December 13, 2024 • 8 mins
In this week’s fan-favorite podcast, famed Hollywood director Ron Howard shares memorable moments on set with illustrious actors, including how he eventually won over a skeptical Bette Davis, tactics to calm Jim Carrey amidst panic attacks, and lessons learned from a highly prepared Robert De Niro, who went above and beyond to research his character for “Backdraft.”
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey, it's Graham. Today's Friday, and that means
we're releasing our third podcast of the week.
On Monday, we released a full interview with one of our past
guests and yesterday was Motivational Thursday where we
selected a clip that hopefully left you feeling positive.
Today we're releasing another fan favorite this week, Ron
Howard. The clip you're about to hear is
(00:22):
trending on our Instagram right now.
Hope you enjoy. How did you charm Betty Davis?
She was hard to charm. That was an important step for
me. Anson Williams came up with that
idea for that project. It was called Skyward.
It was about a paraplegic girl who dreamed of flying.
(00:45):
And Betty Davis was going to play this sort of crusty
aerobatic pilot who would eventually be her instructor
and, and give her this opportunity to soar.
And I had some disagreements with her about the character
and, and I was having to, you know, over the phone, sort of
tell her, here's who I was goingto cast.
And here's here's how I thought the character should look.
(01:07):
And there were, it was some backand forth.
It was kind of tense. And she kept calling me Mr.
Howard. And I, I said, well, Miss Davis,
you know, just feel free to callme Ron, please.
And she said, no, I won't call you Mr. Howard, until I decide
whether I like you or not. And hung up the phone.
So now I've never worked with a superstar at this point.
(01:28):
I've worked with friends and family and people my age and
peers and people who just felt lucky to have the job, you know,
and on the movies that I'd done up to that point.
And I was tossing and turning. And it was my dad who said, you
know, just don't be afraid to direct her because she's, she's
a major talent. She's a multiple Oscar winner.
(01:50):
She knows she needs direction. Every good actor knows they need
leadership. So, you know, don't get in their
way but respect her process. But do your job.
And so on that very first day wewere shooting in Texas, Plano,
TX, in August, it was like hitting 100° by, you know, 8:00
(02:13):
AM in the morning. We were shooting out on this
airfield. And I knew that William Wyler
was her favorite director, greatdirector, but he always directed
in a suit and a tie. So I showed up in a suit and a
tie, and I went up to give her her first direction.
And she really overreacted in this big Betty Davis way.
(02:35):
She said, oh, you startled me. I saw this child walking up to
me. And I wondered, you know what?
What of any consequence could this child possibly have to say
to me? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Doesn't the big Betty Davis laugh?
All of this is loud enough for the crew to hear and so I did.
I laughed too and gave her the direction anyway and walked off
(02:57):
and was popping tums. And just thought, oh man, this
is going to be a long. Long one, it's going to be a
long road now it's about 4:30 orfive.
And I said, well, Miss Davis, you're you're finished for
today. We have another scene to do, but
great first day, see you tomorrow.
She said, OK Ron, see you tomorrow.
And then she patted me on the ass and I thought, well, I OK,
(03:21):
we're on the Betty Davis ride. But I'd won her over.
Didn't mean that there weren't arguments and tense moments
ahead. But when it was all over, she
said, keep it up. You could be another Wyler.
I haven't turned out to be as great as Wyler.
He's in the ultra elite. But it certainly gave me a lot
of confidence. What?
(03:42):
About Jim Carrey and the contactlenses on the Grinch.
I felt like I was it was the Spanish Inquisition and I was
the Inquisitor. I could tell that the costume
and, you know, especially the contact lenses were just
tormenting Jim. And he was having panic attacks
to the point where, you know, literally he'd be breathing into
(04:04):
the paper bag in between setups just trying to hang on because
he just, he felt claustrophobic in the costume.
But we'd already filmed it. He wanted to wear that costume.
He wanted to create that character.
I tried to do things just to cheer him up, you know, like,
like one day I put on that Grinch suit so that I could
(04:25):
suffer along with him and and I could let him know just.
Yeah, I could see now how miserable it really was.
Was it? That bad?
Yeah, it was terrible. It was itchy.
It was, you know, and I didn't even have to have the contact
lenses, which made it worse. So he appreciated that I was at
least willing to suffer with himone day.
I surprised him. He loved Don Knotts.
Don Knotts played Barney on The Andy Griffith Show, and I hadn't
(04:47):
seen Don in a long time. But I called Don and I said,
would you come over and hang outon the set one day?
Jim Carrey idolizes you, and he's going through hell on this
project. And so I snuck Don in, and I
threw the speaker. I said, hey, Jim, look over
here. Look at look at me.
(05:07):
There's somebody down here who wants to see you.
And he looked and he squinted through those contact lenses and
he could see it was Don Knotts. And I wish I'd had the camera
rolling because he immediately went into his Don Knotts
impression. Jim's a genius impressionist.
And he did a perfect Don Knotts in the Grinch costume.
(05:30):
The whole crew was just laughing.
He came down and spent an hour hanging out with, with, with
Don. And it really elevated him.
But I also, you know, I also understood the kind of agony he
was going through. And you know, whatever he had to
do, he'd have to do. Robert De Niro, you said he's
not a guy who invented. He was reflective.
(05:54):
How did that impact your future process?
Well, I directed Robert De Niro in Backdraft.
I wanted to sort of recreate that, the whole cowboy mentality
and the environment around the Chicago Fire Department, which
was unique in that in that at that time, in a lot of ways,
very old school Robert De Niro came in to do a role.
(06:16):
It was only four weeks of shooting.
He could have phoned this in, but instead he really doubled
down on his own research as thissort of forensic fire
investigator. And once we started rolling, I
realized that he'd met three different fire investigators and
(06:36):
now he had, he had the body language of one of them, the
speech cadence and of another and, and the sort of the cocky
attitude of of 1/3. And I realized that these vivid
characters that he had created so memorably were, were not
(06:59):
coming from his imagination. They were coming from what he
could observe and learn and thensort of meld and, you know, and
share through, you know, his instrument, him as an actor.
It kind of blew my mind and it taught me in a way how to how to
(07:22):
research. The next film was Apollo 13,
which was all about accuracy andauthenticity.
And slowly but surely, I just began to find real joy and
creativity, ingenuity through the research, through the fact
finding and then finding ways touse everything that I learned
(07:46):
about drama and comedy for that matter, to sort of present these
ideas to audiences in ways that could be really, you know,
compelling and entertaining, butrich with detail.
As always, thanks for listening.To see more trending clips from
my team, go to youtube.com/graham Bensinger.
Hey, it's Graham. Today's Friday, and that means
we're releasing our third podcast of the week.
On Monday, we released a full interview with one of our past
guests and yesterday was Motivational Thursday where we
selected a clip that hopefully left you feeling positive.
Today we're releasing another fan favorite this week, Ron
Howard. The clip you're about to hear is
(00:22):
trending on our Instagram right now.
Hope you enjoy. How did you charm Betty Davis?
She was hard to charm. That was an important step for
me. Anson Williams came up with that
idea for that project. It was called Skyward.
It was about a paraplegic girl who dreamed of flying.
(00:45):
And Betty Davis was going to play this sort of crusty
aerobatic pilot who would eventually be her instructor
and, and give her this opportunity to soar.
And I had some disagreements with her about the character
and, and I was having to, you know, over the phone, sort of
tell her, here's who I was goingto cast.
And here's here's how I thought the character should look.
(01:07):
And there were, it was some backand forth.
It was kind of tense. And she kept calling me Mr.
Howard. And I, I said, well, Miss Davis,
you know, just feel free to callme Ron, please.
And she said, no, I won't call you Mr. Howard, until I decide
whether I like you or not. And hung up the phone.
So now I've never worked with a superstar at this point.
(01:28):
I've worked with friends and family and people my age and
peers and people who just felt lucky to have the job, you know,
and on the movies that I'd done up to that point.
And I was tossing and turning. And it was my dad who said, you
know, just don't be afraid to direct her because she's, she's
a major talent. She's a multiple Oscar winner.
(01:50):
She knows she needs direction. Every good actor knows they need
leadership. So, you know, don't get in their
way but respect her process. But do your job.
And so on that very first day wewere shooting in Texas, Plano,
TX, in August, it was like hitting 100° by, you know, 8:00
(02:13):
AM in the morning. We were shooting out on this
airfield. And I knew that William Wyler
was her favorite director, greatdirector, but he always directed
in a suit and a tie. So I showed up in a suit and a
tie, and I went up to give her her first direction.
And she really overreacted in this big Betty Davis way.
(02:35):
She said, oh, you startled me. I saw this child walking up to
me. And I wondered, you know what?
What of any consequence could this child possibly have to say
to me? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Doesn't the big Betty Davis laugh?
All of this is loud enough for the crew to hear and so I did.
I laughed too and gave her the direction anyway and walked off
(02:57):
and was popping tums. And just thought, oh man, this
is going to be a long. Long one, it's going to be a
long road now it's about 4:30 orfive.
And I said, well, Miss Davis, you're you're finished for
today. We have another scene to do, but
great first day, see you tomorrow.
She said, OK Ron, see you tomorrow.
And then she patted me on the ass and I thought, well, I OK,
(03:21):
we're on the Betty Davis ride. But I'd won her over.
Didn't mean that there weren't arguments and tense moments
ahead. But when it was all over, she
said, keep it up. You could be another Wyler.
I haven't turned out to be as great as Wyler.
He's in the ultra elite. But it certainly gave me a lot
of confidence. What?
(03:42):
About Jim Carrey and the contactlenses on the Grinch.
I felt like I was it was the Spanish Inquisition and I was
the Inquisitor. I could tell that the costume
and, you know, especially the contact lenses were just
tormenting Jim. And he was having panic attacks
to the point where, you know, literally he'd be breathing into
(04:04):
the paper bag in between setups just trying to hang on because
he just, he felt claustrophobic in the costume.
But we'd already filmed it. He wanted to wear that costume.
He wanted to create that character.
I tried to do things just to cheer him up, you know, like,
like one day I put on that Grinch suit so that I could
(04:25):
suffer along with him and and I could let him know just.
Yeah, I could see now how miserable it really was.
Was it? That bad?
Yeah, it was terrible. It was itchy.
It was, you know, and I didn't even have to have the contact
lenses, which made it worse. So he appreciated that I was at
least willing to suffer with himone day.
I surprised him. He loved Don Knotts.
Don Knotts played Barney on The Andy Griffith Show, and I hadn't
(04:47):
seen Don in a long time. But I called Don and I said,
would you come over and hang outon the set one day?
Jim Carrey idolizes you, and he's going through hell on this
project. And so I snuck Don in, and I
threw the speaker. I said, hey, Jim, look over
here. Look at look at me.
(05:07):
There's somebody down here who wants to see you.
And he looked and he squinted through those contact lenses and
he could see it was Don Knotts. And I wish I'd had the camera
rolling because he immediately went into his Don Knotts
impression. Jim's a genius impressionist.
And he did a perfect Don Knotts in the Grinch costume.
(05:30):
The whole crew was just laughing.
He came down and spent an hour hanging out with, with, with
Don. And it really elevated him.
But I also, you know, I also understood the kind of agony he
was going through. And you know, whatever he had to
do, he'd have to do. Robert De Niro, you said he's
not a guy who invented. He was reflective.
(05:54):
How did that impact your future process?
Well, I directed Robert De Niro in Backdraft.
I wanted to sort of recreate that, the whole cowboy mentality
and the environment around the Chicago Fire Department, which
was unique in that in that at that time, in a lot of ways,
very old school Robert De Niro came in to do a role.
(06:16):
It was only four weeks of shooting.
He could have phoned this in, but instead he really doubled
down on his own research as thissort of forensic fire
investigator. And once we started rolling, I
realized that he'd met three different fire investigators and
(06:36):
now he had, he had the body language of one of them, the
speech cadence and of another and, and the sort of the cocky
attitude of of 1/3. And I realized that these vivid
characters that he had created so memorably were, were not
(06:59):
coming from his imagination. They were coming from what he
could observe and learn and thensort of meld and, you know, and
share through, you know, his instrument, him as an actor.
It kind of blew my mind and it taught me in a way how to how to
(07:22):
research. The next film was Apollo 13,
which was all about accuracy andauthenticity.
And slowly but surely, I just began to find real joy and
creativity, ingenuity through the research, through the fact
finding and then finding ways touse everything that I learned
(07:46):
about drama and comedy for that matter, to sort of present these
ideas to audiences in ways that could be really, you know,
compelling and entertaining, butrich with detail.
As always, thanks for listening.To see more trending clips from
my team, go to youtube.com/graham Bensinger.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.