exports into
Scrivener.

1169
01:10:32,520 --> 01:10:35,520
Scrivener's a very inexpensive
program.

1170
01:10:35,520 --> 01:10:38,440
I think it's $60.00 or
something, and it's extremely

1171
01:10:38,440 --> 01:10:41,520
powerful.
And so that allows you to

1172
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:44,360
organize.
Scrivener allows me to organize

1173
01:10:44,360 --> 01:10:49,520
electronically.
Any research on place, time,

1174
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:51,600
character.
Awesome.

1175
01:10:52,320 --> 01:10:55,160
So it's kind of one big
electronic bin.

1176
01:10:55,680 --> 01:10:59,440
And the nice part is, of course
you can copy and paste in there.

1177
01:10:59,440 --> 01:11:03,720
So when I go from Scrivener to
Plotter or something, then I'm

1178
01:11:03,720 --> 01:11:07,840
able to kind of track that.
So that's made it a lot easier

1179
01:11:07,840 --> 01:11:12,640
than a linear writing in
Microsoft Word where you're

1180
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:16,240
always up, where am I and you
have to create indexes to know,

1181
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:18,480
OK, where, where's that chapter
again?

1182
01:11:18,480 --> 01:11:21,520
And that that becomes
organizationally difficult.

1183
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:26,000
The nice part about plotter is I
have a section in there where I

1184
01:11:26,000 --> 01:11:31,480
could wing out an idea and see
if it flies and just

1185
01:11:31,680 --> 01:11:34,960
brainstorming, OK.
And I like to do kind of what

1186
01:11:34,960 --> 01:11:39,600
if, what if Efren and Mike
Michael robbed the bank and

1187
01:11:39,600 --> 01:11:43,160
escaped in a balloon?
OK, How would that work in

1188
01:11:43,160 --> 01:11:45,960
Florida?
Oh, now we hit a typhoon.

1189
01:11:46,360 --> 01:11:49,720
Maybe not a good idea, this kind
of thing.

1190
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:52,400
But I think it's that
out-of-the-box thinking that it

1191
01:11:52,400 --> 01:11:56,400
really allows you to develop a
big picture and get a lot of

1192
01:11:56,400 --> 01:12:01,960
surprises.
And structurally, nowadays, I

1193
01:12:01,960 --> 01:12:05,320
think there's been some degree
of change.

1194
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:10,480
And in this 7 Graves de
Marrakesh novel, I was thinking,

1195
01:12:10,560 --> 01:12:16,440
huh, what if I use the format,
maintain the novel format, but

1196
01:12:16,440 --> 01:12:20,080
I'm actually thinking in terms
of almost like television

1197
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:24,240
episodes.
We've become so ingrained in

1198
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:30,400
watching streaming, so each
chapter has a hook and a number

1199
01:12:30,400 --> 01:12:32,880
of acts, 6 acts or so, and then
a cliffhanger.

1200
01:12:33,600 --> 01:12:36,680
Nice.
So I kind of like said, OK, I'm

1201
01:12:36,680 --> 01:12:40,320
going to go with that and it
kind of works out well because

1202
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:42,360
you start thinking in that
metric a bit.

1203
01:12:42,640 --> 01:12:48,920
And so, and then at the same
time, I wrote a novel called

1204
01:12:48,920 --> 01:12:52,520
Journey so Dreams May Come,
which is very literary, more

1205
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:58,000
like Khalil Gibran, more like
magical realism of Marquez and

1206
01:12:58,000 --> 01:13:02,360
all this kind of feel.
And it's definitely way

1207
01:13:02,360 --> 01:13:04,720
different than anything else
that I've written.

1208
01:13:04,720 --> 01:13:07,360
But it was very literary and I
wanted to get that book out.

1209
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:11,640
So that's one that kind of falls
by the wayside in terms of

1210
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:13,520
format and reach and everything
else.

1211
01:13:13,520 --> 01:13:15,680
But it was a lot.
Of fun to work when you do that,

1212
01:13:15,680 --> 01:13:21,120
when you do, when you, when you
do work that's totally unique to

1213
01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:25,040
anything else that you've done.
Do you feel like finally I'm

1214
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:27,400
able to express the part of
myself or where'd that come

1215
01:13:27,400 --> 01:13:30,520
from?
You know, 'cause when I, when I

1216
01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:32,720
was like a writing that I've
done from, you know, a couple

1217
01:13:32,720 --> 01:13:34,440
years ago, I'm like, who was
that?

1218
01:13:34,440 --> 01:13:37,360
Like who, who came up with that?
That's crazy.

1219
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:39,760
You know, I wouldn't have come
up with that, but it did, you

1220
01:13:39,760 --> 01:13:40,960
know.
So what do you think about that?

1221
01:13:41,560 --> 01:13:43,640
Well, I definitely, I think
you're on to something there,

1222
01:13:43,640 --> 01:13:50,840
because indeed, writing is
attached to the time in which we

1223
01:13:50,840 --> 01:13:52,280
exist.
Yeah.

1224
01:13:52,520 --> 01:13:55,240
And I took that one book
journey.

1225
01:13:55,240 --> 01:14:01,200
So dreams may come and it took,
I mean, I have no problem

1226
01:14:01,200 --> 01:14:03,720
writing, no writer's block, but
this one I was trying to get

1227
01:14:03,720 --> 01:14:06,280
right in it.
I think it took like 14 years,

1228
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:10,680
wow, of actually going to it and
then going that's not it and

1229
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:13,520
that's not it, etcetera.
And finally I got it to where I

1230
01:14:13,520 --> 01:14:18,120
wanted it and then I put it out.
In the meantime, of course, I've

1231
01:14:18,120 --> 01:14:21,920
written like 20 scripts and four
or five other books, eight other

1232
01:14:21,920 --> 01:14:24,600
books I don't even know over
that period of time.

1233
01:14:24,600 --> 01:14:29,760
So sometimes that one became
very personal as far as it goes

1234
01:14:32,760 --> 01:14:37,320
and the story is basically a the
story in a nutshell.

1235
01:14:37,320 --> 01:14:40,280
And I don't like to talk long
about stories because everybody

1236
01:14:40,280 --> 01:14:43,360
gets bored and they can't keep
track of it when you're talking

1237
01:14:43,520 --> 01:14:46,720
actually.
But it's essentially a young boy

1238
01:14:46,720 --> 01:14:50,880
who's dying of cancer, He's
blind, goes to see his kind of

1239
01:14:50,880 --> 01:14:55,960
screw up uncle in Los Angeles
who's an actor and says I'd like

1240
01:14:55,960 --> 01:14:57,480
to go on a trip around the
world.

1241
01:14:57,480 --> 01:14:59,600
And he would physically never
make it.

1242
01:15:00,280 --> 01:15:06,640
So the uncle puts on the sounds
and the smells and the voices of

1243
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:09,480
a trip around the world without
ever leaving his house.

1244
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:11,000
Nice.
Beautiful.

1245
01:15:11,000 --> 01:15:15,240
So it becomes philosophical, it
becomes personal, it becomes

1246
01:15:15,240 --> 01:15:21,440
transformative.
And visually, I actually had a

1247
01:15:21,440 --> 01:15:25,560
producer, it was originally a
script, and I said this would

1248
01:15:25,560 --> 01:15:28,440
make a great novel.
So that's started me on the

1249
01:15:28,440 --> 01:15:30,400
path.
So I wrote written the script

1250
01:15:31,200 --> 01:15:35,680
and I gave it to a script named
Larry Applebaum.

1251
01:15:36,000 --> 01:15:39,320
And Larry was from New York.
He'd worked on The French

1252
01:15:39,320 --> 01:15:42,600
Connection and a bunch of other
movies.

1253
01:15:43,440 --> 01:15:45,840
And I think he was from
Brooklyn.

1254
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:51,320
And his voice was like this and
yeah, yeah, you know, and.

1255
01:15:51,920 --> 01:15:55,520
Very.
Very intense kind of, you know,

1256
01:15:57,120 --> 01:16:00,040
could have been a mobster kind
of vibe in the lot of ways for.

1257
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:06,360
Sure.
And I gave him the script and I

1258
01:16:06,360 --> 01:16:08,680
said to and he was a funny
character and he and I got

1259
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:09,840
along.
He was very gruff.

1260
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:16,480
But at one point I had him just
I was BS ING him completely on

1261
01:16:16,480 --> 01:16:20,600
this thing that the Irish we're
one of the lost tribes of

1262
01:16:20,600 --> 01:16:25,920
Israel.
And I made-up all this history

1263
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:29,360
and when we were talking over a
coffee or something, and somehow

1264
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:34,800
I literally bamboozled him into
thinking that and and this whole

1265
01:16:34,800 --> 01:16:36,680
other history.
And then I dropped the the

1266
01:16:36,680 --> 01:16:39,240
curtain on him and he goes, ah,
you got me, Mike.

1267
01:16:39,280 --> 01:16:43,560
You got me, you know, And he was
playfully pissed off about it

1268
01:16:43,560 --> 01:16:44,680
all.
It was very funny.

1269
01:16:45,520 --> 01:16:47,720
I, I could probably convince
someone of the same thing, by

1270
01:16:47,720 --> 01:16:50,120
the way, I could convince
someone that the Irish, that the

1271
01:16:50,120 --> 01:16:53,800
Irish are probably, you know, or
extension or, you know, long,

1272
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:55,840
long lost family of the Jews for
sure.

1273
01:16:55,840 --> 01:16:57,440
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think they have

1274
01:16:57,440 --> 01:17:00,960
that, you know, Indigenous like
self reliant quality and a lot

1275
01:17:00,960 --> 01:17:03,280
of other things and they're out
on this rock in the middle of

1276
01:17:03,280 --> 01:17:09,200
the Atlantic and you know, it's.
It's too I love the I love Irish

1277
01:17:09,200 --> 01:17:10,600
folk music.
I was exposed.

1278
01:17:10,640 --> 01:17:12,720
To yeah, it's great.
It's amazing.

1279
01:17:12,880 --> 01:17:15,360
Awesome, awesome.
And, and it's, there's good

1280
01:17:15,360 --> 01:17:17,720
humor in the lyrics and a lot of
it's very deep.

1281
01:17:17,720 --> 01:17:20,400
A lot of it.
I mean, there's some songs that,

1282
01:17:20,400 --> 01:17:24,200
that, I mean, I, I, I actually
teach high school part time in a

1283
01:17:24,360 --> 01:17:27,440
Orthodox Jewish school.
And, you know, these kids have

1284
01:17:27,440 --> 01:17:31,560
never had any, very, very little
exposure to anything like that.

1285
01:17:31,960 --> 01:17:35,480
And I showed them some, you
know, some great Irish tunes and

1286
01:17:35,880 --> 01:17:38,160
that's great.
And they, and they, and their

1287
01:17:38,160 --> 01:17:40,680
minds are blown.
You know, I showed them there's

1288
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:43,200
a great song called the Green
Fields of France, which is a

1289
01:17:43,240 --> 01:17:46,320
beautiful post war.
It's a it's a World War One

1290
01:17:46,320 --> 01:17:48,640
song.
World One World War 10 my.

1291
01:17:49,040 --> 01:17:53,560
Gosh, and, and, and that, and
that day I showed it to them.

1292
01:17:54,200 --> 01:17:56,680
You could see that it, it sat on
them.

1293
01:17:56,680 --> 01:17:59,760
You could see that like, you
know, we're, you know, that they

1294
01:17:59,760 --> 01:18:03,880
were thinking about weighing the
consequences of, you know, war

1295
01:18:03,880 --> 01:18:07,520
and mortality and, you know,
and, and, and a young life loss

1296
01:18:07,520 --> 01:18:11,560
and stuff like that.
And I was like, yeah, man, this,

1297
01:18:11,800 --> 01:18:13,440
you know, I think that it's good
to think about.

1298
01:18:13,760 --> 01:18:16,120
That's great for you.
From that, you were able to

1299
01:18:16,120 --> 01:18:19,240
bring that experience to yeah.
I love the Irish.

1300
01:18:19,240 --> 01:18:22,000
I love the Irish that they're,
they're great, they're great.

1301
01:18:22,440 --> 01:18:24,840
Oh, we're gonna get along.
We're gonna be lifelong friends

1302
01:18:24,840 --> 01:18:25,880
now.
There you go.

1303
01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:26,680
There you go.
There you go.

1304
01:18:28,720 --> 01:18:30,320
So yeah, I see.
I see.

1305
01:18:30,320 --> 01:18:31,840
Yeah.
So it was originally a script.

1306
01:18:31,840 --> 01:18:33,160
You gave it.
You gave it to your you, you,

1307
01:18:33,240 --> 01:18:34,600
you.
You gave it to your buddy

1308
01:18:34,800 --> 01:18:38,640
Applevaum from and Larry Read.
It Larry read it and I'll never

1309
01:18:38,640 --> 01:18:42,720
forget his reaction because he's
this gruffled Brooklyn guy and

1310
01:18:42,720 --> 01:18:44,880
he he goes, Mike, I read you a
script.

1311
01:18:45,160 --> 01:18:52,200
I frigging cried and and so he
had this great reaction to it,

1312
01:18:52,200 --> 01:18:55,120
which made me think, OK, there's
great possibilities here.

1313
01:18:55,120 --> 01:18:59,360
And how do I take that further?
And how do I take it in a

1314
01:18:59,360 --> 01:19:04,560
philosophical sense, as well as
some other reading like Marquez

1315
01:19:04,560 --> 01:19:09,440
with his magical realism and
question, you know, important

1316
01:19:09,440 --> 01:19:12,560
questions about life, not unlike
what you asked your your

1317
01:19:12,680 --> 01:19:15,080
students there about when you
played them.

1318
01:19:15,080 --> 01:19:20,640
The Irish song is what is the
the metric we have for even

1319
01:19:20,800 --> 01:19:27,640
having song and dance and film
and good television, good

1320
01:19:27,760 --> 01:19:31,680
streaming and other things.
And it is for us to have a

1321
01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:37,960
reflective learning sensibility
to understand a what would say

1322
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:41,760
be feelings and moments and to
actually bridge gaps of

1323
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:45,440
understanding going.
Oh, so that's not a culture I

1324
01:19:45,440 --> 01:19:49,880
know much about, but we have the
same commonality of things.

1325
01:19:49,880 --> 01:19:52,800
When I did AI did a movie in
Egypt and it was very

1326
01:19:52,800 --> 01:20:03,000
interesting. 2000, 6 or 7 and it
was the first movie shown in

1327
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:08,880
Saudi Arabia in 35 years called
Manahi and it was a Arabic

1328
01:20:08,880 --> 01:20:13,680
language comedy.
And a sheep herder or a goat

1329
01:20:13,680 --> 01:20:17,680
herder who gets mistaken for a
powerful guy and falls through

1330
01:20:17,680 --> 01:20:22,360
all these circumstances.
And what was interesting is

1331
01:20:22,360 --> 01:20:25,040
talking to people on the
Egyptian crew and hearing what

1332
01:20:25,040 --> 01:20:29,040
they had to say about the world.
And, and you realize a lot of

1333
01:20:29,040 --> 01:20:31,720
them just go, look, I want to
raise my kids and I want to

1334
01:20:31,720 --> 01:20:33,840
laugh with them and and watch
them grow up.

1335
01:20:33,840 --> 01:20:40,560
And, and the commonality of that
with our humanity is to go,

1336
01:20:40,560 --> 01:20:43,320
well, OK, how do you just if
peacefully do that?

1337
01:20:43,320 --> 01:20:46,880
And where do you find the
ground, the common ground?

1338
01:20:47,000 --> 01:20:50,520
And I think that's the universal
part about movies when they.

1339
01:20:51,280 --> 01:20:53,600
Did the.
Yeah, and they did a poll, I

1340
01:20:53,600 --> 01:20:55,960
think in the 30s, and they said
what's the capital of the United

1341
01:20:55,960 --> 01:20:57,960
States?
You know what the answer was.

1342
01:20:58,120 --> 01:21:03,640
Hollywood.
Yes, because they go how all

1343
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:06,880
this magic at the end of a movie
that says made in Hollywood.

1344
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:08,920
Well, it's got to be it, right?
I mean, that's.

1345
01:21:09,560 --> 01:21:11,760
Yeah, Yeah.
It's a really it's, it's a

1346
01:21:11,760 --> 01:21:13,840
beautiful way of putting in.
It's absolutely true.

1347
01:21:13,840 --> 01:21:19,880
I think that and I think that a
lot of a lot of the world, you

1348
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:22,440
know, at least it feels like
it's designed to make us forget

1349
01:21:22,440 --> 01:21:25,720
that about one another, you
know, that most of the time, you

1350
01:21:25,720 --> 01:21:29,000
know, all we do want is family.
All we do want is relationships

1351
01:21:29,000 --> 01:21:32,880
and good times together.
And, you know, I mean, yeah,

1352
01:21:33,000 --> 01:21:37,280
it's funny because I I, you
know, I typically, I don't have

1353
01:21:37,280 --> 01:21:39,520
a particular political camp.
I think politics have been a

1354
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:41,560
little crazy.
But one thing I was just

1355
01:21:41,560 --> 01:21:45,560
thinking about just in general
was that I live inside again,

1356
01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:48,800
I'm a young guy in South Florida
with young kids.

1357
01:21:49,240 --> 01:21:55,920
And like, if my family got blown
up because of an ideology,

1358
01:21:55,920 --> 01:21:58,280
because of a conversation that
other people had that had

1359
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:01,280
nothing to do with me in Florida
is the Eastern seaboard and gets

1360
01:22:01,280 --> 01:22:05,000
it gets hit first, you know,
like nothing that anyone was

1361
01:22:05,000 --> 01:22:08,120
fighting about is, is, is like
worth my family.

1362
01:22:08,120 --> 01:22:10,480
So like, what are you talking
about?

1363
01:22:10,480 --> 01:22:11,920
Like, how is this even a
conversation?

1364
01:22:11,920 --> 01:22:14,680
You know, and like, and, and,
and, and, and if I think that if

1365
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:17,080
more people had put them had
like put themselves in that

1366
01:22:17,080 --> 01:22:20,520
situation before making
decisions, you know, as in like

1367
01:22:21,920 --> 01:22:24,240
who's, you know, who's actually
taking the hit over here, You

1368
01:22:24,240 --> 01:22:27,440
know, like what's happening over
here, you know, that's, that's a

1369
01:22:27,440 --> 01:22:28,840
tragedy.
You know, that's that's that's

1370
01:22:28,840 --> 01:22:31,560
that's where it gets.
That's why the pain is.

1371
01:22:31,560 --> 01:22:32,600
And then that just breathed
more.

1372
01:22:32,680 --> 01:22:34,960
That breathed more pain, you
know, just keep on going.

1373
01:22:35,480 --> 01:22:41,600
It becomes an endless cycle.
And I think that indeed, aspects

1374
01:22:41,600 --> 01:22:46,320
that dehumanize somebody else in
so many different unfortunate

1375
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:50,640
manners and it makes it easier,
of course, for someone to pick

1376
01:22:50,640 --> 01:22:52,440
up violence and go in that
direction.

1377
01:22:52,440 --> 01:22:55,720
And you brought up World War
One.

1378
01:22:55,720 --> 01:23:00,240
And while I'm a very keen reader
of history and particularly

1379
01:23:00,240 --> 01:23:05,440
World War 2 history, my father
was in there, my uncles, I mean,

1380
01:23:05,560 --> 01:23:09,280
so many of my friends fathers, I
mean on and on and on.

1381
01:23:09,640 --> 01:23:11,720
So that's probably where the
interest started.

1382
01:23:11,720 --> 01:23:15,840
But when you read about World
War One, what you do is you read

1383
01:23:15,840 --> 01:23:22,200
about trench warfare and 100.
I mean, I think in France alone

1384
01:23:22,200 --> 01:23:27,880
they lost a million, three men.
And it's probably the war I have

1385
01:23:27,880 --> 01:23:30,560
read the least about.
I've read about four or five

1386
01:23:30,560 --> 01:23:34,680
books on it.
But it the losses were so

1387
01:23:34,680 --> 01:23:39,680
needless, so excessive.
No one could tell you why why

1388
01:23:39,680 --> 01:23:42,680
the war happened.
It was essentially all these

1389
01:23:42,680 --> 01:23:48,240
alliances that triggered it and
then ratcheted up the anger with

1390
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:50,840
an archduke who gets
assassinated and now we all have

1391
01:23:50,840 --> 01:23:52,960
alliances.
You got to step into the breach

1392
01:23:52,960 --> 01:23:57,320
and at some point they could
have pulled back and said, look,

1393
01:23:57,320 --> 01:24:01,120
let's find the assassin and
prosecute him and whatever

1394
01:24:02,200 --> 01:24:04,360
instead of going to war with all
our countries.

1395
01:24:04,360 --> 01:24:05,680
And it was.
The bloody, it was one of the

1396
01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:07,200
bloodiest.
I think it was the bloody.

1397
01:24:07,200 --> 01:24:09,120
It was bloodier than World War
2, wasn't it?

1398
01:24:09,800 --> 01:24:12,440
Well, don't add up.
I, I think in terms of the

1399
01:24:12,440 --> 01:24:15,760
number of dead, I think it,
World War 2 exceeds that because

1400
01:24:15,760 --> 01:24:19,080
of its scale, because you have
China involved and then all of

1401
01:24:19,080 --> 01:24:23,320
Russia and you know, the German
Vermont pushing in there, which

1402
01:24:24,520 --> 01:24:29,080
was at least 20 million dead.
So I mean, you had war on a

1403
01:24:29,080 --> 01:24:36,800
global scale even more so than
World War One, but I think when

1404
01:24:36,800 --> 01:24:40,000
you add the mobility of World
War Two, in a lot of ways you

1405
01:24:40,000 --> 01:24:43,160
add movement and you add some
kind of progress made on the

1406
01:24:43,160 --> 01:24:45,960
battlefield in some way.
Right, right.

1407
01:24:46,400 --> 01:24:50,480
But here you have something
reminiscent of World War One

1408
01:24:50,480 --> 01:24:54,200
that is like the Ukraine Russia
war with trench warfare and this

1409
01:24:55,080 --> 01:24:59,400
attrition that was just horrific
things like men walking into

1410
01:24:59,400 --> 01:25:05,240
machine gunfire, literally dying
for yards of dirt that was.

1411
01:25:06,000 --> 01:25:13,600
And so in that way, it was this
tale that between the French and

1412
01:25:13,600 --> 01:25:16,480
the British, an entire
generation was wiped out.

1413
01:25:17,080 --> 01:25:23,640
And so when they were hesitant
to confront Germany going into

1414
01:25:23,640 --> 01:25:27,680
the Rhine, supposedly when they
went into the Rhine, the Germans

1415
01:25:27,680 --> 01:25:31,120
remilitarized.
They only had ammunition for

1416
01:25:31,120 --> 01:25:34,480
like 3 days.
If the French had gone in there

1417
01:25:34,480 --> 01:25:37,400
and they really confronted them,
they would have had to retreat.

1418
01:25:37,560 --> 01:25:42,960
And so it has this profound echo
of where there's a will to

1419
01:25:42,960 --> 01:25:49,200
confront evil or to confront
this aggression is is one of the

1420
01:25:49,360 --> 01:25:53,240
many lessons you could learn.
But I agree there's some part

1421
01:25:53,240 --> 01:25:56,160
where bridging humanity, and I
think the arts does that.

1422
01:25:56,160 --> 01:26:02,320
And I think that storytelling,
you could almost tell like a

1423
01:26:02,320 --> 01:26:06,280
story of somebody who grew up in
a country and then say, oh, that

1424
01:26:06,280 --> 01:26:09,240
was Ireland or that was Egypt or
that was Israel.

1425
01:26:09,240 --> 01:26:10,840
And that way it literally
doesn't matter.

1426
01:26:10,840 --> 01:26:13,640
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's
human, you know, there's human

1427
01:26:13,640 --> 01:26:17,080
nature that that just does not
change, you know, then change

1428
01:26:17,080 --> 01:26:20,320
the context all you want, but a
dad protecting a daughter, you

1429
01:26:20,320 --> 01:26:24,680
know, or you know, you know, is
timeless no matter where you,

1430
01:26:24,720 --> 01:26:26,600
you know who you are, what
you're dealing with, I think.

1431
01:26:26,680 --> 01:26:29,760
I, I can give you, I know we're
going to wrap up pretty soon,

1432
01:26:29,760 --> 01:26:32,440
but I can give you 1 very
interesting story of something

1433
01:26:32,440 --> 01:26:34,880
you just hit on that had to do
with the taken.

1434
01:26:34,880 --> 01:26:40,200
Movies please.
Essentially, I had to, at one

1435
01:26:40,200 --> 01:26:46,680
point was I had to, they had
Liam here in the US on Taken 2

1436
01:26:46,680 --> 01:26:52,320
and he had to be fitted.
So we had his costume designer

1437
01:26:52,320 --> 01:26:56,320
show up and and fit him and then
go shopping.

1438
01:26:57,000 --> 01:27:00,320
And so she went to New York and
she went to LA and she bought

1439
01:27:01,000 --> 01:27:06,160
and customized everything for
him exactly the way she knows it

1440
01:27:06,160 --> 01:27:09,480
looks for him and the way the
material drapes.

1441
01:27:09,480 --> 01:27:13,000
It's really quite an art that
they have down to make somebody

1442
01:27:13,000 --> 01:27:17,640
look great.
So they said to me, OK, Michael,

1443
01:27:17,640 --> 01:27:20,920
you rearrange this and they
transpo and everything and we'll

1444
01:27:20,920 --> 01:27:23,200
get them measured and then we'll
ship it off to Istanbul.

1445
01:27:23,200 --> 01:27:27,760
I said, OK, great and no
problem, we'll take care of

1446
01:27:27,760 --> 01:27:30,480
that.
And then literally a two days

1447
01:27:30,480 --> 01:27:35,880
before they said, OK, well,
we're really busy here, so you

1448
01:27:35,880 --> 01:27:38,880
have to ship this off to
Istanbul.

1449
01:27:39,680 --> 01:27:44,440
And I went, what?
And what you have to do is if

1450
01:27:44,440 --> 01:27:49,000
you're taking something, a
garment from, or any product,

1451
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:52,120
but a garment in particular,
obviously if you take it from

1452
01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:56,320
Los Angeles to Istanbul, you
have to get a carne, you have to

1453
01:27:56,320 --> 01:27:59,280
prove that you are not smuggling
it into the country and you're

1454
01:27:59,280 --> 01:28:03,080
going to take it out.
So I literally called, I mean, a

1455
01:28:03,080 --> 01:28:06,840
number of the studios and say,
well, how do you take this shirt

1456
01:28:06,840 --> 01:28:09,760
or yours?
And there's a specific code like

1457
01:28:09,760 --> 01:28:13,120
119 O3 O.
Seven, I've done international.

1458
01:28:13,120 --> 01:28:14,880
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
So you know what I'm talking

1459
01:28:14,880 --> 01:28:15,480
about.
Great.

1460
01:28:16,040 --> 01:28:20,600
None of them knew and then
trying to ship it I'd like 4

1461
01:28:20,600 --> 01:28:24,880
boxes.
So I basically found the only

1462
01:28:24,880 --> 01:28:28,200
company in law in the United
States that can issue a carne

1463
01:28:28,200 --> 01:28:31,120
within the company, not the
government agency.

1464
01:28:31,240 --> 01:28:34,840
And they ship Rock'n'roll
concert gear.

1465
01:28:35,520 --> 01:28:38,560
So I went to them, I said I need
to get this, I need to ship

1466
01:28:38,560 --> 01:28:42,720
this, I need it right away.
And they said, OK, we can do

1467
01:28:42,720 --> 01:28:45,120
that, not a problem.
And I said, good, now I'll make

1468
01:28:45,120 --> 01:28:47,400
sure I'm going to give you guys
each $100 to do it.

1469
01:28:47,400 --> 01:28:48,480
And they go, you don't have to
do it.

1470
01:28:48,480 --> 01:28:51,040
And I go, trust me, I do.
I'm going to give you money.

1471
01:28:51,600 --> 01:28:56,840
And so I managed to get the
materials, get it all together,

1472
01:28:57,120 --> 01:29:00,520
book a ticket for Istanbul
Direct on Turkish Airlines

1473
01:29:00,880 --> 01:29:03,400
because they wanted to FedEx it
through Hamburg.

1474
01:29:03,400 --> 01:29:05,400
And I go, I don't know if that's
going to arrive.

1475
01:29:05,400 --> 01:29:09,280
Forget it.
So I went to the airport and I

1476
01:29:09,280 --> 01:29:11,680
went there and I go, OK, got all
the boxes.

1477
01:29:11,680 --> 01:29:15,120
I'm checking in.
And the one thing I forgot the

1478
01:29:15,440 --> 01:29:18,880
is packing tape.
Yeah, I literally, because I

1479
01:29:18,920 --> 01:29:21,200
literally was trying to get on
this plane and get going.

1480
01:29:21,800 --> 01:29:24,920
So I show up at the airport and
I go, da, da, da, da.

1481
01:29:24,920 --> 01:29:26,640
And the guy goes, OK, open it
all up.

1482
01:29:27,240 --> 01:29:29,240
And I went, Oh my God, I forgot
packing tape.

1483
01:29:29,240 --> 01:29:31,400
Can I buy some from you?
I will pay you.

1484
01:29:31,600 --> 01:29:34,840
I'm so sorry.
And he goes, huh, what do you do

1485
01:29:34,840 --> 01:29:36,320
that for?
He goes, what's all this stuff

1486
01:29:36,320 --> 01:29:38,040
for?
And I go, do you have any

1487
01:29:38,040 --> 01:29:40,120
daughters?
And he goes, well, yeah, I got

1488
01:29:40,120 --> 01:29:43,040
like, three daughters.
I go, this is for a sequel to

1489
01:29:43,040 --> 01:29:44,880
that movie Taken.
And no sooner.

1490
01:29:44,880 --> 01:29:47,080
And I said that the guy like
straightened up and goes.

1491
01:29:47,480 --> 01:29:50,400
No way.
I'd kill those sons of bitches

1492
01:29:50,400 --> 01:29:51,240
too.
OK.

1493
01:29:52,000 --> 01:29:56,680
And he literally says to me, OK,
he opened up an edge of the box

1494
01:29:56,680 --> 01:29:58,960
and looked in and goes, OK, go
ahead, take it.

1495
01:30:00,880 --> 01:30:03,960
So I got it.
I got it on the plane and I got

1496
01:30:04,040 --> 01:30:08,240
to Istanbul and I come off the a
plane, same thing.

1497
01:30:08,240 --> 01:30:11,160
I have to go through the
customs, show them the boxes I

1498
01:30:11,160 --> 01:30:14,720
got and the guy says, open them
all up and I go, well, I don't

1499
01:30:14,720 --> 01:30:17,160
have any packing tape.
Do you have any daughters?

1500
01:30:17,160 --> 01:30:23,640
He goes, I got four daughters.
Jack Fox totally, totally from.

1501
01:30:23,640 --> 01:30:27,040
So then I said, well, this is
for a sequel to this movie,

1502
01:30:27,040 --> 01:30:29,040
Taken Da, da, da.
And he go, he knew it right away

1503
01:30:29,040 --> 01:30:32,480
and he goes, oh, I would have
killed all those guys too.

1504
01:30:32,480 --> 01:30:34,280
That was such good movie.
Absolutely.

1505
01:30:34,280 --> 01:30:38,240
He goes, He opened up one,
pulled out one garment, showed

1506
01:30:38,240 --> 01:30:40,080
it to me, and he goes, it still
has the label on it.

1507
01:30:40,080 --> 01:30:42,640
You're supposed to have taken
the labels off and they didn't.

1508
01:30:42,640 --> 01:30:45,920
And I told them and he kind of
looked and shook his head and

1509
01:30:46,080 --> 01:30:48,680
stuffed it back in.
He goes, OK, I looked at it.

1510
01:30:48,680 --> 01:30:51,760
You could take them now.
Beautiful.

1511
01:30:52,240 --> 01:30:55,080
I got through customs because
I'd worked on the first, taken

1512
01:30:55,080 --> 01:31:01,400
for the 2nd, and that was, I got
it back to the Para Palace,

1513
01:31:01,880 --> 01:31:06,200
pulled up and there was the
costume designer and she was

1514
01:31:06,200 --> 01:31:08,680
just about crying because she
wasn't sure if she was going to

1515
01:31:08,680 --> 01:31:11,680
get her costumes in time.
That played the next day.

1516
01:31:12,560 --> 01:31:15,440
Wow.
So, you know, but there's a sign

1517
01:31:15,440 --> 01:31:18,880
right there that two fathers
knew what I was doing and wanted

1518
01:31:18,880 --> 01:31:21,080
to see a sequel, so.
Beautiful.

1519
01:31:21,440 --> 01:31:23,160
That's wonderful.
That's wonderful.

1520
01:31:23,160 --> 01:31:25,960
I love the I love the
camaraderie over there.

1521
01:31:26,200 --> 01:31:29,520
I feel like, like I, I feel like
there's a million of those

1522
01:31:29,520 --> 01:31:33,200
stories because there's always a
sense of urgency, you know, you

1523
01:31:33,200 --> 01:31:35,560
know, with what's going, with
everything going on, right?

1524
01:31:35,680 --> 01:31:38,160
Always.
Yeah, it's you could have a

1525
01:31:38,160 --> 01:31:40,640
nuclear weapon go off and
somebody still has to look for

1526
01:31:40,640 --> 01:31:43,880
the rubber chicken.
I mean, that's it there.

1527
01:31:43,880 --> 01:31:46,320
You know, it's tunnel vision and
you, you have to get things

1528
01:31:46,320 --> 01:31:48,960
done.
Yeah, yeah, really cool.

1529
01:31:50,120 --> 01:31:53,360
I kind of want to ask you before
we go, before I, before I let

1530
01:31:53,360 --> 01:31:57,800
you go, what is some of you
think the most well done or

1531
01:31:57,800 --> 01:32:01,560
accurate or enjoyable World War
2 movies that you've that you've

1532
01:32:01,560 --> 01:32:03,560
come across as a fanatic
yourself?

1533
01:32:04,480 --> 01:32:08,000
Well, definitely Saving Private
Ryan is way up there because of

1534
01:32:08,000 --> 01:32:09,120
the I got.
In trouble for showing that to

1535
01:32:09,120 --> 01:32:10,960
my 10th graders last year, but
that's OK.

1536
01:32:14,160 --> 01:32:17,160
Yeah, I showed it to 12th grade
and 10th grade. 12th grade, I

1537
01:32:17,160 --> 01:32:19,960
was like, fairly confident that
like, they were mature enough.

1538
01:32:19,960 --> 01:32:22,800
They were pretty much of
drafting age anyway to watch

1539
01:32:22,800 --> 01:32:24,320
that.
But the 10th graders were a

1540
01:32:24,320 --> 01:32:26,160
little young, especially for the
opening scene.

1541
01:32:26,880 --> 01:32:30,480
That opening scene, I remember
watching it in the theater and

1542
01:32:30,480 --> 01:32:33,440
literary people were in mid
drink, you know, getting ready

1543
01:32:33,440 --> 01:32:35,880
for the movie.
And they would like, yeah,

1544
01:32:36,080 --> 01:32:40,520
stopped.
And I've interviewed a lot and

1545
01:32:40,520 --> 01:32:43,920
quite a few combat veterans,
including World War 2, I mean,

1546
01:32:43,920 --> 01:32:48,880
at one point, and forward
operators.

1547
01:32:48,880 --> 01:32:53,120
I've done martial arts most of
my entire life and you can't do

1548
01:32:53,120 --> 01:32:54,280
that.
Yet.

1549
01:32:55,200 --> 01:32:57,640
Right.
And no, we didn't get into that

1550
01:32:57,640 --> 01:33:01,520
one, but it's you with those
people and the realism right

1551
01:33:01,520 --> 01:33:07,240
there is probably the apex of
World War 2 recreation movies.

1552
01:33:07,240 --> 01:33:11,920
In a lot of ways.
I think that that would be

1553
01:33:11,920 --> 01:33:14,960
amongst my top ones.
I have a favorite being The

1554
01:33:14,960 --> 01:33:18,440
Longest Day, as that is the
movie I started working on when

1555
01:33:18,440 --> 01:33:21,280
I was a kid.
So I will default to that.

1556
01:33:21,760 --> 01:33:24,480
Cross of Iron certainly presents
certain things.

1557
01:33:24,560 --> 01:33:29,400
Enemy at the Gates is a World
War 2 movie that is astounding

1558
01:33:29,400 --> 01:33:32,560
with the enemy at the Gates.
Yeah.

1559
01:33:32,560 --> 01:33:38,800
Enemy at the Gates about one of
the Soviet Union's best snipers,

1560
01:33:38,800 --> 01:33:45,040
Vassili Zeitsev.
And so that was very good, the

1561
01:33:45,040 --> 01:33:48,600
harshness of war.
I always tell people, you could

1562
01:33:48,600 --> 01:33:52,040
look at a movie and you see the
harshness of war and it is the

1563
01:33:52,080 --> 01:33:54,480
second worst thing that can
happen to you.

1564
01:33:54,640 --> 01:33:58,360
Humanity is war.
And then people go, well, what's

1565
01:33:58,360 --> 01:34:00,080
the first?
I said slavery.

1566
01:34:01,280 --> 01:34:07,000
And I think that's true as far
as it is for me, because the

1567
01:34:07,160 --> 01:34:10,960
complete justification for
rebellion under slavery,

1568
01:34:11,600 --> 01:34:15,080
whatever it has been for every
person on this planet somewhere,

1569
01:34:15,080 --> 01:34:18,320
their ancestors were enslaved,
it doesn't matter.

1570
01:34:18,920 --> 01:34:25,920
And so, you know, war is amongst
the worst things that can

1571
01:34:25,920 --> 01:34:28,600
happen, but it's sometimes
necessary.

1572
01:34:28,760 --> 01:34:33,640
And it's that interplay between
what is right and what is

1573
01:34:33,640 --> 01:34:36,960
needed.
And I'm grateful that you're

1574
01:34:37,120 --> 01:34:40,680
showing that to these young men,
that trying to imbue them with a

1575
01:34:40,680 --> 01:34:44,880
sense of the green fields of
France and everything else, that

1576
01:34:44,880 --> 01:34:49,040
they can understand the cost of
things, because that's the price

1577
01:34:49,040 --> 01:34:52,480
of freedom, which can slip away
very quickly, as we all know.

1578
01:34:53,160 --> 01:34:57,680
Yeah, we spend far too much time
talking about the beating up the

1579
01:34:57,680 --> 01:35:01,680
bad guys and far, little, far
less time talking about, you

1580
01:35:01,680 --> 01:35:06,200
know, early deaths, PTSD, you
know, broken families on, you

1581
01:35:06,200 --> 01:35:08,640
know, on both ends of the, you
know, both ends of the spectrum.

1582
01:35:09,080 --> 01:35:13,640
And and, you know, again, I
mean, it should be an absolute

1583
01:35:13,640 --> 01:35:16,200
last resort, you know, and not
something not not something

1584
01:35:16,240 --> 01:35:22,000
anyone's too gung ho about.
But, you know, yeah, I digress.

1585
01:35:22,360 --> 01:35:24,680
Anyway, Michael, this is such a
pleasure.

1586
01:35:24,680 --> 01:35:27,480
We'll probably do another one if
you're up for it because this is

1587
01:35:27,480 --> 01:35:30,080
a very easy hour.
And I'm sure this plan and there

1588
01:35:30,080 --> 01:35:32,240
was a bunch more on the list
that you and I wanted to get to

1589
01:35:32,240 --> 01:35:34,480
including including martial
arts.

1590
01:35:34,480 --> 01:35:38,960
But but we shall be in touch and
maybe get back to this in a

1591
01:35:38,960 --> 01:35:42,160
couple of months, give you some.
I'd love you from the Grex.

1592
01:35:43,080 --> 01:35:44,520
That'd be great.
Count me in.

1593
01:35:44,520 --> 01:35:46,200
Awesome.
Awesome, wonderful.

1594
01:35:46,200 --> 01:35:48,960
This is so nice meeting you, so
nice chatting a little bit and

1595
01:35:48,960 --> 01:35:51,160
and I'm looking forward to doing
it again soon.

1596
01:35:51,160 --> 01:35:52,400
OK.
You got it.

1597
01:35:52,400 --> 01:35:53,800
Even let me know and.
We'll be in.

1598
01:35:53,800 --> 01:35:55,120
That's good evening.
Take care.