November 30, 2022 • 30 mins
Bonus Episode – Ed speaks with actor Matthew Broderick, and director John Badham about their time on the seminal 1983 classic, “WarGames” and how it played a part in the cultural zeitgeist of the Cold War. Produced by FilmNation and Pacific Electric Picture Co. in association with Gilded Audio.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, Snaffoo listeners, this is your host ed helms. I'm
back in your feed for a bonus episode of snaffoo.
Able Archer. At the very heart of it is a
story about the nuclear conundrum, how the arms race left
us with no winning options and an unacceptable margin for error,
(00:25):
and no one summed this up better than the movie Wargames.
You may recall back in previous episodes, we had great
conversations with the movie star and National treasure Matthew Broderick,
as well as its director John Badam. Those interviews were
so fun and cool, but we just couldn't include all
(00:46):
of it in those earlier episodes. So as a little treat,
here's a bonus episode where we dive a little deeper
into all things wargames. What was what was just like
a normal day in the life of Matthew Broderick around
nineteen eighty two eighty three.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, let's see, eighty two. I would be graduating high school,
which was in New York City, Yes, and I was
very happy to be done with that, and I didn't
want to go right to college. I remember going to
a college counsel a counselor at school who was supposed
to tell you what schools you should apply to, you know,
when you're a junior or whatever. And I remember she
(01:29):
kept mentioning colleges that I had never heard of, so
that that was a bad sign.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Your guidance counselor didn't believe in you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Say no, I left the meeting less than I was not.
I thought to myself, I'm going to have to find
something else because nothing that she mentioned not only were
they at schools that I had heard of, but none
of them specialized in anything that I was at all
good at. So I was taking a year to kind
of see if I could, you know, get a job
or something acting. And that's why I knew that's what
(02:00):
I wanted to do, but I had no idea if
I would, you know, be somebody who could do that.
But so my memory of that time is is trying
to basically become an actor.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
What was the lead up to the sort of war
games opportunity.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, I started in high school doing a bunch of
plays and I felt I was good at it. Now
why I felt that, I don't know, but I mean
I was better at that than at many of my
other endeavors in high school I'll put it that way,
so same here. Yeah, I get it. It wasn't that
I was good at it. It was that I wasn't
(02:36):
as bad at that as I was at Algebra two.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
There was nothing else to go after, really, that's the truth.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And I went to HB Studio, which was in the
village it still is, I think, and I took classes, sure,
and then my first girlfriend, and so I had a
kind of a great summer. As I remember, I auditioned
for everything. And you know, there was this movie called
The Genius that I auditioned for that I wouldn't let
(03:08):
me read the script, but it was a you know,
a boy in a computer. And then I somehow got
a callback and another callback, and then I read for
the new casting director and then maybe even a third
casting director. The Genius became more games, by the way,
this was its original title. Oh okay, yeah. And then
somehow I got a play in New York, which was right,
(03:33):
you know, very successful play, and suddenly that everything changed.
Then it was like, oh, he's the guy from that play,
you know everybody, and I got a Neil Simon movie
out of that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So while I was shooting the Neil Simon movie. They
wanted me to read again for War Games, and I
had now read for it, I don't know a million times.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And had you already read for the for the director
at the time was Martin Bress. Martin Brest, Yeah, and
you'd already read for him.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I had. So my dad, who was an actress, said
ask the director, Herbert Ross, of the of the Neil
Simon movie, ask if they can see some dailies. So
I somehow had the nerve to ask my agent, and
Herbert Ross, who was directing the Neil Simon movie, was like, sure, absolutely,
and he ran. He picked out some nice scenes of
(04:23):
mine and showed it to Marty Breast. You know, they
screened it in those days. It wasn't like, you know,
click on it. It was they came and watched it
at you know, the studio.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, that's really cool. He really believed in.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
You and made the effort, you know, and so you
need all that.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And so so finally you get the part. Had you
read the full script at this point or were you
just reading sides or did you know a lot about
what the movie was.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Around that time? I think I finally was allowed to
read the whole thing. It was really a very fun read.
You know, it was a you just really wanted to
know how it was going to end up. You know.
It wasn't the most like intense acting part or something,
but I just thought, this is a thriller, you know.
I loved the story. The only you know, my father
(05:13):
was dying and actually died during it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, So I don't think of that movie without that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
To tell you the truth, it's a little almost like
a surreal memory to me because I was, on the
one hand, so pleased with myself and you know, excited
about what had happened to me, and also at the
same time the absolute opposite. And you guys were close,
very close, and you know, he'd been sick for I
(05:44):
knew that it was coming. It wasn't like that, but
you know, there's no way to not. You know, he
died during it, and I was shooting one or two
days later, I think, wow, you know, I didn't really
want anybody to say how are you or anything, and
they and they didn't, you know, and we went on
with I'm very glad I had it. It probably saved
my life.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's so fascinating. I was in I was shooting the
office when my dad passed. Oh really and went back
and it was the same thing. I was so grateful
to have.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That something to put your mind on for a while, right.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, And so all the excitement of this first experience.
He must have been so proud that you got this opportunity.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
He was definitely so.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Then even the release of the movie is so bittersweet. Yeah,
is not being there.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, definitely, you know, but I like to think he
was glad to see that he had that he left
while I had some hope of a career sure, or
you know, make a living. And truthfully, it was such
a break from that that I didn't feel it at work,
you know. I just felt the movie. So I you know,
(06:58):
I threw myself into it, and I love the story, you.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Know, Yeah, it really is. It's like kind of a
perfect screenplay as a thriller with comedic elements, and there's
never a wasted scene or a dull moment. Did it
change a lot from those early drafts to what it
eventually was?
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Did? I mean, are you talking to John Badam too?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
In the summer of nineteen eighty two, I get a
call from my agent at the time Lee Rosenberg, who said,
there's this project over at United Artists that they're in
trouble with the director, and they wonder if you would
take a look at it. And I'm recommending that you
(07:51):
don't take a look at it, because if they're in
trouble with the director, that means the whole project is troubled.
So you better stay away from it. But I have
to make the call and tell you about it. And
I replied to him, I said, but Lee, what if
the script is any good? So we read it and
I'm going, oh my god, I am so lucky to
(08:13):
be reading this script. This script is wonderful. I told
that to Leonard and I said, let me think about
it and I'll get back to you. He said, well,
we're shooting every day, so you better be fast about this.
So I started driving home and I got about three
blocks from MGM and I stomped on the brakes. Now
(08:35):
this is before cell phones, and I had to find
a phone booth. And I said, Leonard, I know what
it is. These actors, these characters aren't having any fun.
The scene that you showed me was Matthew Broderick showing
Ali Sheety how he could change her grades at school
(08:57):
on the school computer. These actors are playing it like
they're going to blow up the White House, and instead,
if I could change your girl's grades in my high school,
I would be peeing in my pants with excitement. This
would be the most fun thing. I would be so
thrilled and scared and excited about it. I said, I
(09:20):
think that's where the director has gone off track. I mean,
he was on schedule and from what I could what
I could understand, everything had been beautifully prepared. But suddenly
they were getting a very dark film. So I said, well,
if I come on, that's that's what I would do.
(09:43):
I would make make those alterations, make it, make it funny.
So they said, well, when can you start.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I couldn't believe I'd gotten the job. And then the
director got fired. It was pretty sure I was out too, by.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
The way, right, sure, there's no way that There's no
way a director gets fired and the lead actor isn't
like I probably wasn't doing the right thing either.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So wait a minute, they're throwing out two weeks of
work I just did. That's interesting. And and you know,
John Badam came and basically fired absolutely everybody but kept
to me and Ali Cheety and one or two others.
But he was our first meeting with John Badam. He
was like, I'm going to keep both of you.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Well, that was a good choice, but I also wanted
the ability to replace anybody that I thought maybe was
not cast as best they could be, So we made
a couple of changes in the secondary cast our general
of Norad. We recast him and one or two other characters.
(11:02):
But Ali Sheety and Matthew Broderick were wonderful. I mean
they were terrific. For example, the scene that where Matthew
takes her into his bedroom and shows her how it
can change the grade. We decided that we needed to
reshoot that because, as we said earlier, they were not
(11:22):
having any fun, and I knew that the scene needed
to be much much better than what had been originally shot,
not just a little bit better. And so we did
a few takes and they were stiff as boards. These
two poor actors were so scared that they too were
(11:42):
going to be acted out of the movie and get fired.
We're stiff as they could be, and so I'm starting
to try to loosen them up to entertain them. I'm
running in. I'm making bad dad jokes, which is the
only kind of oaks I know how to make, and
(12:03):
being silly. And after about nine or ten takes, I
called a halt to everything, and I said, okay, all right,
we're going to take a little bit of a break
here for a minute, and Matthew and Ally you come
with me. And I took them outside the stage at MGM,
(12:25):
which is a wonderful big old movie lot, and I said,
what we're going to do here is we're going to
run around, have a race around the soundstage the outside,
and the last person back has to sing a song
in front of the crew. And they went what I said, Yeah,
here we go. Okay, let's go, and we ran and
(12:47):
ran and ran and ran, and of course I was
the last person back. I was a good twenty years
older than them, and so now I had to sing
a song in front of the crew, which was the
dumbest song I could think of, which was something called
The Happy Wanderer about a guy who's wandering through the
(13:09):
Alps and going.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Hold it, hold it rop. Okay, Okay, we got through that. Okay,
let's go for a take.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Those your grades stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I don't think that I deserved it.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Do you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You can't do that already done?
Speaker 5 (13:35):
That was the one that we printed.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Just you know, you do what you can to loosen
people up and get them, get them there, and to
let them know that it's okay to have fun. Uh.
And and this is we're not curing cancer here, We're
just making a movie.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
The first day, first cup of date shooting with John Badam,
I was like, he's so different than Martin Breast too.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Martin Bess was very methody and actory, you know, and
you should feel a certain way and get into it.
And so now I'm doing a scene and I finished
the scene, you know, doing something on the computer, and
I hear a voice from from behind the camera. John
Badam says, and smile, smile. Will you smile? Like he
(14:22):
was telling me what face to me?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
And you're like, that's not acting. Smile.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Martin Best never did that. But yeah, but sure enough
I smiled. You know, I did everything, and thank god
he kept me, he kept me around.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's so funny. Do you That's that actually raises an
interesting question separate from all this. Yeah, do you do
you like a director who is very literal, like that,
or do you prefer someone who's a little more kind
of like in the emotion of it and in the
sort of like, yeah, do you have a strong.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Preference, Well, you know, my preference is somebody who's like
I can understand and who I think is good. I
don't know how to but like, I don't mind people
who I know you're not supposed to say smile, but
if it's if it's somebody good and as John Batham
is and and in a way that's they might as
(15:22):
well just say it. Because I see directors sometimes bend over.
I'm sure you feel this way too. Of course, you
know you can see their brain trying to say. I know,
I'm not supposed to tell them to be angry or.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Happy or give them a line reading or exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
How many words can I use to make a line reading?
Like just tell me the line ate.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying I'm very practical that way.
And I tell directors sometimes like I can feel you
dancing around, that's just tell me what you want, like, definitely,
I love I love a mechanical direction like me too,
like hold your arm higher, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, well then I can I can understand what they mean,
and then I can I can turn it into actory
terms if I want or not. Yeah, and see I
even sometimes and this doesn't come up so well. But
I'll sometimes tell a director who's really hemming and allying,
why don't you show me which I like to make
them feel horrible and uncomfortable and act this out for me.
(16:16):
You play me, Yeah, I'll read the other part. You
show me what you want. If they're being really irritating,
I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
At least I know exactly what they want, all right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So the so the movie production is starting. Now it's
you and Ali Sheety and this incredible cast Barry Corbin
Dabney Coleman, who I love.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, and Ben Barry Corbman.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And they're both just it's like the cowboy and the nerd,
and they're just they're such a perfect conflict.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I wouldn't trust this overgrown pile of microchips and if
further like to throw it.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
And I don't know if you want to trust the
safety of our country to some silicombe dial In general,
nobody is talking about and trusting the safety of the
nation to a machine.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
For God's sake, And what's compelling about those two characters
that they is that they really represent two kind of
competing points of view very literally in the story, but
I think also kind of culturally, which is, do we
trust technology or do we trust gut r and Dabney's
Dabney Coleman is saying, let's trust Whopper the computer to
(17:27):
to to launch missiles. And Barry Corbin is you know,
chewing his redman chewing tobacco and saying, uh, no way, man,
guy can't take the human out of it. You gotta
trust humans.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But they mess up at the beginning, right, that's in
the missile silo.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Right, the humans mess up in the in the opening, Yeah,
which is a wild entry to the film, and it
sets the stage for like mistrusting humans.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Put your hand on the key, serve launch.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Sure, we are at locks.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Turn your keys. Sorry, We're so sorry. Turn your key, sir.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
We've had men in these silos since before any of
you were watching Howdy Doty.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
For myself, I sleep pretty well at night.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
No one knows boys are down there.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
General, we all know they're fine, man, But in a
nuclear war, we can't afford to have our missiles lying dormant.
In those silos because those men refuse to turn the
keys when the computers tell them to.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Turn your key.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, turn your key, that whole thing. I was watching
the movie with my wife a couple of nights ago.
She just goes, man, there were a lot of buttons
in the eighties. It's true, walls buttons and like everything.
It's like, okay, ignite or you know, uh, switch operation too.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, it's like thirty.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Buttons to do one thing. Yeah, there's some part of
our inner child that just wants to click all those
yeah buttons.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah. Now it's just these damn touch screens.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I have one quibble with the movie that I just
have to I have to mention, which is that you're
very disappointingly bad at Galaga.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Now, I mean, you're okay, but you know, I understand.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I do.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I must in my defense tell you. You know, they edit
it so like in yeah, pressure whatever, there wasn't enough
film in the camera if I had played at my best, because.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, I guess so, okay, I'll take your work for it,
but I will say, like to be able to work
on a movie where the whole thing is like you're
gonna get to play Galaga for free, for as long
as we're shooting this scene.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They gave me a Gallica machine. I'm not kidding. Oh,
Marty Brest was like, you should get good at Gallagha,
we'll send one over. Oh wow, So my little apart
men in Santa Monica had a Galaga in it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh that's amazing, which I could.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I was so excited by that.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, that's that's huge.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So what are some of your memories about culture at
that time, you know, in particular some of the political
landscape afoot Reagan as president. How were you feeling any of.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The Cold War?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Well? I think everybody felt it a little when I remember,
you know, Reagan saying he's going to put weapons in
space and people saying that was going to get everybody killed, and.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
That really pissed off the Russians.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yes, so it was scary to read about all these
you know, every time we would add a missile system,
they would add one or and vice versa. And it
was you could read articles that would say, there's absolutely
no way this can end except for everybody being blown
up pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah. Mutual destruction.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, mad right. I had a book with pictures that
it called mad I think mutual assured destruction. And that
book proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that we
had about five years as a planet.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Ever since the nineteen sixties, I would say, even maybe
the late nineteen fifties, we were seeing this constant build
up of nuclear facilities and nuclear warheads. I remember I
was in grammar school after World War Two, and we had,
(21:50):
you know, constant drills for what would happen with nuclear explosions.
You know, I'm sure you've heard the phrase duck and cover.
You know, we're going to duck under our little third
grader desks, and that was going to save us from
the nuclear bomb. And you knew that it was going
to fly off the handle in some crazy way, but
(22:11):
nobody was doing anything about it. And of course this
is before Gorbachev took down the wall and so on. Basically,
it was a scary kind of world where often your
reaction was to, like the Ostrich, bury your head in
the sand and just hope to hell it went away
(22:32):
without blowing up the planet. The military has thought up
hundreds of different scenarios of possible ways that things could
happen as they're trying to get around this problem of
how do you make the right decision. It's just way
too complicated a problem for us to be cleanly and
easily dealing with.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Originally it had an ending where the bomb went off,
I believe. Oh wow, Like I remember, there's some scene
where I'm looking in a mirror. At the very end,
I wake up. I'm home. It's all over, you know,
And I get up and brushing my teeth or something,
and there's a flash of light and all the skin
burns off of my face or something. What yep, And
(23:22):
then I wake up.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So it's just a little nightmare that David Lightman had
after going through this whole thing, right, which you know,
wisely they when they edited, they were like, no, it's
over in that war room.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
Yeah, greetings, Professor Falcon, Hello, Joshua James.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Game.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
The only winning mood is not today. It was the
closest thing to an anti war message that we had
because we didn't want to make it a big preachy movie.
It was meant to be something that was very entertaining,
but that could at the very end zing you with
(24:08):
something that you go, oh, yes, yes, we.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Did want it to be a warning to some degree. Yeah,
you know, everybody there was, like everybody else scared of
nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So yeah, it's such a backdrop for the whole thing.
The air you're breathing was fear, yes, fear of technology,
fear of nuclear annihilation, and this movie kind of like
really hits both the technology and the weapons.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Definitely, And now that I think of it, some people
were into disarmament and some were not, so we were.
Everybody who made that movie, I think was very on
the side of disarmament. You know, they wanted they wanted
Reagan and GARBAGEV to make a deal. So if it
has a political point of view, I'm sure it's that
they everybody there wanted it to make deals with Russia
(24:57):
and not just keep building weapons.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
A great magic trick that way, because it's it's unbelievably
entertaining and fun to watch, but it also, you know,
from a sort of like commentary standpoint, allows you to
play out the fantasy of nuclear annihilation and hopefully scare
you a little bit or scare the political establishment a
little bit into doing something.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
When the film actually came out, it definitely had an influence,
and thank goodness, it was a It was a big
success at the box office. So we knew that our
film was being seen by many, many people, and especially
by an audience of young people who could identify with
(25:52):
Matthew and ally remember the time that we're in nobody
understood computers very much. Certainly adults did not. The kids
were understanding it and we're getting it right away, and
the adults were thinking, well, that's stupid. No little kid
could do this. There were many articles in different newspapers
(26:14):
that said, this is complete, blowney, none of this could
possibly happen, this is all ridiculous. That was part of
the part of the drama and the humor of it.
That it was not some evil Russian or evil Germanic force.
God knows what it could be, but it was just
(26:37):
just a little kid being playful and playing without motive equipment. Well,
the wonderful thing about movies is you can often look
beyond what's possible, and sometimes sometimes you can be spot
on with it and in seeing things that could happen
in the future. Well, it wasn't more than a couple
(27:00):
of weeks after the movie that was released. Uh, Suddenly,
from I believe Minnesota, three guys broke into Norad or
they they broke into the Defense Department's computer. Our whole
defense system was much more fragile and much more vulnerable
(27:21):
than anybody wanted to announce. And here are young kids,
maybe inspired by our movie or just maybe because they
were out there all along, that they were actually, you know,
breaking breaking into places. When Reagan came into office, we
had we had made the film. And one of the
(27:41):
first things that he happened to do when he was
in office was to run more games for He and
Nancy at the at the White House one night, and
and he started talking about how we how we could
fight these nuclear problems with our Star Wars defense and
(28:04):
he started talking about that, and they said, well, this
is ridiculous. We don't have technology that would be anything
like that. He said, yes, we do. Nancy and I
saw this film the other night, war Games, and they
have that kind of technology. Well, Mommy and I were
(28:24):
watching this movie, War Games, and we were thinking that
we could do the same thing. Mommy was very happy
about seeing it.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Are you aware that Ronald Reagan screened the movie right
after it came out. No, this is an amazing story.
The New York Times did a piece on this bunch
of years ago. Ronald Reagan watched it just you know,
kicking back with Nancy at Camp David, just watching a
pop culture movie. It rattled him so badly that he called,
(29:02):
in his defense establishment, all the you know, the big
wigs into the White House, and he said, is this possible?
Is it possible that some rogue kid could or worse,
like a Russian actor penetrate our computer systems and our
missile systems and so forth. And the takeaway was, yeah,
(29:26):
it's a little more possible than any of us would
like to admit. And so that precipitated some of the
very first cybersecurity policy, you know, from a national defense standpoint.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well, that's very Yeah, you're welcome, everybody.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right, Thank you, Thank you, Matthew. Special thanks to Matthew
Broderick and John Batham for joining us to talk all
things war games. Next week we have another bonus episode
where I interview a Cold War cage be agent, So
check back for that. You're not gonna want to miss it.
(30:06):
Snap Who is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment,
and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio.
It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo,
Andy Chuck, and Whitney Donaldson. Our lead producers are Sarah
Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer is Carl Nellis. Associate
producer Tory Smith. This bonus episode was edited by Carl
(30:29):
Nellis and Dustin Brown. Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis.
Olivia Canny is our production assistant. Our creative executive is
Brett Harris. Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley. Special
thanks to Alison Cohen and Matt Aisenstadt.
Hey, Snaffoo listeners, this is your host ed helms. I'm
back in your feed for a bonus episode of snaffoo.
Able Archer. At the very heart of it is a
story about the nuclear conundrum, how the arms race left
us with no winning options and an unacceptable margin for error,
(00:25):
and no one summed this up better than the movie Wargames.
You may recall back in previous episodes, we had great
conversations with the movie star and National treasure Matthew Broderick,
as well as its director John Badam. Those interviews were
so fun and cool, but we just couldn't include all
(00:46):
of it in those earlier episodes. So as a little treat,
here's a bonus episode where we dive a little deeper
into all things wargames. What was what was just like
a normal day in the life of Matthew Broderick around
nineteen eighty two eighty three.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, let's see, eighty two. I would be graduating high school,
which was in New York City, Yes, and I was
very happy to be done with that, and I didn't
want to go right to college. I remember going to
a college counsel a counselor at school who was supposed
to tell you what schools you should apply to, you know,
when you're a junior or whatever. And I remember she
(01:29):
kept mentioning colleges that I had never heard of, so
that that was a bad sign.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Your guidance counselor didn't believe in you as well.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Say no, I left the meeting less than I was not.
I thought to myself, I'm going to have to find
something else because nothing that she mentioned not only were
they at schools that I had heard of, but none
of them specialized in anything that I was at all
good at. So I was taking a year to kind
of see if I could, you know, get a job
or something acting. And that's why I knew that's what
(02:00):
I wanted to do, but I had no idea if
I would, you know, be somebody who could do that.
But so my memory of that time is is trying
to basically become an actor.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
What was the lead up to the sort of war
games opportunity.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Well, I started in high school doing a bunch of
plays and I felt I was good at it. Now
why I felt that, I don't know, but I mean
I was better at that than at many of my
other endeavors in high school I'll put it that way,
so same here. Yeah, I get it. It wasn't that
I was good at it. It was that I wasn't
(02:36):
as bad at that as I was at Algebra two.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
There was nothing else to go after, really, that's the truth.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
And I went to HB Studio, which was in the
village it still is, I think, and I took classes, sure,
and then my first girlfriend, and so I had a
kind of a great summer. As I remember, I auditioned
for everything. And you know, there was this movie called
The Genius that I auditioned for that I wouldn't let
(03:08):
me read the script, but it was a you know,
a boy in a computer. And then I somehow got
a callback and another callback, and then I read for
the new casting director and then maybe even a third
casting director. The Genius became more games, by the way,
this was its original title. Oh okay, yeah. And then
somehow I got a play in New York, which was right,
(03:33):
you know, very successful play, and suddenly that everything changed.
Then it was like, oh, he's the guy from that play,
you know everybody, and I got a Neil Simon movie
out of that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
So while I was shooting the Neil Simon movie. They
wanted me to read again for War Games, and I
had now read for it, I don't know a million times.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
And had you already read for the for the director
at the time was Martin Bress. Martin Brest, Yeah, and
you'd already read for him.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I had. So my dad, who was an actress, said
ask the director, Herbert Ross, of the of the Neil
Simon movie, ask if they can see some dailies. So
I somehow had the nerve to ask my agent, and
Herbert Ross, who was directing the Neil Simon movie, was like, sure, absolutely,
and he ran. He picked out some nice scenes of
(04:23):
mine and showed it to Marty Breast. You know, they
screened it in those days. It wasn't like, you know,
click on it. It was they came and watched it
at you know, the studio.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Yeah, that's really cool. He really believed in.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
You and made the effort, you know, and so you
need all that.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yeah, that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
And so so finally you get the part. Had you
read the full script at this point or were you
just reading sides or did you know a lot about
what the movie was.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Around that time? I think I finally was allowed to
read the whole thing. It was really a very fun read.
You know, it was a you just really wanted to
know how it was going to end up. You know.
It wasn't the most like intense acting part or something,
but I just thought, this is a thriller, you know.
I loved the story. The only you know, my father
(05:13):
was dying and actually died during it.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, So I don't think of that movie without that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
To tell you the truth, it's a little almost like
a surreal memory to me because I was, on the
one hand, so pleased with myself and you know, excited
about what had happened to me, and also at the
same time the absolute opposite. And you guys were close,
very close, and you know, he'd been sick for I
(05:44):
knew that it was coming. It wasn't like that, but
you know, there's no way to not. You know, he
died during it, and I was shooting one or two
days later, I think, wow, you know, I didn't really
want anybody to say how are you or anything, and
they and they didn't, you know, and we went on
with I'm very glad I had it. It probably saved
my life.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It's so fascinating. I was in I was shooting the
office when my dad passed. Oh really and went back
and it was the same thing. I was so grateful
to have.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
That something to put your mind on for a while, right.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Yeah, And so all the excitement of this first experience.
He must have been so proud that you got this opportunity.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
He was definitely so.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Then even the release of the movie is so bittersweet. Yeah,
is not being there.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, definitely, you know, but I like to think he
was glad to see that he had that he left
while I had some hope of a career sure, or
you know, make a living. And truthfully, it was such
a break from that that I didn't feel it at work,
you know. I just felt the movie. So I you know,
(06:58):
I threw myself into it, and I love the story, you.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Know, Yeah, it really is. It's like kind of a
perfect screenplay as a thriller with comedic elements, and there's
never a wasted scene or a dull moment. Did it
change a lot from those early drafts to what it
eventually was?
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It?
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Did? I mean, are you talking to John Badam too?
Speaker 5 (07:28):
In the summer of nineteen eighty two, I get a
call from my agent at the time Lee Rosenberg, who said,
there's this project over at United Artists that they're in
trouble with the director, and they wonder if you would
take a look at it. And I'm recommending that you
(07:51):
don't take a look at it, because if they're in
trouble with the director, that means the whole project is troubled.
So you better stay away from it. But I have
to make the call and tell you about it. And
I replied to him, I said, but Lee, what if
the script is any good? So we read it and
I'm going, oh my god, I am so lucky to
(08:13):
be reading this script. This script is wonderful. I told
that to Leonard and I said, let me think about
it and I'll get back to you. He said, well,
we're shooting every day, so you better be fast about this.
So I started driving home and I got about three
blocks from MGM and I stomped on the brakes. Now
(08:35):
this is before cell phones, and I had to find
a phone booth. And I said, Leonard, I know what
it is. These actors, these characters aren't having any fun.
The scene that you showed me was Matthew Broderick showing
Ali Sheety how he could change her grades at school
(08:57):
on the school computer. These actors are playing it like
they're going to blow up the White House, and instead,
if I could change your girl's grades in my high school,
I would be peeing in my pants with excitement. This
would be the most fun thing. I would be so
thrilled and scared and excited about it. I said, I
(09:20):
think that's where the director has gone off track. I mean,
he was on schedule and from what I could what
I could understand, everything had been beautifully prepared. But suddenly
they were getting a very dark film. So I said, well,
if I come on, that's that's what I would do.
(09:43):
I would make make those alterations, make it, make it funny.
So they said, well, when can you start.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I couldn't believe I'd gotten the job. And then the
director got fired. It was pretty sure I was out too, by.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
The way, right, sure, there's no way that There's no
way a director gets fired and the lead actor isn't
like I probably wasn't doing the right thing either.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So wait a minute, they're throwing out two weeks of
work I just did. That's interesting. And and you know,
John Badam came and basically fired absolutely everybody but kept
to me and Ali Cheety and one or two others.
But he was our first meeting with John Badam. He
was like, I'm going to keep both of you.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Well, that was a good choice, but I also wanted
the ability to replace anybody that I thought maybe was
not cast as best they could be, So we made
a couple of changes in the secondary cast our general
of Norad. We recast him and one or two other characters.
(11:02):
But Ali Sheety and Matthew Broderick were wonderful. I mean
they were terrific. For example, the scene that where Matthew
takes her into his bedroom and shows her how it
can change the grade. We decided that we needed to
reshoot that because, as we said earlier, they were not
(11:22):
having any fun, and I knew that the scene needed
to be much much better than what had been originally shot,
not just a little bit better. And so we did
a few takes and they were stiff as boards. These
two poor actors were so scared that they too were
(11:42):
going to be acted out of the movie and get fired.
We're stiff as they could be, and so I'm starting
to try to loosen them up to entertain them. I'm
running in. I'm making bad dad jokes, which is the
only kind of oaks I know how to make, and
(12:03):
being silly. And after about nine or ten takes, I
called a halt to everything, and I said, okay, all right,
we're going to take a little bit of a break
here for a minute, and Matthew and Ally you come
with me. And I took them outside the stage at MGM,
(12:25):
which is a wonderful big old movie lot, and I said,
what we're going to do here is we're going to
run around, have a race around the soundstage the outside,
and the last person back has to sing a song
in front of the crew. And they went what I said, Yeah,
here we go. Okay, let's go, and we ran and
(12:47):
ran and ran and ran, and of course I was
the last person back. I was a good twenty years
older than them, and so now I had to sing
a song in front of the crew, which was the
dumbest song I could think of, which was something called
The Happy Wanderer about a guy who's wandering through the
(13:09):
Alps and going.
Speaker 6 (13:11):
Hold it, hold it rop. Okay, Okay, we got through that. Okay,
let's go for a take.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Those your grades stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
I don't think that I deserved it.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Do you.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
You can't do that already done?
Speaker 5 (13:35):
That was the one that we printed.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
Just you know, you do what you can to loosen
people up and get them, get them there, and to
let them know that it's okay to have fun. Uh.
And and this is we're not curing cancer here, We're
just making a movie.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
The first day, first cup of date shooting with John Badam,
I was like, he's so different than Martin Breast too.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Uh huh.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Martin Bess was very methody and actory, you know, and
you should feel a certain way and get into it.
And so now I'm doing a scene and I finished
the scene, you know, doing something on the computer, and
I hear a voice from from behind the camera. John
Badam says, and smile, smile. Will you smile? Like he
(14:22):
was telling me what face to me?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
And you're like, that's not acting. Smile.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Martin Best never did that. But yeah, but sure enough
I smiled. You know, I did everything, and thank god
he kept me, he kept me around.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's so funny. Do you That's that actually raises an
interesting question separate from all this. Yeah, do you do
you like a director who is very literal, like that,
or do you prefer someone who's a little more kind
of like in the emotion of it and in the
sort of like, yeah, do you have a strong.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Preference, Well, you know, my preference is somebody who's like
I can understand and who I think is good. I
don't know how to but like, I don't mind people
who I know you're not supposed to say smile, but
if it's if it's somebody good and as John Batham
is and and in a way that's they might as
(15:22):
well just say it. Because I see directors sometimes bend over.
I'm sure you feel this way too. Of course, you
know you can see their brain trying to say. I know,
I'm not supposed to tell them to be angry or.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Happy or give them a line reading or exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
How many words can I use to make a line reading?
Like just tell me the line ate.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, exactly. I'm just saying I'm very practical that way.
And I tell directors sometimes like I can feel you
dancing around, that's just tell me what you want, like, definitely,
I love I love a mechanical direction like me too,
like hold your arm higher, okay, sure, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, well then I can I can understand what they mean,
and then I can I can turn it into actory
terms if I want or not. Yeah, and see I
even sometimes and this doesn't come up so well. But
I'll sometimes tell a director who's really hemming and allying,
why don't you show me which I like to make
them feel horrible and uncomfortable and act this out for me.
(16:16):
You play me, Yeah, I'll read the other part. You
show me what you want. If they're being really irritating,
I'll do that.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
That's great.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
At least I know exactly what they want, all right.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
So the so the movie production is starting. Now it's
you and Ali Sheety and this incredible cast Barry Corbin
Dabney Coleman, who I love.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, and Ben Barry Corbman.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And they're both just it's like the cowboy and the nerd,
and they're just they're such a perfect conflict.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
I wouldn't trust this overgrown pile of microchips and if
further like to throw it.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
And I don't know if you want to trust the
safety of our country to some silicombe dial In general,
nobody is talking about and trusting the safety of the
nation to a machine.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
For God's sake, And what's compelling about those two characters
that they is that they really represent two kind of
competing points of view very literally in the story, but
I think also kind of culturally, which is, do we
trust technology or do we trust gut r and Dabney's
Dabney Coleman is saying, let's trust Whopper the computer to
(17:27):
to to launch missiles. And Barry Corbin is you know,
chewing his redman chewing tobacco and saying, uh, no way, man,
guy can't take the human out of it. You gotta
trust humans.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
But they mess up at the beginning, right, that's in
the missile silo.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Right, the humans mess up in the in the opening, Yeah,
which is a wild entry to the film, and it
sets the stage for like mistrusting humans.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
Put your hand on the key, serve launch.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Sure, we are at locks.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Turn your keys. Sorry, We're so sorry. Turn your key, sir.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
We've had men in these silos since before any of
you were watching Howdy Doty.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
For myself, I sleep pretty well at night.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
No one knows boys are down there.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
General, we all know they're fine, man, But in a
nuclear war, we can't afford to have our missiles lying dormant.
In those silos because those men refuse to turn the
keys when the computers tell them to.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Turn your key.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
Yeah, turn your key, that whole thing. I was watching
the movie with my wife a couple of nights ago.
She just goes, man, there were a lot of buttons
in the eighties. It's true, walls buttons and like everything.
It's like, okay, ignite or you know, uh, switch operation too.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Yeah, it's like thirty.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Buttons to do one thing. Yeah, there's some part of
our inner child that just wants to click all those
yeah buttons.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah. Now it's just these damn touch screens.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
I have one quibble with the movie that I just
have to I have to mention, which is that you're
very disappointingly bad at Galaga.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Now, I mean, you're okay, but you know, I understand.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
I do.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I must in my defense tell you. You know, they edit
it so like in yeah, pressure whatever, there wasn't enough
film in the camera if I had played at my best, because.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, I guess so, okay, I'll take your work for it,
but I will say, like to be able to work
on a movie where the whole thing is like you're
gonna get to play Galaga for free, for as long
as we're shooting this scene.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
They gave me a Gallica machine. I'm not kidding. Oh,
Marty Brest was like, you should get good at Gallagha,
we'll send one over. Oh wow, So my little apart
men in Santa Monica had a Galaga in it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh that's amazing, which I could.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I was so excited by that.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, that's that's huge.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
So what are some of your memories about culture at
that time, you know, in particular some of the political
landscape afoot Reagan as president. How were you feeling any of.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
The Cold War?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Well? I think everybody felt it a little when I remember,
you know, Reagan saying he's going to put weapons in
space and people saying that was going to get everybody killed, and.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
That really pissed off the Russians.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yes, so it was scary to read about all these
you know, every time we would add a missile system,
they would add one or and vice versa. And it
was you could read articles that would say, there's absolutely
no way this can end except for everybody being blown
up pretty soon.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yeah. Mutual destruction.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah, mad right. I had a book with pictures that
it called mad I think mutual assured destruction. And that
book proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that we
had about five years as a planet.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Ever since the nineteen sixties, I would say, even maybe
the late nineteen fifties, we were seeing this constant build
up of nuclear facilities and nuclear warheads. I remember I
was in grammar school after World War Two, and we had,
(21:50):
you know, constant drills for what would happen with nuclear explosions.
You know, I'm sure you've heard the phrase duck and cover.
You know, we're going to duck under our little third
grader desks, and that was going to save us from
the nuclear bomb. And you knew that it was going
to fly off the handle in some crazy way, but
(22:11):
nobody was doing anything about it. And of course this
is before Gorbachev took down the wall and so on. Basically,
it was a scary kind of world where often your
reaction was to, like the Ostrich, bury your head in
the sand and just hope to hell it went away
(22:32):
without blowing up the planet. The military has thought up
hundreds of different scenarios of possible ways that things could
happen as they're trying to get around this problem of
how do you make the right decision. It's just way
too complicated a problem for us to be cleanly and
easily dealing with.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Originally it had an ending where the bomb went off,
I believe. Oh wow, Like I remember, there's some scene
where I'm looking in a mirror. At the very end,
I wake up. I'm home. It's all over, you know,
And I get up and brushing my teeth or something,
and there's a flash of light and all the skin
burns off of my face or something. What yep, And
(23:22):
then I wake up.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Oh okay.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
So it's just a little nightmare that David Lightman had
after going through this whole thing, right, which you know,
wisely they when they edited, they were like, no, it's
over in that war room.
Speaker 4 (23:34):
Yeah, greetings, Professor Falcon, Hello, Joshua James.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Game.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
The only winning mood is not today. It was the
closest thing to an anti war message that we had
because we didn't want to make it a big preachy movie.
It was meant to be something that was very entertaining,
but that could at the very end zing you with
(24:08):
something that you go, oh, yes, yes, we.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Did want it to be a warning to some degree. Yeah,
you know, everybody there was, like everybody else scared of
nuclear war.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
So yeah, it's such a backdrop for the whole thing.
The air you're breathing was fear, yes, fear of technology,
fear of nuclear annihilation, and this movie kind of like
really hits both the technology and the weapons.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Definitely, And now that I think of it, some people
were into disarmament and some were not, so we were.
Everybody who made that movie, I think was very on
the side of disarmament. You know, they wanted they wanted
Reagan and GARBAGEV to make a deal. So if it
has a political point of view, I'm sure it's that
they everybody there wanted it to make deals with Russia
(24:57):
and not just keep building weapons.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
A great magic trick that way, because it's it's unbelievably
entertaining and fun to watch, but it also, you know,
from a sort of like commentary standpoint, allows you to
play out the fantasy of nuclear annihilation and hopefully scare
you a little bit or scare the political establishment a
little bit into doing something.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
When the film actually came out, it definitely had an influence,
and thank goodness, it was a It was a big
success at the box office. So we knew that our
film was being seen by many, many people, and especially
by an audience of young people who could identify with
(25:52):
Matthew and ally remember the time that we're in nobody
understood computers very much. Certainly adults did not. The kids
were understanding it and we're getting it right away, and
the adults were thinking, well, that's stupid. No little kid
could do this. There were many articles in different newspapers
(26:14):
that said, this is complete, blowney, none of this could
possibly happen, this is all ridiculous. That was part of
the part of the drama and the humor of it.
That it was not some evil Russian or evil Germanic force.
God knows what it could be, but it was just
(26:37):
just a little kid being playful and playing without motive equipment. Well,
the wonderful thing about movies is you can often look
beyond what's possible, and sometimes sometimes you can be spot
on with it and in seeing things that could happen
in the future. Well, it wasn't more than a couple
(27:00):
of weeks after the movie that was released. Uh, Suddenly,
from I believe Minnesota, three guys broke into Norad or
they they broke into the Defense Department's computer. Our whole
defense system was much more fragile and much more vulnerable
(27:21):
than anybody wanted to announce. And here are young kids,
maybe inspired by our movie or just maybe because they
were out there all along, that they were actually, you know,
breaking breaking into places. When Reagan came into office, we
had we had made the film. And one of the
(27:41):
first things that he happened to do when he was
in office was to run more games for He and
Nancy at the at the White House one night, and
and he started talking about how we how we could
fight these nuclear problems with our Star Wars defense and
(28:04):
he started talking about that, and they said, well, this
is ridiculous. We don't have technology that would be anything
like that. He said, yes, we do. Nancy and I
saw this film the other night, war Games, and they
have that kind of technology. Well, Mommy and I were
(28:24):
watching this movie, War Games, and we were thinking that
we could do the same thing. Mommy was very happy
about seeing it.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Are you aware that Ronald Reagan screened the movie right
after it came out. No, this is an amazing story.
The New York Times did a piece on this bunch
of years ago. Ronald Reagan watched it just you know,
kicking back with Nancy at Camp David, just watching a
pop culture movie. It rattled him so badly that he called,
(29:02):
in his defense establishment, all the you know, the big
wigs into the White House, and he said, is this possible?
Is it possible that some rogue kid could or worse,
like a Russian actor penetrate our computer systems and our
missile systems and so forth. And the takeaway was, yeah,
(29:26):
it's a little more possible than any of us would
like to admit. And so that precipitated some of the
very first cybersecurity policy, you know, from a national defense standpoint.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well, that's very Yeah, you're welcome, everybody.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Right, Thank you, Thank you, Matthew. Special thanks to Matthew
Broderick and John Batham for joining us to talk all
things war games. Next week we have another bonus episode
where I interview a Cold War cage be agent, So
check back for that. You're not gonna want to miss it.
(30:06):
Snap Who is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment,
and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio.
It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo,
Andy Chuck, and Whitney Donaldson. Our lead producers are Sarah
Joyner and Alyssa Martino. Our producer is Carl Nellis. Associate
producer Tory Smith. This bonus episode was edited by Carl
(30:29):
Nellis and Dustin Brown. Our senior editor is Jeffrey Lewis.
Olivia Canny is our production assistant. Our creative executive is
Brett Harris. Engineering and technical direction by Nick Dooley. Special
thanks to Alison Cohen and Matt Aisenstadt.
Host
Ed Helms
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