December 4, 2024 • 58 mins
This week on Off the Cusp it's Barry Sonnenfeld! Barry has had a hand in — either as a cinematographer, producer, or director - at least one of your favorite movies, from When Harry Met Sally, to Back to the Future, to A Few Good Men, to Men in Black and the Addams Family. The list goes on and on. S.E. dives into Barry's fantastic behind-the-scenes stories of his time in Hollywood, which is also recounted in his fantastic new memoir, Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time. Come for the movie trivia, stay for the hot goss.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
There's no upside to optimism. Under promise, over deliver.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
That's where you like to live.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
That's where I like to live. Under the radar.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Off the Cup, where we have great
conversations with fascinating people, and we've some mental health talk
in as well. So speaking of as an anxious person,
I struggle with anxiety. As you know, I've learned. There's
a thing I do and others who struggle with anxiety
they do it too. It's so funny. Maybe you do
this too. I rewatch the same movies and shows over
(00:35):
and over again. In fact, I rarely see new movies
or TV shows because not knowing what is going to
happen makes me anxious. So on my phone and my
iPad my computer, I have a bunch of movies and
shows that I'll watch over and over again when I'm bored,
when I'm trying to fall asleep, or when I just
need to feel less anxious. These movies, these rewatchables include,
(00:59):
but are not limited too, When Harry Met Sally, Apollo thirteen,
The American President, Back to the Future, Contact, Big Dead,
Poet Society, A Few Good Men, Men in Black, The
Post Quiz Show, Shattered Glass. These are my rewatchables, and
they have given me so much comfort over the years.
(01:19):
My next guest has made a number of my rewatchables
and probably a lot of yours. And I just read
his latest book, Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, and
it is full of so many Hollywood stories of how
these movies got made or didn't get made, casting changes,
budget blow ups, all the backstories, all the tea. They're
(01:42):
so good because I love Hollywood stories. He's a producer, director, cinematographer.
You may know his work. Maybe maybe you've heard of
some of these films. Men in Black, a TV series
called Pushing Daisies, Get Shorty, Misery, a little film called
Miller Crossing, Raising Arizona, The Adams Family, and so many more.
(02:05):
Verry Soundfeld, Welcome to Off the Cup.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Heh, how are you this morning?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You know, I'm fine, but I'm good because I just
watched one of my rewatchables. I feel very good. I
feel very calm, very centered. So you corrected my memory.
I thought we'd met at Bill Maher. We did not.
Where did we meet, Barry?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
We met at Andy Cohen's show, where you and miss
McCain and Andy spent the entire evening talking about some
housewive show at some point, and I was a bartender
and I didn't even get the right drink. But anyway,
you two and Andy were just going on and on
(02:47):
about and Andy looked at me and said, you don't
have an fing clue what I'm talking about to you?
Not a clue. It was quite an hour listening to
the three of you. Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'm so embarrassed that that's where we met, because I mean,
I love my Bravo, I love my housewives. But you know,
if there were ever a conversation, I'd want Barry Sonenfeld
to overhear me having about the Housewives.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Now you knew you were way too there. You were
quite good.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You were very I have a PhD in Bravo. I
want you to know. Okay, I'm a scholar. I'm a scholar.
But listen, No, it was a pleasure meeting you. And
I'm such a fan and movies are just such an
escape for me, and so many people escape from politics,
escape from the news, but also just stress and anxiety.
(03:41):
What does it feel like to hear that your work
hasn't just entertained people, but in many cases helped with
their mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, by the way, I have some other recommendations, few
for sleeping. I I listened to boring books as Stanley,
not Stanley Tucci. I'm Tony Schlou But yes, reads The
History of Mathematics.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh that's very sleepy.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's not only really boring and so b now, but
it's terribly written on purpose and I've yet to get
through it. And it's forty five minutes long and I've
yet to get through it. So try check it out.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay, Well, you know what's funny. Jeff Bridges gave me
an album Vinyl that is a sleep album that he made.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
But vinyls no good. It gets to that and you
just hit a needle scratching for the rest of it.
Yeah you think.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
But it's one of the most bizarre and cool things
that I own, is this album from Jeff Bridges. But
I want to get into all the stories you tell
in the book. We're not going to get into the
mall because there's not enough time, but believe me, I
would if we could. But first talk to me about
the title Best the Place, Worst Possible Time.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, it's a little bit scatological, as you know.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Trigger warning, trigger warning.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Trigger warning. If you don't like poop talk, well, it's
not that it's maybe it's not scatological. It's anyway. Here
it is. It's two in the morning. It's often two
in the morning. We're on the set of Men in
Black two. I'm sitting on my saddle because I direct
from a saddle, because that way I can feel manly
(05:28):
and feel like I'm doing manly work. So I direct
from a saddle. Next to me is Will Smith. And
then there's an empty chair where arrives Tommy Lee Jones
because he's been told we're almost ready to shoot. And
just because I'm bored, just because I've gotten I need
to fill the silences. I say to Tommy Lee Jones, Tommy,
(05:50):
tell me why life is like a tampon? And Tommy,
not knowing I'm going to ask him that question. I mean,
I didn't know I was going to ask him. Now question,
says to me with no hesitation, Arry, life is like
a tampon. You're always in the best possible place at
the worst possible time. Will and I fall. Will falls
(06:14):
off his chair. I follow off my saddle to me
sort of like an idiot, savant of just like idiots.
I was going to call the book for a long time.
I was going to call it idiots in charge. But
I wasn't sure I one hundred percent delivered on that promise,
so I changed the name to this obscure like you're
on page two eighty before you find out why it's
(06:36):
called that name. Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So I like to start interviews this way. What kind
of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh? I was an only child of Jewish persuasion. I
had two narcissistic parents. My mother spent most of her
time once she got home teaching art at PS one
seventy three, Manhattan, lying on her bed with a wet
towel over her face. She was the chapter chairman of
(07:09):
the local UFT United Federation of Teachers, so she was
always on the phone crying about someone being mean to her.
I was profoundly thin. I weighed sixty pounds when I
was Bob Mitford in a church because my synagogue sold
my synagogue before the week before as Bob Mitford, so
(07:31):
we had no place to get bar misfid, so we
asked the local church. They said, yes, the rabbi and
decanter are hanging burlap bags over Jesus. Yes, I weighed
one hundred and eight pounds all through my draft years
until I turned thirty, and the day turned thirty, I
gained about eighty pounds. So I was a isolated child.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, and you eventually go to film school. When did
you know you wanted to make movies and TV shows?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was really a lack of anything better to do.
I graduated NYU with a degree in political science because
those classes met only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursday, so if
I had to go to NYU three days a week.
I only went to NYU because my mother said that
if I went away to sleep away school others call
(08:30):
it college, she would commit suicide. So I believed her
until I was a senior, and then I decided to
leave NYU. I spent my senior year at Hampshire and
I figured two birds, one stone. I get to go
away to college and my mother commits suicide and then
she were an eggs.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah she didn't mean it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, I wish I had known that three years earlier.
I could have gotten out of the house.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Oh thank god, this is so inappropriate. I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, so you were just getting started.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Oh we are just getting started. Sir, you graduate, I
think you know where I'm going to go with this.
Your first in the film industry is.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
In porn, but behind the camera. So here's the deal.
I get out of NYU graduate film school. I think
I have an ability to be a cameraman. I know
how to light. I always wanted to be a still photographer,
so I knew my way around around lenses and how
to tell a story with a camera. So when I graduated,
(09:37):
and why you graduate film school and this is pre video,
this is when all independent movies and industrials were shot
on sixteen milimeter. I bought a use sixteen milimeter camera
with a friend of mine, thinking if I owned a camera,
I could call myself a cameraman without feeling like a dilettante.
So I have this camera. My partner in owning this
(09:59):
used camera, no support producer. He gets us nine days
of work shooting nine feature films, one a day. And
you know, as I write my first book, there's a
very very long chapter in the first book called an
Actress Short a cumshot behind in in my first book
(10:23):
where on the last day of filming I was when
a double in search goes horribly wrong, and we can
cut this out. I am covered in human excrement when
a fountain of liquefied foamy fegal matter shoots out of
this woman's rectum. But anyway, we can move on. So
(10:50):
I graduate film school. My first job was in pornos.
But then what happened is I am at a party
one night where everyone in the party was from Darien, Connecticut.
They were all wasps, and there were two Jews at
the party, Me and this other toll guy that looked
(11:10):
like Howard Stern but wasn't. And we kind of sniffed
each other out and we started to talk. That was
Joel Cohen and I was Barry Sunenfeld, and so we
were talking about films, and he told me that he
and his brother Ethan had just written a script called
Blood Simple, and we're going to shoot a sixteen milimeter
(11:33):
trailer as if it were a finished film, and bring
that trailer and a projector around to you know, dental
investment clubs and doctor investment clubs and lawyer investment clubs
and try to raise his seven hundred and fifty grand
to make the actual movie. I said to Joel, I
had a camera. Joel said you're hired. A year later,
(11:56):
we raised the seven fifty. And this I tell you
people just to figure out what they want to do
in life and go right to there. Don't work your
way up. So the first day on the set of
Blood Simple was the first ay Joel, Ethan or I
had ever been on a movie set. Joel was never
(12:16):
an assistant director or PA and Ethan was a statistical
typist at Macy's and I had been shooting industrials amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I want to know, though, what did your mom say
about your first work.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Mom didn't know about it at the time. I think
she probably when she found out, was very proud of
me because I was doing I was an artist.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, yes, Okay. You've been very open in this book,
in the previous book about your highs and lows and
sometimes your miserable experiences making movies. Yes, would you say
your career has been mostly highs or lows?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, the making of the movies are always almost always lows.
That's just tremendous pressure. There are a couple exceptions. Get
Shorty was perfection. We had a great script. I knew
Danny DeVito because I had shot throw Mama from the train,
for him. And then when I read Get Shorty, I
(13:22):
called Danny, and Danny bought the book for me and
produced it and played Shorty appropriate and so. But with
a few exceptions, you never have enough days. The actors
are late, the effects budget the way they're supposed to.
You're always over budget. Get Shorty.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It's reading reading all your vignettes. You know, you really
do get a sense of like the technical parts of
making movies. We just see the actors, right, I mean,
you know, we think of making movies as the actors.
But there's just so much bullshit and work work, actual
work that goes into it. Are you Are you an
(14:07):
anxious person?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
What are you like on set?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Am I an anxious person? Do you want to answer
that one for me? Yeah? I want to make assumptions, Barry,
that's a good journalist. Don't make assumptions very good. Yes,
I'm anxious. I also lose the ability to communicate. You know,
(14:33):
I'll say sentences that don't make any sense. But but
the actors know what I want, which is basically for
them all to talk faster. If you talk faster, here's
the secret. When actors talk fast, it takes away their
ability to act, and you never want to see acting.
You just want to see reality. You know, I hate
(14:55):
when people emote and you know, act talking fast et
they don't have time to act, and then their performance
seems realer and better.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You've said that Tommy Lee Jones is one of the
best people you know who can speak quickly but articulately.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yes, his Yeah, such a beautiful lilt to his voice,
and he speaks quickly but finishes words with tea with
a t sound. Yeah, he's great. However, let me tell
you about the first day of ever working with Tommy.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yes, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Tommy had never been on a comedy before, so he
didn't know how to act in comedy. So it's the
first day of shooting. Will Smith came in a couple
weeks later because he was finishing up Independence Day, So
just me and Tommy and so first day of shooting, Tommy,
who's playing this MiB agent, is talking to an illegal
(15:55):
alien from another galaxy who's speaking in an alien language
with subtitles, and he's got these hands and flippers and
a big nose. And Tommy's line in the script is
that's enough. Mikey. The only name is Mikey that's enough. Mikey,
put up your hands and all your flippers. Right, that's
(16:16):
the line. Put up your hands and all your flippers.
Tommy says, first take, first day. That's enough, Mikey, put
up your hands and all your flippers.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But I'm bum, but I'm bum.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, Hey, Tommy, I think it's going to be funnier
if you don't acknowledge that and all your flippers is funny.
Let the audience find that joke for you with just
government issue. You do this every day. They're always flippers
or paddles or whatever. Tommy looks at me with such
hatred that I thought he was going to kill me
(16:52):
with his looks. So now every day, for twenty weeks,
I have to sit on him and not let him
be funny. And for every day Tommy is staring at
me as if I should be dead. His agent calls
me and says, you don't want Tommy to be funny?
I explained, All comedy duos have the straight man and
(17:16):
the funny man. Yeah, funny woman, you know, Gracie Allen,
George Burns, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin. You can go on
and on and on. You don't want two funny people
in your movie. Luckily, Tommy eventually sees a finished movie
because he's about to do press and God love him.
All the reporters say to Tommy, how did you get
(17:37):
to be so funny? And Tommy's reply is stand next
to Will Smith and do whatever Barry Senenfeld tells you to.
So it all ended up really nicely perfection.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And since we're on Men in Black, this blows my mind.
Spielberg wanted Clint Eastwood and Chris O'Donnell. Yeah, in these roles.
Does Chris o'donald know how you got Chris o'donald off
this picture?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Uh, he probably does now because I've I've occasionally told
the story.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But please us.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
O'donald is a great actor, oh, adorable and adorable. And
I shot I shot a new ending to a movie
he was in called Men Don't Leave, directed by Paul Brickman,
that no one saw about it as a great movie. Uh,
it was. It was not that he wouldn't have been
good in the part. It was that my wife told
me it should be Will Smith. So that was so
(18:32):
when Sweety said, listened to Smith, it's Sweety listened to Sweetie.
As you know, from the book. Yes, and by the way,
I I picked Tommy Lee Jones and she picked will
Will Smith, So now I've got it. Clint dropped out early,
so that became a non issue, but Spielberg had me
go to dinner with Chris o'donald and convinced Chris to
be in the movie. Chris says to me, you know,
(18:55):
I think there are a lot of plot issues, and
you know it's not that funny, and I've been offered
this other movie with Stallone. What should I do? And
I said, the script's never going to get better. I
don't know how to make it better. And I think
you're right about everything you're saying, and I don't think
it will get better. You should not you should not
(19:16):
do that. I didn't even say it. I just helped him.
And of course the next day he dropped out of
the the movie some music.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn did not get along.
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
No? No, they're both Texans. But Rip was kind of
certifiably insane a little bit. He just was he couldn't
have any extras moving even behind him because he could
sense their presence. And I was trying to explain they
(19:56):
have to be extras. You know, you're men in Black Headquarters.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Busy plays and so again Will's first day in the
fiction of the movie, He's being shown men in Black Headquarters.
He sees a big board where we see who the
aliens are, you know, Spielberg, Lucas, al Roker, Yeah, and
uh and Rip then has and Tommy is taking Will out,
(20:22):
and Rip turns to Tommy and says, hey, k, the
line has written. It's always about as written versus as spoken.
The line has written, is kay, give the kids some
fire power, meaning a gun? Yes, right, So there's Rip
from Texas, but doesn't have the same diction. Tommy has says, hey, Kay,
(20:47):
give the kids some far parror cut? Hey, Rip, can
you say fire power? That's what I'm saying, God, damn it. Okay, right, okay,
let's let's see one more. Hey, do the kids some
far parr cut? Hey? Rip? Really enunciate? This goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Eventually, as I'm saying to Rip, hey, Rip, why don't
you just say, hey, Kay, give the kid a weapon, right,
Tommy is saying that Will, Will someone tell that poor
bastard to say give the kids a gun. So we
both had the same idea, but far Parror was not
going to go over well with Rip. Also, he had
(21:28):
a problem later, an issue with the word the void.
He didn't want to say the word devoid for some reason,
so that became an issue.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But it worked out amazing. I want to go back
to Big. Yeah, Honey, Marshall hires you to be the DP.
And this also blows my mind. Barry Diller, chairman of
(21:59):
twentieth Century at the time, wanted Tom Hanks for the
lead Josh Baskin. Penny Marshall, Barry wanted, wanted whom She's
not wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I'm gonna explain to.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You she's for sure wrong. But go ahead, go ahead,
don't tell us all who she wanted for this movie.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
She wanted Robert de Niro, And in fact, I just
read two days ago an interview with de Niro talking
about how he was offered Big by Penny Marshall. But
in any case, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Tell me how this would have worked.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Okay, Tom Hanks is a child playing a child. Yes,
Tom Hanks is a youthful childlike yes, the actor Tom Hanks, right,
So Tom Hanks is there's no stretch there. He's brilliant.
In the movie. We became good friends. I mean, we
(22:52):
really got along so well, and he was brilliant in
it and incredibly funny. But you've got a kid playing
a kid. Yeah, Nero playing a kid and suddenly being
in that body might have been a disaster, or might
have been really amazing. May not have been funny, it
(23:14):
might have been a drama. But you know, I shot
the last two weeks of Goodfellas, and the last night
I was I overlapped the other DP Michael Ballhouse one
night so I could see how Michael was lighting. So
my first night alone with Marty and de Niro, it
(23:36):
was de Niro's last night of shooting. All night long,
I'm sitting behind Marty and De Niro. They're in the
front looking at the monitor, and then behind them is
me looking at the monitor, and De Niro keeps tapping,
Scorsese whispering in his ear, and then they both turn
(23:58):
around and look at me and start to laugh hysterically
all night long, and seeing De Niro and Scorsese laughing
is really disconcerting. It's just really awful. The night ends.
The next day, it was de Niro's last night. I
say this, Scorsese Hey, were you and and de Niro
laughing at me all last night? And without any hesitation,
(24:22):
Marty goes, yeah, I go well, why, he goes, well,
look at you. That's all I said. Oh my god,
thanks Marty.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, that'll mess with your head a little. Yeah, well, listen,
Big is a perfect movie. From where I sit, it's perfect,
right right, And it would have been an interesting thought
experiment maybe to see someone like de Niro playing Josh Baskin.
But I can't imagine. I can't imagine it any other way.
But that's just wild to me.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
No, nor can I.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Let's talk about when Harry met Sally, one of my
all time favorite movies. You're also dep on that, and
and you talk about this in the book, the scene
where Harry and Sally sleep with each other for the
first time and then they separate, and then they call
their best friends Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher. And you
have these like four boxes or three boxes maybe three boxes, right,
(25:15):
three boxes? Yeah, how do you get that to work?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well? The hard part was Rob wanted to show the
whole scene as a trip tick. On the left side Billy,
the right side, Bruno and Carrie, who are sleeping together.
They'reright lovers and Meg on the other side of the frame.
So in order to have that trip tick play out
in real time without anyone cutting into a close up
(25:40):
or anything, that means that that three or four pages
of dialogue has to play perfectly in one take. It's
like a theater. It's like live theater. They're right cutting
away from it. So I set up we had three
different sets on the same stage, and we had three cameras,
and Rob had this big monitor where he could see
(26:02):
the trip tick. But because anyone who screwed up, you'd
have to start all over again, because you can just
pop in. It took us like it took us eight hours.
It took us like seventy three seventy four takes to
get it, and then on the last take you knew
you had it. I need to talk what happened.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Harry came over the last night Sally last night because
I was upset that Joe was getting there, and before
I knew it, we were kissing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
We did it. In fact, that stage, which was called
three eight at Zoatrop, I shot that scene when from
when Harry met Sally, I shot throw Mama from the train.
I shot Adam's Family, and I shot one other movie,
oh and and Misery, all on that same stage. And
(26:50):
I said to Sweetie, does LA have more than one stage?
At one point all the movies I've done in La
were on the same stage. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It was the barried Stonefeld.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, there should be a plaque.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I'm gonna say this to you. I hope it doesn't
bother you. But like Nora Efron's my role model. I
love her so much. And if anyone else listening, does
please watch everything as copy the documentary. It's so good.
But she did not like you Berry, did she?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Now she didn't? You know, Noura is incredibly talented, is
a lovely woman, has an amazing husband, had an amazing husband.
He's no longer with us, Nick Pledge, who wrote Goodfellows,
by the way. But Noara thought I was a little too.
I didn't take myself seriously. Oh uh huh. The thing is,
(27:45):
I don't take myself seriously, but I take my work seriously. Yeah,
and I just can't be full of myself. So as
a joke, no I was lining up an insert of
the scene you were just telling you about before they
have the phone call Billy sleeps with Meg. So I
shot an insert of Billy looking at her digital clock
(28:09):
and that you know, it was like four am and
he still couldn't leave and all that. So as a joke, no,
I say to Rob, Hey, Rob, should we do a
Dutch tilt, which means put the camera like at an
arcane angle? Should we put do a Dutch tilt so
it could feel like we're making a good Dard movie.
(28:32):
I've never seen a good Dard movie. Yeah. I don't
even know how to pronounce his name properly. But Nora
from across the room, sitting next to Rob at Video Village, says,
will you please save us all the film school bullshit?
So I had to say, hey, Nora, it was a judge.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Right, yeah, but she's she's so talented and so acerbic
and smart.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, you mentioned misery James Kahn. Tell me
about your Vietnam moment with James Kahn.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
There's more Rob's Vietnam moment. Okay, I just I just
let him know he was having a Vietnam moment.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So here's the thing. It took Rob a long time
to get both an actor and actress. It's so amazing
when you see these movies and you think, wait, it
was hard to get someone in those roles. But Rob
had wanted Bette Midler for the lead in Misery, and
when she eventually passed, I actually had recommended Kathy Bates.
(29:40):
I had seen her A Night Mother on Broadway and
she was fantastic. Yep, and he met Kathy and Kathy
got the role. Warren Batty passed or all these actors
that Warren Batty passes on everything, I've got Warren Batty
passing stories on Get Shorty. But anyway, hires Jimmy Kahn
the single word first actor to ever be forced to
(30:02):
spend eighty pages lying in bed doing nothing because the
man cannot sit still. Yeah yeah, he's just out of control,
needs to fidget and move and all that. So we're
shooting the first day. It's it's the first day also,
isn't it? On Misery? And it's a really easy scene.
We're up in Lake Tahoe. We were in the cabin.
(30:25):
Jimmy's got to finish typing the end, pull out the
piece of paper, put it on top of other manuscript pages,
light a strike anywhere match and we gave him flint
on his thumb so he could light it easily. And
then he opens up glass a bottle of champagne. Yeah,
six setups, no dialogue, piece of cake. We should be
(30:47):
done with that scene in three hours, but Jimmy cannot
stand still. He's dobbining like he's at temple or something.
He's moving, he's doing, he's shifting. At lunch, six hours
in to the day, we still haven't gotten a scene
that should take us three hours. I eat lunch it
Rob every day in this camper. We sit down this silence,
(31:10):
and I say to Rob, hey, Rob, remember Vietnam. And
Rob starts to laugh because he knows where I'm going
with this. He's with his wife Michelle, and I said, no, seriously,
get out now, get out before it's too late. The
longer you're here leaving, the helicopters are leaving, and you're
going to be stuck with this guy for sixty days
(31:32):
of filming. Get out now. Of course he couldn't get out.
It would take weeks. So Jimmy got through it. But man,
it was tough, and Rob and I were so mean
to Jimmy for you. Yeah, well you know we were.
Now you know. Weeks later, we're now on set. Jimmy's
in bed and there's is show where Rob where Rob
(31:55):
has Jimmy crawling out of bed and then crawling towards
the door, and the camera's going to dolly back with Jimmy.
Jimmy says from the bed, he says, hey, Bath, how
far do you want me to crawl? And this is
like a week eleven out of twelve, so we're fed up.
So I and this is very unprofessional. Normally you take
a piece of green or red tape, put it on
(32:17):
the floor and say crawl to the mark, Jimmy. But
instead he said how far should I crawl? And I
went and spit on the floor, which as horrible as
that is. Rob Reiner says, crawl to the loogie Jimmy.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Okay, yes, yeah, what I can.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Eyes are so good, These stories are so good. So
Rob tries to push you into directing, but you don't
want to until family.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah. I was not looking to be a director. I
was very happy being a cameraman. I made, you know,
I was sought after. I enjoyed the experience of, you know,
having manly men pick up big, heavy lights and do
what I tell him to you know, it was fun.
And then I'm finishing misery. Sweetie and I are at
(33:34):
the Four Seasons Hotel on Delheiney. I'm sure you know
it well in LA and yes, And I get a
call from the front desk there's a package for me.
I go downstairs. There's an envelope. Scott Ruden, the producer,
has sent me the script for Adams Family and says,
read this in two hours. Little did he know I'm
(33:54):
incapable of reading anything in two hours. Read this in
two hours and meet me at this restaurant called Hugo
for lunch. I want you to direct this. Literally, I'm
not looking to be a director. Even with directors like
Penny Marshall. I never was saying I could do a
better job than she could, and that was a nightmare.
But in any case, I meet Scott two hours later
(34:18):
and I say why meet and he says, well, I
went to Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, and when all
the good directors passed, I thought I'd take a chance
with you, which I loved. I love no expectations. Well,
the opening of my my epilogue is there's no upside
(34:38):
to optimism under promise over delivered. That's and that's where
you like to live. That's where I like to live
under the radar. So I said, all right, Scott, if
you can get me a job directing Adam's Family, sure,
and he did. But what's weird is if it wasn movie,
(35:01):
I should have been the director on it was the
Adams Family because I grew up loving those Charles Adams drawings,
and Charles Adams drawings are a very visual and B
he makes the audience figure out where the joke is.
They're not like punchline jokes, you know, they're not like
punchline little sentences at the bottom there specific to those characters.
(35:25):
And I love those Charles Adams cartoons and I was
very faithful in shooting the movie to his cartoons.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Actually, yes, And it was a huge success.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, that's the amazing thing. It was a big success.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Huge success. And then you go to do the sequel,
but another movie is in the offing at the same.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You're in my book. You read my.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Book, Barry. I showed you all the dogs.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I know, I know, but you could have had and
you could add an assistant dog here pages. I'm kidding, Okay,
Barry I'm so impressed.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Journalist I highlight. Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Oh geez, period, I need to get you another book.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, yeah, you do, because I've already promised this one
to my DP at my news show. But uh, of
course I've read it. Okay, let me tell me about
the film that's in the offing as you're contemplating making
Adam's Family Values.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Okay, So I'm finishing Adam This Family by the way,
we started at Orion. Orion goes bankrupt, we're so to Paramount.
A new head comes in at Paramount looks at the
same footage the previous headed scene when he bought it
from Orion. The new head comes in and says, this
(36:47):
movie is uncutable and unreleasable. So the whole time I'm
finishing the movie at Paramount, I have a studio head
who hates my project right so so much so that
when I was done shooting, the president of the studio,
not to chairman, Gary Lukazy, takes me to launch on
the Paramount lot and says, look, don't wait ten weeks
(37:09):
to show me the movie. I know the director's guild
gives you ten weeks. I'm your buddy, show me the movie.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I said, no, you're the enemy. I'm not going to
show you the movie. He says, Oh, come on, I said, Gary,
it's a mess. You know, I just finished shooting. I
gotta cut it. I gotta add music, even for you
to see it with all your knowledge about movies. All right,
So Gary says, And I'm going to answer your question.
I swear. Gary says, if you won't show me the movie,
(37:37):
at least tell me what it's like. So I say,
Adam's Family is like a much sadder version of Sophie's Choice.
And I leave. I go. I finished my cop salad.
I go back to my office on the Paramount Lot.
My phone's ringing. It's Scott Ruden schmuck. Did you just
(37:58):
tell Gary Lukesey Adam's Family is a sadder version of
Sophie's Choice? I said, no. Why did you tell him?
I told him it was a much sadder version of something. Well,
call him back. Tell him it's good, Scott. He's looked
at Daly's every day. Does he think I could turn
Adam's family into a sadder Just call him back? So
(38:20):
I called Gary back. I explained, this actually a very
funny movie. He equally is willing to buy into that
as much as he was willing to buy into a
Saturn version. Now it's Ted. Weeks later, they see the movie.
Even though Stanley still hates it, everyone else at Paramount
loves it, and Gary, wanting me to do another movie
(38:40):
at Paramount, says, I have a book I want you
to read. The producer has done eight different scripts with
six different writers. None of them are any good. I'm
not even going to show you any scripts. I'm just
going to show you the book. Read the book, tell
me what you think the book is Farrest Gum In
Forrest Gump, the lead Forrest Gump is sort of a big, powerful,
(39:06):
overweight kind of guy. So I said to Gary, I
know how to make this movie. Make him a runner
instead of a heavy guy, and have Hanks to it.
And I can send it to Hanks because of shooting
Big we were friends. I send Tom the book, but
I say, you probably won't want to do this because
(39:28):
it's another man child role. It's not unlike Josh Baskin
and that he's an adult but has childlike knowledge. But
Tom loves it. So now I've got Tom that comes
on the producer and I hire Eric Roth who writes
an amazing script. But now Gary lu Casey is replaced
(39:51):
by Sherry Lansing. Serry now decides she wants to make
Adam's Family Values. So I have a choice. I either
do Adam's Family or Gump. I say, I want to
do both, and I have to do Adam Semley first
because the kids, Jimmy Weakman and Christina Ricchie are getting older.
Sherry says, great, you can do both. Because she didn't
(40:13):
really believe in Gump anyway, and I have a feeling
she almost wished she hadn't made it until it came out.
I mean she kept stealing money from the shot and
taking money away from that show, etcetera, etcetera. So Cherry
is willing to wait for us to do both, but
the producer when the finerman isn't and Wendy is right,
(40:34):
Tom could get hit by a bus, Tom could change
his mind, a similar movie could come out and do
no business, and then Paramount doesn't want to make Gump.
So her issue is strike when the iron is hot.
I have the script. I've got Tom Hanks. My mistake
was not that I left Gump. My mistake was at
my agent at the time. I fired him after this
(40:57):
didn't get me a producing credit on it, which I
should had. I got the biggest actor and I got
a great script. That's what a producer does. So that's
where I went wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
What'd you think of Forrest Gump?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right? I couldn't watch it for years? And then Danny
DeVito is having a Christmas party and I ran into
Marty Breast, a famous director. He directed Midnight Run and
Beverly Hills Copped and War Games, and I said, Marty,
you're someone who left projects close to when it got
started because he got fired off of War Games. I said,
(41:34):
how did you feel when the movie came out? And
was his success? And Marty said, have you seen the movie?
He asked me in a very rabbinical way, and I said, no,
I can't. I can't watch Gomp. Yeah, he said, see
the movie. Only then can the healing begin. So I
rented Goump on VHS, saw the movie and I say,
(41:56):
in the book, it's not the movie I would have made.
For one thing, maybe it would have been better, maybe
it would have been worse. It would have been an
hour shorter, is what I said.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes, get Shorty, Gene Hackman and John Travolta could not
have been more different, right, event Yeah, I mean in
preparation and attitude, in all the things. Right.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah. So John loved being a movie star. I'm not
sure how much he loved acting, but he loved being
a movie star.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Gene Hackman loved acting and hated being a movie star. Right,
So it's starting from that dichotomy, right.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Once again, it's the first day of shooting and we
have an eight page scene, which is unheard of, especially
on the first day. Usually you on a feature between
two and three pages a day of script. But I
felt that there was no blocking. There's no other actors.
Who was just two guys basically sitting across from each other.
(43:12):
Once you were lit, you were kind of lit for
the day. So I thought we could get it done.
And since it was the first day, they had weeks
to memorize theoretical, you shoot it. That was my thought. Yeah,
Travolta says to Gene, they've just met, So Gene, why
did you do this weekend? And Jeane says, well, with
(43:32):
eight fucking pages of dialogue to learn, I pretty much
fucking did nothing except learned the eight fucking pages. John
Travolta says, that's a waste of a weekend. So I know,
I know I'm in trouble now. I know John probably
has not looked at the script since he made his deal,
(43:52):
and Jane is getting angrier and angry. I could really
sense this because John is not coming in with his lunge.
So there's no pace, there's no energy to the scene.
And especially in comedies, you want everyone to talk fast.
You want everyone to step on each other's lines. Right,
you know you look at like pushing Baby or his
grip bringing up Baby, or his girl Friday or any
(44:15):
Preston Sturgist movie. Those actors are just talking fast. Yeah,
and that's my thing. So Gene is not. I can
tell he's not happy. We have to reload the camera.
I go, I get up off my saddle because I
also direct from the camera. I go back to video village.
My wife is one of the producers. I said, how
(44:35):
great has hackmened? Because it's the first sage. She goes,
He's fantastic. Okay, great, we're reloaded. I go back. I say, hey, Gene,
stand up one line earlier on mistake anyway, roll camera
camera starts to roll. Gene instead of saying his line, says,
cut the fucking camera. Just cut the fucking camera. Got
(44:56):
you don't have a fucking clue what you're doing. You
have no idea what you're doing. You'll ask anyone for advice,
You'll ask your wife when I should stand up? Obviously, Yeah, right,
you're you really don't have a fucking clue. So I
say to the first assistant director, find out if the
caterer is ready for lunch. The assistant director says, ready
(45:17):
for lunch. It's ten in the morning, right. I go, okay, everybody,
that's lunch. Because I got to deal with this. Everyone disperses.
I go up to Gene and I say, hey, Gene,
if you need to yell at me for the next
twelve weeks, go ahead. He goes, what the fuck are
you talking about? I go, you're not mad at me.
(45:39):
You know my wife didn't tell me when you should
stand up. You're mad at John. But you can't yell
at John because you got to work with him for
the next twelve weeks on camera. But you got to
yell at someone because that's who you are. So yell
at me, and it's like being a parent. You got
to figure out what works for each kid, and in
(46:00):
that case, Jean had to yell and gene for twelve weeks,
yelled at me because John never learned his lines.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, you had to have Q cards, right, you had
to have Q cards.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
We then had to have have Q cards for John.
But let's let's say this. He won the Golden Globe.
He was great in a movie. Thanks to me and
the editor. He was great in a movie. And so
who looks stupid now, right?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yes, much thanks to you and the editor. Okay, so
let's get back to Men and Men in Black. Tell
me about the roaches and the ASPCA.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
So the end of the first Men in Black as
Will needing to figure out a way to keep Edgar,
who had been played by Vincent Danafio but is now
a giant CG bug, to keep him on the planet.
Tommy Lee Jones has been swallowed by Edgar and has
been told to keep him on the planet. So we
came up with the idea, because Edgar is a bug,
(47:02):
that we had this big dumpster, and we had a
riding area, and Will was going to kick that rotting
area the dumpster and hundreds of big roaches would come out,
whereupon will would fake kill the roaches by stepping on them,
but we would take mustard packets under his foot. So
but he did that, you'd see yellow stuff switch out.
(47:23):
In any case, that's the plan. So we hire a
roach wrangler because there are such things in Hollywood. Who
brings three hundred giant cockroaches giant water bugs, which means
that the ASPCA has to come to protect the water bugs.
So that's wild. And I say to the guy, just like, really, cockerroaches,
(47:49):
we've got to worry about cockroaches. He goes, if you
don't worry about cockroaches, and you won't worry about spiders, snakes, dogs, cats,
And then I said cats, who cares about cass And
that got them. That's not You can't joke at ASPA
people about animals. You can't. You just can't. They don't
(48:12):
have a sense of humor for that particular errors. Yes,
So after each take we had to count roaches to
make sure that we still had three hundreds. So that's
a while between takes, Oh my god. But then at
the end of the day, when we were done with
the roaches and done shooting, the guy gave us permission
(48:35):
to fumigate the stage in case any roaches did get out,
which sort of defeats the whole protecting the roaches. So
I don't know, but it worked for them and it
worked for me.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Therefore, Yeah, and then you go, you go to Wild
Wild West, which was not your favorite experience.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
No. No, here's the thing that Will Smith always says,
don't give some one responsibility without giving them power. So
I had the responsibility to bring Wild Wild West in
on budget and schedule, but not the power to do
that because I had a handful of a producer named
(49:16):
John Peters, who was a big time producer at Warner Brothers.
He was, you know, Barbara Streisan's hair dresser originally. And anyway,
John insisted on the stupid, stupid, stupid Will Smith and
dragscene that Will didn't want to do. I didn't want
(49:36):
to shoot. It takes you out of the movie. Here's
the thing about action adventure comedies. They're really hard to
make because often the action, if it's too real, screws
up the comedy right. And then if the comedy is
too funny, you don't believe the action and you don't
believe they're in danger. So it's a really hard thing
(49:58):
to pull off, and I really didn't pulled off in
Wild Wild West. Plus, unlike Men in Black, where Will
and Tommy had such profound chemistry, they loved each other,
loved working together. Will thought Tommy was the most hilarious
person he ever met. Once they got Tommy did not
be funny. Yeah, Tommy loved Will. But on Wild Wild West,
(50:22):
Will Smith and Kevin Klein had zero chemistry. There was
nothing there, and the audience could sense that. Plus, I
made the Spider way too big. There are so many
things wrong with that, the mechanical Spider. We're wrong with
that movie, and I apologize to all those out there.
I could have done better. In retrospect, I think.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I think you've got a lot of projects that more
than made up for it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Barry, Let's see, Okay.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Thank you, all right, we're gonna do a lightning round. Okay,
you are a plain crash survivor. Yes, do you think
about that every time you get on a plane.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Until I survived a plane crash, I viewed every time
I got off an airplane as a failed suicide attempt.
I hated flying. However, I know it's supposed to be
a lightning round. However, after the plane crash. I became
a better flyer because the fear of dying in a
plane crash is worrying what's going to feel like? What
(51:29):
are you going to feel like from fourteen thousand feet
when you know you're going to die? Are you going
to weep? Is not going to come out of your nose?
Are you going to wail? Are you going to think
of all the things you should have done differently? It
turns out because at fourteen thousand feet I knew my
plane was going to crash or claxtons and all sorts
(51:50):
of sounds from the thing, and we were nose diving
and shaking. All I did, and this was in a
private corporate jette. I crossed my arms, I put my
feet up on the seat in front of me, and
I tried different line readings of and now I die.
I went and now I die, And then I would
(52:12):
try and now I die, and then I would try,
and now I went to all of them. Eventually we
hit the ground. We destroy five parked airplanes. We go
into the parking lot, We destroy a Dodge Ram pickup truck.
We come to a stop. I see there are three
(52:34):
out of control people. Pilot called pilot flight attendant. They
can't open the door because there's a pine tree in
the way of the door opening. They run past me,
run out the back, and jump out of the plane,
leaving me on the plane alone.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
God.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
So, now the fire department is there because they think
the plane's going to and the plane is now in
the parking lot. It's not even on the tarmac or anything.
Speaker 4 (52:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
All the fire there yelling at me to jump, but
I'm afraid of heights, and this was like three feet
off the ground. I know what I was, and so
I say, OK, it's easy for you to say jump,
but who's going to catch me? And then they made
the mistake. Instead of getting specific, which always works, they said,
it doesn't matter, just get off the plane. Never say
(53:22):
it doesn't matter, just someone should just say me right. Yeah, yeah,
So I said, you the one with the big mustache,
because they all have mustaches, You with the big muscle,
you're catching me, He says, I don't give a fuck,
just get off the plane. But basically I put my
arms around his shoulders and I just swing it to him.
Oh my god, I know we all run away and
the plane didn't explode, So I am now a better
(53:42):
flyer because of my plane crash. That answered the first
lightning round question.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
No, it's so good. Though I didn't survive a plane crash,
but I was in a plane that lost hydraulics and
we had an emergency landing and it was not fine.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
But what it did for me psychologically was saying, Okay,
what are the odds of that happening again? Oh, no,
it happen something happening again.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Right, that's the wrong attitude. Yeah, you don't understand. Again,
here's the thing. You are so not Jewish, so you
don't So you don't understand the concept of the cunnor herah,
the cunnor her Yes, is the Jews know this?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Never ever ever say get any better?
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah, because the God hears that.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
And says, watch this schmuck, and then yes, you get
you know, thyroid cancer.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
I made that I do know about the Kunha. Not
only did I have a long time Jewish boyfriend, I
also have a master's degree in religion, Barry, So don't
tell me what I do and don't know.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I am so impressed.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
See that's a conversation. I wish you would overheard me
talking about scholarly you know about religion and not housewives.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Did you did you enjoy studying?
Speaker 2 (54:59):
I did. I went to NYU for my master's and
I studied my dissertation, I compared the devotional practices of
the religious faithful with the devotional practices of sports fans,
and it so interesting. Yeah, because I'm a big baseball
fan as well, right, and sort of the crossover connections
(55:21):
of like miracles, pilgrimage, sacred spaces.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Where you put your hat one.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Hundred percent, like I won't change my socks because you know,
the Mets kept winning with it, you know, all the stuff.
There's so much the hay geography, there's so much overlap,
and they speak to different parts of your brain and
your body, but they really accomplish similar things. You want
to commune, You want to be with people who like
the same the same things you like. You want to
(55:49):
worship the faith part of religion and sports fandom. I
mean so yeah, so I loved it. To answer your question, love,
what a great idea, what a great Yeah. I've toyed
with turning it into something, but I don't know what. Yeah,
I don't know. Okay, when you watch a movie, are
you able to just watch a movie or are you
(56:09):
looking at the lighting and blocking and the choices that
other dps and directors have made.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Not looking at the lighting or the blocking. What I
do do is I have my wife sit next to
me on this saw on my left side, holding my
hand down on the armrest, so I can't gesticulate to
the screen to get the actors to talk fast. So
for me, it's about pates and it just drives me crazy.
(56:35):
How slow most streaming television shows are.
Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yes, yes, I agree, I agree. This is a quiz.
In nineteen eighty four, you're the cinematographer of an after
school special. It wins a Daytime Emmy for cinematography. What
was it called?
Speaker 1 (56:53):
It was called out of Sight. No it was no,
it was called No, it wasn't. It was called out
of there you go. I was directed by Jeffrey Horner Day,
who was the choreographer on Flash Dance Out of Set.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Yeah, and it's about a dancer, right that?
Speaker 1 (57:09):
It is about a danswer.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Amazing? Which of your projects are you most proud of?
Get shorty great film? Okay, this is the final question.
It's very important to me spiritually and culturally. When is
it iced coffee? Season.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
Honestly, it's always ice coffee.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
That's the correct answer. That's the correct answer. You're round good,
you're around me, the correct answer.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
I knew I liked you.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
Yeah, I knew I liked you too, Barry.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
This was so much fun, truly, truly, so much fun.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Oh for me too, Thank you so much. What a
pleasure to do this. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
I loved it. Next week on Off the Cup, my
friend Shep Rose joins.
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Us, it was so crazy and so interesting, and so
we're not in Kansas anymore, and first day at camp
for school or what have you. There's a bunch of
people thrown together about to embark on this crazily spiritual journey,
and nobody knows what to expect.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Recent Choice Network. I'm your host Si Cupp.
Editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are Meet Scie Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. If
you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
you get your podcasts, follow or subscribe for new episodes
every Wednesday,
There's no upside to optimism. Under promise, over deliver.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
That's where you like to live.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
That's where I like to live. Under the radar.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Off the Cup, where we have great
conversations with fascinating people, and we've some mental health talk
in as well. So speaking of as an anxious person,
I struggle with anxiety. As you know, I've learned. There's
a thing I do and others who struggle with anxiety
they do it too. It's so funny. Maybe you do
this too. I rewatch the same movies and shows over
(00:35):
and over again. In fact, I rarely see new movies
or TV shows because not knowing what is going to
happen makes me anxious. So on my phone and my
iPad my computer, I have a bunch of movies and
shows that I'll watch over and over again when I'm bored,
when I'm trying to fall asleep, or when I just
need to feel less anxious. These movies, these rewatchables include,
(00:59):
but are not limited too, When Harry Met Sally, Apollo thirteen,
The American President, Back to the Future, Contact, Big Dead,
Poet Society, A Few Good Men, Men in Black, The
Post Quiz Show, Shattered Glass. These are my rewatchables, and
they have given me so much comfort over the years.
(01:19):
My next guest has made a number of my rewatchables
and probably a lot of yours. And I just read
his latest book, Best Possible Place, Worst Possible Time, and
it is full of so many Hollywood stories of how
these movies got made or didn't get made, casting changes,
budget blow ups, all the backstories, all the tea. They're
(01:42):
so good because I love Hollywood stories. He's a producer, director, cinematographer.
You may know his work. Maybe maybe you've heard of
some of these films. Men in Black, a TV series
called Pushing Daisies, Get Shorty, Misery, a little film called
Miller Crossing, Raising Arizona, The Adams Family, and so many more.
(02:05):
Verry Soundfeld, Welcome to Off the Cup.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Heh, how are you this morning?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
You know, I'm fine, but I'm good because I just
watched one of my rewatchables. I feel very good. I
feel very calm, very centered. So you corrected my memory.
I thought we'd met at Bill Maher. We did not.
Where did we meet, Barry?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
We met at Andy Cohen's show, where you and miss
McCain and Andy spent the entire evening talking about some
housewive show at some point, and I was a bartender
and I didn't even get the right drink. But anyway,
you two and Andy were just going on and on
(02:47):
about and Andy looked at me and said, you don't
have an fing clue what I'm talking about to you?
Not a clue. It was quite an hour listening to
the three of you. Yeah, it was fun.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
I'm so embarrassed that that's where we met, because I mean,
I love my Bravo, I love my housewives. But you know,
if there were ever a conversation, I'd want Barry Sonenfeld
to overhear me having about the Housewives.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Now you knew you were way too there. You were
quite good.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
You were very I have a PhD in Bravo. I
want you to know. Okay, I'm a scholar. I'm a scholar.
But listen, No, it was a pleasure meeting you. And
I'm such a fan and movies are just such an
escape for me, and so many people escape from politics,
escape from the news, but also just stress and anxiety.
(03:41):
What does it feel like to hear that your work
hasn't just entertained people, but in many cases helped with
their mental health.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Well, by the way, I have some other recommendations, few
for sleeping. I I listened to boring books as Stanley,
not Stanley Tucci. I'm Tony Schlou But yes, reads The
History of Mathematics.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Oh that's very sleepy.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
It's not only really boring and so b now, but
it's terribly written on purpose and I've yet to get
through it. And it's forty five minutes long and I've
yet to get through it. So try check it out.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Okay, Well, you know what's funny. Jeff Bridges gave me
an album Vinyl that is a sleep album that he made.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
But vinyls no good. It gets to that and you
just hit a needle scratching for the rest of it.
Yeah you think.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
But it's one of the most bizarre and cool things
that I own, is this album from Jeff Bridges. But
I want to get into all the stories you tell
in the book. We're not going to get into the
mall because there's not enough time, but believe me, I
would if we could. But first talk to me about
the title Best the Place, Worst Possible Time.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Well, it's a little bit scatological, as you know.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Trigger warning, trigger warning.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Trigger warning. If you don't like poop talk, well, it's
not that it's maybe it's not scatological. It's anyway. Here
it is. It's two in the morning. It's often two
in the morning. We're on the set of Men in
Black two. I'm sitting on my saddle because I direct
from a saddle, because that way I can feel manly
(05:28):
and feel like I'm doing manly work. So I direct
from a saddle. Next to me is Will Smith. And
then there's an empty chair where arrives Tommy Lee Jones
because he's been told we're almost ready to shoot. And
just because I'm bored, just because I've gotten I need
to fill the silences. I say to Tommy Lee Jones, Tommy,
(05:50):
tell me why life is like a tampon? And Tommy,
not knowing I'm going to ask him that question. I mean,
I didn't know I was going to ask him. Now question,
says to me with no hesitation, Arry, life is like
a tampon. You're always in the best possible place at
the worst possible time. Will and I fall. Will falls
(06:14):
off his chair. I follow off my saddle to me
sort of like an idiot, savant of just like idiots.
I was going to call the book for a long time.
I was going to call it idiots in charge. But
I wasn't sure I one hundred percent delivered on that promise,
so I changed the name to this obscure like you're
on page two eighty before you find out why it's
(06:36):
called that name. Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So I like to start interviews this way. What kind
of kid were you?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh? I was an only child of Jewish persuasion. I
had two narcissistic parents. My mother spent most of her
time once she got home teaching art at PS one
seventy three, Manhattan, lying on her bed with a wet
towel over her face. She was the chapter chairman of
(07:09):
the local UFT United Federation of Teachers, so she was
always on the phone crying about someone being mean to her.
I was profoundly thin. I weighed sixty pounds when I
was Bob Mitford in a church because my synagogue sold
my synagogue before the week before as Bob Mitford, so
(07:31):
we had no place to get bar misfid, so we
asked the local church. They said, yes, the rabbi and
decanter are hanging burlap bags over Jesus. Yes, I weighed
one hundred and eight pounds all through my draft years
until I turned thirty, and the day turned thirty, I
gained about eighty pounds. So I was a isolated child.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, and you eventually go to film school. When did
you know you wanted to make movies and TV shows?
Speaker 1 (08:08):
It was really a lack of anything better to do.
I graduated NYU with a degree in political science because
those classes met only Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursday, so if
I had to go to NYU three days a week.
I only went to NYU because my mother said that
if I went away to sleep away school others call
(08:30):
it college, she would commit suicide. So I believed her
until I was a senior, and then I decided to
leave NYU. I spent my senior year at Hampshire and
I figured two birds, one stone. I get to go
away to college and my mother commits suicide and then
she were an eggs.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah she didn't mean it.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Well, I wish I had known that three years earlier.
I could have gotten out of the house.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Oh thank god, this is so inappropriate. I love it.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Okay, so you were just getting started.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Oh we are just getting started. Sir, you graduate, I
think you know where I'm going to go with this.
Your first in the film industry is.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
In porn, but behind the camera. So here's the deal.
I get out of NYU graduate film school. I think
I have an ability to be a cameraman. I know
how to light. I always wanted to be a still photographer,
so I knew my way around around lenses and how
to tell a story with a camera. So when I graduated,
(09:37):
and why you graduate film school and this is pre video,
this is when all independent movies and industrials were shot
on sixteen milimeter. I bought a use sixteen milimeter camera
with a friend of mine, thinking if I owned a camera,
I could call myself a cameraman without feeling like a dilettante.
So I have this camera. My partner in owning this
(09:59):
used camera, no support producer. He gets us nine days
of work shooting nine feature films, one a day. And
you know, as I write my first book, there's a
very very long chapter in the first book called an
Actress Short a cumshot behind in in my first book
(10:23):
where on the last day of filming I was when
a double in search goes horribly wrong, and we can
cut this out. I am covered in human excrement when
a fountain of liquefied foamy fegal matter shoots out of
this woman's rectum. But anyway, we can move on. So
(10:50):
I graduate film school. My first job was in pornos.
But then what happened is I am at a party
one night where everyone in the party was from Darien, Connecticut.
They were all wasps, and there were two Jews at
the party, Me and this other toll guy that looked
(11:10):
like Howard Stern but wasn't. And we kind of sniffed
each other out and we started to talk. That was
Joel Cohen and I was Barry Sunenfeld, and so we
were talking about films, and he told me that he
and his brother Ethan had just written a script called
Blood Simple, and we're going to shoot a sixteen milimeter
(11:33):
trailer as if it were a finished film, and bring
that trailer and a projector around to you know, dental
investment clubs and doctor investment clubs and lawyer investment clubs
and try to raise his seven hundred and fifty grand
to make the actual movie. I said to Joel, I
had a camera. Joel said you're hired. A year later,
(11:56):
we raised the seven fifty. And this I tell you
people just to figure out what they want to do
in life and go right to there. Don't work your
way up. So the first day on the set of
Blood Simple was the first ay Joel, Ethan or I
had ever been on a movie set. Joel was never
(12:16):
an assistant director or PA and Ethan was a statistical
typist at Macy's and I had been shooting industrials amazing.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I want to know, though, what did your mom say
about your first work.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Mom didn't know about it at the time. I think
she probably when she found out, was very proud of
me because I was doing I was an artist.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, yeah, yes, Okay. You've been very open in this book,
in the previous book about your highs and lows and
sometimes your miserable experiences making movies. Yes, would you say
your career has been mostly highs or lows?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Well, the making of the movies are always almost always lows.
That's just tremendous pressure. There are a couple exceptions. Get
Shorty was perfection. We had a great script. I knew
Danny DeVito because I had shot throw Mama from the train,
for him. And then when I read Get Shorty, I
(13:22):
called Danny, and Danny bought the book for me and
produced it and played Shorty appropriate and so. But with
a few exceptions, you never have enough days. The actors
are late, the effects budget the way they're supposed to.
You're always over budget. Get Shorty.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It's reading reading all your vignettes. You know, you really
do get a sense of like the technical parts of
making movies. We just see the actors, right, I mean,
you know, we think of making movies as the actors.
But there's just so much bullshit and work work, actual
work that goes into it. Are you Are you an
(14:07):
anxious person?
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Like?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
What are you like on set?
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Am I an anxious person? Do you want to answer
that one for me? Yeah? I want to make assumptions, Barry,
that's a good journalist. Don't make assumptions very good. Yes,
I'm anxious. I also lose the ability to communicate. You know,
(14:33):
I'll say sentences that don't make any sense. But but
the actors know what I want, which is basically for
them all to talk faster. If you talk faster, here's
the secret. When actors talk fast, it takes away their
ability to act, and you never want to see acting.
You just want to see reality. You know, I hate
(14:55):
when people emote and you know, act talking fast et
they don't have time to act, and then their performance
seems realer and better.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You've said that Tommy Lee Jones is one of the
best people you know who can speak quickly but articulately.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yes, his Yeah, such a beautiful lilt to his voice,
and he speaks quickly but finishes words with tea with
a t sound. Yeah, he's great. However, let me tell
you about the first day of ever working with Tommy.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yes, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Tommy had never been on a comedy before, so he
didn't know how to act in comedy. So it's the
first day of shooting. Will Smith came in a couple
weeks later because he was finishing up Independence Day, So
just me and Tommy and so first day of shooting, Tommy,
who's playing this MiB agent, is talking to an illegal
(15:55):
alien from another galaxy who's speaking in an alien language
with subtitles, and he's got these hands and flippers and
a big nose. And Tommy's line in the script is
that's enough. Mikey. The only name is Mikey that's enough. Mikey,
put up your hands and all your flippers. Right, that's
(16:16):
the line. Put up your hands and all your flippers.
Tommy says, first take, first day. That's enough, Mikey, put
up your hands and all your flippers.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
But I'm bum, but I'm bum.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Yeah, Hey, Tommy, I think it's going to be funnier
if you don't acknowledge that and all your flippers is funny.
Let the audience find that joke for you with just
government issue. You do this every day. They're always flippers
or paddles or whatever. Tommy looks at me with such
hatred that I thought he was going to kill me
(16:52):
with his looks. So now every day, for twenty weeks,
I have to sit on him and not let him
be funny. And for every day Tommy is staring at
me as if I should be dead. His agent calls
me and says, you don't want Tommy to be funny?
I explained, All comedy duos have the straight man and
(17:16):
the funny man. Yeah, funny woman, you know, Gracie Allen,
George Burns, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin. You can go on
and on and on. You don't want two funny people
in your movie. Luckily, Tommy eventually sees a finished movie
because he's about to do press and God love him.
All the reporters say to Tommy, how did you get
(17:37):
to be so funny? And Tommy's reply is stand next
to Will Smith and do whatever Barry Senenfeld tells you to.
So it all ended up really nicely perfection.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
And since we're on Men in Black, this blows my mind.
Spielberg wanted Clint Eastwood and Chris O'Donnell. Yeah, in these roles.
Does Chris o'donald know how you got Chris o'donald off
this picture?
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Uh, he probably does now because I've I've occasionally told
the story.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But please us.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
O'donald is a great actor, oh, adorable and adorable. And
I shot I shot a new ending to a movie
he was in called Men Don't Leave, directed by Paul Brickman,
that no one saw about it as a great movie. Uh,
it was. It was not that he wouldn't have been
good in the part. It was that my wife told
me it should be Will Smith. So that was so
(18:32):
when Sweety said, listened to Smith, it's Sweety listened to Sweetie.
As you know, from the book. Yes, and by the way,
I I picked Tommy Lee Jones and she picked will
Will Smith, So now I've got it. Clint dropped out early,
so that became a non issue, but Spielberg had me
go to dinner with Chris o'donald and convinced Chris to
be in the movie. Chris says to me, you know,
(18:55):
I think there are a lot of plot issues, and
you know it's not that funny, and I've been offered
this other movie with Stallone. What should I do? And
I said, the script's never going to get better. I
don't know how to make it better. And I think
you're right about everything you're saying, and I don't think
it will get better. You should not you should not
(19:16):
do that. I didn't even say it. I just helped him.
And of course the next day he dropped out of
the the movie some music.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn did not get along.
Is that right?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
No? No, they're both Texans. But Rip was kind of
certifiably insane a little bit. He just was he couldn't
have any extras moving even behind him because he could
sense their presence. And I was trying to explain they
(19:56):
have to be extras. You know, you're men in Black Headquarters.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, this.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Busy plays and so again Will's first day in the
fiction of the movie, He's being shown men in Black Headquarters.
He sees a big board where we see who the
aliens are, you know, Spielberg, Lucas, al Roker, Yeah, and
uh and Rip then has and Tommy is taking Will out,
(20:22):
and Rip turns to Tommy and says, hey, k, the
line has written. It's always about as written versus as spoken.
The line has written, is kay, give the kids some
fire power, meaning a gun? Yes, right, So there's Rip
from Texas, but doesn't have the same diction. Tommy has says, hey, Kay,
(20:47):
give the kids some far parror cut? Hey, Rip, can
you say fire power? That's what I'm saying, God, damn it. Okay, right, okay,
let's let's see one more. Hey, do the kids some
far parr cut? Hey? Rip? Really enunciate? This goes on.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Eventually, as I'm saying to Rip, hey, Rip, why don't
you just say, hey, Kay, give the kid a weapon, right,
Tommy is saying that Will, Will someone tell that poor
bastard to say give the kids a gun. So we
both had the same idea, but far Parror was not
going to go over well with Rip. Also, he had
(21:28):
a problem later, an issue with the word the void.
He didn't want to say the word devoid for some reason,
so that became an issue.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
But it worked out amazing. I want to go back
to Big. Yeah, Honey, Marshall hires you to be the DP.
And this also blows my mind. Barry Diller, chairman of
(21:59):
twentieth Century at the time, wanted Tom Hanks for the
lead Josh Baskin. Penny Marshall, Barry wanted, wanted whom She's
not wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I'm gonna explain to.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
You she's for sure wrong. But go ahead, go ahead,
don't tell us all who she wanted for this movie.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
She wanted Robert de Niro, And in fact, I just
read two days ago an interview with de Niro talking
about how he was offered Big by Penny Marshall. But
in any case, here's the thing.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Tell me how this would have worked.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Okay, Tom Hanks is a child playing a child. Yes,
Tom Hanks is a youthful childlike yes, the actor Tom Hanks, right,
So Tom Hanks is there's no stretch there. He's brilliant.
In the movie. We became good friends. I mean, we
(22:52):
really got along so well, and he was brilliant in
it and incredibly funny. But you've got a kid playing
a kid. Yeah, Nero playing a kid and suddenly being
in that body might have been a disaster, or might
have been really amazing. May not have been funny, it
(23:14):
might have been a drama. But you know, I shot
the last two weeks of Goodfellas, and the last night
I was I overlapped the other DP Michael Ballhouse one
night so I could see how Michael was lighting. So
my first night alone with Marty and de Niro, it
(23:36):
was de Niro's last night of shooting. All night long,
I'm sitting behind Marty and De Niro. They're in the
front looking at the monitor, and then behind them is
me looking at the monitor, and De Niro keeps tapping,
Scorsese whispering in his ear, and then they both turn
(23:58):
around and look at me and start to laugh hysterically
all night long, and seeing De Niro and Scorsese laughing
is really disconcerting. It's just really awful. The night ends.
The next day, it was de Niro's last night. I
say this, Scorsese Hey, were you and and de Niro
laughing at me all last night? And without any hesitation,
(24:22):
Marty goes, yeah, I go well, why, he goes, well,
look at you. That's all I said. Oh my god,
thanks Marty.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, that'll mess with your head a little. Yeah, well, listen,
Big is a perfect movie. From where I sit, it's perfect,
right right, And it would have been an interesting thought
experiment maybe to see someone like de Niro playing Josh Baskin.
But I can't imagine. I can't imagine it any other way.
But that's just wild to me.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
No, nor can I.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Let's talk about when Harry met Sally, one of my
all time favorite movies. You're also dep on that, and
and you talk about this in the book, the scene
where Harry and Sally sleep with each other for the
first time and then they separate, and then they call
their best friends Bruno Kirby and Carrie Fisher. And you
have these like four boxes or three boxes maybe three boxes, right,
(25:15):
three boxes? Yeah, how do you get that to work?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Well? The hard part was Rob wanted to show the
whole scene as a trip tick. On the left side Billy,
the right side, Bruno and Carrie, who are sleeping together.
They'reright lovers and Meg on the other side of the frame.
So in order to have that trip tick play out
in real time without anyone cutting into a close up
(25:40):
or anything, that means that that three or four pages
of dialogue has to play perfectly in one take. It's
like a theater. It's like live theater. They're right cutting
away from it. So I set up we had three
different sets on the same stage, and we had three cameras,
and Rob had this big monitor where he could see
(26:02):
the trip tick. But because anyone who screwed up, you'd
have to start all over again, because you can just
pop in. It took us like it took us eight hours.
It took us like seventy three seventy four takes to
get it, and then on the last take you knew
you had it. I need to talk what happened.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Harry came over the last night Sally last night because
I was upset that Joe was getting there, and before
I knew it, we were kissing.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
We did it. In fact, that stage, which was called
three eight at Zoatrop, I shot that scene when from
when Harry met Sally, I shot throw Mama from the train.
I shot Adam's Family, and I shot one other movie,
oh and and Misery, all on that same stage. And
(26:50):
I said to Sweetie, does LA have more than one stage?
At one point all the movies I've done in La
were on the same stage. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
It was the barried Stonefeld.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, there should be a plaque.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
I'm gonna say this to you. I hope it doesn't
bother you. But like Nora Efron's my role model. I
love her so much. And if anyone else listening, does
please watch everything as copy the documentary. It's so good.
But she did not like you Berry, did she?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Now she didn't? You know, Noura is incredibly talented, is
a lovely woman, has an amazing husband, had an amazing husband.
He's no longer with us, Nick Pledge, who wrote Goodfellows,
by the way. But Noara thought I was a little too.
I didn't take myself seriously. Oh uh huh. The thing is,
(27:45):
I don't take myself seriously, but I take my work seriously. Yeah,
and I just can't be full of myself. So as
a joke, no I was lining up an insert of
the scene you were just telling you about before they
have the phone call Billy sleeps with Meg. So I
shot an insert of Billy looking at her digital clock
(28:09):
and that you know, it was like four am and
he still couldn't leave and all that. So as a joke, no,
I say to Rob, Hey, Rob, should we do a
Dutch tilt, which means put the camera like at an
arcane angle? Should we put do a Dutch tilt so
it could feel like we're making a good Dard movie.
(28:32):
I've never seen a good Dard movie. Yeah. I don't
even know how to pronounce his name properly. But Nora
from across the room, sitting next to Rob at Video Village, says,
will you please save us all the film school bullshit?
So I had to say, hey, Nora, it was a judge.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Right, yeah, but she's she's so talented and so acerbic
and smart.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Yeah yeah, yeah, you mentioned misery James Kahn. Tell me
about your Vietnam moment with James Kahn.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
There's more Rob's Vietnam moment. Okay, I just I just
let him know he was having a Vietnam moment.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yes, all right.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
So here's the thing. It took Rob a long time
to get both an actor and actress. It's so amazing
when you see these movies and you think, wait, it
was hard to get someone in those roles. But Rob
had wanted Bette Midler for the lead in Misery, and
when she eventually passed, I actually had recommended Kathy Bates.
(29:40):
I had seen her A Night Mother on Broadway and
she was fantastic. Yep, and he met Kathy and Kathy
got the role. Warren Batty passed or all these actors
that Warren Batty passes on everything, I've got Warren Batty
passing stories on Get Shorty. But anyway, hires Jimmy Kahn
the single word first actor to ever be forced to
(30:02):
spend eighty pages lying in bed doing nothing because the
man cannot sit still. Yeah yeah, he's just out of control,
needs to fidget and move and all that. So we're
shooting the first day. It's it's the first day also,
isn't it? On Misery? And it's a really easy scene.
We're up in Lake Tahoe. We were in the cabin.
(30:25):
Jimmy's got to finish typing the end, pull out the
piece of paper, put it on top of other manuscript pages,
light a strike anywhere match and we gave him flint
on his thumb so he could light it easily. And
then he opens up glass a bottle of champagne. Yeah,
six setups, no dialogue, piece of cake. We should be
(30:47):
done with that scene in three hours, but Jimmy cannot
stand still. He's dobbining like he's at temple or something.
He's moving, he's doing, he's shifting. At lunch, six hours
in to the day, we still haven't gotten a scene
that should take us three hours. I eat lunch it
Rob every day in this camper. We sit down this silence,
(31:10):
and I say to Rob, hey, Rob, remember Vietnam. And
Rob starts to laugh because he knows where I'm going
with this. He's with his wife Michelle, and I said, no, seriously,
get out now, get out before it's too late. The
longer you're here leaving, the helicopters are leaving, and you're
going to be stuck with this guy for sixty days
(31:32):
of filming. Get out now. Of course he couldn't get out.
It would take weeks. So Jimmy got through it. But man,
it was tough, and Rob and I were so mean
to Jimmy for you. Yeah, well you know we were.
Now you know. Weeks later, we're now on set. Jimmy's
in bed and there's is show where Rob where Rob
(31:55):
has Jimmy crawling out of bed and then crawling towards
the door, and the camera's going to dolly back with Jimmy.
Jimmy says from the bed, he says, hey, Bath, how
far do you want me to crawl? And this is
like a week eleven out of twelve, so we're fed up.
So I and this is very unprofessional. Normally you take
a piece of green or red tape, put it on
(32:17):
the floor and say crawl to the mark, Jimmy. But
instead he said how far should I crawl? And I
went and spit on the floor, which as horrible as
that is. Rob Reiner says, crawl to the loogie Jimmy.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Okay, yes, yeah, what I can.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Eyes are so good, These stories are so good. So
Rob tries to push you into directing, but you don't
want to until family.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah. I was not looking to be a director. I
was very happy being a cameraman. I made, you know,
I was sought after. I enjoyed the experience of, you know,
having manly men pick up big, heavy lights and do
what I tell him to you know, it was fun.
And then I'm finishing misery. Sweetie and I are at
(33:34):
the Four Seasons Hotel on Delheiney. I'm sure you know
it well in LA and yes, And I get a
call from the front desk there's a package for me.
I go downstairs. There's an envelope. Scott Ruden, the producer,
has sent me the script for Adams Family and says,
read this in two hours. Little did he know I'm
(33:54):
incapable of reading anything in two hours. Read this in
two hours and meet me at this restaurant called Hugo
for lunch. I want you to direct this. Literally, I'm
not looking to be a director. Even with directors like
Penny Marshall. I never was saying I could do a
better job than she could, and that was a nightmare.
But in any case, I meet Scott two hours later
(34:18):
and I say why meet and he says, well, I
went to Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton, and when all
the good directors passed, I thought I'd take a chance
with you, which I loved. I love no expectations. Well,
the opening of my my epilogue is there's no upside
(34:38):
to optimism under promise over delivered. That's and that's where
you like to live. That's where I like to live
under the radar. So I said, all right, Scott, if
you can get me a job directing Adam's Family, sure,
and he did. But what's weird is if it wasn movie,
(35:01):
I should have been the director on it was the
Adams Family because I grew up loving those Charles Adams drawings,
and Charles Adams drawings are a very visual and B
he makes the audience figure out where the joke is.
They're not like punchline jokes, you know, they're not like
punchline little sentences at the bottom there specific to those characters.
(35:25):
And I love those Charles Adams cartoons and I was
very faithful in shooting the movie to his cartoons.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Actually, yes, And it was a huge success.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, that's the amazing thing. It was a big success.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Huge success. And then you go to do the sequel,
but another movie is in the offing at the same.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You're in my book. You read my.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Book, Barry. I showed you all the dogs.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
I know, I know, but you could have had and
you could add an assistant dog here pages. I'm kidding, Okay,
Barry I'm so impressed.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Journalist I highlight. Wow.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Oh geez, period, I need to get you another book.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Well, yeah, you do, because I've already promised this one
to my DP at my news show. But uh, of
course I've read it. Okay, let me tell me about
the film that's in the offing as you're contemplating making
Adam's Family Values.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Okay, So I'm finishing Adam This Family by the way,
we started at Orion. Orion goes bankrupt, we're so to Paramount.
A new head comes in at Paramount looks at the
same footage the previous headed scene when he bought it
from Orion. The new head comes in and says, this
(36:47):
movie is uncutable and unreleasable. So the whole time I'm
finishing the movie at Paramount, I have a studio head
who hates my project right so so much so that
when I was done shooting, the president of the studio,
not to chairman, Gary Lukazy, takes me to launch on
the Paramount lot and says, look, don't wait ten weeks
(37:09):
to show me the movie. I know the director's guild
gives you ten weeks. I'm your buddy, show me the movie.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Now.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
I said, no, you're the enemy. I'm not going to
show you the movie. He says, Oh, come on, I said, Gary,
it's a mess. You know, I just finished shooting. I
gotta cut it. I gotta add music, even for you
to see it with all your knowledge about movies. All right,
So Gary says, And I'm going to answer your question.
I swear. Gary says, if you won't show me the movie,
(37:37):
at least tell me what it's like. So I say,
Adam's Family is like a much sadder version of Sophie's Choice.
And I leave. I go. I finished my cop salad.
I go back to my office on the Paramount Lot.
My phone's ringing. It's Scott Ruden schmuck. Did you just
(37:58):
tell Gary Lukesey Adam's Family is a sadder version of
Sophie's Choice? I said, no. Why did you tell him?
I told him it was a much sadder version of something. Well,
call him back. Tell him it's good, Scott. He's looked
at Daly's every day. Does he think I could turn
Adam's family into a sadder Just call him back? So
(38:20):
I called Gary back. I explained, this actually a very
funny movie. He equally is willing to buy into that
as much as he was willing to buy into a
Saturn version. Now it's Ted. Weeks later, they see the movie.
Even though Stanley still hates it, everyone else at Paramount
loves it, and Gary, wanting me to do another movie
(38:40):
at Paramount, says, I have a book I want you
to read. The producer has done eight different scripts with
six different writers. None of them are any good. I'm
not even going to show you any scripts. I'm just
going to show you the book. Read the book, tell
me what you think the book is Farrest Gum In
Forrest Gump, the lead Forrest Gump is sort of a big, powerful,
(39:06):
overweight kind of guy. So I said to Gary, I
know how to make this movie. Make him a runner
instead of a heavy guy, and have Hanks to it.
And I can send it to Hanks because of shooting
Big we were friends. I send Tom the book, but
I say, you probably won't want to do this because
(39:28):
it's another man child role. It's not unlike Josh Baskin
and that he's an adult but has childlike knowledge. But
Tom loves it. So now I've got Tom that comes
on the producer and I hire Eric Roth who writes
an amazing script. But now Gary lu Casey is replaced
(39:51):
by Sherry Lansing. Serry now decides she wants to make
Adam's Family Values. So I have a choice. I either
do Adam's Family or Gump. I say, I want to
do both, and I have to do Adam Semley first
because the kids, Jimmy Weakman and Christina Ricchie are getting older.
Sherry says, great, you can do both. Because she didn't
(40:13):
really believe in Gump anyway, and I have a feeling
she almost wished she hadn't made it until it came out.
I mean she kept stealing money from the shot and
taking money away from that show, etcetera, etcetera. So Cherry
is willing to wait for us to do both, but
the producer when the finerman isn't and Wendy is right,
(40:34):
Tom could get hit by a bus, Tom could change
his mind, a similar movie could come out and do
no business, and then Paramount doesn't want to make Gump.
So her issue is strike when the iron is hot.
I have the script. I've got Tom Hanks. My mistake
was not that I left Gump. My mistake was at
my agent at the time. I fired him after this
(40:57):
didn't get me a producing credit on it, which I
should had. I got the biggest actor and I got
a great script. That's what a producer does. So that's
where I went wrong.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
What'd you think of Forrest Gump?
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Right? I couldn't watch it for years? And then Danny
DeVito is having a Christmas party and I ran into
Marty Breast, a famous director. He directed Midnight Run and
Beverly Hills Copped and War Games, and I said, Marty,
you're someone who left projects close to when it got
started because he got fired off of War Games. I said,
(41:34):
how did you feel when the movie came out? And
was his success? And Marty said, have you seen the movie?
He asked me in a very rabbinical way, and I said, no,
I can't. I can't watch Gomp. Yeah, he said, see
the movie. Only then can the healing begin. So I
rented Goump on VHS, saw the movie and I say,
(41:56):
in the book, it's not the movie I would have made.
For one thing, maybe it would have been better, maybe
it would have been worse. It would have been an
hour shorter, is what I said.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes, get Shorty, Gene Hackman and John Travolta could not
have been more different, right, event Yeah, I mean in
preparation and attitude, in all the things. Right.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Yeah. So John loved being a movie star. I'm not
sure how much he loved acting, but he loved being
a movie star.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
Gene Hackman loved acting and hated being a movie star. Right,
So it's starting from that dichotomy, right.
Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Once again, it's the first day of shooting and we
have an eight page scene, which is unheard of, especially
on the first day. Usually you on a feature between
two and three pages a day of script. But I
felt that there was no blocking. There's no other actors.
Who was just two guys basically sitting across from each other.
(43:12):
Once you were lit, you were kind of lit for
the day. So I thought we could get it done.
And since it was the first day, they had weeks
to memorize theoretical, you shoot it. That was my thought. Yeah,
Travolta says to Gene, they've just met, So Gene, why
did you do this weekend? And Jeane says, well, with
(43:32):
eight fucking pages of dialogue to learn, I pretty much
fucking did nothing except learned the eight fucking pages. John
Travolta says, that's a waste of a weekend. So I know,
I know I'm in trouble now. I know John probably
has not looked at the script since he made his deal,
(43:52):
and Jane is getting angrier and angry. I could really
sense this because John is not coming in with his lunge.
So there's no pace, there's no energy to the scene.
And especially in comedies, you want everyone to talk fast.
You want everyone to step on each other's lines. Right,
you know you look at like pushing Baby or his
grip bringing up Baby, or his girl Friday or any
(44:15):
Preston Sturgist movie. Those actors are just talking fast. Yeah,
and that's my thing. So Gene is not. I can
tell he's not happy. We have to reload the camera.
I go, I get up off my saddle because I
also direct from the camera. I go back to video village.
My wife is one of the producers. I said, how
(44:35):
great has hackmened? Because it's the first sage. She goes,
He's fantastic. Okay, great, we're reloaded. I go back. I say, hey, Gene,
stand up one line earlier on mistake anyway, roll camera
camera starts to roll. Gene instead of saying his line, says,
cut the fucking camera. Just cut the fucking camera. Got
(44:56):
you don't have a fucking clue what you're doing. You
have no idea what you're doing. You'll ask anyone for advice,
You'll ask your wife when I should stand up? Obviously, Yeah, right,
you're you really don't have a fucking clue. So I
say to the first assistant director, find out if the
caterer is ready for lunch. The assistant director says, ready
(45:17):
for lunch. It's ten in the morning, right. I go, okay, everybody,
that's lunch. Because I got to deal with this. Everyone disperses.
I go up to Gene and I say, hey, Gene,
if you need to yell at me for the next
twelve weeks, go ahead. He goes, what the fuck are
you talking about? I go, you're not mad at me.
(45:39):
You know my wife didn't tell me when you should
stand up. You're mad at John. But you can't yell
at John because you got to work with him for
the next twelve weeks on camera. But you got to
yell at someone because that's who you are. So yell
at me, and it's like being a parent. You got
to figure out what works for each kid, and in
(46:00):
that case, Jean had to yell and gene for twelve weeks,
yelled at me because John never learned his lines.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, you had to have Q cards, right, you had
to have Q cards.
Speaker 1 (46:10):
We then had to have have Q cards for John.
But let's let's say this. He won the Golden Globe.
He was great in a movie. Thanks to me and
the editor. He was great in a movie. And so
who looks stupid now, right?
Speaker 2 (46:27):
Yes, much thanks to you and the editor. Okay, so
let's get back to Men and Men in Black. Tell
me about the roaches and the ASPCA.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
So the end of the first Men in Black as
Will needing to figure out a way to keep Edgar,
who had been played by Vincent Danafio but is now
a giant CG bug, to keep him on the planet.
Tommy Lee Jones has been swallowed by Edgar and has
been told to keep him on the planet. So we
came up with the idea, because Edgar is a bug,
(47:02):
that we had this big dumpster, and we had a
riding area, and Will was going to kick that rotting
area the dumpster and hundreds of big roaches would come out,
whereupon will would fake kill the roaches by stepping on them,
but we would take mustard packets under his foot. So
but he did that, you'd see yellow stuff switch out.
(47:23):
In any case, that's the plan. So we hire a
roach wrangler because there are such things in Hollywood. Who
brings three hundred giant cockroaches giant water bugs, which means
that the ASPCA has to come to protect the water bugs.
So that's wild. And I say to the guy, just like, really, cockerroaches,
(47:49):
we've got to worry about cockroaches. He goes, if you
don't worry about cockroaches, and you won't worry about spiders, snakes, dogs, cats,
And then I said cats, who cares about cass And
that got them. That's not You can't joke at ASPA
people about animals. You can't. You just can't. They don't
(48:12):
have a sense of humor for that particular errors. Yes,
So after each take we had to count roaches to
make sure that we still had three hundreds. So that's
a while between takes, Oh my god. But then at
the end of the day, when we were done with
the roaches and done shooting, the guy gave us permission
(48:35):
to fumigate the stage in case any roaches did get out,
which sort of defeats the whole protecting the roaches. So
I don't know, but it worked for them and it
worked for me.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
Therefore, Yeah, and then you go, you go to Wild
Wild West, which was not your favorite experience.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
No. No, here's the thing that Will Smith always says,
don't give some one responsibility without giving them power. So
I had the responsibility to bring Wild Wild West in
on budget and schedule, but not the power to do
that because I had a handful of a producer named
(49:16):
John Peters, who was a big time producer at Warner Brothers.
He was, you know, Barbara Streisan's hair dresser originally. And anyway,
John insisted on the stupid, stupid, stupid Will Smith and
dragscene that Will didn't want to do. I didn't want
(49:36):
to shoot. It takes you out of the movie. Here's
the thing about action adventure comedies. They're really hard to
make because often the action, if it's too real, screws
up the comedy right. And then if the comedy is
too funny, you don't believe the action and you don't
believe they're in danger. So it's a really hard thing
(49:58):
to pull off, and I really didn't pulled off in
Wild Wild West. Plus, unlike Men in Black, where Will
and Tommy had such profound chemistry, they loved each other,
loved working together. Will thought Tommy was the most hilarious
person he ever met. Once they got Tommy did not
be funny. Yeah, Tommy loved Will. But on Wild Wild West,
(50:22):
Will Smith and Kevin Klein had zero chemistry. There was
nothing there, and the audience could sense that. Plus, I
made the Spider way too big. There are so many
things wrong with that, the mechanical Spider. We're wrong with
that movie, and I apologize to all those out there.
I could have done better. In retrospect, I think.
Speaker 2 (50:42):
I think you've got a lot of projects that more
than made up for it.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
Barry, Let's see, Okay.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Thank you, all right, we're gonna do a lightning round. Okay,
you are a plain crash survivor. Yes, do you think
about that every time you get on a plane.
Speaker 1 (51:05):
Until I survived a plane crash, I viewed every time
I got off an airplane as a failed suicide attempt.
I hated flying. However, I know it's supposed to be
a lightning round. However, after the plane crash. I became
a better flyer because the fear of dying in a
plane crash is worrying what's going to feel like? What
(51:29):
are you going to feel like from fourteen thousand feet
when you know you're going to die? Are you going
to weep? Is not going to come out of your nose?
Are you going to wail? Are you going to think
of all the things you should have done differently? It
turns out because at fourteen thousand feet I knew my
plane was going to crash or claxtons and all sorts
(51:50):
of sounds from the thing, and we were nose diving
and shaking. All I did, and this was in a
private corporate jette. I crossed my arms, I put my
feet up on the seat in front of me, and
I tried different line readings of and now I die.
I went and now I die, And then I would
(52:12):
try and now I die, and then I would try,
and now I went to all of them. Eventually we
hit the ground. We destroy five parked airplanes. We go
into the parking lot, We destroy a Dodge Ram pickup truck.
We come to a stop. I see there are three
(52:34):
out of control people. Pilot called pilot flight attendant. They
can't open the door because there's a pine tree in
the way of the door opening. They run past me,
run out the back, and jump out of the plane,
leaving me on the plane alone.
Speaker 2 (52:48):
God.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
So, now the fire department is there because they think
the plane's going to and the plane is now in
the parking lot. It's not even on the tarmac or anything.
Speaker 4 (52:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (52:59):
All the fire there yelling at me to jump, but
I'm afraid of heights, and this was like three feet
off the ground. I know what I was, and so
I say, OK, it's easy for you to say jump,
but who's going to catch me? And then they made
the mistake. Instead of getting specific, which always works, they said,
it doesn't matter, just get off the plane. Never say
(53:22):
it doesn't matter, just someone should just say me right. Yeah, yeah,
So I said, you the one with the big mustache,
because they all have mustaches, You with the big muscle,
you're catching me, He says, I don't give a fuck,
just get off the plane. But basically I put my
arms around his shoulders and I just swing it to him.
Oh my god, I know we all run away and
the plane didn't explode, So I am now a better
(53:42):
flyer because of my plane crash. That answered the first
lightning round question.
Speaker 2 (53:47):
No, it's so good. Though I didn't survive a plane crash,
but I was in a plane that lost hydraulics and
we had an emergency landing and it was not fine.
Speaker 1 (53:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
But what it did for me psychologically was saying, Okay,
what are the odds of that happening again? Oh, no,
it happen something happening again.
Speaker 1 (54:02):
Right, that's the wrong attitude. Yeah, you don't understand. Again,
here's the thing. You are so not Jewish, so you
don't So you don't understand the concept of the cunnor herah,
the cunnor her Yes, is the Jews know this?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (54:23):
Never ever ever say get any better?
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Yeah, because the God hears that.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
And says, watch this schmuck, and then yes, you get
you know, thyroid cancer.
Speaker 2 (54:34):
I made that I do know about the Kunha. Not
only did I have a long time Jewish boyfriend, I
also have a master's degree in religion, Barry, So don't
tell me what I do and don't know.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
I am so impressed.
Speaker 2 (54:48):
See that's a conversation. I wish you would overheard me
talking about scholarly you know about religion and not housewives.
Speaker 1 (54:56):
Did you did you enjoy studying?
Speaker 2 (54:59):
I did. I went to NYU for my master's and
I studied my dissertation, I compared the devotional practices of
the religious faithful with the devotional practices of sports fans,
and it so interesting. Yeah, because I'm a big baseball
fan as well, right, and sort of the crossover connections
(55:21):
of like miracles, pilgrimage, sacred spaces.
Speaker 1 (55:27):
Where you put your hat one.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Hundred percent, like I won't change my socks because you know,
the Mets kept winning with it, you know, all the stuff.
There's so much the hay geography, there's so much overlap,
and they speak to different parts of your brain and
your body, but they really accomplish similar things. You want
to commune, You want to be with people who like
the same the same things you like. You want to
(55:49):
worship the faith part of religion and sports fandom. I
mean so yeah, so I loved it. To answer your question, love,
what a great idea, what a great Yeah. I've toyed
with turning it into something, but I don't know what. Yeah,
I don't know. Okay, when you watch a movie, are
you able to just watch a movie or are you
(56:09):
looking at the lighting and blocking and the choices that
other dps and directors have made.
Speaker 1 (56:14):
Not looking at the lighting or the blocking. What I
do do is I have my wife sit next to
me on this saw on my left side, holding my
hand down on the armrest, so I can't gesticulate to
the screen to get the actors to talk fast. So
for me, it's about pates and it just drives me crazy.
(56:35):
How slow most streaming television shows are.
Speaker 2 (56:39):
Yes, yes, I agree, I agree. This is a quiz.
In nineteen eighty four, you're the cinematographer of an after
school special. It wins a Daytime Emmy for cinematography. What
was it called?
Speaker 1 (56:53):
It was called out of Sight. No it was no,
it was called No, it wasn't. It was called out
of there you go. I was directed by Jeffrey Horner Day,
who was the choreographer on Flash Dance Out of Set.
Speaker 2 (57:08):
Yeah, and it's about a dancer, right that?
Speaker 1 (57:09):
It is about a danswer.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Amazing? Which of your projects are you most proud of?
Get shorty great film? Okay, this is the final question.
It's very important to me spiritually and culturally. When is
it iced coffee? Season.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
Honestly, it's always ice coffee.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
That's the correct answer. That's the correct answer. You're round good,
you're around me, the correct answer.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
I knew I liked you.
Speaker 1 (57:39):
Yeah, I knew I liked you too, Barry.
Speaker 2 (57:42):
This was so much fun, truly, truly, so much fun.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:46):
Oh for me too, Thank you so much. What a
pleasure to do this. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
I loved it. Next week on Off the Cup, my
friend Shep Rose joins.
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Us, it was so crazy and so interesting, and so
we're not in Kansas anymore, and first day at camp
for school or what have you. There's a bunch of
people thrown together about to embark on this crazily spiritual journey,
and nobody knows what to expect.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Recent Choice Network. I'm your host Si Cupp.
Editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are Meet Scie Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. If
you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
you get your podcasts, follow or subscribe for new episodes
every Wednesday,
Host
S.E. Cupp
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